Rubbernecker (19 page)

So, after all the good and bad she had seen, Tracy Evans was nothing to Jean. Her type had come and quickly gone over the years. Only the really good ones stayed. Angie had been here for three years, but Monica would be gone by summer, Jean would bet her housekeeping on it.

The only sad thing about Tracy leaving was that Mr Deal’s visits became shorter and less frequent. Jean had no indication of whether Mrs Deal had ever been aware of her husband’s presence,
but
the idea that she might suddenly be aware of his absence pained her. She tried her best to spend a little more quality time with Mrs Deal, telling her world news and ward gossip, but knew Angie was picking up her slack on meds and bedpans, and finally just had to give up and suffer the guilt.

Then, five months after Tracy had left, Jean made a last-ditch effort on behalf of Mrs Deal. She put an index card on the noticeboard: WANTED: KIND, RELIABLE PERSON TO READ TO PATIENT.

She then brought in three books from home, put them on Mrs Deal’s nightstand, and hoped for another miracle.

Meg saw the notice after finishing her ward rounds for the day. The rounds were exhausting and exhilarating all at the same time. Especially the current rotation – paediatrics. Meg had always wanted to be a paediatrician, but now wondered whether she might change her mind. Children – even sick ones – were such hard work. Every task had to be made entertaining, or painless, or explained in such a way that a screaming youngster would allow her access to his broken arm or her sore tummy.

Today – after being kicked repeatedly by a five-year-old boy with appendicitis – Meg had even considered switching to veterinary science, where the patients could be tethered, muzzled and caged.

She stopped at the noticeboard on her way out. It had become a habit that had started when she was looking for a bicycle. Watching Patrick Fort swing his leg over the bar of his shining blue bike had reminded her of how much fun it was to get somewhere fast and glowing with blood, with the wind in your hair.

She never did see a bike on the noticeboard, but instead became addicted to the randomness of the messages there.

Kittens free to good homes, only boys left
.

Lift offered daily from Newport. Share petrol and wine gums
.

Come whitewater rafting in Scotland!
Under which some wag had scribbled ‘indoors if wet’.

Kind, reliable person …

The words caught Meg’s eye. She felt herself to be kind. She felt herself to be reliable. She read on.

Meg loved reading. The thought of someone not being able to read for themselves was horrible. The poor patient. But she had so much to do! Everybody knew that med students didn’t have time for anything but studying. There were hospital rotations and the mountains of books, and she only allowed herself two nights a week away from her work as it was. Fridays and Saturdays, when she went to the pub or the cinema with her housemates, or to the occasional party. But she was entitled to
some
time for fun, wasn’t she? She was only twenty years old, for God’s sake!

Meg walked away from the board, feeling defensive without ever having come under attack.

She stopped suddenly as she remembered that the dissection would soon be finished. There was barely anything left of poor Bill to be sliced and diced now, and soon he’d be off to the crematorium or the cemetery. That would clear two days a week for the rest of the term. She had planned to devote one to further study and the other to relaxation. TV, sleeping, reading; stuff like that. She’d determined to work her way through great literature she’d been told she should read. She already had
Our Mutual Friend
and something by James Joyce on her shelf, threatening to remain unopened for ever.

Would it really make any difference if she read them out loud – to someone who might be desperate to hear them?

Meg went back to the board and took down Jean’s number.

31

THE DIRTY BLUE-AND-WHITE
trainer sat on the polished desk like a trophy.

‘This is very serious,’ Professor Madoc said and Patrick laughed because he thought that was funny, but nobody else did. Not Mick
or
Dr Spicer.

Patrick looked at the faces of the three men and tried to guess what they were feeling. He guessed at angry and thought he was getting better at this. He was certainly getting lots of practice.

Now Professor Madoc pointed at the trainer. ‘This
is
yours, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said Patrick. ‘Can I have it back?’ He was wearing Jackson’s trainers and they were killing him.

‘So you admit you were in the dissection room last night?’

‘Yes,’ said Patrick again. ‘Can I have it back?’

Nobody said he couldn’t, so he took the shoe off the desk and held it in his lap.

‘I’m glad you admit it, Patrick, because we also have the record of your code being used to gain access.’

Patrick didn’t answer pointless statements. He’d already said he was there, hadn’t he?

‘You threw your shoe at Mr Jarvis.’

‘Who’s Mr Jarvis?’

‘I am,’ said Mick.

‘No,’ said Patrick. ‘I threw it
over
him.’

‘Why?’

‘I didn’t want to be locked in.’

‘Wouldn’t it have been easier to simply let him know you were there?’

Patrick said nothing. Technically the answer was
yes
, but he had no words to explain why that hadn’t happened. No words for the clamminess of his skin or the shallowness of his breath. Those things didn’t seem logical now; only foolish – like not having had sex yet.

But you had to get so close!

‘What was
he
doing there, anyway?’ Patrick said.

‘Not that it’s any of your business, Patrick, but Mr Jarvis frequently works unsociable hours in the embalming room. When he came upstairs and found the dissection room lights on, he became suspicious.’

‘But why switch them off?’ asked Patrick.

‘Because it gives me the advantage over an intruder,’ said Mick. ‘I know that room like the back of my hand. Doesn’t make any difference to me whether the lights are on or off.’

‘But if you’d left them on, you’d have seen me.’

‘Maybe. Maybe not.’

‘Yes, you would have,’ said Patrick enthusiastically, ‘because I was right under your nose.’

Dr Spicer made a little noise that turned into a cough, and Professor Madoc frowned at him, and looked back at Patrick.

‘At our last meeting I told you that we could not overlook discreditable behaviour simply because of your other issues. Do you remember that, Patrick?’

‘Of course I remember,’ said Patrick testily. What kind of goldfish did the man think he was?

‘Good,’ said Professor Madoc. ‘Because I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’

Patrick started to get up and then hesitated. ‘You mean leave the room or leave the whole … college thing?’

‘The whole college thing.’

‘Oh,’ said Patrick.

He remained hovering over the seat of the chair. Now that this was actually happening, he found he
did
care about leaving. He was quite surprised by how much. He decided against getting up, and instead sat down more firmly. ‘That’s a poor decision,’ he said.

‘Oh,
really
?’ said the professor, leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers. Patrick also noticed that he went a little redder in the face.

‘Yes, very. It’s inconsistent. You said discreditable behaviour was inappropriate attitude to staff, a near-physical altercation with a fellow student over a cadaver, ignoring procedure during dissection, and unauthorized access to confidential donation details.’

Professor Madoc just looked at him with his mouth a little open, so Patrick patiently explained his point. ‘You didn’t say anything about throwing a shoe.’

‘I’d have thought that was implicit!’ snapped the professor.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘It would have been to any normal person!’

‘We’re getting off the point,’ Spicer interrupted smoothly. ‘The point is, Patrick, that you entered a restricted area at night without permission.’

‘Nobody said I needed permission,’ Patrick said. ‘I didn’t break in; I got in using the code I was given by
you
. I was not trying to hide from anyone, which is why I turned on the lights. When someone turned them
off
it wasn’t logical, so I
did
hide then. When I thought I might be locked in, I created a diversion and left. I didn’t hurt anyone, I didn’t damage anything, I didn’t steal anything. I was there to try to establish the cause of death, which is
what
we were told to do by Dr Spicer, and which I strongly suspect has been incorrectly recorded as heart failure, when in fact it is anaphylactic shock caused by the ingestion of a peanut.’

Patrick ran out of breath. His heart pumped and his jaw ached from saying so many words. The three men were staring at him so intently that it made him squirm, so he looked around the room for relief. He noticed that the Rubik’s cube was on the bookshelf, and that Professor Madoc had messed it up again. Even from here, he could see where he’d gone wrong.

‘A peanut,’ said the professor.

Dr Spicer spoke slowly. ‘There was a peanut in the cadaver’s throat, but it bore no relation to the cause of death.’ He looked at Mick, who nodded his own confirmation.

‘You
were
told,’ Mick said.

‘
Scott
was told. I’m not Scott.’

The silence around him resumed, and went on for some time, and Patrick felt himself growing calm once again. The three men exchanged looks and he was grateful that at last they were taking him seriously. Now that they realized the importance of the peanut, and why it was critical that he find it, everything would be all right.

Instead Professor Madoc sighed and said, ‘Nevertheless’ – and then expelled him on the spot.

Patrick left the oak-panelled office in a tight ball of confused shock.

He couldn’t believe what had just happened. Instead of doing the thing that made sense, Professor Madoc had expelled him! It was turning out the lights all over again. For a full minute he stood in the centre of the corridor, holding his trainer to his chest, as other students bumped and brushed past him. He didn’t even feel them.

Then he started to walk briskly to the end of the corridor. By the time he reached the stairs, he was running.

They were behind him. Not
right
behind him. But not in front of him,
that
was the point.

It meant he had a head start.

Patrick felt the adrenaline coursing through him once more – just as it had when he’d climbed the fence. He’d never had it before meeting Number 19, but he recognized it now and liked it.

One last look at the cadaver – that was all he needed. But a look through more suspicious eyes; eyes that were seeking clues from the past, not to the future. He would go straight for the throat, where the peanut had been. That was the logical thing. The throat, the mouth, the tongue. He thought of the cuts and nicks that Dilip had made – that he’d
assumed
Dilip had made. That was where he would start. He would find something. More chunks of black blood, another scrap of blue latex. Another thrill passed through him. He didn’t know what, but he would find
something
.

Still holding his trainer, Patrick ran past the porter at the entrance to the block – through the doors that were always open – and feverishly jabbed his code into the keypad on the anatomy wing door.

It didn’t open.

Patrick rattled the handle, then put his code in again. 4017.

Nothing. 4017. 4017. 4017. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

Patrick banged the metal door so hard with the side of his fist that it rang.

‘Oi!’ said the porter, but Patrick didn’t hear him. He kicked the door hard, not even feeling it in his toes.

The porter grabbed his arm and Patrick shook it off, struggling to keep calm. ‘Don’t touch me!’ he said. ‘You have to let me in. I need to get in.’

‘No, you need to leave,’ said the porter. Patrick had never seen him standing up before, but now realized that he was quite burly.

‘I’m allowed to be here. I’m doing anatomy. I’m allowed to be in the dissection room.’

‘Not today you’re not, sunshine. Today you’re going home to sleep it off.’

The porter took his arm more firmly this time, and Patrick punched him in the face. The man was well built, but he still staggered backwards like a drunk – and then sat down and rolled comically on to his back with his legs in the air.

Patrick left before they came down.

He ran straight to the police station; it was only down the road behind the museum and City Hall.

‘I want to report a crime,’ he told the desk officer, who sat behind the thick glass window as if she were selling train tickets.

‘What kind of crime?’

‘I’m not sure. It might be murder, but I can no longer gather evidence myself, so I think the police should get involved now.’

She said nothing, and looked at his hands. Patrick noticed a smear of blood on his left knuckles.