Sisters of Mercy (5 page)

‘
The fact that you’re here. That you came to the lecture.’

‘
It’s more like healthy respect,’ I said after a moment. ‘Talking of which, I’d be grateful if you didn’t refer to her by that name any more — not on the ward, anyway.’

He
looked at me. ‘I noticed Mary saying Miss Whittington in tones of reverence this afternoon,’ he said. ‘Was that your doing?’

I
sighed. ‘Yes.’

‘
Tell me.’

I
told him.

‘
I’d prefer you kept it to yourself,’ I said when I’d finished. ‘For Mary’s sake.’

‘
Of course.’ He paused. ‘And I hereby swear that the words the Witless shall never be spoken by me again,’ he added solemnly.

‘
Good.’ I smiled to take any sting out of it.

Our
footfalls echoed from the cobbles of pedestrianized street. The clock in the cathedral struck the half hour.

‘
It sounds rather like a clash of unsympathetic personalities,’ he continued after a moment. ‘Mary’s and — uh — Miss Whittington’s.’

‘
Yes,’ I said, grinning at his tone.

‘
With you as piggy in the middle,’ he said as we reached Luigi’s and he held open the door for me.

‘
Thanks,’ I said drily.

‘
Any preference?’ he said as he went to the bar.

‘
Something white, if that’s all right with you.’

‘
Chardonnay?’

‘
Fine.’ I left him to it and found a table.

There
weren’t many customers, even for a weekday; the recession must have hit Luigi’s pretty hard. It had been opened in the late ’eighties, which probably meant a big mortgage. It would be a shame if it closed, I thought, looking round. Dark wooden furniture, good quality too; stained floor, goodish pictures … Stephen arrived with the bottle and glasses.

‘
Cheers!’ he said when he’d poured and we’d touched glasses. ‘Mm, nice. What were we talking about …? Ah yes, Dick.’

‘
Dick?’

‘
Whittington. Had a cat and became Lord —’

‘
Ha, ha. And I don’t think she’d appreciate the sobriquet Dick any more than the Witless.’

‘
Aha! You said it yourself!’ He dropped his voice to a stage whisper. ‘The Witless. I knew you’d say it eventually.’

‘
You’re infantile,’ I said, laughing nevertheless.

His
eyes switched away for a moment. ‘You have to be, in our job.’

‘
Our job …’ I mused. ‘Yes, I suppose you do.’ I drank some more of the wine. It was delicious. ‘Are you thinking of specializing in cardiology?’

He
smiled, rather enigmatically. ‘I’m not sure yet.’

‘
Where were you before you came to Latchvale?’ I asked, curious.

‘
Birmingham.’

‘
You too? Which hospital?’

‘
Royal United.’

‘
So what brought you here? Latchvale’s a bit of a back-water.’

‘
There was a vacancy here in Cardiology, so I took it, for the experience.’

Took
it, I noticed, rather than applied for it.

‘
Did you train at the Royal?’

‘
No, London. But I moved to Birmingham for —’

‘
For the experience?’ I finished for him. ‘My, you have been around.’

He
shrugged and smiled again. ‘It’s all useful in the end.’

‘
Where are you from, Stephen?’

‘
Stratford-on-Avon, originally. My father’s still a GP there.’

‘
Nice spot. So what about you? Would you like to emulate Mr Chorley, or will you follow Father’s footsteps?’

‘
That was pretty good, Jo. You obviously haven’t had enough wine.’

He
refilled my glass, then told me he hadn’t made up his mind what he wanted to do yet, although his father wanted them to go into partnership together, so that they could raise the money to build their own private health centre.

‘
Is that really you?’ I asked, a little surprised.

‘
I don’t know. It does have its attractions.’ He gave another enigmatic smile, and then switched the subject to why I’d taken up nursing. The evening was growing rosier as the level in the bottle dropped, but then he said something that reminded me that I’d been to the police just two days before to talk about murder, and I shivered suddenly.

‘
What’s the matter, Jo? Someone just walk over your grave?’

‘
I think they might have done,’ I replied, thinking aloud.

He
sat up. ‘Tell me.’

Can
I trust you? I wondered, looking at his strong, English face. I wanted to, very much.

‘
You remember Mr Peters?’ I began. ‘Last Friday — did it surprise you, him dying?’

‘
I suppose it did,’ he said slowly. ‘But patients do die unexpectedly.’

‘
Yes, they do,’ I agreed. ‘But how many patients?’

That
got his attention and I told him what I’d told Miss W, although not about going to the police, since it had directly contravened her orders.

‘
That’s a hell of a thing, Jo,’ he said at last. ‘If it wasn’t for the fact it was you, and the statistics, I’d think …’

‘
What would you think?’ I demanded.

‘
That you were being … over-imaginative,’ he said quietly. Then: ‘Look, I’m sorry. I know a bit about statistics — why don’t you show me?’

‘
Now?’

‘
Why not?’

‘
Well, the files are at my house, for one thing.’

He
grinned. ‘The devices we men’ll adopt to gain our wicked ends.’

‘
Oh, very droll. Can’t you see I’m worried …?’

He
covered my hand with his own. ‘I’m sorry, Jo. I was … trying to help, I suppose. Do let me have a look. Your house isn’t far from here, is it?’

*

‘I’m not sure you should have used probability limits in this instance,’ he said, frowning over my calculations some thirty minutes later. ‘How much d’you actually know about statistics?’

‘
Not much, beyond probability limits.’

‘
For another thing, you’ve used percentages here, of the numbers of patients, where you should have used the numbers themselves.’

‘
But I thought percentages would be more —’

‘
And the test you should really have applied is the chi-square test, possibly with Yates’ correction. Look — have you got a pencil and paper?’

I
found them and he showed me how, if I’d used a different method, the number of deaths wouldn’t have been significant.

‘
I’ve never really understood statistics,’ I said with a sigh.

‘
Statistics can be made to prove — or disprove — anything,’ he said gently. ‘You must have heard the old saying:
There
are
lies
,
damned
lies
,
and
statistics
.’

I
smiled. ‘Yes. But I’m still worried, Stephen. I still
feel
that there have been too many deaths, and of the wrong patients.’

‘
Woman’s intuition?’ He covered my hand again.

‘
Yes, damn you!’ I said, snatching it away.

‘
Jo …’ he took it again, held it. ‘I’m sorry. Listen — I’ll look into every one of these cases you’ve got listed here, and after that we’ll both keep an eye on things, and if it happens again — oh, in the next week or so — we’ll do something about it. A deal?’

‘
All right,’ I said. ‘A deal. Thanks, Stephen.’

‘
This has really been getting to you, hasn’t it, Jo?’

‘
Yes.’

‘
You poor old thing.’

There
was a moment of absolute stillness, then he leaned over and gently kissed me.

5

There is no feeling in the world to match the high you get at the beginning of a new affair. Everything around you is sharpened, three-dimensional, more real.

Stephen
had left sometime during the night and although I hadn’t slept for a while afterwards, now, as I walked through the park to the hospital, I felt glorious. The autumn colours pulsed, the sky shimmered with blue, bringing alive the pink sandstone of the cathedral’s three spires — the Ladies of the Vale … and as I looked at them, I suddenly understood why they’d been named that.

It
had always seemed odd to me that a spire, that most phallic of symbols, should be called a lady, but that morning, as their delicate shapes hung as though suspended above the trees in the autumn air, I felt I’d never seen anything so graceful, elegant, so feminine.

And
savant
, I thought. They must be, after watching over six centuries of sinning humanity.

‘
Have you been at the drugs cabinet again?’ Mary demanded after I’d arrived. ‘Something’s certainly got into you.’

‘
Clean, healthy living,’ I replied. ‘You should try it some time.’

‘
Ugh! No thank you.’

Stephen
behaved to me as he always had, other than to give me a fleeting wink during the ward round when no one was looking. We lunched together and arranged to meet in the evening.

He
was as good as his word, and over the next few days, looked into all seven of the cases on my list, going through them with me afterwards. As he said, each taken on its own was not suspicious, and without the statistical evidence, the number wasn’t significant; just a run of bad luck.

On
Friday morning, I phoned Inspector Anslow to apologize and withdraw my statement.

‘
You’re sure about that?’ he asked me.

‘
Yes, I am. I do hope you hadn’t actually started taking any action …’

‘
Not really. I passed it upstairs, as I told you I would, and haven’t heard anything since. I’ll tell them it was a false alarm.’

‘
I’m terribly sorry, Inspector …’

‘
That’s all right, Miss Farewell. Better this way than you’d kept silent when there really was something.’

I
thanked him and rang off.

Later
that day, when I declined to go to a party with her, Mary said, ‘It’s Stephen, isn’t it?’

‘
How did you know?’

‘
The way you’ve been looking at him. Proprietorial. Don’t get too fond of him, because it won’t last.’

‘
Whatever makes you say that?’

‘
Stephen never allows himself to become committed.’

‘
How d’you know? With respect, Mary, I have known him longer than you.’

She
hesitated, then said, ‘You haven’t, actually. I worked with him at the Royal United.’

‘
I see.’ And was that all you did, I wondered, but didn’t say anything.

‘
He’s self-centred,’ she continued. ‘Ruthless. He picks up women and discards them like … like playing cards. All lovey-dovey one minute, then …’ She made a chopping motion with her hand. ‘The only thing he’s committed to is his career.’

‘
What makes you think I want it to last?’ I said lightly.

‘
Because I know
you
.’

You
’re
just
jealous
, I told myself, and tried to forget it.

*

Friday and Saturday nights, he stayed at my house, and on Sunday morning, I made him breakfast in bed before going round to my parents. I felt duty bound to go, especially since we had other plans for the following weekend. Anyway, he grabbed me and said, ‘I think I’d rather have you for breakfast.’

‘
I can’t, Stephen! I told Mum I’d be round …’

But
I did.

*

The next week passed by uneventfully. Armitage came back, looking better for her enforced rest. (Her doctor had written
nervous
exhaustion
on her sick-note, and perhaps he was right.)