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Authors: Clare Curzon

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BOOK: The Glass Wall
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God, what had he said to him? Anything, to get the little tick off his back.
Now it was being read out to him from a slip of paper the Senior Usher had taken from an inner pocket. He'd deny it, of course. He'd said nothing of the sort; retained a dignified silence. It was a blatant case of malicious falsification.
But, Brent said, there was an independent witness who upheld the accusation. Markham had not only given away the name of the Chairman for the coming case, but also his assured opinion that because of him the accused ‘hadn't a wax cat's chance in hell' of getting off.
He must see, Brent pointed out severely, that he had prejudiced the case and maligned a magistrate. This was an extremely serious matter and an inquiry must be held into why the court's schedule now required changing.
‘Look,' Markham insisted, ‘we can go into this later. I'm needed in there right now. If you'll wait until after the session I can explain what really happened.'
‘We'll discuss it now,' Brent said stolidly. ‘Mrs Norris can take over your duties while the matter is looked into. Meanwhile you are indefinitely suspended.'
The room was vibrating with hot light. Markham felt his head fill with a rush of angry blood. It was intolerable that the untrained housewife should, even temporarily, take his place. He could kill the pretentious cow. And this sanctimonious creature standing here who thought he could humiliate him.
‘You know what you can do with your fucking job?' he hissed close in Brent's face. ‘You can shove it where the daylight never reaches. I don't have to stand this. I'm handing you my resignation.'
The man blinked and moved a step away. He had gone very pale. ‘In which case,' he said quietly, ‘I have no hesitation in accepting it.'
‘Audrey Stanford is threatening to discharge herself.' Bernice told her when she returned to ITU.
‘If she's well enough for that she shouldn't be with us. Have you paged Dr Ashton?'
‘There's some kind of crisis in the Psych department. She'll be along as soon as she can. Meanwhile it's up to us.'
‘To restrain her? Is she really serious, or is this for effect?'
Bernice shrugged. She'd clearly had her fill of this patient. Alyson nodded and went to apply damage limitation.
‘Audrey, how are you feeling?'
‘Bloody awful. What do you expect? Where's Keith? I want him to take me home. Get my clothes, will you. I told the other girl.'
‘Dr Stanford will be in afternoon surgery just now. I'm sure he'll be visiting later. He's cancelled the course he was meant to be going on this week.'
‘So I should bloody well think. Which means he could be here to fetch me.'
‘Before we let you go home we'll have to make sure there's someone there to look after you.'
‘Because I can't be left on my own? Try telling him that. Do you think he cares what becomes of me? It would have suited him if I'd died out there alone while he was off chasing his fancy women. It's not as though he'll have long to wait in any case. You know, don't you? I'm on my bloody way out.' Her voice rose to hysterical level. She reared up in bed, shaking, crouched forward, tense like a barking dog, weight on her balled fists in their dressings.
‘You didn't bring any clothes with you,' Alyson said calmly. ‘They took you out of the bath, wrapped in a towel.'
Audrey stared up at her, shaken into silence. ‘Nobody cares,' she said bitterly.
‘We all care,' Alyson assured her. ‘That's what a hospital's about. That's why your husband works himself into the ground, because there are so many sick people depending on him just
now. Believe me, we understand how it is for you, and we'll do everything we can for your comfort.'
‘You can't understand. It isn't happening to you! You don't have the pain and the terror!'
Alyson sat beside her and reached to take her in her arms, but the woman screamed and tore with her nails at the nurse's face. She recoiled, feeling blood well out under one eye and roll down her cheek.
‘Right,' said Dr Ashton crisply, entering on cue. ‘It looks like a case for sectioning. I'll get someone else along for the paperwork.'
It had been a bad day in her department. In clinic an outpatient had viciously attacked a nurse with a chair, so they were one staff member down and the patient, a fourteen-stone diabetic, had needed to be admitted until his medication was regulated. Now they would have to take on this virago with suicidal tendencies. Which put paid to her hopes of getting home in time to read Jeremy his bedtime story.
She'd be in shit to the
nth.
She should have known better than to promise they'd finish the story together. Desmond would take on the reading and miss the whole point. Jeremy had identified heavily with Pirate Percy and would need the bloody ending skilfully edited. Why did the writers of children's books have to work out their repressed aggression on young, impressionable minds? It was her fault for having chosen that story, but it had been a good romp up to that point.
While her mind churned over her own misfortunes she felt the patient's forehead, took her pulse reading and decided that the temporary lull in violence was just the prelude to a second outburst. She would certainly resist an injection. Better give the sedative in something bland and syrupy. Slower, but safer.
‘There, my dear,' she said emolliently, ‘it only
seems
to help, getting het-up like that. But it changes nothing in the end except to give you a sore throat and use up your energy. Tell you what I'll do. Nurse here shall arrange for a porter to swish you off to another ward where I'm nearby, and we can give you our undivided attention.'
Codswallop, Alyson thought, gently dabbing at her cheek. She'll never get away with that. And as for undivided attention, that's exactly what we're about in ITU.
But get away with it she did. Audrey appeared to hang on every word, her eyes fixed on the psychiatrist's own. She put out a pathetic little hand which Dr Ashton briefly squeezed then dropped like a hot potato. ‘Be seeing you,' she said breezily, and left.
At the door she grimaced at Alyson. ‘Sorry about the implied slight. I'm the greatest admirer of what you get up to in here. Give a mild sedative by mouth and I'll send along a magic potion to cover the move. Then we'll see how she is after twelve hours' solid sleep.'
She tapped Alyson on the wrist and lowered her voice further. ‘When Keith drops by suggest he keeps on walking. I don't think we want sight of him to fire her up again just yet.'
 
It was an hour and a half later that Dr Stanford appeared and he looked shattered. Alyson stopped him at the door. ‘Keith, what's happened?'
‘I've arranged to take indefinite sabbatical leave. It's deuced difficult because the practice is one down already with this flu outbreak. But anything else is unthinkable, the way things are.'
She nodded. ‘I'm sure you're doing the right thing. If there's anything I can do to help …anything at all?'
He closed his eyes. ‘What a mad thing to ask. Of course there is.' He fell silent, then picked up in a more controlled voice. ‘When Audrey comes home there'll be no room in my life for anything else, but until then I have time to …adjust. Will you help me, Alyson? Is it too much to ask that you let me repay your hospitality? Perhaps we could have dinner one evening. If you could get free, of course. Drive out into the country to somewhere quiet?'
He watched her face. ‘I'll deliver you home safely. Straight after, I promise.'
‘I don't need your promises. I mean, I know …'
‘You know me.'
‘Yes.'
‘Is that yes, you know me; or yes, you'll come?'
She looked at him evenly and made up her mind; whether for his or her own relief. ‘Yes for both. I think I can get someone to stand in for me with Emily. In a day or two.'
‘Good. You need to get out and see a little life. I'll leave it to you to arrange when. Sooner the better. Ring me, will you?'
‘I will. But Keith, there's a message from Dr Ashton.'
‘I've seen her. She's probably right to section Audrey. Is she still here?'
‘Sedated. We're just waiting for a porter to move her.'
He nodded. There would no longer be any excuse now to drop into ITU, but Alyson had agreed to have dinner with him. And there was always Emily to visit and so keep seeing her.
 
On the way Markham had called in at the Stag to take aboard a couple of scotches to firm up his resolution, and then Baldrey had given him an overdose of much the same (but of a superior brand) after they'd concluded their discussion. The cramped little office was overheated, and as he stepped out into the street again the wind sliced through him, setting up a ringing between his ears. But he felt resilient. More than that. Jubilant.
He'd put it over on them all. He was proud that the convincing way he'd slagged off the feebly-run courts had evinced just the right kind of response from Baldrey. It confirmed the debt recovery company's experience of the judicial system's shortcomings. At least a third of the cases the bailiffs dealt with concerned, basically, unpaid court fines.
It hadn't taken long before Baldrey had grunted, ‘I'm surprised you haven't considered a change of profession before. Something like ours, for example.' His little piggy eyes screwed up as he watched Markham's feigned surprise at the new idea.
‘I might even get around to doing that,' he'd agreed.
The money Baldrey then mentioned made his salary as usher look more like peanuts, although he wasn't too happy about relying mainly on commission. Then a little more arsing around the subject and he'd allowed himself to be persuaded: he'd chuck in the usher's job and join Baldrey here dunning the debtors. Of course, he'd always privately thought bailiffs were the lowest of
the low, lacking all the gravitas of his previous occupation; but someone had to lean on the defaulters. Repossession and eviction: they were the basis of effective law enforcement. He'd still be a presence to be feared and respected. Plenty of scope all round for satisfaction.
Ernest Baldrey slid the bottle back into the bottom drawer of his kneehole desk and kicked it shut.
‘Fait ac-
bloody
-compli,'
he said with satisfaction. Receiving intelligence of the usher's spat with his boss had been almost instant on the deed. Markham's final fall from grace had been a long time coming and pleasurably anticipated in several quarters.
His inclusion in the team would nicely square it up: Tam Godfrey to do the valuations and Markham to lean on the defaulters. If not ideal, at least balanced. The man would relish having more scope to throw his weight about. The kerfuffle over his loose mouth in the pub had been opportune, leaving the ex-usher in the right bullish mood to take on the new job with plenty of stored anger.
 
Despite the cutting edge of the wind, Markham's step had taken on a distinct bounce. The lethargic, incident-free monotony of everyday life had been overthrown, as, shaken out of torpor, he'd suddenly faced an unpredictable abyss. To be disgraced and jobless was gross, indecent. It had filled him with fury. Then a flash of inspiration and an opportunity instantly seized. The whole tenor and tempo of life had changed. He recognized he was high on adrenalin and loved the buzz.
He had to celebrate, do something madly out of the ordinary, bask in a spot of admiration. Only he wouldn't be going near the Crown any more. Or not for a while. So what did that leave?
He strode tall, contemptuous of passers-by huddled in their collars to escape the vicious wind. Ahead rose the hospital tower and beyond it the block of luxury apartments. He remembered then the Lump and this wealthy old woman's penthouse she'd bragged about. He'd kidded he would visit, taking in something from the patisserie for her tea. She hadn't seen he'd been stringing her along, but it didn't seem such a bad idea now. He'd get a glimpse of the
dolce vita
at first hand.
The little shop's sugary fresh-bread smells were irresistible. He watched four chocolate eclairs being nestled into a pasteboard box and tied around with pink string ribbon.
Arriving at the flats, he remembered Sheena mentioning a CCTV camera at the door and, having buzzed, he held up the box at shoulder level towards it, fixing a wide grin on his face. Indistinguishable words burst out of the slotted steel box beside him and the doors were smoothly released with a satisfying click. He was in. Nothing to it. It was one of those days when he just couldn't lose.
 
In the Intensive Therapy Unit, having overseen removal of the sedated Audrey Stanford, Alyson went back to check on the nameless lad. Temperature normalizing, and his pulse was improving. He was a tough little beggar. The chances were he'd pull through this time and they could try him on the methadone substitute. She thought he was watching her under half-closed eyelids and she bent over, smiling.
‘We need something to call you, if you're going to prove our star patient of the week.'
His lower lip jutted with defiance. He looked little more than a sulky child.
‘Is there anything I can get you? Friends to contact?'
‘Clothes,' he said indistinctly.
‘You can't even think of going home yet. And where is home anyway?'
‘I want my clothes.'
She thought of the key now returned to his trainer. ‘They're safe where they are. As you are, with us. Just concentrate on getting stronger.'
He shut his eyes and she thought she saw a glistening of tears under the long, dark lashes. It was a relief that he hadn't come round violent and abusive like some.
Bernice muttered as she swept past the bed, ‘Don't waste your time.' Resentful as ever of having to deal with self-inflicted injuries, she clearly still expected trouble over this one.
Alyson wondered what the safety deposit key had revealed to the woman detective. It could be a clue to the youngster's identity.
She'd started to say something but then their conversation was interrupted by Rachel Howard's arrival at the flat and there'd been no follow-up. Rosemary Z's card was still on the hall table at home. It might be worth ringing her to find out more.
But first there were arrangements to make with Ramón. She must vet his performance of basic care duties before she dare risk leaving him in charge of Emily. As soon as her shift was over she'd ring him again to fix a time.
BOOK: The Glass Wall
10.76Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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