Second Opinion Read online

  He began to read the symbols aloud. ‘OHRRFR YPG … Hey, that’s a new wrinkle!’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘They’re usually letters or numbers or mixed, but I’ve never seen one before that uses a half bracket! Hmm. CPLG OFR$. Blimey, a dollar sign, no less! OFR$ £HL$ CA. Good, sterling gets a look in., (LOFS y23$GP” “HS. This is ridiculous, commas, quote marks and all sorts.’ He sighed. ‘How many lines like this are there?’ He counted. ‘Blimey. It’ll take more’n a computer to crack this one.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. I spent ages over it but gave up.’

  ‘Let me take the pages away. Then I can put our boys on it and you can —’

  ‘No! I want to have a go. There are ways of decoding — I’ve heard of decoding books, haven’t I? I think so. You can’t have them!’

  ‘Split the difference?’ he offered amiably. ‘Photocopy? You keep the original, I’ll take the copies. Fair dos?’

  She thought for a while. ‘Fair enough. I’ll get them copied tomorrow.’ She held out her hand and he gave her the sheets, though clearly unwillingly. ‘I promise to send them over as soon as I can.’

  ‘Bring them over. Then I get to see you,’ he said, leering horribly. ‘I like seeing you.’

  ‘You’ll be seeing me all day over Christmas,’ she said and suddenly, to her own amazement, went a little pink. ‘It was good of you to let the old ladies have their way. They’ve been fluttering around like —’

  ‘A brace of daffy hens, I can imagine. But I wasn’t letting them have their own way at all. I wasn’t being good either. I was being bloody sensible. It’s the best Christmas offer I’ve ever had.’ He beamed. ‘I haven’t looked forward to Christmas much for years. I usually spend it on my own or on duty and —’

  ‘You’re putting me on!’ She looked at him closely. ‘You’re just trawling for sympathy.’

  ‘No, I’m not! If I were, you’d get a better story than that. It’s true. Been on my own for — well, it doesn’t matter.’ He was grim now and didn’t look at her, shrugging into his coat a little fussily. ‘Anyway I’m looking forward to Christmas with you three. It’ll be a gas. I’ve been shopping my head off today — and you won’t be able to argue on account it’s the festive season. Bloody marvellous.’

  He was at the door now, with his hand on the knob. ‘I leave you with just one thought.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘You say Prue’s right out of the running on account of she’s sick, was sick that night?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And it’s a true bill — no chance she’s putting it on?’

  ‘None at all.’

  ‘Well, OK. But that doesn’t mean she mightn’t still be involved, does it? She was the one who saw the kid first. She was the one who spotted there was something odd about the child’s age.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, it could all be an elaborate cover-up. It won’t be the first time people have tried it on that way. I doubt it’ll be the last.’

  She shook her head firmly, but all the same, a worm of doubt began to wriggle inside somewhere. ‘I’m sure she’s out of it.’

  ‘Well, if you say so. But think about it. Let me quote good old Oliver Cromwell to you, if I haven’t already —’

  ‘You have,’ she cried hastily, but it was too late.

  ‘“I beseech you,”‘ he was intoning. ‘“In the bowels of Christ, consider it possible you — may — be — mistaken.”‘

  And he was gone.

  20

  By the end of the week and Christmas Eve, the hospital seemed to have blossomed into a flurry of balloons and tinsel-trimmed trees and glitter. Sheila and Jerry had put up a tree in the lab, bedecking it with strings of lametta, and already had a festive bottle of sherry and a tin of chocolate digestive biscuits on the go, even though the department still had a great deal of work to get through before the day was out. But they seemed to be working as hard as ever and George prudently said nothing about the biscuit crumbs among the slides. She had to trust them to make sure they did no harm, the place couldn’t function otherwise; and her trust wasn’t usually misplaced.

  In the mortuary Danny, displaying a sublime inability to recognize any incongruity in his actions, had threaded strings of red and green aluminium foil streamers through the handles of the great drawers that held the bodies in the cold room and she had to remonstrate with him. He sulked, of course, but cheered up marginally when she agreed to let him put some holly in the dissection room. No one but hospital people or police ever went there after all; not like the rooms where the bodies were, where it was always possible a relation might have to come to make an identification.

  By the time she’d dealt with all that and cleared her morning post, which was blessedly light of any real work though it produced a blizzard of Christmas cards (much to her discomfiture, most of them came from people to whom she’d forgotten to send one of her own) she had time to think about other things.

  First she checked again on Prue Jennings and was assured by Hattie Clements she was fine.

  ‘Tucked up in Rotherhithe, just another patient. No one’s spotted her as one of our medics at all. Needed a D and C and will probably be able to go home this evening. She’s got a mum and dad to go to — I’ve checked on that — so she’ll be all right. Have a good Christmas, George! Doing anything nice? We’re having people wandering in and out all through Boxing Day, Sam and I’d love to see you.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ she said, ‘but I’ve got my ma and a sort of aunt staying.’

  ‘Bring them too,’ Hattie said heartily. ‘The children’d love to see you, and they like old ladies. Bring anyone you want.’ George promised she would try and turned her attention to the Chowdary file.

  She couldn’t keep it here in the path. lab for much longer. It ought to go back to Maternity, and from there eventually to the Registry. She decided the best way to get it back there was via Cherry. She had, after all, some reason to go nosing among the files in the cabinet there in a way that George certainly did not. So she picked it up, put her head round the lab door (pretending not to notice that they had a radio on playing Christmas carols) to tell them they could bleep her if she was needed, and headed for Fertility.

  The Maternity Ward, as she cut through it, struck her as being the most ferociously decorated place in the entire hospital. No fewer than three Holy-Family-and-the-Crib scenes had been set up at intervals along the main corridor; there were streamers and paper bells and balls everywhere; and a vast tree just beside the entrance. The place smelled odd with its mixture of disinfectant and milk and pine needles, but not unattractive, and for the first time she felt a lift of the old here-comes-Christmas excitement. Maybe tomorrow with Ma and Bridget and Gus was going to be fun after all. Getting presents for them all had been a hectic affair, carried out in a couple of desperately busy lunch hours. Sometime this afternoon she had to get the things wrapped to take home for the small tree that she knew Bridget and Vanny were decorating this evening; and she pushed open the door that led into the Fertility Clinic feeling light-hearted and happier than she would have thought possible.

  And lost it all when she found Cherry drooping over her desk in the cubby hole that was dignified by the label, ‘Secretary’s Office’, next door to Julia Arundel’s room. There was no sign of Julia, and only a few dispirited-looking people were sitting on the chairs that lined the narrow corridor, plainly waiting to enter the small room at the far end which was the consulting room. There was a bored-looking nurse checking files on a table at the far end, but she didn’t look up as George came into the unit.

  ‘Feeling low again, Cherry?’ George said, coming to stand beside the girl, who looked up at her with eyes as red rimmed as they had been the last time she’d seen her.

  ‘It’s Christmas,’ Cherry said. ‘It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t Christmas. We was going to the theatre on Boxing Night. Cats. I was looking forward to it ever so.’

  ‘It will get easier,�
�� George said and touched her shoulder. ‘Not at once, but eventually. It helps to think of other things.’

  ‘I try to,’ Cherry said, straightening her back. ‘It’s not easy though — not here. We’ve been so quiet — running the clinics down a bit, you see. The Board says they’ve got to make cuts on Matty, and we’re part of Matty when it comes to the budget so of course we get the dirty end of the stick.’ She was obviously quoting her boss. Her voice even became more clipped, like Julia Arundel’s. ‘It’s disgusting that so many unhappy people are forced to wait even longer because of bad management by the finance people. They just don’t take infertility seriously enough, that’s the problem.’

  ‘So you haven’t as much to do as you’d like.’

  Cherry nodded. ‘That’s right. Well, I’ll start knitting something maybe. That’ll help. I could do with a new sweater.’

  ‘That’s a great idea,’ George said. ‘You could do some thick leg-warmers to match — the ones you wear over your tights, you know, and you make the sweater big and baggy and wear it without any trousers or skirt, like a sort of troubadour of old.’

  Cherry lightened considerably. ‘Yeah — yeah, that’d be great! I’ll do that. In nice strong colours, maybe.’

  ‘You could get some of that hand-spun wool they sell in Covent Garden market, in mixed-up colours,’ George said, watching the girl’s eyes kindle with interest. ‘I was given one like that once, long ago. It was knitted for me.’

  Vanny had made it, she remembered. She still had it at the bottom of her chest of drawers. It had been a fabulous sweater.

  ‘Oh that’s a super idea!’ Cherry said and for the first time since George had met her she managed to smile and impulsively George bent over and hugged her.

  ‘You’re a great girl, Cherry,’ she said. ‘Very brave. Now, listen …’ She pulled away as Cherry, pink with gratification, straightened up. ‘I have the Chowdary file here. It ought to go back, hmm?’

  ‘Oh, yes please!’ Cherry said. ‘I’ve been worrying about that so much. If someone wanted it and they see it’s signed out to Harry — well — I’d hate that. I’ll put it back then, shall I?’

  George handed it over. ‘Yes please. But Cherry …’ She hesitated. ‘There was something else in there — those papers you found, remember. With added things on them. They’re nothing to do with the file so I’ve kept them. I doubt there’ll be any problems.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not worried about that,’ Cherry said. ‘I only put them in there because I found them underneath, know what I mean? I just thought maybe —’ She stopped. ‘There were some other bits too.’

  George sharpened. ‘There were?’

  ‘Well, sort of. A notebook really. There wasn’t much in it. Just a few dates. Oh, and something else …’ She reached into the drawer of her desk and fiddled about and then brought out a small notebook. It had a red marbled cover, and was very dog-eared. It looked, George thought, exactly like the sort she used to have at school, when she was very young, for her spell-checks.

  ‘I didn’t know what to do with this. It’s hard to know if it’s important, isn’t it?’

  George looked inside. The first page had, as Cherry had said, what were obviously dates. 14 Jul., 27 Oct., 1 Dec. After the last of them was a hieroglyph and she peered at it. The handwriting was far from clear, being elongated yet crabbed, and she turned the notebook closer to the light to try to read it.

  ‘His writing was awful,’ Cherry said fondly. ‘Just like he was practising to be the sort of doctor who writes bad prescriptions everyone laughs at, I used to tell him. Shall I look? I sort of got used to it.’

  George held it out and Cherry looked. ‘Oh, that bit? I tried to read that too. It’s all sorts of initials, ‘n’t it? I think it says “W to PL re PM TH 2”. But I don’t know what it means.’

  George looked at it and frowned, then lifted her chin and stared sightlessly at the far wall, on which a sad calendar hung crookedly against the grimy cream-coloured paint. ‘“W to PL re PM TH 2”‘ she said aloud. ‘“W to PL re PM TH 2” It almost says something, I know it does. It’s important, too and yet …’ she frowned and tried to focus on the calendar, more as a way of sharpening her thinking than because she wanted to check any dates, and then it happened.

  It was something that had happened only a few times in her life before but when it had, it left her overawed at the way her own mind worked, made her wonder at the sort of synaptic connections that had leapt into action to make the whole thing possible. Twice before it had happened during an examination when a conclusion she desperately needed to illustrate her answer had eluded her, and some minor wording on the page, or some object around the room when she had stared about her in desperation, had triggered her mind; whatever had caused it to happen she was always able to use the information, and it had never been wrong.

  This time was like the others. The calendar sitting crookedly on the wall looked back at her announcing its information. Rows of numbers from one to thirty-one. Numbers set in neat columns of seven. Each column headed by a letter, M, T, W, Th, F, S, Su, and she looked again at the notebook, and knew at once what the letters there stood for. ‘Something to path. lab re post-mortem on Thursday the second of December,’ she said. ‘He wrote that note —’

  ‘What?’ said Cherry.

  ‘When the request came down for a post-mortem on the Popodopoulos baby, there was a typed note attached to it. It said, “This is the third infant death we’ve had in Maternity since the summer.?? Linked.” I’ve been trying to find out who wrote that note and everyone denies any knowledge of it. But I think that Harry sent it. “W” means Warning or maybe Word — either would do. Warning to path. lab re post-mortem on Thursday the second of December. Word to path. lab … It certainly fits the date. That was the morning the baby was found dead — the Popodopoulos baby.’ She was talking as much to herself as to Cherry. ‘And these dates — they fit the other deaths. The Lennon baby died on 14 July, the Chowdary baby on 27 October, and the Popodopoulos baby on 1 December. I’m sure that was how it was. I’ll have to check, but I’m sure I remember.’

  She turned to the door and then stopped and looked back at Cherry uneasily. ‘Urn. This is all - I mean, I’m not sure what happened to Harry, Cherry, but I think someone was after him. I think he’d found out something that another person wanted kept secret. And I think it ought to be kept secret still. What do you think?’

  As Cherry looked back at her, her smooth brow slowly creased and her eyes sharpened. ‘You mean someone definitely murdered Harry? And might want to murder anyone else what knows?’ she breathed.

  George shook her head and spoke in as bracing a tone as she could. ‘Oh, no! Nothing so dramatic. But I do think there’s been something going on here that needs investigating, and it’ll be easier to do so if no one knows that I’m checking. And I might need these notes a little longer after all. Could I keep them just a few more days? I promise to bring them back very soon.’

  Cherry looked doubtful, but George wasn’t going to give in on this. She reached for the folder and again tucked it beneath her arm. ‘I’ll bring it back soon,’ she said again. ‘Meanwhile, can I trust you to say nothing to anyone outside ourselves about all this? I mean, the notebook and the notes in it and –’

  ‘I’ll be as silent as the grave!’ Cherry almost declaimed it, her eyes alight with fervour, apparently quite won over by George’s determination to keep the Chowdary folder. ‘Not a word will anyone get out of me.’

  ‘No need to be so, well, dramatic, Cherry. Just don’t talk about it.’

  ‘Don’t talk about what?’ Julia Arundel had appeared at the door and George turned to smile at her.

  ‘Oh, it’s the Christmas parry they’re doing in Paediatrics,’ she lied easily. ‘I’d like to get involved and I came by Matty to see if 1 could get hold of some stuff to decorate a costume. To amuse the kids, you know? They hadn’t anything and they sent me through to Cherry here. Thought she might have some gear.
She doesn’t, I’m sorry to say.’ She looked at Cherry and smiled even more brightly. ‘So, there it is! 1 guess I’ll have to try elsewhere. But it’s a secret, of course. 1 don’t want everyone to know or the surprise’ll be gone. I’ll tell you, though — 1 want to dress up as the Statue of Liberty.’

  ‘Such fun!’ Julia said, staring at her as though she were quite mad. ‘I don’t get involved with all this stuff myself, but good luck with it. Cherry, could 1 have the files from yesterday afternoon, please? 1 may be able to get the letters to the GPs dictated before lunch.’

  ‘Oh, yes, Dr Arundel,’ Cherry said with a demure air. She picked up her notebook and hurried out into the corridor. ‘Right away.’

  She disappeared after Julia into her adjoining office, turning her head to give George a sketch of a wink as she did so, and George relaxed. There was no need to worry about Julia Arundel, but all the same the less that was known about the way her mind was working the better.

  As the door closed behind the two of them she opened the Chowdary file and checked the address. Seventy-five Caspar Street, Bermondsey; not far away at all. She bit her lip as she thought and then, moving purposefully, looked at her watch and made her way back to the path. lab and her outdoor clothes at a swift lope.

  The house, when she got there, told her a lot about the Chowdarys. She stood in the street looking up and down as well as at the front of number seventy-five, her hands thrust deep into her pockets. Her bleep was warm against her hand and it comforted her; they could get her back to the hospital quickly if necessary. It was only a fast jog over Tower Bridge and it was odds on she’d be able to find a cab anyway; she pushed away the pangs of guilt about leaving the hospital without just cause when she was on duty and looked again at the house.