Stephanie (21 page)

‘How long have you been suffering from this complaint?' James asked.

‘Oh, ever since I came from India, which is nearly two weeks ago, I am forgetting the time. It has been a very bad time for me, what with the pain, I can tell you, and your weather is so cold after Bombay!'

‘What have the other doctors said?'

‘Others? Oh, I have not seen one yet! There are reasons, which I must not explain.'

‘I suppose Dr Arun has been treating you himself. It is a pity –'

‘Oh no, sir, you misunderstand. He has not treated me except this afternoon before he left for India. I have only just come. Today I have just come.'

James's eyes wandered round the room. There
were
a few evidences of hasty departure: a wastepaper basket containing cotton wool, a bottle of aftershave, a tie, newspapers, what looked like an old vest. It might be useful to examine it all a bit more closely if the opportunity arose.

‘Have you been staying with other friends in Oxford?'

‘No, no. To begin I stayed at a hotel in London, then I visited cousins in Birmingham. Now I cannot wait to return to India.'

‘When you have been cured.'

‘Exactly. When I have been cured.'

‘Why did Arun Jiva not tell you the name of the doctor who was coming?'

‘I do not know.'

‘Instead he gave you the name of someone you have never before heard of – Errol Colton. I can't believe that!'

‘Well, it is true!'

‘What is Errol Cotton's concern in this?'

Nari edged his way up the pillow. ‘I do not think I wish to answer all your questions. Nor do I think you are entitled to ask them … Do you know Dr Arun?'

‘I know him.'

‘And what is the purpose of
your
visit?'

‘I wanted to put some questions to him.'

There was the sound of a car outside. In the silence they both listened to the slam of a door. Then the bell rang.

‘Perhaps this is my doctor now!'

James heaved himself up and hobbled to the window.

‘I believe you're right,' he said. ‘They have sent an ambulance.'

‘Then I will get dressed,' said Nari.

James opened the casement window. A man in a peaked cap and a white coat looked up.

‘We are upstairs,' James called. ‘Can you come in?'

‘Right-ho, sir.'

They waited. Nari was trying to struggle into his shirt, but as soon as he stood up nausea overcame him and he sat heavily back on the bed. James went to the door. A short, slightly bow-legged man was coming up the stairs. He had a bright Cockney face but dirty hands, and his white coat was too long for him.

‘Mr Nari Prasad?' he said, taking out a card and reading from it.

‘Not I,' said James, and indicated the bed, on which Nari was still lying back, feebly trying to get up.

‘Mr Nari Prasad?' said the ambulance man. ‘Dr Jiva rang us, told us you was ill. We've come to take you to a nursing home where you'll be properly looked after, see? No more trouble, then, no more worry. That's the style …'

‘I am very sick,' Nari whispered. ‘I think I am going over.'

‘Never you mind that. We'll soon have you comfortable, like … Who're you, sir? We was told just to collect the one gent, nothink about a second one. We don't deal with the National Health, you know.'

James said: ‘Are you from the Oxford Ambulance Division?'

The man hesitated. ‘No, Abingdon. 'Ere, let me help you, Mr Nari Prasad. You'll fall over wobbling about like that –'

‘Where are you taking him?' James asked. Having gone back to the window, he was resisting a deep need to sit down and was staring at the ambulance.

‘Newfield Nursing 'Ome. Look, mate, you'd best let me ' elp you with them trousers. Else we shall get nowhere in a long time.'

‘
New
field?' said James. ‘ D'you mean Nuffield?'

‘No, sir.
New
field. Well known round here.'

‘Mr Errol Colton,' muttered Nari. ‘I was told he would come for me.'

‘Don't know nothing about that. We just got the word, see. At the Newfield you'll have all the best attention. Everythink's for the best there. None of your National Health.'

Nari got to his feet again, swayed. The ambulance man helped him to zip up his trousers. ‘Where're your shoes?'

‘Down – I think downstairs.'

‘This your weskit? Put your 'and on the rail. That's it …'

‘The Newfield Nursing Home?' said James. ‘In Abingdon?'

‘Just outside. Just on the outskirts. Lovely 'ome it is.'

‘I never remember hearing of such a home in Abingdon –'

‘Look, old man, is that your car outside? That shooting brake. Now suppose you could just move that, eh? Do something instead of asking questions. You don't want the ambulance parked in the middle of the road when we're taking a sick patient out, do you. Just you potter off downstairs and move it round the corner, eh? There's a good scout. You move it, see, while me and Jim are looking after our patient. I'll just whistle up for Jim.'

He went past James to the window, brushing him aside. Nari was fumbling with his tie, trying to get it tied, but the cloth kept slipping through his fingers. He suddenly retched but brought nothing up. Then he sat down again, lay back, his eyes flickering and frightened. It seemed that Arun Jiva's pills were having side effects.

James said: ‘What is the telephone number of the Newfield Nursing Home?'

‘What?' The ambulance man half turned. ‘What's up with you? Can't bother about that, mate.'

James limped to the phone by the bed. ‘Do you or do you not know the number of the Newfield Nursing Home? If not, I can look it up.'

The ambulance man banged on the wood of the window. ‘Why in 'ell don't this open? Oh, it's the other one, I see … Hey, Jim, give us a hand with the patient. I reckon we'll 'ave to carry 'im.'

‘What is the name of your ambulance unit?' James said in a loud voice. ‘ Perhaps I can check with them.'

‘Look, Jack,' said the ambulance man, bending his face, no longer cheerful, close to James as he sat in the chair by the bed, flipping over the telephone book. ‘Look, we've 'ad enough of you, see? We're 'ere to take this poor bugger to a nursing home, and you keep your big mug out of our way! Else we may trample on you. Eh? Get that? If I was you I'd just shut up and leave us do our duty. Savee?'

Nari was moaning and turning his head from side to side. The front door banged. Jim had got the message. James began to dial.

‘What the flaming 'ell're you doing now?'

‘Ringing nine-nine-nine.'

James gave his own version of events to the sergeant who eventually arrived.

He had, he said, called upon Dr Arun Jiva, who had been a friend of his daughter's, but he had found no one at home except this young Indian who was clearly very ill. The Indian, it seemed, had only turned up that morning and Dr Jiva, himself about to leave the country, had rung a friend asking that Mr Nari Prasad should be looked after while he was away.

While he and Prasad were talking an ambulance had arrived. This he thought unusual, to say the least, since it was unheard of these days for an ambulance to be called for a patient who was able to walk or to sit in an ordinary car. So he had taken a quick look through the window and seen that the ambulance not only did not belong to any of the local services but was not genuine. The engine and chassis was unmistakably a Citroën; the body more like a conventional shooting brake. It would, of course, have carried conviction to a foreigner, but it looked artificial to anyone used to living in England.

So he had tackled the ambulance man, who was at first evasive and then tried to bluster his way through. Had the sergeant, for instance, ever heard of the Newfield Nursing Home? The sergeant shook his head, Nuffield, of course. Did they mean that?

‘Clearly not,' said James. ‘ I asked for the telephone number of this Newfield Nursing Home and the man refused to give it. Instead he called his driver up to help him take away his patient. He became threatening to me. Of course I shouldn't have stood a chance against two men, but when I dialled nine-nine-nine they panicked. They argued a minute at the bedroom door, and then when they heard me getting through they went back down the stairs together, slammed the door and the ambulance drove off.'

The sergeant wrote something in his notepad.

‘D'you say Dr Arun Jiva has gone away for good, sir?'

‘This man Nari Prasad said he was returning to India. But there do seem to be a number of personal things still lying around.'

‘And this Nari whatever-it-is had only been in England a short while?'

‘He said he only arrived in Oxford this morning. I've told you he said he was suffering from a stoppage of the bowels.'

The sergeant raised his eyebrows significantly. ‘Well, no doubt we shall know that soon enough, sir.'

‘Where have they taken him – the John Radcliffe?'

‘That's correct. He'll be well looked after there.'

‘He was very reluctant to go. I think if he'd been fully alive to what was happening he would have preferred to accept the ambulance after all.'

‘Being only a short while in England, it makes you think, doesn't it?'

‘You mean he might be an illegal immigrant?' James said.

‘That or worse. There's no passport in his belongings. Very little of anything except a wallet. We've taken possession of the pills that were beside the bed; but he said these were left him by Dr Jiva. The question of whether Dr Jiva was entitled to have them in his possession is another matter we might go into later.'

James picked up his sticks. ‘You'll let me know how the man goes on?'

‘Oh yes, sir. We'll be in touch. I'm sure the Inspector will like to have a word with you. I presume …'

James got up. ‘What?'

‘I presume you are the Mr James Locke whose daughter died in such tragic circumstances recently?'

‘I am – unfortunately.'

‘Unfortunate indeed. I wasn't on that case. But it strikes deep – that sort of thing.'

James nodded. ‘It strikes deep.'

‘Do you need any help to your car, sir?'

‘No, thank you. I can manage if I take it slowly.'

The photograph was of Errol Colton and Stephanie; standing in a theatrical attitude on what presumably was a balcony in Goa. They were both naked.

On the back was written, ‘Just Good Friends'.

James had not shown the photograph to the sergeant. Nor had he mentioned the name of Errol Colton.

He drove to St Martin's and asked for Henry. The porter said he was sorry the Bursar had just left. He was, he believed, going home.

Very well, thought James, he would follow. This was a matter for consultation, if not consultation with the police. It was also possibly a matter for confrontation, but that could follow.

He stopped at the Randolph for a whisky and a sandwich, and took his road map in with him, since he had not before driven to Henry's house from the direction of Oxford. It was straightforward enough. Go out through Headington, take the A40 for a bit and then fork left; then a sharp left turn before you got to Thame. As he was folding the map he saw the village of Upper Kimble marked – only a few miles further on, north of Princes Risborough – where someone else lived.

Where he might call later this evening or sometime tomorrow.

The sun was coming out now, what was left of it as the day ended. It was in motorists' eyes as they came towards him. His own screen badly needed cleaning, but he was not in a mood to be concerned with trifles.

As he left Oxford he passed a group of students striding along, talking and laughing, scarves flying, and among them was a blonde girl who reminded him of Stephanie. She was there, flashing a smile at someone and then she was gone. As quickly as Stephanie had gone.

His mind flickered back to a holiday they had all had together in 1977 – not the last but the best. The children had got over the defection of their mother, and he had not yet had that disastrous operation which, instead of curing his lameness, had made him so much more lame. They had gone with Evelyn Gaveston and young Charles Gaveston, Henry being then on active service in Ulster.

They had spent three weeks at the Hotel Voile D'Or at Cap Ferrat. James had hired a large motorboat and they had swum and water-skied and dived and eaten and drunk and laughed together, both at one another and with one another. He and Evelyn had amusedly agreed that while the boy was too young to be permanently affected, the holiday had done the girls no moral good at all. The adulation of the French boys had been heady, and lying on rocks like mermaids in scanty bikinis surrounded by admiring young men had predisposed neither of them to a return to school uniform with grey stockings and red cloth skirts and round red hats and flat-heeled shoes. It had unsettled the fourteen-year-old Stephanie more than the seventeen-year-old Teresa, partly because Stephanie, as the better looking and as a dazzling natural blonde, had been the object of the greater admiration. Latin boys automatically fell in love with blondes.

Parties for the young, held in the evenings of the sun-soaked days, were known as Booms. Largely innocent but inevitably with strong sexual undertones, these had led the girls into a new and riotous and Gallic world from which they had emerged with a view of life that would never be the same again.

Would it all have been different, he wondered, if Janet had lived – and stayed? She had always in her rather tired elegant way been the disciplinarian. He felt he had failed as a father, even though to some extent he had succeeded as a companion. It would have been better to bring his daughters up on principles that went beyond the strictures of writing and speaking good grammar. Children didn't always learn by example – they needed precept too.