The Surgeon's Blade (29 page)

All she could see was Nigel’s grinning face before her as he poured the wine down her throat and then tossed the glass down onto to the table. Libby watched as if in slow motion as the glass toppled over and broke on the wooden table top. Slivers of jagged glass fell onto the floor below.

“Now, my love, I have your first surprise here for you,” he whispered, drawing a package from his jacket pocket. Libby watched helplessly as he undid the jeweller’s box and slid a silver bracelet from the black velvet into his hand. “This is for you, my darling. I’ve had this for some time, and I’ve been waiting for the right moment to give it to you. Isn’t it beautiful? I’ve found the perfect gift for one as precious as you. Now we’ve agreed when you’re to move in, I think this the ideal time.”

“But I’m not—” Powerless and speechless, Libby lay on the sofa as he brushed her skirt above her knees and fixed the bracelet around her ankle. Once in place he sat back to admire his handiwork, a smile on his face. Libby could feel her eyelids drooping, heavy as lead.

“Voila! And now, my darling girl, I believe we need to celebrate in style. I want to show you how much.” His eyes glittered strangely as he scooped her unresisting body up into his arms and carried her into her bedroom. A startled, pale ginger cat flew from the bed and shot out of the door, its hair standing up in spikes and uttering a meow of alarm as Nigel aimed a kick at its departing body. The cat tore down the hall towards the kitchen and hid behind the door.

Libby vaguely realised where she was as Nigel began to slowly undress her, savouring every part of her body that he uncovered. She made one last attempt to make a protest before a penetrating blackness descended on her. Through the darkness, she felt a sharp pain tearing deep within her, and she unwillingly uttered a cry as Nigel entered her savagely. As she felt panic engulfing her, Libby mercifully fell into a deep oblivion of total blackness.

Chapter 40

Jem was half way through his shift when he espied the two policemen entering the emergency room. Despite being in plain clothes, Jem knew a policeman when he saw one. A young student nurse turned her startled eyes towards him as she directed the two officers over towards the nurses’ station.

“Mr Brookes, sir?”

“Yes that’s me. How can I help you, Officers?”

“Do you know a Mr Foster? Peter Foster?”

“Indeed I do. He’s a porter here.”

“Is there anywhere we might have a few words in private, sir?”

Jem indicated the office half way down the corridor and shooed an inquisitive staff nurse from the room. “Please sit down,” he said, wondering what all this was about. The older policeman informed Jem he was a detective inspector. He sat forward in his chair, while the younger constable took out a notebook and pencil. He licked the tip of the graphite while waiting to take notes.

“So, what’s Peter done?” Jem asked, thinking how on earth someone as benign and placid as Peter could have got himself into trouble. “Don’t tell me he’s finally nicked a train up in London. He’s fascinated by all those engines, you know.”

The inspector sat up in his chair. “When was the last time you saw Mr Foster, Mr Brookes?”

Surprised, Jem looked from one policeman to the other. “Yesterday evening, why?”

“Where was that, sir?”

“We met at the pub. You know the one, The Jolly Sailor, down at Hamble village. We stayed chatting for a while, and then he left. We were supposed to be meeting a friend of mine, but he couldn’t make it.”

“And what time would this be?”

“Well, we were there quite late. I suppose Peter left just before last orders. I remember wondering why he left before finishing his pint. It was rather sudden. Anyway, I wandered up to the bar and ordered another pint and the barman told me to—”

“Yes sir?” The constable looked up, a quizzical look on his face.

Jem wondered if he should let on about the time as he didn’t want to get the bar staff in trouble. “Well, actually it was over time, but the bar man let me have another as long as I drank it quick. They’d been pretty quiet all evening, and I guess the takings were low.”

“I see. Go on.”

“Well, there’s nothing much else to say. We met, had a chat, and Peter left just before closing time. I was about ten or fifteen minutes after.”

“Did you speak to anyone else in the pub? Do you go there regularly?”

“Pretty regularly, a few times a month I suppose, especially if I’ve been out sailing on someone’s boat. I don’t know about anyone else in the pub. I might have said 'hello' to one or two that I recognised. Can you please tell me what this is all about? What’s Peter done?”

When the two policemen looked from one to the other, Jem felt a shock pass through him.

“Is he all right?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but we have to inform you that Mr Foster is dead.”

Jem felt the blood drain from his face at the policeman’s words. Shocked, he looked from one to the other. “Dead? How? When? Oh my God!”

“Mr Foster was found late this morning. His body was discovered by a walker and his dog on the lower shores of Warsash, near where the River Hamble enters the Solent. We need to establish where he was before he entered the water. We believe you might be the last person to have seen him alive.”

“Well, it was high tide at about eleven last night. If he fell in after leaving the pub, then the current must have carried him down the river. On the shore you say?” Jem found his heart was pounding with the appalling news. Peter dead!

“Yes, the marshy bit past where the ferry is.”

“I suppose it’s possible he fell in near the marina. But why he was near the water, I can’t say.”

“Can you tell us what sort of mood he was in last night? Had he had much to drink? We’ll be checking with the pub later, of course.”

“Yes, of course. Well no, he only had part of his pint, as I said earlier. Mood? He seemed a bit nervous, agitated almost. Look, I don’t know what you’ve been told about Peter, but he was a nice guy; quiet and respectable and kept himself to himself. He actually suffered from Asperger’s Syndrome and preferred his own company. He was an enthusiastic railway buff, and the only other hobby of his was stage make-up. He belonged to a local amateur drama group.”

“Which one, sir?”

“Sorry, I don’t know. I think I’d better tell you why we met last night.” Jem looked towards the office door to check that it was closed.

The two officers exchanged glances again and the constable shuffled in his seat as he leaned forward to catch Jem’s words.

“It’s to do with the attacks on the nurses here. Peter reckoned that he might have seen someone acting suspiciously when the second nurse was attacked.”

The two policemen raised their eyebrows with interest. “Go on.”

“I think it was just a hunch, but he seemed quite positive at the time. Apparently, Peter called back into work that evening, something about picking up a magazine he’d left behind. He knows all the shortcuts around the place, and he noticed this guy, a doctor, hanging around an area that’s usually deserted at that time of night. Peter has an uncanny habit of remembering almost everything in minute detail, and he said this doctor was actually wearing a wig and stage make-up. But good stage make-up, he said. He indicated that the guy knew what he was doing when he made his face up.”

“Interesting, and did he say what this ‘doctor’ looked like? Any distinguishing features?”

“Nothing more than the nurse has already given you: short dark hair and a thin body of medium height. No, the point I’m making – in fact what Peter was making – is that the attacker was definitely disguising his face.”

“I see. Anything else?”

“Yes.” Jem looked troubled before carrying on with his explanation. “Peter said he was worried that the attacker was targeting nurses who were blonde.”

“How did he make that assumption then?”

“I’m not sure.” Jem paused and then sighed. “Look, if you must know, there’s a sister here who Peter reckoned looks a bit like the nurse who was attacked. Peter, being as he is – was – took it into his head to go and visit this sister with the thought of warning her. The sister, who’s called Libby, caught him loitering outside her house, and she was a bit startled. A mutual friend suggested he and I should speak to Peter, quiet like, and ask him what he thought he was doing. That’s all.”

“And this mutual friend, what’s his name then?”

“Robert. He’s the other friend who was supposed to meet me and Peter in the pub.”

“Aha. So Mr Foster, Peter, was nervous because of what he’d been doing? Stalking this Sister Libby or whatever her name is.”

Jem thought for a moment. Was that right? “I’m not sure,” he said, pausing as that evening in the pub went through his mind. “He was a bit agitated at first, and then he seemed to settle down. We were chatting, and then he suddenly stopped. He was looking out of the pub window one minute, then stopped what he was saying and announced that he had to be somewhere else and couldn’t wait to meet Robert.”

“So did he know Robert or not?”

“No.”

“And it was this Robert who failed to turn up. Do you know why?”

“No, I’m sorry. He telephoned me a few minutes after Peter had left to say he’d been held up somewhere.”

“This gets more and more interesting. I think we need to get in touch with Robert. Do you have a contact number?”

Jem looked troubled as he got out his mobile and searched the address book for the number. Something wasn’t right, and he didn’t just mean Peter’s death. He felt that this was going to be a very long day, and by the look of things, the police hadn’t finished with him yet.

Chapter 41

Taking advantage of her daughter’s nap, Diana was relaxing in Robert’s garden with a cup of tea and idling with pad and pencil. Ten months had elapsed since she had finished writing her last book,
Children of the Plantation,
and for the first time since then, she felt the urge to write another novel.

It the truth be known, she was feeling a bit puzzled over her cousin’s behaviour. She knew Robert had been devastated when Morwenna and baby Carole were found dead at the bottom of the cliff, and it had taken years before he could bring himself to talk about it. Ever since she had been staying with him, she was pleased to find he was coping and finally coming to terms with his loss. The arrival of Libby on the scene seemed to have fanned the fires towards the possibility of a romance too.