Unknown (12 page)

"No, I haven't." She didn't meet his eye.

"Is it anything I've done?"

"I've been rather busy lately, that's all."

"If there was something, you'd tell me, wouldn't you?" He leaned forward, trying to see her face.

"I've told you, there's nothing. You're imagining things."

In spite of her determination to remain normal her voice rose.

"All right, Duchess, if you say so." He still sounded doubtful. "But you're under some kind of tension. I just thought there might be something I could do to help."

"You're the last person"- She bit her lip.

He flinched as though she had struck him.

"I'm sorry, Jim. I didn't mean that."

"Then there is something wrong?" he said quietly.

"Nothing that time won't solve." She pulled a face. "Time - and a change of location."

"It's Dayborough, isn't it? He really bugs you."

"Dayborough - and other things."

"What other things? For Pete's sake, Lesley." He caught her arm and forced her to stop and turn round. "Sometimes I could shake you. Can't you see I'm half out of my wits with worry about you?" In a moment or two he would be really angry.

"No other things." She was almost crying. "I'm tired. I just want to be left alone."

He let go her arm as suddenly as he had grasped it. "I'm sorry." His voice was strained.

"You know perfectly well I can't stand folk who go around weeping on other people's shoulders." She sniffed into the handerkerchief he now offered her, but when he made to put his arm round her, she drew back.

"I'm sorry, Duchess," he repeated.

"No good comes of wallowing in self-pity," she said huskily. "Nothing's changed by letting your hair down. You've still got to live with it afterwards."

"So there is a problem. I thought it used to help when we shared them." There was a note in his voice which she didn't want to hear.

"Some things can't be shared." She said it with an air of finality. "They have to be weathered alone."

"Why don't you try me and see?" It was most unlike him to be so insistent. "It always used to help in the past, didn't it?" He was openly pleading with her now.

"Just leave me alone," she said desperately. "Can't you see?

Today's not yesterday. Things change." She shook off his hand. "I just want you to leave me alone."

He recoiled. "I see." He was obviously hurt. "If that's how you want it."

"That's how I want it."

She watched him go slowly across the courtyard to the Staff Block. Half way over he took a side swipe with his foot at a stone. Apart from that he didn't look round.

Friendship was such a fragile thing, she thought sadly. It couldn't go on taking knocks like that. The last thing she wanted to do was to hurt Jim, but what else could she do? How could she let him suspect the trap into which he'd unwittingly led her?

It had been touch and go. She had nearly given way. Only by being brusque had she managed to keep control. Why hadn't she just told him? It would have been simpler like that.

She wasn't quite sure of the whole answer to that. It had something to do with knowing Jim. He would blow his top. There would be a scene, and that might precipitate the very crisis she was doing her best to avoid.

Too much was hanging in the balance. Harry Dayborough was unlikely not to follow through with his threats.

She walked disconsolately towards the test room.

Some hours later she brushed the hair wearily out of her eyes, took the sample from the test tube rack, studied it closely and wrote down the result. She no longer wondered when she would get through. It was enough just to keep going.

She put the last tube back in its place and began to plot the graph of the test meal's results.

The swing doors flapped open and shut. There was a waft of distinctive tobacco smoke. She didn't need to turn round to know that Dayborough had come into the room.

"Where are those ruddy O.P. records? About time they were done."

"I've only got one pair of hands." Weariness made her voice snap.

"And don't get any funny ideas, my lady." He laughed as though he could read her thoughts. "What I said still goes."

"I've been thinking about that." She straightened on the lab stool. "What's to stop me going to the Super about this?"

"I shouldn't try any heroics if I were you. That kind of stunt is liable to backfire."

"I mean the Medical Superintendent, not Sir Charles."

"I don't give a tinker's cuss if you mean the Secretary of State for Scotland. It would all boil down to the same thing in the end - and you know what that is. A word in the wrong ear and your boy-friend's
kaput"
He made a slashing gesture with the edge of his hand.

"You don't care what happens to either of us," she said bleakly.

"No. But you do," he said softly. "Somehow I don't think you'll be blowing any gaffs."

"What have either of us got to lose by calling your bluff? If I hadn't been running scared for Jim, I'd have seen through it long ago. You've got nothing to gain by discrediting him with the Chief. It's in your own interest not to split. You'd only lose your fag labour. Anyway, I've had enough. I'm going to the Super." She got up off the stool.

He leaned an elbow on the work bench and brought his face insolently close to hers. "And what precisely do you think you'll tell him? That young Graham's been fiddling the records?"

"There's no disgrace in sending a few bloods to the lab," she argued indignantly. "Their results are often more consistent than ours anyway."

"You could always try putting it that way to the Chief. Mind you, it won't do your boy-friend's career any good."

"He's not my boy-friend." She was getting irritated now.

"You could have fooled me," he said softly.

She turned to face him. "Jim's been a good friend," she said quietly. "He did this to help me. If you harm him through me, I'll -"

"You'll what? he sneered. "Why, you're even greener than I thought you were." He threw down a handful of laboratory pink slips.

"You've shown me those before," she said wearily. "The threat's beginning to wear thin. So he sent a few bloods to the lab for me. It's not a crime." Perhaps she should have told Jim. If he made a clean breast of it to the Chief - Sir Charles was human, after all. He would respect a man who admitted to it. Then she would be free of this intolerable blackmail.

"I shouldn't try to be smart," he interrupted her reverie. "Take a closer look at them."

She picked them up and ruffled through them. Each bore Jim's signature and requested routine blood examinations. All had been crumpled as though retrieved from the waste paper basket. She smoothed one out with her fingertips. "Ward Three?" She was bemused. "But I thought -"

"That's right, my sweet. All from Ward Three." He snatched them away from her as she was about to tear them up. "That would be pointless." His mouth twisted in amusement. "There are plenty more where these came from - all carefully preserved." He patted his breast pocket.

"But why?" she asked in bewilderment.

"Why does he send them, or why are they so carefully preserved? No doubt your guess on both counts is as surefooted as mine."

"He sends them
all
to the lab?" It was taking a long time to sink in.

"Every last one of them."

"And it wasn't what you said before - I mean that he'd done it just that once?"

"Perhaps it makes a difference that he didn't do it just for you? The knight in shining armour is a little tarnished now?"

Lesley was silent. It was the one thing on which everyone seemed agreed about her - the romantic idealist who'd been shielded from reality. She couldn't for the life of her see how the idea had arisen. It just showed how little anybody ever knew about anyone else.

"Don't be silly," she said stiffly. "How could it possibly make any difference ?" (Except to make things worse, she added to herself.) "But, if it comes to that -" (it was more important than ever now to put a stop to this man's power over her) "- there are cards which I too could play. How would it look, for example, if I were to tell the Chief that a senior
was
called the night Miss Twill was admitted in coma?"

He brought his face still closer to hers and lowered his voice. "That would be most unwise," he replied.

"Mrs. Frazer was with me when I knocked on your door."

"So now we're going to subpoena the domestic staff. That
will
look good in the annals of the hospital." He paused. "Of course, it will also appear odd that you've said nothing about it till now."

She forced herself to go on holding his gaze. "I warn you, if you try to engineer Jim's disparagement through this, I'll not hesitate to report that you didn't come when called."

He removed his elbow from the work bench and stood up. In the silence she heard the faint whirring of the wall clock. When he spoke his words were sweetly reasonable. She had never before seen him so straightforwardly serious.

"You should know by this time that you can't fight the establishment. The powers-that-be might secretly sympathise with you. They might even deplore that barbarian, Dayborough. Nevertheless, when it came to the bit, they'd close the ranks. They always do." The smile had completely disappeared by now. "Nothing would be changed - except that you'd be suspect, one of that dangerous breed which thinks it can challenge the system.

"Make no mistake about it, Miss Leigh. I'm right. If you decide to talk, all that will happen is that neither you nor Graham will ever be heard of again. The aura of having instigated a hospital enquiry, however innocently, will stick with you long after the specific details of the case have been forgotten. It will rear its ugly head every time one or other of you goes after a job. Nothing will ever be said at the interview - just the odd, knowing look exchanged between members of the appointments board. 'There was that unpleasant business at Fenham - something about reporting a senior registrar. Awkward customer.' Then the nod of dismissal. 'That will be all, Miss Leigh. You'll be hearing from us in due course.' All you'll ever get is a duplicated note of regret sent out to unsuccessful candidates after the post has been filled by someone else." He paused again. "That might not be so important for a member of your sex. You can always opt out by getting married. But it could have disastrous effects on Jim Graham. Just the hint of suspicion that he's not quite straight - and bang goes his prospect of further promotion." The tone was so grave that anyone overhearing it might have been forgiven for assuming that the warning was all for their own good.

"Wouldn't it have been fairer in the circumstances to have warned Jim?" But she knew it was a lost cause.

"Don't be so naive, Miss Leigh, please." He was being heavily patient. "I should have thought you of all people would know by now that there's to be no second chance on this mountain."

"You
are
a barbarian." She tried despising him, but it didn't help.

"Go ahead, my dear. Get it out of your system. Names won't hurt me - and when you're finished, there will still be that backlog of work to get through."

He pulled out her stool and drew forward the record sheets. With exaggerated care he placed the ballpoint beside them. "Residents are expendable. Don't ever forget that."

"And registrars aren't?"

"Not all of them." He stood back and watched it sink in.

She nodded to herself. It was the answer she should have expected. "I was forgetting," she said bitterly, "about the old obligation. That's the real reason you're so confident about the result of a showdown. Sir Charles owes you too much." It might help a little afterwards to know why that was the precise moment when her resolution to expose him caved in.

"That's right. Now be a good girl." He indicated the stool. "There's still a great deal for you to do before morning."

"I
want
to know what you mean by going two nights without sleep." Sir Charles sounded jocular, but the eyes which regarded Lesley were kind and a little concerned. "Things are coming to a pretty pass, I must say, when I get upbraided in my own ward by patients - 'ganging up on me', I believe the expression was" - he turned to Mrs. Brent for confirmation - "for working my resident too hard."

Lesley was aghast. Whatever had they said to him? She had been out of the ward for only a few minutes to take an emergency telephone call.

"It was time somebody did something about it." Mrs. Brent looked defiant. "We figured that if we didn't, nobody else would."

Sister Bishop was clearly outraged that such irregularity should occur in her ward. She stepped forward to chide the woman.

"No, no, please don't stop them, Sister." He put a hand on her arm. "I want to hear this. Perhaps it's time I did learn a bit more about what goes on in my absence."

Mrs. Brent took a deep breath. "Well, the doctor was here when we went to sleep last night, and she was the first person I clapped eyes on when I woke up this morning."

The women in surrounding beds nodded or murmured agreement. It was obviously something they'd already discussed. There was every evidence of a prearranged plan to speak to the Chief.

"We were receiving last night." Lesley looked at him apologetically.

"Still, it's not right." Mrs. Brent was emphatic. "Me and Miss Robertson, we've been keeping count." She fumbled in her locker and came up with a well-thumbed piece of paper. "We reckon she puts in a hundred-hour week. I was telling
our Tom. It just wouldn't be stood for in a factory or docks. 'Go to the top', was what he said. 'No use dealing with them underneath'." Her eyes rested for a second on Harry Dayborough, who was in the Chief's procession this morning. "That's why we decided to speak to yourself, Professor."

"People think doctors is well paid." Mrs. Maconachie piped up. "Not for the hours they have to keep."

"Losing those nice rosy cheeks she used to have." This time it was Miss Twill.

By now Lesley was convinced they had never been rosier.