Bloodstains Read online

  ‘No, I haven’t heard anything.’ There was a pause, and his eyes opened almost comically.

  ‘My God! Do the police have any… Disappeared? … Well, it sounds open and shut… yes, he’s here now… Yes, Sir Edward.’

  Like a man in a dream he replaced the receiver and turned to me.

  ‘The most extraordinary development. One of the lab staff was found dead this morning in the Tamar Centre.’

  ‘Accident?’

  ‘No, the traditional blunt instrument by all appearances.’

  ‘Who’s disappeared?’

  ‘The night orderly. The cleaners found the place deserted this morning, lights on, but nobody there.’

  ‘Do you think it’s connected?’

  ‘Got to be, hasn’t it?’

  I nodded slowly, ‘Well, it certainly changes things. I can’t go now.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The police won’t tolerate an outsider snooping around the scene of a murder.’

  ‘Leave that to me,’ he said. ‘They’ll have to tolerate it.’

  I met his eyes for a moment, and not for the first time wondered about the power he wielded; it always seemed to be more than his position warranted.

  That got me thinking about the power he had over me, the way he had manoeuvred me into taking the job, and something inside woke up and began gnawing again. I settled into a hidden misery and tried to listen to what he had to say.

  The bar was already crowded as I eased my way to the front.

  ‘Evening Tom, a pint?’

  ‘Please.’ I drank it and went on thinking about the job. There was no one I could talk to, the few close friends I had lived out of London now — refugees or exiles, depending on your point of view.

  Another pint. Would the sight of blood really still have the power to terrify me? Oh yes. Was there anything in what Marcus had said, was this my chance to break loose? Easy for Marcus to talk, he didn’t know the story…

  “Evenin’ Tom, long time no see.’

  I looked up to see one of the pub regulars. ‘Oh, hello, Mike.’

  ‘What’s yours then, a pint?’

  ‘No, I won’t thanks. Just going.’

  I turned and left, regretting the refusal of simple friendship, but my thoughts had taken hold of me.

  Another pub, another drink, and the story, the one Marcus didn’t know. Perhaps I should have told him.

  My brother Francis was born when I was four. Memory is a strange thing, so much of it is imagination, so much of it hearsay, but I do remember the euphoria when he arrived, euphoria that I shared.

  ‘This is your little brother, Tommy, touch him, give him a kiss. Would you liked to hold him, Tommy?’

  I loved him with all my heart.

  ‘You must look after him, Tommy, always. He’s your brother, he’s special.’

  I loved him and tried to share my toys with him.

  Don’t do that, Tom, be careful, you must be careful with him.’ The anxiety had crept in now.

  I tried to show him my favourite games.

  Don’t do that, Tom, don’t! Mum screaming and snatching him away.

  I couldn’t understand. Why couldn’t I play with him like the other kids played with their brothers? And why did he get all the attention?

  I began to resent him and looked for opportunities to play roughly with him when Mum and Dad weren’t looking.

  ‘Tom!’ That frenzied scream again. Dad, stop him!’

  ‘How many times do we have to tell you, Tom?’ Dad, his voice scarred with fear and anger, his hand reaching for his belt.

  And then came the day when I hit him, my darling brother, I punched him on the nose when he was trying to take my best toy. He knew that he could get away with it, knew that he was the favourite and that I had to obey his every whim. The look in his eye as he snatched told me that he knew, knew ultimately, I would have to give in.

  And so, I hit him, on the nose with my fist. It bled, and he screamed.

  It bled and bled and wouldn’t stop although I pressed my handkerchief to it, then Mum came and screamed too, and Frank was taken to hospital.

  Dad thrashed me, but later said he was sorry. That was when the doctor was with him, coaxing him to explain to me.

  That was how the new word was added to my vocabulary.

  Haemophilia.

  Chapter Two

  With barely a lurch or squeal, the 125 slid aseptically out of Paddington and gathered speed through the grass-strewn yards and factories that lined the track. There isn’t much to look at between London and Reading, so I settled with a paper and tried not to think about the job waiting for me.

  After Reading, the cotton belt becomes a bit more interesting, so I let my attention graze on it. Why, I asked myself again, didn’t I follow my friends into the green hills and photosynthesize with them; they suggested it often enough…

  But they’d been happy cabbages anyway, no, my place was in London, I’d hide awhile yet in the shadows.

  Without my realizing it, the velvet train lulled me into sleep; I was dimly aware as we stopped at stations and didn’t begin to re-emerge until we were skirting the sea and the spearheads of light from the wave-tops pricked me into consciousness. Then a strident loudspeaker was calling Tamar! Tamar! and we had arrived.

  I stepped from darkened train to dim station corridors, had my ticket punched by a flinty-eyed collector, then, without warning, stumbled into brilliant sunshine that blazed from car windows and splashed from every street corner like a lighted stage.

  I stopped for a moment while my eyes adjusted, then looked at my watch. Not quite midday, good, time to find a taxi, drop my bags at the hotel and visit the local nick before reporting for duty at the Transfusion Centre.

  The familiar blue lamp over the arched doorway of the police station grinned wryly back at me, then, true to form, I was kept waiting for about fifteen minutes among the posters of wanted men and missing children before a uniformed constable beckoned and led me to a bare cramped office. Behind a crudely veneered desk sat a small man with wiry hair and a thin, lined face. Not a tired face, though; the eyes were bright and fast-moving like a weasel’s.

  ‘Bennett,’ he said, leaning over and perfunctorily shaking my hand. ‘Sergeant Bennett.’

  The weasel analogy wasn’t far wrong, he went for my jugular the moment we were alone.

  ‘This whole business stinks.’ He fixed me with his eyes. Last week I could’ve sent you packing, but now someone’s been pulling strings, haven’t they?’

  My sympathies were with him, but I couldn’t let him see that yet.

  ‘Is that the view of your Superintendent, or just your own?’

  ‘We all feel the same way.’

  ‘So far as you’re concerned, I’m just a member of the public with whom you’ve been asked to cooperate because our jobs overlap, you don’t even—’

  ‘It doesn’t overlap, it interferes.’

  I said mildly, ‘Whether it interferes or not is up to you.’

  There was a moment of silence, a sort of armed neutrality while we appraised each other afresh.

  I said, ‘I was in the Met for over ten years myself, so I know how you feel.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yes. The strings have got me tied as well, I had no choice about taking this job.’

  ‘Are you saying you don’t like it?’

  ‘Not much.’

  He grunted. ‘Well, perhaps I was a bit hasty, but imagine how you’d’ve felt in my place.’

  ‘I know.’ Now that he had calmed down, I could hear the pleasant West of England burr in his voice. ‘But perhaps we could help each other.’

  ‘How?’ He demanded bluntly.

  ‘Haven’t you considered that the two cases might he connected?’

  ‘Sure, we’ve considered it, but just now we’ve got to catch the killer, we can look at the why’s and wherefore’s after.’

  ‘You’ll need a motive, this could be it.’

/>   ‘It’ll all come out when we catch him.’

  We were getting nowhere. I said, ‘D’you think I could see the reports on what you’ve found so far?’

  He stood up and unlocked a grey filing cabinet and extracted a folder, then, to my relief, read from a brief and succinct report.

  ‘The emergency call was received from the Transfusion Centre at 08:26 hours Monday 10th June and the nearest Panda car was on the scene in five minutes. I arrived ten minutes later. In the Blood Bank we found the body of Michael Edward Leigh, a Senior Scientific Officer at the Centre. The body was lying outstretched on the floor and had bled considerably from a head wound. A large spanner lay beside it.’

  I closed my mind to this image.

  ‘The pathologist has told us that he was hit from behind very hard, probably just outside the Blood Bank and then dragged into it. The spanner matched the head wound.’

  ‘Time of death?’

  ‘I was just coming to that,’ he said testily, and after a pause continued: ‘The temperature of the body had been lowered to 4°C, the temperature of the Blood Bank, and this had the effect of slowing down rigor mortis, not increasing it as you might think. The best estimate is sometime between 2300 and 0200 hours.’

  ‘That’s a hell of a leeway!’

  ‘Just so, but it’s the best we can do.’

  ‘What about the night orderly who’s gone missing?’

  ‘Why don’t you just let me tell this in my own way?’

  ‘Sorry, my mind was jumping ahead.’

  He looked down at the file and deliberately turned a page before continuing.

  ‘There are three orderlies working three shifts. I say shifts, but our man, John Hill, was permanently on from midnight to 0800, although the other two swap around.’

  ‘Anyway, the bloke on the previous shift says that Hill took over at midnight as usual, and that’s the last anyone’s seen of him. The place was empty when the next bloke came in at 08:00.’

  ‘Except for the body.’

  ‘Just so. He was having a look-round for Hill and didn’t try the Blood Bank until 08:10 or thereabouts.’

  ‘But you didn’t get the call until — what? 08:26.’

  ‘No. He called the Director of the Centre, Dr Falkenham, first.’

  ‘Why did he do that?’

  ‘Apparently, Dr Falkenham is held in great respect,’ said Bennett drily. ‘As you will find out.’

  ‘And you’ve heard nothing of Hill since?’

  ‘Not a whisper. We’ve searched his digs, questioned his landlady and everyone who knows him — nothing. He’s just vanished.’

  ‘No leads at all?’

  ‘His bike’s missing, if you can call that a lead. He always used it to go to work.’

  ‘Supposing my boss is right, and blood has been pinched from the Centre, Hill would have been in a good position to do the pinching, wouldn’t he? And then suppose he was caught by this Senior Scientific bloke… what was his name?’

  ‘Leigh, and we worked that one out as soon as your guv’nor ’phoned, which is why we told him that we didn’t need you down here—’

  ‘So, you think Hill is still alive,’ I said quickly to change the subject.

  ‘Oh, he’s alive all right and we’ll catch him in a day or two. It’s one thing to lie low for a few days, but then you begin to need food and clothes and so on. We’ll find him.’

  ‘What would Leigh have been doing in the Centre so late?’

  ‘He was on call.’

  ‘I see. So, what do you think happened?’

  He leaned forward eagerly, a weasel on the scent now. It all fell into place when your boss phoned. Hill walks out of the Bank with blood he’s got no business with and bumps into Leigh. Leigh asks him what he’s playing at, and instead of saying ‘Ha ha! Silly me! like you and me would have have done, he comes out with a load of balls. Leigh says he’s going to report it, and walks away, Hill picks up the spanner and belts him. Silly bugger, if he’d kept his nerve he could’ve bluffed it out, stead of which, he’s facing a murder charge. Still, that’s the way most murders happen.’

  I nodded in agreement. That’s one way it could have happened—’

  ‘What d’you mean, one way?’

  ‘Well, Hill could have found Leigh already dead—’

  ‘And then run away? Anyway—’ he leaned forward — why was the murder weapon covered in his fingerprints?’

  ‘You hadn’t told me that.'

  ‘No. Well, it doesn’t have much bearing on your job, does it?’

  ‘Perhaps not.’ It was time to stop while I was ahead. Well, I’d better be off to the Centre. I’ll be in touch if I find anything useful.’

  ‘Fine,’ he said unenthusiastically, the moment of camaraderie gone now. I thanked him for his help and went to look for a taxi.

  My heart was beating in earnest now with a steady thump-thump-thump so that I didn’t notice anything about the town as the taxi slid through it. I remember only the white fortress-like block of the hospital, approached by a raw new road that wound up towards it through rows of tied-saplings, and grass that was too neat.

  The Transfusion Centre lay behind the main block, in the ground floor of a similar but smaller satellite connected by a double-decker corridor of darkened glass, metal and concrete.

  I waited among the profusion of plants in the bright reception area, my misery increased by the apparition of Noel Edmonds beaming down, assuring me that it didn’t hurt and might save a life. Garish booklets entitled Eleven good things that come out of blood grinned at me from every available space, and I’d had enough when at last a secretary came and guided me through furlongs of corridor to the Director’s office.

  He stood up as I walked in and held a handout over his desk, but made no attempt to smile.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Jones, please sit down.’

  He was the first man I remember seeing who was even balder than Marcus, there wasn’t a single hair on the shining dome of his head. But looking more closely you could see that this was intentional, the top of his skull with its brown spots of age contrasted with the pale velvet of the sides where he shaved them. His face was smooth and pale grey eyes swept over me from above a predatory nose.

  ‘I’m Dr Falkenham, Director of this Centre, as I’m sure you already know.’ His voice was harsh, almost gravelly. ‘And this is Dr Chalgrove, who is Deputy Director, and also runs our Plasma Fractionation Laboratory.’

  The other, whom I hadn’t noticed, smiled as he leaned forward to offer his hand, but gave no more feeling of warmth than had Falkenham. It wasn’t that he didn’t use his eyes, you simply couldn’t tell, for the irises were so dark and brown as to be indistinguishable from the pupils behind the tinted lenses of his spectacles. The shallow face and greying hair might have belonged to a man of forty, or of any age for that matter — he was hidden behind his features.

  ‘Dr Chalgrove is here,’ continued the Director, ‘because I wish him to be a party to this discussion and to be involved in your assignment,’ I started to speak but he overrode me. I have already given him all the details, so that he can start from the same point as ourselves.’

  This couldn’t have been worse. I took a breath.

  ‘Dr Falkenham, with respect, I was told that you had been asked to keep the nature of my job a secret—’

  ‘I was asked, yes, and after reflection decided not to comply with the request. Not only would it have been discourteous to Dr Chalgrove, it would have made working arrangements more difficult.’

  ‘It is a matter of courtesy that my Department requests rather than instructs,’ I said, aping his manner. It would have helped if you—’

  ‘Young man, you listen to me.’ He didn’t even raise his voice as he reached into his pocket and brought out a packet of cigarettes, placed one between his lips, and lit it with a gold lighter. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to interrupt him.

  ‘I have been a Director of Blood Transfusion for more than
thirty years and never have I had such an imposition placed on me.’ He blew out a long cloud of smoke, and from the edge of my eye, I saw an expression of intense disgust pass over Chalgrove’s face. ‘I accepted it under duress, and was astonished when your Department decided to persist with it after the killing of one of my staff. Again, I have been forced to accept, but I will not be dictated to, to the extent of withholding my confidence from my Deputy Director. Is that understood?’

  ‘I understand your reasons, yes. Have you told anyone else?’

  ‘I have not.’

  ‘Good. Perhaps we could proceed; the sooner I can get on, the sooner can the imposition be removed.’ His face remained expressionless. ‘Now I believe the real work study officer was going to look at the whole Centre. It would save time if I pretend that my brief is with the computer aspects of work study only and stick to the relevant areas.’

  ‘That has already been arranged; you’ve been assigned to the laboratories and the blood banking and issue departments. Can you tell us how long you expect to be here?’

  ‘No idea, I’m afraid,’ I said maliciously.

  ‘Well, perhaps you’ll keep me informed daily of your progress. And now,’ he continued briskly, ‘I think it would be best if Dr Chalgrove introduced you to the people with whom you’ll be working.’ He leaned back as a sign that the interview was over, and Chalgrove began to get to his feet.

  ‘If you could give me a few more moments, Dr Falkenhem,’ I said, not moving, ‘I’d like to ask a couple of questions.’

  ‘Very well,’ he said tonelessly and Chalgrove sat down again.

  ‘What kind of people were Leigh and Hill?’

  That question would be better put to the laboratory manager, to whom Dr Chalgrove was about to introduce you.’

  ‘But I can’t ask him those sorts of questions without arousing his suspicion.’

  Falkenhem compressed his lips. ‘Very well,’ he said again. He thought for a moment. ‘Mike Leigh was a good technologist, conscientious and respected by his colleagues. Would you agree with that, Don?’ He asked Chalgrove.

  ‘I should say so, although I didn’t have much to do with him.’ Chalgrove’s voice had a light, pleasant flavour.