Quicksand (12 page)

 

 

-- Unanswerable question: am I doing this to spite Matron, or is it
the right thing in view of Roshman's vacillating habits? It's true
he changes his mind more often in a week than Alsop does in a year,
so I'll just have to pray that his first guess was the right one.

 

 

Matron's cheeks were turning scarlet, but he tactfully kept his eyes
averted, addressing Nurse Kirk.

 

 

-- The way I'm going on, they're liable to start accusing me of favouritism
among the patients. One further point. One.

 

 

"Apart from trying to get them to teach her English, has Urchin been
annoying the other patients?"

 

 

"Well, yes," was the reply, to Paul's dismay. "She watches them."

 

 

"What's so bad about that?"

 

 

"I mean she stares at them and tries to copy what they're doing."

 

 

"Because she doesn't know what to do herself?"

 

 

"I suppose so. But I'm not surprised they find it a bit irritating." The
nurse hesitated. "Then, of course, they didn't like the way she behaved
in the washroom this morning."

 

 

"How?"

 

 

"She took off all her clothes and positively scrubbed her private parts.
And it shocked the others. We have several patients who've been brought
up to always use a separate face-towel, and seeing her wipe her whole
body with her face-cloth upset them dreadfully."

 

 

Paul made a mental note to follow up that hint. Obsession with the
cleanliness of the sexual parts could indicate the nature of the
underlying disorder.

 

 

-- If there is one. I think my good resolution is going to hell. Too many
enigmas for my peace of mind.

 

 

"I'd have thought there was a fairly simple solution," he said aloud.
"Let her have a shower, or a tub."

 

 

"But we don't normally do that in the mornings before breakfast," Matron
said with an air of restrained triumph. "I imagine the other patients
would regard this as a special treat, wouldn't they, Sister?"

 

 

"I'm afraid they might," Sister Wells admitted.

 

 

"Sometimes people get my goat," Paul said, his patience running out.
"A person who's exceptionally clean gets called dirty by those around
her. This is ridiculous -- in the strict sense, it's crazy. Just make
your minds up which will cause less trouble, having her wash all over
in public or having her sent for a shower in private, and then let her
get on with it. Now, if that's all, I have work to do, and so have you!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

*14*

 

 

"This is Holinshed," the phone muttered. "Come down to my office, will you?"

 

 

-- Blast the man. As if I didn't have my hands full! My turn for duty
again tonight, and the Operating Committee tomorrow, and I'm drowning
in a sea of papers.

 

 

But Paul remembered to put on his politest face as he tapped at
Holinshed's door.

 

 

"Ah, Fidler! Sit down. You know Inspector Hofford, I believe."

 

 

Raincoat unbelted and dragging on the floor either side of his chair,
the policeman nodded his greeting.

 

 

"Sorry to bother you, Doctor," he said. "It's about this girl Urchin,
of course. Mr Faberdown won't let the matter rest. I've been trying
to work out some means of passing it off lightly, with the help of Dr
Holinshed here. But . . ."

 

 

"Are you going to prefer charges against the girl?"

 

 

"I don't see much alternative," Hofford sighed.

 

 

Holinshed broke in, his voice brittle. "Inspector Hofford is prepared
to co-operate in every possible way, but apparently it's largely up to
us. As I understand it, the tidiest course is to certify the girl unfit
to plead."

 

 

"Except," Hofford murmured, "that when we spoke before, Doctor, you gave
me the impression you thought she might have been . . . ah . . . temporarily
upset by attempted rape, rather than mentally deranged, in which case
the whole affair takes on a different complexion."

 

 

"Is Faberdown sticking to his story?" Paul asked.

 

 

"Like a leech, sir," Hofford grunted. "And I gather you haven't yet
found an interpreter to tell us the girl's side of it, so she's in no
position to contradict him, is she?"

 

 

Paul turned over the alternatives in his mind.

 

 

-- Well, it would certainly be cruel to put her on show in a public
court, which is what I suppose it would come to. But there's something
so dreadfully final about the piece of paper which sets it down in
black and white: so-and-so is clinically insane. It revolts me. Mirza
is right. Even the worst of our patients remains a little bit sane.

 

 

"Inspector, is this very urgent?" he inquired.

 

 

"Of course we'd like to clear the whole business up as quickly as we can,
but . . . well, no, not what you'd call urgent. Mr Faberdown is still in
the hospital himself and certainly won't be out until after the weekend,
and I take it the girl will remain here."

 

 

Holinshed coughed gently. "You sound worried, Fidler. May I know the reason?"

 

 

"Frankly, sir, I wouldn't be prepared to certify her unfit. I honestly
don't think anyone could."

 

 

"But I gather from Matron that she's been behaving in a hr'm! --
disorderly manner in the ward today."

 

 

-- What was I thinking earlier about lunatics making their own version
of truth? Why specify lunatics?

 

 

"The way it was reported to me, sir, she was in fact attacked by another
patient, and the nurse stated she made no attempt to retaliate. Matron
insisted that I sedate her, but I refused."

 

 

-- Oh-oh. I think I just went a step too far.

 

 

A frigid light gleamed in Holinshed's eyes. "If I follow you correctly,
you're implying that she's a miserable victim of circumstances and
the salesman despite his denials is the one who should be arraigned
in court. Now this," he continued, raising a hand to forestall
Paul's indignant interruption, "strikes me as a highly speculative
standpoint. Where are the traces of this attempted rape? I didn't find
them in the admission report. And in any case, according to Inspector
Hofford, this leads to enormous complications."

 

 

"Well, yes," the latter agreed. "To take the worst aspect of the problem,
she's presumably an alien, and once we try to establish what a foreigner
is doing wandering around a Shropshire wood without clothes, let alone
identification, we get mixed up with the immigration authorities, the
Home Office, and lord knows who."

 

 

"Have you checked with Missing Persons?"

 

 

"That's one of the reasons I called here today. I'd like to arrange for
a photograph of her."

 

 

"Well, she's going to Blickham General tomorrow for a head X-ray. They
have an arrangement with a local photographer; I can probably organise
it through them."

 

 

"I'd be much obliged," Hofford said, and made to rise. "I think that's
as far as we can take matters today then, Dr Holinshed," he added.

 

 

"Just a moment," Holinshed put in, eyes on Paul. "Does Dr Alsop share
your view that the girl is actually normal, Fidler?"

 

 

"That's not what I've been saying," Paul snapped. "But it was drummed
into me during training that one should never mistake the result of
different customs or some physical handicap for true mental disorder."

 

 

"And what . .. ah . . . physical handicap applies to this girl?"

 

 

"Matron told you about the rumpus involving her. But apparently she
neglected to mention that she's trying to get the patients and nurses
to teach her English."

 

 

"Seriously?" Hofford brightened. "Well, that's some consolation.
Of course, you don't learn a language in a day, but if she's making
the effort we may eventually get her side of the story. Oh, by the way,
while I think of it! Have you found out what the language is that she
can speak?"

 

 

"If I get time today," Paul said with a meaning glare at Holinshed, "I
shall try and make a tape of her talking, and send it to the philology
department at the university with a sample of some peculiar writing she
did for us. Someone's bound to recognise it."

 

 

"Bound to?" Holinshed echoed. "And suppose she's fabricated an imaginary
language?"

 

 

Paul retained self-control with an effort. "According to a friend of mine
who lectures in languages, it's next to impossible to invent a wholly new
one. Something shows through -- sentence structure, or the roots of the
words. Proof that she's talking an invented form of some natural language
would be the evidence we need to show that she's mentally disturbed."

 

 

-- Thought so; you'd missed that.

 

 

Holinshed gave him a suspicious glance:
are you having me on?
But his
tone was cordial as he gave his blessing to the idea.

 

 

-- Tomorrow you'll be convinced it was your own suggestion in the
first place.

 

 

"If that's all, then, Inspector . . .?" the medical superintendent added.

 

 

"Yes, thank you, sir."

 

 

-- If I ever get good at hospital politics, I think I shall start to
hate myself.

 

 

Paul dropped into his chair and picked up the phone. He dialed.

 

 

"Stores," a voice said.

 

 

"Dr Fidler here. We have a tape-recorder, don't we?"

 

 

"Yes, sir. But Dr Rudge has it at the moment. She's making up a programme
of music for the Saturday dance."

 

 

"Well, she's gone to Birmingham with Dr Roshman. So would you have it
sent up here, please?"

 

 

-- Saturday? Blazes: tomorrow. And my duty, too. The ghastly parody of
a festive occasion. Still, it's at least a gesture towards normality.

 

 

He dialed again, this time the office in Urchin's ward, and gave
instructions for her to be brought up in ten minutes.

 

 

During that time he made cursory preparations for the monthly meeting
of the Operating Committee, due the next day. The committee was a
half-arsed body including senior and junior medical staff, admin staff,
and a representative from the committee in charge of the entire local
hospital group. With the departure of Holinshed they would probably get
around to rationalising the running of Chent and put it under a proper
medical advisory committee. Until that time, however, Holinshed -- like
all the medical superintendents Paul had ever come across -- preferred
to retain his personal power despite being constrained to pay lip-service
to modern organisational methods.

 

 

-- I swear the reason he holds these meetings on Saturdays is to keep them
short. Everybody's always eager to get away.

 

 

Then the door was opening and there was the tape-recorder, but no tape,
because they'd taken off the one on which Natalie was compiling music for
the dance, so he had to send for one, and then Urchin was being brought
in and another slab of work was destined to be held over for this evening.

 

 

-- I shall never get my DPM at this rate.... Oh well: I shall just have
to sit up late tomorrow night, cramming facts into my brain against the
bell in the clock-tower.

 

 

He forced a smile and waved Urchin to a chair.

 

 

"All right, Nurse, no need for you to hang around," he told the girl
who, had escorted Urchin up from the ward. And added with a trace of
bitterness as the door closed, knowing the question would receive no
answer, "I wish to God I could tell, Urchin -- are you crazy or not?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

*15*

 

 

She gave a hesitant sweet smile and murmured, "Pol!" He grinned back.

 

 

-- Done something to herself since I saw her earlier. Looks even more
attractive despite the baggy cotton dress. Oh yes: not so baggy. Got a
belt from somewhere. That'll annoy Matron. Visions of strangulation and
hanging herself in the toilet

 

 

. . . Better start with a sample of her writing, I guess.

 

 

Opening a notepad, he pantomimed the action with a ball-pen. She gave
a curious little twitch of her head which, since it was different from
the quasi-Balkan negative she had used before, presumably implied "yes."

 

 

Taking the pen, she inscribed, rather than wrote, a series of symbols.
He had meant to watch the movement of her hand, but somehow his gaze got
delayed on the way and he found he was studying her face instead. She had
the child's habit of putting her tongue-tip between her teeth when she was
concentrating.

 

 

She showed him the paper, and he realised with a start that she had written
FEMALF WAAD.

 

 

-- Not bad for a person wholly unused to our alphabet, I suppose.
Indicates a good visual memory. But not what I wanted.

 

 

He took the notepad, balled up the sheet she had used, and attempted
to imitate the spiky symbols she had produced on the evening of her
arrival. At first she looked bewildered; after a few seconds, though,
she gave a peal of laughter and reached for the pen again.