Blame The Dead

We waited. Kari said in a carefully hushed voice, 'Perhaps we should have telephoned."

'I doubt it. They'd just have told us not to come at any time yet.'

It was another five minutes before Dr Rasmussen came in. He must have been about fifty, but very fit with it: deep-chested and solid-shouldered, with a bouncy gait and a rich tan on his knobbly face. He wore a short-sleeved white coat showing thick forearms covered with fine blond hairs, though the top of his head was a careful arrangement of thin grey.

This time we shook hands. He said, 'I am sorry you have come all this way for nothing. If you had rung up, I could have told you.'

'I wouldn't say it was for nothing, Doctor. At least we've established that Engineer Nygaard is still alive. I suppose he still is?'

He looked briefly startled, then laughed jovially. 'Of course. Did you really come all this way to prove that?'

'Maybe. When an elderly man in not very good health suddenly vanishes without telling somebody who's been helping look after him-' I waved a hand at Kari '-or his ex-employer, who's paying his pension, the least anybody can do is get a bit worried. There's an obvious chance that he's fallen into the harbour or frozen to death sleeping it off under a bush in the park.'

'I understand. Naturally a man in his state is rather careless about leaving messages. I must see that he writes letters to everybody who is concerned with him.'

'It runs to quite a number by now. You did know he was a star witness in a big court case? '

Kari was looking at me with a slightly schoolmarmish frown.

Rasmussen just nodded. 'He did tell me something. One does not know what to believe with such cases.' He turned to Kari. 'You were very clever to find him here, Froken Skagen. Or did he remember enough to leave a message with somebody?'

I said quickly, 'We were very clever. Can we have just a quick word with him so that I can tell my superiors in London that he is still alive and… as well as can be expected?'

The grin was gone now. 'We allow no visitors in the morning, Herr Card. And for Herr Nygaard, at his stage of treatment, we allow no visitors at all. You must understand that.'

'What stage is he at by now? '

'I cannot discuss a patient's symptoms, of course.'

'Good for you, Doctor. But I've also got the shreds of professional ethics. You don't discuss a patient. I don't tell anybody he's still alive unless I've seen him.'

I started buttoning my coat.

His big, muscular face was twitching with indecision. Finally he said, 'Wait, please,' did an about-turn, and strode out.

Kari whispered, 'What is happening?'

I shrugged, but I unbuttoned my coat again and sat down.

After a few minutes Rasmussen came back. He looked calm but serious. 'You may see him for a moment only. To reassure yourself. After that I hope you will leave me to complete the cure in peace.'

We followed him out into the hall and up a flight of broad, shallow stairs, with a big window at the turn. Even that was covered with a heavy wire mesh.

'Do many of them try to jump?' I asked cheerfully.

'Not from here. That comes later,' he said soberly. 'It is still about seven per cent that succeed.'

Kari was looking puzzled. 'Seven per cent? Of what? '

Rasmussen said, 'Cured male alcoholics who commit suicide – whosucceed, not just who try. We can – often – take away the drinking. We cannot put back what he has drunk away. A marriage, a family, a fortune, sometimes.'

Kari frowned. Rasmussen added, 'But, of course, some say an alcoholic is trying to commit suicide, subconsciously, by his drinking. So perhaps I meet only those who have suicidal tendencies already.'

I said, 'Perhaps you're saving ninety-three per cent rather than losing seven, you mean? Pretty good, that.'

He gave me a disapproving glance. 'You are forgetting those who fail to be cured.'

'Ah, yes.'

The corridor was broad and well lit and empty of furniture except for a couple of the metal tea-trolleys that you see carrying drugs and stuff around in hospitals. And the doors weren't the original ones. These were painted in nice bright colours, but it didn't hide their blank solidity, the heavy lock, the central port-hole at eye level.

Rasmussen peered in through one, then motioned me up to take a look.

Nygaard was lying in the bed, on his back with his mouth open, apparently asleep. Around him was a room such as you'd expect in a private sanatorium: walls freshly painted a gloss primrose, a heavy wooden wardrobe and cupboard, soft chair for visitors, a water-bottle, mug, and flower vase all in plastic. No glass for Dr Rasmussen's patients. No seven per cent while in his care.

I nodded, and let Kari take a look. While she was doing so, I leaned inconspicuously on the door-handle. It moved, all right.

Rasmussen asked, 'Are you satisfied now?'

Kari looked at me. 'It is him.'

I nodded. 'I agree. Thank you, Doctor.' He looked momentarily surprised, then led the way back to the stairs.

Then somebody screamed again – the same long, shaking screech that went through your head like a file across your teeth.

Rasmussen stopped, listened briefly, and shouted, 'Trond!'

Big feet clattered on the hallway below and a vast man in a short-sleeved white jacket came around the bottom of the stairs and pounded up towards us. He was built like Hermann Goring, with much the same bloated frog face, but he was fast on his feet and barely puffing when he reached the top. Mind, he was only in his middle thirties, I'd guess, so maybe most of his shape was hereditary.

The scream reached out again and Rasmussen raised his voice to cut through it. Trond got his orders, nodded, and charged off down the corridor without giving Kari or me a glance.

The doctor looked at me and smiled wanly. 'What do they see? – we can never know. Hell is aprivate place.'

Kari was looking startled and bewildered. Rasmussen said, 'The symptoms of withdrawal, that is the most likely time for the delirium tremens. Then they start to meet the terrors. We try to soften it with drugs, but… each body is different, we cannot always make it the perfect dose.'

He started downstairs. Behind us, the scream started, wavered, and drifted into a muffled gulping sound.

'Often,' Rasmussen said, 'it is just somebody to touch them, like Trond, to make them know there is a world still around them.'

'Trond must be a great comfort to you,' I said.

He looked at me sharply, then bent his head in agreement. 'A good boy. And very strong. For a few, very few, we need that.'

'Who committed Nygaard to you, Doctor?'

He stopped and frowned. 'There was no "committing" – this is not prison or insanity.'

'Sorry, Doctor. I'd just read something about a Sobriety Board that can commit alcoholics for a cure. If they're given the right evidence.'

He shrugged and started down again. 'It happens for perhaps one per cent of cases.'

'Ah, I wonder how he came to hear of you, though?'

'Alcoholism is not rare with sailors. The cheap drink, the long boredom… He is not the first seaman officer in this house.'

'I'll bet.' We reached the hall and the doctor kept going towards the front door. Nothing we could do but follow.

There was another car in the drive – a tattered old Ford Cortina with a youngish driver leaning across the bonnet breathing cigarette smoke at the sky.

Kari said, 'The taxi. We asked for it.'

Of course." Well, anything's better than exercise. I turned to Rasmussen. 'Thank you for letting us barge in like this, Doctor.

But try and get him to write those letters soon, huh?'

He nodded stiffly, not much liking somebody else telling him what to do, but having to take it this time. We shook hands – a firm, dry hand – and I paused at the top of the porch steps and looked around. Off to both sides, beyond the flower beds with the first daffodils and the driveway, there were thick clumps of laurel and rhododendron and conifer bushes.

'Must be nice in summer,' I commented. 'I hope your patients appreciate their luck, Doctor. Thanks again.' I walked across to the taxi.