Her eyes were bright, her expression one almost of anxiety as she continued to look around the room. “I hate places like this. There’s death here, but no dignity.”
Besides the patients, there were about ten people in the room, some of them at the desk in the centre of the far wall, others around the occupied beds. All were dressed in blues; all, to Beverley’s eye, were steeped in sanctimonious dedication. It was as if they were priests and priestesses scurrying around the temple.
At last one of them — a young blond woman — noticed them and frowned at their presumption in invading the sanctum. Rich saw her, too, and smiled. Beverley saw that there was more than politeness in his expression and found a twinge of jealousy.
“Can I help you?” She was attractive, Beverley had to admit, and she knew that Rich liked blondes, but there was also a ring on her finger.
Rich said easily, “Police. I’m DC Rich, this is DI Wharton. We’re here about an RTA victim. Elizabeth Sanderson.”
At once there was a shift; from wary disinterest came forth sorrow. She indicated the bed in the corner to their right. “Liz is over there.”
Beverley asked, “Liz?”
The woman — her name badge told them that she was Sister Hamman — said, “Liz Sanderson, yes.”
“You know her?”
“She works here. She’s a doctor — a specialist in one of the medical departments.”
Rich made a note of this; Beverley considered the information, then decided that it was a coincidence of little likely import. She asked, “Can we speak to her?”
Sister Hamman shook her head regretfully. “She’s intubated and sedated. She’s in a bad way, too.”
“How bad?”
“Broken pelvis, flail chest, hairline skull fracture, and broken femur; possible lung lacerations. She’ll be going to theatre later tonight, assuming we can stabilise her.”
“So when will we be able to talk with her?”
Sister Hamman sighed and said seriously, “If she makes it at all, not for days.”
Beverley had hoped for better but was philosophical. “Next of kin?”
“Parents live in Spain; they’re on their way over.”
“Husband? Boyfriend?”
“She’s single. I don’t think she was seeing anyone in particular.”
“You’ve got a home address for her?”
She went to the nursing notes and scribbled it down on a Post-it note. As she handed it to Beverley she said, “Until a few months ago she was going out with someone.”
“Name?”
“Mark Strauss. He’s a gynecologist here.”
“And where does he live?”
She shrugged. “Switchboard would know,” she suggested. Beverley glanced at Rich, who nodded slightly; he would find it out for them. To Hamman she said, “Thanks. We’ll keep in contact.”
Beverley began to walk out, with Rich following her. A porter came in, went up to the desk, and asked Sister Hamman, “You got something for the Path Lab?”
She handed him two clear plastic bags in which there were several tubes of blood and request forms; the tubes were capped in a variety of colours. “Took your time, didn’t you?”
The porter smiled slyly. “Busy night.” He left whistling jauntily.
Outside, Rich asked, “Where does she live?”
“Vineyard Street. If she lives alone, we’ll have to wait before we can get in there. Why don’t you ring the switchboard and get Strauss’s address? At least we should be able to get some background, if nothing else.”
Strauss had taken the news of the hit-and-run badly, and had appeared to be devastated when Beverley suggested that perhaps it had not been an accident. He sat now in his chair, looking pallid and even, Beverley thought, shaking slightly. When they arrived he had been drinking wine and scribbling notes on a paper pad — “Writing a chapter for a textbook” — and he had by now nearly finished the bottle. He was tall, with a wide mouth and bright blue eyes.
“What was she like?”
He hesitated, searching for the words. “Pretty, bright, happy.”
She ignored the begging of the question at the back of her mind. “I understand that you’re no longer seeing each other.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
The question nonplussed him. “Well...” He shrugged. “We weren’t getting on.”
She raised her eyebrows. “In what way?”
“Oh... we were bickering a lot. Anyway we were finding it difficult to get much time together.”
She smiled at him, noting that his hands were fidgeting; he didn’t like answering these questions. “Bickering? Or arguing?”
He stared at her. “What do you mean?”
Rich had stopped taking notes and was looking at him. She explained, “I mean, how violently did you argue?”
Once more he hesitated, but this time because of indignation. “What’s that got to do with anything? Are you suggesting that I did it?”
If he hoped for mollification, he got only implacability. “Out of interest, what were your movements this evening?”
“Now, look here...”
She said tiredly, “Calm down, Mr. Strauss. Nobody’s interested in you if you didn’t do it, but there are questions I need to ask you.”
He calmed down slightly. Rich asked, “What time did you get home?”
“Seven, I think.”
“What then?”
“I had a sandwich, then started on this. I’ve been doing this all evening.”
“Nobody saw you?”
“No.” He looked suitably worried. “Is that a problem?”
Beverley’s face was neutral as she assured him blandly, “I shouldn’t think so.” Before he could look too relieved, she enquired, “So. Was it arguing, or bickering?”
“It was disagreement, okay? It was two people who weren’t quite so much in love anymore. We decided that we weren’t destined for each other.”
“And that’s it?”
“I didn’t hit her, if that’s what you mean.”
The interview went on for an hour. They built up a picture of a young woman who had apparently been a hard-working junior doctor; overworked and under stress.
“Her colleagues all liked her?”
“Absolutely. No one had a bad word for Liz.”
Rich’s question was almost flippant. “What about her patients? Were they all completely happy?”
Strauss took the question with unexpected seriousness. “You mean Mr. Ascherson, I suppose.”
Did he? Beverley said at once, “That’s right.”
Strauss sighed. “Look, Liz made a ghastly mistake, that’s all. It could happen to any of us. She was tired, it was late at night, and there were two other sick patients on the ward. To this day she doesn’t know how she mixed the bloods up.”
Still ignorant of what he was talking about, Beverley said nothing and let him fill the space.
“Liz went through hell about it. She was suspended by the Trust, there were extensive investigations that were practically a witch hunt; it was awful. And then, to cap it all, the GMC have taken this whole thing out of proportion, charging her with gross negligence.”
“But Mr. Ascherson was upset...”
“Wouldn’t you be? His wife had died of a transfusion reaction because of Liz’s mistake.” He laughed sourly. “Yes, he was upset.”
“Did he threaten her?”
He shook his head. “No, not with violence, anyway. He’s not the type.”
They moved on to other matters — her family, her background, her habits — then were on the point of leaving when Strauss said suddenly, “Waterhouse!”
“Waterhouse?”
He was animated now. “He’s a porter at the hospital. Weaselly sort of chap. He threatened her.”
“Why?”
“His wife was a nursing auxiliary at the hospital. She stole some money from Liz. Liz found out and made a fuss about it. The woman was sacked.”