‘Still floating,’ said Douglas but he was clearly in shock.
When they reached the station yard, Dunbar parked the Land-Rover next to his own car and transferred Douglas. While they were outside he took the opportunity to relax the tourniquet on Douglas’s arm for a few moments. He didn’t want any problems arising from cut-off circulation.
‘We’ll have to leave your car here,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to leave mine in case they trace it and connect me with Vane Farm. They’ll be less suspicious of a Land-Rover.’
‘I’ll have one of the lads pick it up,’ said Douglas.
‘The sooner we get you to hospital the better,’ said Dunbar.
‘No hospital,’ croaked Douglas.
‘You need proper treatment,’ insisted Dunbar. ‘That’s a bad wound.’
‘No hospital,’ repeated Douglas. ‘They’ll ask all sorts of questions and I want to work again. I need it. There’s nothing else for me, man.’
‘If you don’t get proper treatment you might never work again anyway. You could lose your arm.’
‘That serious?’
‘That serious,’ confirmed Dunbar.
‘You a doctor, then?’ asked Douglas, expecting a negative reply.
‘I am.’
Douglas shook his head as if in disbelief. ‘Then what the… You fix it, then,’ he said.
‘With what? A car jack and some tyre levers? You need a hospital.’
Douglas let out a sigh. ‘Get me back to the Crane,’ he said.
‘The Crane closed hours ago.’
‘I live in the flat above it. I can call up help from there. He’s done it before.’
‘You mean some struck-off old lush who stitches wanted heads for beer money?’
‘Something like that. I’m not going to hospital.’
‘I’ll make a bargain with you,’ said Dunbar. ‘We’ll go to your place but I call up my people. I’ll tell them it’s vital that you be treated in secret.’
‘Do you think they’ll play?’
‘They’ll play, but it might not be a substitute for a hospital.’
‘No hospital.’
They had just entered the built-up area when two police cars shot past in the other direction. Dunbar felt relieved, not just because they had passed them by but because it meant that at least one of the security men had come round.
They reached Salamander Street without incident and Dunbar parked outside the pub, which he had trouble finding in the dark without the tell-tale spillage of light from its windows. Its inconspicuous frontage merged perfectly into the long, dark stretch of unoccupied tenements. Douglas himself couldn’t help much. The painkillers were starting to wear off and increasing pain was occupying all his attention. He sat with his head back, his eyes tight shut.
‘I really think-’ began Dunbar.
‘No!’ snarled Douglas.
Dunbar shrugged. ‘How do we get in?’ he asked.
‘Door… to the left. Keys… side pocket of the sack.’
Dunbar found the keys and got out to unlock the heavy door to the left of the pub. He returned to the car, helped Douglas out and supported him across the pavement and into a long, dark entrance hall. Sounds of scuttling feet reached them from the blackness.
‘Which flat?’ Dunbar asked.
‘First… and first door. It’s the only one occupied.’
Dunbar helped him up spiral stone steps, feeling his way in the dark. The narrowness made it difficult, as did the fact that the steps were badly worn in the centre. It was a relief to reach the landing. Still supporting Douglas, he felt his way along the wall to the first door, found the lock and unlocked it with the second key he tried. He clicked on the hall light and helped Douglas, who was now only semi-conscious, into a room where he half collapsed on to a couch.
‘Where’s your phone?’ Dunbar asked but didn’t wait for a reply; he saw it on a small table to the left of a gas fire. First he closed the curtains and lit the fire. Douglas was shivering badly, partly from cold but mainly through shock.
Dunbar called Sci-Med and told the night duty officer that he needed urgent medical help for an injured man. ‘Severe upper arm trauma inflicted by a laboratory primate,’ he reported. ‘Biting involved. No known disease implicated in the animal, although it can’t be ruled out. Blood loss severe.’
It occurred to Dunbar that Douglas, as an ex-Marine, would know his own blood group. He asked him and repeated the answer down the phone: ‘A — positive.’ He gave details of their whereabouts and asked how long help would be.
‘Can’t say. We’ll do our best.’
After ringing off, Dunbar undid the tourniquet and dressing and took a look at the wound. ‘I’m going to clean your arm up a bit,’ he said. ‘Do you have any whisky in the flat?’
‘You’re not going to pour that over it are you?’ demanded Douglas.
‘No, I’m not,’ agreed Dunbar. ‘This isn’t a John Wayne film. You’re going to drink it because this is going to hurt like hell.’ He re-applied the tourniquet, poured out the liquor and foraged in the bathroom cabinet for anything useful. Back in the main room, he handed the half-full tumbler to Douglas and removed the tourniquet again, substituting finger pressure while he examined the wound and dabbed at the torn flesh with cotton wool and antiseptic.
Douglas took a gulp of the whisky and gasped, ‘What do you think?
‘Hard to say.’
Douglas threw back his head in anguish. ‘Christ,’ he exclaimed. ‘Pigs! I was expecting pigs!’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know,’ said Dunbar guiltily.
‘Not your fault,’ said Douglas. ‘I’m grateful. You saved my life back there. That fucking ape was all for turning me into a Lego set. Did you see she was pregnant?’
‘I did,’ agreed Dunbar. ‘They all were.’
Time passed. Douglas dropped into a state somewhere between sleep and unconsciousness. Fitfulness and occasional moans said that he wasn’t at peace but he had achieved some respite from the pain through the combination of alcohol and painkillers, sometimes an unholy alliance that ended in tragedy but occasionally in other circumstances, as now, a blessing. Dunbar had to disturb him at fifteen-minute intervals to loosen the tourniquet so that circulation was maintained. Two hours went by before he heard a car draw up in the street and then a knock on the front door.
Two men stood there. In the first grey light of dawn, he could see that they were dressed in surgical tunics and trousers and each had the words Bladen Clinic on the left breast of his tunic. One carried a folded stretcher, the other a black equipment box.
‘Dr Dunbar? We’ve come for your patient.’
Dunbar led them up to where Douglas was lying along the couch.
‘Is he stable enough to be moved?’
‘He’ll do. I’ve been unable to do anything apart from stem the blood flow,’ said Dunbar. ‘He had Omnopon about four hours ago and a fair amount of alcohol since for the pain. Maybe you should get some fluid into him before you move him, and if you have some proper dressings there I’ll change them.’
The attendants put up a saline drip for Douglas and Dunbar changed the dressing.
‘What the hell did this?’ asked one of the men when he saw the state of Douglas’s arm.’
‘An ape.’
‘Jesus!’
‘The clinic’s ready for him?’
The attendant nodded. ‘There’s a theatre on stand-by. Surgeon’s on his way.’
Douglas was transferred to the stretcher and Dunbar held up the saline drip bag as they worked their way downstairs, with great difficulty on the spiral turns. Mercifully, Douglas was still only semi-conscious. Dunbar took hold of his good hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘Good luck, Jimmy,’ he said as the attendants prepared to close the doors of the ambulance. Dunbar watched its lights disappear before returning to the flat to lock up. ‘What a mess,’ he whispered as he came downstairs again. ‘What a fucking mess.’
FIFTEEN
Dunbar was close to both mental and physical exhaustion when he got back to the hotel and parked the car, but he smoothed his hair, straightened his clothing and steeled himself to walk briskly up to the desk and ask for his key. He then turned away smartly and headed for the lifts. He didn’t want the desk clerk taking in too much detail of his appearance. As soon as he’d closed his room door, he got out of his muddy, wet clothing and stowed it away in a hotel laundry bag, before stepping into the shower and letting the warm water soothe his aching limbs for a good ten minutes. He put on fresh clothes and followed up with a large gin and tonic. Then he called Lisa. It was six thirty.