Simmers waved his patients goodbye at the entrance to the clinic, then turned the corner and sprinted up the stairs.
His visitors were seated in his tiny room when he arrived there. He looked at them one by one with his physician's eye as they introduced themselves: Superintendent Pringle, middle-aged, heavily built, florid, probably drank too much, arguably in the coronary at-risk category; Detective Sergeant Steele, tall, strong-looking, around thirty, physically at his peak.
'Good morning, gentlemen,' he said moving behind his desk as he spoke. 'In what way can I help you?'
Pringle, in his turn, looked at the consultant, seeing a big, sturdy man, yet struck at once by the softness of his eyes, which seemed to betray a vulnerability in him. 'We'd like to talk to you about a patient of yours, now unfortunately deceased; Mr Anthony Murray.'
Simmers frowned. 'Ah yes, poor old Tony. I heard that he had died.
A blessing really; he was being very difficult about going to the Hospice, but that was the only place for him. In a very short time, he'd have been in great need of the sort of pain control that they're used to providing.'
'Did you expect him to die?'
The consultant stared at the policeman, wondering if he might be mad. 'Of course I did, superintendent. He had advanced, metastasised cancer which was beyond all treatment. Of course I expected him to die.'
'No, sir, I mean did you expect him to die so soon?'
'Ah, I see. To be frank I didn't. I visited him at home fairly recently — not something I do as a rule, but he was a neighbour and he was so sensitive about his bag that he simply would not leave his house — and he seemed frail, but still with us. He was away short of turning his face to the wall, as cancer victims can do on occasion.
'However, that said, someone in his condition can deteriorate very rapidly, so while I didn't expect it, when I heard he had gone, I was not overly surprised. I'll miss him though: a good, gentle man. I liked him very much.'
Stevie Steele spoke softly. 'You must miss more than a few people, sir. I don't envy you your job, although I admire you for doing it.'
Derek Simmers looked at the young detective with a mixture of surprise and gratitude. 'Thank you, sergeant,' he murmured, 'but the fact is, I'm rotten at it.'
'We've been told the opposite, sir.'
'Ah, maybe you have, maybe you have. Speaking clinically, I suppose that whoever told you that has a point. But they don't know about my failings, though. I so admire colleagues like Nolan Weston.
I admire them their detachment, in the face of the most awful personal tragedies. Christ, Nolan even operated on his first wife, poor Gay, to find that she had a ferociously malignant tumour. I know how fond he was of her, and yet he held himself together, he kept his detachment.
'I find that almost impossible sometimes, and yet that's what my job, as you put it, sergeant, is about. Inspiring and maintaining hope, even on those occasions when there is none. You are, for your patients and their nearest and dearest, a bridge across an abyss. Sometimes you see them across, to recovered health, but all too often your treatment is hopeless, and they fall in.
'It's worst of all when you know from the start what the outcome will be.' As the policemen looked at him, they saw tears mist the gentle blue eyes. 'Only this morning, I saw a patient, a couple in fact, for I regard both partners as being in my care. I gave them what was for them good news, and they thanked me with all their hearts.
'Yet I know that my patient will die, gentlemen. In all probability within a year, for the very factor which is positive at the moment will turn negative, and very soon. These are remarkable people, yet all I can do for them is help them make the most of the very limited time they have left together, knowing all the while, as I knew in Tony Murray's case, what the end will be like.
'I hate situations like these, even more that I hate those when my patients collapse into inconsolable fear. I tell you, the Oath we doctors take has a lot to answer for.'
Simmers drew a deep breath and pulled himself up in his chair, blinking to clear his eyes. 'I'm sorry for that outburst, gentlemen.
Please do me the favour of forgetting that I said any of it. All of us have safety valves of a sort — although God alone knows where Nolan Weston's must be! 'Now. Is there anymore I can tell you?'
Pringle shook his head. 'No sir, I don't think so.' He and Steele rose, and eased themselves out of the tiny office.
As they turned to leave, Steele asked, casually, 'Out of interest sir, did you know that Mr Murray had a niece in this department?'
Simmers nodded, vigorously, and smiled. 'Andrina, you mean? Yes I did know that. She's a very talented young nurse. They tell me that she's a wizard with a needle — a great gift in this place, I'll tell you.'
70
'I'm pleased your boss could spare you for this job. Sergeant Garland,' said Brian Mackie, as the car pulled away from the station in the sleety afternoon rain which soaked the drab street.
'It's a pleasure, sir. I don't know what your force is like, but up here in Grampian when you're asked to be the Head of CID's exec, you don't turn it down. For all that, you know that you'll be tied to a desk for the duration. That doesn't mean you have to enjoy that side of it.
'Whenever a request for assistance comes in, I always grab it for myself, and just tell the DCS I'm doing it. Usually it's okay with him.'
Mackie looked idly out of the window as Garland drove. He had always had a soft spot for Aberdeen, despite its winter chills. There was something about the orderliness of the grey granite city which appealed to him.
The Aberdonian detective turned off Union Street into Broad Street, — then turned left past Marischal College. 'I did my asking around yesterday just as you asked. I found this room-mate of his, the lad Beano; his real name's Brian Litster.'
The superintendent grunted. 'Funny, that. I was called Beano at school too.'
'Is that right sir?' said the sergeant, politely. 'As luck would have it, we've got something on this one, an official caution for possession of cannabis, just two weeks ago. The University doesn't know about it, and he wants to keep it that way, so I'm pretty confident that he won't have said anything to the boy Weston about your visit.'
'I've arranged to meet him in the Union at Robert Gordon's, rather than at the College back there. That's where young Weston has most of his classes.'
'Why not down your nick?' asked Mackie.
'I didn't want to scare him that much, sir; just make him a wee bit nervous.'
'Fair enough. You've met him. I haven't.'
As he spoke. Garland reached Robert Gordon's, Aberdeen's second, technologically-based University. He parked in a space marked 'Official Visitors Only,' flashing his warrant card at a curious janitor as he and the Edinburgh superintendent stepped out.
As they stepped through the main entrance a tall, gangling youth stepped out of the shadows beside the door. 'Sergeant Garland…' he began, anxiously.
'Hello Beano.'
'I've booked a tutorial room,' said the student, half whispering even though the hallway was empty, save for them. 'I thought it would be better, rather than being out in public in the reading room.'
'Fine,' the sergeant replied. 'This is Detective Superintendent Mackie, by the way, from Edinburgh.' Mackie nodded a solemn acknowledgement, but did not offer a handshake.
The boy led the way up a single flight of stairs, into a corridor and along to the third door on the right. As they stepped inside Garland flipped a brass catch, changing the word 'Vacant' to 'Engaged'.