“What did your wife die of Mr Archer?” asked Saracen softly.
“They said that she had had a heart attack. I can’t understand it; Myra was always as strong as a horse. She’d never had a day’s illness in her life.”
“It can happen like that,” said Saracen.
“But it was all so cold and callous as if Myra was some vagrant they had found dead on a parking lot. They wouldn’t even let me see her.”
Saracen was puzzled but very much aware that Archer was on the verge of breaking down again. “Did they give you a reason why not?” he asked gently.
“They said that an autopsy had been carried out on Myra and it would not be ‘appropriate’ for me to view the body. They said that they hadn’t realised that she had had a husband or indeed any relations and had arranged for her body to be cremated.” Archer’s voice fell to a whisper as he said, “But I managed to stop them doing that. Part of our reason for coming back to Skelmore was that we bath wanted to be buried in St Clement’s churchyard when the time came. We had gone to Sunday school there when we were kids and we were married there. I managed to fix that yesterday for Myra.”
Saracen nodded but was still puzzled. If the woman had died of a heart attack the post mortem would have been confined to the thorax. The site of incision could easily have been concealed and the body displayed in the viewing area of the mortuary chapel. Why had Archer been treated so shabbily? Had it really been too much trouble for someone to arrange for him to see his wife? “Who did you speak to at the General?” he asked Archer.
“Dr Garden, I think he said his name was.”
“Garten,” corrected Saracen.
Yes, that was it. You know him then?”
“I work in Dr Garten’s unit at the General,” replied Saracen.
“I see.” said Archer quietly. Saracen remained silent, letting Archer come to terms with the information.
It suddenly occurred to Archer that Saracen might actually have seen his wife at the hospital. He was anxious to find out.
“I’m afraid not,” said Saracen, conscious of the disappointment he was causing. “It must have been my night off.”
“She was admitted on Monday the twelfth.”
Saracen confirmed that he was not on duty on Monday night.
Archer face fell and he said, “I know it probably sounds silly but I just want to speak to someone who might have seen her since she got here, someone who might have spoken to her. Twenty three years married and I end up standing in an office being handed a plastic bag with some of her things in it…they even asked me to sign a chit…” Archer put his hand over his face and held his fingers lightly against his eye-lids for a moment.
Saracen was aware of the landlord’s curiosity. The man was wondering what was going on. Saracen spread his fingers silently in a gesture that said that everything was all right. He could not help but appraise the situation professionally. Archer, he concluded, was not the type to respond to platitudes about time being a great healer and the like so he came straight to the point and said, “Mr Archer you need some help.”
“Pills you mean,” answered Archer with scorn in his voice.
“Yes pills,” said Saracen flatly. “There is nothing noble in going through agony unnecessarily. Your wife is dead and feeling the way you do is not going to bring her back. What you need is a breathing space before you start getting your life in order. Medication can help.” Saracen had made his gamble with a firm, almost bullying approach. He waited for Archer’s response, not at all confident of the outcome.
Archer capitulated. “I suppose you are right,” he conceded.
“Good. Have you registered with a doctor since your arrival?” asked Saracen.
Archer replied that he had not and Saracen told him how to go about it then he wrote down the phone numbers of his flat and the A amp;E unit at the hospital before saying, “If you have any trouble or even if you just want someone to talk to, call me.”
Archer accepted the beer mat that Saracen had written the information on and slipped it into his pocket. “Doctor I don’t know how to begin to thank you. Up there on the cliff I was seriously thinking of…”
“I think I know what you were considering,” said Saracen.
“At least let me pay for lunch,” said Archer.
Saracen agreed.
Saracen tried to rescue what was left of the day with a slow walk round the harbour but thoughts of Archer remained uppermost in his mind as he found a smooth stone to sit on near the mooring wall. He found it hard to believe that Nigel Garten would have treated a dead patient’s relative in such an off-hand way for being charming to strangers was one of his fortes as it was with many shallow people. Perhaps Archer’s account of what had happened had been distorted by grief or, even more likely perhaps, the truth of the matter might lie somewhere in the middle.
It was sometimes difficult for a doctor, however well meaning, to adopt the proper degree of sensitivity or concern over the death of someone he or she had scarcely known, or in the case of a ‘dead on arrival’ someone they had not known at all. People expected too much. He didn’t blame them; he understood.
When he got home Saracen decided to return to duty on the following morning and telephoned Nigel Garten to tell him so. The news was greeted enthusiastically by Garten who wondered perhaps if Saracen
‘could possibly’ take over his period of duty with Chenhui Tang as he had been called to an all day meeting of the Skelmore Development Committee at the Council Chambers. Saracen bit his lip and agreed. Involvement with the Development Committee was rapidly becoming the jewel in Garten’s crown of excuses for avoiding work. This would be the third all day meeting he had attended in the past month.
Saracen sensed political ambition awakening in Garten and thought the man well qualified. All front and no substance. He was the right age and held the right status in the community to present well in the political arena. The more usual background of business success was provided, in Garten’s case by his father-in-law, Matthew Glendale, a wealthy and prominent local builder. It was a connection that had cost Garten dear for, for Mildred Glendale, Garten’s wife, had achieved uniqueness in Saracen’s mind as the most unpleasant woman he had ever met. Tremaine, on meeting her, had summed her up succinctly with the comment, ‘sensitivity of a dead pig, manners of a live one.” Saracen might have argued with the ethics of such a remark but not the accuracy. From time to time Saracen had wondered if Garten might have been different had he not married the malicious Mildred but he concluded not. To be so lazy and parasitic demanded congenital short-comings not just acquired ones.
Chenhui Tang smiled when she saw Saracen come through the swing doors of A amp;E. She touched her head with her hand and said with a strong accent, “Your head…it is all right now?”
“Fine,” smiled Saracen. Conversation with Chenhui invariably involved a lot of smiles. They filled in the gaps where words should have been. “Are we busy this morning?”
“Yes, yes, busy,” said Chenhui with an exaggerated series of nods and smiles.
Saracen liked Chenhui and thought that she would make a good doctor. He respected her for that and would have liked to have known her better but the communication barrier between them was just too great. He had visited her once in her room at the doctors’ residency and had found it full of tutorial books on the English language. They had occupied an entire shelf along one wall, a monument to complete failure, he had thought at the time.
Alan Tremaine, who had been on duty during the night, signed off officially and handed over responsibility to Saracen with a report on the night’s ‘business’. There had been an accident in the local brewery resulting in several cases of severe scalding, a motor-cycle accident resulting in a fatality, the pillion passenger. The Police were still trying to contact relatives. They would probably turn up during the morning.
Saracen nodded and checked up on the present location of the burns cases in anticipation of phoned inquiries. “Anything else I should know?”
“The Police brought in a man at three this morning. He had ‘collapsed’ in the cells; hit his head on something…”
“Did it wash?”
“No other bruises on him.”
Saracen nodded.
