with swept-back grey hair and gold-framed spectacles with bifocal lenses. He was wearing a brown cardigan with leather patches on the elbows and was carrying a small leather medical bag. ‘Strip to the waist,’ said the doctor.
‘Top or bottom?’
The doctor looked at Cramer over the top of his spectacles, an amused smile on his face. ‘Whichever you’d prefer, Sergeant Cramer.’
Cramer took off his reefer jacket and unbuttoned his shirt. The Colonel made no move to leave. He read the look on Cramer’s face. ‘You don’t mind if I stay, do you?’ he asked and Cramer shook his head.
The doctor whistled softly between his teeth as Cramer dropped his shirt onto the desk. He walked over and gently touched the thick raised scar that ran jaggedly across Cramer’s stomach. ‘Across and up. As if someone had tried to disembowel you.’
‘That’s pretty much what happened. I lost a few feet of tubing and I had to wear a colostomy bag for the best part of a year, but I guess I was lucky.’
‘And this?’ The doctor touched Cramer’s right breast. There was a mass of scar tissue where the nipple had once been.
Cramer shrugged. ‘Pruning shears.’
The doctor walked around Cramer, noting the rest of the scars on his body. He touched him lightly on the left shoulder. ‘A.45?’ he asked.
‘A.357, I think. It went right through so they never found the bullet.’
‘And this?’ The doctor pressed a small wound on the other shoulder.
‘A fruit knife.’
‘And this thin one that runs around your stomach?’
‘A Stanley knife.’
The doctor shook his head in wonder. ‘You seem to have a lot of enemies, Sergeant Cramer.’
‘Just one.’
‘One man did all this to you?’
‘It was a woman. She did most of the damage.’
‘A woman?’ The doctor whistled through his teeth. ‘I wouldn’t like to meet her on a dark night.’
‘Mary Hennessy, her name was. She was an IRA terrorist. She’s dead now.’
The doctor stood in front of him again and studied the thick scar across his stomach. ‘That must have done a lot of damage inside.’
‘Tell me about it. If I hadn’t been helicoptered to hospital I’d have died.’
‘She was torturing you, this woman?’
‘She was torturing a friend of mine. He died moments before I was rescued. She did that to my stomach just before she fled. I guess she wanted me to die slowly, in a lot of pain. She almost had her wish. The rest of the stuff she did to me two years later.’
The doctor had Cramer open his mouth and took a small torch from the pocket of his cardigan. He peered at Cramer’s throat, then pushed his fingers against the side of his neck as if checking for lumps. ‘That seems fine,’ he murmured, then he pressed Cramer’s stomach with the flat of his hand. Cramer winced. The doctor pressed again, lower this time, and Cramer grunted. ‘That hurts?’ asked the doctor.
‘A bit.’
‘Did the doctors in Madrid think that the cancer could be a result of the trauma?’
Cramer nodded. ‘That, coupled with the stress. And my drinking.’
The doctor nodded. ‘How much pain are you in, generally?’
‘Generally, it’s okay. Twinges now and then. It hurts most when I eat.’
‘What about your appetite?’
‘That’s pretty much gone. Partly because it hurts, but mainly I’m just not hungry most of the time.’
‘Bleeding?’
‘Yeah. That’s why I went to the hospital in the first place. My shit went black.’
‘And you were losing weight?’
‘I went down from 184 pounds to 170. I thought it was because I’d stopped eating.’
‘And you’re still losing weight?’ Cramer nodded. ‘The doctors in Spain, how long did they give you?’
‘Three months. Max.’
The doctor sniffed. ‘I’ve seen the X-rays, and the scans. I’d say they were being optimistic.’ He straightened up and went over to his bag. ‘I’ll give you a vitamin shot now, and some tablets to take.’
‘Not painkillers. I don’t want painkillers.’
‘Just vitamins. But you’ll be needing painkillers before long.’
‘Yeah, well I’ll face that when I have to.’
‘I’ll leave you something, take it if and when you have to. And you’ll need something much stronger towards the end. I’ll arrange for you to have morphine and you can dose yourself.’
‘It won’t come to that.’
‘You think that now, but nearer the. .’
‘It won’t come to that,’ Cramer insisted.
The doctor held his look for a few seconds and then nodded acceptance. He opened his bag and took out a plastic-wrapped syringe and a vial of colourless liquid. He injected the vitamins and gave Cramer a bottle of tablets. ‘These are just multivitamins,’ he explained. ‘They’ll make up for what you’re not getting from your food. I’d drink milk if I were you, eggs maybe, if you can keep them down. Fruit would be good for you, but in small amounts. Better to eat a little often than to try to force down big portions.’ He looked over his shoulder at the Colonel. ‘Normally I’d tell him to take it easy, but I suppose that’s not an option in this case, is it?’
‘Sergeant Cramer’s going to be working, that’s true.’
‘Well God help him, that’s all I can say.’
‘I doubt that he will, but thanks for the sentiment,’ said Cramer acidly.
The doctor handed Cramer another bottle, this one containing green capsules. ‘For the pain,’ he said. ‘Not on an empty stomach. Not more than one at a time. And not more than six in any one twenty-four-hour period.’
‘Thanks, Doc,’ said Cramer.
‘I meant what I said about arranging morphine for you.’
‘And I meant what I said about it not coming to that,’ said Cramer, putting his shirt back on.
Dermott Lynch was sitting with his feet on the coffee table watching the BBC
‘Screening calls, are we?’ said O’Riordan.
‘Just taking the weight off my feet. Figured I deserved a rest. How’s things?’
‘Don’t suppose you fancy giving me a hand cleaning out the pigs, do you?’
‘You’re dead right.’
‘Fancy a drink?’
Lynch looked at the Guinness as it settled in the glass, a thick, creamy head on the top. ‘You read my mind,’ he said.
Mrs Elliott served up a chicken stew with herb dumplings along with freshly-made garlic bread and buttery mashed potatoes. The Colonel and Cramer ate alone in the huge dining hall next to the propane heater. The Colonel had opened a bottle of claret but Cramer had refused. He had a glass of milk, instead. With a large measure of Famous Grouse mixed in.
Cramer toyed with his food, eating small mouthfuls and chewing thoroughly before swallowing. The Colonel watched him eat. ‘Bad?’ he asked.
‘The food’s fine.’ Cramer put down his fork. ‘I never had much of an appetite even when I was fit.’ He picked up the file that he’d been reading before dinner. ‘Have you read this one?’ he asked. ‘The Harrods killing?’
