Chameleon

bristled with indignation.

Jamieson saw the woman stiffen in preparation to support her colleague in a fresh campaign of obstruction and decided to attack first. 'The Home Office, in conjunction with the Department of Health and Social Security, have sent me all the way up here to see your hospital secretary and you two have apparently decided to stop me. In the interests of what I might say about this in my report, I suggest that you… re-consider?'

For a moment it looked as if Cartwright was prepared to argue the point but then he capitulated and left the room. The woman avoided Jamieson's eyes and returned to her typing.

A painfully thin man, well over six feet tall with a large, almost totally bald head, and wearing glasses that seemed too small for him entered the room and handed Jamieson back his card. He smiled and held out his hand. 'Dr Jamieson? I'm Hugh Crichton. I've been expecting you. You look soaked.'

Crichton took Jamieson into his office and offered him whisky, an offer that Jamieson felt inclined to accept but decided not to at four in the afternoon. He noticed that Crichton's complexion had a distinctly yellow tinge to it and wondered if alcohol had played a part in that.

'Something else perhaps?'

'A parking permit would be nice.'

Crichton threw back his head and laughed. 'Oh I see. You've had a brush with our Mr Norris. I'm sorry, I should have foreseen that. We'll fix that right away. Crichton pressed a button on his intercom and asked the woman at the end of it to make out a permit for Jamieson. He kept his finger down on the button and asked Jamieson, 'Tea? Coffee?'

'Tea, please.'

While they waited for the tea to arrive Crichton asked Jamieson what he would require in the way of facilities at the hospital.

'A room, a telephone, access to medical records, possibly lab space.'

Crichton nodded and said, 'Well I think I anticipated most of these. I've arranged for you to have an office in the administration block and Dr Carew, our medical superintendent has requested that individual consultants co- operate with you in providing suitable space for you in their domains should you require it. I've also taken the liberty of having the housekeeper prepare a room for you in the doctors' residency. I didn't know if you would want to stay in the hospital or not?'

'I would,' agreed Jamieson. 'I'm grateful.'

'Not at all. Perhaps you would like to go there now and dry off a bit before getting started?'

Jamieson finished his tea and said that he would.

'And then what?' asked Crichton. 'Where would you like to start?'

'I'd like to have a word with Dr Carew first if that's convenient.' replied Jamieson.

'I anticipated that too,' smiled Crichton. 'Dr Carew has pencilled you in for five.'

It was Jamieson's turn to smile. He said, 'Perhaps you should just tell me what else you anticipated and we can work from there.'

'I thought you might want to have a word with Doctors Thelwell and Richardson so I've organised a little get-together here in my office at six. You can get to meet people informally over a sherry and make your own arrangements for tomorrow.'

'Fine,' said Jamieson.

Crichton pressed the button on his intercom and leaned towards it to say, 'Dr Jamieson will be staying in the residency. Will you inform the housekeeper and ask Miss Dotrice if she would be so kind as to show Dr Jamieson the way.'

Jamieson thanked the assistant who had accompanied him to the residency. He closed the door behind him and breathed out a long sigh. The room was depressingly spartan and functional but it had all he needed. A bed, a table, a chair, a telephone, a reading lamp — Jamieson switched it on to counteract the gloominess — and a small bathroom that had obviously been added fairly recently. It had been made by simply partitioning off a corner of the room. Jamieson ran himself a bath and took off his clothes. He felt the old, iron radiator and found it cold, the towel rail was equally arctic. There was a solitary wall heater on the wall above the bath and he pulled the cord to switch it on. He was mildly surprised when the slight groaning noise it made indicated that it was in working order.

Jamieson put his foot into the water and savoured the warmth for a moment before stepping into the tub and immersing himself so that only his face and the tops of his knees were above the water. He let out a sigh of satisfaction and, unwilling to move lest he destroy the moment, lay still and watched the steam drift upwards to the high, cracked ceiling. The strain of the motorway journey and the hassle of petty obstruction started to drift away.

The hypnotic silence was broken by the shrill ring of the telephone and Jamieson closed his eyes in disbelief. He considered ignoring it for a moment but ignoring a ringing telephone can be impossibly hard on the nerves and there was always the possibility that it was Sue calling to see if he had arrived safely. He stretched out his right hand and grabbed the chrome handle at the back of the bath to pull himself to his feet.

He had almost reached the vertical when the handle suddenly came out of the wall and he fell heavily backwards to splash down into the water. He jarred the base of his spine and hit his left elbow hard against the side of the tub. The curse that sprang to his lips was suddenly frozen as he saw what was happening above him. A wave of fear swept over him. Five feet up on the wall, the heater had come away from its mounting and was hanging delicately by what Jamieson reckoned could not be more than a millimetre of screwnail on either side. The bar that had come away in his hand had opened up the entire wiring channel in the wall and destroyed the plaster behind the heater.

Even as Jamieson stared up at the glowing element, almost afraid to breathe in case it fell into the water and electrocuted him, he saw it move a fraction. In the background the telephone still rang. A feeling of panic urged him to pull himself up and over the side of the bath but through this fear he realised that this would be entirely the wrong thing to do. It would almost certainly be fatal. The heater was balanced so finely that the slightest vibration would cause it to fall.

The water! He must get rid of the water in the bath! If he could do that before the heater fell on him then perhaps he could escape the short circuit that would kill him.

Cautiously he felt with his big toe under the water for the bath plug while his eyes remained glued to the red bar above him. He found the retaining chain and manipulated it between his toes to apply pressure. He felt the links bite into the soft skin between his toes as the plug refused to budge at first but pain had become a secondary consideration. He continued increasing the pressure until he felt the plug give and heard the water start to gurgle away down the drain.

Again, he had to fight his instinct. If he jerked the plug out suddenly an air lock in the drain might cause enough vibration to bring the heater down. He steeled himself to maintain a slight opening of the plug, while water drained away in a steady trickle.

Half the bath had emptied when Jamieson heard a key being inserted in the lock next door. Terror was re- born inside his head. For God's sake don't slam the door he prayed as he heard the door open. A few seconds of limbo passed with the slowness of eternity before the door slammed and the heater left its mounting.

In a series of events that appeared to Jamieson to occur in agonising slow motion he ripped out the bath plug completely with his foot, flung away the chrome bar that he was still holding and raised his hands to meet the heater. It seared his palms and the smell of burning flesh filled his nostrils as he turned violently to wrench hard.

Mains voltage shot through him, locking his jaw and throwing his entire body into spasm but Jamieson’s desperate gamble had paid off. The momentum of his body in the turn had been sufficient to tear the heater from its wiring and interrupt the current.

The fear of permanent damage or disfigurement to his hands made Jamieson ignore the pain and the fact that the heater, although now disconnected was setting the bathroom carpet alight. He tore at the handle of the cold tap and held his hands under the flow, his body juddering violently from the combined effects of shock and pain.

There was a knocking at the door but Jamieson continued to sit in the bath holding his hands under the torrent of cold water.

'Are you all right in there?' a muffled voice inquired.

Jamieson could not reply for his teeth were chattering as his whole body continued to tremor.