that she thought I wasn’t good enough for her son but when you are twenty years old and in love things like that don’t matter. It’s only later you begin to see things more clearly.”
“Was your husband a lawyer too?” asked Saracen
Jill smiled and said, “No, he didn’t have the brains. Jeff was in ‘creative advertising.’ At first I tried to share his ambitions and help him all I could but he grew more and more remote and, one day, it suddenly dawned on me that I embarrassed him, my background and my being a nurse embarrassed him in the presence of his smart new friends. My Jeff, my hero, my knight in shining armour was turning out to be exactly the same as his mother and father, a pathetic little snob.
Every time he failed to get promotion he would blame it on my social short-comings and grow even colder towards me until I couldn’t stand it any more. One night I just snapped and told him exactly what I thought of him and his cronies with their gold medallions and Gucci shoes. I think I may have suggested that the intellectual capacity to design a bean can was just about what they could rustle up between them.”
Saracen smiled.
“You were married too?”
Saracen nodded and said, “I think you could say I had much the same experience. My wife’s family never felt I was quite worthy of their daughter.”
“Must be something about the medical profession,” said Jill.
“Lowest of the low,” agreed Saracen.
“Would you like another drink?” asked Jill.
“No, I’m fine.”
“Is there anything you would like?”
Saracen turned and looked at Jill sitting beside him and said, “I want to kiss you.”
“I’m not complaining Doctor,” said Jill.
Saracen leaned over and kissed her softly. He ran his fingers lightly round the line of her cheek bone and felt her shudder slightly. “Are you all right?” he whispered.
Jill sighed unevenly and nodded. She said, “I’m sorry, it’s been so long.”
“Perhaps I shouldn’t have…”
Jill looked into his eyes and smiled. “Oh yes James Saracen,” she said, “Oh yes, you most certainly should.” She put both her hands behind Saracen’s head and pulled him towards her.
Saracen felt a passion, stronger than he had known for many years, grow within him. He felt Jill’s tongue enter his mouth as he cupped his hand over her breast and sought her nipple with his thumb. Her back arched to press herself to him. “God how I want you,” Saracen murmured.
“I’m still not complaining Doctor,” murmured Jill. Saracen lifted her gently from the couch and looked to the two possible doors. Jill smiled and pointed lazily over her shoulder with her thumb. “That one,” she said.
With all passion spent Saracen buried his head in Jill’s hair while her fingers soothed the back of his neck in a circular motion. “There, there my gentle James Saracen,” she whispered. “I only hope you feel as good as I do.”
Saracen laughed and kissed the side of her neck. “I’d forgotten it could be that good,” he murmured.
Jill’s arms tightened around him a little. “I’m glad,” she said.
After half an hour or so of nuzzling tenderness Jill said, “Do you know what I think?”
“What?”
“I think we should shower together.”
“You do?” smiled Saracen.
“Uh huh,” replied Jill, running her fore-finger down Saracen’s upper arm.
Saracen gave in to Jill’s giggled demand that she be allowed to soap him all over. She recited nursery rhymes as she applied the suds with the palms of her hands with a gentleness that made Saracen’s skin tingle. “You’ve got hard thighs my Prince,” she murmured, her fingers kneading them as she watched his face. Saracen groaned with pleasure as Jill’s hands continued their odyssey over his body.
“And strong arms…”
Saracen tilted his head back to rest it against the wall. Jill’s hands moved over his chest. “I want to know every inch of you… How tall?”
“Six one,” groaned Saracen.
Jill took his now erect penis into her soapy hands and said, “I can see that you are not Jewish…”
Saracen drew Jill towards him and brought his mouth down hard on hers but suddenly he froze. He pulled away. “But Cohen was,” he said slowly.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Would you say that someone with a name like Leonard Cohen was Jewish?”
“Almost certainly,” replied Jill, bemused by what was going on.
“Have you ever known a Jewish male not to be circumcised?”
“Well, I’ve not examined them all but no.”
“The body they showed me at Dolman’s was that of an uncircumcised male. It was the right age but the wrong religion. They didn’t show me Leonard Cohen at all. They switched the bodies!”
“Maybe they just took the wrong body out of the fridge?” suggested Jill.
Saracen considered that but then said, “There were only four and three of them were women, the two from Skelmore General and a Miss Carlisle who was being buried at noon. Don’t you see? Leonard Cohen’s body wasn’t even there.
Chapter Six
The phone rang. “I think you better get in here,” said Tremaine’s voice.
“What’s up?” asked Saracen.
“Chenhui Tang. An ambulance has just brought her in.
“What?” exclaimed Saracen.
“She’s in a bad way. She fell from a window at Morley Grange.”
“How the hell…”
“I don’t know any of the details. I just thought you should know.”
Saracen was at the hospital within ten minutes.
“She’s in Intensive Care,” said Tremaine.
Saracen nodded and backed out through the swing doors to hurry along the bottom corridor to the IC suite. As usual he was aware of the sudden rise in temperature when he entered. Clothes and covers were a dispensable encumbrance in IC. Naked patients were easier to deal with, easier to keep electrodes attached to, tubes inserted into, shunt needles in place.
There were three patients in the Unit which was equipped to accommodate six. One was being ventilated artificially and the intermittent hiss of air and the click of the change-over relay interrupted the soporific calm of the place, breaking up the regular flow of soft bleeps from the cardiac monitors.
Chenhui, her head swathed in bandages lay in an apparently deep and peaceful sleep. Saracen thought how like a little girl she looked, her body so frail, her skin so smooth, marred only by a recent graze along her left cheek bone. The sister in charge came up and stood beside Saracen. “Severe skull fracture,” she said quietly.
Saracen nodded but did not say anything. He watched as pulses chased each other along the green screen of the oscilloscope and wondered about their regularity. “Are the X-Rays up here?” he asked.
“In my office.”
Saracen followed the sister and took a large envelope from her. He removed the film from it and clipped it up on the light box to wait for a moment until the fluorescent tubes had stuttered into life. “God what a mess,” he said softly as he followed the crack lines on the image of Chenhui’s skull.
“Dr Nelson says it’s a wonder she’s still alive,” said the sister.
Saracen unclipped the X-Ray and returned it to its envelope. He said, “If, by any chance she should come
