The Valley of the Shadow Read online

  The girl—her name was Mitzi: “Mary, really, but everyone calls me Mitzi, except Sister”—came to fetch the cup and saucer. She was perfectly willing to ask Sister’s permission to go in search of a sandwich for Megan. While she was gone, the night sister herself came in to take the patient’s pulse and temperature, and to check the IV and respirator.

  “How is he doing?” Megan ventured to enquire.

  Sister looked at her consideringly. “I suppose it’s all right to discuss his condition with you, Sergeant. His pulse is much stronger. Temperature nearly normal. Breathing still not good. I can’t tell whether he has any colour in his cheeks.”

  “He looks to me a bit less sallow than when we pulled him out. But I don’t know what his normal complexion is.”

  “That’s the trouble with all these dark-skinned people coming into the country. Though I suppose in the big cities, where there are more of them, they learn to judge.”

  “In London, there are quite a few Indian doctors, and West Indian girls often go into nursing.”

  “So I’ve heard. If he’s not obviously better in the morning, I might suggest calling in Dr. Prthnavi.”

  “What a good idea,” said Megan admiringly, having been angling for just that result. Aunt Megan’s friend Rajendra Prthnavi was her own GP.

  “Only if the consultant’s in a good mood, mind.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ve brought your— Oops, sorry, Sister!”

  “That’s all right, Mary. I’m finished here.”

  The sight of a sandwich, however limp and curled at the edges, and a packet of crisps brought Megan’s thought processes back to life. “Thanks, Mitzi. Sister, if you’re not in a hurry, I’d like to clarify something…”

  “No hurry. What is it? You may go, Mary. I’m sure you can find something useful to do.” She turned back to Megan with an expectant look.

  “It’s this business of ‘lethargy.’ I’m not clear on how it differs from a coma. He looks comatose to me.”

  “Oh dear, I don’t think I can really explain. Coma is usually caused by head trauma, and this patient doesn’t appear to have any major injury, just a bit of a bruise. Poisoning can be another cause. Lethargy has many causes, but what it amounts to is exhaustion. He’s just too tired to make any physical effort, even opening his eyes. We can’t be sure without X-rays and maybe an EEG, which we don’t have here, but the doctor thinks he’s sleeping naturally and with luck will wake up naturally, having slept off the worst. If not, he’ll be taken by ambulance to Plymouth. They have the specialists and equipment to make a proper diagnosis.”

  “I see. I think. Thank you, Sister.”

  Sister nodded graciously. “Is there anything else? Don’t hesitate to ring the bell if you notice the slightest change in his condition. There’s always a nurse next door, but we haven’t got as good a view as you do, and I have the women’s ward to keep an eye on, too.”

  She departed. Megan ate her sandwich with more relish than it deserved. Digging the twist of dark blue paper out of the crisp packet, she sprinkled salt and crunched happily. Of course, that made her thirsty. She cast a longing look at the glass and jug of water on the bedside table but decided any germs she might be carrying had better not be transmitted to the patient if he wanted a drink when he woke up.

  Assuming he did awake normally. Once again, she studied what she could see of him.

  Did those enviably long, dark eyelashes flicker?

  Had she imagined it? Should she ring the bell or knock on the nurses’ room window? Should she say something reassuring?

  She stood up and leant over him. His eyes opened, vague and unfocussed, lids drooping. One hand lifted a fraction of an inch from the sheet, then flopped back.

  Megan reached towards the bell, then hesitated. He looked no different now from when Sister left. The change in his condition was so brief it was probably meaningless. Glancing back at him now, she wondered if it had been wishful thinking. He looked exactly as he had before.

  Suddenly his eyes opened again. There was something odd about them, Megan thought, but she was more interested in their expression: bright with consciousness, wide with fear. He made a noise in his throat, halfway between a cough and a gargle. The fear turned to panic and he started to raise the arm with the IV. It must have hurt, because he let it drop, reaching with his other hand towards the mask on his face.

  “You’re all right. You’re in hospital.” Megan remembered that he might not speak English, even as she pressed the bell with one hand and held his arm down with the other, to prevent his dislodging the mask. “Okay. You’re okay.” “Okay” was international, wasn’t it?

  For a moment he resisted her grip. Then he stopped fighting, though she felt tension in his thin wrist, the tendons taut beneath her fingertips. She could feel his pulse, much stronger now.

  His eyes slewed towards her, as if he didn’t dare turn his head. He still looked frightened, but questioning, too.

  “You’re okay. A nurse is coming. Do you understand English? Blink twice if you understand.”

  He blinked—once, twice. Megan breathed a sigh of relief.

  A staff nurse bustled in. “Ah, waking up, are we?” she asked with professional cheerfulness. “That’s a good sign.”

  The sight of the nurse seemed to reassure the patient. His wrist relaxed, but Megan kept her hand on it, lightly, to make sure he didn’t try to grab the breathing apparatus. She was sure that if she woke up with a thing like that on her face, her first reaction would be to get rid of it instantly.

  “I need to talk to him,” she said. “Apparently he understands English. Can he do without the respirator, at least for a little while?”

  “Please step aside—Sergeant, is it?—and let me take his pulse. You really ought to leave. It’s most improper—”

  “I’ve been ordered to stay with him.” Megan had felt his arm twitch at the word “Sergeant.” It made her the more determined to follow DI Scumble’s instructions, even if she didn’t understand his reasons. She wished he’d had time to explain.

  “Is he under arrest?”

  “Good lord no. We just need some information from him. Urgently.”

  The nurse pursed her lips. Megan watched her face as she took the patient’s pulse. Though she didn’t comment, she gave a satisfied nod. She wrote the result on the chart hung on the rail at the foot of the bed, then read what was written on it.

  Turning back, she caught the man raising his hand to his face again. “Don’t!” she said sharply. “I’ll deal with it. Doctor says we can try taking it off you for a few minutes, but you’re not to talk until you’ve breathed without it for a while. Sergeant, I must insist that you step outside the curtains until I’m sure the patient is not going to react badly.”

  Megan meekly obeyed. The ward was in near darkness, lit only by the light from street lamps filtering through the curtains and a well-shaded lamp glowing through the window of the nurses’ room.

  Mindful of bedpans and such indignities, she didn’t watch what was going on in the cubicle, but she listened. The ward was noisier than she expected: snores, moans, the sounds of restless movement and laboured breathing. They masked and merged with the sounds from the cubicle, until the nurse exclaimed, “Oh dear! Now, you mustn’t worry, but I’m going to ask Sister to ask our house physician to come and take a look at you.”

  Footsteps, then a croak of a voice: “Please!”

  “You must lie still. Whatever you do, don’t move your head. I’ll be back shortly.” She burst through the curtains. “You can’t possibly talk to him,” she snapped at Megan. “You’ll have to go. I’m fetching a doctor. He has concussion. Possibly bleeding or swelling in the brain.” She hurried off.

  Megan immediately slipped through the curtains, taking the notebook the DI had lent her from the pocket of the smock. The breathing mask was off, so the patient’s whole face was able to express his renewed terror. His eyes—unequal pupils, Megan thought. She should
have noticed. And again they were glazed, not focussing properly.

  “Don’t move your head. Just a couple of quick questions before she comes back. What’s your name?”

  “Kalith Chudasama,” he whispered.

  She guessed at the spelling. “And where—?”

  “The cave. My family…” He clutched his forehead as if he had a splitting headache. As he probably did.

  “Where’s the cave?”

  “High cliff. Rocks. Bad currents.”

  “Yes, but north or south of where we found you?”

  “Sunset … I can’t think … They didn’t come. Must swim…”

  “Who didn’t come?”

  “Don’t know.” His voice slurred. “My mother … dying.”

  NINE

  The houseman arrived at a run, followed by a straggle of nurses. Megan was firmly ejected from the curtained cubicle, just managing to grab Julia’s woolly as she fled. Urgent voices tossed about words like “haemorrage,” “haematoma,” “intracranial pressure.”

  Patients were beginning to rouse, some just enough to turn over and go back to sleep; others—less accustomed, perhaps, to spending a night in hospital—muttered to their neighbours.

  “We can’t cope with this here,” snapped the houseman. “We’re not set up for it. Sister, please ring the ambulance people and tell them we need emergency transport to Truro.”

  The dignified night sister burst forth and dashed round the corner to the nurses’ room. Megan saw her lift the telephone receiver, dial, and speak urgently into it.

  “Plymouth’s closer, Doctor,” said someone, “and better equipped.”

  “True. I’d better ring Plymouth General myself and make arrangements for the transfer.”

  Megan was dismayed. If they moved Chudasama, was she supposed to follow? How? They wouldn’t let her travel in the ambulance again. Besides, Plymouth was out of CaRaDoC’s jurisdiction. She had to talk to her boss, or to whoever was in charge at HQ tonight.

  They must have a public telephone in the lobby. Not that that would do her much good. She hadn’t got a penny on her—nor her warrant card, come to think of it. Everything was locked in the police car she’d been driving, which, for all she knew, was still parked in the lay-by on the B3263. Its key had been in the pocket of her skirt. Very likely it was now at the bottom of the Atlantic.

  What had become of the skirt Nick had brought? Presumably the porter still had it. Changing would have to wait till after she had phoned in.

  She could dial 999 free, of course, like any member of the public. The night operator at HQ served the emergency lines as well as the station’s internal lines.

  At any rate, she wasn’t doing much good standing here. She hurried out to the lobby. Glancing round, she couldn’t see a phone, so she asked the porter. Without looking up from his football pools, he pointed.

  She didn’t bother to try to borrow pennies for the call. He obviously wasn’t the cooperative sort, possibly a bit bolshie and not likely to be impressed that she was a police officer, even if she had proof.

  She went in the direction indicated, round a corner, found the wall telephone, and dialled.

  “Emergency services. Fire? Pol—”

  “Nancy, this is Megan Pencarrow. I’m at a public phone, at the hospital, on the job. Is Mr. Scumble in?”

  “He went to see Dr. Prithnavvy,” the switchboard girl told her, “or however you say it. Listen, I have to keep this line free. I’ll call you back. What’s the number?”

  Megan read it to her, hung up, and waited till the phone rang.

  “Nancy?”

  “Yeah. Want me to see if I can raise the car?”

  “Yes, please. Who’s driving?” Scumble hated being driven, but he wasn’t much keener on driving himself, especially at night, other than from home to the nick and back.

  “Dawson. Hold on, I’ll be right back.”

  PC Dawson—a demon driver, one not calculated to soothe the boss’s nerves. Dawson must have been the only man who could be spared from the sparse night shift. Megan was relieved that Scumble hadn’t taken a detective with him, who might supplant her in the case.

  Because, if what a semidrowned, concussed man said was to be taken seriously, an investigation was surely warranted.

  The prospect reinvigorated her. Impatient now, she waited for Nancy’s voice.

  “Megan, you still there?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “They’re at the doctor’s house. Dawson’s going to give the inspector your number so he can ring you back direct.”

  “Okay, thanks. Bye.” She hung up and waited.

  At last the phone rang. “Pencarrow?” came Scumble’s abrasive voice. “What’s up? Is he dead?”

  “No, sir. Or not when I came out to phone, about five minutes ago.”

  “Then what are you doing away from his bedside? Or did he come round and talk?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Sort of? What the devil’s that supposed to mean?”

  “He woke up, but it turns out he has concussion.”

  “Concussion! The ambulance men—”

  “You can’t really blame them for missing it, sir. The doctor said the contusion was hard to see, and he may not have had any symptoms at that point. If I understood correctly, they were talking about bleeding and swelling of the brain.”

  “Intracranial haemorrage? You’d better brush up on your medical terminology, Pencarrow. So you didn’t get a chance to ask any questions.”

  “Just a couple. His name is”—she consulted the notebook— “Kalith Chudasama. I’m not sure about the spelling. I’m not sure whether he understood my questions, or whether he really knew what he was saying, but he did understand and speak English.”

  “That’s a help, at least,” Scumble growled.

  “But he was pretty incoherent. I asked his name, as I said, and where he came from. He talked about cliffs and caves and rocks. I have his exact words—”

  “Later. Just give me the gist. Caves, huh?”

  “A cave. The cave, he said. It sounded as if his family was stranded in a cave.”

  “His family!”

  “I can’t be sure exactly,” Megan protested defensively. “He wasn’t speaking in whole sentences. But he said something about his mother dying, and ‘They didn’t come.’ Only he couldn’t tell me who didn’t come. I told you, sir, he wasn’t coherent. For all I know, he’d had a nightmare.”

  “Is that it? Nothing else?”

  “No, sir. The doctor came and I was thrown out. He looked bad. I don’t think I’d have got any more out of him if I’d been able to stay.”

  “Coherent or not, we have to assume he was in his right mind and telling the truth. His family stranded in a cave, his mother dying, he swims for it. What we’ve got to find out is where the cave is and who didn’t come. As he speaks English, you needn’t stay. I’ll have someone relieve you.”

  “Sir, he won’t be here. They’re sending him to either Truro or Plymouth.”

  “Plymouth!” Scumble exploded. “They can’t take him out of CaRaDoC territory! He may be a vital witness.”

  “It’s a matter of life or death. He urgently needs care they can’t provide here. He’ll be off as soon as the ambulance—In fact, I can hear them coming in the front door now. I suppose they’ll go to whichever hospital the driver thinks they can get to quickest, or send a helicopter again, maybe.”

  “Bloody hell! Pardon my French, ladies.” Ladies? Who was there with him besides the doctor? The doctor’s wife, Megan assumed, and … Surely not Aunt Nell? No, it couldn’t be. “Pencarrow, find out where they’re taking him. Then get back to the station. I’ll meet you there.”

  “Yes, sir,” Megan said absently as she heard the receiver clunk down.

  Aunt Nell? Nick had dropped off a skirt for her—which she was going to have to wrest from the unfriendly porter. What could be more likely than that he had driven Aunt Nell over to talk to Dr. Prthnavi about the
drowning Indian?

  If so, the inspector must have been seething even before Megan’s report. He had probably wanted to observe the doctor’s initial reaction to the news, just in case he was somehow involved. Aunt Nell, whom Scumble considered a vague and forgetful old woman, had beaten him to the punch.

  TEN

  Shivering in a chilly breeze, Megan slogged up the hill from the hospital to the town centre. The skirt and Julia’s pullover were warm, but her legs were bare and would have to remain so for the foreseeable future. She wondered how long she was going to be kept hanging about the station waiting for Scumble, and what his plans were once he arrived.

  “I hear you’re a heroine,” the desk sergeant greeted her.

  “You can break out the champagne tomorrow. All I want now is coffee.”

  “There’s a reasonably fresh pot going.”

  “Good. Do you know if someone fetched my car—the car I was using—from Rocky Valley? I left my jacket and bag locked in the boot.”

  “The Super had Orton and the kid drive over to get it. Orton treated himself to a bit of a carry-on about women drivers who lose their keys. He said you’d have to go and sign for your stuff.”

  “Bugger Orton,” Megan said tiredly. The mechanic in charge of the police cars was a constant thorn in her flesh. “Is there someone you can send to pick them up? I’d like a chance to comb my hair before the DI comes in.”

  He grinned. “You do look a bit as if you’d been blown through a bramble bush backwards.”

  “Thanks a lot!” The skirt was long enough to hide her bashed-up knees. The men—most of them—had stopped ogling her legs after her first few weeks on the job, so she hoped the sticking plasters hiding the gashes on her shins would go unobserved.

  “Not to worry. I’ll find someone to get your things.”

  “Thanks.”

  She took her mug of coffee up to the room she shared with Scumble and DS Eliot. Her notes on the hospital wouldn’t take long to write up. However, doubtless the inspector, and probably Superintendent Bentinck also, would want a proper report on the rescue of Chudasama.