‘Short in the mid field,’ Harden repeated, raising his voice, stolidly ignoring the question, and wishing he hadn’t mentioned illness. ‘So they’ll most likely be playing a four-two-four formation …’

  The so-called tactics briefing that followed was really more of a pep talk—a morale booster for the team. The members were all familiar enough with the game strategy that had been worked out in practice on the field that morning. At that time Harden had been vacillating over whether to play Bodworski, so the player’s likely absence had been taken into account. Now the manager was intending simply to recall key points and to send the players on to the field with their tails up. He was nearly finished when the telephone started ringing. He stopped talking and waited for it to be answered.

  Ribarts was nearest to an instrument—the one at the lounge end of the locker area. He picked it up, meaning to get rid of the caller whoever it was, except that the worried expression on his face and his several muffled responses signalled to the roomful of people watching that he wasn’t treating with just an ebullient fan or a well-wishing girlfriend—the usual type of last-minute good-luck caller. When he did put the phone down, he nodded to Harden and remembered to smile. ‘No problem, Gaff,’ he called. ‘Hereford supporter wanting to put big money on the Eels.’

  ‘Great,’ Harden responded over the thin laughter. ‘So like I said, a big win tonight, lads, and another on Saturday, and the Eels will be back on the road to promotion.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We’re on the field in two minutes. Good luck, everybody. And let’s have a great win.’

  As the others got up and filtered in the direction of the door, Ribarts hurried over to Harden. ‘That was Mr Linkina, Gaff. From the chairman’s suite. He wants to speak to you. Something about Sir Ray. He’s coming down. I tried to say it was too late before the game. I don’t think he heard.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Harden answered sharply. ‘Much too late.’

  Staff Nurse Hilda Brax, and Student Nurse Jacky Gilroy had the ambulance doors open even before the vehicle had properly stopped outside the Casualty Entrance to Fulham Cross Hospital.

  ‘Name’s Bodworski, is it?’ jolly Nurse Brax, who was from Trinidad, asked the yellow-clad paramedic from the ambulance as they slid the laden stretcher out on to the trolley.

  ‘That’s her.’

  She took the report sheet and scanned it quickly but methodically. ‘Like the footballer?’

  ‘The same. It’s his missus.’ The man formed a quick, silent O with his lips, to signal ‘That surprised you,’ before he went on, ‘She’s a bit sedated, but very much with us.’ Then he raised his voice so that the patient could hear. ‘You’re going to be OK, love, don’t worry.’

  Lilian Bodworski mustered a wan smile. Her dark eyes were glazed, her breathing slow. There was an emergency dressing over the left side of her forehead, and the cheek below that was red and raw. The rest of the face was deathly white, while the long black hair was blood-encrusted at the front, and roughly fastened away from the dressing, splaying out in an incongruously glamorous fashion over one side of the pillow. There was no telling from the blue-blanketed outline, below the woman’s neck, that hidden beneath was a body of exquisite shape—or, in the circumstances, a body that had certainly been exquisite until a very short time before this.

  A male orderly and the paramedic hurried the trolley through the hospital automatic doorway and down the wide corridor to Casualty reception, the nurses keeping pace on either side.

  ‘You radioed there were internal injuries.’ This was Nurse Brax to the paramedic again as they came to the second set of doors.

  ‘Most likely, yes,’ he replied. ‘Looked like she’d been properly roughed up. She won’t say, but she hadn’t moved from the phone when we got there. On the floor, collapsed she was. Could have taken her a long time to get that far, too. To the phone. We had to get the caretaker to let us in. Control have told the police.’

  With practised movements that still produced some painful reaction in Lilian Bodworski’s face, they lifted her from the stretcher on to the bed in one of the screened cubicles. The move had been supervised by the Casualty Ward Sister who, like the other nurses, had not long been on duty. Seven of the ten cubicles were unoccupied: it was still early in the evening. With equal care the nurses next removed the patient’s clothing—a chunky-knit sweater and a thick woollen skirt, with skimpy underclothes beneath. The top garments were replaced with a white paper hospital robe.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Bodworski,’ said the young Indian doctor. He had come from the next cubicle around the end of the screen. The worn-out-looking stethoscope in his hand was somehow as unexpected as his plummy British accent. ‘Been in the wars, have we?’ he questioned spiritedly, high-noting the last syllable like a Camberley Field Marshal. He handed back the report sheet to Nurse Brax. ‘Let’s look at this bump first, then.’ He lifted the head dressing, nodded at the wound as if it were an old friend, and replaced the dressing. ‘Few stitches’ll fix that. Won’t know it happened in a week or two. Promise you that.’ He smiled at the patient. ‘Hit the corner of something, did we?’

  She half nodded and whispered some words that the doctor didn’t catch.

  ‘The arm of a chair, she said, doctor,’ Student Nurse Gilroy vouchsafed earnestly. It was her big line. It made her feel good, even indispensable, to be the channel of vital information like that. She needed to develop an easy familiarity with doctors since it was her firm ambition to marry one.

  ‘I see.’ The houseman smiled his approval at Student Nurse Gilroy, making her legs go wobbly. ‘Wooden chair arm, was it?’

  The patient looked confused, then half nodded again.

  ‘Good. Fewer bugs than you get in uncut moquette, what? Could also mean a few splinters, of course. Well, you can’t have everything.’ He delighted the student nurse again by beaming at her. Nor was she to know that he was thinking she’d be quite beddable if she lost a bit of weight. ‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘we’ll find out the worst when we clean you up in a minute. So, let’s have this blanket off in stages, shall we, ladies? Just shout if you feel the cold, won’t you, Mrs Bodworski?’

  ‘Could you excuse me a tic, doctor? Telephone,’ said the Sister, disappearing towards her office.

  While the other nurses shifted the blanket about, the doctor pulled the paper robe down from the top and began gently examining the patient’s bare neck and shoulders, then her chest and ribcage. ‘That hurt, did it?’ he asked, as he pressed her lower left ribs again, exerting a little more pressure than he had used the first time, and, because he was only human, just failing to take a wholly composed and professional view of Mrs Bodworski’s divertingly well shaped breasts. As he fingered the skin above and below the painful area, the patient winced again. ‘It wasn’t a chair arm that did that, though, was it?’ the doctor observed seriously. ‘Few fractured ribs, I should think. X-ray will tell us. Nothing that won’t mend, of course. Hello, what’s this?’ As he had moved to examine the patient’s abdomen his eyes had lighted on an ugly swollen bruise on her upper left thigh. ‘Looks vicious, that,’ he said. ‘You were punched in the ribs, then kicked down here? That right?’ It was the kind of diagnosis housemen on casualty duty were more used to making late on Saturday nights, after the pubs had closed, than this early on a Wednesday evening.

  There was no audible response from Lilian Bodworski, only her eyes gave what could have been confirmation.

  ‘Thought so,’ said the doctor. He was examining the lower limbs when the Staff Sister appeared again with a uniformed woman police constable holding a notebook at the ready.

  ‘Can I ask Mrs Bodworski some questions, doctor?’ asked the WPC who was blonde, trim, and toothy, and wore glasses with serious frames.

  ‘Only in the time it’ll take to get her on a trolley. She’s going to X-ray.’

  ‘Right, Mrs Bodworski. My name’s Celia. Can you please tell me who attacked you?’

  There was no response from the patient.

  ‘Was it your husband who attacked you?’

  The second question had been more tentative than the first, and produced the same reaction, or lack of one.

  ‘If it wasn’t your husband, was it someone else you knew?’

  This time the patient’s eyes showed confusion. She moved her head slightly, then directed a frightened, appealing look at the doctor.

  ‘So was it a stranger? A burglar? Someone who broke in?’

  It was the Sister who intervened. ‘I think that’s enough for now, dear,’ she said to the WPC. ‘You can see, she’s very upset.’

  ‘But we don’t want whoever it was to get away. Not if we can help it, do we … Lilian.’ The woman officer hung on stoically, doing her job.

  ‘Did you hear that, Mrs Bodworski?’ said the doctor. ‘Don’t you want your attacker caught? So he can’t do it again, what?’

  The patient closed her eyes.

  ‘Right. On the trolley,’ the doctor directed with military firmness, then he turned to the WPC, adding: ‘Better luck next time, miss.’

  The woman shrugged and closed her notebook. ‘It’s missis, actually, doctor, but constable will do,’ she said, moving to one side to let the trolley through.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘I still think Gloria Bims took it all incredibly well,’ said Berty Grenwood. ‘Damned plucky woman. Must have been a terrible shock, but she seemed hardly ruffled. Well, outwardly at least.’ He was clutching a long glass of iced Malvern water in front of him with both hands, like a votive offering. ‘Same goes for Bims’s first wife, of course. Awful thing for her, finding him like that.’ He shook his head so energetically that the ice in his glass rattled.

  Berty was sitting on a stool behind the bar counter in the chairman’s suite where he was dispensing the drinks. He had taken over as barman since the regular one had gone home. Mark Treasure, Andras Linkina and Dr Gordon Fitzmount, an Irishman and the team’s doctor, were standing on the other side of the counter, not far from where Treasure had first joined Berty and Linkina nearly two hours earlier. There was now no view of the football pitch through the glassed-in gallery on the other side of the bar. The blinds had been lowered shortly after the match had begun, and had remained closed ever since.

  The previously crowded room was empty save for the four men at the bar, and Arnold Edingly and Detective-Inspector Jeckels who were seated in a far corner at the desk.

  The discovery of Ray Bims’s fully clothed body, grotesquely arched on the dressing-room bed, had abruptly terminated the pre-match gathering in the suite. As soon as word of the death had got around the room, the remaining guests had left quickly, out of deference to the widow. The after-match party for the Supporters Club officials in the banqueting room had been postponed for the same reason.

  But the match itself had been played. The Eels had won, three goals to nil.

  Meantime, Ian Crayborn had taken Joyce Bims home shortly after she had given a brief statement to a uniformed police sergeant. A police presence on the scene had been evident soon enough, since a contingent from the local force had been on duty as usual for the match. The second Lady Bims had left some time later, after accepting Molly Treasure’s slightly impulsive offer to see her home to Chelsea in the Rolls. Henry Pink, long since hardened to disappointment, had been duly summoned on his portable telephone from his seat in the stand. Molly had been glad of an excuse to leave since, temporarily at least, she had lost the taste for football.

  Because a number of journalists had been about when the body had been discovered, Grenwood, Linkina and Crayborn, advised by Treasure, had issued an immediate press statement on behalf of the football club, and which had been approved by Gloria Bims. This deeply regretted Sir Ray’s untimely death, but gave no details of the cause beyond saying that an autopsy would be taking place. While this had been sufficient to imply that death might not have been through natural causes, it didn’t actually say as much. For the time being, at least, the announcement diverted media attention from Hugon Road and the second Lady Bims, which is what it was intended to do.

  In view of the current unsavoury news stories about Bims, Treasure was certainly aware that this respite would be short lived, but it gave the Eels’ directors till morning to decide how to cope with the development publicly from the club’s viewpoint. The second Lady Bims, the statement had said, would not be available for comment until after her husband’s funeral, all inquiries before that were to be handled through Sir Ray’s office in Mayfair, address and telephone number provided.

  ‘Have you come across strychnine poisoning before, doctor?’ Treasure inquired of the fortyish, jovial, oversized and overweight Fitzmount who was holding a half-empty pint tankard. The pewter tankard had been refilled several times already.

  ‘Yes, but not since I was a hospital intern in Belfast,’ the doctor replied. ‘The stuff’s more difficult for punters to come by these days, thank God. Did you see his face? Yes, of course you did. You were in there with him when I arrived.’ It was Fitzmount, fetched from the Eels’ bench, and dressed, as now, in his team tracksuit, who had officially pronounced Bims as dead. He finished his pint before adding in the same penetrating Ulster brogue: ‘Must be a horrible bloody death for the pain of it to be etched in the face like that.’

  ‘You diagnosed the cause of death straight away,’ said the banker.

  ‘Oh, sure. The signs were classical. He expired in spasm. In a titanic, arching convulsion. Head trying to reach his heels. There was also that pot beside him labelled strychnine, of course.’ The doctor chuckled. ‘Anyone who could read would have made the same diagnosis. No, it happens there hasn’t been a case in my bit of West London for some time. In this area, we keep off the strychnine and stick to the booze, isn’t that the truth of it, Lord Grenwood?’ he completed, planting the empty tankard noisily on the bar, then absently shifting it about.

  ‘Quite right, my boy,’ said Berty. ‘He’s a very good doctor, you know,’ he told the others. ‘Keeps my wife and me up to scratch as well as the Eels.’ Then his face showed that a message had registered. ‘Let me get you another beer, Gordon,’ he said, reaching behind him for a bottle.

  ‘If you insist, thank you.’ Fitzmount beamed, then went on, ‘Candler, the police doctor who was here just now, he says he sees quite a few victims of strychnine poisoning. Nearly all suicides. Wouldn’t be my choice for the quick trip to oblivion.’

  ‘What would Candler’s other cases have been, I wonder?’ Treasure asked. ‘Accidents or murders?’

  ‘Some of each, I should think,’ the Irishman replied. ‘In time past, a lot of careless gardeners ingested strychnine by mistake. It was a favourite, as well, with people wanting to do away with wives or husbands excess to requirements. It’s soluble in alcohol, of course.’ He glanced involuntarily at his beer. ‘And that way the taste’s disguised. Or made a touch more palatable, which is what applied in Bims’s case, I expect. We’re assuming that’s how he took it, of course, pending the analysis of what had been in that glass besides brandy.’

  A used balloon brandy glass had been found on the dressing-room table, along with the strychnine. It seemed, thus, that Sims had been fastidious about choosing the appropriate vessel for his final if tainted drink. Treasure speculated idly on whether this made Bims the kind of man who used the butter-dish knife when breakfasting alone—and decided it probably did.

  Linkina’s thin mouth tightened. ‘Strychnine or a bullet was what Bims had at hand. This is so, yes?’ he asked slowly, the accent again emphasizing the end consonants. ‘Ever since he has stolen the poison and the rifle last night? So he planned to kill himself. It was not something he did on impulse. If it had been, would he not have done it earlier? As soon as he had the means? Even in Edingly’s office?’ He looked across towards the two men at the desk as he continued: ‘Probably he was thinking of nothing else all day, poor fellow.’

  ‘Vacillating over whether to do it, you mean?’ Treasure questioned, but doubtfully.

  ‘I hope it was nothing I said at lunch that … that tipped the scales. Oh dear,’ mourned Berty, absently twisting at the hairs protruding from his right ear. ‘Can you tell us exactly when it happened, Gordon?’

  ‘Not really. He was pretty cold, so he’d probably been dead three hours or more. The autopsy should give a better time fix.’ Fitzmount glanced at his watch. ‘I expect they’ll do a preliminary dissection of the body tonight.’

  The last melancholy prediction precipitated an uncomfortable pause. Treasure ended this by breaking in confidently with: ‘Well, I’m sure it was nothing you said, Berty. The Eels were just a sideshow in Bims’s life. His big concern was obviously the Cayman business. He was taking that more seriously than he let anyone imagine. Much more seriously. Could even be he got more bad news from America this afternoon. Possibly the situation had suddenly become hopeless for him. It’s certainly been heading in that direction.’

  Linkina frowned. ‘But he’s the last man one would have guessed would take his own life. In any circumstances,’ he said, his hands, palms upwards, making a kind of weighing gesture. ‘He was too brash and confident. And a bully, too.’

  ‘People of that type often react more dramatically than others in real adversity,’ supplied the doctor after swallowing some beer. ‘I’m only curious that he chose the poison, not the gun. It was the more painful of the options.’

  ‘Ah, a rifle’s a damned cumbersome thing when you point it at yourself,’ said Berty, with the assurance of someone who did it regularly.

  ‘Not necessarily accurate, you mean?’ Treasure asked. ‘Not a two-two calibre rifle, held backwards?’

  ‘A higher calibre wouldn’t be any better,’ said the doctor, in a more considered tone than before. ‘A shotgun would be more … more reliable for the purpose, I suppose, though just as cumbersome.’

  ‘Well, he had a pair of shotguns at home,’ Berty put in promptly. ‘Purdeys,’ he added, as though their provenance was relevant, then shook his head again after deciding it probably wasn’t. ‘But we don’t know what else was going through his mind, of course,’ he completed lamely.

 

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