Bloodthirst Page 3

  ‘Oh, Peter, how marvellous. But how did you know it was my birthday?’

  ‘Through bribery,’ he admitted. ‘A large box of chocolates to Miss Potts, and she got it for me from your file.’

  ‘I don’t think I approve of that, but many thanks, dear Peter. Now I shall be able to hold my own with your English nurses.’

  She was referring to the hospital custom of girls with SRN status wearing ornate clasps on the broad black belts which encircled their navy pinstripe uniforms nicknamed ‘butchers’ aprons’. This dress, said to date back to the days of Florence Nightingale, was sacrosanct in the tradition of the hospital, and the antique buckles were the only hint of individuality allowed.

  ‘I found it on a stall in Portobello Road.’

  She was about to kiss him when a waiter materialized to take their order. When they were eating they saw the lights of a vessel heading downstream from a berth by the Batter-sea power station. Its port light threw a brief red streak on the black water.

  ‘Ships that pass in the night, is it not so?’ mused Anne-

  Marie.

  ‘Are we ships that pass in the night?’ Peter asked.

  She gave a little shrug.

  ‘I do not know,’ she answered slowly. ‘You know I return to Paris after my course ends … ’

  ‘That’s still some time away,’ he interrupted. ‘And I’ve got a few plans before that happens. Look, spring is almost here. How about coming up to Northumberland with me in a couple of weeks? My father lives up there in a cottage he’s modernized, and it’s about time I visited the old boy. You’d love it up there, and I know he’d make you very welcome.’

  ‘Sounds nice,’ she said. ‘I shall come with you. I think I have a long weekend coming up.’

  ‘And I’m due for some leave, so it’ll be okay. I’ll write to Dad. Despite the fact he’s terribly busy on his current book, I worry in case he’s lonely.’

  ‘That’s settled then,’ Anne-Marie said. ‘But I hope I’ll see you before then, and by that I don’t mean glimpses of your white coat vanishing down a corridor.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Peter chuckled. ‘There’s a new play that has had some good reviews … ’ And they began working out when the hospital schedules would leave them free for their next outing. Then the meal was over and they were dancing.

  ‘Do you want to make some money?’ Peter whispered when the music became low and old fashioned.

  ‘Argent I can always use,’ Anne-Marie laughed.

  ‘Well, there’s some betting going on for which you have inside information … ’ And he repeated what Tudor Owens had said about the hospital punters.

  ‘Dr Owens is a dreadful man,’ Anne-Marie declared, but Peter saw her eyes light with amusement.

  * * *

  A cheerful West Indian nurse ushered August Hallström into the reception office where Peter Pilgrim waited to interview him. Britt’s father was a tall man with a long and narrow head. Only in the strands of blond hair, brushed forward over a balding brow, did he show any resemblance to his daughter. Peter wondered that such an ungainly man should have fathered such a fain child, yet when he smiled he had a shy charm.

  ‘Good morning, doctor,’ he said with a slight bow. ‘I believe you are interested in my daughter’s case,’ His English was flat-toned but grammatically perfect.

  ‘Sit down, Mr Hallström,’ said Peter. ‘Nurse, please bring us some coffee. Yes, I am very interested in Britt’s condition. I’m already studying a group of narcoleptic children, and your little girl seems to fall into that category. But before we discuss her case, I’d like to know exactly what happened.’

  ‘Last summer I took my wife and Britt for a holiday in Lapland,’ he explained. ‘We left Norrkoping, where I have a construction business, in our Volvo and drove north up to Finnmark where we visited Hammerfest. Britt was very excited because it is the most northerly town in the world.

  ‘We camped out everywhere, and it was a good holiday.

  But on the return journey, near a village called Kaamanen, it happened. Do you know Lapland, doctor?’

  Peter shook his head.

  ‘It is a marvellous country, the last piece of natural unspoilt land in Europe with forests which stretch hundreds of kilometres in every direction. It is in the marshes the mosquitoes breed in summer. They are the real terrors of the north because when they attack they attack in thousands. They will get round a reindeer and worry it so much it will run through the trees until it falls over a cliff or dashes itself against a rock. There have been cases of travellers needing blood transfusions after they have been sucked by these thirst) insects.

  ‘Of course we had our nets for sleeping. I did not know then it could be dangerous in daytime. I parked by the roadside and lit the Primus to make coffee. Britt could see water shining through the trees and off she went. We did not realize we were near a mosquito swamp.

  ‘Suddenly I heard Britt scream. I ran in the direction of the sound, and I saw a black cloud of them round her. They are not the little mosquitoes you have in England. These were great black monsters. No matter what she did they swirled round her, settling on even centimetre of exposed skin and sucking her blood. They crawled within her clothes, into her ears and up her nostrils.

  ‘She was hysterical, beating the air about her and running. I shouted for her to stop, but she just raced madly through the trees with me running after her. It was like following a moving black pillar.

  Then she vanished from sight. I ran up and found that in her panic she had run over a steep bank by a stream. She was lying half in the water. In her fall she had gashed her head and her arm on sharp stones. I picked her up and made my way back to the Volvo. It was difficult because by now the mosquitoes were round me. I put her in the back seat with my wife and we drove off.

  ‘My child was in a bad way. I think she was unconscious but it was hard to tell. Her face was so swollen the eyes were completely closed. Soon I had to let my wife take the wheel because my eyes were closing too.

  ‘Luckily a timber truck came along the road, and my wife stopped it. The driver told her there was a medical centre nearby, and when we reached it Britt was well looked after. She had the gash in her arm stitched, and was given a transfusion for loss of blood, and shock. At first they were afraid of concussion, but after three days we were allowed to continue our journey home.

  ‘There she began to complain of being drowsy all the time. She began to go into what you might call trances. Once she actually went to sleep riding her bicycle.’

  ‘That’s a symptom of narcolepsy all right,’ Peter said.

  ‘I thought it was due to her fall. I still do. I took her to a hospital in Stockholm and there they did all the tests, but they could find nothing.’

  ‘Did you bring her notes?’

  ‘Yes.’ August Hallström opened his briefcase and produced a black folder of papers. He handed them across the desk.

  ‘The top ones are in Swedish language,’ he explained. ‘Under them are translations I had done by a medical translator.’

  ‘You are very thorough,’ said Peter, leafing through the pages. The Jamaican nurse brought in coffee and beamed at Britt’s father.

  ‘Finally, I took her to a top specialist,’ he continued. ‘He said I should bring her to London, so I flew over with Britt. I was going to make an appointment as a private patient, but just after we had landed she collapsed. We were in the taxi, so I had the chauffeur bring her straight here, because this is the hospital Dr Stromberg recommended. He said it was the best in the world for nervous disorders. His letter of introduction is there.’

  ‘Mr Hallström, were there any other symptoms your daughter showed after the mosquito accident?’ Peter asked.

  It seemed a troubled look came into the Swede’s pale eyes.

  Peter continued carefully: ‘What I mean, was there anything else? For example, did she have any personality changes?’

  The father rubbed his hand wearily across his fac
e.

  ‘Of course the accident had an effect on her,’ he said. ‘Afterwards she could not stand the sight of a mosquito.’

  ‘You must be frank with me if I am to be of any help,’ Peter said. ‘Last night, I regret to say, your daughter woke up and attacked one of the hospital staff. To be exact, she bit him badly.’

  ‘Oh, no!’

  ‘Has it happened before?’

  Hallström nodded, eyes cast down.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Yes, doctor. She seemed to develop sexually more than was normal for her age. I do not think she has had intercourse yet, but she suddenly seemed interested in men — men, not boys — and in young women, too. She became over-affectionate with them.’

  He paused wearily. ‘It was a young student, the son of a neighbour, whom she attacked in Sweden. He was in our garden. Suddenly she put her arms round him and tried to bite, but he threw her off. He was scared in case we should think he was … you understand? I know because my wife saw it all. And then there was her kitten.’

  ‘What about her kitten?’

  Hallström raised his hands and let them fall weakly.

  ‘She cut its head off … with scissors.’

  He paused again.

  ‘I cannot explain it. Before her accident she loved that kitten. She has changed, yet most of the time she seems sweeter than ever. Do you think there could be brain damage?’

  ‘I can’t say yet,’ Peter answered. ‘But there is one thing to remember, Mr Hallström. This abnormal behaviour is sure to be connected with the accident. Do not blame her, blame whatever it is that has happened to her. Meanwhile we will do everything in our power to discover what it is and correct it.’

  ‘You are a kind man, doctor,’ said Hallström, standing up. ‘I was beginning to fear my Britt was becoming a monster — a monster with the face of an angel.’

  ‘Tell us, pray what devil

  This melancholy is, which can transform

  Man into monsters’

  Peter quoted.

  ‘Please?’ Hallström said from the door.

  ‘Lines from a seventeenth-century English writer called John Ford,’ Peter explained. ‘Now I suggest you see the almoner, Mr Hallström. There are some papers you must sign.’

  The Swede gave his tight little bow and left the room.

  ‘He’s sure sad, that man,’ remarked the Jamaican nurse as she cleared away the coffee cups.

  When Peter met Anne-Marie that evening for supper she chided him for being preoccupied.

  ‘You know our pact not to get bogged down with hospital gossip,’ he answered.

  ‘If you are worried, Peter-Pierre … ’

  He told her about Britt’s EEG results, followed by the attack on Lionel Tedworth.

  ‘For some reason — perhaps through shock — he went into a coma himself,’ he continued. ‘On a hunch I had him taken down for an EEG. Believe it or not, the same reading came up for him as Britt. In other words, there was no reaction at all — he was neither alive nor dead!’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ Anne-Marie declared. ‘You’re too imaginative. You get it from your father. It’s obvious the machines are faulty.’

  ‘They’re working okay today.’

  ‘Coincidence!’

  He nodded and smiled at her.

  ‘You’re probably right. Now, what are we going to eat?’

  * * *

  Britt surfaced from her dream. The room was illuminated by a forty-watt bulb with a blue shade. By its light she saw nurse slumped over the table, asleep with her head on her arms. She smiled and climbed out of her bed. Life had become so strange, she hardly knew when she was awake and when she was dreaming. What was she doing here? And where was Daddy? And where was that nice man who made her so happy when she kissed him?

  The other children were asleep in their beds ranged round the room. Britt felt she loved them all, but it was unfair they hardly ever woke up at the same time as she. She went from bed to bed, looking down on them. If only they were her brothers and sisters! She yearned to make them part of her dreams. She would kiss them just as she had kissed that nice man who had tasted so good.

  She bent over a small boy who lay with his arms above his head on the pillow. His hair was a mass of ringlets which earned him the nickname of Curlytop among the staff.

  ‘I do love you, I do love you,’ murmured Britt as she put her face close to his. For a moment the narcoleptic child’s face became a rictus of pain, but the trance held him and he relaxed. Joy fully Britt straightened up, the tip of her tongue caressing her lips. She went to the next bed …

  Nurse continued to sleep, unaffected by the restless stirring of her charges. Finally Britt returned to her bed and smiled up at a well-worn Teddy. Now they would be her brothers and sisters and share her dreams.

  It was another hour before nurse opened her eyes, guiltily looked at her watch and began to check the pulse and respiration of her patients. It was then she saw the teeth marks.

  Chapter 4

  The same Friday morning that Peter Pilgrim and Anne-Marie began their drive to Northumberland; a journalist named Holly Archer was summoned by her editor. His office had white carpeting and chrome furniture with black leather. On the dove-grey wall behind his rosewood desk was a large baize board to which were pinned the latest Revue campaign posters. They reflected the editorial content of a weekly paper which, despite stiff competition and the explosion of colour television, still sold over a million copies … ‘Is SHE Prince Charles’s Miss Right?’ — ‘Spot Our Man on the Run’ — ‘Confessions of a Love Drug Smuggler’ — ‘Knit this Exciting Sweater’.

  As Holly entered, mentally contrasting the opulence with the drab olive-green rooms where journalists yawned at typewriters chained to their desks, the editor rose with his famous courtesy and indicated an armchair so low it made the occupant look up to him.

  ‘No thanks,’ said Holly brightly. ‘I’ll sit over here.’ She perched on the arm of an avant-garde sofa. The editor nodded good-naturedly and reseated himself. He fixed her with a fatherly smile which she knew from bitter experience was the mask of the hardest taskmaster she had ever served. During her three years on Revue her preoccupation had been meeting his challenges.

  It had been a favourite trick of his to think up a headline and then make her find a story to fit it. After a year of these gruelling tests she was promoted to feature-writer and her pay almost doubled. Apart from old Bob Wilson who did crime, she was now regarded as the best staff writer, a position she fought to hold by a high quota of stories which followed Revue’s unofficial dictum of ‘Blood, Sex and Royalty.

  ‘What have you coming up for us this week?’ the editor asked.

  Holly knew he was well aware of what each member of his staff was working on through his morning consultations with the features editor, but she answered dutifully: ‘I’m doing a beat-up on cell therapy rejuvenation.’

  ‘Are you?’ said the editor, whose mind worked in headlines. ‘“Blood Boosts Banish Old Age Blues”, eh?’

  ‘Something like that,’ Holly admitted.

  ‘That can keep, but if there’s anything genuine in it you might give me a memo — our chairman would be interested. Do you feel like a trip to Copenhagen?’

  ‘Not that!’ wailed Holly. ‘Circulation dipping again?’

  ‘Put it this way, it could do with a bit of cell therapy — sex cell therapy, ha ha ha!’

  ‘What can I do on the porno scene which hasn’t been done already?’ demanded Holly, turning her palms outward.

  ‘Ah!’ said the editor with a chilling smile. ‘That’s for you to find out. Look at it from the woman’s angle — ha ha ha! Try and get close to one of the live action performers and get her story. How about, “Public Copulation Saved My Marriage”? I’ve been on to the promotion boys and you’ll get a TV commercial out of it.’

  ‘That should be good. As long as it has a couple of full frontals and my name read out loud enough to shock my o
ld mum … ’

  ‘Your old mum should be very proud of you,’ said the editor soothingly. ‘You know you’re one of the best human-interest writers we’ve ever had, so be a good girl and pop over this afternoon. Betty’s fixing the flight tickets now, and we’ve jacked up a local freelance photographer called Christian Christiansen to do the picture coverage. Do a good job and I promise you a story in the south of France. Okay?’

  ‘Bribery will get you anywhere,’ Holly grinned.

  * * *

  As Holly strapped herself into the seat of the SAS DC9 at Heathrow Airport, she was suddenly amused at her previous annoyance over this assignment. Three years ago when, wide-eyed after a boring stint on a provincial newspaper, she had been given a month’s trial on Revue, she would have been delirious at the thought of flying off to foreign cities at short notice. Now she was used to it. She had her own flat in Hampstead and drove an ageing but still very fast Aston Martin which had been resprayed sulphur. Her life was made up of smart parties, PR receptions where cocktails circulated with Fleet Street slander, and suppers with celebrities at the expensive restaurants.

  But she knew that on the Street one had to keep running to stand still. She was only as good as her last story, and she sometimes woke up with the fear her talent was running out.

  She thought wryly it was natural for the editor to give her this assignment because of her brash image. Yet in one respect she was the least qualified of all the Revue staff to cover the erotic nightlife of the Danish capital. Holly had a secret she would have hated any of her colleagues to guess — she was still a virgin.

  She had worked with too much intensity to be interested in an emotional relationship with any of the men she had met, even though many had been fascinating. She could not accept the idea of giving her virginity in some casual encounter.

  Holly felt that this was probably wrong in the liberated ‘seventies, and that perhaps she ought to see a psychiatrist, though maybe it was the drive of sublimation which was responsible for her present high-powered position. If that was the price for a full and amusing life, it wasn’t too high and it wasn’t a state that had to be permanent.