After Effects by Catherine Aird Page A

she’d protested, ‘you’ve only got half a minute. By the time I’ve located Dr Meggie, the patient’ll be dead.’
    â€˜Got it in one, haven’t you?’ he’d murmured, giving her a pitying look before going off to climb the next rung of the uncertain ladder that comprised the greasy pole of his medical career.
    They took a very different view of the care of the elderly, too, in the far country from which Dilys Chomel had come.
    They cherished them.
    â€˜The Coroner,’ Detective Constable Crosby was saying at his stateliest, ‘has ordered a post-mortem examination at the request of the police.’
    â€˜The consultant—’ began Dilys. In hospitals, consultants ranked directly under the Almighty.
    â€˜The Coroner,’ repeated Crosby, ‘has ordered a post mortem examination.’ In the eyes of the police force the Coroner represented the Crown and thus easily outranked chief constables as well as hospital consultants. ‘And I’ve come to enquire into the whereabouts of the body of the deceased.’
    â€˜If it hasn’t been released to the relatives,’ said Dilys, ‘then it’ll be over in the Potter’s Field.’
    â€˜Come again, miss?’
    â€˜Sorry.’ She tossed her head. ‘It’s what the staff here call the mortuary. Most hospitals, you see, have a private name for their mortuary so that the staff can mention it without upsetting the patients. Didn’t you know, Constable?’
    Upsetting their clients wasn’t one of their worries down at the police station. There—like it or not—they called the charge room the charge room. Crosby still looked puzzled. ‘The Potter’s Field, did you say, miss?’
    â€˜It’s from the Bible.’ A missionary culture had done well by Dr Chomel. ‘You’ll find it in St Matthew’s Gospel.’
    â€˜I still don’t see—’
    â€˜The Potter’s Field was where they buried strangers,’ explained Dilys Chomel. ‘Mrs Muriel Galloway’s body’ll be there if it’s still in the hospital.’
    It was.
    And, the mortuary attendant promised Detective Constable Crosby, it would be sent over to Dr Dabbe, the Consultant Pathologist, for a post mortem without delay.
    Crosby thanked him and was just about to take his departure when the man asked him if Dr Meggie had turned up yet. It wasn’t like him, the mortuary attendant said, not to be at one or other of the hospitals, throwing his weight about as usual.
    â€˜Not yet,’ said the detective constable, ‘but I expect he will.’
    â€˜â€™Im and his perishing buttonhole,’ said the man. ‘Who does he think he is?’
    â€˜God,’ said Crosby simply. ‘They all do.’

CHAPTER SIX
    Doctors if no better than other men are certainly no worse.
    â€˜Thanks for talking to my housewoman about that congestive heart failure on Women’s Medical over at Berebury this morning,’ murmured Roger Byville as he found himself standing just behind Dr Beaumont in the antiquated lift at St Ninian’s Hospital. He’d already forgotten the patient’s name. ‘It’s her first house job and she’s still very new here.’
    â€˜No trouble,’ said Beaumont politely, ‘although there was nothing to be done, I’m afraid.’
    The lift creaked to a standstill at the first floor and two nurses and a pathology technician got out.
    â€˜The family are kicking up a bit of a stink all the same,’ said Byville now that the two doctors were alone together.
    â€˜Are they?’ Dr Edwin Beaumont inclined his head sympathetically. It was the relatives of Mr Daniel McGrew’s patients who usually did that.
    Pour cause.
    Byville said, punching the lift button with quite unnecessary force, ‘They’re asking for a post mortem. ’
    â€˜That should put their minds at rest.’
    â€˜I