Free Pestilence by Ken McClure Page B

occasionally betray her impatience with an unguarded look.
    The party broke up around midnight for both Saracen and Jill were on duty in the morning but, before she left, Jill invited Claire to cal her whenever she got too bored with writing. They could arrange an evening out for girl talk.
    Saracen passed his own apartment on the way back to the Nurses’ Home. “Nightcap?” he asked. Jill agreed.
    “Brrr. The place is like a morgue,” said Saracen as he fumbled in the darkness for the light switch. He lit the gas fire, drew the curtains and put some music on before pouring the drinks. “Did you enjoy yourself tonight?” he asked Jill.
    “It was a nice evening,” Jill replied.
    “What did you think of Claire?”
    “I hated her,” said Jill with disarming honesty that made Saracen splutter. “Why?”
    “She is good looking, bright, self-assured, confident, totally at ease. Is that enough to be going on with?”
    Saracen laughed and said, “You had nothing to worry about. You held your own beside her.”
    “You’re too kind sir,” said Jill. “But I felt like a country bumkin beside Claire Tremaine. I could feel the straw falling out of my ears.”
    “Nonsense,” insisted Saracen. “Besides you were a big hit with Alan.”
    “Boys will be boys,” smiled Jill and returned to thoughts of Claire. “God, I wish I had that kind of confidence.” she said.
    “Maybe it’s an act.”
    “Do you think so?”
    “It often is. Even the most outrageous extroverts insist on being basically shy.”
    “They’re usually mistaken” argued Jill. “They misconstrue selfishness as sensitivity, ‘believe they’re ‘basically shy’ because they once managed to have a thought without telling the whole world.”
    “That’s astute of you,” said Saracen quietly. “I came to the same conclusion many years ago.”
    “Then maybe we both know people.”
    “Maybe,” agreed Saracen.
    They finished their drinks.
    “I’d better get back,” said Jill looking at her watch.
    “Of course, I’ll drive you.”
    As they got to the door Jill turned and said, “Thank you James.”
    “For what?”
    “Not sticking your hand up my skirt.”
    Saracen smiled and said, “I won’t say the thought didn’t occur to me.”
    “Good. I would have felt insulted if it hadn’t. Incidentally…why didn’t you?”
    “We don’t know each other well enough.”
    Jill smiled and seemed pleased at Saracen’s reply.
     
    Saracen looked at the green digits on the alarm clock and saw that it was thirteen minutes past four in the morning. It was third time he had looked at the clock in the past hour. Three hours of sleep was not much of a basis to begin a long period of duty on but that thought just made matters worse. There was no way that he was going to fall asleep again and it was all due to Myra Archer and the pricking of his own conscience.
    The explanation that a short delay in deciding which hospital Myra Archer should go to as being all that was wrong in the case was attractive and convenient because it trivialised the incident and absolved him from further involvement. In fact, there was only one thing against it, thought Saracen as he lay in the dark; it was wrong. Of that he was certain. There had to be more to it to have warranted such a cover-up and falsification of records.
    Saracen realised that this was the second time in as many weeks that he had lain awake in the early hours feeling troubled about things at the hospital. The first time had been after the affair at the mortuary when the explanation on offer had seemed too pat and convenient, just like now. Thoughts of that incident had been receding but now they surfaced to niggle at him again. He reached out for the lamp switch and abandoned all hope of sleep. Any remaining reluctance to get up was solely concerned with temperature. The flat did not have central heating and maintained at best an ambience between lukewarm and cold. At four thirty in the morning it was