Free Doctor at Large by Richard Gordon Page B

threatening voice.
    ‘No doubt she does. So do half the population of the country. She needs a large glass of hot water, that’s all.’
    ‘She wants to go into ’ospital,’ Mr Wilkins insisted.
    ‘Goodnight,’ I snapped, picking up my stethoscope.
    ‘’Ere!’ He grabbed my lapel. ‘You ’eard what I said – she ought to be in ’ospital.’
    Mrs Wilkins belched loudly. ‘I’m dying!’ she cried.
    ‘Now look here. I don’t want to threaten you with bodily violence twice in a day, Mr Wilkins, but if you don’t take your hands off me this instant–’
    He stared at me, tight-lipped. ‘All right. Have it your own way. I’m going to the Executive Council in the morning.’
    ‘Go to the bloody Town Council tonight, if you want to.’
    ‘And I’m going to the General Medical Council, too. You mark my words,’ he shouted after me as I made for the street. ‘Infamous conduct – professional respect!’
    The words followed me as I ran through the rain, while his mother recovered sufficiently to stick her head out of the window and swear in a way that would certainly have been inadvisable for a dying woman.
    By the time I left the car outside Dr Hockett’s house I was trembling with indignation. This was really too much. I had been treated worse than a man come to fix the drains. Already composing an outraged letter to the BMA, I opened the front door and flashed my torch along the hall. I found Jasmine standing at the bottom of the stairs in her nightie.
    ‘Good God!’
    She giggled. ‘Hello, duckie. The Doctor’s out. He had to go to the Vicar.’
    ‘Get back to bed at once!’
    ‘Go on! You sound like my old dad.’ She came towards me, ‘I’ll go to bed,’ she whispered, ‘if you come too.’
    I dropped the torch in fright. ‘Have you gone insane, woman? Are you crazy? What do you think I am? He’ll be back in a second.’
    ‘No he won’t, ducks. He’s only just gone.’ She grabbed me in the darkness. ‘Come on! Now’s our chance – don’t you want a bit of fun?’ Then she started kissing me, in the spirit of a boxer limbering up on the punching bag.
    I managed to push her away and said desperately, ‘Let me go! Let me go! Haven’t I got enough to worry about as it is? Damn it – if you’ll only leave me alone and go back to bed I’ll – I’ll give you some nembutal.’
    She hesitated. ‘You really will?’
    ‘Yes, I really will,’ I wiped my face with my handkerchief. ‘In fact,’ I went on breathlessly, ‘I wish I could give you the whole ruddy bottle. But only if you’ll go to bed at once and stay there like a good girl. Thus preventing both of us being cut up in the bath by tomorrow morning.’
    She thought for a moment, weighing up the alternative delights of me and nembutal.
    ‘OK,’ she decided. ‘It’s a deal.’
    ‘Run along, then. I’ll get it from the surgery and bring it up.’
    As she disappeared upstairs I opened the drug cupboard and nervously flashed my torch inside. It was filled with several hundred small bottles of samples, which rattled like Haemorrhagic Hilda going downhill as they began to tumble on to the floor all round me. I grabbed the nembutal bottle, pushed the others back, locked the cupboard, and made for the stairs.
    On the landing I hesitated. Jasmine had gone back to her room. Her door was shut. Was I in honour bound to keep my side of the bargain? Perhaps I could sneak back to bed and barricade the door? She might come after me, but Hockett would be back before she could make much more trouble… I heard a creak inside the room: she was impatiently getting out of bed. Her bare footsteps crossed the floor. I grabbed the door handle and pulled.
    ‘’Ere!’ she called. ‘What’s the big idea?’
    ‘The idea is that you stay inside, my good woman.’
    ‘Oh, is it–’
    Together we pulled at the handle, one on each side of the door. As I had the nembutal bottle in one hand, I had a struggle to keep it closed. I didn’t hear the