Free A Dead Man in Malta by Michael Pearce

prove more fruitful and he was glad that Seymour had come.
    Seymour was relieved. One of the things he had not wanted to do was antagonize the local police. He had assured Lucca that there would be genuine cooperation between them and that it was his intention that ‘keeping informed’ meant what it said. Everything he learned inside the hospital would be shared with Lucca.
    He had hoped to thrash out some of these difficulties with the Commander in charge of the hospital on his first visit but the Commander had been away. His duties included oversight of the medical side of those ships currently in harbour and he was away in pursuit of those. In his absence Seymour had talked to the hospital’s Registrar, Ormskirk.
    Ormskirk was friendly enough. Yes, he agreed, things had reached an impasse, and he hoped that Seymour’s arrival would help to unblock it. It was plainly unacceptable that no progress should be made on solving the murders and he could quite see that the Prime Minister had had to fire a few rockets up people’s backsides. But there was another issue, too, which affected him as Registrar, responsible for the general running of the hospital, particularly. Charges had been made against the staff of the hospital, serious charges, which had badly affected morale, and until they were answered the work in the hospital generally would suffer.
    He was quite sure that the charges were unjustified. He hadn’t been here long himself, having been posted from Colombo only the year before, but he had been very impressed when he had arrived by the general standards of the staff and particularly the nurses. ‘A lively, competent lot,’ he said, who knew what they were doing. Which was not what he had to say about Mrs Wynne-Gurr.
    How they had allowed that witch to get in here, and now with a supporting cast of harpies, he could not understand. It had not been his doing. A hospital was a busy, hardworking, complex place and the one thing you did not want was people coming in and getting in the way and putting people’s backs up. He was all in favour of the patients having visitors or of the doctors entertaining colleagues from abroad but you couldn’t have just anybody coming in. And certainly not an old busybody asking daft questions! It had all been running perfectly smoothly before she arrived, he said in aggrieved tones; as if she had somehow brought the murders with her.
    The upshot had been, he said, to put the hospital on the defensive. What with the police and the press and the politicians …! Fortress Birgu, he said, that was what it felt like now. That was what she had turned the place into. No doubt he had noticed that, on coming in.
    He certainly had, said Seymour. And it was a great pity when people were giving of their best in not always easy circumstances. But, look, things would get better only when they had found out who had committed the murders. All this daft talk would be stilled and the hospital could get back to normal.
    So it could, agreed the Registrar, brightening.
    And he, Seymour, would do his very best to bring that happy state about. In fact, could he start now? A little look round, perhaps? And he would try not to get in the way or put people’s backs up. But it was best to get on with it. The sooner it was over and done with, the better.
    The Registrar concurred absolutely: so Seymour had his entrée and had been able to make a start.
    He still felt, however, that he needed to clear things with the senior officer in charge and so an appointment was made for the afternoon of the day after next.
    When he got to the hospital he found that he was rather early and so he dropped in on the nurses in their cubbyhole. He found Melinda talking to a little old, gnome-like man whom he realized he had seen before.
    ‘You should be thinking about getting home, Dr Malia,’ she was saying.
    The doctor looked at his watch.
    ‘Good heavens! Is that the time?’ he said. ‘How time flies when you get