The Complete Short Stories

Now at last he was out, his savings invested in the Jaguar, fleeing Europe and his memories of the prison for the empty highways of North Africa. He didn’t want any more trouble.

‘I’d like to help,’ he told the girl. ‘But the risks are too high. All your friend can do is try to come to terms with herself.’

The girl chewed her lip fretfully. ‘I don’t think she can. Thanks, anyway, doctor.’

* * *

For three hours they sat back silently in the speeding car, until the lights of Tobruk came up ahead, the long curve of the harbour.

‘It’s 2 A.M.,’ Gregory said. ‘There’s a motel here. I’ll pick you up in the morning.’

After they had gone to their rooms he sneaked back to the registry, booked himself into a new chalet. He fell asleep as Carole Sturgeon wandered forlornly up and down the verandas, whispering out his name.

After breakfast he came back from the sea, found a big United World cruiser in the court, orderlies carrying a stretcher out to an ambulance.

A tall Libyan police colonel was leaning against the Jaguar, drumming his leather baton on the windscreen.

‘Ah, Dr Gregory. Good morning.’ He pointed his baton at the ambulance. ‘A profound tragedy, such a beautiful American girl.’

Gregory rooted his feet in the grey sand, with an effort restrained himself from running over to the ambulance and pulling back the sheet. Fortunately the colonel’s uniform and thousands of morning and evening cell inspections kept him safely to attention.

‘I’m Gregory, yes.’ The dust thickened in his throat. ‘Is she dead?’

The colonel stroked his neck with the baton. ‘Ear to ear. She must have found an old razor blade in the bathroom. About 3 o’clock this morning.’ He headed towards Gregory’s chalet, gesturing with the baton. Gregory followed him into the half light, stood tentatively by the bed.

‘I was asleep then. The clerk will vouch for that.’

‘Naturally.’ The colonel gazed down at Gregory’s possessions spread out across the bedcover, idly poked the black medical bag.

‘She asked you for assistance, doctor? With her personal problems?’

‘Not directly. She hinted at it, though. She sounded a little mixed up.’

‘Poor child.’ The colonel lowered his head sympathetically. ‘Her father is a first secretary at the Cairo Embassy, something of an autocrat. You Americans are very stern with your children, doctor. A firm hand, yes, but understanding costs nothing. Don’t you agree? She was frightened of him, escaped from the American Hospital. My task is to provide an explanation for the authorities. If I had an idea of what was really worrying her… no doubt you helped her as best you could?’

Gregory shook his head. ‘I gave her no help at all, colonel. In fact, I refused to discuss her problems altogether.’ He smiled flatly at the colonel. ‘I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice, would I?’

The colonel studied Gregory thoughtfully. ‘Sensible of you, doctor. But you surprise me. Surely the members of your profession regard themselves as a special calling, answerable to a higher authority. Are these ideals so easy to cast off?’

‘I’ve had a lot of practice.’ Gregory began to pack away his things on the bed, bowed to the colonel as he saluted and made his way out into the court.

* * *

Half an hour later he was on the Benghasi road, holding the Jaguar at 100, working off his tension and anger in a savage burst of speed. Free for only ten days, already he had got himself involved again, gone through all the agony of having to refuse help to someone desperately needing it, his hands itching to administer relief to the child but held back by the insane penalties. It wasn’t only the lunatic legislation but the people enforcing it who ought to be swept away — Bortman and his fellow oligarchs.

He grimaced at the thought of the cold dead-faced Bortman, addressing the World Senate at Lake Success, arguing for increased penalties for the criminal psychopath. The man had stepped straight out of the 14th-century Inquisition, his bureaucratic puritanism masking two real obsessions: dirt and death. Any sane society would have locked Bortman up for ever, or given him a complete brain-lift. Indirectly Bortman was as responsible for the death of Carole Sturgeon as he would have been had he personally handed the razor blade to her.

After Libya, Tunis. He blazed steadily along the coast road, the sea like a molten mirror on the right, avoiding the big towns where possible. Fortunately they weren’t so bad as the European cities, psychotics loitering like stray dogs in the uptown parks, wise enough not to shop-lift or cause trouble, but a petty nuisance on the caf terraces, knocking on hotel doors at all hours of the night.

At Algiers he spent three days at the Hilton, having a new engine fitted to the car, and hunted up Philip Kalundborg, an old Toronto colleague now working in a WHO children’s hospital.

Over their third carafe of burgundy Gregory told him about Carole Sturgeon.