Quicksand by John Brunner Read Free Book Online Page A

Inspector Hofford. Dr Rudge, Inspector . . .

Where do you want her put, Natalie?"
     
     
"I told Nurse Kirk to get a cell ready in Disturbed Three because I was

expecting some hefty Amazon running amok." Natalie hesitated. "Well, let's

examine her in the duty office and make up our minds after that. Oliphant,

ring Nurse Kirk, will you, and ask her to join us right away?"
     
     
Constable Edwards appeared in the doorway, jingling the keys of Paul's car.

He took them with a word of thanks, his full attention on the girl's

reaction to her surroundings. As she had done in the car, she was studying

everything with an expression that mingled fascination with horror.
     
     
-- Why should she find ordinary things so peculiar? Is she high on a

psychedelic, maybe? Oh, stop trying to guess!
     
     
"Come along, dear," Natalie said. The girl gave a blank stare.
     
     
"I should have told you," Paul said. "She doesn't seem to understand

English."
     
     
"Hysterical aphasia?"
     
     
"No, she spoke to me. But it was in a foreign language."
     
     
"Hasn't she even told you her name?"
     
     
"It's Arrzheen," Paul said, framing the unfamiliar sounds with care.

The girl responded instantly.
     
     
"Urchin," Hofford muttered in the background, still pleased with his own

joke.
     
     
"Well, she's taken to you okay," Natalie said tartly. "You'd better come

along and keep her quiet. Do you mind, or do you want to dash off?"
     
     
"No. . . . No, I've nothing else to do. Inspector, do you want to hang

around, or would you like me to phone you and tell you if we've learned

any more about her?"
     
     
"Yes, ring me up, please," Hofford said. "I might have something to tell

you, too; I sent a man to Blickham General to interview the salesman,

and he should be reporting in pretty soon -- What on earth is that on

your hand, Doctor?"
     
     
Paul turned his palm up numbly. Where the girl had been grasping his hand

so tightly in the car, a smear of almost dry blood. He took hers and

examined it. Yes: under three of the nails, traces of more.
     
     
"That clinches it," Hofford said with satisfaction. "Thank you, Doctor

. . . Dr Rudge . . . good night!"
     
     
     
     
"How do you spell this name of hers?" Nurse Kirk demanded, looking up

from the table at which she was completing the admission record. She was

a wiry Scotswoman of definite lesbian tendencies and extreme Calvinist

morality; Paul had sometimes wondered why she didn't shatter to bits

like an overwound clock-spring. And she added, seeing the girl laid out

naked on the examination couch, "Scrawny little thing, isn't she?"
     
     
-- No, actually she's built perfectly for her height.
     
     
But that response rather shocked Paul. Mirza would no doubt already

have made half a dozen obscene cracks and reduced old Kirk to a state

of hysteria herself, but Mirza lacked the English reluctance to admit

the existence of sex.
     
     
"Put down a case name," he said tiredly. "No, I have a better idea.

Put down 'Urchin.' The police inspector suggested it."
     
     
Nurse Kirk frowned at the levity of it all, but did as she was told.

Natalie, engaged in reading the thermometer which she had eventually

persuaded the girl to keep under her tongue, glanced up and grimaced at

Paul. He relaxed a little.
     
     
-- There are human beings in this world, not an endless string of Mrs

Weddenhalls.
     
     
"Temperature barely subnormal," Natalie said. "She's not significantly

shocked, is she? You noticed, I'm sure."
     
     
"Of course, or I wouldn't have let her ride here in the car."

Paul hesitated. "I mean, she's not shocked in the ordinary sense --

circulation's normal at the extremities as far as I can judge, and I

managed to count her pulse while she was holding my hand in the car,

and that seemed okay too. But she's not a well person, is she? Have you

done the blood-pressure yet, by the way?"
     
     
"Next on the list." Natalie shook down the thermometer. "Why don't