Snippets 11

Dr John O’Rourke and his wife had agreed to join the usual group of friends to attend the annual celebration of St Patrick’s Day at the Grosvenor House Hotel, making a total party of eighteen. During the morning of that day he and his wife had a very big row, one of the worst in their eighteen years together, ending by her storming out of the house saying “I will be at my sister’s home until John you come to apologise, and I will certainly not be coming with you to the ball this evening”. At first John thought that he should phone his friends to cancel, but on reflection he realised that the money was paid anyway, and that he might as well go and try to forget his argument. Consequently he found himself with his friends, all of whom had their wives and all of them enjoying themselves thoroughly, while he was feeling miserable. He wasn’t much of a dancer so he was mostly sitting alone watching the others and he tended to drink considerably more that was his share of the wine, and later of the brandy. All his friends had organised taxies, but he hadn’t given any thought to that problem and had driven his own car and parked it in a side street behind the hotel. As the evening went on he got more and more depressed and drank more and more, and finally found a comfortable chair into which he collapsed. One of the group saw him some time later and alerted his friend Cyril who lived in much the same direction and he agreed to take him home in his taxi and leave the car to be collected next day. However when Cyril went to find him an hour later he found that John wasn’t still in the building and as he certainly wasn’t fit to drive the whole group searched the hotel and all the streets in the neighbourhood but to no avail. At 4 A M Cyril’s phone rang and he heard John’s voice say” you know nothing of me last evening if anyone asks you and you don’t know if I had my car” and John didn’t wait for a reply. It was two days before Cyril heard the full story. John had revived in the hotel and while he was very drunk and completely fed up he decided to go home, not stopping to think that he was too drunk to drive safely. He got behind the wheel and immediately put his foot down and travelled no more than five hundred yards before he hit a bollard. He immediately panicked and got out of the car and ran away about a hundred yards, thinking that as a doctor he would be off driving for at least a year and might possibly be stricken off the medical register. Still very much under the influence of alcohol he then realised that his car would be recognised, so re returned to it and tried to start it but failed to get any response so had no option but to abandon it again. He then opened the petrol tank thinking that he could completely demolish the car if he put a match to it, and without delay threw a match into the tank causing quite an explosion and a gush of flame which quickly engulfed the whole car. John got a dreadful shock and drew back by sheer reflex action, but not before he singed his hair and scorched his clothes. He then took to his heels and ran about half a mile before picking up a taxi. Fortunately there were no people around as it was around three am and very cold. He sobered up quickly with the shock and changed taxis three times before giving the final driver his home address. On arriving home he immediately phoned his friend who was also his family doctor who came around at once and on hearing the whole story who also realised the police would be able to trace the car fairly quickly and that they would be around without much delay. He then said to John that your story must be that you left the hotel and sat in your car and put the key into the ignition and then received a blow on the back of your head which knocked you out, and on regaining consciousness the car was gone. You then wandered around in a semi-conscious state until you reached the place where you found the final taxi to take you home, and then you phoned me. John said that is a very convincing story except that I have no injury on the back of my head. The friend whose name was Dave took up John’s wife’s hand mirror off the dressing table and from behind struck John’s head a sharp blow and said “you have the necessary injury now”, and then he calmly proceeded to put three stitches into the wound and when finished he bound up John’s head leaving very little visible, having firstly cut away all visible signs of scorching. He was barely finished when the police arrived asking to speak to Dr John O’Rourke. Dave told them that he couldn’t possibly allow them to interview him as he was suffering from concussion having sustained a quite serious injury to the back of his head and that absolute quiet was essential for forty-eight hours. He said he would allow them to view John from the door but insisted that they must not try to speak to him and to this they agreed, following which they left saying they would be around again next afternoon. Dave said that they must contact him first to make sure that John’s condition would allow this. Next day with Dave present the interview took place and John gave his rehearsed story, which the police seemed to accept. A week later he was interviewed again and of course his partly shaven head and wound were clearly visible and clearly there were several gaps of memory on John’s part due to the concussion. The police were very sympathetic and wished him a speedy recovery, and also his wife who returned during that week. The only thing on John’s conscience later was that he had to claim on his car insurance for the value of the car. However to salve his conscience he gave the cash to charity, regretfully having to find a large sum to buy a new car. John went to live in Cheltenham a year later having gone through a nasty divorce after finding that his wife had been having an affair for over a year!