Triffids Beard 2 - The Bearded Triffid

her technical expertise. But therein lies the flaw. If her research and experience in this area let her down
so badly, it is tempting to ask just how much reliance one can place on her expertise and research into
other areas; most notably the medical evidence on which so many vital plot threads hang. I found the
medical information convincing and absorbing, but I am strictly a layman here. Would a real pathologist
be as convinced? The seeds of doubt have been sown, so perhaps the nit is not so tiny after all.
On the other hand the books are novels, not text books. I do not read them to learn about the inner
workings of a computer's plumbing (or the inner workings of a person's plumbing for that matter). I
read them for entertainment and grue and on that level they succeed magnificently; hence their
enormous popularity and hence Patricia Cornwell's correspondingly enormous riches. There is no doubt
that she has tapped a popular vein. So to speak.
I came home to discover that my ginger cat (called, with complete lack of imagination, Ginger) had a
lump. It was so large that she looked distinctly lop-sided and while it appeared to be affording her no
discomfort, a visit to the vet was obviously called for. Much to her disgust she was bundled into a cage
and off we went.
"Looks like an abscess," opined the vet after poking around. "I'll just see what's inside it." She stuck a
syringe into the lump and pulled on the plunger. The syringe filled up with a custardy liquid. "Yes," said
the vet in tones of deep diagnostic satisfaction, "full of pus. Definitely an abscess. We'll have to drain it.
Come back in an hour or so."
I filled the next hour by wandering around the bookshop in the shopping mall across the road. I didn't
buy anything because there were no new Patricia Cornwell books to be had. She hadn't written anything
in the last week. Pity that.
When I reappeared at the vets I was shocked to find that Ginger had been shaved all down her left side
and she had two holes at the top and bottom of the abscess. A plastic strip poked coyly out of each,
connecting them together, and it was secured in place with a couple of rough stitches; the idea being to
keep the wound open and let it drain. "Bring her back next Wednesday," instructed the vet, "so we can
remove the stitches and the drain."
I took her home. She dripped unmentionable fluids.
The next day being Sunday with the vet presumably enjoying a well-deserved day of rest, Ginger decided
to pull the drain out. She succeeded in rupturing the stitches and bit off the top of the protruding plastic.
What had once been a neat little oozing hole became a gaping wound that flowed with foulness. There
was nothing for it -- we had to visit the emergency, after-hours, hideously expensive vet. I packed a
couple of credit cards and off we went.
The vet took his glasses off, the better to peer at the wound. "Draining nicely," he observed, and took
Ginger into the back room. When he emerged again a few minutes later the wound was nicely stitched
and Ginger was wearing an Elizabethan collar -- a large plastic ruff around the neck. "That'll stop her
getting at the wound again," he said smugly. "Keep her indoors until Wednesday. Probably best to keep
her in the cage."
This was duly done, though it was not without incident. The Elizabethan collar had to come off for meals
since not only could she not get at the wound while wearing it, she couldn't get at anything else either. I'll
draw a veil lightly over her toilet arrangements. Suffice it to say that she didn't like them, and made her
displeasure copiously plain.
Wednesday saw the stitches and drain successfully removed. The holes soon scabbed over and healed,
but the fur on her naked side is taking forever to grow back. Currently she sports a light coating of
uneven fluff and looks remarkably silly. Baldness does not suit cats. Mind you, neither do lumps.
I have one more Patricia Cornwell book to read. It is called Hornet's Nest. It is not about Kay Scarpetta
-- indeed it has no connection at all with Cornwell's other books except for the trivial connection that it
too is a thriller/police procedural. I am told by those who have read it that the style is quite different from