Beneath the Bleeding

by Val McDermid

  He stood up and leaned on the counter. The movement stirred the air enough to send the bitter after-smell of cheap tobacco across the gap between them. ‘All right?’ Yousef said.

  ‘All right. What can I do you for?’

  Yousef pulled out a list. ‘I need some heavy-duty gloves, a face shield and ear protectors.’

  The man sighed and pulled a dog-eared catalogue along the counter. ‘Best have a look in here. That shows you what we do.’ He opened it, flicking through the creased pages till he reached the section on gloves. He pointed to a picture at random. ‘See, there’s a description. Gives you an idea of thickness and flexibility. Depends what you want them for, see?’ He pushed the catalogue towards Yousef. ‘You decide what you’re after.’

  Yousef nodded. He began to pore over the catalogue, a bit taken aback by the range of choices on offer. As he read the descriptions of the items, he couldn’t help smiling. For some reason, Pro-Tech didn’t list his project among their recommended uses for their protective gear. Mr Grey behind the counter would shit himself if he knew the truth. But he never would know the truth. Yousef had been careful. His tracks were clean. A scientific and chemical supplies warehouse in Wakefield. A specialist paint manufacturer in Oldham. A motorbike accessories shop in Leeds. A laboratory equipment supplier in Cleckheaton. Never, never, never in Bradfield, where there was an outside chance of being spotted by someone who knew him. Every time, he’d dressed the part. Painter’s overalls. Biker’s leathers. Neatly pressed shirt and chinos with a line of pens in a pocket protector in the shirt. Paid in cash. The invisible man.

  Now, he made his decision and pointed out what he wanted, adding a protective chest shield for good measure. The warehouseman entered the details into the computer and told Yousef his goods would be along in a minute. He seemed nonplussed when Yousef offered to pay in cash. ‘Have you not got a credit card?’ he asked, sounding incredulous.

  ‘Not a company one, no,’ Yousef lied. ‘Sorry, mate. Cash is all I’ve got.’ He counted out the notes.

  The warehouseman shook his head. ‘That’ll have to do, then. Your lot like cash, don’t you?’

  Yousef frowned. ‘My lot? What do you mean, my lot?’ He felt his fists clench in his pockets.

  ‘You Muslims. I read it some place. It’s against your religion. Paying interest and that.’ The man’s jaw took a stubborn set. ‘I’m not being racist, you know. Just stating a fact.’

  Yousef breathed deeply. As these things went, the man’s attitude was pretty mild. He’d experienced much, much worse. But these days, he was hypersensitive to anything that had the faintest whiff of prejudice about it. It all served to reinforce his choice to stay on this road, to carry his plans through to the end. ‘If you say so,’ he said, not wanting to get into a ruck that would make him memorable, but equally reluctant to say nothing at all.

  He was saved from further conversation by the arrival of his purchases. He picked them up and walked out without responding to the warehouseman’s ‘See ya.’

  The motorway traffic was heavy and it took him the best part of an hour to make it back to Bradfield. He barely had enough time to take the protective gear to the bedsit, but he couldn’t leave it lying round in the van. If Raj or Sanjar or his father saw it, it would provoke all sorts of questions he definitely didn’t want to answer.

  The bedsit was on the first floor of what had once been the town house of a railway baron. A sprawling pile of Gothic Revival, the stained stucco covering the gables and bays was scabby and crumbling, the window frames rotting and the gutters sprouting an assortment of weeds. It had once had a view; now all that could be seen from its front windows was the cantilevered slant of the west stand of Bradfield Victoria’s vast stadium half a mile away. What had once been a quarter endowed with a certain grandeur had declined into a ghetto whose inhabitants were united only by their poverty. Skin tones ranged from the blue-black of sub-Saharan Africa to the skimmed-milk pallor of Eastern Europe. According to a survey carried out by Bradfield City Council, thirteen religions were practised and twenty-two native tongues spoken in the square mile to the west of the football ground.

  Here, Yousef travelled under the radar of his own third-generation immigrant community. Here, nobody noticed or cared who else came and went from his first-floor hideaway. Here, Yousef Aziz was invisible.

  The receptionist tried to hide her shock and failed. ‘Good morning, Mrs Hill,’ she gabbled on automatic. She glanced down at the calendar on her desk, as if she couldn’t believe she’d got it so wrong. ‘I thought you…we weren’t…’

  ‘Good, it keeps you on your toes, Bethany,’ Vanessa said as she swept past on her way to her office. The faces she passed on the way looked startled and guilty as they stammered out their greetings. She didn’t imagine for one moment they’d done anything to be guilty about. Her staff knew better than to try to put one over on her. But she liked that her unexpected arrival sent a ripple of anxiety through the office. It was a sign she was getting her money’s worth. Vanessa Hill wasn’t a touchy-feely employer. She had friends already; she didn’t need to make her employees her buddies. She was tough, but she thought she was fair. It was a message she tried to hammer home to her clients. Keep your distance, win their respect, and your HR problems would be minimal.

  Pity it wasn’t that straightforward with kids, she thought as she dumped her laptop on the desk and hung up her jacket. When your staff didn’t cut the mustard, you could sack them and recruit someone better suited to the job. Kids, you were stuck with. And right from the start, Tony had failed to live up to expectations. When she’d fallen pregnant to a man who had disappeared like snow off a dyke at the news, her mother had told her to put the baby up for adoption. Vanessa had refused point blank. Now, she looked back in bewilderment and wondered why she had been so adamant.

  It hadn’t been for sentimental reasons. She didn’t have a sentimental bone in her body. Another position she recommended to her clients. Had she really gone that far out on a limb just to spite her demanding, controlling mother? There had to be more to it than that, but for the life of her she couldn’t remember. It must have been the hormones, addling her brain. Whatever, she’d endured the neighbourhood spite and gossip that went with single parenthood back then. She’d changed jobs, moving right across town to where nobody knew her, and lied about her past, inventing a dead husband to avoid the stigma. And it wasn’t as if she’d had any illusions about basking in a hazy glow of motherhood. With her father dead and no prospect of a husband now, she was the breadwinner. She’d always known she’d be back at work as soon as was humanly possible, like some bloody Chinese peasant dropping one in the ditch then getting back to the paddy field. And for what?

  Her mother had taken reluctant charge of the boy. She didn’t have much choice since it was her daughter’s pay packet that kept them all afloat. Vanessa remembered enough of her own childhood to know the regime she was condemning her son to. She tried not to think about what Tony’s days would have been like and she didn’t encourage him to talk about it. She had enough to contend with, running a busy personnel department, then branching out to set up her own business. She relished the challenge of work, but she didn’t have energy to spare for a whiny kid.

  Credit to him, he got that pretty early. He learned to put up and shut up, and to do what he was told. When he forgot himself and bounced around her like a puppy, it only took a few sharp words to knock the stuffing out of him.

  Even so, he’d held her back. No doubt about that. All those years ago, no bloke wanted to settle down with some other man’s kid. He was a handicap professionally too. When she was getting her own business established, she’d had to keep the travel to a minimum because her mother kicked off if she was left overnight too often with the boy. Vanessa had missed chances, failed to build fast enough on the contacts she was making and played catch-up too bloody many times thanks to Tony.

  And there had been no pay-off. Other women’s kids got married and provid
ed grand-kids. Photos on the desk, anecdotes in the meeting breaks, family holidays in the sun. Ice-breakers, all of them. Confidence-builders. The bricks and mortar of professional relationships that generated business and earned money. Tony’s continuing failures meant Vanessa had to work that much harder.

  Well, it was payback time now and no mistake. Things couldn’t have worked out better if she’d planned it. He was stuck in hospital, groggy with drugs and sleep. No hiding place. She could get access to him whenever she wanted and pick her moment. All she had to do was make sure she avoided the girlfriend.

  Her PA slipped in and wordlessly delivered the coffee that always arrived within minutes of her settling behind her desk. Vanessa opened up her computer and allowed herself a grim little smile. Fancy Tony landing a woman with looks and brains. Carol Jordan wasn’t the sort of catch Vanessa expected of her son. If she’d imagined him with anyone, it would have been some mousy slip of a girl who worshipped the ground he walked on. Well, girlfriend or no girlfriend, she was going to have her way.

  Elinor raised her hand to knock then paused. Was she about to commit career suicide? You could argue that, if she was right, it didn’t matter whether she spoke up or not. Because if she was right, Robbie Bishop was going to die anyway. Nothing could alter that. But if she was right and she didn’t speak up, someone else could die. Whether accident or intent lay behind whatever had happened to him, it could happen to someone else.

  The thought of having another death on her conscience swung it for Elinor. Better to make an arse of herself in a good cause than have to deal with that. She rapped on the door and waited for Denby’s distracted, ‘Yes, yes, come in.’ He looked up impatiently from a stack of case notes. ‘Dr Blessing,’ he said. ‘Any change?’

  ‘In Robbie Bishop?’

  Denby pulled a half-smile. ‘Who else? We claim to treat all our patients equally, but it’s not exactly easy when we have to run the gauntlet of football fans whenever we enter or leave the hospital.’ He swung round in his chair and looked through the window to the car park below. ‘Even more of them now than when I came back in after lunch.’ He turned back as Elinor began to speak. ‘Do you suppose they think being there can influence the outcome?’ He sounded more bemused than cynical.

  ‘I expect it depends whether they believe in the power of prayer. I did see a pair of them huddled in a doorway saying the rosary.’ She shrugged. ‘It doesn’t appear to be helping Mr Bishop–he seems to be deteriorating steadily. The fluid on his lungs is building up. I’d say respiratory distress is getting worse. There’s no question of him coming off the ventilator.’

  Denby bit his lip. ‘No response to the AZT, then?’

  Elinor shook her head. ‘Nothing discernible so far.’

  Denby sighed and nodded. ‘Damned if I know what’s going on here. Oh, well. So it goes sometimes. Thanks for keeping me posted, Dr Blessing.’ His eyes returned to the files on his desk in dismissal.

  ‘There was one thing?’

  He looked up, eyebrows raised. He appeared to be genuinely interested in what she had to say. ‘To do with Mr Bishop?’

  She nodded. ‘I know it sounds crazy, but have you considered ricin poisoning?’

  ‘Ricin?’ Denby looked almost offended. ‘How on earth would a premiership footballer be exposed to ricin?’

  Elinor battled on. ‘I’ve no idea. But you’re a terrific diagnostician and when you couldn’t come up with anything, I thought it must be something a bit off the wall. And I thought, maybe poisoning. So I checked it out on the online database and all his symptoms match ricin poisoning–weakness, fever, nausea, dyspnea, cough, pulmonary oedema and arthralgia. Add to that the fact that he’s not responding to any of the medications we’ve tried him with…I don’t know, it fits the way nothing else does.’

  Denby looked bemused. ‘I think you’ve been watching too many episodes of Spooks, Dr Blessing. Robbie Bishop is a footballer, not a KGB defector.’

  Elinor stared at the floor. This was what she’d been afraid of. But the reason that had driven her through the door in the first place still existed. ‘I know it sounds ridiculous,’ she said. ‘But none of us has been able to come up with an alternative diagnosis that makes sense of the symptoms and the fact that the patient is not responding to any of the drug regimes we’ve tried.’ She looked up. His head was cocked to one side and although his mouth was a tight line, his eyes expressed interest in what she had to say. ‘And I’m not saying this to flatter you into taking me seriously. But if you can’t work out what is clinically wrong with Robbie Bishop, I don’t think there can be a straightforward explanation in terms of a viral or bacterial illness. Which only leaves poison. And the only poison that makes sense is ricin.’

  Denby jumped to his feet. ‘This is crazy. Terrorists use ricin. Spies use ricin. How the hell does a premiership footballer get ricin into his system?’

  ‘With respect, I think that’s somebody else’s problem,’ Elinor said.

  Denby rubbed the palms of his hands over his face. She had never seen him flustered, never mind this agitated. ‘First things first. We need to check whether or not you’re right.’ He looked expectantly at her.

  ‘You can do an ELISA test for ricin. But even if they’ve got the right antigen in stock and they fast-track it, we still won’t get the results of a sandwich ELISA till tomorrow.’

  He took a deep breath and visibly pulled himself together. ‘Set the wheels in motion. Take the bloods yourself, take them straight to the lab. I’ll call ahead, make sure they know what’s coming down the line. We can start treatment-’ He stopped dead, his mouth hanging open. ‘Oh fuck.’ He squeezed his eyes shut momentarily. ‘There is no bloody treatment, is there?’

  Elinor shook her head. ‘No. If I’m right, Robbie Bishop’s a condemned man.’

  Denby slumped back into his chair. ‘Yes. Well, I don’t think we need to share this possibility with anyone just yet. Not until we know for sure. Don’t tell anyone else what you suspect.’

  ‘But…’ Elinor frowned.

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Shouldn’t we tell the police?’

  The police? You were the one who said it was someone else’s problem, determining how the ricin got into his system. We can’t call the police in on a hunch.’

  ‘But he’s still having lucid spells. He can still communicate. If we wait till tomorrow, he could have lapsed into a coma and he won’t be able to tell anyone how this happened. If it happened,’ she added, seeing the ominous expression on Denby’s face.

  ‘And if you’re wrong? If it turns out to be something quite other? This department will have lost all credibility within the hospital and the wider community. Let’s face it, Dr Blessing, two minutes after we call the police in, the media will be screaming from the rooftops. I’m not prepared to put my reputation and that of my team on the line like that. I’m sorry. We don’t tell anyone–not another living soul–until we get the ELISA results and we know for certain. Are you clear on that?’

  Elinor sighed. ‘I’m clear.’ Then her face brightened. ‘What if I was to ask him? When we’re alone?’

  Denby shook his head. ‘Absolutely not,’ he said firmly. ‘I will not have you interrogate a patient like that.’

  ‘It’s kind of like taking a history.’

  ‘It’s nothing like taking a history. It’s playing at Miss bloody Marple. Now please, let’s not waste any more time. Get started on the ELISA protocol.’ He managed a faint bloodless smile. ‘Good thinking, Doctor Blessing. Let’s just hope for once you’re wrong. Apart from anything else, Bradfield Victoria have no chance of making it into Europe next season without Robbie Bishop.’ Elinor’s face must have revealed her shock for he rolled his eyes and said, ‘I’m joking, for Christ’s sake. I’m as worried about this as you are.’

  Somehow, Elinor doubted that.

  Tony started awake, eyes wide, mouth stretched back in a silent scream. The power of morphine dreams to recreate the gleam of the axe, th
e battle cry of his attacker, the smell of sweat and the taste of blood was terrifying. His breathing was fast and shallow and he could feel sweat curdling on his top lip. Only a dream. He deliberately controlled his breathing and gradually the panic subsided.

  Once he’d calmed down, he tried to raise his wounded leg from the hip. He clenched his hands into tight fists, the nails biting into his palms. The veins on his neck corded up as he strained to move a limb that seemed to have been transmuted into lead. The futile seconds stretched out, then with a grunt of frustration, he gave up. It felt as if he’d never move his left leg again.

  Tony reached for the bed control and eased himself upwards. He glanced at his watch. Half an hour till they would bring his evening meal. Not that he felt like eating, but it was a way of punctuating the day. He almost wished his mother had stayed. At least it gave him something to butt against. Tony shook his head, aghast at the thought. If his mother’s company was the answer, he was asking the wrong question. Not that there weren’t aspects of the history of their relationship that he ought to confront and deal with. But this wasn’t the time or the place. He wasn’t sure when or where would be appropriate for something so potentially painful, but he knew it wasn’t here and now.

  Still, it couldn’t wait for ever. Carol had met her now, and she would have questions. He couldn’t just blank her; Carol deserved more than that from him. The problem was where to start. His childhood memories lacked a narrative. They were fragmentary, a series of incidents loosely linked like dark beads on a tarnished chain. Not all of the memories were bad. But his mother featured in none of the good ones. He knew he wasn’t the only person with such an experience. He had treated plenty of them, after all. Just one more aspect of his history he shared with the crazies.