Chameleon

by Ken McClure

  Jamieson looked back as they drove through the hospital gates and then looked at Sue. 'Feel good to be going?' he asked.

  'Do you really need an answer to that,' said Sue.

  As they sped south on the motorway Sue said, 'Have you had any more thoughts about the man in the wig?'

  'A lot of thoughts but no answers,' replied Jamieson. 'You?'

  Sue paused while she concentrated on finding a suitable moment to pull out and overtake the lorry in front. When they were safely past she said, 'I think he was homosexual.'

  'What makes you say that?'

  'He put his hand up my skirt at one point.'

  'And that makes him homosexual?'

  'He did it to frighten me — and he did — but I could see from the look in his eyes that he got no kick out of it. He could have been twisting my wrist.'

  'Maybe you should tell the police that.'

  'It's not exactly evidence is it? And maybe it's not even important. It doesn't help to explain why he hates you or why he wanted to hurt you so badly.'

  'I suppose not.'

  'Does it worry you?'

  'Of course,' said Jamieson. 'Particularly because I don't understand it. I can't imagine what I could possibly have done to make someone feel that way about me and yet, someone obviously does.'

  They lapsed into silence for a few minutes then Sue asked, 'When will you go to see the Sci-Med people?'

  'I'll go into London on Monday if that's all right with you? The sooner I make my report the better.'

  'Of course.'

  It continued to rain on Sunday but it did not prevent Jamieson and Sue from having their planned walk. They put on waterproofs and Wellingtons and enjoyed the smell of wet leaves as they walked along the lanes, arms wound round each other. They timed it so that they would be in the village of Bridge around lunch time and so would have time to enjoy a meal at their favourite pub. But despite their almost exaggerated attempts to restore normality to their lives it was becoming apparent to both of them that it was something that was going to take time. The nightmare of Kerr Memorial Hospital was not going to fade away readily.

  Their conversation, once punctuated by comfortable silences was now the subject of awkward ones, when one of them knew that the other had strayed off to brood on some happening of the past few weeks. At one point Jamieson had to admit that thoughts of the man who had abducted Sue were haunting him. 'You know what worries me most,' he said. 'It's the fact that the reason this man hates me so much must be in some way tied up with the events at the hospital. I hardly met anyone at all outside the hospital apart from a couple of Italian waiters when I went out to eat — and the tip wasn't that bad.'

  Sue smiled at Jamieson's attempt to lighten the conversation but she persisted. 'But surely no one could possible blame you for the deaths at the hospital,' said Sue.

  'I hope not,' said Jamieson. 'But maybe someone thinks I should have been able to do more. I should have been able to clear the matter up sooner and they blame me for the death of their wife or daughter?'

  'Doesn't sound plausible,' said Sue, shaking her head decisively and Jamieson had to agree.

  'You don't think he might still try to get at you do you?' asked Sue with a worried note in her voice.

  'No, of course not,' said Jamieson. He met Sue's gaze and saw an accusation in her eyes. 'All right,' he said. 'The truth is I have no idea; he may do; there's no way of predicting anything unless we know what lies behind it.'

  'That's more like it,' said Sue. 'Don't bullshit me.'

  'Dr Jamieson is here for his debriefing,' said Miss Roberts into the machine at her elbow. A disembodied voice replied, 'Send him up.'

  'Jackson will show you the way,' said Miss Roberts.

  'It's all right, I remember,' said Jamieson turning to head for the lift.

  'No, that's not allowed,' said Miss Roberts, loudly at first to stop Jamieson and then more apologetically, 'Visitors must be accompanied at all times in the ministry. It's a rule.'

  Jamieson acceded with a smile and waited for the uniformed man to escort him. They exchanged pleasantries about the weather in the lift and Jamieson learned that Mr Jackson had spent his summer holiday in Torquay. The weather had been 'mixed'.

  'Good to see you,' said Macmillan when Jamieson entered the room.

  Jamieson shook hands with him, using his left hand and did the same with Drs Armour and Foreman.

  'I haven't done that since I was in the Boy Scouts,' joked Armour.

  'You had a bit of a rough time up north I understand,' said Macmillan.

  'My wife had a rougher one,' said Jamieson.

  'Bad business,' said Foreman and the other two concurred with nods and sympathy.

  'Still no idea why he wanted to get at you?' asked Foreman.

  'No, but my feeling is that it had something to do with the affair at the hospital. It must have done.'

  'Why?' asked Armour.

  'Apart from the fact that I hardly met anyone outside the hospital during my stay up there I think that there was more to the infection problem than I managed to find out. There were lots of loose ends that I didn't manage to tie up. I suspect some of them were quite important.'

  'But the circumstantial evidence against the man Thelwell was as strong as we could have hoped for,' said Macmillan.

  'I agree,' said Jamieson. 'But I still worry.'

  Macmillan gave a wry smile and said, 'We have to be pragmatic about it I'm afraid. If the infection problem at Kerr Memorial has been cleared up our job is dome and that's an end to it.'

  Armour said, 'Perhaps I might just add that there has been no new murder in the city in the last ten days,' said Foreman. 'It may be a little premature but it's looking good.

  'I agree,' said Armour. 'We may never know the whole story but if both problems have died with this man Thelwell then that must be good enough for all of us.'

  'Very good sir,' said Jamieson.

  Macmillan got to his feet and Jamieson took this as his cue to do likewise. 'I'm sorry your first assignment for Sci-Med has turned out to be so demanding and traumatic for you Doctor, you must have a little break before we think about asking you to help us with anything else.'

  'A little time alone with my wife would be nice,' replied Jamieson. 'We haven't seen much of each other over the past few weeks.'

  'Of course,' said Macmillan. 'By the way,' He held out a brown envelope. 'This is the lab report you asked for from the Sci-Med lab. You had left Leeds before we could get it to you.'

  Jamieson was puzzled. He said, 'I only asked for one lab report and I got that.' He took the report out of the open envelope, one handed, and read it. It was an analytical report on the Staphylococcus that had caused the second outbreak of post-operative infection at Kerr Memorial. 'Strange,' he muttered. 'I don't remember asking for this.' He looked at the photo-copy of the request that was stapled to the report and saw who had. It was signed M. Lippman, pp Dr S. Jamieson. Moira Lippman had sent cultures of the organism and made the request.

  'Mystery cleared up?' asked Armour.

  'Yes, thank you,' said Jamieson, still puzzled but not wanting to discuss it further. He put the report in his pocket.

  'We'll be in touch,' said Macmillan.

  Jamieson had more than two hours to wait for a train that would stop at Bekesbourne Halt, the tiny station within a mile of his home at Patrixbourne. He didn't mind because he was in no hurry and it gave him time to consider why Moira Lippman had made the request to the Sci-Med lab. Had she just been anticipating that he himself would want such an analysis? After all he had sent the Pseudomonas there, or did she have a good reason of her own? Something to do with what she had found out? Jamieson found the notion exciting but there was no point in trying to decipher the report in his pocket in the dirt and damp of a railway station. He would wait until he was at home and had all his reference books to hand.

  The train bound for Dover stopped at Bekesbourne Halt and waited briefly while Jamieson got off along with t
wo women who had obviously been on a shopping expedition to London. The women were weighed down with plastic carrier bags but seemed in remarkably good spirits as Jamieson followed them slowly down the stairs to the road outside. They headed off towards Bekesbourne while he turned right and walked up the road past a hop garden to Patrixbourne.

  'How did it go?' asked Sue.

  'All right. They're happy as long as the infection problem is over.'

  'As you said yourself, it's a matter of priorities,' said Sue.

  'What have you been doing with yourself?' asked Jamieson.

  'Cleaning!' said Sue. 'We've been away so long that the house is filthy.'

  'You shouldn't be doing that just yet,' said Jamieson softly. 'It's too soon after…'

  Sue stiffened as he touched her and half turned away. 'It's over and done with and I'm fine,' she said in a tone that brooked no further discussion. She turned and walked through to the kitchen to put the kettle on. 'Why didn't you tell me the police were watching the house?'

  Jamieson was taken aback. He considered pretending that he did not know what she was talking about but capitulated first. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I suppose I didn't want to alarm you. I just thought it might be a good idea if someone kept an eye on you today when I was away in London and you were here on your own. I arranged it through Sci-Med.'

  'Next time tell me,' said Sue sharply. 'Agreed?'

  'Agreed,' said Jamieson sheepishly.

  'If that man at the end of the lane this morning had not looked so much like a policeman I might have thought he was… someone else entirely.'

  'Oh God, I didn't even consider that,' said Jamieson. 'I'm so sorry. It was thoughtless of me.'

  Sue dropped the teaspoon she had been holding and put her hand up to her face.

  Jamieson came up behind her and put his arm around her. He sensed that Sue was still under great strain.

  Sue recovered quickly and continued with the coffee. 'Tell me all about today,' she said as she led the way back to the living room, carrying the coffee cups on a tray.

  'There was one strange thing,' said Jamieson. He told Sue about Moira Lippman's request for a Sci-Med analysis.

  'And she didn't say anything to you?' said Sue

  'She used my name but she never mentioned it.'

  'What did the report say?'

  'I brought it home with me. I'll have to work on it.'

  'Does this mean you're going to spend the evening upstairs?' asked Sue.

  'A little while,' said Jamieson. He kissed her hair. 'Won't be too long. I promise.'

  Jamieson paused to look out of the study window at the willow tree in the garden. He always thought that it looked best at dusk, its branches drooping to touch the lawn as if weary from a long day’s work. The trees on the far side of the cricket field were silhouetted against the evening sky. Jamieson drew the curtains, switched on the desk lamp and sat down.

  Moira Lippman had asked for a full biochemical analysis on the Staphylococcus organism and this had been carried out by the Sci-Med people. Some of the tests had been duplicated for they had already been done at Kerr Memorial by Moira herself. A summary of the results said that the bug was a coagulase positive Staphylococcus, highly pathogenic to man and resistant to many of the branded therapeutic agents tested. If it had not been for the fact that Moira Lippman had remembered about the Loromycin trial and the fact that the drug had subsequently been found to be effective against the bug, as many as two dozen women at Kerr Memorial might have died. Unfortunately for two of them, Loromycin treatment had come along too late to save them. Ironically, one had been Moira's sister in law.

  Jamieson read through the list of biochemical results and decided that he needed help in deciphering what they all meant. He got down his copy of 'Bergey's Manual of Determinative Bacteriology' from the shelf above the desk and looked up Staphylococcus in the index. It had been a while since the book had been opened. It had collected a thick film of dust along its top. Jamieson blew as much of it away as possible before opening it at the index. He turned to the tables giving the information he needed and copied out the normal values for the biochemical tests listed in the report.

  As he compared them with the results from the Sci-Med lab he began to see discrepancies and by the time he had finished he had discovered that four of the lab results did not agree with Bergey's idea of how a standard Staphylococcus should behave.

  'Just like the Pseudomonas,' muttered Jamieson remembering that the same situation had arisen with that organism. Is this what Moira Lippman had wanted to talk about? What did it mean?

  'Scott! It's half past ten,' came Sue's voice from downstairs. 'You promised!'

  Jamieson automatically looked at his watch. He hadn't realised how time had been passing. 'Coming,' he replied. He closed the book slowly and put it back up on its shelf. The report was telling him something. He couldn't quite put his finger on it yet but it had to have something to do with this constant variation of the bugs from text book values. As he cleared his notes away he decided that he would have to give the matter some more thought. For the moment, it could wait.

  Eight days passed before Jamieson heard from Sci-Med again. Sue and he had been out for the evening and the telephone was ringing when they got back to the cottage just after eleven.

  'Jamieson here.'

  'Ah, got you at last. Macmillan here.'

  Jamieson looked at the clock on the wall. If Macmillan were calling him at this time something must be wrong.

  'Trouble I'm afraid,' said Macmillan.

  Jamieson experienced a sinking feeling in his stomach. He had come to know that when the smooth velvety tones of the establishment actually used words like 'trouble' it almost invariably meant something a good deal worse.

  'What's happened?'

  'There's been another outbreak of post-operative infection at Kerr Memorial. In gynaecology again.'

  Jamieson closed his eyes as the words drilled through him destroying all the good effects of the evening. He felt the energy drain from him as if a tap had been opened. 'Go on,' he said. The words were hoarse; he had to clear his throat before he could say any more.

  'It's bad I'm afraid. Eight women are affected.'

  'And the cause?'

  'The bug hasn't been identified yet but Phillip Morton with some impromptu detective work has narrowed the possibilities down to a batch of saline drip packs. The lab is analysing them right now.

  'I'll get back up there,' said Jamieson. 'In the meantime there's something I'd like you to organise with the Sci-Med lab.'

  'Go on.'

  'I want them to get their hands on as many unauthorised antibiotics as possible.'

  'Unauthorised?' exclaimed Macmillan.

  'Yes, drugs that the pharmaceutical companies have not yet got a license for.'

  'But why?'

  'I think we can expect that there will be a treatment problem with this outbreak just like last time and the time before. The bug will be immune to standard drug treatment. If it's the Staphylococcus we can use Loromycin again but if it's the Pseudomonas we still have a problem unless your people have come up with anything in the meantime?

  'Not that I've heard,' said Macmillan. 'I think we rather thought that it was all over.'

  I'd like the Sci-Med lab to test both bugs against drugs that haven't been commercially available before. There's a chance some of them may be effective, just like Loromycin turned out to be. We'll be taking a risk using unlicensed antibiotics and you'll have to square it with the authorities but I think the circumstances warrant it.'

  'Good thinking,' said Macmillan. 'I'll tell them.' Macmillan paused before saying, 'Look here, if you feel that you'd rather not get involved again… I mean with your wife and all that, we'll quite understand here at Sci-Med.'

  'I'll be returning to Leeds in the morning,' said Jamieson curtly.

  Sue was standing looking at him when he put the phone down. 'I heard the last bit,' she said quietly.

  'I
t's not over yet at Kerr Memorial. I have to see it through Sue. I can't leave it like this.'

  'I understand,' said Sue. 'What's happened?'

  Jamieson told her.

  'But how?'

  Jamieson shook his head and said, 'I don't know but I am going to find out if it's the last thing I do.'

  Sue saw the look on Jamieson's face. She simply said, 'Of course.'

  'I think it might be best if you were to go stay with your parents for a few days,' said Jamieson.

  'No.' said Sue flatly.

  'What?'

  'I said no. I'm coming with you.'

  'This is crazy! I mean after what you went through last time…'

  'Stop treating me like the little woman, will you! I'm not an object you hide in a cupboard, I'm your wife! It's our problem not just yours. I'm coming.'

  It was Jamieson's turn to concede that there was no room for argument.

  There was a small crowd of people at the gates of Kerr Memorial when Jamieson and Sue arrived at around eleven the following morning. Jamieson could see that some of them were carrying cameras and had the look of the Press about them.

  'Looks like it's really hit the fan this time,' he said as they waited for the gateman to come over and inspect his ID card.

  'I thought you'd left sir?'

  'So did I.'

  The gateman moved the crowd back with difficulty and opened the gate so that Jamieson could proceed. Sue felt uncomfortable with so many people looking in at her through the window. She felt like an inanimate object in a glass case and said so.

  'We'd better let Crichton know that we've arrived,' said Jamieson as he brought the car to a halt outside the administrative block.

  'I'll wait,' said Sue.

  Jamieson got out of the car and swung the door shut with one hand before running up the steps of the main office building two at a time. His feet squeaked on the newly polished linoleum as he made his way along the corridor to Crichton's office and knocked on the door.

  'Who is it?' came the voice from inside. There was a slight note of surprise in the voice and Jamieson knew that this was because he had short circuited the receptionist and secretary to come to the side door of Crichton's office.