by AB Morgan
I was visibly shaking due to the arrival of a whole butterfly house of fluttering nerves, and I remained on the ward long enough to write up the notes and have a hot cup of tea to settle my levels of tension. I was required to complete a risk incident form and let the on-call manager know that we had a missing Sectioned patient, but that was no great hardship. Bob eventually succeeded in getting through to Police Control, and gave them a description of Mark, which they did not seem to take seriously. They asked about risk to the public and whether the patient was a risk to himself. Overall they gave the impression that they were not pleased to have to go in search of a man resembling Jesus in Levi jeans, who sounded more sane and less risky than the ne’er-do-wells they usually had to deal with.
It was Bob’s reasonable opinion that any risks Mark might have presented with, were lessened by the fact that he was no longer a patient on our ward. I had to agree with Bob; Mark was certainly less of a suicide risk away from the likes of Dr Sharman.
32
Mark Goes to Ground for a While
Mark stepped out into the rain from the hospital’s main exit and followed Monica’s instructions, trudging through the damp and drizzle, huddled beneath the tatty umbrella until he arrived at the station. Once inside the building, he found a payphone.
Mark had seen Lewis James the previous evening, whose facial expression left Mark in no doubt as to his own welfare. ‘You look like shit,’ Lewis had said, as if he needed to add emphasis to Mark’s dire situation. ‘We should have you out in a couple of days. The legal side is not as straightforward as we had hoped, but nearly there.’ Lewis again insisted that Mark find a way to escape. He had tried valiantly to persuade the ward staff to let Mark out with him for supper in town, but they were resolute, repeating endlessly that Mark had no agreed leave other than to be escorted for a scan by his named nurse the following day.
Lewis gave up trying to exert his legal authority, but then explored the possibility of using diversion tactics in order for Mark to ‘slip past the guards.’ Mark made him realise that the staff were skilled and good at their jobs, and opportunities for escape were few and far between. Mark reminded Lewis that he should have known better than to make such a suggestion. They had to settle for a takeaway pizza each, which Lewis arranged to be delivered to the unit. In a generous gesture, he ordered enough pizza to fill The Albert Hall, by way of a thank you to the staff, and to Mark’s fellow patients for their excellent care and kindness.
When he phoned from Hollberry Station, Mark was sure that Lewis would be delighted to hear that he had managed to abscond with relative ease, and so soon. Lewis answered his mobile phone and did indeed sound thrilled to hear Mark’s voice.
‘Mark, we were just talking about you. How are you doing today?’
‘We? Who’s we?’
‘I stayed over last night, at a cosy hotel. I’m with Richard Huntley at his office in town.’
‘Are you? That’s great. I’ll meet you there. I’m out. Unofficially, you understand. I have the office address so I’ll only be a short while. Wait for me?’ Mark asked with a faint hint of anxiety, making his voice waver.
‘Thank Christ for that. Of course I’ll wait for you. See you when you get here.’ Lewis beamed at Richard Huntley as he confirmed the latest news.
Mark, meanwhile, found a conveniently placed poster map of the town with a “you are here” marker on it. He needed to orientate himself and find out how to navigate to the offices of Huntley and Greaves. He took out from his pocket, the solicitors’ business card given to him minutes earlier by Monica, praying that he did not have to walk back past the hospital. No. Good.
The offices were a short distance away, beyond the station, and when he arrived, Mark practically fell through the door to be greeted by Lewis and Richard personally who then ushered him into a warm dry office.
Within a short while, Cheryl, as efficient as ever, entered with the most heavenly cup of freshly ground coffee Mark had ever tasted. He sank into a comfortable office chair and let out a long sigh of relief. He hadn’t realised how tense he had been since making good his escape, courtesy of the marvellous and brave Monica. He decided to keep her collusion a secret in order to protect her career. There was no point in the NHS losing an angel, so never once did he disclose this fact.
Lewis and Richard Huntley had been highly industrious over the course of that Friday, and they were about to go into glorious legal detail for Mark’s benefit when Richard’s personal mobile phone rang out loudly. When he answered it his face told the story.
‘I’m on my way!’ he said, bursting with excitement. As he ended the call he turned to Lewis and Mark to announce that he was dashing home to pick up his wife who had gone into labour with their first child. There was a mixture of panic, pride, and anticipation in his voice as he did so. His face beaming, he shouted to Cheryl to lock up at the end of the day, he was ‘off to become a father.’
Mark, Lewis, and Cheryl shouted their good luck wishes to him as he careered out of the side door and into his car. Shouts also went up from behind various office doors at Huntley and Greaves as the news spread.
With that, Lewis and Mark decided to head in the direction of Mark’s real parents’ home by car. Mark made use of, and paid rent towards, a cottage annex at their house when he was back in the UK, which was an arrangement they all benefitted from. His parents had not been surprised when he disappeared to undertake another assignment within weeks of returning home in July. That had been the pattern of his life for years. He owned a flat in Oman where he used to make camp for the vast majority of the time between assignments, but once Penny had left him he lost interest, and had rented it out, becoming in effect an itinerant journalist. Any visit home to his parents was truly welcomed, especially by Mark’s mother who loved to see her only son, of whom she was chest-achingly proud.
Lewis had his impractical but luxuriously comfortable V12 Daimler Double Six parked around the corner from Huntley and Greaves, and both men piled in rapidly, to avoid what they could of the rain. The downpour had increased both in quality and quantity.
‘Don’t look so worried,’ Lewis said. ‘The cops aren’t out to get you, you know. They’re far too busy with criminals. Besides which you’re not Mark El Amin, and you do not live at number whatever it is do-dah street because it does not exist and neither do you. So relax, lets go to Suffolk.’
Mark had to explain to Lewis that he was a bit nervous but the anxiety was more agitation and restlessness, ‘caused by the bloody medication.’
‘I should have known. I wonder how much longer that will last, what do you think?’ asked Lewis out of genuine concern.
‘No idea. But it is a hell of a lot better now than it was, thank God. I thought I was done for.’
‘Good job you got out when you did. How did you manage that, by the way? Pick a lock?’
Mark only gave Lewis a vague reply about an opportunity that had unexpectedly arisen which he took advantage of. Lewis didn’t push for further details. Mark predicted that the subject would come up again, as he knew Lewis would not be satisfied with the deliberate attempt to side-step the question. I’ll have to come up with a solid story to keep him quiet, Mark thought.
As they drove out of the town and headed east, Lewis suggested that Mark might like to read the information that had been gathered so far on the background of a certain Dr Giles Sharman. He directed Mark to a buff folder inside his briefcase. Contained within was a diagrammatical timeline and a career outline report. This indicated that Dr Sharman had become a consultant psychiatrist in his early forties.
His post at Farley Hill Hospital was recorded in brief, then according to the timeline, in 1987 a short gap appeared before he was employed as a research fellow at a renowned university in Northern Ireland, where he also apparently acquired a PhD in psychopharmacology.
‘Nothing too unusual,’ Mark noted.
Lewis agreed, and conceded that Giles Sharman had indeed earned a solid reputati
on in the world of psychiatric medicine by completing research studies published in professional journals with alarming regularity.
‘The next report is more revealing,’ Lewis hinted, thus inviting Mark to explore further, and Lewis allowed him ample time to read carefully through the pages contained in the rest of the folder.
Mark settled back into the Daimler’s comfortable leather seats and as he scanned the details, he flipped back and forth between pages several times, occasionally letting out a whistle.
A while later, and without prior warning, Mark produced a string of expletives, and a look of abject disbelief crossed his face as he dropped the folder down on his lap. He looked across at Lewis, who was by then driving sedately along the A14 towards Ipswich at eighty miles an hour, despite the rain.
‘You’ve got to be joking! He was struck off in 1987 for endangering the lives of patients during a drug trial and reinstated five years later! Is that legal?’ Mark could barely get the words out he was so stunned at what he had read. ‘I need to read this again. I must have missed something,’ he said, scratching his head.
Lewis assured Mark that he had understood correctly the first time, and proceeded to enlighten him as to the true facts of Dr Giles Sharman’s illustrious medical career. The information that Lewis was able to access from the records on the Medical Practitioners Tribunal in 1987 indicated that the General Medical Council was obliged to bring a case against Dr Giles Sharman as a direct consequence of two mental health patients being hospitalised with life-threatening side effects from drugs. They were part of a trial being overseen by Dr Sharman at Farley Hill Hospital.
Lewis tried to explain. ‘The investigation revealed that Dr Sharman had taken the astounding decision to increase the dose of the trial drug in the case of these two, and other patients. Apparently, he believed their psychotic symptoms were subsiding, and had thus concluded that an increase in dose would be met by a corresponding increase in improvement. This was outside of his remit, unlicenced, and potentially dangerous or even fatal for the patients concerned, and he carried this out with impunity. He was only prevented from doing further harm when two patients developed severe cardiac problems and the consultant cardiologist raised the alarm. No one else reported him.’
Lewis had also uncovered that Giles Sharman had put forward a sound argument in his own defence at the Medical Practitioners Tribunal hearing. He had tried to implicate both the drugs company and the researchers who were leading the trial. As a result, holes were exposed which weakened the GMC’s case against him. There was a lengthy debate as to whether the tribunal was to suspend his licence to practice medicine, but in the end they fully revoked it.
‘I should bloody well hope so,’ exclaimed Mark, who then wanted to understand how a professional, who had been struck off as a doctor, could still be registered and practicing seven years later.
‘Most people wouldn’t be aware, but a suspended doctor has a right to request reinstatement to the register after five years. They have to prove their fitness to practice and that they have kept clinically updated, which dear Giles did by virtue of his research fellowship, his PhD, and all that jazz. He was only offered that academic appointment because of the old school tie network. His great pal at medical school wangled the research post for him at the university.
‘The scandal at Farley Hill was, it seems, inventively hushed up by the management, and Dr Giles Sharman was reborn five years later, although he waited for the most opportune moment before applying to his current post, where I believe they think the sun shines out of his nether regions,’ Lewis asserted as he took a sweeping left turn. Lewis headed towards a service area, in need of refreshment and to alleviate the considerable pressure that had built up in his bladder, worsened by the relentless rain.
‘Oh my God,’ exclaimed Mark as a large penny dropped. ‘So this is legal then. We can expose him and the scandal at Farley Hill but it is still all legal. The trial has in essence taken place, and he has already served his time … if you like.’
Once parked at the service station, both Lewis and Mark disappeared rapidly into the toilet facilities, and then met up in a brightly lit café area.
There they found a secluded table in the corner, away from prying ears. They looked suspiciously like a couple on a clandestine date, having an affair and huddling close together for the thrill of a snatched moment together. They realised that they had incendiary information in their hands but it took Lewis to put into context the most recent and illegal actions performed by Dr Giles Sharman as they related to Mark himself.
Mark slurped on a mug of strong coffee, as he was desperate to escape the remnants of the cotton wool effect in his brain. He had to be able to concentrate on the information that he needed to hear, understand, retain, and assimilate. Waiting for the caffeine to kick in, he took a few moments to phone his parents to forewarn them of his return home, and was relieved when his mother offered to provide a family dinner. One of enormous proportions, judging by the description of what she had in mind.
She often expressed her love through food, and liked nothing better than to entertain family and guests by force-feeding them with her delicious menus. Mark heard her joy over the phone, especially when she realised that he was bringing a guest for the night, and he smiled at the prospect of a bulging belly and indigestion. It would be bliss compared to hospital food. He promised to be home in the next hour or so.
Lewis called his tolerant wife to break the news that he was having yet another night away from home. She was well aware of the situation.
‘Me again!’ announced Lewis, when his wife answered.
‘Hello, my lovely, did you get your man out?’
33
A Man of the Utmost Importance
On the Friday that Mark had made good his escape from Pargiter Ward, Dr Giles Sharman was in his element, strutting around like a peacock at the National Psychopharmacology Conference being held at one of London’s top hotel venues. The event was being covered by the national and international medical journals, and sponsored across the board by the big names in pharmaceuticals. They had an almighty vested interest in the marketing and selling of their products via the psychiatric profession worldwide.
Dr Giles Sharman had been invited to be one of the keynote speakers at the conference. In a huge twist of irony, he was due to be discussing the moral code for psychiatry in addressing the impacts of unwanted side effects in the long term use of antipsychotic medication for severe and enduring mental illness.
This was the hot topic of the year, and was certain to gain him respect and admiration from his peers. It was also a guaranteed way of attracting worthwhile gifts from the large pharmaceutical companies, several of whom had been known to sponsor conferences in the Caribbean or other exotic corners of the world. After all, Dr Sharman was to recommend use of the newest antipsychotic drugs in his speech the next day. He would therefore deserve special attention from the pharmaceutical industry’s marketing managers. Giles Sharman revelled in this belief. His main aim however, was to eventually secure himself a position in the higher echelons of the NHS itself, perhaps as a Mental Health Tsar, through which he could gain ultimate international recognition. His chest puffed out at the exciting thought.
A lot of mingling and social networking happened at such conferences, during which endless self-congratulation and cronyism took place amongst the top psychiatrists. On this occasion, interest was coming from across the world.
Dr Sharman was delighted to be introduced to a reporter from the Daily Albion newspaper, a diminutive Scottish chap with a rather strong accent, by the name of Jock Mackenzie. Jock said he was ‘thrilled to meet such an influential psychiatrist,’ and requested time to interview Giles Sharman, who without hesitation snapped up the chance of more notoriety and fame.
Lewis James and John Starkey had swiftly brought Jock into service as soon as they were informed, by Mark, of the scandal surrounding this particular consultant psychiatrist. It was like
a gift from the gods when they were alerted to the fact that he was to speak at the weekend conference. They realised that if they could secure a press pass, they could meet the man himself, interview him if they were lucky, and have a few words with his psychiatry colleagues. There would be the ideal opportunity to take some excellent photographs into the bargain, and all in the name of sound journalism.
During the interview with Jock, Giles Sharman barely noticed that the focus was not only on the contents of the speech he was to give the next day, but that Jock steered the conversation towards the psychiatrist’s past career and achievements to-date. Jock neatly pried into Dr Sharman’s private life where, despite his efforts, the barriers remained firmly in place, with only vague generalisations forthcoming. The doctor, it appeared, had no wife, no children, and was wary about discussing relationships other than professional friendships.
Without too much effort, Jock managed to secure the relevant details that would support the background research being carried out by Prof Hugo’s team. He wasn’t particularly seeking out salacious gossip, so he left questions about Dr Sharman’s private life alone for the time being.
Later in the day at the bar, it was easy for him to extract snippets of information from Dr Sharman’s inebriated peers that would eventually lead to Jock delving deeper into a seedy world increasingly inhabited by Giles Sharman. For now, this was information that he did not desperately require.
Jock was excelling at ingratiating himself with Dr Giles Sharman, rapidly catching on to how the man lapped up praise and adulation by the boatload. Giles Sharman was on boastful form. Jock took full advantage, and pushed his luck by requesting permission to take additional photo shots at the hospital and of one of the wards at Hollberry Hospital Psychiatric Unit.
