Death Before Time

by Andrew Puckett

  Fraser nodded impatiently. “What was in the attachment?”

  “Not very much by this time – all right, all right – “ He held up his hand as Fraser threatened to strangle him.

  “The small amount of liquid still there was a maintenance medium containing a heavy suspension of pneumococci. These were cultured and found to be ampicillin resistant – “

  Fraser let out a sigh –

  “However,” Tom continued deliberately, “After what you’d said, I asked them to check whether they had capsules. Apparently, they didn’t. Are you absolutely sure that pneumococci without capsules can’t cause pneumonia?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what’s going on? This has to be the way they’re doing it … could some of them mutate?”

  “Maybe, eventually. But it wouldn’t give rise to the kind of rapid, overwhelming infections we’ve been seeing. It could take weeks.”

  Jo said from the armchair, “Could the patients be given something to make them susceptible, some sort of immunosuppressant?”

  “I suppose so,” Fraser said slowly, “Although I’ve no notion of what. I’ll do some research on it.”

  “This afternoon?” Tom asked.

  “I’ll try.”

  After a slight pause, Tom continued, “This must be the answer, there’s no point in setting it up otherwise … I’m going to have to go ahead on what we’ve got.”

  “How d’you mean, go ahead?”

  “I’m going to tell Marcus what we’ve got and recommend that Helen St John, Tate, Singh and Armitage are arrested tomorrow.”

  “What we’ve got isn’t proof,” Fraser said.

  “We’ll search their houses – one of them’s got to have facilities for preparing this stuff.”

  “What if it’s being done by someone else – Stones, for instance?”

  “I think we could have him arrested as well. We’ve no choice, Fraser. We’re not going to find any more evidence and the longer we leave it, the more danger there is they’ll be able to cover it up.” He sighed. “My fear is that they already have.”

  Fraser nodded slowly. “All right.” He looked up. “If I get back now, maybe I’ll be able to find something.”

  He went to the hospital library and withdrew a weighty tome, but as it turned out, the afternoon clinic was exceptionally heavy and he had no time to read it. He was on his way back to his office at five, meaning to put in an hour when Helen stopped him in the corridor.

  “Were you going back to Bristol tonight?”

  “Er – yes, I was.”

  “Could you come round to my house before you go. It’s important.” She seemed unnaturally calm, almost serene. “I’m not after your body, or even your soul, but I do have to talk to you. Please, Fraser.”

  “All right,” he said, suddenly making up his mind. “What time?”

  “Whenever. Seven.”

  “OK. Seven.”

  She turned and left. Fraser went into his office and phoned Tom.

  “You know,” Tom said slowly, “She might be going to come out with it - confess.”

  “I wondered that ... ”

  “Have you got anywhere with your research?”

  No, he told him.

  “Go to your flat now and I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.”

  He let him in fifteen minutes later. Jo was with him. Tom said,

  “You were right when you said earlier we haven’t got proof, not foolproof proof.” He paused. “If she wants to tell you about it, it’s a chance we can’t pass up … “

  “Then again, she might have something else in mind. She is mad, Tom ... ”

  “Let me finish. I suggest that we wire you up so that we can hear everything and then wait just round the corner.”

  Jo said, “It’s not you she hates Fraser – if it’s anyone, it’s me. I think Tom’s right and she wants to get it off her chest to … to someone she loves.”

  Tom said, “If she confessed, we could nail the other bastards, and it would go easier for her.”

  “All right,” Fraser said.

  Chapter 25

  Nearly half an hour to go, she wished she’d made it earlier now …

  Would he understand …?

  Probably not, Helen realised as she topped up her glass, but she had to try.

  It was so – blindingly – obvious.

  Life was filled with pain and suffering enough without the added indignity of protracted death … why should anyone have to put up with the agonisingly slow slide into oblivion that was the lot of those with terminal illness? Which means most of us in the long run …

  And why did people have to put up with it? She filled her glass again – better make this the last, don’t want to be pissed …

  Where was I …? Oh yes, why did people have to put up with it?

  Because of an outmoded convention that insisted it was everybody’s right, for God’s sake, to go through it.

  What about their right to be released?

  Released from the pain, the indignity, the knowledge that you were in the way – wastefully in the way, the knowledge that everybody around was waiting for you to shuffle off your thingy-whatever.

  Oh, some might protest, but only because convention had taught them to.

  Society had to be shown the way forward and she, they, were the ones with the courage to do it, the courage to declare it, be imprisoned for their beliefs in necessary.

  But she hadn’t reckoned on Fraser …

  Oh, go on, another one can’t hurt now …

  On Fraser – or rather, she realised as she drank, her own feelings for him …

  She’d started the affair at Patrick’s party to deflect his attention from the pneumonia deaths … God, it had been difficult juggling him with Ranjid … but what she hadn’t reckoned on was falling in love with him.

  Why? She didn’t do love, hadn’t since she was a teenager, so why with him?

  Because he was damaged, like her? Although nothing like so much as her, she saw in a rare burst of self knowledge …

  And now, she was going to have to tell him –

  The doorbell rang.

  So soon? Now that the moment had come, she found she was afraid - scared of the look on his face when she told him …

  She swallowed the rest of her drink. The bell rang again … go on – open it, damn you …

  *

  Fraser pressed the bellpush, heard it ringing inside, stood fidgeting on the doorstep … Open it, damn you … he rang again.

  Nothing, not a sound.

  Oh God, she hasn’t topped herself …? He fumbled Tom’s keys, somehow got one into the lock and turned it.

  “Helen? It’s Fraser, where are you?”

  She was in the sitting room, lying on her back. Her throat had been cut and he thought she’d been stabbed as well and the blood had poured down her top and onto the carpet where it lay in a glassy pool. Her eyes stared accusingly up at him.

  He started towards her, then realised there was no point in checking for signs of life … shouldn’t touch anything anyway …

  He stood there frozen as the realisation hit him that this was Helen, the Helen he’d been to bed with, been talking with barely two hours earlier …

  What a waste … his throat tightened - what a grievous … had she done it herself? He looked round for a knife, but couldn’t see one.

  Then his mobile found its way to his hand and he called Tom.

  “She’s here.” His voice was surprisingly cool. “She’s dead, murdered.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Course I’m bloody sure, her throat’s cut.”

  “I mean, are you sure she didn’t do it herself?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Fraser,” Tom said clearly, “He might still be there. Don’t look for him, just get out of the house – now!”

  Fraser’s head snapped round to the doorway – nothing.

  He swallowed, made his way quietly over, paused, put
his head round the door jamb … nobody there, no sound. Over to the front door and out.

  “I’ve left the house,” he said.

  “No sign of anyone?”

  “No. Shall I phone the police?”

  “Wait till I’m there – I’ll be less than a minute.”

  He put the phone away and vomited onto the lawn. Across the road, a curtain twitched.

  *

  The police didn’t release Fraser until after midnight. Although both he and Tom were vouched for by Marcus and Commander Harris, Marcus’ police liaison, the Wansborough police were reluctant to let Fraser go because he’d been the one to find the body, and it’s a cherished police theory that the person who finds the body is the most likely killer.

  He and Tom told them the whole story, omitting only Jo’s part in it.

  Edwina and Singh were brought in for questioning and their houses searched, although nothing incriminating was found. They expressed incredulity and then outrage when they realised what they were being questioned for.

  Officers were sent to question Stones and Philip Armitage. Stones admitted his friendship with Ranjid Singh, but threatened legal action when he realised what it was about.

  There was no answer at Philip’s house, although his car was in the garage. The police sergeant broke a pane in the back door in order to unlock it and found Philip sitting in an armchair in his study. His throat had also been cut, but apparently by his own hand, since the knife was still in it. On the desk was a handwritten note on a slip of paper: I’m sorry, but there’s no other way now. PA.

  The sergeant radioed for assistance.

  *

  The Forensic lab released some preliminary results on Monday.

  The knife found in Philip’s hand was the same one that had killed Helen – her blood was on it as well as his, and also on his hands and clothes. There were no fingerprints on the knife other than his own. The note was definitely in his handwriting.

  Edwina, Singh and the others at the hospital stated that Philip and Helen had known each other for a long time. Their relationship was known to be very close, although nobody had suspected anything sexual in it. Singh then told them he remembered how Philip had expressed his unease about Fraser and Helen’s affair to him …

  When Singh and Edwina were told that Helen had been suspected of deliberately infecting patients with pneumonia, they ridiculed the idea – especially when they heard it was Fraser’s.

  Yes, there was a lot of pneumonia among their patients, but no more than in most Community Hospitals.

  “Dr Callan had a bee in his bonnet about this from the moment he started,” Edwina told them. “I knew about his recent bereavement, of course, and put his erratic behaviour down to that.” Nonetheless, she told them, she’d been seriously thinking of having him dismissed, bereavement notwithstanding. Singh backed all this up.

  “You never knew what he was going to do next,” he said, and told them how Fraser had gone behind his back to Dr Stones claiming there was a pneumonia epidemic at the hospital.

  Stones told them how he’d thought Fraser excitable and unstable when he’d come to see him.

  “I tried to explain to him why his fears were misplaced, but obviously, I didn’t get through to him.”

  He was shown the doctored Glandosalve dispenser found in the sharps bin, and also the report on the pneumococci cultured from it.

  “The attached device is a complete mystery to me,” he said, “But I can tell you one thing for certain: these bacteria could not have given anyone pneumonia. In this condition, they‘re completely harmless.” (He was supported in this by two other bacteriologists). If they wanted to know where it had come from, he added, perhaps they need look no further than the people who said they’d discovered it …

  *

  On Tuesday, Tom and Marcus attended a meeting with Harris and Superintendent Burns, who was in charge of the case in Wansborough.

  “As things stand,” said Harris. “If the deceased were still alive, I doubt they’d be charged on the evidence we have at present. And if they were, the Crown Prosecution Service would almost certainly chuck it out.”

  “What about the doctored Glandosalve dispenser?” asked Marcus.

  “It’s certainly odd,” Burns agreed, “But we have no idea, as Dr Stones pointed out, where it came from. If this ever came to court, the defence would undoubtedly suggest that your – er – temporary employee had planted it.”

  “Out of the question,” said Tom.

  “So you say.” Burns, while he accepted the necessity of departments such as Marcus’, intensely disliked the involvement of what he called amateurs.

  “So you believe that Dr Armitage killed Miss St John and then himself?” Marcus asked him.

  “That, of course, is for the inquest jury to decide,” Burns replied levelly. “However, if you’re asking my personal opinion, then yes, I think the evidence stands up.”

  “His motive?”

  “Sexual jealousy over her affair with Dr Callan.”

  “Why’d you think Dr Armitage wrote his suicide note on a slip of paper rather than a whole piece?” Tom asked him.

  “I’ve no idea,” Burns said. “He was about to kill himself, so I don’t suppose he was thinking very clearly at the time. I only know that the paper matched his own notepaper.”

  “Why’d you ask?” – Harris.

  “Because that slip of paper could have been cut from a note he sent someone else,” said Tom.

  “Now that would have been fortuitous,” said Burns, “To have such a convenient postscript sent to you by someone you were intending to kill.”

  “But doesn’t it strike you as an odd way to kill yourself?” persisted Tom. “To cut your own throat?”

  “Not especially, no,” said Burns. “There are precedents.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, there was the doctor – I can’t recall his name for the moment – who was blamed for the last case of smallpox in this country, he killed himself by cutting his own throat. Don’t you remember that?”

  Tom did, and gave a curt nod.

  “What exactly are you suggesting, Mr Jones?” Harris asked him. “That someone else killed them both?”

  “I think it should at least be considered,” said Tom.

  “Well, I simply don’t believe it,” said Burns, “And I doubt the coroner will either.”

  Marcus said quietly, “If Dr Armitage did kill Miss St John, is it possible that he did so because she was going to confess they’d been killing patients?”

  “Is that what you think, Marcus?” Harris asked.

  “I’m asking Superintendent Burns whether he’s considered it as a possibility.”

  “Doctors Singh, Tate and Stones have all stated categorically that nobody has been killing patients at the hospital.”

  “They would, wouldn’t they?” observed Tom.

  “But there’s no evidence,” said Burns. “Oh sorry, I forgot – an amateurishly doctored artificial saliva dispenser, provenance unknown.”

  “Graham, you must admit that that does beg explanation,” Harris said to him.

  “There’s only one of them been found, we have absolutely no idea where it came from and two independent experts have said that it couldn’t have harmed anyone.”

  “What about the statistical evidence?” said Tom.

  “What statistical evidence?”

  “That there are significantly more deaths in that hospital than there should be.”

  “Circumstantial in the extreme,” said Burns.

  “The defence would almost certainly produce an expert witness to refute it,” said Harris. “I do think you’ll need more direct evidence for your theory to be taken seriously.”

  “And that does not give you carte blanche to go on snooping,” Burns said, sensing victory.

  “Probably best if you dropped it for the moment, Marcus,” Harris agreed.

  *

  Fraser, Jo, Marcus and Tom met the day a
fter that at Tom’s hotel. Jo was available because she was off duty and Fraser because Ranjid’s first act as Acting Consultant had been to sack him.

  “I hold you personally responsible for Helen’s death,” he told Fraser, “And I shall say so at the inquest. I shall also say it to anyone who asks me for a reference. Now, get out.”

  “So where do we go from here?” Marcus asked. “Is there anywhere we can go from here?”

  “Let’s get something absolutely clear,” said Tom, looking round pugnaciously. “Philip Armitage and Helen St John were killing off their patients. Furthermore, I find it impossible to believe that Armitage killed either St John or himself.”

  Chapter 26

  Jo stared at him,“…How can you possibly know that Armitage was involved?”

  “Because he’s dead Jo. Do you really believe he and Helen were having an affair?”

  “I … don’t know.” She raised the ghost of a smile. “It means she’d have had three on the go … which seems unlikely.“

  “Then why did he kill her? If he did kill her … ”

  “Well, he might have realised what Helen was doing, killed her for it in a fit of anger, and then himself out of remorse.”

  “D’you really believe that?”

  “Why not? It’s what the evidence says, isn’t it?”

  “Helen couldn’t have killed those patients on her own Jo – “

  “Why not?” she said again, “Substituting a Glandosalve dispenser isn’t that difficult.”

  “Maybe not, but what about the trifling matters of acquiring the resistant bugs, making them virulent and then manufacturing the doctored dispensers. She’d have needed help and I think it has to be Armitage.”

  “Why not Edwina, or Singh? We know she was still seeing Singh, so why not him?”

  “Fascinating though this may be,” Marcus cut in, “What are we going to do about it? Bearing in mind that we’ve been ordered to stop?”

  Tom turned to him. “D’you accept what the police said, Marcus? No euthanasia, just a love affair that went tragically wrong – do you believe that?”