The Secret Anatomy of Candles

by Quentin Smith

  Jasper sighed. “Anything else?”

  “I saw the matron again. Did you know, guv, that there is a strict hand hygiene policy that covers each step in the process of contact between staff and patients in every hospital?”

  “A strict policy?” Jasper said, raising his eyebrows. “What does that mean? Imagine, if you can, that you’re talking to a jury, Lazlo.”

  They were seated in The Swan and Three Cygnets at their usual small, round, brass plated table, away from a raucous group of students determined to outwit each other with increasing fervour and volume as the beers flowed.

  Jasper recalled his days as a law student and his own baptism by barley and hops in these very same premises, all those years ago. He had been unmarried back then, having not yet met Jennifer, tragically analogous to his predicament now as he sat and watched the carefree students.

  “Hands have to be washed or cleansed with alcoholic rub before entering the room, before patient contact, immediately after patient contact and upon leaving the room,” Lazlo said.

  “To prevent the spread of infection, no doubt,” Jasper said.

  “Exactly. It’s a mandatory policy reinforced by regular training and by the presence everywhere of posters and placards reminding everyone to comply.”

  Jasper shrugged, unimpressed as he stared deeply into the amber liquid caressing the ice cubes in his tumbler.

  “So what went wrong on Edward Burns’ ward?” Jasper said.

  “That is the question, guv.”

  Jasper stared at Lazlo expectantly, and then shrugged.

  “So, is breaking this policy a punishable offence? Could it ever be, as in our case, a criminal offence?”

  Lazlo bared his teeth and drew breath through them sharply.

  “That’s a difficult one, guv.”

  “How many people could potentially have spread this virus through the ward and infected Edward Burns?”

  Lazlo sat back, pulled out a crumpled notepad from within his coat and flicked through the pages.

  “Well, there are the nurses, the health care assistants, the caterers, the doctors, the cleaners, er… visiting staff… physiotherapists and the like, er… medical students, nursing students, er… visitors and relatives, mmmh… sometimes managers, maintenance staff…”

  “Cheese and rice, Lazlo, this will be like hunting for a needle in the proverbial. It could have been anyone.”

  “It could, but we do know of seven staff members who also contracted the virus. Caught red handed, you might say.”

  Jasper nodded thoughtfully as he savoured the afterglow of the Chivas that lingered on his tongue.

  “Do you have their names?” Jasper said, peering at Lazlo over his tumbler.

  Lazlo paused thoughtfully and lowered his gaze for a moment.

  “Lazlo?”

  He looked up at Jasper.

  “How far would you go with this information, guv?”

  Jasper sat up straight, though a muscle spasm twisted his head to the left.

  “What on earth do you mean? As far as I can, of course, as far as is necessary to get justice for Edward Burns and closure for his family.”

  Lazlo took a deep breath and fidgeted uneasily on his stool, rubbing his stubbly chin with a meaty hand. Behind them a sudden cheer erupted from a group at the dart board.

  “It’s just that… my informer has got wind of something, and is worried that she might become implicated in all this, and…” his voice trailed off.

  Jasper stared at Lazlo, motionless but for the omnipresent tics, trying to understand his sudden reticence.

  “Is ‘your informer’ involved in Edward Burns contracting the tommy guns?” Jasper asked, using his index fingers to sign quotation marks in the air.

  Lazlo shrugged and shifted his weight uncomfortably.

  “She is the matron in charge.” Lazlo sucked his cheek, unwilling to meet Jasper’s eyes.

  Jasper picked up his tumbler off the brass-topped table and leaned back with a wry smile.

  “Wait a minute, I get it,” he wagged his index finger at Lazlo. “You’ve gone bloody soft on her, haven’t you?”

  Lazlo looked like a cornered school boy who had been caught bunking class.

  “She’s really helped us, guv.”

  “My Khyber Pass, Lazlo. This is business, damn it. A man is dead before his time and his family rightly want the truth. We’re in the business of bringing those responsible to justice, remember, and I certainly don’t pay you to mix up your pen and your pogo stick.”

  Jasper stared at Lazlo and inclined his head to one side, indicating his disapproval. Lazlo bit his tongue and refrained from answering. He knew better.

  “Seven staff members contracted the tommy guns from that infected patient because they did not follow hygiene policy. I want their names.”

  Lazlo nodded.

  “And, Lazlo, I’m still waiting for the name of the person who made the decision to admit that infected patient to Edward Burns’ ward in the first place.”

  Jasper stood up to get another Chivas just as his face began to ripple and distort, as though something inside him was trying to get out.

  “Brad Pitt!” he cursed under his breath.

  Changing his mind he turned towards the door and simply walked out of The Swan, still holding the empty tumbler in his hand. Lazlo covered the stubbly folds of his lower face in a meaty hand as he watched Jasper in thoughtful silence, his eyes devoid of expression, while the darts players celebrated rambunctiously in the background.

  TWENTY SEVEN

  Jasper stared out of the window as the autumn countryside slid by in a blur of greens, oranges and browns. Raindrops streaked the window at a gravity defying angle of sixty degrees, swept across the glass by the 125mph wind.

  Spread out on the table before him were three yellow legal pads, one marked ‘Jennifer’, the second ‘Ollie Kowalski’, and the third ‘Edward Burns’. Jasper stared at the pad marked ‘Jennifer’, unable to focus and order his thoughts in the midst of simmering grief and confusion.

  After several minutes, he buried this pad beneath the others and opened Ollie’s pad.

  “Next stop is Northallerton in approximately seven minutes,” announced the conductor’s voice over the tannoy.

  The carriage was almost empty except for a rowdy group of teenagers at the far end, who were tormenting a boy with a shaven head for wearing a Manchester United football shirt.

  Jasper squinted at his own handwriting, a flamboyant swirling style always written in purple fountain pen ink. As a series of tics attacked his left eye, he wondered if he needed reading glasses.

  He read from the leading page: Ollie age three, in vulnerable window between first and booster MMR vaccinations. Seamus Mallory, premeditated avoidance of MMR vaccine by parents, catches measles (where?), infects Ollie at school (can we prove this?).

  Jasper paused, then unsheathed his fountain pen and began to drag the nib across the yellow paper in extravagant arcs.

  Key points – do Seamus Mallory’s parents’ actions amount to reckless endangerment?

  Does Seamus Mallory’s infection of Ollie constitute involuntary manslaughter by virtue of neglect?

  Can the reasons for consciously avoiding the MMR be used as a defence?

  Jasper circled the last point with his fountain pen. He needed to explore what the factors and hence the Mallory’s state of mind was in their decision not to vaccinate Seamus. He recalled Dr Potter making reference to a destructive media campaign that he felt was responsible for the decrease in compliance with MMR vaccination.

  What are the Mallory’s reasons for avoiding the MMR? he wrote beneath this, underlining it twice.

  “This service will shortly be stopping at Northallerton. Please ensure that you take all your belongings. Change here for Scarborough,” announced the tannoy.

  Jasper closed all three pads in his worn, tan briefcase and briefly checked his iPhone, before pocketing it in his charcoal pinstripe jacket.


  He could feel a knot of apprehension about the impending meeting, like a fist pressed under his ribs, because he did not expect the outcome to please him.

  TWENTY EIGHT

  Dr Giordano’s surgery was in the centre of the little Yorkshire market town of Northallerton, resplendent in autumn hues from its numerous deciduous trees. Despite the leaden sky and incessant rain, Jasper felt the village ambience lifting his spirits slightly. A surprising number of people walked the paved streets, mostly huddled beneath glistening umbrellas.

  Dr Giordano’s surgery was easy to find, right beside the Northallerton Salvation Army office. The waiting room was busy, filled with sniffing and coughing children and parents trying to maintain order. Jasper was relieved not to wait long.

  “Mrs Candle?” said a tall, dark skinned woman with a husky and distinctly Mediterranean voice, as she scanned the sea of faces.

  Jasper stood up and walked over to her. Up close he could smell her expensive Italian perfume, as he nodded and prepared to introduce himself.

  “I am Dr Giordano,” she said with a cautious smile and a frown as she peered past Jasper into the waiting area. “Where is Mrs Candle?”

  “I am her husband, Jasper Candle, can I please speak to you urgently about my wife.”

  Hesitantly, he was shown into a small consulting room with neutral colours on the walls, brown checked carpeting, a desk and an examination couch. Jasper found himself evaluating her, trying to understand what it was about Dr Giordano that Jennifer had trusted to help facilitate her lengthy deceit.

  “This is a little… irregular, Mr Candle. Where is Mrs Candle?”

  Jasper paused, never moving his gaze from her deep brown eyes.

  “She is dead, I’m afraid.”

  Giordano sat back and stiffened, visibly straightening in her chair.

  “I am very sorry to hear that, sir. How can I help you?”

  Jasper’s face tightened as he suppressed rising emotion, extracting the foil blister pack from his coat.

  “I found these pills at home that you prescribed for my wife,” Jasper said, passing the blister pack to Dr Giordano.

  “If I may ask, sir, what happened to Mrs Candle?” Giordano asked cautiously, as she studied the printed label on the medication.

  Jasper hesitated and then edged closer to the front of his padded chair.

  “She… er… committed suicide.” His eyes drifted down to the carpet.

  “I am really sorry for your loss.”

  She stared at the blister pack of contraceptives in her hand, confused curiosity declared by a subtle wrinkling of the skin around her attractive brown eyes.

  “I’m not sure why you have come to see me, Mr Candle. Are you a patient in this practice?” Giordano appeared a little flustered.

  “No, no I’m not. We, er… I, live in Durham, so having a GP forty miles away would not make good sense. But obviously my wife thought differently, as she was a patient of yours.”

  Giordano shrugged warily in half hearted agreement as Jasper re-established close eye contact.

  “Did you prescribe these contraceptive pills for Jennifer, Doctor?”

  Giordano crossed her arms.

  “Mr Candle, you know I cannot divulge that information to you. It is confidential between doctor and patient.”

  Jasper’s face began to twitch and twist on the left side, pulling up the corner of his nose.

  “But my wife is dead.”

  Giordano shook her head and hugged herself all the tighter.

  “No matter, sir, that is the law.”

  “I am a lawyer, Doctor, and I have brought with me my passport for identity, our marriage certificate as proof that I am, or was, Jennifer’s husband, and a letter from a pathologist confirming that a post mortem examination would be performed on her.”

  Jasper pulled a manila envelope out from his coat and held it out to Dr Giordano. She stared at it hesitantly, then took it and placed it on her desk without opening it.

  “I don’t know what you expect me to tell you, Mr Candle. Details of my consultations with every patient are confidential.”

  Jasper sighed and inched closer to the edge of his chair. The muscles in his left thigh suddenly began to ripple, causing his leg to bounce. This was a new development, Jasper realised, the twitching contortions having been confined to his upper body until now.

  “I am trying to understand why my wife took her life, Doctor. These contraceptive pills I found do not make any sense,” Jasper said, gesticulating towards the foil packet lying on her desk.

  Giordano frowned.

  “Why not?”

  Jasper took a deep breath, as if filling his cylinders for a long haul up a steep incline.

  “We had fertility problems and had seen so many specialists. We were desperate for children, but… they told us that a family would not be possible…”

  A silence filled the space between them and Jasper sat back in his chair, trying to cover his bouncing leg with a trembling hand. He felt Giordano’s eyes taking in his disobedient body, the resident gremlin that tormented him. What could he see in her eyes: intrigue, pity, disgust?

  Giordano said nothing.

  “At post mortem they found that she was pregnant. The impossible had happened, despite being on the contraceptive,” Jasper said, turning his palms upwards and examining them with his downcast eyes.

  “I understand this must be extremely painful and difficult for you, Mr Candle. Have you spoken to your own GP?” she said sympathetically.

  “I don’t need to speak to my GP,” Jasper erupted, “I need to speak to you, Jennifer’s GP, to find out why she asked to be on the contraceptive.”

  Jasper buried his face in his hands for a moment as he felt the facial tics rip his calm exterior apart.

  “I just need to understand why she did it, what on earth drove her to do it… please Doctor… only you can help me.”

  He looked up at her, his eyes now bloodshot and pained, his face twisting this way and that.

  Giordano appeared to be torn and shifted about awkwardly in her chair.

  “I am sorry, Mr Candle. I would be breaking the law,” she said softly.

  “It’s not a law, it’s a code of bloody silence. Who can it harm, she’s gone… there’s just me left.”

  Jasper collected the foil blister pack and envelope from her desk, stood up unsteadily and walked to the door. His neck writhed and pulled his head to one side.

  “Mr Candle,” Giordano said, in a monotone secretive voice.

  Jasper stopped, his hand pressing down on the door handle.

  “Your wife has been seeing me for quite some time. She asked for the most effective and the most discrete contraception available.”

  Jasper stood as still as his demons would allow him without turning around to face her. The words hit him like repeated gunshots, each one penetrating deeper than the one before. He felt winded, dazed.

  “She never told me any more than that, and I had no reason not to meet her request.”

  A swirl of emotions mocked Jasper, he felt both anger and sadness, confusion and determination, all manifesting in his left hand as it trembled on the door handle which also began to rattle.

  “Do you have a doctor to see back in Durham, Mr Candle?” Giordano asked softly. “I can see you are in need of help.”

  Jasper lowered his head as he sensed the inevitability of facing his worsening physical idiosyncrasy.

  “I am a medico-legal litigation lawyer, Doctor, I cannot see any doctors in Durham. They all know me, and they all despise me.”

  He knew he was issuing a cry for help and it embarrassed him, but the moment seemed right as he fumbled at the threshold of opportunity. A short silence ensued but he did not turn around and face Dr Giordano, preferring to hide his humiliation.

  “If you would like to make an appointment to see me…

  ” It felt right, and Jasper breathed a deep sigh of inner relief.

  “Thank you.”


  TWENTY NINE

  Jasper cradled the twelve gauge shotgun over his left arm, the weapon open at the breach. The heavy, cold steel of the Holland and Holland felt good against his skin. Squeezed into a green canvas hunting jacket and wearing knee length boots, he looked out over the expanse of green fields and hedgerows that fell away before him.

  “Ready, Jasper?” said the plump red faced man beside him, his breath fogging the air around him.

  Standing a head shorter than Jasper, but filling his brown leather hunting jacket with the importance of a weightier man, was Merrill Bradshaw QC. His round face had the cherubic look of a choirboy about it and his cherry red lips and cheeks could easily have been crafted with stage make-up.

  Jasper nodded nervously as Merrill closed the breach of his shotgun.

  “Guest’s privilege,” Merrill said, gesturing to Jasper.

  “It’s been a long time. You lead,” Jasper said.

  “OK.”

  Merrill shouldered his side by side shotgun and cocked the hammers on both barrels.

  “Pull!” he bellowed with a surprisingly effective voice.

  Fifty yards in front of them, a man wearing a bright orange fluorescent jacket raised his arm in acknowledgement and activated the spring loaded trap. Two clay discs shot into the sky, arcing across its milky, pale blue hues before dipping down towards Penshaw Monument, a distinctive half size replica of the Doric tetrastyle Athenean Temple of Hephaestus, prominent on a distant hilltop.

  Merrill’s shotgun tracked the discs before bursting twice with loud puffs of grey smoke. Both discs disintegrated.

  “Good shot,” Jasper said.

  The acrid smell of cordite hung in the air and stung Jasper’s nostrils. It had been years since he’d last been shooting and he had missed it: the fresh open air, the smell of meadows and trees, the solidity of a gentleman’s shotgun and the unmistakeable danger of burnt gunpowder.

  “So, Jasper, you’re plotting legal action against a three year old, I hear,” Merrill said with a deadpan face, as he opened the steaming breach of his shotgun and ejected the spent red cartridges.