by Ken McClure
Rene’s looked as if it might be a possible. He found a parking place a couple of streets away and walked back, went in and ordered a bottle of Czech beer at the bar. The place was small and about half full of mainly couples although there was a group of four businessmen at a table with their briefcases tucked underneath at their feet, exuding the confidence of the mob-handed as they exchanged stories of their prowess in the commercial jungle. A couple of loners were at the bar, one reading an evening newspaper opened at the accommodation-to-let section and the other, a young woman, concentrating on the screen of her mobile phone.
Steven looked for a clue to suggest she might be a nurse on her way home — sensible flat shoes, black stockings, a glimpse of white uniform dress beneath her coat — but didn’t find any. He lingered over his beer for twenty minutes or so before giving up and leaving. He thought about driving round the area some more but no longer felt confident that this approach was going to work. Most hospitals had a choice of pubs within easy reach where many of the staff would be regulars but St Raphael’s was different. It was located in an upmarket, exclusive area: there weren’t any pubs round here. On the way back, however, he decided he might as well give the Pink Puffin a try.
The name had indeed been a clue, Steven concluded when the barman looked him up and down and said, ‘You’re new.’
Steven smiled. ‘Just arrived today.’
‘And what brings you to the Puffin?’ the barman asked, the smile in his eyes suggesting he knew the answer.
‘St Raphael’s,’ said Steven. ‘I’m starting work there.’
‘A nurse?’
Steven nodded.
‘So you won’t know anyone round here if you’ve just arrived?’
‘That’s right, all alone in the big city.’
‘Robbie works at St Raphael’s,’ announced the barman as if he’d just remembered. He turned away from Steven to scan the clientele. They were exclusively male and mainly in pairs, although there did seem to be a birthday gathering with six at one table wearing party hats. ‘Robbie! Robbie!’ he called out. ‘Come over here and say hello to…’ He turned questioningly to Steven.
‘Steve.’
‘Come and say hello to Steve.’
Steven watched as a short, tubby man broke up one of the pairs to come over to the bar. The barman introduced them and related Steven’s story.
‘Come and join us,’ said Robbie. ‘The smoke can be a lonely place if you don’t know anyone.’
Steven followed Robbie back to his table, where he was introduced to Clive, who Robbie made a point of adding was his partner. ‘So, hands off.’ He made a slight smacking gesture with his hand.
Steven shook hands with a tall, handsome man.
‘So you’re a nurse,’ said Robbie as they all sat down. ‘Clive was a nurse too until he took to the skies and became a trolley dolly.’
‘BA cabin crew,’ explained Clive.
‘I didn’t know we were getting anyone new at Raffa’s,’ said Robbie. ‘You must be Iwona’s replacement, poor love.’
‘Iwona?’ asked Steven.
‘Polish nurse,’ said Robbie. He touched the side of his nose and said conspiratorially, ‘Sent home in disgrace, you might say.’
‘How so?’ asked Steven, anxious to keep the conversation flowing and trying to appear as keen to garner scandal as Robbie clearly was to impart it. He imagined he was about to hear a tale of illicit sex in a linen cupboard.
‘I shouldn’t really,’ whispered Robbie, leaning forward, ‘but as you’re staff anyway…’
Steven leaned forward to meet him halfway.
‘MRSA,’ announced Robbie, lingering over each letter.
Steven couldn’t believe his luck. He wanted to hug Robbie — and it wouldn’t have seemed out of place in his current surroundings — but instead he said in a low growl, ‘No, you’re kidding.’
Robbie shook his head, obviously pleased at Steven’s reaction. ‘A carrier,’ he said. ‘Infected three people before it was discovered that she was the cause of the problem.’
‘Poor love,’ said Steven, hoping he wasn’t camping it up too much, ‘that’s going to be an absolute nightmare to live with. I just don’t think I could do that. She wasn’t an illegal, was she?’
‘No,’ exclaimed Robbie, exchanging shocked glances with Clive. ‘Raffa’s is the best, my man: the staff are the best, the pay is the best. Absolutely everything is pukka and above board at Raffa’s. Iwona was fully qualified and a damn good nurse, it has to be said. The MRSA carrier thing was just… well, just one of those things. There but for the grace of and all that.’
‘So the problem’s been cleared up?’ asked Steven.
‘And without a breath of scandal,’ whispered Robbie. ‘We were lucky. The papers would have had us on toast if they’d found out.’
‘Being the hypocrites they are,’ added Steven.
‘So where was your last job, Steve?’ asked Clive, who had been quietly appraising Steven throughout with eyes that gave away nothing.
‘Glasgow,’ replied Steven after a momentary hesitation, suddenly aware that he didn’t have a cover story. ‘Western Infirmary.’
‘Tough city,’ said Clive.
‘Reason I’m here,’ replied Steven, once again hoping he wasn’t pushing the pink button too hard. He had started to suspect that Clive was having his doubts about him.
‘You’ll love Raffa’s, Steve,’ said Robbie.
‘What does MRSA stand for, Steve?’ Clive asked suddenly, to the amazement of Robbie, who seemed embarrassed at his partner’s behaviour.
‘What’s this, pub quiz night?’ he exclaimed.
‘Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus,’ said Steven calmly, ‘although people outside the profession often think it’s “multiply-resistant”.’
Clive smiled. ‘Is the right answer,’ he said. ‘Sorry about that, Steve.’ He turned to Robbie and added, ‘I thought he might be press.’
Robbie’s eyes opened like saucers. ‘You’re not, are you, Steve?’ he asked like a child seeking reassurance.
‘No,’ said Steven, ‘I’m not.’
He bought a round of drinks and left soon afterwards, citing tiredness after the long journey down from Scotland.
‘See you at Raffa’s then,’ said Robbie.
‘Thanks for being so welcoming,’ said Steven, nodding to both as he got up and waving to the barman as he headed for the door.
‘See you soon,’ said the barman, using his eyes to impart more into the phrase as he polished a glass.
THIRTY-TWO
Steven returned to his flat and called the duty officer at Sci-Med. ‘I need this information ASAP. St Raphael’s Hospital employed a Polish nurse until recently; her first name was Iwona. Everything was above board so there should be no difficulty getting the information — but don’t approach St Raphael’s directly. I need to know her full name, how long she was at St Raphael’s, the official reason given for her leaving and which Public Health lab might have been involved in her demise if any. Get people out their beds if you have to.’
‘Will do.’
Steven was woken just after four a.m. by the duty man, who made a joke about including him in his ‘get people out their beds’ instruction.
‘Very funny,’ said Steven. ‘What’d you get?’
‘Iwona Tloczynska was employed at the hospital for four and a half months between December last year and the start of April. She came with excellent references and was working as a theatre nurse. She was highly thought of until a problem arose and the staff were screened as part of an investigation into post-operative infection. Iwona was found to be unsuitable for continued theatre work and subsequently decided to return home to Gdansk with what was described as generous severance pay.’
‘Excellent,’ said Steven. ‘Did you find out who did the screening?’
‘In the first instance it was the small hospital lab, but then it was referred to the private lab that does the microbiol
ogical work for St Raphael’s. When they confirmed it was MRSA, sub-cultures of the organism were passed on to the Public Health authorities and the reference lab at Colindale in north London in compliance with the rules about these things.’
‘Brilliant,’ exclaimed Steven.
‘Just what my mother always said,’ replied the duty man.
Knowing that the people the duty man had disturbed during the night might well be complaining to colleagues about their rude awakening and, in doing so, alerting the opposition, Steven was at the Colindale lab before nine a.m., waiting for the staff to arrive. Once he’d established his credentials, it took less than fifteen minutes for the technicians to provide him with a glass vial containing the MRSA isolated from Nurse Iwona Tloczynska. Another twenty minutes and the culture was in the hands of the labs used by Sci-Med for scientific analysis and a comparison with the strain of MRSA he’d brought back from Afghanistan was under way.
Steven was at the Home Office before John Macmillan arrived. When he did, he took one look at Steven and said, ‘You’re looking smug, Dunbar. It doesn’t become you.’ He swept past into his office, leaving Steven swapping amused glances with Jean Roberts.
‘Send him in,’ said the small loudspeaker on Jean’s desk.
Steven related the events of the previous evening to Macmillan and told him of the successful detective work of the duty officer through the night.
‘The Pink Puffin, you say,’ said Macmillan, foraging around in the papers on his desk. ‘Wasn’t it a blessing you spend your evenings there…’
‘I don’t spend my…’ Steven had began before he saw the smile on Macmillan’s face. ‘I was following up an idea.’
‘And a bloody good one as it turned out. Well done. Mind you, I’m not sure the lab will agree. They spent all last night analysing donor samples from the north and now they’ve got even more work to do. I understand we should be getting the donor results around noon today.’
Steven glanced at his watch. ‘I’ll go get some coffee, stretch my legs. See you at noon.’
He took a favourite stroll through St James’ Park, enjoying the signs of spring and wondering idly what the year might bring. Spring had always been his favourite season, bringing with it signs of new growth and new hope. He found autumn heart-achingly sad and winter too icily sterile to engage with. Summer was more often than not disappointing but spring was full of optimism, the overture to the year.
He started to think again about the identity of Patient X and how the human cost of so much secrecy could ever be justified. Who in this world could be considered so important that keeping leukaemia a secret was worth the lives it had now either cost or ruined?
No one, he concluded, but there were clearly people out there who disagreed: powerful people, people with influence, the sort who got away with things. He knew they existed because he’d seen them do it often enough in the past. He’d felt the anger and frustration of watching the guilty walk free because it was ‘not in the public interest’ to pursue the matter further or ‘not in the interest of the state to prosecute’. It would be nice if, just this once, they — whoever they were — were held to account for what they’d done. Perhaps a first step towards that goal was to be found in the lab report on Michael Kelly.
Macmillan already had the report open on his desk when Steven got back to the Home Office. He took off his glasses and leaned back in his chair. ‘It’s pretty much what we feared,’ he said. ‘Michael Kelly was blood group A, rhesus positive and a near perfect tissue match for Patient X.’
‘Shit,’ said Steven.
‘Well,’ sighed Macmillan. ‘I think we’re at throw-a-six-to-restart time, eh?’
‘I just don’t get it. There has to be something special about Kelly. Group A, rhesus positive blood is the second most common group in the country. Just about every second human being in the street has it.’
‘There’s the tissue match too,’ Macmillan reminded him.
‘True,’ said Steven, ‘but you still wouldn’t need to scour the civilian and military medical records of an entire nation to come up with the match they’ve got here.’ He held up the lab report. ‘Bone marrow donors are much more plentiful than organ donors. It would be different if they were looking for a heart or a liver or any vital organ for Patient X but they weren’t… they were attempting to save someone with terminal leukaemia… someone whose identity had to be kept secret at all costs. Why? We’re still missing something…’
‘The discovering of what I’ll leave in your capable hands,’ said Macmillan, getting up from his chair. ‘I’ve got a meeting.’
‘Can I hold on to the report?’
‘Please do.’
Steven returned to his flat and spent a frustrating afternoon trying to see what was special about Michael Kelly. Reading and rereading the lab report didn’t help: there was nothing unique about Kelly. The bottom line was that he was an ordinary squaddie with a common enough blood and tissue type who’d contracted an MRSA infection after donating his bone marrow. The attempted cover-up of what had happened and why he’d actually died was, to use Macmillan’s word, amateurish, but the serious fact remained that anyone expressing the faintest interest in Kelly or the circumstances of his death was in danger of losing their life…
To break up a train of thought that was going nowhere, Steven phoned Louise at the University of Newcastle to ask how she was getting on with her analysis.
‘It should be complete the day after tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Do you want me to email the report to you?’
Steven stalled for a moment. The day after tomorrow was Friday. On impulse, he decided he would go up to Scotland and spend the weekend with Jenny. ‘No,’ he replied. ‘If it’s okay with you I’ll drop by the lab on Friday.’
‘A long way to come,’ said Louise.
Steven told her of his weekend plans and they spoke for a bit about Jenny, her circumstances and where she lived.
‘That’s a lovely part of the country,’ said Louise. ‘A perfect place to grow up. My parents have a holiday cottage there… near Southerness?’
‘Know it well. Beaches that go on for ever.’
‘Aren’t they wonderful?’ said Louise, sounding pleased to be speaking to someone who shared her affection for a part of Scotland so often neglected by the tourist guides. ‘My brother and I adored our holidays there. In fact, now that you’ve mentioned it, I may go there myself this weekend. It’ll be the first time this year. I always like opening the cottage up after the winter: it’s like lifting the lid of a chest full of childhood memories. It’s a bit early for my folks; they’ll probably wait till it warms up a bit. They’re not as young as they were.’
‘Well, I’m glad I’ve sorted your weekend as well as my own,’ Steven joked. ‘See you Friday.’
THIRTY-THREE
As he gunned the Porsche up the M1 on Friday morning, Steven knew that it was not going to be the pleasant and relaxing weekend he might have hoped for. He was, to some extent, running away from an investigation that was coming close to grinding to a halt because he couldn’t see the way forward. It was odds-on that Louise’s analysis would be a formality and in agreement with the contract lab, so picking up the report was just a case of going through the motions. He would end up being no further forward in determining what was so special about Michael Kelly.
The only progress to be made after that would be through the lab analysis of the strain of MRSA that the Polish nurse was carrying. If that should provide proof positive that Michael Kelly had indeed been infected at St Raphael’s, it should be possible to force the hospital to reveal the identity of Patient X.
Steven found that he couldn’t work up much enthusiasm about that. It really wasn’t what he wanted to know. Bringing the identity of Patient X into the public domain would only annoy those who’d been determined to keep it secret. There had to be more to the deaths of Michael Kelly and his friend Jim Leslie than met the eye, and under those circumstances there was a real
risk that the reasons behind their deaths would remain a mystery, as would the motive behind the horrendous toxin attack on John Motram.
Steven had tried to manage things so that he would arrive in time to be able to take Louise Avery to lunch as a thank you for her help in analysing the samples. She would, of course, be paid officially by Sci-Med, but, as with most payments to academic staff, money had a habit of being siphoned off by the university, a bit like tips for the waiting staff at a bad restaurant. As Louise was expecting him, Steven didn’t bother to announce himself at the front desk but went straight to the Motram lab and knocked on the glass door. There was no reply.
He checked his watch, fearing that she might already have gone to lunch, but it had only just gone twelve. Then he remembered Mary Lyons telling him that Louise was working with another research group in John Motram’s absence and concluded that that might be the reason for her absence. He went back to the front desk to seek information.
‘She’s not here today,’ replied the military-looking man sorting mail into pigeon holes behind the desk. ‘Long weekend.’
‘Are you sure? She was expecting me.’
‘Must have forgot.’
‘Is Professor Lyons here today? And before you ask, no, I don’t have an appointment.’
The man gave Steven a sour look and picked up a telephone. ‘Name?’
‘Dr Dunbar, Sci-Med Inspectorate.’
Steven saw the puzzled look on Mary Lyons’s face as soon as he entered the room and knew immediately that something was wrong.
‘Dr Dunbar, this is a surprise.’
‘I arranged to see Louise today,’ said Steven. ‘I’m here to pick up her report.’
‘Yes, but your colleague came to see her yesterday… She gave him the report.’ Puzzlement became confusion and then changed to alarm when she noted Steven’s reaction. ‘He wasn’t your colleague, was he?’ she asked slowly, visibly paling.
Steven shook his head as the pit fell out of his stomach. ‘I work alone.’
