by M. R. Hall
Michael’s car pulled up in the cart track at the side of the house only a few minutes after eight. He appeared clutching a bottle of wine and dressed in a clean white shirt and the navy linen jacket Jenny had bought him for Christmas. She felt proud of him as he approached. He was dark and slim and carried his masculinity easily, with no attempt to posture. He glanced at Ross and Jenny could see that he was self-conscious as he stepped forward to greet him.
‘Hi. Good to meet you again,’ Michael said.
‘And you.’
They shook hands, Ross looking him squarely in the eye just as his father had taught him to since he was a small boy.
‘How was the trip to France?’ Jenny asked.
‘No problem. Perfect day for it.’
She gestured him to a chair and poured drinks, feeling suddenly and irrationally nervous.
‘What kind of planes do you fly?’ Ross asked.
‘Props. Light aircraft.’
‘His company has a contract to fly jockeys between race courses,’ Jenny said.
‘Kind of an upmarket chauffeur,’ Michael added apologetically.
‘Mum said you flew fighter jets,’ Ross said. ‘You must have seen a lot of action.’
‘Here and there.’ Michael glanced at Jenny and took a large mouthful of wine.
‘You would have been in Afghanistan?’
‘Yes. I was,’ Michael answered quietly.
Jenny shot Michael an apologetic glance, regretting having raised the subject.
‘What about Iraq?’
Michael nodded.
Jenny tried to change the subject. ‘Ross is studying economics—’
His usual sensitivity blunted by the wine, Ross failed to take the hint. ‘That must have been intense.’
Michael said, ‘That’s one word for it.’ He stared into his glass, then stood up from the table and glanced at Jenny. ‘Won’t be a moment.’ He went inside, closing the outside door that led to the kitchen behind him.
Too late, Ross realized his clumsiness. ‘He doesn’t like to talk about it. You didn’t tell me.’
‘I should have done. I’m sorry. He’ll be fine.’
‘Bad experiences?’
‘A few.’ She touched his hand. ‘We’ll talk about something else, shall we?’
‘He could have just told me he didn’t want to talk about it.’
‘It’s all fine. No big deal.’
She smiled, hoping to smooth things over, but like his father, Ross was quick to suffer wounded pride when he’d been made to feel foolish. He reached for the bottle and refilled his glass.
Following the bumpy start, conversation between the three of them failed to find a natural flow. During dinner, Jenny found herself having to make all the running. Michael was quiet, nervous that he was being presented for Ross’s approval. Ross made gallant efforts at small talk, but the more he groped for subjects on neutral ground, the more artificial the atmosphere between the three of them became. Jenny was relieved when it was time to clear the plates and retreat briefly to the sanctuary of the kitchen.
Michael came in behind her with the dirty glasses and set them down on the counter. Sensing her tension, he placed a hand tentatively on her shoulder, half expecting her to slap it away. ‘Sorry I’ve not been better company tonight. Tired, I guess.’
‘Can’t you just have a few drinks and relax?’
‘I’ve tried—’
‘What’s the problem?’
‘Nothing, it’s just . . .’
She waited.
‘I feel like I’m on show.’
‘He’s not judging you, Michael,’ Jenny whispered. ‘This was meant to be fun.’
‘I know. I’m sorry. Look, I’ve got another early flight tomorrow. I don’t think I should stay tonight.’
‘Why not? Ross doesn’t mind. He knows we’re together.’
‘We’ve only just met.’
‘So?’
Michael was saved from explaining himself by the telephone ringing in the sitting room. Jenny glanced at the clock above the old cast-iron range – it was nearly 10.30.
‘Aren’t you going to answer it?’ Michael said.
‘I’m not sure I want to.’
Ross burst through the back door from the garden. ‘It might be Sally.’ He ran through to pick it up. ‘Hello? . . . Oh, hi, Dad.’
Jenny grasped Michael’s hand. ‘Please stay. He’ll be fine. I’ve missed you.’
Yielding, he kissed her lightly on the lips, and in their brief moment of connection the awkwardness between them dissolved. His hands held her waist; she felt their warmth through the fabric of her shirt and longed to feel them on her skin.
‘If you’re sure it’s all right.’
‘I told you it is.’ She held his gaze.
He reached for her hand and delicately stroked her palm with his fingertips in a promise of what was to come.
Ross came to the door. His expression was serious. ‘Mum—?’
Jenny kept hold of Michael’s hand even as he tried to tug it away.
‘Yes?’
‘Dad wants to talk to you.’
‘Your father? What about?’ She steeled herself. A call from David could only ever mean he was angry, usually about something she had done.
‘It’s about a colleague of his – Ed someone?’
‘Ed Freeman?’
Ross nodded. ‘His daughter’s died.’
Jenny hurried through to the sitting room and grabbed the receiver.
‘David? Ross said Ed Freeman’s—’
‘Yes,’ he interrupted, in the clipped, urgent tone he used in a crisis. ‘Sophie fell ill this morning and died at five o’clock this afternoon. I only just heard.’
‘I’m so sorry.’ Jenny pictured David’s one and only goddaughter as a pretty, black-haired girl of eight, but knew she must be a teenager by now. ‘What happened?’
‘Some sort of infection. That’s all I know.’
‘Should I call them?’
David said, ‘I would be careful about that. She died in the Vale. You’re going to be the coroner and Ed’s going to want some answers . . .’
‘What is it, David?’
‘I need to talk to you properly. Can you get into town for six?’
‘In the morning?’
‘My list starts at seven. Shall we meet in my office?’
And just as she had during fifteen years of marriage, Jenny agreed to do as he asked.
SIX
THEY HAD SLEPT TOGETHER like married couples did, avoiding rather than seeking out each other’s touch. Jenny wasn’t so much grieving for the bright, pretty girl she remembered from the family parties of her former existence, as shocked by the thought of a vibrant life so suddenly extinguished. Her mood had rubbed off on Michael, who was shifting and turning in a restless, nightmare-haunted sleep. She could tell he was back in the cockpit, raining fire on dusty villages, tormented by images of broken bodies and bloody sand. Feeling for him, she reached over and stroked his arm, but he’d jerked away from her, leaving her feeling more isolated lying next to him than she would have done alone. Ross had reacted to the news of Sophie Freeman’s death with a concerned formality that hid whatever lay beneath. She had never understood why men found it so hard to express perfectly normal emotions. Did they feel more or less acutely than she did? Where, she wondered, did all those tears go?
She left the house before either of them woke, leaving them, she hoped, to make more of a success communicating with each other over breakfast than they had at dinner. She trusted Michael to make an attempt, but Ross remained a partial mystery to her; just as she thought she was learning to predict his reactions, he wrong-footed her again. She had tried. If they loved her, they would, too.
She approached David’s consulting room on the third floor of the Severn Vale District Hospital with a sharpening sensation of dread. A consultant cardio-thoracic surgeon, his working life had been spent exclusively with patients confronted with their
mortality. Approving of those who went under the knife without a word of complaint, and dismissive of those who ‘whimpered and blubbed’, he had treated Jenny’s ‘episode’ (he had refused ever to call it a breakdown) as if it were something akin to an embarrassing skin complaint. During the numb, lifeless months after she had been rendered helpless, he would look at her uncomprehendingly, as if frightened that if he drew too close he might catch the contagion, too. She knocked, feeling all the old history rushing back to meet her.
He answered the door with an abruptness that made her start.
‘Jenny. I didn’t think you’d make it. Come in.’
David’s room was as functional and forbidding as she remembered it; a place to feel the cold press of a stethoscope and bleak words of diagnosis from a man as enviably fit as a fifty-year-old could hope to be. It was as if his tall, lean squash-player’s frame radiated judgement against the weak-willed and sick.
Jenny purposefully avoided sitting in the patient’s chair and instead stood by the desk, a gesture intended to show him she was here as an equal, not as someone to be managed.
‘Ed must be devastated,’ Jenny said.
‘He and his wife both. I’ve seen quite a lot of him lately on the consultants’ committee. He was a devoted father.’ Frightened of appearing too emotional, David changed the subject. ‘I’m afraid I’ve no coffee to offer you.’
‘That’s all right.’
David stood uncomfortably in the middle of the room, unsure where to place himself, then stepped over to the window and propped himself against the sill, his arms folded beneath defined chest muscles that pressed hard against his shirt. Even discussing his colleague’s dead daughter, it seemed, he felt the need to impress her.
Jenny said, ‘You said it was an infection.’
‘It appears so.’
‘Do we know what kind?’
‘A strain of meningitis, I’m told. It happened so quickly I doubt the lab will have detailed results until later this morning.’ David avoided her gaze and stared down at his shoes, a tic he’d had ever since they first met aged twenty-two. It usually meant he had something difficult to say.
Jenny knew she would have to coax him along. ‘What did you want to talk to me about?’
‘The infection . . . It was an odd one. She went off to school perfectly well, complained of dizziness and temperature at lunchtime and collapsed shortly afterwards. Never regained consciousness. As far as I can tell, they pumped her full of broad-spectrum antibiotics but they didn’t make a dent. Ed didn’t tell me all the symptoms but I get the impression it was pretty rough – fitting, generalized oedema. I think she was haemorrhaging badly towards the end.’
‘Aren’t those the symptoms of meningitis?’
‘I’m told you would usually expect the antibiotics to make some inroads. It’s odd.’
He looked away again, wrestling with unspoken thoughts.
‘I presume you asked me here in my capacity as coroner?’
‘Naturally.’
‘Is that all you wanted to tell me?’
She had already made the assumption that Ed or his wife, a clinical psychologist, had overlooked warning signs or ignored early symptoms. She was expecting David to make excuses for them and to ask her to overlook the fact to save their feelings. She was ready with an answer – that she would be as understanding as she always was of parents with busy lives – but she was beginning to suspect there was something else. The reason he’d asked to see her.
‘Can I talk to you in absolute confidence, Jenny?’
She thought carefully before answering. Curious as she was, she had to resist the risk of being compromised. ‘In a personal capacity, yes, as a coroner, well – you know the rules as well as I do.’
‘We’ll make it personal, then.’ He glanced at the door, as if fearing someone on the far side might be eavesdropping. ‘The number of deaths from hospital infection is going up all the time – you’ll be more aware of that than anyone.’
‘Hospital?’ You think Sophie caught this from her father?’
‘It’s possible. I know he’s thinking along those lines. The thing is, even if that’s the case, there’s very little he or I can do about it, not if we value our careers. None of us is considered indispensable. The moment a consultant dares raise his head above the parapet it gets shot off.’
‘Are you telling me there’s a problem here that no one’s admitting to?’
David checked his watch. It was ticking round to the time he’d have to start scrubbing up for a long day in theatre. Sometimes he’d perform as many as a dozen heart bypass procedures back to back, shuttling between neighbouring theatres to do the delicate work while subordinates opened and closed the patients for him.
‘You did ask me here,’ Jenny said. ‘If you’ve nothing more to say, I’ll be going.’ She moved towards the door.
‘I’ll tell you what the problem is, Jenny. It’s not politically correct, I know you won’t like it, but it’s the truth, and something has to be done about it.’
‘It sounds as if we’ve drifted beyond the personal.’
‘Oh, I don’t care,’ he said, with a dismissive wave of the hand. ‘Look – we’ve got C. diff, streptococcus, haemorrhagic E. coli, you name it. These are rapidly mutating, highly infectious, antibiotic-resistant strains and they’re killing people – usually the sick, and now the healthy. What’s more, they didn’t develop here, they came from outside.’
‘Outside?’ Jenny tried to disguise her scepticism.
‘We’re inundated with patients from countries where they either don’t choose to or can’t afford to treat infection properly. Instead of hitting C. diff with a broad spectrum of drugs they’ll use only one or two – not enough to kill the bacteria, just enough for it to develop antibiotic resistance. So another patient brings it here and we’ve nothing left in our armoury that’ll knock it out.’
‘And you can’t raise this issue because . . . ?’
‘For God’s sake, Jenny – you can’t blame an infection on foreigners, no matter how true it is.’
‘You want to stop treating foreign patients? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?’
‘Someone’s got to take an honest look at the situation.’
‘And you’re nominating me?’
‘You’re the coroner,’ he said accusingly. ‘I have to go. I’ll be late for theatre.’
‘Are there any documents I can look at? Would anyone be prepared to give me a statement?’ Jenny pressed.
‘I’m just giving you a steer, that’s all.’ He looked levelly at her. ‘And if my name is ever mentioned in this context I stand to lose my job – you do understand that?’
‘You needn’t worry, David. I shan’t embarrass you.’
‘Thank you.’ He seemed briefly grateful. ‘I’d appreciate that.’
Jenny pressed the buzzer at the mortuary door at 7 a.m., more in hope than expectation. To her surprise, the intercom was answered by a junior technician who said that Dr Kerr was already at work. He let her in, but as she sidestepped the gurneys cluttering the corridor and made for the door of the autopsy room, he appeared through the swing doors to the refrigeration unit and called after her. ‘You won’t want to go in there, Mrs Cooper.’
Jenny glanced through the observation pane and saw that a negative-pressure isolation tent constructed of several skins of clear polythene sheeting had been placed over the dissection table. Its electrically powered filters were designed to clean the air inside and ensure that no dangerous microorganisms harboured by the body could escape. Dr Kerr was at work inside it, wearing an all-in-one biohazard suit.
‘He won’t be long,’ the technician said. ‘He did the p-m last night but the lab came back asking for some more samples. You can wait in his office if you like.’
‘Thanks.’
He nodded, as if reassuring himself that she could be trusted, and returned to his task.
Jenny glanced back through the observation pane
and saw Dr Kerr emerging from the tent with a number of steel flasks, which he placed into a refrigerated transport box. It was a procedure she hadn’t observed before and she found it unsettling. He looked up and saw her face. He waved a gloved hand then pointed, a gesture she took to mean that she should retreat to his office. She followed his advice.
More than usually aware of the warmth of the sickly sweet mortuary air, Jenny went to the office window and tried to open it. A safety catch had been fitted that allowed it to open outwards only a few inches from the frame. She pressed her face to the narrow gap and took in a deep breath. She had blithely wandered the hospital’s corridors for the past four years without ever questioning whether it was an altogether safe place to be, but now it felt alive with hidden dangers. For all his many failings, David was the most unflappable person she had ever known; for him to express concern there had to be a serious problem.
It was some minutes before Dr Kerr came through the door, carrying the strong chemical smell of the antiseptic with which he would have doused himself after the procedure.
‘Sorry about that. Takes a while to climb out of all the kit.’
‘Those were some serious precautions,’ Jenny said.
‘Very necessary, I’m afraid.’ His voice had lost its usual wry edge. ‘I was just going to call you. I wasn’t sure you’d been notified.’
‘I got word last night. The girl’s father is a colleague of my ex-husband’s.’
‘Mr Freeman. Of course. You knew Sophie?’
‘No, not really.’ It was partly true: they hadn’t spoken since her divorce. ‘Have you established a cause of death?’
‘It was meningitis.’
She felt oddly relieved. ‘My ex-husband implied there was concern it was something more sinister.’
Dr Kerr walked past her to his chair on the far side of the desk. Jenny noticed his eyes were bloodshot with fatigue. She could tell he had hardly slept.
‘That’s not an unreasonable word to use. According to her notes, from the onset of symptoms to death was only a little over eight hours. That’s remarkably quick in an otherwise healthy child. And one would certainly expect bacterial meningitis to respond to antibiotic treatment in some degree, but it seems that the drugs had no effect at all. The physicians certainly threw everything at it.’
