Fenton's winter

by Ken McClure

  Jenny was sitting at an angle on the sofa, her stockinged legs crossed and her elbow resting on one knee with her hand supporting her chin. She was wearing a close fitting dress in royal blue, the very plainness of which accentuated her smooth skin and high cheek bones. Her silky blonde hair was swept back from her face and held tightly with a dark blue clasp. Round her neck she wore the gold pear drop locket that Fenton had given her for Christmas.

  "You look good," said Fenton.

  "You're no slouch yourself Mr Bond. Did you call the cab?"

  A thick sea mist lay on the still water of the Firth of Forth as they got out of the taxi in the village of South Queensferry, some eight miles from the heart of Edinburgh. The lights of cars high above them on the Forth Road Bridge twinkled in and out of the fog while the huge, red painted spans of the famous old railway bridge towered silently up into the damp air. The regular drone of fog horns was the only thing to break the silence as they crossed the road to look over the sea wall.

  "It's creepy when it's like this," said Jenny looking down at the unbroken surface of the water.

  "But nice," said Fenton.

  They entered the bar of the restaurant to find it practically deserted. "Thursday night," said the barman by way of explanation. "Nothing happens on Thursdays."

  "Except elections," said Fenton as he and Jenny were drawn to a large coal fire like moths to a flame.

  They finished looking at the menu and ordered before lapsing into silence for a few moments. Jenny held her drink between her palms. She said, "A child died in theatre yesterday did you hear?"

  "I heard," said Fenton, feeling uncomfortable.

  "Do you know anything about it?" asked Jenny.

  Fenton stayed silent.

  "Oh dear," said Jenny, I see that you do.

  "Jenny I…"

  "Don't say anything. Just listen. Today at lunch I heard Rose Glynn, mention 'excessive bleeding' then later I heard someone else say that the haematology report wasn't available. I put two and two together and came up with four."

  "Three," said Fenton, "Timothy Watson was the third victim. I felt so awful just now when you asked and I couldn't tell you."

  "Relax, you didn't. I worked it out for myself. So the killer is not someone with a grudge against the lab?"

  "No, it's someone who murders five year olds."

  Jenny noted the bitterness in Fenton's voice and was forced to ask. "You didn't know the boy did you?"

  "Well enough to be able to put a face to the name. He was running around the main corridor the day Susan Daniels was murdered."

  They left the restaurant just after ten thirty and crossed the road to take a last look at the water. Fenton picked up a handful of gravel and began to flick it idly into the water with his thumbnail. As they leaned on the railings Jenny said, "You know, when you think about it, it's a strange way to kill people isn't it? Anti-coagulants?"

  "That's how they kill rats."

  "Rats?"

  Fenton flicked some more gravel into the water and watched the rings spread. "That's how rat poison works. It knocks out the clotting mechanism in their blood; one scratch in the sewers and they bleed to death."

  A ship's siren sounded out in the Forth. They peered into the swirling mist but saw nothing. Jenny said, "I just don't see how the drug could have been administered, can you?"

  "Rats have to eat it, so maybe it was mixed into the victims' food or drink. I can't see anyone having an injection without knowing it."

  "Unless the victim was a patient who was having injections all the time, or a child who trusted anyone in uniform."

  "Susan wasn't a patient or a child and she wasn't having injections," said Fenton.

  "Are you sure?"

  The question made Fenton think before saying, "No, I suppose I'm not, come to think of it. All of us in the lab get protective vaccines from time to time because we handle so much contaminated material."

  Jenny said, "Just suppose Susan had been given a large dose of anti-coagulant instead of say, an anti-typhoid injection. She wouldn't have known would she?"

  "That would make our killer a doctor or a nurse, someone with access to the wards and the staff."

  "Can you find out if Susan did have any inoculations shortly before her death?" Jenny asked.

  "It will be in the lab personnel files."

  "I could try to find out who has been on duty in the staff treatment suite over the past few weeks."

  "I've just had another thought," said Fenton, pausing for a moment to see if it made sense before committing himself. "The staff treatment suite is next to the Central Sterile Supply Department, where Neil was killed."

  "And anti-coagulants are not on the restricted drugs list; they're not kept under lock and key…"

  "So they would be readily available and the killer would not have to account for them…"

  "Let's suppose some more," said Jenny, the adrenalin now flowing fast. "Suppose Neil went to the Sterile Supply Department to see Sister Kincaid and found that she wasn't there. We know she wasn't; she was at lunch. He went next door to look for her and stumbled on the killer messing with injection vials."

  "So the killer murdered Neil to keep him quiet? Makes sense."

  "It also makes it a man," said Jenny, "I can't see a woman overpowering Neil can you?"

  "No, and there was no sign of a weapon having been used. You are right; it had to be a man, and a powerful man at that. Neil was no seven-stone weakling."

  At seven fifteen next morning Jenny left for the hospital, leaving Fenton still in bed. They had arranged to meet at lunch time to discuss progress in what they had agreed to find out. Fenton rose at eight, washed, dressed and sat down at the kitchen table with orange juice and coffee to read 'The Scotsman' which had popped noisily through the letter box while he was shaving. He scanned the front page for mention of the hospital and was relieved to find only a few lines near the bottom to the effect that inquiries were still continuing into the sudden deaths of two members of the biochemistry department.

  Finding the silence oppressive he turned on the radio. ‘1-9-4-Close to you…' droned the jingle as Fenton took his glass and cup to the sink. The sound of the 'current number four in the charts' filled the kitchen briefly before he changed the waveband and found Vivaldi instead. He tidied away the dishes and wiped the work surface where he had spilled orange juice.

  The minute hand on the kitchen clock moved jerkily on to eight thirty as Fenton switched off the radio and checked that he had his keys in his pocket before leaving. He tried to keep the noise of his feet on the stone steps down to a minimum as he descended but they still echoed around the stair well; the noise reverberated off the high ceramic walls.

  Fenton waited until ten o'clock, when he knew that Liz Scott, the lab secretary, would be at her busiest then went downstairs to the office. "Good morning Liz, I just want to check when my next T.A. B is due…Don't worry, I can find it myself."

  "Thanks, I'm snowed under at the moment."

  Fenton took the keys that were handed to him and approached the filing cabinet by the window. The sound of rain against the grimy, barred window all but obliterated the noise of the top drawer being pulled out. He flicked through the index cards till he found what he was looking for. Daniels, Susan…Age…Weight…Height…Blood Group… X-Ray Record…Inoculations! Last entry…T.A.B. vaccine given on…Fenton's heart missed a beat. February fifteenth! Two days before she died! He steeled himself to present a calm exterior when he turned round and handed the keys back to Liz Scott. "'Find what you wanted?" she asked without looking up. Fenton said that he had and returned upstairs. Instead of going to his own lab he went into Neil Munro's room and sat down for a moment. Should he tell someone what he had discovered? And, if so, who? Tyson? Jamieson? It was too soon to say anything he decided; he needed more to go on. He would wait until he had seen Jenny at lunch time.

  Fenton took out the chemicals and equipment he had removed from Munro's locked cupboard and spr
ead them out on the bench in front of him. He re-arranged a number of plastic test tubes into a symmetrical pattern on the desk top and idly balanced two small beakers in the centre while he considered what he knew. Munro had requested blood from the transfusion service and he had been working with anti-coagulants. These two factors made him feel very uneasy. But what else was there to go on? A meaningless series of figures in a notebook and the letters C.T. which Charles Tyson said were nothing to do with him…So what did they stand for?

  Fenton was balancing a third beaker on top of the other two when the door opened and the pile collapsed. Nigel Saxon stood there. "Sorry, did I do that?" he asked.

  Fenton reassured him and admitted that he had just been playing with the tubes.

  "I see," said Nigel Saxon, but sounded as though he didn't really. "I hate to keep pressing you like this but…"

  "I know, the report on the analyser." said Fenton.

  "Have you managed to look at Susan's final figures?"

  "I've been through them. They seemed fine apart from one failure, a patient named Moran. Susan wrote that no analysis was obtained. Were you with her when this test was performed?"

  "Neil Munro and I were both there," said Saxon. "We decided that the ward must have sent the sample in the wrong kind of specimen container."

  "It happens," agreed Fenton.

  "Was that the only thing?"

  "Everything else seems fine."

  Saxon smiled broadly and said, "Good, then we'll still get our license by the end of the month."

  "That soon?" exclaimed Fenton in amazement.

  Fenton's surprise took Saxon aback and he flushed slightly in embarrassment. "Sometimes the wheels of bureaucracy can turn quite smoothly you know." he said.

  "Saxon Medical must have a magic wand," said Fenton.

  "A plastic one," said Saxon.

  As Saxon made to leave Fenton said, "The Moran sample, it was run through the conventional analyser wasn't it? I mean as well as the new one?"

  "I presume so".

  "Same result?"

  "As far as I know."

  Fenton met Jenny at one o'clock. She was standing at the main gate as he walked up to the hospital from the lab. She smiled as she saw him but had to wait to allow an ambulance to pass before crossing the road to link her arm through his. "Where shall we go?" she asked.

  "Let's walk for a bit," said Fenton. They didn't speak until they had left the noise and bustle of the main road and turned down a side street. "How did you get on?" Jenny asked.

  "Susan Daniels had a TAB inoculation two days before she died." said Fenton. "It looks as if you could be right."

  "I don't think I really want to be," said Jenny. Fenton asked her if she had managed to come up with anything.

  "Sister Murphy has been in charge of the staff treatment room for the past three months."

  "Old Mother Murphy? Florence's batman?"

  "The very same."

  "Doesn't sound too hopeful." said Fenton.

  "There's more." Jenny had to pause for they had rejoined the main road and a bus roared past them making conversation momentarily impossible. When it had passed she said, "The doctor doing the staff inoculations is one of the new residents, Dr David Malcolm. He's been doing it for about a month and what's more…he is the resident on ward four, Timothy Watson's ward."

  "Do you know him?"

  "By sight. He's about six feet tall and broad with it."

  Fenton halted in his stride to allow a woman pushing a pram to pass them, he caught up again. "Do you know any more about him?"

  "Only that it's his first residency and that he hasn't asked any of the nurses out."

  "Maybe he's married."

  "No."

  "Gay?"

  "If he is he's not the effeminate type I'm told."

  The sky darkened and Fenton felt the first spot of rain on his cheek as another brief respite from the weather came to an end. The man in front of them stopped walking in order to put on a plastic raincoat. An old woman threatened Jenny's eyesight as she struggled to put up her umbrella. Fenton pushed it gently out of the way as they passed getting a dirty look for his trouble. They took refuge in a small cafe where the air was already dank with the condensation from wet clothing. The coffee was lukewarm and instant. "What do we do now?" Jenny asked.

  "Tell the police," replied Fenton.

  "I'm glad you said that," said Jenny. "This business scares me to death."

  When they returned to the hospital Fenton left word at the administration block that he would like to see Inspector Jamieson as soon as the policeman found it convenient. Jamieson duly turned up at the lab at half past two as Fenton was loading blood samples into a centrifuge. He watched what Fenton was doing for a few moments before moving across to the bookcase and peering through the glass doors in order to read the titles while he waited. He quickly tired of that and moved to the window.

  Fenton closed the lid of the centrifuge and set the timer to run for ten minutes before pressing the start button and crossing the room to wash his hands in the sink. Jamieson still had his back to him; he was silhouetted against the cold grey light in the window.

  "Sorry about that," said Fenton apologising for the delay. Jamieson turned round and smiled dutifully. "How can I help you?" he asked.

  Fenton told Jamieson everything. He told him how he and Jenny had come to suspect that the killer was one of the medical staff and how they had gone about gathering evidence to support their contention. Everything, he said, seemed to point to Dr David Malcolm being implicated in the killings.

  Jamieson listened without interruption, fiddling throughout with his moustache, brushing it upwards with his forefinger then smoothing it down again with both thumb and forefinger. "I see sir," he said when Fenton had finished. There was a long pause during which a distant clap of thunder heralded even more rain. Fenton was puzzled for, although he had not expected Jamieson to leap to his feet in excitement, he had anticipated a bit more than the catatonic trance that he appeared to have gone in to. At length the policeman got to his feet and said, "Thank you sir, you did the right thing in telling us."

  "That's all?"

  "What did you expect?" asked Jamieson pointedly dropping the 'sir'.

  "Some comment I suppose. Some reaction?" replied Fenton.

  "I'm a great believer in horses for courses sir," said Jamieson.

  "What does that mean?"

  "It means that I don't tell you how to run your lab and you don't tell me how to do my job."

  Fenton saw the anger in Jamieson's eyes and was about to argue that he was only trying to help when Jamieson interrupted him.

  "Give the police a little credit sir. We were perfectly well aware that Miss Daniels had had an inoculation shortly before her death; we also know that Sister Murphy administered it because Dr Malcolm was off duty that day. We also know that Dr Malcolm wasn't here on the day that Dr Munro was murdered because he was attending a one day seminar at Stirling Royal Infirmary; in fact, we were able to eliminate Dr Malcolm from our inquiries some time ago. We know all that sir because it is our job to know all that."

  Fenton felt foolish. "I'm sorry, I've wasted your time," he said contritely.

  "Not at all sir," said Jamieson. He left the room.

  Fenton was left sitting astride a wooden lab stool watching the rain stream down through the grime on the windows. He had made a fool of himself and now suffered the humiliation in silence. The sound of the decelerating centrifuge said that his blood samples were ready for analysis.

  Jenny was equally dejected when Fenton told her what had happened but, in characteristic fashion, she looked for something positive to take out of the experience and said, "At least it shows that police know what they are doing."

  Ferguson ignored the comment and said, "I felt about two inches tall when Jamieson put me in my place. He enjoyed doing it too, I could tell."

  "You're probably imagining it," said Jenny.

  "No, I don't think
so," said Fenton reliving the experience as he stared into the fire.

  Jenny looked at him and smiled. "Well, we can't really blame him can we," she said. "We were trying to do his job for him."

  Fenton returned to the present and shrugged. "I suppose you're right," he sighed.

  "And if we are absolutely honest with ourselves," said Jenny getting to her feet and ruffling Fenton's hair, “Thomas Fenton was never one to like being proved wrong…"

  "There's a letter for you on the hall table," said Fenton changing the subject.

  The sound from the hall told Fenton that Jenny had not opened a bill. "Tom! It's from my brother Grant, he's coming to Edinburgh next week with Jamie. Do you remember? Jamie fell off his tricycle and injured his eye a while back. He's to see a specialist at the Eye Pavilion."

  "What day?"

  Jenny paused in the doorway, scanning down the letter for the answer. "Wednesday…next Wednesday. They've to be at the hospital on Friday morning."

  "They can stay here if you like," said Fenton.

  "Tom, could they?" asked Jenny, obviously pleased at the suggestion.

  "Of course." said Fenton. He stretched his arms in the air and then put his hands behind his head.

  "Why don't you have a nice warm bath before the film comes on?" said Jenny.

  The sound of Fenton cursing from the bathroom brought Jenny out into the hall. "The main cistern is overflowing," he said looking at the stream of brownish water that was trickling into the bath from the overflow pipe.

  "Can you fix it?"

  "I think so, I'll need the ladders." Fenton fetched a pair of step ladders, propped them up outside the bathroom and climbed up to open the door leading to the cistern. Jenny handed him a torch then waited patiently at the foot of the steps. "Can you see what's wrong?

  "Well, missus," said Fenton, affecting a loud sniff, "Looks like your grommet sprocket's gone and that's no joke."