A Life for a Life

by Andrew Puckett

‘I need to think about it,’ Robert said. ‘Can I keep this?’

  ‘Sure.’

  He didn’t keep Fraser waiting long. Late the next morning, he was summoned to Connie’s room. Connie and Ian were there, Fraser’s results in front of them.

  ‘Robert very sensibly brought this to us,’ she said without preamble. ‘How dare you go behind my back, approach other hospitals without my permission?’ She was shaking with anger, he noticed.

  He looked straight back at her. ‘I dared because I believe, as did John Somersby, that there is something seriously wrong with Alkovin and—’

  ‘And we have repeatedly told you that there isn’t. Are you calling us liars?’

  ‘No,’ he said carefully, ‘I am not, but I believe you to be mistaken.’

  ‘It is you who are mistaken, Fraser. We’ve looked into all the cases you brought to our attention and satisfied ourselves that there was nothing out of the ordinary. We even approached the manufacturers, who have looked into the matter and found nothing. What more do you want?’

  ‘If that’s a serious question, then an independent enquiry—’

  ‘Isn’t our word good enough for you? We’ve looked at this long and hard and found absolutely nothing.’

  ‘And I’ve discovered the same problem in Birmingham.’

  ‘Exactly!’ Connie said. ‘The same non-problem. If you were to examine this’ – she slapped the paper in front of her – ‘properly, case by case, instead of jumping to conclusions, then you would find the same set of explanations. There is not a problem.’

  Fraser tried to keep his face impassive as he pondered the impossibility of countering such conviction. He was saved from having to say anything by Ian.

  ‘You know the first aphorism of research, don’t you, Fraser? Any research.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re about to enlighten me.’

  ‘If you look for something, you’ll find it. Think about it, Fraser. Once you’d got this idea into your head, you started looking for more cases – and lo! You found them. It’s subjective. What Connie and I see as normal human reactions to a life-threatening disease, you see as evidence of psychosis. Take the time to think about it, ask yourself some honest questions.’

  ‘Isn’t there a corollary to your aphorism?’ Fraser said before he could stop himself. ‘If you blind yourself to something, then you won’t see it.’

  Connie looked as though she’d explode with fury. ‘That’s it, I’ve had enough—’ but Ian put a hand on her arm.

  ‘And that’s what you think we’re doing, is it, Fraser? Deliberately blinding our eyes to the problem? That wasn’t a rhetorical question.’ he added after a pause.

  ‘I don’t know what to think any more,’ Fraser said.

  ‘We haven’t convinced you?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘So where do we go from here?’ He said it almost as though musing to himself, then looked at Connie.

  ‘Clearly we can’t go on like this,’ she said, ‘so we’ve decided to give you a cooling-off period. I’ve written a memo to the Trust management explaining that you’re going on a three-month sabbatical to the Western Hospital in Seattle, America.’

  Fraser gazed at them. ‘But what if I don’t want to—’

  ‘That is not an option. If you refuse to go, then we will take steps to terminate your contract. I’m quite aware that that would mean unpleasantness for all of us, but that’s what we’ll do.’ She allowed a wintry smile to touch her lips. ‘As the Americans themselves say, you’d better believe it.’

  They had given him until the next morning to think about it. He’d talked it over with Frances and then accepted. A week later, he’d been in America.

  9

  July 1999

  ‘And the irony is,’ Fraser told Marcus Evans now, ‘that it was there I found the evidence that finally convinced me,’

  ‘How did that come about?’

  Marcus Evans was the Compleat Civil Servant, Fraser thought: dark suit, sober tie, shirt from an advert for washing powder and a bald head with heavy moustache to compensate; the only off-key note was the sense of humour lurking around his eyes and mouth.

  Once in Seattle, Fraser told him, he’d remembered John Somersby talking about his ‘colleague in America’ and refusing to divulge his name. He’d phoned Barbara Somersby and been absolutely truthful with her, and after some hesitation she’d given him the name of Dr Sam Wiseman. She thought he lived in New York.

  There were thousands of Wisemans in the US Medical Directory, hundreds of Samuel Wisemans, nearly forty of them in the Big Apple. He’d systematically phoned each of them and it wasn’t until he’d reached number thirty-one that the suggestion was made that he might mean Dr Sam Weisman.

  Bingo.

  Weisman’s tone became a good deal friendlier when Fraser mentioned JS, and he agreed to meet him.

  ‘You don’t realise just how vast America is till you go there,’ he told Marcus. ‘I flew, of course, but it still took the whole weekend for a couple of hours’ chat with him.’

  Weisman, a small, simian-featured man of around fifty, had been suspicious at first, JS notwithstanding, but when Fraser told him his story, he relaxed.

  ‘I guess I was one of the first, if not the first, to trial Alkovin and I found pretty much the same as you,’ he told him. ‘Definitely improved remission induction, ninety-five per cent plus I’d guess, but then problems with psychosis after first consolidation.’

  ‘In what percentage of patients?’ Fraser asked.

  ‘Forty-five, fifty.’

  Fraser nodded. ‘Sounds familiar. Any suicides?’

  ‘Six attempted, two successful.’

  ‘How many patients?’

  ‘Around a hundred fifty.’

  So why hadn’t he published? Fraser asked.

  He had, or leastways, he’d tried. The journal he’d chosen had accepted his paper, but with the proviso that the report of psychosis was deleted. ‘They said it was contentious, subjective, that I wasn’t a psychiatrist, and that if it existed at all it was to do with the neighbourhood I worked with.’ He made an indescribable noise with his lips that Fraser took to express scorn. ‘I told ’em where they could shove it.’

  He’d tried several other journals with the same result.

  ‘Was it nobbled?’ Fraser asked.

  Weisman shrugged. ‘Guess it must have been. Always knew there was a network of the high ’n’ mighty out there – never imagined it was that powerful, though.’

  Eventually it had been accepted by a little-known periodical.

  ‘The trouble is,’ Fraser told Marcus now, ‘that there’re papers raving about Alkovin, and Weisman’s, when it comes out, will be ignored as a freak.’

  ‘So what exactly are you suggesting, Dr Callan?’ Marcus asked. ‘Why have you come to us?’

  ‘There’s a problem with that drug that my bosses are pretending doesn’t exist. Why, I don’t know, but meanwhile, patients, including my fiancée, are suffering.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that they’ve got some interest in the drug company?’

  Fraser hesitated. ‘As I said, I don’t know. But I do think it bears looking into.’

  Marcus nodded slowly and turned to the man beside him. ‘Any questions, Tom?’

  So far, Tom Jones had said very little, although his gaze had hardly left Fraser’s face, as though he was analysing every word he said.

  ‘Dr Callan…’ The same distinct London accent he’d heard over the phone. ‘You told us earlier about the murder of your previous director, Dr Somersby. D’you think that was part of this scenario?’ He was the complete antithesis of Marcus Evans – leather jacket, rather loud tie and a disconcerting, even menacing air.

  ‘I did wonder about it,’ Fraser said after a pause. Then: ‘The police questioned everyone concerned pretty rigorously…’

  ‘Did they question you?’

  ‘Aye, they did.’

  ‘Rigorously?’

  �
��Not what I’d call rigorously, but I had no motive for killing him. I liked the man.’

  ‘So, who did have a motive?’

  ‘I suppose the obvious ones were Connie, Ian Saunders and Leo Farleigh.’

  ‘Because they wanted the drug trial and Dr Somersby didn’t?’

  ‘That’s right. Connie and Ian might have wanted his job, although neither of them could have been sure of getting it.’

  *

  ‘What do you think, Tom?’ Marcus asked after Fraser had gone.

  After a pause, Tom said, ‘We have to remember that we’ve only heard Callan’s version. It could be that he’s simply being vindictive, trying to make trouble for his boss because she had him suspended.’

  ‘What’s your gut feeling?’

  ‘By and large, that he’s straight.’ Tom paused again. ‘It smells, and it’s not the first time we’ve come across Parc-Reed, is it? The anti-AIDS drug in Oxford – remember?’

  ‘Yes, I do, now you come to mention it…’

  Tom got up. ‘The first thing is to check how they’re doing on the stock market, and then whether any of the people Callan named hold shares.’

  He was back after half an hour.

  ‘Parc-Reed shares have doubled since they announced Alkovin and are still going up.’

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘Yes. The drug’s about to be launched on the open market and I’m told the shares could double again.’

  ‘Do any of Callan’s friends have any?’

  ‘Leo Farleigh holds a couple of thousand, but all the employees were given those when they went public. Neither of the others have any registered under their names.’

  ‘What about not under their names?’

  ‘That’s just it – there’s nothing to have stopped them setting up nominee accounts…’ Anybody, he explained, could go to a stockbroker anywhere in the country and set up a nominee account, so that only the broker’s name appeared on the register.

  ‘And that’s almost certainly what they would have done.’

  ‘Can you trace them?’

  ‘I don’t know. They’d have used a broker away from home… I’ll look into it.’

  10

  A couple of days later, on Saturday, Frances said she wanted to drive over to see her mother on her own.

  Fraser looked at her. ‘Are you sure you’re ready for that?’

  ‘I’ve been on the Smarties for over a week now and I’m feeling much better.’

  It was true – her moods, which had veered every which way for most of the week, seemed to have settled.

  ‘Fraser,’ she said, ‘I’ve got to go back into hospital on Monday and I need some independence, some space.’

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘But if you feel an attack coming on—’

  ‘I’ll take the mobile and I’ll stop and ring you. Promise.’

  She put her hands on his shoulders, kissed the side of his mouth and the tip of his nose before going upstairs to get ready.

  It was probably as well, he thought after she’d gone: the last week had been a strain for both of them. He’d taken her out as much as possible, but three times she’d asked him to stop the car and then just cried while he held her. That, he didn’t mind so much. It was her suddenly screaming and throwing a saucepan out of the kitchen window without opening it first he found difficult to handle…

  He prowled the house awhile, wondering what to do – suspension could get seriously boring, he thought. How long would it take Marcus Evans to get something going?

  The phone rang – Frances…? He snatched it up.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Fraser, it’s Connie – please don’t hang up…’

  He’d almost dropped the receiver when he’d heard her voice.

  ‘If we go on like we have been,’ she said, ‘we’re going to do each other a lot of damage.’

  ‘That’s true,’ he said non-committally as he thought, She’s been talking to the BMA.

  ‘I’ve been thinking things over,’ she said slowly, obviously having difficulty enunciating her thoughts. ‘I’ve been looking at your data and… the fact is, I’ve been wondering if you might be right about Alkovin.’ The last came out in a rush.

  ‘Well, that’s good news,’ said Fraser, at a loss to know what else to say.

  ‘If you’ll come over to my house now, we’ll work out what to do about it.’

  Fraser’s mind was in a whirl. He could hardly tell her that he’d already put Marcus Evans on to her… but the last thing Evans had said to him was to act naturally.

  ‘All right, Connie. I can be with you in… half an hour?’

  ‘Sooner if you can, please, Fraser. I’m worried about the others.’

  ‘All right,’ he said.

  Others? he wondered as he put the phone down. Ian and Leo? He glanced at his watch – Frances wouldn’t have arrived at her mother’s yet, better give it a bit longer.

  He showered, changed, then rang Mary.

  ‘No, not yet, dear,’ she said, then: ‘Wait, that’s her car now, d’you want to speak to her?’

  ‘No, she’ll think I don’t trust her. ‘Bye.’ He put the phone down, then compressed his lips together in thought for a moment before going out to his own car.

  Connie lived about two or three miles away. She’d kept the house after her husband had left her, a mock Tudor edifice, rather pretentious, Fraser thought. It was set well back from the road in Avon’s stockbroker belt. He was there within fifteen minutes.

  He parked in the gravelled drive and walked over to the door. His shirt was sticking to him: the sun was more or less directly overhead and the leaves on the surrounding trees were still.

  On the steps lay a walking-stick. He picked it up and rang the bell.

  No answer.

  He rang again, then, noticing that the door was ajar, pushed it open.

  ‘Connie,’ he shouted. ‘It’s me, Fraser…’

  *

  She was lying on her side on the chequer-tiled hall floor and he was kneeling beside her, although he couldn’t remember doing so or how long he’d been there…

  She had no pulse, although she was still warm. The back of her head was sticky and there was a small pool of blood he hadn’t noticed before, perhaps because it was on a black tile… and a puddle of urine he hadn’t noticed either.

  And a noise behind him. He spun round on his haunches to find Leo Farleigh staring down at him. He hadn’t heard his car…

  Fraser said, ‘She’s dead… We’d better phone the police.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Leo said, ‘sure… I’ll do it now, shall I?’

  ‘Aye, if you like.’

  Leo edged past him and vanished into the gloom of the house. Fraser found himself looking at the stick, now lying on the tiled floor… the heavy knobbed end was bloody, he hadn’t noticed that before… it must be the murder weapon…

  His head snapped up to where Leo had gone. He thinks I did it… No wonder he’d slunk past him so carefully…

  He stood up, his head swam and he reached out for the wall to steady himself for a moment.

  ‘Leo,’ he called. ‘Leo, have you phoned them yet?’

  ‘Yeah,’ came muffled from inside. ‘They’re on their way.’

  Fraser walked into the room, peered, saw Leo over by the desk. ‘Ah, there you are. I found her like that, not two minutes before you arrived. She phoned me, asked me to come over.’ He was gabbling, he realised. ‘Did she phone you, too?’

  ‘Er, yeah, that’s right.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Oh, about an hour ago – I’m not sure.’

  Fraser was pondering whether to ask him what the call was about when they heard the police siren.

  *

  There were two of them, a man and a woman, in a panda car. Fraser told them what had happened. He asked if he could wash his hands and was told No, not until the Scene of Crime staff had taken swabs from them.

  ‘Oh, it’s her blood,’ he said. ‘I was se
eing if there was anything I could do for her.’

  Nevertheless, they told him, they’d better stick by the book.

  Inspector Lyn Harvey and a sergeant arrived, followed almost immediately by the SOC team. Fraser, who was beginning to feel as though his hands were contaminated, asked if they could be swabbed so that he could wash them.

  This was done, and then he repeated his story. Leo was saying very little, he noticed.

  Lyn Harvey said, ‘I think we’d better get you both down to the station to make statements.’

  ‘What about my car?’ Fraser asked.

  ‘We’ll bring you back,’ Lyn told him.

  They drove to the police station in silence, Fraser and Leo both in the back of the car. Fraser was taken to a small room by Lyn, who, after offering him tea, began questioning him. He explained how Connie had phoned, how he’d driven to her house and found the stick.

  ‘What made you pick it up, sir?’ Lyn asked. ‘The stick.’

  ‘It was there lying on the steps, I assumed it had been dropped.’

  ‘You didn’t notice the blood on it?’

  ‘Not at the time, no.’

  Lyn didn’t say anything and Fraser felt impelled to continue. ‘I had no reason to look for it, I suppose. No reason to think it was there.’

  When Fraser had finished telling her about finding Connie’s body and Leo’s arrival, Lyn asked him about his relationship with Connie.

  ‘To be perfectly honest, Inspector, it wasn’t very good.’

  ‘Why was that, sir?’

  Fraser told her about Alkovin and how he’d been suspended.

  ‘So when you say your relationship wasn’t very good, sir, what you really mean is that it was about as bad as it could be?’

  ‘Yes, but I think that might have been about to change.’ He gave her the gist of Connie’s phone call.

  Lyn looked at him reflectively for a moment.

  ‘Who were these “others” that Dr Flint referred to, sir?’

  ‘I don’t know. She didn’t say.’

  ‘Who do you think they were?’

  Fraser hesitated, saw no way of avoiding it and named Leo and Ian.

  ‘So what you’re saying is that Dr Saunders and Mr Farleigh probably weren’t on good terms with Dr Flint either?’