Bloodstains

by Andrew Puckett

  I metaphorically counted to a hundred, then went to Steve’s lab to wait for him.

  Just after two, a young man wandered in, politely asked if he could help me, and then sat at a bench and began working. He was followed by two others, a boy and a girl.

  Steve breezed in five minutes later, his face slightly flushed.

  ‘Hello, Tom, prompt as ever, I see.’

  ‘Just trying to set a good example to the provincials.’

  ‘Ooh! A cut to the quick.’ He theatrically clutched his heart. ‘Come on over here and I’ll tell you what we do.’ He led the way to his desk and pulled out a chair for me. As I sat down, one of the boys came over.

  ‘Steve, I can’t get this group to work.’

  ‘Oh Gawd! Excuse me a minute, Tom.’

  They went over to the boy’s bench and talked for a few minutes, then Steve came back grimacing in mock resignation.

  ‘Sorry about that. These little things are sent to try us.’ He sat down heavily. ‘Now…’

  He was right about one thing: his work wasn’t as interesting as Pete’s, or perhaps he just didn’t have the same gift of putting it over.

  His job was to make the reagents used for grouping blood, not only for the rest of the Centre, but for all the hospitals in the region, using donor blood as his raw material.

  I asked him if he used any Time-expired blood.

  ‘Yes, I use some. Why?’

  I shrugged. ‘Trefor was going on it about it yesterday, what useful stuff it is.’

  ‘Well, he’s right, up to a point. We pool it and use it to dilute reagents. Dr Chalgrove uses a fair bit.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Research. Factor VIII survival studies or trying to extract some of the other factors. That’s what I help him with, I’d go mad with boredom if it wasn’t for that. Have you seen his unit yet?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘I’ll show you round now if you like.’

  Might be useful. ‘All right.’

  He jumped up. As I followed, I found that my foot had stiffened.

  ‘Hurt your leg?’ said Steve.

  ‘Stubbed my toe.’

  He grunted and strode out. When we reached Chalgrove’s lab, he tried the door.

  ‘Good,’ he said, as it opened. ‘It’s kept locked when no one’s using it.’

  We were in a brightly lit office with no windows. The whine that had been barely perceptible outside became much louder — I asked Steve what it was.

  ‘Ultra-centrifuge,’ he said, ‘which is just a smart way of saying a centrifuge that goes very fast. The whole unit’s soundproofed so that you can’t hear it outside.’

  He pushed open a glass-panelled door and the whine increased. I followed him into a narrow room with a washbasin and shelves filled with boxes.

  ‘Gowning room.’ he had to raise his voice to make himself heard. ‘The lab through there is supposed to be sterile, so you have to gown up. Come and have a look.’

  He stepped over to another glass-panelled door, in line with the first.

  Even in a shapeless gown and wearing mask and gloves, there was no mistaking the figure of Chalgrove. He raised a laconic hand in greeting as he saw us. The laboratory was surprisingly large and filled with shining stainless-steel equipment.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ I asked.

  ‘At this precise moment, attempting to scratch his nose without dislodging his glasses.’

  ‘Very droll.’

  ‘He’s spinning cryo precipitate. To get at the useful factors in plasma, you have to literally just melt it from freezing without letting the temperature rise above 0° C.’ He coughed, then continued. ‘If you get it dead right, a slimy crud forms at the bottom which contains the factors we’re looking for. You have to spin that crud, which is what he’s doing now, then treat it chemically to get the pure Factor VIII.’

  ‘Is that an infra-red oven over there?’

  ‘It is. He tried using it experimentally to melt the plasma more slowly.’

  ‘Didn’t it work?’

  ‘Not very well. My throat’s getting hoarse with all this shouting, let’s go and have some coffee.’

  As he turned and pushed the door, a sharp click from behind made me look round.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s a dead bolt. When I open this door, the other one locks automatically. Watch.’

  He let his door close, then pushed it open again. Chalgrove’s door trembled slightly as the bolt shot out and held it.

  ‘What’s the point?’

  ‘So that both doors can’t be open at once, it’s supposed to stop contaminated air getting through. Frankly, it’s a waste of time.’

  Having thus dismissed the subject, he strode out through the office to the empty corridor. As the door shut, the sudden silence was eerie and disorientating.

  Just before we reached the tea-room, I decided to take a calculated risk.

  ‘Steve, how well do you know Adrian?’

  ‘As well as anyone, I suppose, except perhaps Holly. He’s not an easy character to know.’

  ‘Would you say he was violent?’

  He stopped. ‘What makes you ask that?’

  ‘This.’ I indicated my foot. ‘I didn’t stub my toe.’

  ‘Adrian?’

  I nodded, and Steve looked round.

  ‘Look, he’ll probably be in here. Let’s go upstairs for a coffee.’

  As we climbed the hollow stairwell, he said, ‘He’s got a nasty temper, but so have most people who are frustrated and inadequate. Then of course, he’s got this ridiculous thing about Holly — very embarrassing for her, but she should have known better—’ He stopped and stared at me. ‘You haven’t been playing around with her, have you?’

  ‘Well, I took her out last night.’

  His laughter rang round the concrete stairs. ‘Good for you—’ he punched my shoulder — ‘and her — do her good. The thing is, does he know?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Well, that explains it. Come on, I want some coffee, tell me about it then.’

  I confined myself to the facts that concerned Adrian but included Trefor’s ticking-off the previous afternoon.

  Steve’s face darkened as he stirred his coffee.

  ‘That stupid burke Wickham. First, he has to promote David, the biggest wanker in the place, because he feels sorry for him — “We must give him a chance, think of the wife and kiddies.’” His mimicry of Trefor’s accent was devastating. ‘And now he encourages that slob Adrian. I keep telling him we can’t afford any more weak links, and d’you know what he says? ‘But Steve, somebody’s got to look after the underdogs. Underdogs, I ask you! Makes you wonder what he was like when he was younger. A cross between the two of them, I expect.’

  Chapter Nine

  Marcus sounded more subdued than usual when I phoned him that night, and I didn’t have to wait long to find out why.

  ‘What have you been doing to annoy Falkenham?’

  ‘Oh no!’

  ‘Oh yes. Says you’ve been upsetting his staff and haven’t made any real progress, so he wants the investigation dropped. He’s going to “Make the strongest representations to the appropriate authorities”, those were his words.’

  ‘Marcus, I am making progress, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  I told him about Adrian and the loopholes in the computer system. ‘I want to do some checking on the computer records tomorrow, but I need those figures from CPPL you were going to send me.’

  ‘They’re on their way, should be with you in the morning. Tom?’

  ‘Yes?’ Guardedly.

  ‘These loopholes you’ve found, can they be easily blocked?’

  ‘Oh yeah — until someone finds new—’

  ‘Tom, it might not be a bad idea if we let Falkenham cool off for a week or two. You could come back here and write a report on the system we could show him—’

  ‘I need more time here — there�
�s something I can’t quite put my finger on—’

  ‘Falkenham wasn’t kidding, Tom. He could make a lot of trouble.’

  ‘What’s the matter with him?’

  Marcus chuckled. ‘I bet I know what’s the matter with you — it’s that girl you can’t put a finger on, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh Gawd…’

  We eventually agreed to wait and see what I could find tomorrow before making a decision.

  I spent the rest of the evening at the bar lubricating my mind, trying to find the answer. It didn’t come.

  The next morning, Friday, I went straight to the computer unit, from where I phoned Trefor, telling him I would be in later in the day. John Swift, the manager, was as helpful as he had been before, finding me a room on my own with a VDU and a password that would get into the record storage programs of the computer.

  ‘How many people at the Centre have a password like this?’ I asked.

  ‘Falkenham, Chalgrove and Trefor Wickham—’ he counted them off on his fingers ‘although they don’t use them much. I don’t think Trefor would know how.’ We both laughed. ‘The others have access only to the programs that concern them.’

  ‘What’s to stop them using each other’s password?’

  ‘I hope they don’t,’ he said irritably, ‘it would make that part of the system pointless.’

  When he’d gone, I settled down and wondered where to start.

  Time-expired plasma, I supposed, it was where everything seemed to begin.

  I logged on, selected the program and went back to the date when records began, nine months before.

  Not much expired blood was being returned, perhaps a dozen or so a day. Come forward a month, about the same, then another month, and another. The figure decreased to barely a dozen being returned a week.

  Until two weeks ago. Then, as the sheets in the Plasma Lab had indicated, they suddenly shot up to forty or fifty being returned a day. Strong circumstantial evidence, to say the least, that expired plasma had been systematically stolen for the past nine months.

  But wouldn’t Adrian, assuming that it was Adrian, realize that this would be noticed? Then again, who else was there to notice it? Trefor certainly hadn’t.

  And wouldn’t this push up the apparent blood usage per unit population, as Marcus’s analysis had shown? Yes, but not by all that much.

  Which brought me to my second hypothesis: that Adrian (or whosoever) had been over-issuing to hospitals, but in fact keeping back the surplus for Hill to separate (or perhaps dispatch whole) at night. Without getting at individual hospital records, I couldn’t demonstrate this. Pity.

  But if Hill had separated them, how would he have disposed of all the surplus packs of red cells? In fact, how were they disposed of anyway? I made a note to ask Trefor.

  And so, with a sigh to Jones’s third hypothesis. A sigh, because it meant adding the totals of fresh blood separated each day for the last nine months.

  For a moment I considered asking John Swift whether the computer could do this for me, then reluctantly dragged out my pocket calculator. It would have aroused his curiosity.

  I went back to where records began and laboriously added the totals, day following day following day… It took me over an hour, by which time my fingers were sore and my eyes aching. Only then did I take out the envelope that had arrived that morning with the figures Marcus had gleaned from CPPL.

  They were in monthly columns. I added them and then compared the two totals.

  Well, there was a difference, and a difference on the right side, more blood packs had been separated in the Centre than plasma packs had arrived in CPPL, but it wasn’t as large as I would have thought.

  I stared at the figures for a moment, then worked out a statistical error rate on them. The difference between them was not significant, it could be explained by random error.

  Statistics don’t lie, not in the right hands. I scratched my head, then realized what I had to do.

  Groaned aloud — it meant going back to the beginning, adding all the figures again, but this time into monthly totals.

  Another hour passed.

  I scribbled the totals down in the appropriate CPPL columns, then studied them.

  For the first five months they were virtually identical, but for the past four, they showed an increasing difference!

  With shaking fingers, I worked out a Standard Deviation on the sets of totals. There was no doubt: the differences between the Centre’s and CPPL’s totals were significant.

  Statistics don’t lie…

  Which meant that my villains had turned their talents to fresh plasma as well as expired.

  ‘Got you, you bastard,’ I whispered. Even Falkenham couldn’t ignore this.

  I leaned back for a moment, exultant.

  Was it worth chasing up the hospital records to see whether hypothesis number two was right as well?

  ‘It might be, just to tidy things up.’

  I made up a chart of my findings, to present the evidence in the clearest way possible.

  Was there anything else? I carefully looked over the CPPL figures from Marcus again. There was one other odd little anomaly that I couldn’t explain. It seemed that the fresh plasma that CPPL did receive from the Centre gave a lower yield of Factor VIII than that from any other centre in the country.

  Curious, I worked out the Standard Deviation from the yields of the other centres. The figure from Tamar was outside this, the difference was significant.

  Perhaps they weren’t freezing the fresh plasma quickly enough. However, that was their problem, not mine.

  I had completed the chart just as John stuck his head round the door.

  ‘We’re off for a pie and a pint, Tom, interested?’

  Is a sailor interested in sex? Besides, I had something to celebrate.

  Sometime later I trailed back to the Centre, at peace with the world. Glanced into Blood Issue, no change, the same filing clerk filed the same nails and Adrian glowering at me. I smiled sweetly. He still wasn’t disconcerted.

  Trefor was actually friendly, perhaps he’d been drinking as well; it was Friday.

  I explained that I didn’t know how unwanted packs of cells were disposed of.

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Why d’you want to know that?’

  I shrugged. ‘Just curious. Doesn’t matter.’

  He relaxed. ‘Well, in the old days we used to take them to the garden, marvellous fertilizer you know, but these days, since the scares over hepatitis and now AIDS, we have to destroy them. I’ll show you if you like,’ he added, his eyes lighting up at the prospect of another Trefor-tour.

  I followed him to the wash-up area, where I had been beaten up a few days before. It looked grubby and dirty in the daylight.

  At the far end, in the shadows, stood a stainless-steel machine with a crate of blood packs beside it.

  He lifted the circular lid and I peered down into a sort of tapered well with rows of serrated edges at the bottom, arranged in circles.

  ‘Watch,’ he said, and pulled a switch. The teeth became invisible as they spun and water flowed down the sides.

  Trefor picked up some packs and dropped them in. Immediately they were chewed to a bloody pulp. My eyes clamped shut of their own volition.

  Slowly I filled my lungs with air, lifted my head and opened them. Trefor watched me intently.

  I said, ‘Those teeth must be sharp.’

  ‘Have to be to cut through that tough plastic,' He tossed in some more packs. ‘Wouldn’t do to get your fingers caught in there.’

  ‘It certainly wouldn’t.’ I swallowed. ‘What happens to the residue that’s left?’

  ‘It’s ground up so finely that it can be sluiced into the drains.’ He picked up another handful of packs. ‘Might as well finish these off while we’re here.’

  There was only one thing left I wanted to do that afternoon. I told Trefor I was returning to London, but that I might be back for a day or two next week. A foot in the door. Then
I walked to Holly’s laboratory. She was seated at her desk by the window, poring over some computer reports. She hadn’t seen me, so with a wink at the girls, I walked quietly up behind her and ran a finger down her back. Reaction to the bag-crusher, I suppose.

  She gave a shrill squeak and straightened up like a frightened animal.

  ‘Tom, don’t do that!’ She meant it.

  ‘Sorry, thought I’d surprise you.’

  ‘Well, I wish you wouldn’t,’ she said, not mollified. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Just to check on the arrangements for tonight.’

  She shot a glance back at her staff and said in a lowered voice, ‘I thought all that had been settled. I’m picking you up at eight.’

  ‘Oh. Fine. Just wanted to be sure.’

  ‘Well, now you are sure, and I’m rather busy, so I’ll see you at eight, okay?’

  ‘Fine.’ I nodded and turned back to the door.

  They were all grinning, but the girl who had stuck her tongue out at her last Tuesday was grinning the most.

  I walked self-consciously back along the corridor.

  Well, naturally she had to keep discipline, and I could see some of the staff weren’t the easiest, but…

  But, I wondered, what other reasons were there for her nickname?

  Chapter Ten

  Like most breaks, it fell into place from nowhere.

  ‘Excuse me, please,’ I said to David Brown, wishing too late I’d picked some other point of entry through the crush around the bar. He and Adrian stared back at me.

  Holly and I had arrived at the hall about half an hour earlier, had been spotted immediately by Trefor and his wife, and had sat at their table ever since.

  David dropped his cigarette at my feet and trod on it before stepping back a pace. But as I moved forward, so did Adrian — I stumbled against David who spilled most of his beer down his front.

  ‘You clumsy bastard,’ said Adrian deliberately.

  I turned on him angrily, then saw the glint of triumph in his muddy eyes; he was dying for me to start something.

  I turned back to David, who had pulled out a handkerchief and was dabbing at his front. ‘It was an accident, I apologize.’