Donor sd-1

by Ken McClure

  TEN

  Dunbar was up early in the morning. The first thing he did was check his coded computer mail file. It had already been updated with a list of phone numbers, which he noted down in the small notebook he always carried. They were special numbers for the police and other authorities in the area, and would get him whatever assistance he needed, at priority level. There were also two bank account numbers he could use to obtain emergency funding. There was a Sci-Med telephone number to be used at any time of the day or night in making special requests and, finally, a directive that he should make personal contact at his earliest convenience. It was the standard package for Sci-Med investigators in the field when they asked for full operational status.

  For the moment, everything depended on establishing the origins of the radioactive source. He asked Sci-Med to get the radioactive sample couriered to London and to arrange laboratory analysis of it. The evidence, he warned them, was little more than radioactive dirt. Would they do their best to identify the unknown isotope and its source?

  As usual, he was impressed at the way Sci-Med didn’t question his requests. They simply accepted them and asked if he had any more or if there was anything else they could do to assist. This is the way an administration should work, he thought. They smoothed the way for the real function of the organization. In many government institutions administration had become an end in itself. In the worst cases, roles were reversed. Front-line workers existed only as administration fodder, to be administered, to provide information, data and statistics for administrators. Their true function had been totally undermined.

  From what he’d heard from friends and colleagues, the NHS was well on the way to this state already. More and more medical and nursing time was taken up with the filling in of forms, the answering of questionnaires and complying with audit and monitoring procedures — generally being subject to the whims of an administration seeking to justify and multiply its own existence.

  Dunbar scrounged some cardboard and adhesive tape from Reception and used it to make a small parcel of the lead pipe containing the debris. He checked the outside thoroughly with the radiation monitor before taking the package downstairs to await collection. He brought some black coffee back up with him and thought about what he was going to do next. He was going to drive down to Helensburgh to see Sheila Barnes, ostensibly to return her journal to her. He had planned to do so anyway, but now his number-one priority was to ask her if she could remember who had installed the phone junction box on her living-room wall and when. Maybe she could come up with a description or even a name.

  After much heart-searching, he had decided not to tell her about the radiation source. She was dying and had accepted her fate with good grace. Telling her of his suspicions would only bring bitterness to her last days. It might also oblige him to inform the police, he acknowledged. Was that the real reason he wasn’t going to tell her? Sometimes it was all too easy to fool oneself about true motivation. He hoped it really was for Sheila’s sake, but he couldn’t be sure.

  He had not yet left the hotel when a courier arrived to pick up the parcel containing the isotope. The man was surprised at how much the small package weighed. ‘What you got in here then?’ he joked. ‘Lead?’

  Dunbar took his time driving down to Helensburgh. Driving at moderate speed meant that he didn’t have to concentrate too hard on the road ahead. There was time to think of other things and he definitely needed time to get his thoughts in order. The question was where to begin. There seemed to be no logical starting-point. He had never felt so much at sea in an investigation. The only real crime to come to grips with was the planting of the isotope in Sheila Barnes’s house, but surely that had been done to keep her quiet about something that had gone before, the death of a child. So what were the real circumstances surrounding the child’s death — and presumably Amy Teasdale’s too — that warranted murder to conceal the truth?

  The room was being kept shaded but Dunbar could see that Sheila was close to death. Her emaciated body was so fragile that it seemed that the slightest breeze coming in the window might turn her to dust. He watched her sleep for a few moments after the care assistant had gone, wondering whether it might not be better if he just left. If she was sleeping she wasn’t in pain and that was probably the most important consideration… but he needed to ask her about the junction box. A moral dilemma.

  ‘Sheila?’ he said quietly.

  There was no response.

  He tried once more, then turned on his heel to leave. He had almost reached the door when he heard Sheila stir behind him. ‘Peter? Is that you?’

  Dunbar turned round. Her eyes were still closed. He was about to announce himself when Sheila continued.

  ‘I knew you’d come. I’m so glad you did. I know we didn’t part on the best of terms last time, dear, but I knew you’d come to say good-bye to your poor old mother. Everything I said was for your own good you know. You do realize that, don’t you?’

  Dunbar found himself saying, ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘I was just thinking about that holiday we went on when you were about eight. D’you remember? You and your father went out in that small boat and caught three fish and I cooked them for tea. The look on your face… you were so proud…’

  ‘I remember,’ whispered Dunbar. He retreated into deep shadow in case she should open her eyes.

  ‘I’m so happy you came, my dear. I do love you, you know.’

  ‘I know, Mother, and I love you,’ murmured Dunbar. ‘Get some rest now. We can talk later.’

  ‘That would be nice, dear,’ said Sheila distantly, and she drifted back into sleep.

  Dunbar tiptoed out of the room and decided to have a word with matron about the exchange before he left. He explained what had happened and how he’d played along. ‘I hope I did the right thing, Matron.’

  ‘I think that was exactly the right thing to do under the circumstances. Sheila’s very near to death.’

  ‘I take it her son hasn’t come to see her or his father?’ asked Dunbar.

  Matron shook her head. ‘I understand Peter is a bit of a black sheep. There was a serious family falling-out over money. Peter wanted funding for some new business venture but it was something he’d done before. Sheila and Cyril said no. These things happen I’m afraid.’

  ‘Indeed,’ agreed Dunbar. He thanked the matron for her reassurance and left the hospice knowing that he would have no reason to return.

  On the way back to Glasgow, he decided to fly down to London on the following day and report to Sci-Med. He’d go into the hospital this evening and leave a note for Ingrid. He’d leave it until late. He didn’t want to talk to anyone there.

  All Sandy and Kate’s new-found optimism disappeared in one awful moment when a nurse showed them into Amanda’s room and they found her looking like a starving refugee from a Third World country. Her skin was deathly white and her eyes seemed huge. She was awake but she simply stared up at the ceiling. The white rabbit the hospital had given her lay beside her on the pillow, its colour not dissimilar to Amanda’s.

  Sandy turned to the nurse, while Kate tried to make contact with Amanda. ‘What’s happened?’ he asked hoarsely.

  ‘It’s not as bad as it looks,’ replied the nurse. ‘Amanda was kept off dialysis yesterday while Dr Ross ran some tests on her.’

  ‘What tests?’ asked Sandy.

  ‘There were a number,’ replied the nurse vaguely. ‘Would you like me to find a member of the medical staff? They’re actually a bit busy at the moment but I’m sure I…’

  Sandy shook his head. He felt confused. He didn’t want to make a fuss.

  ‘Dr Ross says she’ll feel much better tomorrow,’ said the nurse. ‘It’s mainly just a reaction to some of the procedures.’

  Sandy again wanted to ask what procedures. He didn’t understand what tests were so vital that dialysis had to be suspended, but on the other hand he didn’t want to make trouble. The hospital had been good to them. He didn
’t want to seem ungrateful. He knelt down at Amanda’s bedside, struggling to keep the tears from his eyes at his daughter’s pathetic appearance.

  ‘How’s my princess?’ he asked, gently taking her hand as if he were afraid it would break.

  Amanda gave a wan smile. ‘It’s sore, Daddy,’ she said.

  ‘What’s sore, Princess?’ he asked. ‘Have you got a pain in your tummy?’

  Amanda put her hand to her chest and Sandy ran his hand over it. Despite the gentleness of his touch, he saw her wince. He could feel a surgical dressing under her nightie and worried at its position over her breast bone. He frowned.

  ‘Nurse?’ he asked. ‘Did Amanda have a marrow puncture yesterday?’

  ‘I believe she did,’ replied the nurse.

  This time Sandy couldn’t stop himself. ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s not unusual for transplant patients to have a marrow puncture for immunology typing,’ said the nurse.

  ‘But Amanda’s already had these tests done,’ said Sandy. ‘She had them done ages ago at the Children’s Hospital. She’s already on the transplant register. It must be in her notes. Her immunology profile is known.’

  ‘I’m sure Dr Ross had his reasons,’ said the nurse.

  Sandy bit his tongue. ‘Of course,’ he said and went back to trying for some response from Amanda.

  ‘Would you like me to see if I can find Dr Ross for you?’ asked the nurse. Her tone had changed slightly. It was more of a challenge than a question, the response of a professional to what she considered unwarranted lay questioning.

  ‘No, that won’t be necessary,’ he replied.

  ‘Oh God,’ sighed Sandy as he and Kate walked to the car. His limbs felt like lead. ‘Maybe we were expecting too much,’ he said. ‘We were looking for magic in a world that doesn’t have any. Like all desperate people, we’ve been fooling ourselves. We wanted to believe in fairies and Santa Claus.’

  ‘The nurse said Amanda will feel better tomorrow,’ said Kate. ‘It’s probably just the aftermath of the tests she’s been having. She’ll pick up. You’ll see.’

  Sandy gave Kate a half-smile and put his arms round her, hugging her to him.

  ‘That’s better,’ she said.

  ‘Good on you, kid,’ he said softly. ‘God knows what will happen if we both hit a downer at the same time.’

  Dunbar left it until after ten before going into Medic Ecosse and checking his desk. Ingrid had left him the information he’d asked for about patients treated free of charge since the hospital’s opening. It was not a detailed account but it gave him the basics he wanted: the number of patients taken on, the type of treatment or operation they’d received and the notional cost to the hospital to be set off against tax as charitable acts. While most of them were relatively low-risk, high-profile procedures that would have attracted a deal of good publicity, the hospital had in fact taken on three transplant patients. The list was not specific; there were no names, but he knew that Amanda Chapman was the third. Three? This was a big surprise. The hospital apparently had been more than generous with its resources. He stopped short of thinking they had perhaps been too generous, considering the state of their finances. People were more important than money. He put the list away in his desk drawer and penned a note to Ingrid saying that he would be going to London in the morning.

  As Dunbar was about to start his car in the front car park, an unmarked black Bedford van came in through the gates and made its way slowly round to the car park at the rear. The driver was dressed in what looked like hospital whites, as was the man sitting beside him. Dunbar’s curiosity got the better of him. He got out of his car and walked quickly round to the back of the building, courting the shadow of the walls.

  The van had stopped opposite the green doors that led to the hospital’s basement corridor. The two men had opened up the back doors of the van and were now joined by two other men who came out of the building. All four removed what appeared to be a very heavy patient on a stretcher. It required one man at each corner.

  Despite the fact that he had moved closer, using the cover of what few parked cars there were at that time of night, Dunbar could not make out much more than that. The lighting was poor and the patient was draped with a dark top cover.

  ‘What on earth?’ he murmured as the green doors closed and the van drove off. Why would any patient be brought to the back door under cover of darkness? Then he remembered that the mortuary was located in the basement corridor. It wasn’t a patient they had brought in, it was a corpse.

  This new thought was no more understandable than the first. He couldn’t think of a good reason for delivering a body to Medic Ecosse any more than he could a patient to the basement. If he couldn’t work it out in his head he would have to find out for himself, he decided. He returned to his office and considered for a moment before deciding on a direct approach. He would go down to the mortuary and find out who the body belonged to.

  He waited ten minutes, which he hoped would be long enough for the attendants to have put the body into the mortuary fridge, and left. He paused to listen at the top of the stairs leading to the basement. All was quiet. He tiptoed down and moved silently along to the mortuary door. He paused again, putting his ear to it. Again, there was no sound. He opened the door and slipped inside, feeling safer when the door had closed behind him. He let out his breath, which he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, then froze again when the refrigeration plant sprang into life and startled him. The sooner this was over the better.

  He pulled back the heavy metal clasp securing the door and it swung back revealing, to his surprise, two occupants, both hidden under white sheets. He had expected to find only one. He removed the head cloth from the body in the upper tray and saw the parchment skin of a woman. She’d been in her late sixties, judging by her hair and teeth. He slid out the tray on its runners until he could reach the name tag tied to her toe: Angela Carter-Smythe.

  He slid the tray back in and covered the dead woman’s face before shifting his attention to the occupant of the bottom tray. The size told him that this was the corpse he’d seen being carried in from the van. Unusually, the covering over the body was not a traditional shroud, which tended to follow body shape, but appeared to comprise several layers of waterproof material with white top sheets wrapped round it. Maybe this was because the corpse was so large, thought Dunbar. He gripped a loose corner of the material near the head, but couldn’t pull it back because of the sheer weight of the body; he couldn’t support the head with the palm of one hand.

  Expecting to find the body of a very heavy, thickset man, he worked with both hands to free the head-sheet and recoiled when he looked down at the snout of a fully grown pig. The smell of it, freed from the waterproof sheeting, assaulted his nostrils. Its dead eyes looked through him.

  When he’d recovered his composure, Dunbar searched for rational answers. The kitchen cold store had broken down or run out of storage space? Unlikely and highly unethical. Apart from that, the pig, as far as he could tell on cursory examination, was complete, not the sort of cleaned carcass a slaughterhouse or butcher would supply. This was seriously strange.

  Dunbar slid his hand down under the sheeting covering the pig and felt its belly. He kept his hand there for a few moments so that surface cold and dampness from its short time in the fridge would not obscure what he was looking for. He felt his palm become slightly warm. The pig had not been dead long. He was more than a little bemused. He couldn’t make up his mind whether or not his discovery contravened any criminal laws or ethical rules. Why was the animal there? Why had a recently killed pig been brought to Medic Ecosse under cover of darkness?

  After a few moments it occurred to him that it might not be any old pig, it might be some kind of experimental animal. James Ross’s research would almost certainly involve the use of animals. All transplant research did. The animal might be a laboratory pig. In the early days of transplant research, when research work had been largely c
oncerned with technique, dogs and monkeys had played major roles; they had been used by surgeons to practise on. In more modern times the emphasis had swung away from technique, which had largely been mastered. Pigs had taken over in the research laboratory as eventual possible donors of organs to humans, once the immunology problems had been sorted out.

  As a leading researcher in the field, Ross would almost certainly have a Home Office licence for animal work. That being the case, Dunbar started to view his discovery as bizarre rather than sinister. But why had the animal been brought here to the hospital? Surely Ross’s research labs must have their own animal autopsy and dissection facilities — unless, of course, the cuts in his budget had forced him to seek alternatives. Was that it? Dunbar was considering this when he heard voices in the corridor. He mustn’t be discovered in the mortuary. That would call for explanations he didn’t have.

  He looked about him for somewhere to hide but there was nowhere. The only furniture was a simple table, which was too narrow to hide him from view if he got under it. That left the mortuary fridge… He opened the fridge door and looked at the inside of the clasp. It had a standard through-bolt release pin, which meant it could be opened from the inside in emergencies; not that emergencies would be common inside a mortuary fridge.

  The voices were getting louder. There was no time for hesitation. He gripped the beam along the top of the interior frame and swung his legs up on to the top tray beside Angela Carter-Smythe. He wriggled round on to his stomach in the confined space and stretched down to ease the door shut. It clunked softly on to its clasp and he was suddenly in complete, suffocating darkness.