Marcus looked at the Prof. ‘What’s the time scale, Professor? How much time will that give Mr Jones to investigate?’
‘That depends on the clinic. Private clinics tend to keep patients in for longer, to justify their charges, and from what we’ve heard, Catcott is no exception.’ He turned back to me. ‘You’d probably go in two days before the eggs were collected. Tell them you’re nervous and must have your husband with you—that won’t be a problem. Replacement, in Catcott’s case, is three to four days after collection, so that gives you at least three clear days before you have to get out. Will that be enough?’
Marcus looked at Tom, who said, ‘I would think so.’
Prof said, ‘They may offer to have you overnight before commencement of treatment, for examinations. I would strongly advise against that, since it risks them discovering there’s nothing wrong with either of you. The whole point of my involvement is to provide you with recent medical evidence which will obviate the need for that.’
‘Who would be giving me all these injections?’ I asked. ‘The clinic?’
‘Not necessarily. We could, if you’re not staying too far away. Or your GP’s nurse.’
‘In that case, do I really need to go through with them?’
‘I’m afraid so, they’d know straight away at the clinic if you hadn’t. You see, after the first week of injections, you’d have to have a daily scan to check how the follicles were developing. With this regime, they’d expect to see eight at least, rather than the one or two you’d normally have.’
‘Who does the scanning?’
‘Again, we could at first, but the clinic will want to do it after a week, so that they can judge the best moment to collect the eggs. Miss Farewell,’ he continued quickly, ‘there is another thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘Have you ever had a laparoscopy?’
‘No, I haven’t. Why?’
‘You would have had an exploratory one before treatment here, and Catcott will notice the absence of a scar.’
‘Oh…’
‘It’s not a problem. I can give you a scar with stitch marks, but if you’re in a hurry, I’ll have to do it today, since it’ll take a couple of weeks to heal properly.’
The silence was broken by Marcus.
‘Professor, if I could have a few words with Miss Farewell alone in the corridor, I think we can resolve this now.’
Prof looked at me. ‘Sister?’
‘Very well.’ I got up and followed Marcus out. He spoke to me in a low voice.
‘Tom told me about your financial problems.’
‘He had no right!’
‘Perhaps not, but after that, and what I’ve just heard, I’ll make sure you get your ten thousand.’
I met his eyes. ‘I don’t much like what I’ve heard either, Marcus. Do I get my guarantee that no eggs are replaced?’
‘Of course.’
I hesitated. ‘I just want to ask the Professor one question, then I’ll decide.’
It was his turn to hesitate. ‘All right,’ he said at last.
‘Professor,’ I said when we were back inside, ‘there was something I wanted to ask you.’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m sorry if this seems an impertinence, hut what was it that made you change your mind about helping us?’
He gave his wry smile, then put his palms together and brought his fingertips almost prayer-like to his lips.
‘You’ll have to bear with me.’ A pause, then he spoke slowly, ‘I’ve devoted twenty-five years to working on the problems of infertility. One of the best days of my life was the twenty-fifth of July 1978, when Louise Brown, the first test-tube baby was born, even though I wasn’t directly concerned. Why? I think the answer to that lies is in the words of the journalist Barbara Amiel, who wrote in The Times about when she was told she would be unable to have a child.’ He closed his eyes for a moment and then quoted, ‘“As the doctor spoke, all I could see was a large black crow sitting on her shoulder. The crow just sat there, its beak hard and yellow, ready to gnaw out my insides…”’ He looked up at us. ‘There are plenty of people, usually those who have children of their own, who think that childless women should be able to put up with large black crows. I don’t happen to agree. I want to shoot them.
‘Despite misgivings, the public have, by and large, accepted IVF. However, it does seem to me now that technology is beginning to outstrip ethics. We have women of fifty-nine having twins, and in places like California, the spectre of designer babies. We have the head of a gender clinic in London, who stands to make a great deal of money out of it, claiming that it’s a basic human right to choose the sex of your baby. A basic human right? What would a woman watching her child starving to death in Africa make of that, I wonder? And now we have the revolting suggestion that ovarian tissue from aborted female foetuses should be used to give childless couples children. Does this mean that in the future babies will be conceived for this purpose, I wonder? This sort of publicity will cause a public backlash eventually and our work, my work, will be curtailed. There will be more large black crows sitting on women’s shoulders. That’s why, at first, I was instinctively against your investigation—I was afraid of what you might find. And that’s why I’ve now changed my mind.’
5
I agreed, of course.
The Professor handed us both booklets explaining the fertility techniques used at his clinic and containing forms for us to fill in.
‘These are what all prospective patients in this clinic are given,’ he said. ‘Answer the questions truthfully—it’ll help me with your medical notes. We can alter anything that might go against you later.’
‘How long will it take you to prepare them?’ asked Marcus.
‘Two or three days. But I’ll send a preliminary letter off to Dr Kent today.’
After that, he took me into a side room where he administered a local anaesthetic, then with a scalpel, he made an incision low in my belly about two millimetres deep by ten long. He then put in a couple of stitches and applied a dressing.
‘I’ll take the stitches out when I see you on Friday,’ he said.
I hadn’t felt a thing.
We were on the point of leaving when he said suddenly to Marcus, ‘What is it you think they’re up to at Catcott, Mr Evans?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ Marcus replied. ‘Possibly better. For what it’s worth. I think the suggestion raised earlier is as likely as any—that they’re charging people a lot of money for having their own children, then using donor sperm.’
‘Hmm. Risky, since it could be proved by DNA testing.’
‘Some variation on that theme, then. Whatever it is, I’m sure money’s at the bottom of it. It usually is.’
The Prof said, ‘A technique that’s used by some clinics with men who find it difficult to come to terms with their infertility is to mix donor and patient sperm together, so that there’s always an element of doubt. Let me have a look at any contract they give you and I’ll go over it to check for any let out clauses along those lines hidden in the small print.’
With that, he showed us out.
*
‘Strange man,’ mused Tom as the taxi pulled away. ‘Obsessive, almost.’
‘Dedicated,’ I corrected him. I’d rather taken to the Professor.
Marcus, ever the diplomat, said, ‘Perhaps you have to be slightly obsessive to achieve the necessary dedication.’ Back in his office, we started on the preliminaries.
‘I’ll phone your line manager tomorrow and sort out your leave,’ he said to me. ‘Is it still Miss Whittington?’
‘No, she’s moved on. It’s a Mrs Compton now.’ I gave him her extension number.
‘Fine.’ He made a note. ‘I’ll arrange it in principle and give her the specific dates when we know more.’ He looked up. ‘You shouldn’t need too much time off before your first appointment with the clinic, probably not until you start the medication.’
‘Hope
fully, not even then,’ I said.
He smiled. ‘Indeed. But to be on the safe side, we’d better book it from then. Now, what shall we have as name and address?’
‘It has to be in London,’ said Tom. ‘For us to have had treatment at St Michael’s, and also to be reasonably handy for Catcott. As for name, we might as well use mine. It does have the advantage of verisimilitude.’
‘Jo Jones,’ I said experimentally. ‘It doesn’t sound right, somehow.’
‘You could make it Josie,’ Tom said.
‘No, stick to what you’re familiar with,’ said Marcus. ‘Jo most of the time, Josephine when you use it with Jones. It’ll help you remember.’
‘Josephine Jones,’ I repeated. ‘Still doesn’t sound right.’
‘You don’t marry someone for their name,’ Tom said.
‘As to the address,’ Marcus continued, ‘I know one of our staff flats becomes free at the end of the week, I’ll make sure it stays free.’
I stared at him. ‘You mean we’re actually going to have a real address?’
‘Oh yes. By sod’s law, it would be the thing that gave you away if you didn’t. Don’t worry,’ he said, seeing my expression, ‘you’re not going to have to live there.’
‘Where is it?’ asked Tom.
‘Lambeth. Not far from your old place.’
‘What about phone calls?’
‘I’ll have them redirected here to an answerphone. The same for any mail.’
‘If we’re going in for this amount of detail,’ I said, ‘what about jobs? I take it I’ve got one.’
‘If I remember rightly, you used to work at the Royal United in Birmingham, didn’t you?’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, that’s where you met Tom. He can be some sort of computer expert who travels round the country.’
‘Computer Systems Analyst,’ Tom said succinctly.
‘Yes, that sounds vapid enough. You met Jo there—ah, shall we say three years ago?’
‘Four,’ said Tom. ‘We married a year later and Jo moved here. We tried for kids for two years, like the Professor said, we were on a waiting list for six months, and now we’ve been having treatment for six months.’
Marcus was noting this all down.
‘Where am I working now?’ I asked.
‘Off work while being treated, I suggest,’ said Marcus. ‘I can get you on to the payroll of any hospital in London, but we don’t want them phoning up and asking for you.’
‘So where was my last job?’
‘St Christopher’s. I know the personnel officer there. Nursing Sister?’
‘I’d suggest not,’ I said. ‘If they are up to something at the clinic, they won’t want clients with any medical knowledge there.’
‘Good point. I’d prefer it to be something within the NHS, though.’
‘Medical secretary?’ suggested Tom. ‘That’s the sort of person I’d have been likely to meet.’
Marcus grunted his agreement and scribbled.
‘Why are we living in a flat in Lambeth?’ I asked. ‘I mean, with our joint incomes, and the fact that we want children and can afford all this treatment.’
‘We’ve got a house lined up,’ said Tom after a pause, ‘and we found a buyer for our old place. The housing market’s still pretty awful, so we sold up while we had the chance and took the flat temporarily.’
‘Good, good,’ murmured Marcus, getting it all down.
‘What about a GP?’ I asked. ‘They’re bound to want to know who our doctor is.’
‘Mine’ll agree,’ Tom said. ‘He has before.’
‘Very obliging of him.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘Is there anything else we need to think of at this stage?’ Marcus asked.
‘We need to find out about the security system at Catcott,’
Tom said.
‘I’ll speak to Miles. Anything else?’
‘Do we inform the local police?’ Tom spoke again.
‘I’d rather avoid it if possible. It nearly always makes trouble.’
‘What about general things,’ I asked. ‘Place of birth, next of kin and so on?’
‘The truth. I don’t see why either of you need alter your histories for before you met, although perhaps you’d better think it through in case there are any problems.’
We talked around it for a while longer until I said it was time for me to leave to catch my train. Marcus phoned for a taxi and Tom waited with me downstairs for it to arrive.
‘I’m glad you agreed,’ he said awkwardly, after a pause. ‘Couldn’t really imagine doing it with anyone else.’
I smiled. That was quite an admission for him. I said, ‘Marcus seems to be going to an awful lot of trouble over this, for what might not be a very serious crime.’
‘I’d have said murder was quite serious, wouldn’t you?’ ‘But as you said earlier, it’ll never be proved. And people do die of post-op infection, you know.’
‘She was murdered, Jo. I’m sure of it.’
I nodded slowly. Tom’s an ex-policeman and can almost smell murder.
‘But there is another reason Marcus is keen on it,’ he continued. ‘He and Ashby knew each other before this and apparently, the people at ReMLA have been worried for some time about the way things are going.’
‘Technology outstripping ethics, you mean?’
‘Yes. And the BMA’s recent approval of the proposal to use aborted foetuses in fertility treatment was the last straw for a lot of them. They decided to take a tougher line, and when this came up, Ashby came straight round to Marcus.’
‘So this morning’s meeting was a set-up to get Professor Fulbourn involved.’
‘I think that might be overstating it a bit.’
At this point the taxi drew up outside. Tom came out with me.
‘Jo,’ he said as he opened the door, ‘sorry about what I said in the pub. Just me putting things clumsily.’
In other words, I thought as the taxi pulled away, you aren’t sorry about what you said, just the way you said it.
The stitches in my belly had started to itch.
*
Work the next day seemed other-worldish, an irrelevance almost, and I went through the motions on autopilot until Mrs Compton, my Nursing Officer, came to see me.
‘I’ve had a phone call from a Mr Evans at the Department of Health,’ she said in her no-nonsense Scottish accent when we were in my office, ‘requesting that you be given sabbatical leave. A little bit iron-fist-in-velvet-glove, your Mr Evans, isn’t he?’ She was a comfortably built woman in her forties with greying hair and a pleasant, square face.
‘Yes, he is rather.’
‘He wouldn’t give me any details, just said you could assist with an investigation. Not as in help us with our enquiries, I hope?’
I laughed. ‘No, nothing like that. You remember the serial killer we had here last year?’[1]
‘Do I not!’
‘Well, Mr Evans was in charge of the DoH investigation. It so happens that I’m in a position to help him with another.’
‘Not a similar one, I trust? I wouldn’t want to have to look for your replacement just yet.’
‘No, nothing like that,’ I said again, hoping it was the truth.
I couldn’t give her exact dates, but I showed her how cover could be arranged and promised her accurate details as soon as I had them.
After she’d gone, I stayed in my office a few minutes, staring out into the Duty Room with its bustling occupants. Mrs Compton’s visit had brought reality home to me and I was scared. Working with patients as I did, I had more reason than most to know how vulnerable anybody in any hospital bed is.
*
On Friday, I was back in London, meeting Tom at St Michael’s so that Professor Fulbourn could remove my stitches and go through our medical histories with us. He was looking a bit happier, although we didn’t find out why until later.
‘I’ve been through the forms you filled in f
or me, and compiled your medical notes accordingly.’ He looked over the top of his glasses at us. ‘You’re sure that all the information is accurate? You, Mr Jones, have never had torsion of a testicle, for instance?’
‘I hope not.’
‘And they descended properly at birth?’
‘Er, I think so.’
‘I’ll check before you go; it’s the sort of thing they’d spot immediately at Catcott. And you, Miss Farewell, have never had a termination?’
‘No.’
‘Good. I notice you both smoke,’ he continued. ‘They won’t like that, so I’ve said in the notes that you’ve both given up.’ He looked up at us again. ‘So perhaps you’d better—for a while, anyway. You don’t want to be caught out on that.’
‘We both smoke so little that we didn’t think it would matter,’ Tom said.
‘Ten cigarettes a day can halve a woman’s chance of conception,’ Prof said severely. ‘It also depresses sperm count. And your drinking’s a bit on the high side, Mr Jones. They’d definitely disapprove of that, so I’ve halved the amount and suggest you do the same. Now, I’d like you both to go through these.’ He handed us each a file. ‘Your medical notes. Check them now, please, for any discrepancies, then keep the photocopies I’ve made for reference.’
‘You want us to memorise them?’ asked Tom.
‘No, but it would be a good idea to remember the main points.’
Tom grunted and started going through his and I did likewise.
Everything was there; referral from GP to local clinic and then to St Michael’s; first interview; lab tests; medication, treatment, failure. Times three. A sad story, had it been true. And at the end, ‘recommend AID’, then, ‘? microinjection’. There was nothing in them to query or object to.
‘Good,’ said the Professor. ‘I’ll get them off as soon as you’ve gone.’
‘So soon?’ said Tom.
‘Yes,’ he said, almost casually. ‘You see, I wrote to Dr Kent at Catcott as I said I would after I saw you on Tuesday, and she phoned me this morning. It would seem that we were right about the kind of case she favours, she says she’s had a cancellation and would like to see you on Wednesday week at nine.’
Deliver Them From Evil Page 4