‘That I should pass it on to the psychiatrists and forget about it.’
‘You are not inclined to heed his advice?’
‘I have the suspicion they will drop it.’
‘Because there’s not much to it?’ He held the paper up like an exhibit.
‘Maybe not.’
But I thought of the myriad occasions I had sent a patient to a surgeon, with altered bowel habit, with blood in the urine, with weight loss. The careful assessment and the cautious opinion; ‘I reassured Mr X. However, for completeness, I think we should carry out a simple investigation …’ If you don’t have a steady trickle of false positives in the hunt for cancer you are not doing your job.
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘That’s why I’m here, Mr Walkerburn. I need to know, if I inform the police, whether I am vulnerable.’
‘In terms of passing the evidence on there is no problem. You found it on the Internet, ergo it was in the public domain already. The problem arises when you identify its originator. And mind, you are making an assumption here. You do not actually know that Mr er, Bletchley, compiled this grid. He may have come across it just as you did.’
‘That seems very unlikely.’
‘But not impossible. Secondly, he can argue that your going to the police with this information represents a breach of medical confidentiality in that he has neither implied nor explicitly rendered permission for you to do so. The question would then arise whether the information you were divulging was sufficiently weighty, and of sufficient concern to the public interest, that your duty as a citizen overruled your fiduciary responsibility as a doctor.’
But I knew all this. He was like a politician weighing issues on a panel debating programme. On the one hand this, on the other hand that. All very well, you have elaborated the question, now give me an answer.
‘So?’
‘I would have thought, given the nebulous condition of the evidence, that there might be a case to answer.’
‘And would I be liable?’
He spread his hands in a gesture of deliberation. ‘You would have to test the case.’
‘Yes or no?’
‘Possibly.’
I emerged from 48 Heriot Row and walked up to Waterstones on Princes Street and had a coffee on the top floor beside the music section. Once more I spread the crumpled grid out and looked at it.
With respect to Forbes’s advice, I had done as I was told. I had appended a copy of the solution to The Bottom Line to Bletchley’s ED record and mailed it to the liaison psychiatrists at PMH with a copy to Barry Trubshaw, Emergency Department Director. I was absolutely confident that the material would be scanned into the electronic records system and then shredded. And that would be that. Managers were forever sending out memos to the workforce (cascades they were called) under the impression that they were achieving something. But sometimes I thought a delegation of duty was nothing more than a dereliction of duty. If you really wanted something to happen it was useless merely to ‘fire and forget’. You needed to hassle people, get back to them, get on their case, irritate them, make yourself a thorough pain in the neck.
Would it be worth it? Or was I just being cranky? Forbes evidently thought the latter. Walkerburn’s nebulous response was hardly more encouraging. I should drop it.
Yet what if something dreadful happened? What if somebody hit the ground running on the campus at Clerk Maxwell and stormed through the place strafing the quads with an arsenal of small arms? I might be a witness at a subsequent inquiry. ‘Oh yes I knew about that! I saw it coming! It’s all here on the medical record.’
‘And what action did you take, doctor?’
‘Oh I just filed it away.’
There would be silence in court. Perhaps a muffled cough and the embarrassed shuffle of feet. People would keep their eyes down, examining their fingernails.
The thing is, The Bottom Line was a test result, like a marker for cancer, PSA or CEA or AFP. Like all these tests, it would have a measurable power, a sensitivity, a specificity, a positive and a negative predictive value. Let’s take the positive predictive value: the probability that Bletchley, the man with the positive test (Walkerburn had even questioned that) would develop the disease. Forbes thought not. A student prank, he had called it.
Then again take the negative predictive value. A subtler concept. The probability that if the test were negative, the subject would not develop the disease. In other words, if there were no red flags flying, could we reliably trust the subject not to do something crazy? Probably not. A taxi driver in the north-west of England had recently flipped his lid and led the police on a wild goose chase round the back lanes of Cumbria while he had shot a bunch of people, some targeted, some apparently at random. Could it have been prevented? It didn’t look promising. The Prime Minister had said that you couldn’t legislate against the flick of a switch in somebody’s head.
Of course, after the event, there was always somebody ready to say that there had, after all, been red flags. Somebody had heard the jungle drums beating. ‘I always knew there was something weird about him …’ There’s none so queer as folk. There’s nobody normal, but thee and me. And I’m not so sure about thee.
From time to time you heard of the demise of a child after years of repeated abuse at the hands of dysfunctional parents. It subsequently became apparent that there were numerous occasions (a fantastic number like one hundred and ninety seven would be quoted), opportunities for intervention by social services. Social services would get it in the neck. It seemed to be to be a kind of special British thing, this finger-pointing after the event. It was why people strove to keep a low profile. Keep your head down, don’t stick your hand up, don’t volunteer. Never admit to anything, never explain, never apologise. Above all else, don’t allow yourself to be a scapegoat. Because when the shit hits the fan, rest assured, the authorities will be desperate to find one, so that the whole thing can be tidied up and put to bed. And if you are crazy enough to offer yourself up as a sacrificial lamb, don’t imagine for a second that you will get any sympathy. Quite the opposite. They’ll be on to you like a pack of wild dogs. I could just imagine the scenario at the inquest (no, not an inquest, a fatal accident inquiry in Scotland) into a dozen wrongful deaths. ‘I blame myself,’ said Dr Cameron-Strange. ‘I alone had access to the information. I should have acted on it.’ It would be as if I had been the murderous perpetrator. I would be torn to pieces.
So there we are. I had made up my mind in the lukewarm dregs of a huge cardboard coffee beaker in Waterstones. I would sidestep Walkerburn’s vacillations and would blatantly ignore my boss’s advice. I was crossing a line. There would be no going back. This thing would no longer be contained.
VIII
When I thought about Caitlin, and my responsibility to Caitlin, I felt utterly inadequate. My flat was no place for her. It was empty all day, often all night. It wasn’t a home. It was just a place where occasionally I slept. I had nothing to offer her. No hearth. No circle of friends, no social milieu, not even the prospect of one. I was a rudderless ship. Of course, I might argue that this state of affairs was temporary, and no fault of mine. I had suffered a catastrophe, I needed to pick up the pieces and to start again. But deep down I had a sense that I would never do this. I would never achieve any sort of ‘life-work balance’. I would cease to try. I would become one of these confirmed bachelors who were sometimes a convenience to married people because they could fill a vacant chair at a dinner party. But I would seldom reciprocate. I would assume an avuncular personality. I would be ‘Uncle Alastair’ to children to whom I was not related. I would join a health club. I would become a clubbable man because membership might give a semblance of integration while at heart I was isolated, in retreat, bordering on recluse. No. I wasn’t good for Caitlin. I must get her back to Stow-on-the-Wold.
On the way over the Forth I flicked on the car radio and surfed the stations to divert myself from a vague sense of free-f
loating anxiety and the notion that I really was crossing a bridge. Sometimes I would give music another chance, the way a patient might finger an abscess to see if palpation was still agonising. As I picked each station off my thoughts darted nervously between Caitlin and Bletchley, between Forbes, and MacTaggart, but always back to Caitlin … Rach II … chill with Classic FM … Caitlin in her self-imposed purdah … Rap and psychobabble … Radio 1 … She never called her parents; I did … Radio 4’s chattering classes … I gathered that just before her hasty departure things had been pretty fraught in the Roy household. She was unlivable with, she was giving everybody a hell of a time … Prolonged empty silence – Radio 3. Something had happened at school. She was certainly in no hurry to go back. I didn’t mind if she wanted to stay over Yuletide, though I could hardly recommend it. I was rostered to work. It would be a grim occasion for her, and a lonely one … Convivial banter – Radio 2. Somebody was choosing ‘The tracks of their years’ on the Ken Bruce show. I liked Ken. He was chirpy and funny and good natured. He was respectful of the stuff he played – of which he had an encyclopaedic knowledge – and I noticed he always identified the artist and the name of the song. Maybe I should dump classical music and go back to all this adolescent emotional roller-coaster love poetry. The Usher Hall on a Friday night is just a museum; music in inverted commas. I surfed on. Unaccompanied Gaelic. BBC Radio Nan Gàidheal. It was a recording of Flora MacNeil, longing for Barra. It was unbearable. I switched off.
In the police station I introduced myself at the desk as ‘one of the doctors up at the hospital’. Not quite true. I glanced at the queue behind me. ‘This is a bit sensitive.’ The policewoman might have been a school prefect, her pen poised over a proforma. ‘Do you wish to report a crime?’
‘Not exactly.’ I was playing a part in an amateur dramatics rehearsal. What a hammy script. I leaned an elbow on the counter and spoke behind a cupped hand, conscious that this, now, was my point of commitment, and of no return. ‘I think one of our patients might be planning – well, a shooting, actually.’
She laid her pen down. ‘I’ll just get my sergeant. Would you take a seat?’
There was a hiatus. I sat between a boy with jangling headphones and a tear-stained girl in a tracksuit, heavily pregnant. Twenty minutes later a door on my left opened abruptly. ‘Just come this way, doctor.’
It was another featureless interview room, much like the Gloom Room. I shook hands with Sergeant Matheson, who looked like a retired prop forward with cauliflower ears, fortyish, big, battered, affable. We faced one another across a heavy deal table.
‘Fire away, doc!’
I spilled the beans, on the night from hell at PMH, on Bletchley, on the bizarre consultation, the discovery on the web of The Bottom Line, its solution, and its implication.
He frowned. ‘You’ve sat on it for a while.’
‘The solution took some time.’
Sergeant Matheson took out a thick reporter’s notepad and a stubby blunt pencil and we cobbled together a statement. It was good for me. I had to formalise my reasoning. I couldn’t toss a crossword puzzle in front of the sergeant’s nose as I had done with Forbes Pearson and David Walkerburn with the shorthand headline ‘Somebody’s going to do a Columbine.’ I must not be like one of my patients, vague, inarticulate, the classic ‘poor historian’. I must be succinct.
After quarter of an hour we had the first half of a first draft. He read it back to me. ‘My name is Dr Alastair Cameron-Strange and I am a Specialist Registrar in Accident and Emergency …’
‘No. Emergency Medicine.’
‘– in Emergency Medicine. My qualifications are MB ChB Hons, MD, FACEM. On the night of the 7th December I was on duty in Casualty –’
‘No. The Department of Emergency Medicine.’
‘– in the Department of Emergency Medicine of Princess Margaret Hospital. I was consulted by a man who identified himself as Alan Bletchley, and who gave a Buckinghamshire address. He said that he sought help for an addiction to crossword puzzles. He said that he compiled crosswords on a semiprofessional basis. He appeared to be agitated and depressed. During the course of the consultation he absconded. From some remarks he made, I believe I was able to identify a puzzle he had compiled, and posted on the Internet. I was subsequently able to provide a solution to this puzzle. How’s that, doctor?’
‘So far so good.’
‘You’d better talk me through the riddle again. I didn’t quite get it.’
The folded sheet of A4 was beginning to have the antiquated look of a Dead Sea Scroll. I spread it out on the table between us, turning it to face Mr Matheson. ‘Perhaps you could just read the legend below the grid.’
I took out a pen. I indicated the unclued lights. ‘Dunblane, Hoddle St, Columbine, Aramoana. The thematic link is that they are all notorious scenes of mass shootings. Dunblane you will certainly be aware of. A primary school. The perpetrator was a man named Thomas Hamilton. On 13th March 1996, he shot dead Mrs Gwen Mayor and sixteen members of her class. Ten other pupils and three teachers were wounded. Hamilton committed suicide. Hoddle Street – Sunday, 9th August 1987. A nineteen year old Australian army cadet, Julian Knight, shot dead seven people and seriously injured nineteen others in a suburb of Melbourne. He was arrested and sentenced to seven consecutive life terms. Aramoana – a remote South Island settlement in New Zealand. 13th November 1990. David Gray, a thirty-three-year-old unemployed local man. He shot dead thirteen local people, including Sergeant Stewart Guthrie, the local policeman, following a dispute with a neighbour. Gray holed up in a house and was shot dead by police the following day when he emerged, firing from the hip. Columbine, 20th April 1999 – an American High School shooting perpetrated by two disaffected students. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Twelve students and one teacher killed. Twenty four other students were injured. Harris and Klebold committed suicide. Note that the legend tells us these solutions predict the bottom line – Clerk Maxwell. In other words, Mr Bletchley is telling us in an oblique way that there is going to be a similar event here on the campus.’
There was a pause. Mr Matheson scratched his chin. ‘I’m not sure that I follow you. After all, he hasn’t given us any clues for these solutions. You’ve just filled them in.’
‘Yes, but what else could they be? What else would fit, based on the letters supplied by all the other clues?’
Mr Matheson was still stroking his chin. ‘Crosswords. I’ve never really got into them. Sometimes I’ve had a go at The Daily Record when I’m in the dentist’s waiting room, but I’ve never really got the hang of the cryptic stuff. Let’s see …’ He scanned the clues. ‘What about this one? 21 down: “Ends up in drab mini, topless panto girl; toe curling!” Eight letters. What would that be?’ He covered the grid with a hand. ‘No – don’t tell me. Mm … Strumpet?’
I smiled. ‘Not strumpet.’
‘What then?’
‘Bonspiel.’
There was a protracted silence.
‘Bonspiel?’
‘Bonspiel.’
‘How on earth?’
‘There are two parts to a cryptic clue. There is the definer – usually a synonym of the solution, and there is a more oblique alternative means of constructing the solution governed by an operator or key. In this case, the definer and the operator happen to be the same word – curling. Curling defines bonspiel, but also instructs you to curl, or jumble, the ends, or last letters of ‘up in drab mini topless panto girl toe’.
During this exposition, Sergeant Matheson studied my face, a barely perceptible smile on his own, trying to maintain a look of polite interest.
‘I haven’t a clue what you are talking about.’
I had a sudden intuition that we were about to descend from melodrama into farce. Mr Matheson was beginning to have difficulty containing his mirth. I carried on bravely. ‘In other words the solution is an anagram of the last letters of these words. It would become more obvious if you were to render the clue thus: up in dra
b mini topless panto girl toe: ends … curling! D’you see?’
Now the sergeant was laughing quite openly. His laughter was very infectious.
‘But that’s just rubbish. That doesn’t make any sense at all.’
Now I was like an exhausted cross country athlete who has drifted away from the back of the pack, who is out of the race, but who keeps going just for the moral duty of finishing. Exhaustion was replaced by euphoria. I too began to laugh. I had difficulty getting the rest of my spiel out. ‘The fact that curling serves as both definer and operator is signified by the exclamation mark. This is a cryptic crossword convention. It signifies a joke.’ By now we were both in fits.
Mr Matheson collected himself. He raised his eyebrows. ‘Doctor, you need to get out more.’
He made up his mind. He rose. ‘Wait here. I’m just going to have a word with the Chief Super.’
I liked Mr Matheson. I thought he was a nice man. I knew he thought I was nuts, but at least he gave me the time of day, and he had prudence enough to refer my case up to a higher authority. I think it was out of deference to my profession. But who knows, maybe I was bringing my profession into disrepute, wasting police time with this nonsense.
The door flew open angrily.
‘Yes can I help you?’
The Chief Superintendent didn’t bother to enter but stood at the entrance to the room, one hand on the door handle and the other on the jamb, the posture of a man who wasn’t going to hang around. I was aware – I was supposed to be aware – of the bustle behind him, the evidence of the real police activity of the day. He was another big man this time with a lot of braid. He stood poised to slam the door behind him as he left. But I decided not to be intimidated. I was quite prepared to say it all again in a prosaic monotone.
‘I have explained to Sergeant Matheson that I think somebody might be planning an assault on the university campus.’ He might think I’m a crack-pot, but I was going to force him into a decision, one way or the other. If he was going to close the file on this, he was not going to be able to say later on that it hadn’t been spelt out clearly for him.
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