Fenton's winter

by Ken McClure

  Fenton kept the revs to a minimum as he turned in and out of the streets of Comely Bank at two in the morning for he had no wish to disturb the sleeping citizenry. He pulled out on to the main Queensferry road and headed for the Forth Bridge and the motorway.

  Fenton closed the throttle for the first time to negotiate the toll barrier at the South end of the bridge. The man in the booth raised the boom without comment while high up on top of the main towers red lights flashed at intervals to warn aircraft of their presence. Far below lay the dark waters of the Forth.

  Fenton could feel the temperature dropping as reached the north shore and entered Fife. The wind sought out every weakness in his clothing as he pointed the Honda towards Perthshire.

  An alarming numbness in his hands brought him to a halt at a service station at the head of the M9 motorway which spilled out inviting yellow light on to the wet tarmac. He went directly to the men's room and filled up a basin with warm water, resting his hands in it as it filled. He cupped them and bathed his face slowly, gasping involuntarily as the warm water soothed his raw skin.

  "It's no' much o' a night fur the bike," said a lorry driver behind him, noting Fenton's leathers.

  "You're right," said Fenton, continuing his love affair with the basin.

  "They're a'right in summer they things," said the man.

  Fenton grunted in reply and began to dab his face dry with a succession of coarse paper towels. He caught a glimpse in the mirror of his companion, short, round and dressed in green bib overalls with a company logo which he failed to read backwards.

  A largely one sided conversation continued over tea and bacon sandwiches, the driver having followed Fenton to the table and sat down beside him. In the circumstances it had seemed the natural thing for him to do for they were the only two customers in the place.

  They both turned to look out of the window as an articulated lorry lumbered into the car park outside. The arrival of new custom prompted the man behind the counter to turn on the juke box and fill the place with electric noise. The bass notes made the salt cellar vibrate on the red Formica table.

  SIX

  The grey morning light was highlighting the white tops of the waves as Fenton reached Buchan Ness and stopped to rest his aching limbs. He coaxed the Honda off the winding road and paddled it with his feet over a stretch of shingle to lean it against the petrified stump of some long dead tree. It made contracting metal sounds as he walked stiffly over the scree to reach the water's edge and stretch his arms up to the colourless sky. He picked up a handful of pebbles and threw them aimlessly into the rough water as seagulls screamed overhead in protest against the intruder. It was a cold, grey world, he decided and thoughts about the day ahead held nothing at all to colour that view.

  The road traced the edge of the shore and wound between trees that were naked after a winter of rape by winds howling in off the North Sea. Fenton was relieved when the barren monotony of the landscape was broken by a neon sign advertising a transport cafe, open to service the early morning fish trade. He swung off the road and followed the arrows.

  The tea was hot and sweet and Fenton felt it travel all the way down to his stomach, making him think of sword swallowers. He rubbed the back of his neck where the leather had been chafing and kneaded the backs of his thighs which were threatening cramp.

  The road turned inland to cut across a stretch of barren headland and Fenton had to stop and check his map as he came to a junction with no sign posting. He made his decision and turned right to find himself, after a few minutes, heading towards the sea again. He stopped as he came to the top of a hill and looked down on the village where the Buchans lived. Pulling off a glove, he took a card from his top pocket and checked the address on it, 8, Harbour Wynd.

  He let the bike free wheel silently down the hill and brought it to a halt on the cobblestones in front of the harbour. He let his foot rest on a pile of fish boxes while he looked down at the smooth oily surface of the water as it rose and fell against the slimy green stonework.

  Three lanes radiated out from the hub of the harbour; one of them was Harbour Wynd. Fenton put the Honda up on its stand and walked slowly up over the cobbles to find number eight. He found the heavy brass knocker surprisingly muted by the thickness of the door.

  "Oh it's you," said Grant Buchan with no trace of pleasure in his voice, "I suppose you had better come in." Fenton had expected no better.

  "Who is it?" cried a woman's voice.

  "It's Jenny's…" Buchan's voice trailed off as he sought a suitable description.

  "Fancy man," said the frosty faced woman who emerged from the kitchen to dry her hands on her apron.

  Fenton's heart sank. He had only met Grant's wife once before and that had been when the whole family had been together. He remembered that she had maintained an air of prim disapproval throughout the entire meeting. Mona Buchan stood in the doorway like an angel of the Lord, hair tied back severely in a bun, the shapeless cardigan buttoned up to the neck, eyes shining with self righteousness from a fair skinned face that had never known make-up.

  "I'm very sorry about your son Mrs Buchan," said Fenton ignoring the jibe.

  "What do you want here?" hissed Mona Buchan. "Haven't you and that…that…"

  Grant Buchan stopped the situation getting out of hand. He put his arm around his wife's shoulders and said, "Easy woman, make us all some tea eh?"

  Mona Buchan disappeared into the kitchen. "I'm sorry," said Buchan, "She's very upset."

  "I understand," said Fenton, sitting down where Buchan indicated.

  "But she's right. I can't see why you came here either," said Buchan.

  "Because the answer is here! It must be. Jenny did not kill your boy. You must know that? The idea is just too ridiculous for words." Fenton looked hard at Buchan who held his gaze for a moment then he sighed and looked away. "I just can't think straight any more…"

  Mona Buchan brought in the tea. She clattered the tray down with bad grace and turned on her heel. "I'm afraid I have work to be getting on with," she announced. The kitchen door closed again and Buchan continued, "But why should the killer pick on Jamie? It just doesn't make any sense."

  "I know," said Fenton softly, "I think Jenny must have been the unwitting link between the killer and your boy. That's what we have to find out."

  "What do you want me to do?" asked Grant.

  "Tell me everything you did in Edinburgh, everyone you met, everywhere you went."

  Fenton took notes as Buchan spoke, not that there was much to record, a fact which made him more and more depressed as time went by. The Buchans had gone from the train to the flat, from the flat to the clinic and from the clinic to the train. They appeared to have met no one save for the staff at the clinic but the fact remained that at sometime during these twenty-four hours Jamie Buchan had been poisoned so that a week later the blood would drain from his body to leave him a pale corpse on the cobblestones of his own village. If the answer did lie in the brief notes in front of him Fenton could not see it. "Did anyone give him sweets?" he asked.

  "Only Jenny," Buchan answered, making Fenton wish that he had not asked. "Do you think I could see Jamie's room?"

  "He is in it."

  The answer shook Fenton rigid. He had not considered that the boy's body might be in the house.

  "We got him back yesterday," said Buchan quietly. "Mona wanted to have him home once more before he goes away…tomorrow."

  Fenton nodded silently, a lump coming to his throat at Buchan's distress. "I'm sorry," he said softly, "I just thought that if I saw his things I might notice something that you may have overlooked. But in the circumstances…"

  Buchan stood up. Without saying anything he motioned to Fenton to follow him.

  Fenton had to duck his head to accommodate the slope of the roof at the head of the narrow stairs before they entered Jamie's bedroom. The room was cold and smelled of dampness, old dampness, dampness that had been seeping through the thick stone walls fo
r years. It had invaded the furniture and fabric, leaving the same musty odour that Fenton associated with the seaside boarding houses of his youth. The little white coffin was bathed in pale grey light from the tiny dormer window that faced north to the sea; Jamie looked like a marble cherub. Fenton bowed his head and stood still for a moment in sadness.

  "We haven't moved anything," said Buchan.

  Fenton looked about him. It was a boy's room, trains, boats, planes, an unfinished Lego model. The Millenium Falcon stood on its window-sill launching pad, ready to transport the plastic figures beside it to some far off galaxy. Jamie's Jedi sword lay on his pillow. "He was Luke Skywalker," said Buchan.

  An anguished cry came from the stairs. The rumble of footsteps stopped with Mona Buchan framed in the doorway, her eyes burning with anger. Fenton was transfixed by the look of hatred on her face, white flecks of spittle pocked her lips as she turned on her husband. "What in God's holy name possessed you?" she demanded, "To let this…this animal near our son?" Buchan looked shaken. "And you," she hissed at Fenton, her voice a coarse rasp, "How dare you…how dare you."

  Mona Buchan's anger soared beyond the bounds of all reason and, unable to contain herself any longer, she flung herself across the room, fingernails bared, blind to everything except Fenton, the object of her hatred. As she lunged forward her foot caught the edge of the trestle bearing Jamie's coffin and sent it crashing to the floor to spill him out. Clad in his white shroud he lay there like a sleeping china doll among the toys.

  Mona Buchan's rage evaporated. She collapsed to her knees and broke into uncontrollable sobbing as she rested her cheek against her dead son. Fenton knew that he would never be able to forget the sight. "Go!" said Grant Buchan, "Just go."

  The Honda was the centre of attraction for a group of small boys when Fenton returned to the harbour and their Star Wars gear suggested that they might have been contemporaries of Jamie. There was something familiar about one of the boys, thought Fenton, but he could not think what. Perhaps he was a relation of Jamie's. A brother? He could not recall if the Buchans had more than the one child. "Your name isn't Buchan is it son?" he asked.

  "No Mister. He's deid."

  "Yes," said Fenton reliving the awful scene in the bedroom.

  Fenton got on the bike and fastened the chin strap of his helmet.

  "Can I have a hurl on the back Mister?" asked the boy, resting his hand on the handlebars.

  "Another time," said Fenton.

  Fenton did not look back as he reached the top of the hill above the village; he gave a cursory glance to the left for traffic then joined the main road to head for Fraserburgh at an easy pace for concentrating was difficult. He stopped at a harbour cafe in Fraserburgh hoping that eating would help alleviate the awful emptiness he felt inside but it did not. He gazed out of the window at the boats nuzzling the quayside but all he saw was Jamie's lifeless body.

  As he headed east on the coast road Fenton reflected on what his visit had achieved. Nothing, he decided, not a damned thing. Grant Buchan had not told him anything that could possibly be of help in solving anything. Jenny was in as much trouble as she ever had been. He drew to a halt as he reached as far east as he would travel and took a last look at the grey northern water before turning to head south. It was cold but it was dry and the wind would be behind him.

  Jenny was in the flat when Fenton got back. They held each other for a long time before either spoke. "I found your note," said Jenny. "Did you find out anything?"

  "Nothing," admitted Fenton. "What's been happening here?"

  "The police released me this afternoon but I have been told not to leave the city and the hospital have suspended me."

  Fenton could see that Jenny had been crying a lot, her eyes were puffy and red. "Morons," he said. "Absolute morons." He drew her even closer.

  "The funny thing is," began Jenny, half laughing half sobbing, "I can see their point of view. How could the hospital killer come into contact with Jamie… unless it was me?"

  "That's what we must figure out," said Fenton with all the reassurance he could muster.

  "We're not terribly good at figuring things out. Remember?" said Jenny.

  "We'll do it," said Fenton.

  They lay still in the darkness taking pleasure in their closeness. Fenton's fingers intertwined with Jenny's, his thumb gently tracing an ellipse on the back of her hand. Her shallow breathing was like music.

  In the small hours of the morning Fenton lay awake while Jenny lay beside him fast asleep. She had been mentally exhausted but reassured enough by his presence to fall into a sound sleep, her head still against his shoulder. For the first time in many hours she had felt safe, safe from the strange and the unknown, the overweight men in crumpled suits who smelled of sweat and down market after shave. The men who sneered at everything she said, the red faces who shouted at her, mocked her, accused her. Surely these men could not have been policemen? Policemen were quiet, well mannered, helpful; they told you the time and gave you directions, patted children and inspired confidence, not fear. How she had been afraid, she had never known such fear.

  The disorientation caused by being taken to a strange place full of hostile men had destroyed her self confidence in one fell swoop. Her initial stance as an outraged citizen demanding her rights in a free country had collapsed within minutes leaving her confused and afraid. A pleading note had crept into her voice as the ordeal had continued and she had been filled with a desperate desire to please her inquisitors, to say yes to anything that would breach the seemingly impenetrable wall of hostility. Only an innate strength of character stopped her from travelling along that road, but she had seen it and seen it clearly.

  Fenton sighed in the still darkness of the room as once again his thoughts came to nothing. What was the connection? Just what was it? Only one fact stared him in the face like an ugly mongrel, there had been no opportunity at all for the hospital killer to reach Jamie directly. He squeezed Jenny's hand involuntarily as the unthinkable crossed his mind. Something was wrong with his train of thought, he decided, something basic.

  An hour later, and after much mental wrestling, Fenton came up with a new hypothesis. It was forced on him by the facts. There was no killer, no lunatic, no psychopath. It was a disease! A bacterium or a virus! A virus had destroyed the clotting mechanism in the blood of all the people who had died. Why not? New diseases were being discovered all the time. Legionnaires' disease, Lassa fever, AIDS. The more he thought about it the more obvious and possible it seemed. The virus must be endemic in the hospital, lurking in unseen corners, just as the Legionnaires bug had hidden in the showers of an American hotel. Jenny must have carried it home and infected Jamie. The fact that not everyone was susceptible to it would be typical of viral infection. Everything pointed to it being a virus…except Neil Munro.

  The Kraken of Neil Munro, burnt flesh peeling from his face, rose up from Fenton's subconscious to slow him down. No virus had pushed Munro into the steriliser. A compromise was demanded. Neil had been murdered, of that there was no doubt, but the others? No, it had to be some kind of infective agent. All he had to do now was prove it.

  Jenny turned in her sleep and Fenton kissed her lightly on the shoulder. The question now was how he should go about substantiating his theory. Elementary. It was first year student stuff. You isolate the thing and show it does what it does by sticking it in to laboratory animals. But how to get his hands on infected material.. that was the real question and that was going to be quite a different matter.

  He would need material from the people who had died, tissue, serum, and for that he would need help, top brass help and that meant Tyson…or did it? He was still smarting from the way he had made a fool of himself over the Doctor David Malcolm affair. He did not want it to happen again. Could he possibly do it alone?

  It occurred to Fenton that maybe it had been done already! Perhaps the Pathology Department had already screened tissue from the victims for infective agents? If that were
so then his suggestion would be about as popular with Pathology as his last one had been with the Police. That would be the last straw. He could just see MacDougal, the consultant pathologist and not the most patient of men, sneering at him and saying, "Do you imagine that we are all stupid down here Fenton?"

  He glanced at the digital clock on the bedside table. Ten past four, four hours before he would get up and go to the hospital, four hours in which to decide. Outside the wind began to rise and moan through wires on the roof. The bedroom window rattled as it denied entry to the night. Thoughts of a commando style raid on the Pathology Lab conjured up visions of being caught and the implausible explanation that he would have to offer to the police. Inspector Jamieson's superior little smile appeared in the glow from the clock. There had to be another way.

  The other way presented itself as an obvious little idea that made Fenton feel stupid for not having thought of it sooner. The Medical Records Department! He could simply go along and request the file on one of the victims. There might not be one for Susan Daniels or the Wilson woman but there would certainly be one for the Watson boy for he had been a patient at the time. His file would contain a full post mortem report and details of all the lab tests requested.

  Fenton got up at seven and was in the lab by eight. He had left Jenny sleeping, partly because she needed the rest but partly to avoid any discussion about what he was going to do. He got straight to work on his excuse for the medical records people and thumbed through the day book until he found the last entry for Timothy Watson, a blood glucose estimation. He copied down details of the result and took a virgin report form from Liz Scott's desk. Using two fingers and a great deal of concentration he tapped out a stuttering copy of the original report before getting ink over his hands as he altered the date stamp to match the date of the request in the day book. He now had his excuse, a biochemistry report to insert into the Watson Boy's file.