by Malcolm Rose
Luke sighed. “Maybe not a cleaner, though. Look. What’s this on the floor?” He pointed at a small fragment of a plant with dark green spiky foliage and a tiny ruby petal.
Malc scanned it and then compared it with his wildlife database. “It is part of a heather called Erica carnea.”
“Is it poisonous?”
“No.”
Luke nodded. “Okay. Someone probably gave him a bunch of flowers, that’s all.” Finely tuned to unusual traces, he added, “There’s a small feather sticking to the end of the blanket.”
“It matches the plume of a juvenile duck. A DNA analysis should confirm it, if required.”
“Mmm. What about these crumbs, Malc?” He pointed to several small brown specks on the bedside table.
“They are fragments of a biscuit.”
“What sort?”
“They consist of oats, desiccated coconut and linseed but they do not match any entries in my database of commercial biscuits.”
“Perhaps they’re homemade. Scan the whole room, then call agents in. I can’t have the place sealed because another patient will need it, so I want them to bag everything up. The bed sheets, that bit of heather and any hairs, fibres, specks of skin, the lot – in case I need to analyse them later. Then get the pathologist on the job. Let’s get those tests done on his body.”
“Transmitting.”
“And I suppose you’re going to tell me I’ve got to swing into action every time someone dies in the hospital.”
“No. It is unnecessary to tell you what you already know.”
Not yet back to full strength, Luke groaned. “I’m going to be busy.”
****
The ward supervisor seemed irritable, probably because she thought Luke was questioning her competence and the conduct of her staff. She glanced up at the ceiling, calming herself, before she answered. “Yes. I think I can tell you which staff attended Julian Bent. Most of them anyway.”
“Doctors, nurses and other staff. Like cleaners.”
“Yes,” she muttered.
“And visitors. If you could make a list on your computer, Malc can download it.”
The ward supervisor curled her lip at the thought of extra effort. “I don’t know about visitors but I’ll ask my nurses, I suppose. His partner came in now and again. That I do know.”
“Thanks. You’ve locked away his medication and drips, haven’t you?”
She nodded.
“Good. Some agents will come and get them to do a few tests. Just one more thing. Was anything disturbed in his room?”
She frowned. “No, I don’t think so.”
Shrugging, Luke said, “It doesn’t really matter, but I was wondering who took the flowers out.”
The ward supervisor frowned. “Flowers? He didn’t have any as far as I know.”
****
The fireworks had come to an end, most of the revellers had gone home, and the night had fallen into a hush. Luke lay on the hotel bed, unable to sleep. He gazed at the stars that his mobile had projected onto the ceiling and said, “Sharpen the image a bit, Malc. It looks fuzzy to me.”
“You are incorrect,” Malc replied. “It is perfectly focused.”
Luke rubbed his eyes. “Must be me, then.”
“You cannot expect complete recovery from your injuries in one week.”
“You’ve got a lovely bedside manner,” Luke said with a weak smile. “Almost as if you cared.”
“I am programmed to protect you. That includes monitoring your recovery from illness.”
“If York’s got worse death statistics than other hospitals, there must be something different about it. Maybe it’s a rogue member of staff. Compare databases, Malc. Make a list of recruits who joined the hospital at the same time as the death rate started to go up. That’d be around September. And check if any of them has got a criminal record. What else? If any came from another health centre to work here, check if the percentage of deaths went down as soon as they left their last place.”
“Processing. This task will take several minutes.”
“Okay. Is there anything else unusual about York Hospital?”
“It is a Tuition and Research Hospital.”
“So, there are students practising and trials of experimental treatments.”
“Correct.”
“Mmm. Is that all?” Luke asked.
“It has four specialized centres. You know about the poisoning unit because it cured you. The second is a Phobia Clinic.”
“For people who’re scared of things like slugs?”
“Correct,” Malc answered. “It also carries out research into stress hormones associated with irrational fears.”
“All my fears are rational,” Luke said. “Like being scared of an axe coming in my direction. Anyway, what’s next?”
“It has an Institute of Biomechanical Research where specialist engineers test how human organs and tissues behave under pressure. Current projects include studying injuries caused by bullets, bombs and other sudden impacts.”
“And the last thing?”
“It has a Department of Alternative Medicine.”
“What does that do?”
“It uses natural remedies, acupuncture, homeopathy, hypnosis, chiropractic and other unconventional therapies that currently defy explanation, and it conducts scientific investigations into their effectiveness and mode of action.”
“Interesting. Who’s in charge?”
“The chief consultant is Peter Sachs.”
Abruptly, Luke gasped and twisted his head towards Malc. Ignoring the pain in his neck, he cried, “Who?”
“Dr Peter Sachs.”
Luke’s body was tingling all over. “Run me a check on that name, Malc. Top priority. Is there more than one doctor called Peter Sachs in the country?”
Malc delayed his other remote searches. After two minutes, he answered, “No.”
Luke looked back at the artificial sky. Lost in thought, he muttered, “It must be the Peter Sachs I know, then.”
“Confirmed,” Malc replied. “I have consulted his files.” Without a trace of sentiment, the mobile reported, “He is your father.”
Chapter Three
When Peter Sachs had been a young doctor, he’d been paired with the astronomer, Elisa Harding, and they’d had their quota of two children. As Luke approached the age of five, Peter and Elisa had prepared to hand him over to Birmingham School, as the law required. A child was a brief blessing, not the parents’ possession. The Authorities insisted that school-age children had to have freedom to develop in their own way and parents needed freedom to further their careers. Luke’s little sister, Kerryanne Harding, would have followed his lead but she’d lost her fight against disease before either of them had enrolled at school.
That painful time with Kerryanne was Luke’s last recollection of his family. On the verge of going to school, he remembered his mother’s misery and his father’s anger. Peter Sachs would have been furious with himself because a doctor should have had the ability to cure his own daughter. When she died, he must have thought that he’d let her down at an absurdly young age. Even though the law allowed Peter and Elisa to compensate for Kerryanne’s loss, they had never had another child.
The Authorities had cared for Luke adequately since the age of five, as they cared for all children once their parents had delivered them to school. Most young people seemed satisfied with the arrangement, but Luke felt that something was missing. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he wondered if his parents would have provided it if he’d had longer with them. That missing element was one reason why Luke had always had a secret wish to meet his parents again. He imagined standing in front of them, spreading his arms and saying, “It’s me. This is how I turned out.” He liked to think that they’d be proud of him. But he’d never got around to asking Malc to trace them. Until today, he’d had no idea if they were still alive or where they were.
Now, a reunion with his parents was no longer
a distant dream. Luke even had an excuse to talk to his father. He could go and conduct an interview right away. But he didn’t move from his bed. He stared at the blurred stars and decided that he couldn’t. Not yet. It was all too sudden. He wasn’t ready.
Interrupting Luke’s thoughts, Malc announced, “I have a list of fourteen people employed by York Hospital since the time of the increase in fatalities. None has a criminal record. Eleven moved from other health centres. I find no evidence of a decrease in fatality rates at their previous places of employment, suggesting that none of them has caused multiple deaths before.”
“Anything from the pathologist yet?”
“No,” Malc answered.
“Has the analytical lab got any results?”
“Confirmed. No contamination has been detected in the patient’s medication, nutrition or saline solution.”
“Okay,” Luke said, his eyes still fixed on his personal planetarium. “Try something else. Search for anything common to all recent deaths. I mean, were a lot of them on the same medicine, suffering the same disease, treated by the same doctor, or in the same drug trial? Something like that.”
“Task logged. However, you should note that it may be impossible to recognize trends among the few extra deaths when they are mixed in with a large majority of natural fatalities.”
Luke replied, “Use your imagination, Malc.”
“I don’t have...”
Interrupting his mobile, Luke said, “See if you can tell the extra deaths from the ones that would have happened anyway. How many have there been?”
“Since September, twenty-seven more patients have died than the hospital’s six-monthly average.”
“Twenty-seven,” Luke replied. “Okay. Look for something else that’s gone up by twenty to thirty in the last six months. If it’s terminal cancer cases or heart attacks, my job’s done. It’s just that people are sicker. If twenty-odd patients had the same experimental treatment, it looks like a medical mistake. Probably a dodgy drug. You get my drift.”
“I recognize the statistical analysis that you require. However, even if such a correlation existed, you would have to verify cause and effect. Otherwise, it could be coincidence.”
“Well, the sooner you do your sums, the sooner I’ll have data to play with.”
Luke’s last case had left him with more than a headache and slightly blurred vision. He fingered the stitched gashes in his cheek and neck while he waited for Malc to sift through the hospital’s files. With ill health on his mind, he thought of his sister. He didn’t know how Kerryanne had died. He could remember only that she’d suffered a disease rather than an accident or crime.
Malc announced, “I have downloaded a list of the hospital staff attending to Julian Bent, and the patient’s one known visitor.”
“Was that his wife?”
“Confirmed. Her name is Romilly Dando.”
“Someone to interview tomorrow, then. Set it up, please, Malc.”
“Logged for processing when I have spare resource.”
Luke was used to thinking of DNA as an aid to an investigation. Now, he lay back and thought about it as a recipe for making him what he was. He’d inherited his genes from his mother and father, from an astronomer and a doctor. That’s why he’d become a forensic investigator. He’d been given the curiosity and techniques of a scientist, and a devotion to people’s welfare. Maybe it was his share of Elisa Harding’s genes that made him sprawl on a bed and take comfort from the stars. Mostly, though, he and his mother worked at opposite ends of a telescope. She looked for massive objects in the huge expanse of outer space while he poked around for the tiniest traces in a confined space. Yet they were both searching for evidence of past events. They both had mysteries to unravel. Luke felt a great affinity with the mother he hardly knew.
“I have completed the attempt to distinguish recent excess deaths by linking to common factors.”
“And?”
“I have not completed any other tasks at this time,” Malc replied.
“No. I mean, what have you found?”
“There are two correlations that may be significant. Of all deceased patients in York Hospital since September, twenty-four more than normal had organs removed for transplant.”
Luke turned towards Malc and grimaced. “Now, that’s a motive I wouldn’t have thought of, if you’re thinking what I’m thinking.”
“I do not know what you are thinking and, strictly speaking, I do not think at all.”
Luke smiled. “The motive is, people might’ve been killed to provide a supply of human organs for transplant. Nasty.”
“Insufficient data, but it is valid speculation. Such an activity has never been reported in this country. However, one overseas state has been accused of executing certain criminals quickly to address specific organ shortages. It is likely that prisoners are selected for the death penalty not on the basis of their crimes but by their blood groups and tissue compatibility with people requiring transplants. The fact that there are transplant units in their high-security prisons is consistent with the accusation. In addition, their cosmetics industry has been prosecuted for harvesting skin from executed criminals and using it to develop anti-ageing and beauty products. It is argued that organs and skin have been harvested without prior consent of the prisoners, which is against international law.”
“Harvesting sounds nicer than nicking body parts, doesn’t it? But I’ll have to think about it as a motive, with hospital patients instead of prisoners. What’s the second connection?”
“Twenty-six patients have died while taking part in clinical trials of unconventional treatments.”
Luke inhaled deeply and then let the long breath go. “That means I need to talk to Peter Sachs.”
“That is the recommended action.”
“Don’t set an interview up, Malc. I want to do it in my own time.”
Luke gazed at the stars until his tired eyes would stay open no longer.
****
Romilly Dando was leaning against the wall next to the window, looking absently out at her ranch in the Heslington area of York. In front of her was an artificial lake. It was the centrepiece of her fish and duck farm. Everywhere around the water’s edge, there were groups of ducks and the walkways were awash with their droppings. To the right, a helper was chopping wood frenziedly with an axe. He seemed to be taking out some unknown frustration on the logs.
Romilly barely looked at Luke when he introduced himself. She nodded towards the view of the ranch and muttered, “All this is mine now. It’ll never be the same.” She shook her head miserably.
“Julian ran it with you, did he?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry,” Luke said. “I’ve got to ask you some questions.” But he already had an explanation for the presence of a feather from a young duck in Julian’s room.
Romilly didn’t shift from the window. She just leaned her head on the frame. “I blame the pesticides, fertilisers and all.”
“Is that what the hospital said? Cancer caused by agricultural chemicals?”
“They didn’t say anything about causes. They just went through the usual treatments. Not that it did any good.”
Luke asked, “Did they try any unusual treatments?”
At last, Romilly glanced at him. “What do you mean?”
“Did they suggest anything new, experimental or unconventional?”
“Not to tackle the cancer. Not as far as I know. They tried acupuncture to help with the pain.”
“Were you with him when he...”
Romilly sniffed, trying to keep her composure. “No. It happened too quickly.”
“Sorry to ask this, but did he – or you – give the hospital permission to remove any organs for transplant?”
“Someone mentioned something like that but... Would they want anything with the cancer and all? Anyway, I didn’t want him to be... messed with.”
“Did he have any other visitors, do you know?”
Outside, two ducks quacked loudly at each other and then started a fight. Romilly turned towards her visitor. “Why are you asking me all this?”
Luke shrugged. “It’s just routine. You know. To make sure everything’s being done properly.”
Julian’s partner switched her gaze back to the lake. “No, I think I was the only one. He wasn’t even keen for me to see him suffering like that, and all.”
“Did you visit anyone else in the hospital while you were there?”
She sighed. “No. Just Julian.”
“By the way, did you bake him any biscuits?”
“No. He liked them, though.” Keeping her eyes averted from Luke, she added, “I should’ve done.”
“Did you – or anyone else – give him heather?”
“Heather? No. He wouldn’t have liked that. He didn’t want a fuss.”
Chapter Four
The pathologist’s report did not cast any extra light on Julian Bent’s death. There were no suspicious circumstances and the cause of death was rampant cancer. Luke listened to Malc’s emotionless reading of the pathologist’s conclusions and watched the outskirts of York slip past. “You know,” he said, “Julian Bent might not have been the best place to start this case. Everything’s telling me it’s natural. Cruel, but natural.”
The automatic cab was racing north towards Malton and Luke’s heart was thudding. Malc had found that Peter Sachs and Elisa Harding were now living in the small market town. The astronomer was at work but the doctor was having a rare day off from his hospital duties. Luke was only a few minutes away from meeting his father again.
“Just one thing,” said Luke. “Were there acupuncture holes in his skin – or at least marks where they’d healed over?”
“No.”
Luke frowned. “That doesn’t add up with what Romilly Dando said. Strange.”
The area around Malton was dedicated to growing corn. Right now, the farmland was bare but two auto-vehicles were trundling to and fro, sowing seeds. As the electric cab slowed for the approach to the town, Luke caught sight of horses galloping around a field on his left. A trainer with both hands round his mouth was shouting instructions to the jockeys. Beyond them was the River Derwent.