Blood Brother

by Malcolm Rose

  Luke decided that it was easier to accept the healer’s offering. Then perhaps he could get the man to talk about something else. “All right. Thanks. But I’m afraid I do need names. What’s yours?”

  “Pah,” the artist said, turning away dismissively. Even so, he answered Luke’s question. “Crawford Gallagher.”

  Following Crawford back towards the counter, Luke said, “I came to trace a man – maybe forty, maybe older – who takes heather from you.”

  “No, you didn’t. Maybe you think you did.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Crawford leaned on the workbench’s wooden surface, littered with half-finished figurines and sprigs of heather. “You came for a cure. Whether you know it or not, that’s what drove you here.”

  Luke nodded. “But, while I’m here, I’m trying to find out about the Heather Man. That’s what they call him at the hospital.”

  Crawford did not seem interested. He looked out of a window instead.

  “He’s quietly spoken. A lot shorter than me, quite a bit of stubble, dark but greying hair.”

  Crawford sighed. Reluctantly, he said, “Yes, I know him.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “I don’t need names,” he repeated.

  Luke tried a different angle. “Does he come here a lot?”

  “Huh. From time to time. Often, he just helps himself from my garden and goes. He thinks I don’t see. But I know he’s taking it out of pity for others.”

  “So, you’ve spoken to him.”

  “Not really. I just know.”

  “You also seem to know about illnesses,” Luke said. “Is the Heather Man poorly?”

  “Not now, but he has the look about him. He’s been right up to the door.”

  “Pardon?”

  “He’s been to death’s door. Something brought him back.”

  Luke nodded again. He did not believe that he was going to get any further with Crawford Gallagher so he said, “Thanks. I’ll leave you in peace.”

  When Luke and Malc walked away, Crawford stood at the window and watched them leave with a wistful expression on his withered face.

  Back in the bright light, Luke’s eyes stung and watered immediately. Through the drumming in his skull, he mumbled, “Weird.”

  “It is not illegal to be weird,” Malc replied.

  “Just as well,” Luke muttered. He held the pyramid under one arm and took the tube of painkillers out of his pocket with his other hand. He flicked the container open and swallowed two tablets. Grasping the jade ornament in both hands again, he raised it a little and said, “I’m going to dump this back at the hotel before I get on.”

  ****

  Luke stood to one side as two hospital porters and a doctor flew down the corridor with a trolley case. A monitor mounted on the side of the trolley was recording the unlucky patient’s vital functions and emitting bleeps. For a moment, Luke watched the dash and thought about the end of his last inquiry when he’d been the emergency. He’d been rushed from London to York in a frantic bid to be treated at a specialist unit. It was all a great contrast with Crawford Gallagher’s quiet, mystical and probably useless version of healing.

  Emphasizing that Luke was back in the normal high-tech world, Malc announced, “I have received DNA profiles from the room where Alexia Ridge died. There are no matches with those found near Julian Bent and Charlie Illingworth.”

  “So, no trace of Peter Sachs?”

  “Confirmed.”

  “That makes sense. I don’t think Alexia Ridge has got anything to do with my case. The other two might not either, but I’ve got to assume they are for now. Anyway, Alexia’s the odd one out. She didn’t have a disease. The men were both seriously ill. Charlie was terminally ill.”

  “In addition,” Malc said, “Julian Bent and Charlie Illingworth both had heather in their rooms and Dr Sachs visited them at least once each.”

  “Mmm. So did the Heather Man – probably. But...” Luke shrugged helplessly. “Father denies it and the Heather Man’s not around to ask.”

  That was why Luke was strolling around the wards of York Hospital, looking for patients with heather and talking to ward supervisors.

  He had his first success in the next section. The supervisor scratched his head. “Heather? Yes. Last week, we sent a woman home. Sandy Chipperfield. She had a sprig of the stuff with her. Not very showy, is it? Anyway, I remember because it fell off her wheelchair and I picked it up for her.”

  “When you say you sent her home, do you mean she got better?”

  “No,” the ward supervisor answered. “I mean the opposite. We couldn’t do any more for her, sadly. She was in the final stages of motor neurone disease. She’s had a quiet private death at home, the way it should be.”

  “Would anyone ask the pathologist to check out a death like that?” asked Luke.

  “What’s the point? Doing a post-mortem would just tell us what we already know. Motor neurone disease kills people.” He shrugged. “I imagine a busy pathologist has got better things to do.”

  “Have you seen the Heather Man at all?”

  “No. But I’m glad he does what he does. It’s kind.”

  “Yes. Thanks,” Luke said.

  Luke regarded his investigation as bizarre. He had some suspects for a crime, but he didn’t have a cause of death or a motive. He didn’t even have clear victims. Or a clear crime. He wasn’t going to give up, though. He was determined to understand why there were too many deaths at the hospital. He just had to hope that the reason was nothing to do with Dr Peter Sachs. But Luke still didn’t know why his father was lying about visiting patients.

  Luke examined the directions displayed on the wall outside the ward and then headed further along the wide passageway. “Let’s try the Phobia Clinic down here,” he said to his mobile.

  When the door to the clinic slid aside, Luke and Malc entered the reception area where six people were waiting. One of them – an unkempt middle-aged man – took one look at the forensic investigator and his mobile, stood up, and made a run for it. In a second, he’d disappeared through the exit on the opposite side of the reception.

  Luke groaned. He didn’t really feel up to a chase, but he burst into a run anyway.

  Chapter Twelve

  Luke dodged around the rows of seats and dashed out of the same exit. Behind him, the Phobia Clinic’s receptionist shouted something but the door closed, cutting him off. Besides, Luke was more intent on catching the jumpy patient who matched Nyree’s description of the Heather Man.

  Finding himself in a short empty passageway, Luke sprinted to the end. There, to the right, was an open hallway with a fire exit and three elevators. The shiny metallic door of one of the elevators slid shut before Luke could see who was inside, but he guessed that the man who’d been in the waiting area was getting away from him. The digital display above the elevator told him that the contraption was going up. The other two elevators were both halted on lower floors.

  Making a decision, Luke shouted, “This way!” He barged through the door to the stairs. He dashed up the first flight of the fire exit, two steps at a time, before coming to an abrupt halt. Listening intently, he said, “What’s that noise?”

  “Below you, a person is going down,” Malc replied. “The footsteps indicate a hurried descent.”

  Luke hesitated only for a fraction of a second. “Right. The elevator was a decoy. Come on!” He turned round and went down the steps as fast as he could without falling.

  Malc couldn’t take a short cut by plunging straight down the stairwell because it wasn’t wide enough to take his bulk. Instead, Luke said, “Go on ahead. Defence mode. Stop him.”

  The mobile went in front but could not accelerate to his maximum speed because the stairs zigzagged and he had to slow down to take the corners. Even so, Malc was quicker than a human being.

  Confident in his Mobile Aid to Law and Crime, Luke eased up on his breakneck speed. In a few seconds, Malc was out of view,
closing in on the man with the stubbly neck and chin. Luke sighed and steadied himself with a hand on the rail. Only two or three storeys to go before he reached the ground floor.

  Then, further down the stairwell, there was the sound of a door slamming and a loud thump. Alert and curious, Luke quickened his pace again.

  From the top of the final flight, Luke saw Malc leaning against the fire door, unable to get through. Descending the last few steps, he called, “What happened?”

  “The suspect reached the door first. He has pushed something against the exterior to deny my passage. It is against the law to obstruct...”

  “Stand back.”

  Luke rushed at the door and hit it with his right foot. He hoped that it would swing fully open but it moved only a few centimetres. Using his leg, he pushed with all his strength, forcing it open until the gap was wide enough for himself and Malc. Outside, he barely glanced at the large rubbish bin that had been shoved hurriedly up against it. On his toes, Luke looked both ways, trying to pick out the fleeing patient. Most of the people in view were going to the right, heading for the city centre. Many of them were probably coming away from sporting events. To the left, the walkway went towards the Ouse. He saw no sign of the man he wanted to question.

  Luke was tall but he was no match for Malc who rose up above the terrain and then announced, “The suspect is going in the direction of the river.”

  At once, Luke ran down the busy walkway, brushing against a couple emerging from one of the restaurants. He squeezed sideways between a walkway lamp and a group of visitors outside a souvenir stall. Weaving around the pedestrians in his path, he hurried towards the bridge where the walkway converged with a corridor to make a crossing over the river for both pedestrians and cabs. Going past the grand entrance to York Museum where four girls were singing a rude song about their football team’s opponents, Luke gasped, “Have you still got him under surveillance, Malc?”

  “No. My systems have lost track of him.”

  “Great!”

  “Your remark is in blatant conflict with expectation. I deduce that you are using irony.”

  Keeping going, Luke muttered, “Good deduction.”

  With Malc hovering at his shoulder, Luke dashed onto the bridge, slowed down and came to a halt. He didn’t see any sense in continuing a chase when he had no idea where his target had gone. With hands on hips and heaving shoulders, he took some deep breaths. “I’m nowhere near fit yet.”

  Directly below Luke, a river launch pulled out from the jetty and sped north. At its prow was the man with something to hide. He hadn’t run onto the bridge. He’d taken the slipway down to the river and escaped on a boat.

  Luke leaned on the handrail and groaned. He could do nothing but watch the patient getting away.

  Incapable of feeling disappointment, Malc said, “I will be able to identify him by chemical analysis of the traces left on the door of the fire exit and by analysing his fingerprints on the rubbish bin that he moved.”

  Still getting his breath back, Luke found something to smile about. “Okay. We’ll have a competition. You do that and I’ll go back to the Phobia Clinic and ask who he was.”

  After two and a half seconds, Malc replied, “Your method has merit. It will almost certainly provide a quicker result.”

  “So, you’re throwing in the towel?”

  Clearly unable to figure out the meaning of Luke’s words, Malc said, “I do not possess a towel.”

  “Oh, well. Never mind. Let’s go back to the hospital.”

  ****

  The receptionist at the clinic shook his head irritably. “Didn’t you hear me? I did try to tell you.”

  “Tell me what?” Luke asked.

  “I shouted. Mr Wilkins has technophobia, a fear of advanced machines. Your Mobile Aid to Law and Crime will have sent him into a panic. The worst thing you could’ve done is chase him with a robot.”

  “Ah.”

  “Exactly,” the receptionist replied angrily. “I don’t know how much you’ve set him back.”

  “Sorry, but...” Luke decided not to defend himself. There wasn’t much point. He couldn’t undo what he’d done. “Is he the Heather Man, do you know?”

  “Who’s the Heather Man?”

  “Haven’t you heard of him?”

  “No,” the receptionist answered. “I haven’t been here long.”

  “Have you ever seen Mr Wilkins with bunches of heather?”

  “No. Never.”

  “All right,” said Luke. “Thanks. And sorry again.”

  The receptionist typed something into his computer. “I guess we’ll just have to repair the damage, if he finds the courage to come back and continue his treatment.”

  “How long’s he been a patient?”

  Glancing at the computer screen, the receptionist replied, “Six months.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Outside the Phobia Clinic, Luke threw up his arms. “Now what?”

  Almost at once, he got an answer to his question. Further down the passageway, a door opened and the biomechanical engineer, Oscar Hislop, emerged. Without a glance towards Luke, he slipped away from the ward in the other direction.

  Luke’s curiosity kicked in immediately. “What’s he doing up here? Come on. I want to find out.” Luke strode down the corridor towards the Brain Injury Unit.

  The ward was quiet. It was Saturday evening and the consultants had finished their rounds. Only emergency doctors remained on duty. There was another reason for the calm. Laid out in a sad row, the patients were eerily inactive. They had disorders like brain tumours, Alzheimer’s disease, and variant CJD. If Kerryanne were alive, this is where she would have been nursed. In a queue going nowhere.

  Luke held out his identity card for the supervisor. “You’ve just had a visit from Oscar Hislop,” he said in a hushed voice.

  The ward supervisor shuddered. “Creepy man. Well intentioned, of course, but I still think his line of work is sinister.”

  “What was he after?”

  “Nothing, really. He was just asking about my patients.”

  “He must’ve had a reason.”

  “Well, yes. It sounds bad – morbid really – but he’s got to be prepared, I suppose. He’s planning some experiments on diseased brains and he needs slices of tissue to work with.”

  Keeping to a respectful whisper, Luke said, “So, he was wondering if you’ve got any patients whose brains are going to become available soon.”

  The supervisor nodded.

  Luke asked, “And do you?”

  The ward supervisor sighed. She waved her hand towards the row of spent patients. “Take your pick.”

  Despite what Hislop had said under questioning, he did trawl the wards for human bodies and tissue. “The thing is, did Oscar Hislop take his pick?”

  “He’s not that creepy. He just wanted access to our medical files so he could see which patients would suit him best. I don’t think he’ll have long to wait in some cases.”

  “Did he touch any patient or equipment while he was here?”

  “No.”

  “Did you leave him alone at any point?”

  “I don’t really think...”

  Luke interrupted. “Did you?”

  “Only for a few seconds. A nurse called me away for a bit.”

  Luke nodded. “All right. Just let me know straightaway if anything happens.” He turned to go but then hesitated. “Have you – or any of your patients – seen the Heather Man?”

  The ward supervisor smiled. “Does he really exist? Isn’t he just a myth? I don’t know, but he hasn’t been in here. We’re a heather-free zone.”

  ****

  Usually, Luke was working in the south and there would be little to do at night but continue his criminal investigation. He would use the evenings to sift through notes or mull over the results of forensic tests. While he was doing it, he would gaze at artificial stars or listen to downloads of Jade’s music. Now he was in York, there were lots
of things to do on a Saturday night. The place was alive with different forms of entertainment. Luke could even take a cab and meet Jade at one of her Sheffield gigs. Even though he had plenty of options, he didn’t really feel like taking advantage of the distractions. He was tired and tender.

  He was sure that his headache would go away once he’d had more time to recover from the injuries he’d suffered in his last case. He didn’t want to panic everyone by asking for a brain scan when it was probably just a hangover from a tangle with the saboteur he’d called Spoilsport.

  He lay back on the bed, closed his eyes, and fell asleep almost at once.

  An hour later, Malc received a communication. “We will talk to Forensic Investigator Luke Harding for an update on the York Hospital case.” The code linked to the message told Malc that it had come from The Authorities.

  Malc’s speech circuitry composed his reply. He transmitted it in silence because it was pointless to express it aloud. “FI Harding is asleep.”

  “You will wake him.”

  Still in mute mode, Malc sent his response. “I will not comply.”

  Shaken by the mobile’s disobedience, the voice of The Authorities was silent for a moment. “You will wake him,” she repeated in a slow clear voice, apparently convinced that the mobile must have misheard her the first time.

  “I am programmed to protect FI Harding and oversee his recuperation. I estimate that he requires rest to return to health.”

  “Are you saying he’s still ill?”

  “His life signs are weaker than usual but within normal range.”

  “Continue monitoring. Call for a doctor if his condition becomes unstable.”

  “Your command is unnecessary because I am already programmed to do so.”

  “Perhaps you’d better update me on the investigation.”

  “I will prepare a summary and transmit it to you.”

  “Good. In the meantime, we need to know if FI Harding has worked out why York Hospital is experiencing a significant number of extra deaths.”