The Health of Strangers

by Lesley Kelly

  ‘Turned up for his last check OK, which was . . .twenty-eight days ago.’ Bernard turned his phone toward her.

  ‘So, Kevin should be at the Pollock Halls Health Status Clinic at 8.45am Thursday morning.’ Mona smiled. ‘Do you think we should meet him there?’

  ‘I certainly do.’ Bernard shoved his phone into his pocket. ‘And in the meantime?’

  She got to her feet, stamping them to keep warm. ‘I need to check on Maitland.’

  5

  Maitland was waiting on the corner of the street where he’d told her to meet him.

  ‘I don’t need babysitting.’ He started speaking before she’d even reached him. ‘I could have done this on my own.’

  ‘I know.’ Mona was glad she’d tracked Maitland down. If Donny was here she was keen to speak to him. ‘Where are we going?’

  He pointed across the road to a shop that sold bikes and offered cycle repairs.

  ‘You look in need of some exercise. Ever thought of taking to the road on two wheels?’

  ‘Ha, ha.’

  The shop smelled of oil and sweat. Mona didn’t understand the appeal of cycling. Give her a sports car every time. She idly turned over a price ticket hanging from a bike and blanched at the price. A sports car wouldn’t be that much dearer. She stepped away from the display, and watched a man with dreadlocks and long shorts crouch down on all fours in order to squirt liquid into the wheel of an upturned bike.

  Maitland pushed past her and spoke to the much-pierced man who was sitting behind the counter, reading.

  ‘Is Donny in?’ He flashed his HET card at him.

  The assistant lowered his cycling magazine and looked at the card.

  ‘What does HET stand for, mate?’ The bike man’s stretched vowels revealing him to be another Australian.

  ‘Health Enforcement Team,’ said Maitland. Mona could hear the impatience in his tone. ‘Does Donny work here?’

  ‘Past tense, mate’ said the bike man, rolling up his magazine. ‘He’s not worked here for,’ he turned to the other assistant, ‘how long would you say?’

  The other assistant shrugged, without turning round.

  ‘Maybe two months since he went?’ The bike man let go of the magazine which unfurled itself and plopped onto the desk. Mona wondered which of the Australians was giving them the runaround.

  ‘Why did he leave?’ she asked.

  The bike man put the magazine back on display. ‘Said he’d got a better job.’

  Mona stared at him. He didn’t look like he was lying. ‘Do you know where he’s working now?’

  ‘Sorry, mate.’ He gave a firm shake of his head. ‘No idea.’

  Maitland looked round the shop. ‘You realise that it’s a criminal offence to hinder a Health Enforcement Officer in the search for a Defaulter?’

  The bike man pulled a face. ‘You managed to prosecute anyone under that legislation?’

  The answer to that question was no. The legislation had been rushed through so fast, and was so riddled with holes it was widely agreed that a prosecution would be nigh on impossible. Mona wondered if the bike man was more on the ball than she’d thought.

  ‘You could be the first. Or,’ she had an idea, ‘I could ask my colleagues at Revenue and Customs to pop round, make sure that everyone here is properly on the payroll, got the appropriate visa, your National Insurance payments are all up to date, that kind of thing.’

  The bike man glared at her, and reached under the counter. He picked out a box file, and raked around in it until he found what he was looking for, and slammed it down on the counter top.

  ‘Donald Mathieson’s P45 – check the date he left here.’

  Maitland and Mona looked over the document. It showed Donny as having left a couple of months earlier.

  ‘Somebody’s yanking your chain, mate.’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  Mona pulled open the door to leave. ‘Thanks for your time.’

  The bike man didn’t return her smile.

  Bernard sat staring at the phone, wondering what he should be doing.

  ‘Hello.’

  He looked up to see Carole standing in the doorway.

  ‘Carole! How’s the young ‘un?’

  ‘On the mend, thank God.’

  ‘That’s great news.’ He looked at the files she was carrying. ‘You’re not back at work, are you?’

  ‘Yeah, they kicked me out this morning, so I came in at lunchtime. Mr Paterson immediately sent me off to meet with an Education Officer at the Council about . . .’

  ‘Oh, God, the visit to schools thing.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She laughed. ‘Bernard, can I ask you something?’

  ‘OK. Probably be better to ask Maitland or Mona but . . .’

  ‘I spoke to Maitland earlier about the girl they were chasing, and something he said reminded me about a weird thing that happened at the hospital, and it’s probably nothing but . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, with Michael stabilised, the nurses told me to go and have a shower, and something to eat.’

  ‘Good advice.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she gave out a breath, ‘anyway, on the way there I decided to stop at the Sanctuary – you know what that is?’

  ‘Yes.’ It would have been called the hospital chapel in less secular times.

  ‘So, I was sitting there when this woman came in. Anyway, she bursts into tears—’

  ‘Not surprising really, the Virus,’ he swallowed, ‘is devastating.’ He tried to stay focused on what Carole was saying, and not on his own memories.

  ‘That’s what I said to her, more or less, and here’s the thing. She said it wasn’t the Virus, but her daughter, I think she said her name was Kirsty, was in a coma after overdosing.’

  ‘OK, but . . .’ Bernard didn’t want to jump to any conclusions on this.

  ‘Wait, there’s more. She starts going on about how her daughter was never like that, top of her class, played hockey, never missed church.’

  Bernard sat upright. ‘Never missed church?’

  ‘Yep, and started hanging around with a new crowd that were all into French authors and stuff.’

  ‘Like Camus, for instance?’

  ‘Am I making too much of this, Bernard?’

  He didn’t know.

  Mona walked into the office.

  ‘Carole – good to see you.’

  She sat down at her desk and started bashing away at her computer. Bernard felt relief that she was back, and embarrassment at his inability to deal with this on his own. He exchanged a glance with Carole over the top of Mona’s head.

  ‘Carole befriended a woman at the hospital whose daughter’s in a coma.’

  Mona carried on typing.

  ‘Mona, are you listening?’

  ‘Coma, yeah, whatever.’

  ‘And this woman’s God-fearing daughter overdosed on drugs, after taking an interest in French authors.’

  Mona stopped typing and swivelled round to face Carole.

  ‘Children of Camus?’

  ‘I don’t know. I hadn’t heard of them until I spoke to Maitland this morning.’ She shrugged. ‘Possibly.’

  Mona looked thoughtful. ‘Maybe you should see if you can find her again.’

  ‘I’m heading back to the hospital now, actually.’ Carole looked at her watch. ‘I don’t want to be late for visiting time.’

  Mona stood up. ‘I’ll walk you out.’

  ‘Oh, you’re going out again?’ Bernard felt a childish sense of disappointment. ‘Should I come?’

  ‘I thought I’d try and catch up with some of my old CID colleagues, see if anyone recognises the “Railway Tavern”. I was thinking it might be an old name for a pub – you know, like everyone calls the Athletic Arms, Diggers.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because that’s what it used to be called.’ She shot him an impatient look. ‘After the gravediggers that drank there. Anyway, maybe one of the older CID guys would remember it.’
>
  ‘OK, while you’re gone I was wondering if I could have a look at Heidi’s diaries?’

  ‘What, a quick half-hour’s read of them before you rush off early, Bernard?’

  ‘No, I—’ He stopped himself. It was none of her business why he’d refused to stay on last night. He didn’t feel inclined to share the finer details of his wife’s mental health with Mona. She didn’t strike him as overly sympathetic to relationship problems.

  She smiled, and picked up her bag. Bernard wondered, not for the first time, why Mona always stayed late at the office. She’d never mentioned a boyfriend, though, of course, he hadn’t asked.

  When he’d first joined the HET, back when Maitland was still bothering to talk to him, he had told him a story about Mona having an affair with a married colleague. At least he thought that was what his colleague was saying; some of his more colourful language slightly mystified him. He told Maitland that he didn’t like to gossip about colleagues, at which point his teammate had rolled his eyes and told him to stop being such a ‘bloody nancy boy.’ They hadn’t shared any secrets since.

  ‘So, it’s OK if I have the diary?’

  Mona gave him a look that he couldn’t quite work out.

  ‘OK.’ She opened her desk drawer and put the diary on her desk. ‘Though I’ve been through it pretty thoroughly. I’m not sure what you’re hoping to find.’

  Her tone clarified the look. ‘I’m not saying you’ve missed anything. I just thought fresh pair of eyes and all that . . .’

  Mona slipped on her jacket, and threw the notebook onto his desk. ‘Knock yourself out.’

  Silence reclaimed the office. In the early days of the HET’s establishment there’d been talk of a 24-hour service, a Health Defaulter response that never slept. This notion had been swiftly axed as part of ongoing resource issues, along with any budget that had existed for overtime. The HET was a crisis response team that operated strictly nine to five, if you didn’t count all the additional hours put in by members of staff who were dedicated to the job, looking for an early promotion, or desperately trying to avoid going home.

  Tokenism, thought Bernard. I’m a token.

  He shuffled the papers on his desk. Where was Heidi? And why had she gone?

  He read the translations through from beginning to end. Like Mona, he was struck by how terse they were. The diaries covered the short period of time Heidi had been in the country and he wondered if she had kept a diary before that. It would have been good to compare the tone.

  He laid the translated pages out side by side on his desk, and read across them, looking for patterns.

  Morley’s. Morley’s. Morley’s. Good night. Soirée. Party.

  No direct mention of drugs, but the occasional French word could be a reference to The Children of Camus.

  Railway Tavern. Dr Beeching.

  A railway theme, but more specifically a British railway theme. How would a German teenager know about Dr Beeching, the man responsible for reshaping the rail system in Britain? Someone was obviously feeding her information. Was it a code? And if ‘Dr Beeching’ was code, who was to say that the non-existent pub wasn’t a code for something too?

  A thought occurred to Bernard. He leapt up and started rooting around in Mona’s desk drawer. He found what he was looking for, went back to his desk and spread Mona’s Ordnance Survey map of Edinburgh out across the top. He traced a finger across it, and nodded to himself.

  He might just have it.

  His phone rang, and Maitland’s name flashed up. He looked at his watch. It was nearly six o’clock, and he wondered if he could get away with ignoring him. His conscience got the better of him and he answered.

  ‘Bernard. I need some backup.’

  ‘And you thought of me?’ He didn’t know whether he should be flattered or worried.

  ‘Mona’s already told me to get lost.’

  He sighed, but even assisting Maitland beat going home. ‘OK, where do I need to be?’

  6

  Maitland was sitting on the steps of Leith Library, with a face that betrayed a very bad mood. Bernard eyed the cigarette his colleague was smoking.

  ‘I didn’t realise that you . . .’

  ‘Oh, shut up. I don’t need a lecture about the public health dangers caused by fags.’

  He walked off, and Bernard stood staring after him with his mouth open.

  ‘Hi, Bernard, thanks for agreeing to come to Morley’s with me,’ he shouted after his colleague’s retreating figure.

  Maitland stopped, and looked round. He caught up with him.

  ‘Sorry, Bern.’ Maitland dropped his cigarette butt and stepped on it. ‘Had a fight with Emma and I’m still a bit tense.’

  Bernard grunted his acceptance of the apology, and the two of them began walking.

  ‘What were you fighting about?’

  ‘Oh, the usual.’ Maitland sighed. ‘You know, the fact that she’s a religious nutter these days.’

  ‘She not immune, is she?’

  ‘No, she’s not, and I understand what you are getting at.’ Maitland’s voice was growing louder, the earlier aggression creeping back in.

  Bernard decided not to bother replying to this. To his surprise, Maitland continued anyway.

  ‘I mean, I know it must be scary, the thought that you could get a life-threatening illness at any point, but you know, the NHS is on top of it now, isn’t it? It’s not like in the Second Wave when people were dropping like flies. Hardly anyone dies these days.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t say “hardly anyone” . . .’ His contribution was ignored.

  ‘And what is religion going to do about it, anyway? It’s not like God can keep you safe.’

  ‘But a lot of people are looking for some kind of certainty about the future. I mean, my wife . . .’

  His colleague appeared to be speeding up. Bernard ran to keep up with him.

  ‘Maitland, are you sure this is official HET business?’

  ‘Yes. Of course it is.’

  ‘And it’s not some kind of vendetta that you have against Pastor Mackenzie, just because your girlfriend has found religion?’

  Maitland ground to a halt. ‘It’s not a vendetta. But I knew he was dodgy the first time I met him, then I find out about his links to Morley’s.’ He started walking again, at a slower pace than before. ‘I want him, and his bloody church, out of Emma’s life, and the sooner we find out what he’s up to, the better.’

  ‘But we are still looking for Colette?’

  ‘Of course we are. Anyway, we’re here.’ Maitland gestured at Morley’s. ‘Let’s get inside and mingle.’

  The entrance to the pub’s back rooms was being guarded by what could only be described as a bouncer. A Christian, God-fearing bouncer, no doubt, but not somebody that even Maitland was going to push his way past without a fight.

  ‘We’re here for the service.’

  The doorman put up a hand. ‘It’s not public worship. You want the Great Junction Street service.’

  Maitland got out his HET ID card and showed it to him. ‘I don’t think I do. I want to talk to Pastor Mackenzie.’

  The bouncer looked at Maitland’s card, trying to establish if this was someone he had to bother with. ‘I’ll see if he’s available.’

  One of the bar staff walked out of the back room pulling his coat on. Bernard stood aside to let him past.

  ‘Night, Donny,’ shouted the barman.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ said Maitland to the bouncer, and took off after the barman disappearing rapidly up Morley’s stairs.

  Bernard stared after his colleague in confusion, then started to run.

  7

  ‘Mona Whyte! You’re the last person I expected to see at Reception.’

  Mona had only been in the CID office five minutes, but she was already regretting her decision to drop in unannounced. The only person in the office was Jane Fairgrieve, who wasn’t a great fan of hers. Mona wasn’t sure if it was personal, or if she just preferred
the idea of being the lone female on the team. Well, she’d certainly got her way on that one.

  ‘Railway Tavern?’ Her ex-colleague shook her head. ‘Never heard of it. Where did you say it was?’

  ‘We don’t know – that’s the point.’

  ‘Looking for imaginary pubs?’ Jane smirked, and made a great show of moving the papers around her desk. ‘The fun just never stops on the Health Enforcement Team, does it?’

  Mona ignored the jibe. ‘If one of the older guys calls in just run it past them will you? See if they can remember a pub being called that years back?’

  Jane went back to her paperwork. Mona turned to leave.

  ‘So how’s your love life these days, Mona?’

  Mind your own business, bitch.

  ‘Fine, thanks.’

  And as she left, Mona wondered if she was always going to be remembered as the woman who tried to wreck Bill Hamilton’s marriage.

  Bill Hamilton. The affair that didn’t happen.

  Bill Hamilton. The family man, doting father of a girl only a couple of years older than her.

  Bill Hamilton. Liar.

  The situation had arisen largely from grief. If Mona’s father hadn’t died a couple of months before she joined CID, and if her new colleagues hadn’t seemed so utterly indifferent to her suffering, then Bill’s support wouldn’t have been quite so seductive. If she’d understood the banter better, or been invited to the pub more often by her peers, then maybe, just maybe, Bill’s hand on her shoulder would have been easier to shrug off. Yet, despite her initial misgivings, Bill never overstepped the mark. His avuncular interest in her never became anything more. She reminded him, he said, of his daughter, Catriona, who had recently graduated in law, and was working in a women’s refuge in Hackney, while deciding what to do with her life.

  ‘Call me Cat.’

  Having decided in advance to hate her, Mona was surprised, on her first meeting with the daughter, to find her both funny, and, well, attractive. Like Bill in looks, only so much more Mona’s type. Cat, having undertaken a module in Women’s Studies while completing her degree, placed Mona’s previously unacknowledged desires in such a firm social, political, and cultural context over a glass of wine in their local pub, that it would have seemed rude to not to kiss her back, or brush away the hand that strayed up toward her breast. Catriona Hamilton was confident, liberated, and still entirely in the closet where her parents were concerned.Mona opted to overlook this minor flaw, and placed Ms Hamilton firmly on a pedestal marked ‘Woman I Want to Be’. After a couple of weekends spent with Cat and her friends in London, she started fantasising about things she had never thought possible – coming out, visiting a gay bar. She started doing things she never thought possible – including writing poetry, a move which led, inadvertently, to the end of both her first proper relationship, and her only friendship at work. A cringingly bad, in retrospect, erotic poem about Mona’s yearnings was left lying by Cat (deliberately? by mistake?) on a visit to the family home, and was discovered by her mother who assumed (deliberately? by mistake?) that the intended recipient was her husband. Mrs Hamilton made her feelings clear in a loud and public visit to the Station, placing Mona squarely in the role of homewrecker.