Sacrifice

by Sharon Bolton

  She must have seen something give in my face because she stepped forward and lowered her voice.

  ‘I spent fourteen sweaty hours with that lassie. I’ve been shouted at, kicked, sworn at and had my hand squeezed so tight it feels like the bones are broken. And it’s your praises she and her man are singing right now, not mine.’

  She reached out for my arm and gave it a squeeze.

  ‘Well done, lass.’

  I climbed the stairs to where the senior members of the medical team had their offices. Gifford’s was the last along the corridor, the largest, on the corner. It was the first time I’d been in there and it came as something of a surprise, reminding me of private consulting rooms I’d visited during my student days: buttermilk-washed walls, heavy, striped curtains, brown studded leather armchairs and a dark wooden desk, whether antique or reproduction I couldn’t tell. The desk was almost empty, with just a closed laptop computer and a solitary manila file. I was willing to lay bets it contained the records of Melissa Gair.

  Gifford had his back to the door. He was leaning forward, elbows on the window ledge, staring out over the buildings towards the ocean. I didn’t knock, just pushed the already open door; it made no sound on the thick, patterned carpet. He turned.

  ‘How’d you get on?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s a girl,’ I answered, crossing the carpet to the middle of the room.

  ‘Congratulations.’ He stood there looking at me, the picture of self-possession. At any moment, he was going to tilt his head on one side, assume a polite but firm expression and ask, ‘Will that be all, Miss Hamilton?’

  Well, I was having none of it. ‘I am this close—’ I held up my left hand, making a pinch-of-salt type of gesture, ‘just this close to throwing the biggest tantrum of my life. And you know what? I think I’d get away with it.’

  ‘Please don’t,’ he said, crossing the room and leaning back against his desk. ‘I have a splitting headache.’

  ‘You deserve one. What the fuck are you lot playing at? Do you have any idea how serious this is?’

  He sighed, looking suddenly tired. ‘What do you want to know, Tora?’

  ‘Everything. I want a goddamned explanation.’

  His response was a weary smile, a small shake of the head and an exhalation of air from his nose – it was a laugh, as economical in mirth as it was in duration. ‘Don’t we all,’ he said. He ran both hands over his face, sweeping his hair back and up. There were sweat stains under his arms. ‘I can tell you what’s happened while you’ve been in delivery. Will that do?’

  ‘It’s a start.’

  ‘Do you want to sit down?’ He nodded towards a chair. I did. In fact, I needed to, as though his despondency was infectious. The chair was absurdly comfortable and the room hot. I made myself sit upright.

  ‘Detective Superintendent Harris is on his way over from Inverness. He is taking personal control of the situation. Andy Dunn came here twenty minutes ago to collect details of the two doctors and three nurses who treated Mrs Gair. Three of the five are currently at the station being interviewed. One is on holiday, the other left the hospital and is being tracked down. Mrs Gair’s GP is also at the station.’

  ‘What about you?’

  He smiled again, reading my mind.

  ‘I often take extended leave in the late summer or autumn. When Mrs Gair was admitted, I was in New Zealand. She’d been dead five days by the time I got back.’

  I thought about what he was telling me. Was it really possible that whatever sick shit was going on here, Kenn Gifford had no part in it?

  ‘The pathologist who carried out her post mortem is on sick leave in Edinburgh—’

  ‘Wait a sec,’ I interrupted him. ‘Stephen Renney didn’t do it?’

  Gifford shook his head. ‘Stephen’s only been with us about eight months. He started just before you did. He’s covering for our regular guy – chap called Jonathan Wheeler. What was I saying? Oh yes, Sergeant Tulloch is at this moment flying down to interview Jonathan. The report is here, though.’ He gestured to the manila file on his desk. ‘It seems pretty thorough. Want to see it?’

  He reached over and I took the file, more because I needed time to think than because I really wanted to look at it. I flicked through. Extensive spread of the cancer into both breasts, lymph nodes and lungs. Secondary tumours in . . . and so it went on.

  I looked up. ‘Her grave. I mean, her official one. Where is it? Are they exhuming?’

  ‘Not an option, I’m afraid. Mrs Gair was – or so we believed until now – cremated.’

  ‘How convenient.’

  ‘Nothing remotely convenient about this mess.’

  ‘So how, exactly, does a woman who died of cancer three years ago end up in my field?’

  ‘You want my best guess?’

  ‘You mean you have more than one? I’m impressed. I can’t even begin to start guessing.’

  ‘Well, as theories go it’s a weak one; wishful thinking probably describes it better. But what I hope is that we’re looking at some sort of Burke and Hare scenario.’

  ‘Body-snatchers?’

  He nodded. ‘Someone, for reasons of their own – which I would really rather not enquire into but I suppose I’m going to have to – stole her body from the morgue. An empty coffin – or more likely a weighted one – got cremated.’

  It was ridiculous. Kenn Gifford, one of the brightest men I’d ever met, thought that load of rubbish was going to fly?

  ‘But she didn’t die in October 2004. According to the pathologists she died nearly a year later.’

  ‘Her body was put in the peat nearly a year later. What if she was kept in a deep freeze for several months?’

  I thought about it. For a split second.

  ‘She’d had a baby. A dead body in a deep freeze can’t gestate a baby to full term.’

  ‘Well, there my theory hits an obstacle, I’ll have to admit. I just have to hope – and pray – that you and Stephen Renney got it totally wrong.’

  ‘We didn’t,’ I whispered, thinking about the forensic pathology team from Inverness who’d also examined the body. We couldn’t all be wrong.

  ‘Peat’s a strange substance. We don’t know very much about it. Maybe it confused the normal decaying procedure.’

  ‘She’d had a baby,’ I repeated.

  ‘Melissa Gair was pregnant.’

  ‘She was?’

  ‘I spoke to her GP. About forty minutes ago. Before the police picked him up.’

  ‘You mean you warned him.’

  ‘Tora, get a grip. I’ve known Peter Jobbs since I was ten years old. He’s as straight as an arrow, trust me.’

  I decided to let that one pass. ‘So, what did he tell you?’

  ‘She went to see him in September 2004, concerned about a lump in her left breast. She also suspected she was in the very early stages of pregnancy. Peter arranged a consultation with a specialist in Aberdeen, but two weeks later – three days before her appointment – she was admitted to hospital in great pain.’

  He got up and walked across the room. ‘Do you want coffee?’ he asked.

  I nodded.

  Gifford poured from a machine very similar to the one I kept in my office and brought two mugs back. He handed one to me and then sat down in the other chair. I had to twist sideways to look at him. He stared straight ahead, denying me eye contact.

  ‘The initial X-rays showed extensive spread of the cancer. No one here is really qualified to deal with that so a transfer was requested. She was kept as comfortable as possible and flown, briefly, to Aberdeen. They did an open-and-shut and brought her back here. They upped her pain relief and she died a few days later.’

  Open-and-shut refers to a surgical procedure cut short following the discovery of an inoperable condition. The surgeon at Aberdeen would have opened Melissa up, seen that the spread was too extensive to be able to remove the cancer surgically and then closed her again. The surgeon would have been standing beside Melissa�
��s bedside when she woke up. I’m very sorry, Mrs Gair, but I’m afraid we weren’t able to operate. He might as well have donned a black cloak and carried a scythe into the room.

  ‘Poor Melissa.’

  He nodded agreement. ‘Thirty-two years old.’

  With a new life just beginning inside her. How sad was that?

  Except . . . ‘No, fuck it.’ I was on my feet again and shouting. I couldn’t believe I’d nearly fallen for that shit. ‘Melissa did not die of cancer. Melissa died when someone took a chisel, rammed it between her breast bone, forced open her ribcage and then systematically hacked through five principle arteries and several smaller ones and pulled her heart, probably still beating, from her body.’

  ‘Tora.’ Gifford was also on his feet, coming towards me. I was breathing too fast and starting to feel light-headed.

  ‘She died because some sick fuck decided she was going to and a whole load of wankers are lying about it. Probably you, too.’

  He put his hands on my shoulders and I felt an immense flood of warmth wash into me. We looked at each other. Slate, his eyes were the colour of slate. He was breathing heavily and slowly. I found my own slowing down to fall into sync with his. The fuzziness in my head faded. There was a knock on the door.

  ‘Is everything OK, Mr Gifford?’

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ Gifford called back. ‘Can you give me a minute?’

  Footsteps retreated outside.

  ‘Feeling better?’ asked Gifford.

  I shook my head, but more out of stubbornness than honesty. I was, a little.

  Gifford lifted a hand and stroked it down over my head. It came to rest on the bare skin of my neck.

  ‘What am I going to do with you?’ he said.

  Well, a few things sprang to mind because, in spite of everything, it felt very nice to be standing there with Gifford, in that ridiculously furnished room, being held – almost – in his arms.

  ‘I hate long hair on men,’ I said.

  Don’t ask me where that came from; or why I thought that particular moment, of all possible opportunities, was the time to utter it.

  He smiled. A proper smile this time, and I wondered how I could ever have thought him ugly.

  ‘So, I’ll get it cut,’ he said.

  I took a step closer, dropped my head and stared at the fabric of his shirt, knowing the situation had strayed way beyond the bounds of what was appropriate and that I really, really, needed to snap out of it.

  ‘Now comes the bit you’re not going to like,’ he said.

  I looked up again sharply, even took a step back. What was it, exactly, that I was supposed to have been enjoying so far?

  ‘You’re suspended on full pay for a fortnight.’

  I backed away. ‘You are fucking well kidding me.’

  He said nothing. He wasn’t kidding.

  ‘You can’t do that. I’ve done nothing wrong.’

  He laughed and walked back over to the window. Turning his back on me made me want to kick him, but I didn’t move.

  ‘Technically,’ he said to my reflection in the windowpane, ‘I think you’ll find you’ve done quite a lot wrong. You’ve interfered in police investigations, you’ve broken any number of hospital regulations and you’ve disregarded some direct instructions from me. You’ve broken patient confidentiality and you’ve upset some senior members of the community and the hospital.’ He turned round again. He was smiling. ‘But that isn’t why you’re suspended.’

  ‘Why, then?’

  He held up his index finger. ‘One – if you stay, you’ll carry on exactly as you have been and I can’t protect you for ever.’

  ‘I won’t. I’ll leave it to the police now.’

  He shook his head. ‘Don’t believe you. Two – as you so eloquently put it over in the dental unit, the shit is really going to hit the fan here in the next few days and a lot of people will be very unhappy. I don’t want you being seen as the focus – or even the cause – of all that.’

  ‘I don’t care what people think of me.’

  ‘Then you should. When this is all over, you’ll still have to work here. You won’t be able to do that if everyone dislikes you.’

  ‘They won’t like me more for running away. They’ll think I daren’t face them. Hell, if you tell them I’m suspended, they might even think I’m involved.’

  ‘I’ll tell them you’re exhausted and deeply upset by what’s been going on. You’ll be the object of sympathy, not resentment. Three – I’m going to have a whole lot to do in the next few days to minimize damage to the hospital, not to mention my own reputation – I don’t want to hear it, Tora,’ he said, as I started to interrupt him. ‘I’m not a policeman. The well-being of the hospital is my priority and I don’t want you around distracting me.’

  I didn’t have an immediate answer to that one. Something that, had it not felt so completely out of place, I would have said was happiness was twisting around in the pit of my stomach.

  ‘Four,’ he said, startling me. There was a four? ‘I want you where you’re safe.’ Happy feeling gone! I had completely forgotten, amidst the heady rush of discovery and vindication, that – to use a cop-show cliché – there was a killer about; and I had been poking my nose in where someone – maybe even someone at this hospital – didn’t want it.

  He stepped forward and he was holding me again, upper arms this time. ‘You need some serious time off,’ he said. ‘You’re obviously exhausted, you’re white as a sheet, your hands won’t stop shaking and your pupils look like you’ve taken drugs. Exposure to anything infectious right now would knock you flat. I can’t have you working in a hospital.’

  I had taken drugs, albeit unwittingly. Was it really so obvious? Or did Kenn know more than he was letting on? I wondered again how anyone could bypass my locked office door. Kenn had done it the previous morning. He’d claimed a cleaner had let him in, but . . .

  There was a rush of cold air through the room as the door was pushed open. Kenn was no longer looking at me but at whoever was standing in the doorway. I spun round and my day was complete. It was Duncan.

  ‘Hands off my wife, Gifford,’ he said calmly. His face looked anything but calm.

  For a moment, Kenn’s hands remained on my shoulders and then the warmth was gone. I moved forward, away from him and towards my husband, who was not, it had to be said, looking particularly pleased to see me.

  ‘What kept you?’ said Gifford.

  ‘Delayed flight,’ replied Duncan, glaring back at him. Then he took a step into the room and looked round. He gave a short, unpleasant laugh. ‘What are you – a Harley Street gynaecologist?’

  ‘Glad you like it,’ said Gifford. ‘But my predecessor designed this room.’

  Beside me, I sensed Duncan stiffen.

  ‘I just can’t justify the funds to change it,’ said Kenn. ‘What? Did he never invite you in?’

  I looked from one man to the other. Duncan was furious and I could only imagine it was with me. But, Christ, wasn’t he over-reacting a bit? Gifford and I may have looked more intimate than the average husband would like but we’d hardly been caught bonking on the sofa.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I said, thinking I was using that phrase far too often these days.

  Gifford turned to me. ‘My predecessor. Medical director here for fifteen years before his retirement. Something of a mentor for me. Give him my regards, won’t you?’

  I looked at Duncan.

  ‘Wake up, Tor,’ he said irritably. ‘He’s talking about Dad.’

  OK, really not keeping up here. ‘Your father worked in Edinburgh. You told me.’

  Shortly after we’d met, Duncan had told me his father was a doctor, an anaesthetist, and naturally I’d been interested. He’d also told me that he’d worked away from home for most of his childhood, coming back only at weekends. I’d always assumed it went some way towards explaining why Duncan’s family are the way they are.

  ‘He came back,’ said Duncan, ‘round
about the time I went to university. Where’s your car?’

  ‘Haven’t a clue,’ I responded. Things had been moving pretty fast lately and I’d lost track.

  ‘Parked outside Sergeant Tulloch’s house,’ said Gifford. ‘Safe enough – one would hope.’

  I fell asleep minutes after Duncan started driving. My dreams were strange, disjointed ones about being in theatre with no notes and no proper instruments. The patient was Duncan’s father and the face of the scrub nurse peering at me over her mask was that of Duncan’s mother, Elspeth. We were in one of the original anatomy theatres, with a central operating table and circles of seats rising ever higher around it. Every seat was filled by someone I knew: Dana, Andy Dunn, Stephen Renney, my parents, my three brothers, friends from university, my old Girl Guide leader. I didn’t have to be Sigmund Freud to recognize a classic anxiety dream. I jerked awake at one point when Duncan braked hard to avoid a stray sheep. We were not on the road home.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

  ‘Westing,’ he replied. Westing was his parents’ home on Unst, the place where he’d been born and brought up.

  I thought for a moment. ‘Who’s looking after the horses?’

  ‘Mary said she’d come over.’

  I nodded. Mary was a local girl who helped me with feeding and exercising on my busy days. She knew the horses well and they knew her. They’d be fine. My eyelids were sinking again when I wondered if I should tell Duncan what had happened the night before. I also wanted to ask him what he knew about Tronal.

  I glanced over. He was staring straight ahead, face muscles tight as though he was concentrating hard, even though he knew this road well and it wasn’t nearly dark. Mind you, he was driving far too fast. Didn’t seem like a good moment to talk. Maybe later. I closed my eyes again and drifted off. I woke briefly during the ferry crossing to Yell.

  ‘Gifford phoned you, didn’t he?’ I asked. ‘He told you about the break-in at the house.’

  Without looking at me, Duncan nodded. It gave me an uncomfortable feeling. Duncan and Gifford might dislike each other but they were working together to manage me. Or were they? Maybe the intimate little encounter Gifford and I had shared had been staged for Duncan’s benefit. Was Gifford playing both of us?