White death sd-7

by Ken McClure

Gault looked as if he had just encountered a nasty smell under his nose. He took his time replying and Virginia surmised he was weighing up the pros and cons of full-scale confrontation as the alternative to giving in to her request. She decided to push him. ‘Then we could call this just a clash of personalities and there would be no need for me to write a letter of complaint to the relevant authorities about what I see as your complete lack of sensitivity towards my daughter.’

  ‘I’d have to sound out Dr Haldane about such a change.’

  ‘Then please do.’

  Virginia remained seated in Gault’s surgery. She could feel a nervous tremor in her fingers. She stared out the window behind his empty swivel chair, watching birds come and go in the branches of a tree in the garden — the one she could see above the frosted lower pane. A group of children passed by on the pavement and, in the silence of the room, she could hear their laughter. She wanted Trish to be like that, carefree and happy, but it was getting to the point where she couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard her laugh and it was all very reminiscent of the trauma she’d undergone at the time of the divorce. She and Andrew had done their best to shield her from unpleasantness but a split was a split whatever way you looked at it from a child’s angle. There had to come a point where it seemed logical for the child to ask, ‘If you still like each other so much, why are you breaking up?’

  Gault returned and stood holding the door for her. ‘Dr Haldane will speak to you when he can. Perhaps you’d care to wait in the waiting room?’

  Virginia had thumbed her way through three long out-of-date copies of Scottish Field before Haldane was free to see her. He welcomed her with the same broad smile she’d remembered from the time before. ‘I’m so sorry about this,’ she began. ‘I know this must be causing you all sorts of problems but I’m so worried about Trish and Dr Gault doesn’t seem to take me seriously. I’m at my wits’ end.’ She told Haldane about the school forcing Trish to take gym classes when she was so self-conscious about her skin disorder. ‘They call her names like “Patch” and I know it seems trivial but it’s not to her and it’s what goes on in her head that really matters, don’t you think?’

  Haldane smiled and said, ‘It’s all right, you don’t have to make out the case to me. People like to pretend that kids are just mini adults but they’re not. They follow the rules of the jungle until they’re taught differently. I take it you’d like some kind of official letter for the school?’

  ‘Yes please,’ said Virginia with real gratitude in her voice.

  ‘Do you think that will be enough or do you think Trish might need some sort of counselling or…’

  ‘No, really, I think the letter will be enough. If she doesn’t have to expose her “difference” in public, I think she’ll soon start to be seen as one of the herd again and when that happens, who knows, the damn thing might start to fade and we can all get back to normal.’

  ‘Has Trish noticed any change in the rash since I last saw her?’

  ‘Dr Gault said it wasn’t a rash,’ said Virginia.

  ‘And technically it isn’t,’ said Haldane with a smile that conveyed to Virginia some sympathy with her views on James Gault.

  ‘She hasn’t mentioned anything. Fading, you mean?’

  ‘No… just anything.’

  Virginia shook her head.

  ‘If she does, let me know, will you?’

  Virginia waited again in the waiting room while Haldane wrote the letter and finally delivered it to her in a sealed envelope marked, ‘To Whom It May Concern’. She left the surgery with a lightness in her step. She was going to be late for work again but she had the letter and Trish would be pleased. They could have an evening free of fretting and angst. She started planning a surprise trip to the Dominion, their local cinema. They might even have a burger afterwards — if only to spite the medical profession.

  May 2007

  ‘What’s up?’ Virginia asked Trish in response to her silence.

  ‘It’s not getting better,’ said Trish.

  ‘The doctors did say it might take some time.’

  ‘Mum, they’ve no idea what it is let alone how long it’s going to take to clear up.’

  ‘But they said it was vitiligo.’

  ‘I looked it up on the net. They’ve given it a name but they’ve no idea what it is or what causes it.’

  ‘You don’t want to believe everything you read on the net, love. It’s full of half truths and downright lies.’

  Virginia could see that she was not getting through to Trish who seemed to be on a worrying downward spiral.

  ‘I think it’s getting worse…’

  Virginia was alarmed. ‘You mean it’s spreading?’

  ‘Spreading… and changing… my skin feels funny…’

  ‘Let me see.’

  Virginia examined Trish’s arm but couldn’t see anything different. She didn’t want to say this to Trish so she said, ‘Dr Haldane said we should get back in touch if you noticed any changes. I’ll make an appointment first thing in the morning.’

  Virginia couldn’t get an appointment for Trish until the evening surgery session. She hoped to get away sharp from work but it was ten past five before she was finished and she was out of breath from the run home from the bus stop when she opened the front door. ‘Trish, I’m home. Did you think I’d got lost?’

  There was no answer. ‘Trish? Are you in?’

  Virginia was puzzled. She had expected to find Trish ready and waiting to go round to the surgery. She looked in the living room and then Trish’s bedroom before realising that she could hear a gas burner on in the kitchen. ‘Trish?’ she said, pushing open the door.

  Trish was on the floor. She was sitting at a strange angle with her back propped up against one of the cupboards. Her arm was bare and livid flesh was peeling off it from where she had obviously suffered severe burns. The gas flames from a front burner on the hob and the pot lying on its side on the floor beside her told a horrifying tale of boiling water.

  Virginia’s throat went into spasm and for a moment she couldn’t speak as she fell to her knees beside Trish, her mind a whirlpool of shock and terror. ‘Oh my God, Trish… oh my God…Trish, speak to me…’

  Trish appeared to be in shock. She was staring unseeingly into the middle distance with glazed eyes. She seemed frighteningly calm when Virginia expected her to be writhing in pain. ‘I didn’t feel…’

  Virginia completed the sentence in her head… I didn’t feel I could stand it any more… Her daughter had tried to burn the rash off with boiling water… She got up and punched three nines into the kitchen phone on the wall with a shaking forefinger and without taking her eyes off her daughter. She almost screamed her request for an ambulance but the calm voice of the operator talked her into giving all relevant information.

  Virginia was only vaguely aware of well-meaning neighbours asking what was wrong as she followed the stretcher bearing her daughter downstairs to the ambulance. ‘An accident…’ she murmured. ‘Trish has had an accident…’

  Virginia was an hour into her vigil at Trish’s bedside when she became aware of someone appearing at her shoulder. She glanced up and saw that it was Scott Haldane.

  ‘How is she?’ he asked.

  ‘Sleeping. They sedated her. They’re not sure yet about her arm… how did you know?’

  ‘When you didn’t turn up at the surgery I popped round to see what was wrong. The neighbours told me about the accident.’

  ‘Accident?’ murmured Virginia bitterly.

  Haldane felt his blood run cold. ‘What are you saying?’ he whispered hoarsely.

  Virginia didn’t take her eyes from her sleeping daughter. ‘Trish decided to treat the rash in her own way…’

  Haldane shook his head in horror. ‘No,’ he protested. ‘Trish is a perfectly level-headed girl. She was upset but she wouldn’t do anything like that…’

  ‘It’s what she said,’ interrupted Virginia.

  Haldane shook
his head. ‘Tell me exactly what she said.’

  ‘She said she didn’t feel she could go on.’

  Haldane shook his head again as if unwilling to believe what he was hearing and then a thought seemed to occur to him. ‘Tell me again,’ he said. ‘Her precise words, nothing else.’

  Virginia looked at him as if he were making some kind of a mountain out of a molehill but rather than argue she took the easiest course of action and said, ‘She said, “I didn’t feel…” She didn’t have to say any more. I knew what she meant. I’m her mother.’ She looked up at Haldane and saw the questioning look on his face. ‘What is it?’

  Haldane behaved as if he hadn’t heard her. He gave her a preoccupied look and mumbled something about having to go.

  FOUR

  Marlborough Court

  London

  July 2007

  Dr Steven Dunbar opened his eyes at the ring of the alarm and let out a groan. He could have done with another hour in bed but he had to be at the Home Office by ten. Normally, a summons to the Home Office with the prospect of a new case to investigate would have had him fired with enthusiasm and champing at the bit but a slight over-indulgence in gin and tonic the night before had taken the edge off this and left him with a nasty headache instead. He made some strong black coffee and used it to wash down three aspirins before taking a shower and lingering longer than usual in the soothing spray before he revisited his problem.

  Steven’s problem was Jenny, his nine-year-old daughter, and her new-found skill in manipulating grown-ups.

  Steven’s wife Lisa had died of a brain tumour many years before and since that time Jenny had lived with his sister-in-law Sue and her solicitor husband Richard in the Dumfriesshire village of Glenvane in Scotland. She had been brought up as one of their family along with their own two children, Robin and Mary, with Steven making a point of visiting as often as he could — usually every second weekend, at least for a week in the summer and with special efforts being made at birthday time and Christmas.

  In the early years, Steven had seen the arrangement as being temporary — he just needed time to get back on his feet after the nightmare of losing Lisa — but as time had gone on, reality had struck home and he had come to accept that there was no way he could do the job he did and bring up a daughter on his own. Apart from that Jenny was happy and settled with Sue and Richard and their family and they had quickly come to love her as one of their own.

  Sue had been very close to Lisa and often remarked that she could see so much of her sister in Jenny as she grew up. Steven had noticed this too and it could bring a lump to his throat. The thought that Lisa lived on in Jenny gave him something to cling to in dark moments when he found himself dwelling on his loss — something that still happened from time to time, even after all these years.

  Usually, something simple would trigger it off, seeing a family walking by the Embankment on a sunny afternoon, opening the door to his apartment on a winter’s evening and finding nothing there but darkness and silence. These incidents, however, were few and far between these days but when they did happen, Steven had to remind himself that he didn’t have a lifestyle that permitted the playing of happy families on anything approaching a regular basis. He had a job that was demanding, unpredictable and occasionally downright dangerous. He didn’t know where he would be from one day to the next and, on more than one occasion over the years, he’d come within an ace of losing his life.

  He had met Lisa on his first big investigation for Sci-Med after having been sent to a hospital in Glasgow where she had been one of the nurses. That particular assignment had brought both of them into danger although they had seen this as the exception rather than the rule with neither suspecting that the job would be any kind of impediment to married life. Now with the benefit of hindsight, he had to admit that there had been several more ‘exceptions to the rule’ over the years, perhaps too many for him even to consider inviting another woman to share his life without him having to give up the job.

  This did not mean that female company had been absent from his life during his widower years. A number of women had appeared on the scene like shooting stars, bringing love back into his life, but, for one reason or another, these relationships — and a couple of them had been very special — had all proved ill-fated before the need for the final hurdle to be crossed. Could he give up the job? He wasn’t at all sure.

  Jenny’s latest ploy had been to play off Sue and Richard against him. If Sue had occasion to discipline her she would react by pointing out that she didn’t have the right; she wasn’t her real mother and that she wanted to go and live in London with her father. When Steven told her that this was not possible she had accused him of not really loving her and abandoning her in Scotland. Sue and Richard were very understanding about Jenny’s behaviour and recognised it for what it was — childish tantrums — as did Steven. Jenny could not have had any more loving parents than Sue and Richard and she loved them too except when she was having one of her moments.

  Despite this, Steven still felt bad about the whole thing. Perhaps it was guilt over never having really tried to find the kind of job that would have permitted him to bring up a daughter or perhaps it was hearing the accusations that Jenny had levelled at him about not loving her, but he had felt bad enough to climb into the bottle on the previous evening. But today was another day and he had to get his act together before he went to see John Macmillan at the Home Office.

  Steven had been born and brought up in the Lake District, in the small village of Glenridding on Ullswater where he had had an idyllic childhood. Being raised in the shadow of the Cumbrian mountains had fostered in him a great love of the outdoors. He had done well at school which had encouraged parents and teachers to push him towards medicine and he had duly complied by studying medicine although his heart had never been in it. After qualifying and doing his registration year, he had stopped pretending and admitted to his nearest and dearest that this was not the career for him. He had bitten the bullet and informed his family that he was joining the army.

  Army life had suited Steven down to the ground. A naturally strong and athletic man, he had taken to it like a duck to water, serving first with the Parachute Regiment and then on secondment to Special Forces where his medical skills were put to good use, ensuring over the years that he had become an expert in field medicine with his skills honed in the deserts of the Middle East and the jungles of South America.

  The operational life of a Special Forces soldier, however, has a lifespan not much longer than that of a professional footballer and Steven had recognised this as he approached his mid-thirties. Time for him was running out and the bleak prospect of a return to civilian life was looming on the horizon. The few options he could see had not seemed attractive. The medical career train had long passed him by and demand for his specialist skills in wound treatment and bullet removal under field conditions was not going to be great in civvy street. He saw himself becoming an in-house medic for some large insurance company or working in a liaison role in the pharmaceutical industry, but neither appealed to someone who had always known and craved adventure.

  He was saved from the humdrum, however, by John Macmillan who ran a small, elite unit at the Home Office called the Sci-Med Inspectorate. This comprised a small body of medical/scientific specialist investigators who would look into the possibility of crime in areas where the police lacked expertise. Steven was taken on board as a medical investigator and had found his niche in an organisation that only recruited the best. It was a pre-condition that Sci-Med investigators had to have had other careers in which they had demonstrated resourcefulness and initiative on top of professional expertise and above all, in John Macmillan’s estimation, be blessed with a great deal of plain common sense.

  Macmillan took the view that no man knew how he would react in times of great personal danger until he was actually placed in that situation and tested. Very few ever were in the course of ‘normal’ jobs. Paint-ball
wars and building bridges over imaginary rivers on company weekends was fine for salesmen but not for Sci-Med people. Heroics on the rugby pitch were one thing but continuing to fight on when the man beside you has just been cut in half by automatic weapon fire was quite another. Steven had been tested for real and had come through with flying colours. He had become one of Sci-Med’s top investigators.

  Steven still didn’t feel too well but there were no outward signs of this as he dressed in dark blue suit, light blue shirt and Parachute Regiment tie and checked his appearance in the mirror, making sure his dark hair wasn’t standing up. Macmillan did not like sloppiness. He checked his watch and set off for the Home Office.

  As he climbed the stairs he knew that the first thing Jean Roberts, Macmillan’s secretary, would ask about would be Jenny and so it proved.

  ‘She’s growing into quite the little madam,’ replied Steven.

  ‘Ah,’ said Jean. ‘Getting to that age?’

  Steven nodded. ‘How’s the choir doing?’ he asked, wanting to change the subject and knowing that Jean’s membership of the South London Bach choir was one of the cornerstones of her life.

  ‘Busy, busy, busy,’ replied Jean. ‘One concert every week for the last three weeks and we have a ten-day tour coming up in two months’ time.’

  ‘That should keep you out of mischief.’

  ‘Who’s keeping who out of mischief?’ asked John Macmillan, coming out of his office and slapping a file into Jean’s in-tray. ‘Good to see you, Steven,’ he said, shaking hands. ‘It’s been a while.’ He turned back to Jean and said, ‘If you could get these out by tonight, I’d be obliged.’

  ‘Yes, Sir John.’

  Steven reflected on Macmillan’s knighthood as he followed him back into his office and closed the door. It had been granted in the New Year’s honours list and was, in his view, long overdue. Macmillan had always been his own man and had guarded Sci-Med’s autonomy over the years with a zeal that had irritated many in the corridors of power. Suggestions by the powerful that Sci-Med might back off in certain investigations when they came too close to home were always met with refusal and expressions of support for his people. He never excused or ignored any wrong-doing among the rich and powerful of the land and had, as a result, made many enemies along the way. He had once confided in Steven that certain individuals would move heaven and earth to stop him being recognised for Sci-Med’s achievements so Steven had been tickled pink to see Macmillan’s name come up in the honours list. He hoped that his own success in thwarting a potentially disastrous attack by Al-Qaeda on the UK and US government infrastructures might have helped pave the way for the award because he liked and respected the man enormously and had on several occasions in the past good cause to thank him for his backing when he personally had ruffled the feathers of the establishment.