by Ken McClure
Steven had been on leave for the past two months, recovering from traumas suffered in his last assignment and regaining fitness at a military camp in North Wales through an arrangement with his old regiment.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Fit and well,’ replied Steven.
‘Jean said you were up in Scotland when she contacted you?’
‘I was up seeing Jenny.’
‘How is she?’
‘I think I’ve just had a glimpse of the terrible teens to come.’
‘Oh dear,’ smiled Macmillan. ‘Girls are always so much more trouble than boys in my experience.’
‘So people keep telling me.’
Macmillan settled back in his chair, looking every inch the Whitehall mandarin, tanned, smooth skin belying his sixty odd years, silver hair swept back, confidence oozing from every pore. He looked at Steven for a moment before saying, ‘Nothing too serious I hope?’
‘Not in the great scheme of things, I suppose. It was just a bit of a shock to discover that she no longer sees me as her knight in shining armour who appears out of the mist from time to time bearing gifts and telling tales of fighting evil. She now sees me as a flawed human being who chose to abandon her in a far-off land.’
Macmillan smiled and said, ‘I’m sure that’s not true but it sounds like something all fathers in your position have to go through. The irony is that if you really had abandoned her and she never saw you at all, she’d regard you as a saint and make all sorts of excuses for you.’
‘I suppose.’
‘Don’t let it get you down. You’ve always had Jenny’s best interests at heart. She’s always been a much loved little girl. I remember celebrating her birth in this very office.’
Steven nodded, anxious that the conversation should move on.
Macmillan flipped open a file on his desk. ‘Dr Scott Haldane, aged thirty-five, general practitioner in a family practice in Edinburgh — at least he was until he took his own life, leaving a wife and two young children behind.’
Steven screwed up his face. ‘Thirty-five? No age at all. What’s our interest?’
‘I’m not sure that we have one but… it’s possible. His wife is absolutely adamant that he did not commit suicide.’
‘Not an uncommon reaction,’ said Steven. ‘It must be a very hard thing to come to terms with.’
‘Well, she apparently has no intention at all of accepting it. She insists that her husband was murdered and has been seizing every opportunity to say so in public. She insists that he was a devoted husband and father, a committed Christian, happy and settled in his work and with everything to live for.’
‘What do the police say?’
‘The body was found in woodland quite near where he lived — a place known as the Hermitage of Braid. He’d cut his wrists. There was nothing to suggest it wasn’t suicide apart from the fact that there was no note and the police failed to establish any reason why Haldane would want to end his life. He seems to have been everything his wife says he was. Perhaps for the same reason, they didn’t come up with any reason why someone would want to kill him either.’
Steven thought for a moment before saying, ‘This is all very sad but I’m sorry, I don’t see where Sci-Med comes in.’
‘Haldane’s wife is an intelligent woman: she’s a nursing sister at the new Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh. She insists that her husband was murdered over something to do with one of his patients.’
‘One of his patients killed him?’ exclaimed Steven.
‘Nothing like that,’ said Macmillan. ‘The practice was treating a child for a skin complaint. The mother wasn’t happy with the way her child’s case was being handled by their GP and a transfer was made to Haldane’s list. He referred the child to a skin clinic and something called vitiligo was diagnosed.’ Macmillan gave Steven an enquiring glance.
‘Not really my area but, as I remember, it’s a fairly harmless pigment problem leading to patches on the skin — more embarrassing than dangerous.’
‘That would fit with what I have here,’ said Macmillan. ‘Apparently the child, however, was very sensitive about her condition and her mother came home one day to find — in her opinion — that she’d attempted to remove the patch with boiling water.’
‘My God,’ said Steven.
‘According to Haldane’s wife, there was some disagreement about this. Haldane was sure the scalding had been an accident.’
‘What an awful situation,’ said Steven. ‘How is the child?’
‘She’s still in hospital and quite seriously ill.’
‘Was she able to throw any light on what happened?’
‘She’s hardly said a word since the “accident”.’
‘Poor lass. How old?’
‘Thirteen.’
‘A very self-conscious age,’ said Steven.
‘Any thoughts so far?’
‘Just from what you’ve told me, it’s not inconceivable that the girl did it deliberately, in which case Haldane may have felt guilt over not having referred her for psychiatric help earlier. Whether that might have tipped him over into taking his own life… well, who knows?’
‘Haldane’s wife is adamant that her husband did not believe for a minute that the child had done it deliberately. He was convinced it had been an accident.’
‘I think the popular term could be “in denial”,’ said Steven.
‘Mmm. On the other hand, his wife says that he seemed to be much more upset about some other possibility that he refused to discuss with her.’
‘You mean that someone else might have scalded the girl?’ asked Steven with wide eyes.
Macmillan flinched at the suggestion. ‘I don’t think that was what she meant at all. She says that her husband started making lots of telephone calls, demanding to speak to people about the case, but he constantly ran into some problem because the girl was on some monitoring list that she thinks was called “green sticker patients”. Apparently it made her notes difficult to obtain.’
‘What’s this green sticker business all about?’ asked Steven.
‘That’s where you come in,’ said Macmillan. ‘I’d like you to find out. Have a root around; see what you come up with but most importantly, don’t stand on anyone’s toes, especially not Lothian and Borders Police. They won’t have forgotten the last time you strayed on to their patch. I’ve asked Jean to find you somewhere discreet to stay while you’re up there. She’ll give you details on the way out along with the file.’
‘On my way.’
Jean Roberts smiled when Steven emerged from Macmillan’s office and brought out a folder from the top drawer of her desk which she handed to Steven. ‘All we have on the Edinburgh case. Feel good to be operational again?’
‘I guess,’ smiled Steven. ‘Sir John tells me you were arranging accommodation?’
‘Yes, he said he wanted it to be somewhere discreet where your presence would hopefully go unnoticed. I’ve booked you into a B amp;B in a lovely Victorian building just north of Edinburgh’s New Town called Fraoch House — Fraoch means “heather” in Gaelic. My sister and I stayed there last year when we went up for the festival. It has everything you’ll need. I’ve included directions in the file.’
FIVE
It was raining when Steven’s flight touched down at Edinburgh airport and the chill wind that caught the side of his face when he stepped out from the aircraft brought back memories of times past in Scotland’s capital. He had mixed feelings about the city. He’d had some good times here with Lisa when they’d come through from Glasgow — as they often had — to visit theatres and galleries but he’d also had some bad when past investigations had brought him into conflict with people who could only be described as plain evil. Glasgow, where he and Lisa had lived for a while, wore its heart on its sleeve while Edinburgh hid its face behind net curtains.
A poster on the wall of the terminal building proclaimed Scotland as the ‘best small country in the world’ while a
series of overweight and unsmiling ground staff wearing fluorescent waistcoats herded passengers into snaking queues and shouted at them to keep mobile phones turned off.
‘What the hell do they want this time?’ grumbled the man in the queue beside Steven. ‘Boarding pass? Passport? Shoe size? Inside leg measurement?’
Someone else in the queue whispered, ‘Passport.’ And the fact that she’d whispered it made Steven realise just how much people had come to fear and dislike authority in airports. Security — or imagined security — had no sense of humour at all and common sense was an alien concept to those charged with implementing it. Anyone displaying dissent would end up in very serious trouble. This in itself was a terrorist victory of sorts.
‘Where to?’ asked the taxi driver.
‘Fraoch House in Pilrig Street,’ replied Steven, reading from the note he had in his pocket.
The driver drove without comment, something that suited Steven as he’d had more than enough of taxi drivers’ philosophy over the years. Silence was just fine. He could enjoy the sights instead of listening to a treatise on the Iraq war or the virtues of proclaiming Scotland an independent nation, not that the sights today were particularly welcoming but maybe that was the rain. Everywhere looked nice in sunshine. Anywhere could be depressing in the wet.
The driver uttered his first words as they came to a roundabout at the head of Leith Street when a woman driving a 4x4 swung out in front of him. ‘Bloody loony! No wonder she needs a 4x4 to keep her arse safe!’
Steven didn’t comment and silence was resumed until they pulled up outside Fraoch House. ‘There you go.’
Steven paid the driver and tipped him well. This brought a smile that looked like an unnatural act.
‘Steven Dunbar.’
‘Gavin Houston,’ said the smiling young man at the desk. ‘Welcome. I’ll show you to your room.’
Steven had been a bit apprehensive about what a B amp;B that Jean Roberts and her sister enthused about might turn out to be, but the place was clean, modern and comfortable. It even had wireless broadband available which he used to connect his laptop to Sci-Med to check for any messages. There were none.
Despite having given it some thought, Steven had not yet decided on his first move in the investigation. He wanted to avoid crossing swords with the local police but didn’t think that should be a real problem: they had already written Scott Haldane’s death off as suicide and closed the book on it. They would have no great inclination to take what his wife was saying seriously. He lay down on the bed and looked up at the ceiling while he thought through his options.
Judging by what he’d learned from the files, Scott Haldane’s widow, Linda, might not be the best person to interview first. She was clearly unwilling to even consider the possibility of her husband having committed suicide. Virginia Lyons’ daughter, Trish, was currently very ill in hospital so the fate of their GP would not be uppermost in her mind. That just left the medical practice where Haldane had worked. Steven thought he might be able to get a feeling for what had gone on in the disagreement over Trish Lyons’ treatment by speaking to someone there and perhaps get someone to throw some light on ‘green sticker’ patients while he was at it.
A phone-call later and Steven had arranged to meet with Dr James Gault at the practice in Bruntsfield after evening surgery. Bruntsfield was a part of the city that Steven knew well — a nice area about a mile south of the city centre and about three miles from where he was at the moment. Seeing that it had stopped raining, he decided to walk there. It would give him the chance to re-acquaint himself with the city and also afford him some exercise at the end of a travel day with all the enforced inertia that had entailed — especially as it would be uphill all the way.
Steven was a little too early when he reached Bruntsfield Links, the pleasant, green area near to the street where the surgery was located, so he sat down on a park bench and watched the world go by for a few minutes. A child’s ball landed at his feet and he picked it up to return it to the child who came to retrieve it but stopped some distance away. ‘Hello,’ he said.
The child gave him a suspicious look and snatched up the ball when Steven rolled it to him. His mother called out and it was possible to pick out the anxiety in her voice. He thought it sad that speaking to anyone in the park was a definite no-no for children these days. Steven got up and started to walk towards the surgery, wondering whether the threat to children now was really any greater than it had been in the past or was it perhaps just the perception of it that had changed? He suspected the latter but there was no time to ponder any longer. He’d reached the front door of the surgery.
‘What can I do for Sci-Med?’ asked James Gault, examining Steven’s ID and settling back in his chair.
‘I’d appreciate hearing your views on Scott Haldane’s suicide. You must have known him well?’
‘I did… or at least I thought I did. It was as big a shock to me as it seems to have been to everyone else. I would have thought he’d be the last person on earth to take his own life. He had everything to live for.’
‘That’s what I keep hearing,’ said Steven. ‘No skeletons in the cupboard?’
‘None that I know of. I always found him a perfectly straightforward chap who cared deeply about his patients — more than me if truth be told,’ Gault added with a snort.
Steven gave him an enquiring look and Gault said, ‘Call it the cynicism of my years. Forty years of dishing out pills and writing prescriptions can take the shine off youthful zeal.’
Steven nodded. At least the man was honest. ‘I understand there was some disagreement over the treatment of a child patient in the practice — a girl with a skin complaint?’
‘Not really a disagreement,’ said Gault dismissively. ‘The child’s mother wanted us to pull out all the stops for a condition that I regarded as trivial and harmless. We do not have unlimited resources in the NHS — something I failed singularly to get across to her. In the end she asked for a change of doctor and Scott took her and her daughter on to his list.’
‘I understand this child is now seriously ill?’ said Steven.
Gault nodded. ‘Although not as a result of the original complaint,’ he stressed. ‘An accident with boiling water, I understand.’
‘Her mother doesn’t seem to think it was an accident.’
Gault gave him a look that said, she wouldn’t. ‘I wouldn’t know anything about that,’ he said.
‘If the child were to confirm that she did do it deliberately and it was connected with the way she felt about her skin problem, would it alter your view of Dr Haldane’s death at all?’
‘What are you getting at?’ asked Gault suspiciously.
‘Dr Haldane’s wife is convinced that her husband was murdered and his death was linked in some way to this child’s problems. I suppose I on the other hand was considering that he may have taken his own life over feelings of guilt for what had happened to the girl and for not having referred her for psychiatric assessment. Would you consider that a possibility?’
‘No way,’ said Gault. ‘Neither of us saw the need for psychiatric involvement at any stage. The girl had a harmless condition but was being given a hard time over it at school. End of story as far as I’m concerned. She was scalded in an accident, something that played no part in Scott’s death.’
‘Thank you, Doctor,’ said Steven, getting up to go. ‘You’ve been very helpful. Oh, by the way… who or what are green sticker patients?’
‘No great mystery,’ said Gault. ‘A number of children from schools all over the country were exposed to tuberculosis at a school camp they were attending in the Lake District — TB is a growing hazard these days with children coming to live in this country from all over the place. Appropriate steps were taken and the children are being monitored as a precaution. They have green stickers on their medical records — hence the name. Any time they appear in the surgery with a problem, a report has to be made and sent off with their records fo
r updating, filing, cross-referencing or whatever the trillions of NHS pen-pushers do these days with the information they keep demanding.’
‘I see,’ smiled Steven. ‘I understand Trish Lyons is a green sticker patient?’
‘She is,’ agreed Gault.
‘Dr Haldane’s wife claims that this caused problems in some way for her husband.’
‘It might well have done if her records weren’t available when he was looking for them — in fact, come to think of it, that might well have happened. The girls in the office would have sent them off the first time she appeared here in the surgery with her skin complaint.’
‘So Dr Haldane being annoyed about this would be perfectly understandable in your view?’
‘Absolutely, having your patient’s medical records lying in some bureaucrat’s office when you need access to them had me spitting tacks too.’
Steven thanked Gault again and left. He walked back across the green sward of the links and into the Bruntsfield Hotel where he ordered a gin and tonic and sat down by a window in the lounge to consider what he’d learned. Sci-Med had no interest in whether Scott Haldane had committed suicide or not although his own view was that he possibly had. In his experience, suicide victims often had a deeper, darker side to them than they ever showed to the world and the act often came as a complete surprise to those around them, even to those who knew and loved them most — a bit like serial killers who were nearly always described by neighbours as being quiet and polite, keeping themselves very much to themselves.