White death sd-7

by Ken McClure

‘Ah,’ said Steven, pleased and somewhat surprised that his question had been answered. ‘She did speak about it then?’

  ‘She said she slipped on the kitchen floor and her arm caught the pot handle on the way down.’

  ‘Well, that clears things up,’ said Steven but he noticed that Fielding’s expression harboured doubts. ‘But you don’t believe her?’ he asked tentatively.

  ‘I don’t know for certain but I think there’s a possibility she might be saying that to spare her mother’s feelings.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘When her mother asked her about the agony she must have suffered from the boiling water, Trish maintained that it was nothing, she didn’t feel a thing.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Steven, feeling a bit deflated. ‘I take it she’s been seen by a psychiatrist?’

  Fielding nodded. ‘Who didn’t get anywhere with her. She seems locked in a world of her own.’

  ‘Her mother must be going through hell.’

  ‘She is,’ agreed Fielding. ‘But there’s an even bigger hurdle on the horizon. If the healing process doesn’t start kicking in soon, Trish is going to lose her arm.’

  Steven walked back along the seemingly endless corridors of the Victorian building, noting how out of sync with his feelings the cheerful Disney characters on the walls were. He suspected that generations of anxious parents had felt the same way.

  He called Sci-Med to say that he would be returning to London on the following day. He asked Jean Roberts to contact the Whitehall body responsible for ‘green sticker’ monitoring to request that they send Trish Lyons’ notes to Sci-Med.

  ‘Not spending the weekend with Jenny?’ asked Jean.

  ‘Maybe next weekend,’ replied Steven, suddenly feeling even worse, although when he started contemplating the hell children could put their parents through, he had to admit his own problems faded to nothing when compared to what Trish Lyons’ mother was going through.

  Jean Roberts had the file waiting for him when he entered her office. He had taken the first BA shuttle down from Edinburgh and had dropped his bag off at his apartment before walking over to the Home Office.

  ‘I hope you appreciate the trouble we had to go through to get these,’ said Jean.

  ‘Why so?’

  Jean shrugged. ‘They really didn’t want to part with them. I had to get Sir John to intervene.’

  ‘Can’t think why,’ said Steven, looking genuinely puzzled. ‘But thanks as always.’

  ‘As always, you’re welcome,’ said Jean, tongue in cheek.

  The door to John Macmillan’s office opened and he looked out. ‘Thought I heard your voice. Got a moment?’

  ‘Wild goose chase?’ asked Macmillan when Steven had closed the door.

  ‘Pretty much,’ agreed Steven. ‘There’s no reason to believe Scott Haldane was murdered. On the other hand there was no real reason for him to commit suicide either. The girl patient, however, says her scalding was an accident so there was no reason for Haldane to go off on a guilt trip… although that’s far from clear too.’

  ‘Sounds like a foggy night,’ said Macmillan.

  ‘You could say.’

  ‘Can I ask why you requested the girl’s medical notes?’

  ‘Haldane’s wife said that her husband had terrible trouble getting his hands on them and finding anyone to talk to about the case. I suppose I wanted to see what the fuss was about. Why do you ask?’

  Steven’s question was designed to highlight the fact that Macmillan did not usually question his investigators’ motives for doing anything.

  ‘Don’t misunderstand me; I’m not interfering,’ insisted Macmillan with a smile. ‘I just thought you should know that I had considerable difficulty in obtaining them after Jean told me she’d hit the wall with a simple request. It may be nothing but if government departments start getting obstructive when we ask them for things, it usually means… it’s something worth knowing. I just thought I’d tell you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Steven. ‘It’s probably tied up with the green sticker business.’ He told Macmillan about the children’s exposure to TB at the Lake District camp. ‘I suspect they’re a bit sensitive about giving out information. They wouldn’t want the press having a field day over it.’

  On impulse, Steven decided to walk back to his apartment and sit by the river for a while to leaf through Trish Lyons’ notes. His concentration was interrupted at intervals by the commentary from passing Thames tourist boats as they ploughed their way up and down the river. ‘The building on your right is…’ Not that much concentration was required. It was clear from the notes that Trish had been a healthy baby who had grown into a healthy child. In fact, there was nothing at all out of the ordinary in the notes until she had gone to Pinetops school camp and had been exposed to a child there who had been diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis. She’d been given BCG vaccine as a precaution and ‘green-stickered’ to ensure that her future health and wellbeing was monitored.

  Steven was puzzled and disappointed. He couldn’t see what all the fuss had been about or why it should have proved difficult to get access to these notes or why Scott Haldane had needed to discuss anything in them. What was there to discuss?

  Well, there must have been something, Steven concluded, but he certainly wasn’t looking at it. That fact alone was enough to stop him drawing a line under the affair. He hated the idea of missing anything — a good investigator turned over all the stones and there must be one stone missing in this case. They might well be sensitive to outside interest but he would ask the green sticker people a few more questions just to see what happened.

  Steven decided to focus on statistics. He would ask how many children were affected by the exposure and just for good measure… who they all were. He would also ask for details about the child who had caused the panic in the first place — name, address and current state of health. He called Jean Roberts with his request.

  ‘And if they should baulk at that and ask if this information is really necessary?’ she asked.

  ‘The answer’s yes.’

  It took two days and another intervention by John Macmillan to get the information Steven had requested and even then, details about the child who had contracted tuberculosis were missing. ‘Sir John will explain,’ said Jean.

  ‘Her Majesty’s Government is only too well aware of the potential repercussions of revealing that a non-white immigrant child has exposed a number of British children to the scourge of tuberculosis,’ said Macmillan. ‘It has been decided that only a select few should have access to the child’s identity and whereabouts. A top level decision, I’m told.’

  ‘And we are not among that select few?’

  Macmillan paused for a moment before saying, ‘I know it’s in your nature to dig in your heels and demand to know things. This is not a criticism; you’ve usually been right when you’ve smelled a rat but on this occasion I have to ask you formally if it is really necessary for you to know the identity of this child — if it is, I promise I will get it for you but first you have to assure me that it is.’

  It was Steven’s turn to pause for thought. ‘No, it isn’t absolutely necessary,’ he admitted, although he added quickly, ‘at the moment.’

  Later, Steven sat down in his favourite chair by the window in his apartment where he could see the river traffic pass by through a gap in the buildings opposite. A Sci-Med salary did not run to a riverside address. He had had to settle for one street back but it had everything he needed and afforded him views of the sky and the river. As he slumped back in the chair looking up at passing clouds, he wondered what Scott Haldane had been so upset about — not being given details of the child with TB? He doubted that. It could have no relevance. No, he concluded, he was still missing something here. Maybe he still hadn’t asked the right question.

  Yet again, he looked down the list of children who had been green-stickered for follow-up, one hundred and eight from across the UK and all in the twelve-
to thirteen-year-old age range. Was it something in the way they had been exposed to the danger that had alarmed Haldane? Maybe a lack of primary checks on immigrant pupils? Possibly something in the way the incident had been handled at Pinetops? Or afterwards? The continuing niggle that he was missing something made Steven decide to drive up to the Lake District in the morning.

  SEVEN

  After several hours of stop-go travel due to road works and the sheer volume of traffic, Steven finally found some space on the M6 and gunned the Porsche Boxster up to the legal limit. As he’d noticed so many times before, the further north you travelled, the lighter the traffic became. He had bought the Porsche as a replacement for his ageing MGF when it had finally become too expensive to maintain and its British manufacturer looked like joining it in the knackers’ yard. He knew that a Porsche might be considered an indulgence when he had so little time to drive it but he had compromised on his original plan to nuke the piggy bank completely and go for the 911 and settled instead for its little brother, the Boxster. Boys’ toys? Maybe, but there was no Mrs Dunbar to point this out.

  Around two in the afternoon, the soporific boredom of the motorway gave way to the winding roads of the Lake District where the Porsche came into its own, sticking to the road like glue through the curves however hard he pushed it, not that he pushed it too hard, just enough to experience the exhilaration that driving a Porsche could bring.

  He had deliberately come a bit further north on the motorway than had strictly been necessary just so that he could drive along the north shore of Ullswater and pass through Glenridding where he’d spent his childhood before heading on down to Windermere. His parents were both dead and he had no siblings so there was no reason for him to stop there but it was nice to flirt with old memories and feel nostalgia for an upbringing that had been idyllic. He coaxed the Porsche up through the Kirkstone Pass and paused at the top to take in the view. It never failed to gladden his heart. Wordsworth could keep his daffodils; for him the mountains were the thing. He had come to know other mountains well in his lifetime — especially those of North Wales, which had featured so much in his military training — but the Lake District peaks would always hold a special place in his heart. Feeling good, he let the Porsche dawdle down the pass into Windermere and started out along the shore road to Pinetops.

  The first thing that struck Steven when he drove into the car park at Pinetops was that there seemed to be no children about. He had expected to see lots of them, wearing brightly coloured outdoor gear, chattering, laughing as they wheeled dinghy transporters and carried canoes to and from the water’s edge.

  ‘Change-over week,’ explained David Williams, the Welsh chief instructor. ‘We usually have a five-day gap between groups to allow us to clean and maintain things. You wouldn’t believe the havoc children can wreak when they’re not even trying.’

  Steven could see from the window that several canoes were undergoing patching repairs with fibreglass: he’d noticed the strong smell of solvent in the air when he’d got out of the car. He asked Williams some general questions about the camp to get a feel for the place, establishing along the way the number of instructors employed and the type of activities available for the children.

  ‘It’s all about team work and personal responsibility,’ enthused Williams. ‘When you’re out on the hills and something goes wrong, you have to pull together; you share your knowledge, discuss your options and agree on a course of action. You come back safely because you worked as a team; you didn’t all run off in different directions doing your own thing.’

  Steven knew the philosophy well enough and nodded in the right places. Society needed team players, which was all well and good as long as it didn’t lead to the ostracising and exclusion of gifted individuals who preferred to work alone. You didn’t often find genius working in a team.

  ‘So, how can I help you exactly?’ asked Williams, returning Steven’s ID and deciding that the pleasantries were over.

  ‘I understand a group of children were exposed to tuberculosis here a few months ago.’

  ‘So I’m led to believe,’ said Williams. ‘Nothing to do with the camp, you understand. Some kid brought it in but the relevant medical authorities moved quickly and the children were given protection.’

  ‘BCG vaccine,’ said Steven.

  ‘If you say so,’ said Williams. ‘Not exactly my field.’

  ‘There’s one thing I’m not clear about,’ said Steven. ‘How was the child with TB discovered? Did he or she become ill while they were here?’

  ‘Well, no one reported sick to the camp clinic if that’s what you mean,’ said Williams, ‘or I would have heard about it. We have a full-time nurse on the staff and we can call on a local GP if needed. All incidents are logged.’

  ‘Then how?’

  Williams furrowed his brow. ‘You know, I don’t rightly know. I was informed by telephone of the situation.’

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘A Department of Health official, I think he called himself, snooty bugger as I remember. I guess the kid must have had tests before he or she came here and the results caused the shit to hit the fan.’

  ‘I suppose,’ agreed Steven who had noticed that Williams had not given away whether the child was male or female. Was this because he didn’t know?

  ‘What happened to the boy?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘But it was a boy?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Steven looked surprised in order to provoke further comment.

  ‘I suppose he or she was taken off to hospital but I wasn’t asked to make any of the arrangements so I didn’t see it happen. I was just asked to organise the other kids for vaccination.’

  ‘Do you know which school the child was attending?’

  ‘I don’t think they said,’ said Williams. ‘Does it matter? What could I have done?’

  ‘You’re right,’ agreed Steven, backing off. ‘The medical authorities seem to have had everything in hand and you had another hundred kids to worry about. Can you remember how long after the initial phone-call the other children were vaccinated?’

  ‘Next day,’ said Williams. ‘The team was here at ten sharp next morning and we had the kids ready and waiting. I remember we had a late start that day to outdoor activities.’

  ‘Well, no untimely delays there,’ said Steven. ‘Sounds like a very efficient operation.’

  ‘Maybe you’d like to see round the camp, see the clinic for yourself?’ asked Williams, who clearly wasn’t at all sure what Steven’s interest was in all of this.

  Steven said that that wouldn’t be necessary, congratulated Williams on having such an enviable job and left. Deciding that he felt hungry — he had missed out on lunch — he drove along the shore to Ambleside and found somewhere advertising all-day-food.

  He had to admit that he hadn’t come up with anything about the handling of the situation at Pinetops that could have upset Scott Haldane although he did feel a bit puzzled about the apparent secrecy surrounding the identity and movement of the sick child while at the camp. It was understandable after the event and the reasons given by the authorities to Macmillan and relayed by him had seemed valid enough. Anything to do with race relations issues and possible problems affecting them had to be handled with kid gloves — but the more he thought about it, the odder it seemed that Williams, and presumably his staff, knew nothing about the child. He was chewing his way through a particularly tough gammon steak when another thought struck him. How did the Department of Health know about the child so quickly? Williams had told him that it was someone from DOH who had phoned him. How did the ‘snooty bugger’ know so quickly?

  ‘Is everything all right for you?’ asked the waitress.

  Steven nodded. ‘Fine.’ It wasn’t but it was hard to break the habit of a lifetime. Surely, he reasoned, a sick child with lung problems would be seen by his or her GP and referred to a local hospital for X-rays and tests. It was they
who would make the diagnosis and arrange for the child to be admitted to hospital. There would have been no need to involve the DOH. Steven paid and left. He walked down to the edge of the lake and threw a couple of pebbles into the water while he continued to follow his line of thought.

  TB was a notifiable disease, which meant that the hospital would be obliged to report any incidence of it, but notification would almost certainly be to the local health authorities in the first instance. DOH would be involved in collating national figures but surely not in individual cases and certainly not in the practical aspects of vaccinating contacts.

  Maybe he was making a mountain out of a molehill, he conceded as he started to walk back to the car, but there was something not quite right about how things had been handled at official level and he wanted to know what. It preyed on his mind all the way home. There was a message from Jenny on his answering machine when he got in.

  ‘Daddy, I’m ringing to say I’m sorry about what I said but you’re not there. Auntie Sue says I can stay up till nine o’clock if you want to call me back. Love you.’

  Steven looked at the time. It was 2 a.m. ‘Shit,’ he murmured as he poured himself a nightcap. It was impossible not to imagine Jenny’s face when 9 o’clock had come and gone. It was an image that reappeared at intervals during a restless night. He was up early to call her before she left for school.

  ‘Hello, nutkin, I’m sorry I was out when you called last night. I was working. I was driving home at the time but it was lovely to hear your voice when I got in.’

  ‘You work very late, Daddy.’

  ‘Sometimes I have to, nutkin.’

  ‘Auntie Sue says that’s why you can’t look after me and not because you don’t love me.’

  ‘Auntie Sue’s right, Jenny. I love you very much. We all do.’

  ‘That’s what Auntie Sue said.’

  ‘Auntie Sue’s very wise.’

  ‘Are you coming up at the weekend, Daddy?’

  ‘You bet.’

  ‘Can we go swimming?’

  ‘Of course we can.’