Cry of the Firebird
Page 13
‘I can help you with those problems,’ Ulwazi said. ‘I wish everybody who sat on the bench had issues that are so easy to help with. The other good suburbs to live in this area if you have some money are Sandton, Morningside, Fourways, even Woodmead. But I personally like Sandton best. I can see that you have lots of diamond rings on your fingers, so I think perhaps Sandton is where you want to look for somewhere to live. You need to go to Pam Golding. They can find you a new home quick-quick. Ask for Joanna; she will help you. Tell her that you spoke with me on the bench.’
‘Thank you, I know about Sandton, but I am just feeling overwhelmed and didn’t know where to start, but now I do—Joanna. I’ll look her up. Can I give you anything? Get you a drink perhaps for pointing me in the right direction?’ Anaya asked, once again watching her kids, who were getting ready to leave their table to join her outside.
‘Thank you but no. Just know that I am here every Tuesday, weekends and public holidays. Tomorrow it will be another gogo, sitting here on the friendship bench. There’s always somebody here to listen when you need to talk.’
Anaya smiled, feeling a little better knowing which real estate agent to approach by name. Asking Mishti for that advice was never going to happen.
She was so tired of that evil bitch meddling in her life. Once they moved away from Mishti and her family to a different suburb, things would be different. She might have a chance to change things. To live the life she wanted to live, with her husband and her children. ‘Can I ask you something else, Ulwazi?’
‘Of course.’
‘Can you find me a good maid who doesn’t steal?’
‘Yes, I know lots and lots of very good, responsible and honest women who are looking for work. It is important to find an honest maid in Johannesburg—lots of maids have light fingers. They can clean out all your diamonds before you notice they are gone. I can find you a good maid by tomorrow morning, and she could be with you while you find a house. She can watch over the children, make sure they have food and are looked after, while you do everything you need to do. You’re essential to your family, and you need to make big decisions, so if you have some help from a nice maid it will make your job of being a mother and a wife much easier.’
‘Thank you,’ Anaya said. ‘I’d really appreciate it. Let me go find this Joanna at Pam Golding, and tomorrow morning I’ll meet you here for breakfast when the mall opens. And I would like to meet this maid that you can bring along to help me.’
‘I will be here in the morning with a good maid for you,’ Ulwazi said.
‘Thank you again,’ Anaya said as she stood up, just in time to collect her children as they ran at her from the Wimpy. She had a real estate agent to contact.
CHAPTER
16
Kimberley Hospital Morgue
The first of September was officially the start of spring, when everyone got excited that the cold weather would leave, and the long, hot African summers were on their way. But as Piet stood in front of the automatic door to the hospital morgue, he felt no joy. His mind was too occupied with his case load. He stepped aside as it opened for Natalie to walk in first. He followed her through the outer door and into the reception area.
‘Goeie môre, Detective Kleinman, Detective Hatch,’ the receptionist behind the desk greeted them as she pushed a book towards Piet and Natalie. ‘Please, can you both sign in. Dr Juliet is expecting you.’
‘Howzit, Heidi? How’s your son doing?’ Piet asked as he signed the register. He clipped on his visitor-identification tag and waited for Natalie to do the same.
‘He’s well, playing rugby this term,’ Heidi said.
‘Good to hear. He’s a strong kid. Tell him I said hello,’ Piet said.
‘I will. He loved the school visits you guys did last term. He’s still raving about how “cool” you two were,’ Heidi said as she buzzed the security door so they could walk through the corridor towards the iron gate that separated the morgue from the administration staff, where the town coroner, Dr Juliet, was waiting for them.
Dr Ros Juliet had been old since the day Piet met her back in Kokstad years ago, and she still had the grey-haired style and elegance he remembered. She simply refused to acknowledge that she should retire. He suspected that one day they would find her dead on the job.
‘Nice to see you again, young Piet,’ Ros said. ‘And Natalie, always a pleasure. Wish it was under better circumstances.’
‘Likewise,’ Natalie said, ‘but probably not going to happen in our profession, is it?’
‘True. The reason I called you in today was that I’ve another hijack victim and I thought you should see him for yourselves. This one died three nights ago on the Midlands Road. I’m sure you’ll see the report in the police system eventually, but after you spoke to me about your Hawthorne case, I thought you might be interested in this guy.’
‘What have we got?’ Piet said.
‘About a year ago, I had a spate of patients die from pneumonia. What got me is that they weren’t all old, or necessarily had a compromised immune system. I couldn’t find a link between their deaths. It was like a mini-epidemic. Then just as suddenly, it stopped. This man, who now lies on my table, came here to see me at the time. He was a representative from the fraud department of the medical-aid company ExtraMed. He was asking to see my notes on some pneumonia-death cases as he felt that their company had excessive claims for them, and it was the middle of summer.’ She walked to the autopsy table. ‘Meet the late Mr Eric Chelmsford. We spoke, and he left just as bewildered as I was at the time. He asked me to keep an eye out for any other “cluster” deaths and to contact him again if I noted anything weird or if I suddenly began to see multiple cases of unseasonal deaths again. We had a few cases of meningitis come through here. I contacted him earlier this week, because although we didn’t see him, there was another death quite recently.’
‘Moses,’ Piet said.
Ros nodded. ‘I should have known that you would have ties to him. Your community is tight.’
‘His wife, Coti, was devastated, and the new doctor, Lily Winters, too. From what I saw, she took his death quite personally.’
‘She’s lovely, isn’t she? She should be arriving any moment now. I also called her.’
‘You called Lily?’
‘She’s one of the leading specialists in meningitis clusters in the world, and she and I were already going over my files for the other cases and comparing notes. Seems that she’s missing a lot of information that she should have had from when she took over from that slapgat Ian Hawthorne. She contacted me recently.’
‘She did?’ Piet asked.
‘Yes, frustrating when you take over a research project but only have part of the information. I know he was your friend, Piet, but the more I find out about him in death, the more I wonder why? Anyway, back to the late Mr Chelmsford.’ She turned to the body on the table. ‘He came back to Kimberley three days ago, and we compared notes for the clients of his company, and now he’s dead. Not only dead, but he had the same violent death as Hawthorne. I suspect the same calibre gun. Only this time there was no slug left in his head, only entry and exit. His fingers are broken and his knee is shot out. He had no personal items come through the morgue, so perhaps you need to find out if he had anything else that the police kept when they attended the scene.’
‘Any ideas as to what’s going on?’ Piet asked.
The buzzer went off on the wall. ‘That’ll be Lily,’ Ros said. ‘Natalie, do you mind fetching her as I don’t want to have to put on new gloves again.’
‘Sure,’ Natalie said.
‘Piet, if you lift that receiver and just hold it up, I’ll let them know that Natalie is on her way.’
Piet did what he was asked, and Natalie left the room.
‘You know, Ros, if this is an active case you cannot discuss it with Dr Lily Winters—no matter how nice you think she is.’
‘Lily’s here to discuss the meningitis and pneumonia cases. This poor man just ha
ppened to still be on my table,’ Ros said.
‘And the fact that Lily knew Hawthorne has nothing to do with having her here?’
Ros frowned. ‘It has everything to do with it. This man died because I discussed my files with him; Lily needs to understand the danger she might be in. She’s analysing the same data. After all, we don’t know who killed him or why. But Lily was not even in the country then, so it certainly rules her out as a suspect.’
Piet wanted to groan. Ros was manipulating him into a corner, and he knew it. ‘What are you not telling me?’
‘I think that you might need to work with Lily on this. These cases are connected—you guys just need to sort out how. You need her to work on the medical side and you’re going to need to protect her as you work on the hijackings. I don’t want to see her on this table. I think she’s now in real trouble, even if she doesn’t know or understand it yet.’
‘Work with Lily?’ Piet said.
If they collaborated, his biggest problem was that Quintin was already jumpy and nervous in South Africa. He had spent thousands upgrading the security around their home, and that was knowing it was only going to be for six months. This case could go on longer than that. This was going to cause complications for Lily when Quintin found out. But Ros was right. The cases were related, which meant that Lily was involved now, putting her life in danger.
‘Think of her as a consultant if you want, but know that when she walks through that door, I expect her to be fully briefed. She needs to understand the implications here. Lily shows a First World naivety, even if she was born in South Africa.’
They could hear Lily’s heels walking down the passage as they got closer.
Lily came through the door first, followed closely by Natalie.
‘Sorry, am I interrupting?’ Lily asked.
‘No, you’re bang on time. Welcome. You just met Detective Natalie Hatch, and you know Detective Piet Kleinman already.’
‘Hey, Piet,’ Lily said.
He nodded.
‘Right, let’s get started,’ Ros said. She quickly filled Lily in on the hijacked victim and was soon showing them all the head wounds and the shot-out knee.
‘Lily, you need to understand how much danger you’re putting yourself in. Both people I have spoken to about these files before you are now dead. Are you sure you want to carry on with this investigation for World Health?’
‘I don’t have much choice, do I? The clusters are real. I have to find the source—that’s what I do. And if it means that we need to do even more on the security front for Quintin and me, then we do it. It’s not the first time our lives have been on the line for the good of the population, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.’
Ros nodded. ‘Okay, then, onto a successful and hopefully safe collaboration.’ She wiped her hands on a paper towel and tossed it in the big bin in the corner that said ‘Hazardous waste’ in bright yellow. ‘So that’s the hijack victims. Now about the meningitis. I’ve seen many weird things in my day as a coroner, but I’ve never known cases to be so unrelated yet connected as this outbreak of meningitis.’ She removed her gloves and washed her hands before she moved over to her desk, where she had a heap of files piled up in a Jenga tower.
‘You’d expect this type of meningitis in a children’s nursery school or even a primary school. Perhaps in a boarding establishment where children are eating together—sharing the same utensils, where they share spit and bodily fluids, and breathe all over each other. The fact that this strain of meningitis is taking so many people that don’t know each other, and have no contact, means that there has to be something unusual in common that they have been exposed to—but I can’t figure it out. There’s no reason for a bacterial infection like this to be spreading.’
‘If you are the coroner and can’t work it out, who can?’ Natalie asked.
‘I’m hoping you three,’ Ros said. ‘I can give you each patient’s file, and all the background information I have on the nature of this illness. As you know, I do the coroner work for the city of Kimberley, both private and government. Everything comes through my team and me. The police often call us to private homes when they’re questioning deaths by natural circumstances and we have attended to a handful of both prisoner and civilian corpses around this town who also died from meningitis over the last few months. I believe the situation is getting worse, not better.’ She handed both Piet and Lily a pile of manila files.
‘How many of these did you give to Chelmsford?’ Piet asked.
‘About a third. I have written in each file if they’re his insurance patients or not. Those that weren’t, I couldn’t share the information with him, just gave him statistics from my analysis. That information is also in there.’
‘At least we know where to start looking,’ Piet said. ‘Having Lily involved will be a definite advantage. If she has a sick patient, we can also observe and learn.’
‘I hope I don’t lose another one. I’m still trying to understand how I lost Moses in the first place. Having all these autopsy files for comparison will be helpful. Thank you, Dr Juliet, I do appreciate being brought in on this.’
‘I hope you can get to the bottom of it. There’ve been too many unexpected deaths in this town,’ Ros said.
‘I am sure we will find what is causing these passings,’ Piet said.
‘It might be a plan for us to start with the old-age-home deaths—it’ll be easier to isolate the variables. We’ll need to check and compare everything, from the different environments, who was washing the sheets, what washing powders they were using, who was supplying the kitchens their food, everything we can think of. There has to be a contamination point where these bacteria are thriving. Neither the pneumonia virus nor the meningitis bacteria normally lay dormant for long in one’s body. I think we might find some of the information needed to build a database and analyse,’ Lily said.
‘Only if their deaths were deemed to be “suspect” would we have a file on them. Otherwise, we’ll need to speak with each of the deceased next of kin for that information,’ Piet said.
Natalie said, ‘If there is something, we just need time to find it, and who killed Chelmsford and Hawthorne. Thanks for letting us know the MO was the same. It helps with leads when a pattern can be found.’
Ros nodded. ‘So many deaths happening. That’s the problem. If it’s not pneumonia or meningitis that’s killing the people of Kimberley, the HIV epidemic is doing its best to try to keep population numbers down.’
‘I know how long you have worked here, Ros, and I know how much you care for the people of Kimberley. I believe that we can all work together to figure out what’s happening,’ Piet said.
* * *
Armed with all her new information from both the flash drive and Dr Juliet’s file, Lily’s analysis was beginning to show some fascinating patterns. But she still needed more information. And there were names in her file now who were not dead, whom she could turn to for help.
Lily walked into the paediatric ward and went to the nurses’ station.
‘I’m Dr Lily Winters. I’m looking for Nurse Kaplan and also Sister Lungu. Do you know if they are rostered on today?’
‘Hi, Dr Winters, I’m Sister Thengi Manyuchi. I can look at the roster and see when Nurse Kaplan will be on again. Sister Lungu doesn’t work here anymore. She and I were friends. She moved to Port Elizabeth to be nearer her daughter, who was pregnant. I can get you her phone number.’
‘Thank you, I’d appreciate that,’ Lily said, noticing for the first time the cartoon animal-print apron the sister wore over her uniform. Her hair was neat, plated and pinned under her little cap, which was fashioned more like a crown in the front, and she had a big, happy smile. Lily had to suppress a grin of her own seeing it. She was always in awe of the care nurses took to make something unique for the kids to feel more at home in hospitals.
‘Says here that Nurse Kaplan is on permanent nights, and her next shift is next week, starting on Monday.
Is there something I can help you with?’
‘Maybe. I’m here as a specialist from World Health—I specialise in cluster diseases. I took over from Dr Ian Hawthorne and I’m trying to get up to speed with his research.’
‘Ah, you are that Dr Lily Winters. Dr Hawthorne spoke about you. He said that you did amazing work when you were in the refugee camp in the Sudan. He used to talk about you and your famous husband all the time, like you were personal friends.’
‘You knew Dr Hawthorne?’
‘I don’t think there is a nurse here who didn’t know Dr Hawthorne. He certainly had a different way of looking at things. While he kept a protocol for drugs and medical issues, he was very different to the other doctors. He was a big advocate of holistic healing. He said he was sick of the approach to medicine only being chemical drugs. He had many fiery conversations with the people on the board and with other doctors about what their responsibility was to the patient. What was ethically right as his views and many of theirs collided. He wasn’t a popular doctor with the administration, but I couldn’t fault his commitment to his patients. This place is a lot quieter now that he’s gone. So sorry for your loss of your friend.’
‘Thank you. We had a complicated relationship, but I had known him for a long time.’
‘So, what can I help you with?’
‘I’m looking for information on anything strange that the nurses might have found in the children’s ward. I’m looking for unexplained sicknesses. Something which has happened to more than one child. Not a normal sickness like chickenpox, but sicknesses which were either fatal or near fatal. I’m looking for anything any of the nurses can tell me. No matter how insignificant it seems.’
‘Actually, a few months ago we had a kid come in with pneumonia—which was not unusual, except about a week later we had a second child come in, and we lost both of them. For a long time, I’ve wondered if what we’d done to treat them was incorrect and I studied it in my textbooks, and everything the doctors did was right, but we still lost both of the children.’