Death Before Time (8 page)
Well
,
Agent
Callan
, he thought as he put the phone down,
better
go
find
her
and
make
up
…
Not that they’d actually fallen out, he reflected, but she must have noticed how he’d cooled lately, maybe even realised he was about to dump her, she wasn’t stupid. He went to look for her in the canteen at lunchtime.
He spotted her at exactly the same time she spotted him. She waved and beckoned him over. Ranjid was with her.
“Going to join us, Fraser?” she asked.
He couldn’t refuse, not after he’d been so obviously looking for her. He bought some Shepherd’s pie and took it back to their table.
“Mother any better?” she asked brightly.
“Yes – thank you.” He told her about it in stilted sentences.
Ranjid stared at him, his face expressionless but his eyes boring into him as though trying to see into his mind.
“Well, that’s good news,” said Helen.
“Yes.”
Ranjid, still staring, said, “So how much longer now is it you’re with us, Fraser?”
“Until Clare Simpson comes back from maternity leave. You’d know the date of that better than me, Ranjid,” he said, staring back at him.
“Two months, I believe,” said Helen, still bright.
“Ah, yes,” said Ranjid. “Two months.”
There was a silence. Fraser ate some Shepherd’s pie. Helen said,
“Any idea yet what you’ll do after that, Fraser?”
“Not really, no.” He looked at her – she was smiling and he suddenly realised she was enjoying the situation …
Ranjid said, “Shall we go now, Helen?”
“Yes, let’s.” She stood up. “See you later, Fraser.”
They left.
Ah
,
shit
… was he too late? He must have done a better job of putting her off than he’d realised … he gave up on the Shepherd’s pie and went back himself.
After he’d finished the afternoon clinic, he took a deep breath and went along to her office. The door was open and she was at her desk.
“Oh, hello Fraser.”
He went in and closed the door.
“I’m afraid I’ve been rather neglecting you lately,” he said. He could hear his voice in his ears.
“That is your prerogative,” she said, prim and cool now. “You have no duty to attend on me.”
“No, not a duty,” he said slowly. Then: “I have had a lot on my mind this last week or so.”
“Yes, of course, your mother.”
He said, “It’s not the only thing that’s been worrying me.”
She didn’t reply. He went on, “Perhaps we could go out for a drink tonight?”
“I can’t, not tonight.”
“Tomorrow, then?”
“All right,” she said after a pause.
*
Almost exactly 100 miles to the north, in the City of Latchvale, Sister Josephine Farewell was attending a Health and Safety meeting. To say she was annoyed would be an understatement: two livid red spots stained her face as she stared back at Mr David Petterman, the official from the local Health and Safety Office.
“Sister Farewell,” he was saying, “I clearly remember telling you on my last inspection that the position of the vent in your office is in contravention of Section five, paragraph 23 relating to air conditioning. Why haven’t you done anything about it?” He was a small man with glasses and a voice that was always quiet, always even.
Jo swallowed before replying. “Because at the time, when we pointed out to you how difficult it would be to move it, you said that since the position was only a foot from where it should be, you accepted that it didn’t present any actual hazard.”
“Thirty centimetres.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The vent is thirty centimetres out of place Sister, and if you remember, I wrote to you the following day saying that having reflected on the matter, I felt that after all, the legislation should be complied with in full.”
“Yes, I remember receiving your letter,” Jo replied, trying to keep her own voice level. “However, I then discovered that in having the vent moved, we would be in contravention of Section 8, paragraph 15, relating to building works in the vicinity of patient care.”
There was a rustle of paper as everyone round the table found the relevant paragraph.
“Ah yes, I see,” said Petterman. He looked up. “Why didn’t you inform me of this?”
“I am informing you, now.”
“But surely, you should have informed me as soon as you realised there was a problem.”
“But surely,” said Jo, openly mimicking him, “A matter of this importance requires discussion at a meeting such as this – I mean, what are we going to do? Shut down ITU in order to move a vent one foot –
sorry
, thirty centimetres, to the left?”
“If necessary, Sister Farewell, that is exactly what you will do,” said Petterman, the barely perceptible tightening of his voice betraying his own anger.
Jane Goodall, Jo’s immediate superior, quickly intervened. “I’m sure a way can be found round the problem without closing ITU. Why don’t we form a committee, including the building works department and any other interested parties, to discuss this.”
“That, at least, is a constructive suggestion,” said Petterman. He thought about it. “Yes,” he said at last, “I will agree to that. Can I leave it with you, Ms Goodall, to arrange?”
“Of course.”
When the meeting finished, she summoned Jo to her office. “Why do you go out of your way to antagonise Mr Petterman?” she demanded.
“Because he makes it impossible for us to do our jobs,” Jo blazed back. “He’s a health hazard in himself – shutting down ITU because a vent’s one foot out of place, for God’s sake.”
“Thirty centimetres,” said Jane, with the ghost of a smile. “I accept that he’s difficult, but we both know that ITU will not be shut down. We can, and will, find a way of placating him.”
“
Appeasing
him, you mean. I didn’t become a nurse in order to massage the egos of inadequate little pronks like him.”
“Whether we like it or not, Jo, he does have the power to shut us down. We have to work with him as best we can, even if it does mean massaging his ego. He has the law on his side.”
“Then the law is an ass.”
“That will do, Sister.”
Jo went into the courtyard behind ITU, gobbled a fag to calm her nerves, then went back to her office. Perhaps because she was glancing up at the offending vent in the ceiling as she went in, she failed to notice the dark figure sitting in the corner at first – then let out a yelp of surprise when she did.
“Hello Jo,” said Marcus. “Sorry if I startled you.”
“Whatever it is,” she said, her heart still pounding, “The answer’s no.”
“That’s rather sweeping, isn’t it?”
“I remember the last time …”
“Ah, but this is this time,” said Marcus. “Not the same thing at all.”
She smiled despite herself.
“Can we talk now?” he asked
She sighed. “Come back in an hour.”
*
“We need a nurse to work in a Community Hospital for about a month,” he said an hour later.
“Why?” she asked. They were in her office with the door closed.
“Because a doctor working there has come to us with rather a strange story …”
As he outlined it, Jo’s mind worked busily: although she knew it was stupid, her soul revolted at the thought of having to work closely with David Petterman – he’d be quietly crowing over her every minute of every day, and from the sound of it, this wasn’t likely to be anything like so dangerous as last time … and the money would come in handy …
Jo’s widowed mother still lived in the marital home and Jo helped her with the expenses. They could have lived together, but Jo had her own house and, for the sake of their relationship, she wanted to keep it that way. But it was expensive.
“We’re offering two thousand a week with a minimum of £10,000, if that’s any help,” said Marcus.
“That’s all it was last time,” she said. “What about inflation?”
“But as I’m sure you’ve already worked out, this isn’t anything like so onerous.”
“I’d still like a raise,” she said.
They settled on £2250 a week.
“When d’you want me to start?” she asked.
“As soon as possible. I’ll sort it out with your bosses tomorrow and you can come up to London the day after.”
She knew he could, too.
*
That night in Wansborough Community Hospital, Mary Bailey, aged 74, died of pneumonia. Like Harold, she’d had advanced cancer but hadn’t been ready to die yet. Also like Harold, she’d been put on ampicillin, and it hadn’t worked.
*
Fraser dropped the hood of the car when he picked up Helen, then drove up into the downs. After its slow start, Spring was in full sap now; the hedgerows pulsed green where they weren’t laden with the white of May blossom and the young corn in the fields waved gently in the breeze. They found a pub in one of the villages that served beer straight from the wood and drank it under an apple tree in the garden. It should have been idyllic, but Fraser had work on his mind.
“Listen to those birds,” Helen said. “They take life as it comes, maybe we should try and learn from them.” Her coolness of the day before had quite gone.
“They don’t live long, though, do they?” Fraser said.
“All right miseryguts, tell me what ails thee.”
When he didn’t reply, she said, “Sorry, patronising.” After a pause: “You said there was something else besides your mother?”
“Yes,” he said … he took a breath, then told her about Harold and his grandfather.
“It was like discovering a part of my family I knew nothing about, so when he died so suddenly,” he said, watching her, “Well, it gave me a bit of a knock – “
God
,
that
sounds
unnatural
… he ploughed on - “Especially since it happened just before he could be reconciled with his daughter.”
“That is really sad.” The low sun caught her face as she spoke, shadowing its bone structure. “But at least she realises now what she meant to him.”
“It would have been better if he could’ve told her himself.”
“Yes, it would,” she said. “I’m afraid it’s another of life’s
if
onlys
.” She looked up at him. “You must have seen plenty of them before.”
He forced a smile. “Meaning that doctors shouldn’t become too involved with their patients?”
“Oh, I think that would have been hard in this case with the family connection - but yes, I suppose I do mean that.” Her eyes loomed large. “I wonder if your own history makes you more vulnerable.”
“Maybe,” he said, not wanting to go there … he thought quickly -
Bring
up
the
fact
that
he
died
of
pneumonia
?
No
,
not
yet
…
He tried turning the conversation to her own family, but she no more wanted to talk about that than he did about Frances, so they ended up chatting companionably enough about not very much while the light faded around them, then drove back to Wansborough through the gloaming.
“D’you want to come in?” she said softly.
As he undressed her, he found himself marvelling anew at the freshness of her skin, the firmness of her body.
That was the strange thing, he thought as he drove away afterwards, he still found her sexy, which was why he was able to perform (there was no other word for it) and he still rather liked her, but the two simply didn’t connect in the way that makes a relationship. Why not, he wondered? She didn’t seem to notice anything. As usual, she’d asked him to stay and he’d made the usual excuses.
*
Walking down Whitehall with its massive buildings and rows of stately Plane on Thursday morning, Jo felt the strangest sense of
déjà
vu
. How long was it – five years? To think she’d sworn never to come back …
The sight of Tom made her heart skip a little, but not quite so much as before, she noticed.
“How are Holly and Hal?” she asked him.
“They’re well, thank you,” he replied politely, only the faintest smile betraying his own feelings.
They went over Fraser’s story again, only in more detail, then showed her the statistical data.
“This might as well be quantum physics so far as I’m concerned,” Jo said. “The point is, you’re both sure that someone’s killing off these patients?”
“Yes,” Tom said. “Statistics don’t lie when they’re used properly. People are dying when they shouldn’t be and it’s got to be either gross incompetence or murder.”