Fenton's Winter
by
KEN McCLURE
First published in Great Britain
by William Collins and Sons & Co. Ltd 1989
Original ISBN 0-00-223373-8
This edition published by
Smashwords 2013
Copyright © Ken Begg, 1989
The right of Ken McClure to be
identified as the author of this work has been asserted in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patent act, 1988
This book is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of
the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual people either living or dead, events or locales is entirely
coincidental.
This ebook is licensed for your
personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given
away to other people. If you would like to share this book with
another person,please purchase an additional copy for each
recipient
winter
William Shakespeare
The Winter's Tale
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Edinburgh1988
The power driven door of the
sterilizer swung slowly shut. Its side shields clamped it in an
air-tight embrace and a vacuum pump began sucking out the air
until, four minutes later, the automatic controller stopped the
pump and opened up a valve. Scalding steam from the hospital's main
supply line flooded in to raise the internal temperature to one
hundred and twenty-six degrees centigrade. The pre-formed vacuum
ensured that the steam found its way into every nook and cranny of
the load, giving up its latent heat and, in doing so, destroying
all vestige of microbial life. The smallest virus hiding in the
remotest corner of a crease would be sought out and exterminated by
the relentless steam. There would be no hiding place, no escape, no
reprieve. An orange light flicked on as the temperature reached its
target and triggered an electric timer. A relay clicked on and off
as it held the temperature steady on 126 degrees.
Half way through the cycle
Sister Moira Kincaid returned from lunch and furrowed her brow. She
walked over to the unattended sterilizer and took down a clip-board
from the side of the machine, checking through the one line entries
with her fore finger and frowning even more. Last entry nine
fifteen, eight packs of surgical dressings, fourteen instrument
packs, gloves, gowns...Cycle Normal...Emptied eleven
thirty...Signed J. MacLean. There was no further entry, no
indication of what the present load might be or who had
commissioned it. Two sins had been committed and Moira Kincaid was
annoyed. As sister in charge of the Central Sterile Supply
Department at the Princess Mary Hospital it was her job to know
every thing about everything in her own department. She was a
stickler for order and routine. Someone had upset that routine and
that someone, she decided, was going to have a very uncomfortable
afternoon.
Sterilizer Orderly, John
MacLean, was whistling as he returned from his lunch break but the
off-key rendition died on his lips as he saw the vinegar stare that
welcomedhim.
"Is something wrong?" he asked
tentatively.
Moira Kincaid tapped the edge
of the clipboard against the side of the sterilizer and paused for
effect. "This autoclave is running yet there is no entry on the
board."
MacLean sighed slightly with
relief. "Not me," he said, "It was empty when I went for my break,
besides, there was no load for it."
Moira Kincaid looked puzzled.
"That's what I thought," she said quietly.
"Might be MacDonald
Sister."
"MacDonald?"
MacLean looked uncomfortable.
"Harry sometimes sterilises his home brewing equipment in it," he
said sheepishly.
"Ask him to come and see me
when he gets back," said Moira Kincaid as she turned on her heel
and walked across the tiled floor to her office.
Moira Kincaid closed the door
behind her and leaned back on it for a moment before letting her
breath out in a long sigh. She was glad to have these few moments
before MacDonald arrived. It would give her time to calm down and
get things into perspective. She would give MacDonald a dressing
down but it would go no further than that for, facing facts,
MacLean and MacDonald were the best orderlies she had had since
taking over the department. She would be loath to lose either of
them. Running the Sterile Supply Department was very different to
ward work for there was no chain of command, simply because none
was required. The work of preparing sterile dressings and
instruments did not demand qualified nursing personnel, only the
application of average intelligence. As a result her staff of
seven, five women and two men were all of equally unqualified
status. Keeping harmony among the seven was a prime consideration;
petty niggles and jealousies had to be stamped out as soon as they
occurred while the vital nature of the work had to be stressed
constantly. An unsterile instrument pack in theatre would almost
certainly mean infection and death for an innocent patient and
should such an event occur there would be only one head on the
chopping block...hers. A knock came to the door. "Come."
"You wanted to see me
Sister?"
Moira Kincaid swivelled round
in her chair, "Come in MacDonald. Close the door." She held the
man's gaze till he broke eye contact and looked briefly at the
floor. "Now understand this," she began, "I personally have no
objection to your sterilising your brewery in the autoclaves but
one thing I doinsist on, as you should well know by now, is that
every sterilizer run should be properly logged and signed for by
the operator."
"I'm sorry...I don't
understand," said the man.
Moira Kincaid was irritated.
"Number three autoclave, your home brewing utensils man. You didn't
log the run."
"But I'm not using the
autoclave," protested the man
"Then who..." Moira Kincaid's
voice trailed off and she got to her feet to follow MacDonald out
in to the main sterilising area. They joined MacLean in standing in
front of number three sterilizer.
"How long to go?"
"Two or three minutes."They
waited in silence while the machine's safety systems sent reports
to its silicon brain about conditions inside the chamber. They saw
the pressure recorder fall to one atmosphere and traced the
painfully slow descent of the temperature gauge until a buzzer
began to sound and the green OPEN-DOOR light flashed on.
"Right then, let's have a look,
open it up.
MacLean pressed the door
release and the steel shrouds slowly relaxed their grip on the
seal. With a slight sigh the air-tight joint broke and the heavy
door swung open allowing a residual cloud of steam to billow
out.
"Well John, what is it?"
MacLean stayed silent. His eyes
opened wider and wider until they stopped seeing and he collapsed
on to the tiled floor in front of the sterilizer. There was a
sickening crack as he hit his head on the corner of the door shield
and blood welled up from a gash on his forehead to spill on to the
tiles. Together, Moira Kincaid and John MacLean went to his aid
but, as the steam cleared, all concern for their colleague
evaporated for there, in the chamber of the sterilizer, sat the
pressure-cooked body of a man.
MacDonald stumbled to the nearest sink
and voided his lunch; Moira Kincaid's nails dug into her cheeks in
a sub-conscious attempt to divert attention from the horror before
her eyes but there was no denying the fact that she recognised the
man. Despite flesh peeling off the cheek bones and the congealing
of the eyes she knew that she was looking at the body of Dr Neil
Munro from the Biochemistry Department.
Small groups of people were discussing the tragedy in nearly
every room of the Biochemistry Department but Tom Fenton did not
join any of them. He cleared his work bench, washed his hands and
put on his waterproof gear. The big Honda started first time and,
switching on the lights, he pulled out into the early evening
traffic. As he neared the City centre a double deck bus drew out
sharply in front of him causing him to brake hard and correct a
slight wanderlust in the rear wheel but he remained impassive. He
weaved purposefully in and out of the rush hour traffic in Princes
Street, not even bothering to glance up at the castle, the first
time he had failed to do so in the two years he had worked in
Edinburgh.
The flat felt cold and empty
when he got in. "Jenny!" he called out as he pulled off his
gloves.
"Jenny!" he repeated, looking
into the kitchen then he remembered that she was on late duty and
cursed under his breath. Without pausing to take off the rest of
his leathers he poured himself a large Bell's whisky and walked
over to the window. He revolved the glass in his hand for a moment
while looking at the hurrying figures below then threw the whisky
down his throat in one swift, sudden movement taking pleasure in
the burning sensation it provoked. He returned to watching the
people below as they hurried homewards, heads bowed against wind
and rain but he really didn't see them, his mind was too full of
what had happened at the hospital.
On impulse Fenton turned and
threw the glass he had been holding into the fireplace; he had to
break the awful silence. But almost immediately he felt ashamed at
what he had done and began picking up the pieces cursing softly as
he did so. When he had finished he took off his leathers and poured
more whisky into a fresh glass before sitting down in an arm chair
and hoisting his feet on to the stool that lurked round the
fireplace.Half way through the bottle he fell asleep.
Just after nine thirty Fenton
was aroused to a groggy state of wakefulness by the sound of keys
rattling at the lock and the front door opening. A blonde girl in
her mid twenties with bits of nurses' uniform showing beneath her
coat came into the room and stood in the doorway for a moment
before saying, "God Tom, I've rushed all the way home and now I
don't know what to say."
Fenton nodded.
"It's just so awful. I keep
thinking it can't be true. How could anyone...Isn't there a chance
it could have been some kind of freak accident?"
"None at all. It was murder.
Someone pushed Neil into the autoclave and pushed the right
buttons," said Fenton.
"But why? What possible reason
could they have had?"
"None," said Fenton, "It had to
be a lunatic, a head case." He swung his feet off the stool and sat
upright in the chair.
"Have you had anything to eat?"
asked Jenny.
"Not hungry."
"Me neither but we'll have
coffee." Jenny leaned down and kissed Fenton on the top of his
head. As she straightened up she removed the whisky bottle from the
side of his chair and put it back in the cabinet before going to
the kitchen. She returned a few minutes later with two mugs of
steaming coffee. Fenton took one in both hands and sipped it slowly
till the act of drinking coffee together had re-established social
normality.
"Do the police have any ideas?"
asked Jenny.
"If they did they didn't tell
me," said Fenton.
"I suppose they spoke to
everyone in the lab?"
"At least twice."
"What happens now?"
"We just go on as if
nothing..." Fenton stopped in mid sentence and put his hand up to
his forehead.
Jenny reached out and took it.
She said softly, "I know. Neil was your best friend."
Tom Fenton was twenty-nine
years old. After graduating from Glasgow University with a degree
in biochemistry he had joined the staff of the Western Infirmary in
the same city as a basic grade biochemist. One year later he had
met the girl who was to become his wife, Louise. In almost
traditional fashion, Louise's parents had disapproved of their
daughter's choice, frowning on Fenton's humble origins, but had
been unable to stop the marriage which was to give Fenton the
happiest year he had ever known. Louise's gentleness and charm had
woven a spell which had trapped him in a love that had known no
bounds, a love which was to prove his undoing when both she and the
baby she was carrying were killed in a road accident.