Fenton's Winter (4 page)

Fenton was nearing the limit of
his patience. What possible relevance could Neil's 'state of mind'
have had to the lunatic who murdered him? Were the police seriously
considering suicide? Did they imagine that Neil had climbed into
the sterilizer and closed the door with a conjuring trick? Did they
believe that he had operated the controls from inside the chamber
by telepathy? A child of ten could have eliminated the suicide
notion within seconds but he bit his tongue and refrained from
pointing that out. Instead he said that he would pass on anything
he came up with.

"Then I think that's all for
the moment sir," said Jamieson getting to his feet. "But we may
have to come back to you."

"Of course," said Fenton
flatly.

Fenton came downstairs to join
Susan Daniels in the main laboratory, a large bay-windowed room
that had once been a Victorian parlour. He apologised for being
late. Nigel Saxon was already there and was making an adjustment to
the machine in response to something that Susan had mentioned.
"Well, impress me," said Fenton.

Susan picked up one of the
plastic sample spheres that Fenton had seen earlier and held it
over a blood sample. "In normal times we would be doing this at the
patient's bedside after a simple skin prick with a stylette, but
for the moment we're using samples that have been sent in the
conventional way." She touched the sphere to the surface of the
blood and Fenton saw it charge. "That's all there is to it," she
said, removing the sphere and introducing it into the machine. She
pressed a button and the analyser began its process.

"Amazing," said Fenton, "But
what happens when the temperature varies and the sampler takes up
more or less blood. The readings will be all wrong."

"That's where you are wrong old
boy," said Saxon with a smile. "The plastic is special. It's
thermo-neutral; it doesn't go soft when it warms up and it doesn't
go hard when it's cold. It's always the same. Well what do you
think?"

Fenton admitted that he was
impressed. Saxon beamed at his reaction.

"I suppose this stuff costs a
fortune," said Fenton.

Saxon smiled again. "Actually
it doesn't," he said, "It costs very little more than conventional
plastics."

"But the potential for it must
be enormous," said Fenton.

Saxon shook his head and said,
"We thought so too at first but the truth is it's just not strong
enough to be useful in the big money affairs like defence and space
technology. But for medical uses, of course, it doesn't have to be.
We've manufactured a range of test tubes, bottles, tubing etc from
it which will cost only a fraction more than the stuff in use at
present. We think the advantages will outweigh the extra cost and
hospitals will start changing to Saxon equipment. "

"I take it you have a patent on
the plastic?"

"Of course," smiled Saxon.

"It sounds like a winner," said
Fenton.

"We think so too. We are so
confident that we have gifted a three month supply of our
disposables to the Princess Mary."

"That was generous," conceded
Saxon.

"Well you were kind enough to
put our Blood Analyser through its paces for the licensing board,
it seemed the least we could do."

A printer started to chatter
and Susan Daniels removed a strip of paper from the tractor feed.
"All done," she said.

Fenton accepted the paper and
looked at the figures. "Normal blood," he said.

"A control sample," said Susan
Daniels.

"How do the figures compare
with the ones given by our own analyser?"

"Almost identical and the Saxon
performed the analysis on one fifth of the blood volume and in half
the time."

"Maybe Saxon will gift us one
of their machines as well as the Tupperware." said Fenton, tongue
in cheek.

Nigel Saxon smiled and said,
"There has to be a limit even to our generosity."

Susan Daniels handed Fenton a
sheaf of papers. "These are the results of the final tests. You'll
need them for the report."

Saxon said to Fenton, "I hate
to press you at a time like this but have you any idea when the
final report will be ready?"

"End of next week I should
think."

Fenton left the room to return
upstairs but paused at the foot of the stairs when he saw a small
puddle of water lying in the stair well. He looked up and saw a
raindrop fall from the cupola and splash into the puddle. "All we
need," he muttered, going to fetch a bucket from glassware
preparation room. He placed the bucket under the drip before
calling in to the chief technician's room. "The roof's leaking
Alex."

"Again?" said Alex Ross with a
shake of the head. "It's only two months since they repaired it."
He made a note on his desk pad and said he would inform the works
department.

When he got back to his own lab
Fenton found Ian Ferguson, one of the two basic grade biochemists
on the staff, hard at work. He looked up as Fenton entered and
said, "Dr Tyson asked me to cover for you."

"He told me. Thanks. How's
business?"

"Brisk," smiled Ferguson. "But
I think everything's under control. There are a couple of things I
think you better look at but apart from that it's been largely
routine."

Fenton picked up the two
request forms that Ferguson had put to one side and nodded. "I'll
deal with them," he said. “You can go back to your own work now if
you like. I can manage now."

Ferguson got up and tidied the
bench before leaving. As he turned to go Fenton said to him, "Did
Neil mention anything to you about requesting blood from the
Transfusion Service?"

Ferguson turned and shook his
head. "No, nothing,"

Fenton made his third attempt
at phoning Dr Ian Michaelson. This time he was successful. He asked
about the special blood monitoring that had been requested and
Michaelson explained what he had in mind. "We could postpone the
tests for a week or two if you can't cope after what's happened,"
said Michaelson.

"But it would be better for the
patient if they were done this week?" asked Fenton

"Yes."

Fenton did some calculations in
his head, equating the required tests to man hours. "We'll manage,"
he said. Next he contacted the cardiac unit about the proposed
by-pass operations and learned that there were now three on the
schedules instead of two. "This is not good news," he said. Once
again he was asked if the lab could cope. "Some of us won't be
going home too much," he replied, "But we'll manage."

Despite the fact that Ferguson
had cleared most of the morning blood tests Fenton found himself
busy for most of the afternoon. He found it therapeutic for it was
impossible for him to dwell on anything other than the work in hand
but at four thirty he was disturbed by the sound of raised voices
coming from downstairs. He looked out from his room and asked one
of the junior technicians, what was wrong.

"It's Susan," the girl replied,
"She's been taken ill."

Fenton ran downstairs
to find Susan Daniels lying on the floor outside the ladies'
lavatory. She was surrounded by people giving conflicting advice.
Help her up! No, don't move her. Loosen her clothing! Keep her
warm!

"What happened?" he asked.

"She fainted when she came out
the toilet," said a voice.

"She's bleeding!" said another
voice.

"I've sent for Dr Tyson," said
Alex Ross. Tyson was the only member of the staff to be medically
qualified, the others being purely scientists.

Fenton knelt down beside the
prostrate girl and felt her forehead; it was cold and clammy. "Who
said she was bleeding?" he asked.

Liz Scott, the lab secretary
knelt down beside him and said quietly, "There's blood all over the
floor in the toilet."

Fenton reached his hand under
the unconscious girl's thighs and felt her skirt wet and sticky.
"She's haemorrhaging!" he said, "Get some towels!" The crowd
dispersed. "Was Susan pregnant?" Fenton asked Alex Ross.

"If she was she never said,"
replied the chief technician.

"She seems to be having a
miscarriage," said Fenton.

"Poor lass."

Someone handed Fenton a bundle
of clean linen towels. He folded one and pushed it up between Susan
Daniels' legs then followed it with another. He was relieved when
Charles Tyson arrived on the scene to take over. He stood up and
noticed one of the juniors wince at the sight of his blood soaked
hand.

"She's lost a lot," said Tyson,
"We'll have to get her over to the main hospital."

Responsibility passed from
Tyson to two nurses in casualty who wheeled Susan Daniels into a
side room leaving Tyson and Fenton waiting in the long corridor
outside where they sat on a wooden bench in silence. Fenton leaned
his head back against the wall and turned to look along the length
of the corridor. An orderly was buffing the linoleum with an
electric polisher in a steady side to side motion some forty metres
away at the other end. A nurse, dressed in the pink uniform of a
first year student, flitted briefly across his field of view.
Distant sounds of children's voices echoed along the high Victorian
ceilings. He turned his attention to the posters of characters from
Disney which had been stuck up at intervals along the walls to
lighten the atmosphere. The sheer height of the walls swamped them
making them pathetic rather than effective.

A figure hurried towards them,
white coat billowing open. His eyes fell on Tyson, "Sorry sir,
'couldn't get here any sooner, we've got a mini-bus accident to
contend with."

Tyson nodded. "She's in there,"
he said.

Fenton noticed Tyson visibly
swither whether or not to join the registrar in the treatment room
and decide not to. It had been over twenty years since he had last
been involved in direct patient care.

A heavy trolley, being pushed
by two porters, swung erratically to the side as it passed them and
made them draw in their feet. Each porter blamed the other. Tyson
looked at his watch and displayed uncharacteristic irritation.
"Come on...come on," he muttered. Another two minutes had passed
before a nurse accompanied by an orderly appeared. They were
carrying transfusion equipment, the orderly weighed down on one
side by a green, plastic crate containing six blood packs. They
almost collided with the registrar who chose that moment to emerge
from the room. He ignored the new arrivals and came directly
towards Tyson. Fenton thought he looked embarrassed and had a sense
of foreboding.

"I'm sorry," said the
registrar, as if unable to believe what he was about to say, "We've
lost her."

Fenton felt pins and needles
break out all over his skin. 'We've lost her.' That's what they had
said on that awful night when Louise had died. The words echoed
inside his head rekindling every second of that hellish
moment.After the phone call he had run through the streets in the
pouring rain desperately trying to wave down a taxi but the weather
had made sure that they were all occupied. He had ended up running
the entire three miles to the hospital to stand there, dripping wet
under the daylight glare of the lights in casualty to be told that
his wife and child were dead. He remembered every pore on the face
of the house officer who had told him, the way he had touched the
frame of his glasses, the way he had looked at his feet. Now he
waited for the next line, 'We did all we could,' but it didn't
come. Instead, Tyson's voice broke the spell. "What do you mean,
'lost her'?" he asked hoarsely.

The registrar had gone a little
red in the face, "I'm sorry," he said, making a gesture with open
palms. "We couldn't stop the bleeding in time. It's as simple and
as awful as that."

"But why not?" insisted
Tyson.

The registrar made another
helpless gesture with his hands. "I'm afraid we really won't know
the answer to that until after the post-mortem.

Tyson got slowly to his feet
and walked past the registrar into the treatment room; Fenton
followed. The nurses melted back from the table to reveal the body
of Susan Daniels, very still and very white. Fenton thought that
she looked more beautiful than he had ever realised, like a pale
delicate flower that had been cut and left lying on its side. Soon
it would wither and fade. He was filled with grief and looked for
some mundane object to focus his eyes on while he regained control
of his emotions. He settled his gaze on a steel instrument tray and
kept it there.

On looking up he saw tears
running down the face of one of the nurses. He squeezed the girl's
shoulder gently and indicated to her that she should leave the
room. He himself followed a few moments later. He pretended to look
at one of the Disney posters while he waited for Tyson.

In the background Fenton could
hear Tyson and the registrar discussing the post-mortem
arrangements then he had the feeling that he was no longer alone.
He looked down to see a little boy dressed in pyjamas staring up at
him. His nose was running. The child did not say anything but had a
questioning look on his face. Fenton said, "Now where did you come
from?"

The child continued to stare at
him then said, "I want my mummy."

Fenton gently asked the boy his
name but before he could answer a distraught nurse appeared on the
scene. "Timothy Watson! So there you are!" She swept the child up
into her arms and said to Fenton, "You just can't turn your back on
this one for a moment or he's off!" The boy put his thumb in his
mouth and snuggled down on the nurse's shoulder."

"Good-bye Timothy," said Fenton
as the nurse walked away. He decided to walk back to the lab on his
own without waiting any longer for Tyson who was still deep in
discussion with the Casualty registrar.

It was already dark outside and
the sodium street lights glistened in the puddles of rain water as
he walked back towards the old villa. As he drew nearer he saw
three figures standing in the bay window of the main lab and knew
that they were waiting for news of Susan. One of them, Ian
Ferguson, came to the door to meet him. "How is she?" he asked.
Fenton stepped inside the hallway and saw everyone standing there.
"Susan's dead," he said softly, "She bled to death."