Chameleon

NINE

The possibility that Gordon Thomas Thelwell might actually be interfering with the sterility of surgical instruments before they were used in theatre was an idea so horrendous that Jamieson had great difficulty in even considering it without his sub-conscious sending up a stream of objections and telling him that there must be some mistake. Such a thing just could not be. This was the stuff of surreal nightmares, the province of the lunatic asylum. It had to be some wild figment of his imagination born out of his intense dislike of the man but still the thought would not go away.

Later, as he lay on the bed in early evening, staring idly up at the ceiling, something inside Jamieson's head kept telling him that he had to consider it. He had to think everything through logically and without emotion. He did not have the right to dismiss anything out of hand, however repellent the notion might be. Apart from anything else it was his job to consider all the possibilities. He should do it coldly and dispassionately and eliminate each of them one by one. Jamieson started out on the process feeling that he was starting out on a journey that he had very little heart for.

It was a fact that Thelwell had collected surgical instruments personally from the CSSD. To Jamieson's way of thinking, there could be no valid reason for him to have done so. The man was a consultant surgeon, not a porter, not a theatre orderly but a surgeon. If he had gone to pick them up personally then it could only have been because he had had some strong personal reason for doing so. He had wanted to get his hands on them before they reached the operating theatre. Why? What did he want to do with them? Jamieson knew that the answer would not appear out of the blue. This was something he would have to investigate. The time for thinking was over. It was time to do something.

Jamieson knew the reference numbers that were marked on the packs that Thelwell had collected earlier from CSSD. He had made a mental note of them when he examined the graphs from their sterilising records. He would go up to the Gynaecology Department and look for them. But first he had to make sure that Thelwell was no longer around. He checked his watch and saw that it was eight o'clock. The chances were that the surgeon had gone home ages ago but just in case he called the switchboard and asked them to page Thelwell. After a wait of two minutes the switchboard confirmed that Thelwell was not in the hospital.

Jamieson entered the Gynaecology Department by the side door deciding that the fewer people who saw him the better. He did not resort to hiding in corners but did however, pause at the head of the stairs until a nurse's footsteps had faded into the distance before turning the corner and hurrying quietly along the corridor. The gynaecology theatre was right at the far end. Two swing doors, each with a circular glass window and scrape marks where trolley handles had worn away the paint led through to an outer chamber where the orderlies brought their patients on operating days. Here they would be handed over to the care of the theatre team.

A vague smell of anaesthetic mingled with a stronger odour of disinfectant as Jamieson entered the main theatre and turned on the lights. The room was instantly bathed in bright, shadowless light. Although the air temperature was at least seventy degrees the stainless steel and ceramic tiling made the room seem cold. The gas cylinders on the anaesthetics trolley, scratched and scarred on their surface through continual re-cycling, seemed incongruous amidst otherwise unblemished metallic perfection. Jamieson rested his hand on a black oxygen cylinder with its white top and looked about him. A metal cupboard caught his eye and he remembered Thelwell telling him on his tour of the department that this was where the instruments were stored.

Jamieson was conscious of the sound of his own heart beating as he crossed the theatre floor and knelt down to open the cupboard. There were six packs of instruments inside. He examined each in turn and checked its number. Packs twelve to seventeen were present. Packs eighteen to twenty-four, the packs that Thelwell had taken from CSSD earlier in the day, were missing!

Jamieson closed the door slowly and put his hand to his forehead to massage it absently with his fingertips as he thought what to do next. It was already clear that Thelwell had not brought the instruments directly to the theatre. What had he done with the missing packs? Again, there was no way that Jamieson was going to come up with the answer by thinking about it. This matter had gone far enough. He would confront Thelwell face to face and ask him what the hell was going on. He returned to the residency and asked the switchboard for Thelwell's home number.

One of Thelwell's daughters answered. 'Father is out this evening. He has a choir practice. Whom shall I say called?'

'Don't bother. It's not important,' said Jamieson. He replaced the receiver.

Jamieson felt deflated. He had prepared himself mentally for the confrontation and now it hadn't happened. He had been thwarted by a choir practice. Frustration started to gnaw at his stomach. Thelwell seemed to go to a lot of choir practices, thought Jamieson, St Serf's Church, he remembered, the Te Deum. This would, he decided, not wait till morning. He would go along to the church and talk to Thelwell when he came out. He had put on his jacket and was about to leave his room when the phone rang.

'Macmillan here.'

'Who?'

'Macmillan… Sci Med, London.'

Jamieson apologised. He was more up-tight than he thought.

'The information you asked for. The bones belonged to one Mary Louise Chapman, reported missing by her husband last night. She was twenty eight years old and five months pregnant. Forensic identified her from dental records.'

'That was quick,' said Jamieson.

'Reports of missing women have taken on a new dimension in that particular city at the moment,' said Macmillan. 'All the stops are pulled out.'

'Of course,' said Jamieson. 'But it was still very quick.'

'In truth, the police suspected it might be Louise Chapman. They found her car parked in a lane at the back of the hospital.'

'I see,' said Jamieson.

'Am I to presume that this might have some direct relevance to your investigation?' asked Macmillan.

'It's possible,' said Jamieson. I'm not sure.'

'It sounds as if things up there are not as straight forward as one might have imagined?' said Macmillan.

'That's true,' said Jamieson, hoping that he would get away with not saying any more for the present.

'Need any help?'

'Not yet.'

'Keep in touch.'

Jamieson had obtained the address of St Serf's Church from the phone book. The good thing about looking for a church, he mused as he turned off into a leafy avenue west of Harden Road, was that you could see it a long way off. The spire of St Serf's had guided him for the last half mile until now when he was faced with having to find a parking space among the Volvos and other quality cars that were lined up outside the church hall. It was that kind of an area, pleasant, comfortable, pretty. The church itself stood in a well-tended graveyard and had Virginia creeper growing along its south wall. At the moment it was green but Jamieson could imagine it turning to red in the autumn and complementing the yellow leaves which would fall from the birch trees by the boundary wall.

In the end, Jamieson found a space some two hundred metres down the road. He was a bit close to the entrance to one of the driveways but not close enough, he reckoned, to constitute a real obstruction so he left the car and started to walk back towards the church. He could hear singing coming from the hall that was tacked on to the side of the main building and he could see lights on inside. He checked his watch. It was five minutes to ten. Maybe they would finish at ten?

Jamieson strolled up one side of the street and down the other. It was a nice evening. The gardens of the large houses had obviously benefited from the soaking they had had earlier in the day and the mixed scent of the flowers was heavy in the still evening air. It made him think of Kent and Susie. He was wondering how to go about telling her that he would not be coming home at the week-end when he saw that people were beginning to emerge from the church hall. He took up a position almost opposite the entrance to the hall and waited for Thelwell to emerge.

At first, the pavement outside the church was crowded with groups of people laughing and discussing how the evening had gone and Jamieson had to keep his wits about him to avoid missing Thelwell among the people he saw moving off. As the minutes passed and the crowds thinned, Jamieson found himself considering that somehow he had missed him. The slamming doors and starting cars were now becoming less frequent. The avenue was returning to its accustomed peace and quiet and he had still not seen Thelwell come out.

It was another ten minutes before a woman, carrying a bundle of papers under her arm and a key in her mouth, turned round as she emerged and locked the door. Jamieson, feeling bemused but still fairly confident that he had not missed Thelwell among the earlier crowds, approached her and excused himself.

'I was rather hoping to catch Gordon Thelwell this evening,' he said pleasantly. 'Could I have missed him?'

'Oh no,' exclaimed the woman. 'Mr Thelwell wasn't here this evening.'

'Oh,' said Jamieson working at keeping the surprise off his face.

'Are you sure?'

'Mr Thelwell hasn't been coming to practice for some time,' volunteered the woman. 'He's too busy at the hospital these days I understand. He's a surgeon you know. They've been having a bit of trouble with one thing and another.'

'Of course,' replied Jamieson distantly. 'I should have considered that.'

Jamieson sat behind the wheel of his car with another unpleasant discovery to digest. All these choir practises that Thelwell said he had been going to were a fabrication. A lie. What had he really been doing on these evenings? Where was he tonight? Was it relevant to the problem at the hospital?

Jamieson drove round in circles for a while, trying to make sense of it all before deciding finally to drive to the street where Thelwell lived. It was now his intention to confront Thelwell openly with what he had discovered. He parked the car on the other side of the road some fifty metres along from Thelwell's house and settled down to wait.

At eleven thirty, his vigil was rewarded. Thelwell's dark green Volvo estate car turned into the street and Jamieson prepared to get out of his car. He had expected Thelwell to park outside his house on the street or at least to get out to open the gates in front of his drive. On this pretext it had been his plan to intercept him on the pavement. But, in the event, Thelwell swung his car in towards the gates and they opened automatically at the signal from some device on the car. By the time Jamieson reached the house the gates had closed again and Thelwell was putting the car away in the garage.

Light spilled out into the garden from the open front door and Thelwell's wife was framed in the doorway. 'You're late dear,' Jamieson heard her say.

'The practice went on a bit longer than I thought and then I had a quick drink with Roger Denby,' replied Thelwell.

Thelwell was a very plausible liar, thought Jamieson. He had sounded perfectly natural when replying to his wife. He considered whether or not he should confront Thelwell there and then in front of his wife but then decided against it. For the moment it was enough for him to know that Thelwell had been lying to everyone, including his wife. He walked back to his car thoughtfully and drove back to the hospital.

The phone in his room was ringing when Jamieson got in. He hurriedly unlocked the door and rushed over to snatch it from its cradle, feeling certain that the caller would hang up the moment he touched it. It was Sue.

'Where have you been?' she asked. 'I've been trying your number for ages.'

'I had to go out,' said Jamieson weakly.

'Daddy has invited us to have dinner with him on Saturday. I said we'd be delighted.'

'Sue, there's a problem.'

'What do you mean?'

'I don't think I can come home this week-end.'

'But…' Sue's voice trailed off into silence.

'I'm sorry, really I am but the way things are going I just can't get away.'

'I see,' said Sue distantly. 'That's a pity. I had something to tell you.'

'Really? What?'

'It will have to wait for some time when you're not so busy.' The phone went dead.

'Shit,' said Jamieson quietly. It was unlike Sue to be like that. She must be very disappointed.

Jamieson was up at seven. He was washed, shaved and out of his room by seven thirty and had breakfasted. He was in his little room in the Microbiology department by eight. The morning cleaners were emptying waste paper baskets outside in the corridor. They pooled all the waste in a large bin which they wheeled around the department on a small wheeled bogie.

'It's getting so you are afraid to go out at night,' he heard one of them say.

'My Stan won't let me,' declared the other positively. 'Not after last night. It was less than quarter of a mile away from us!'

'Makes you think don't it.'

Jamieson felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. 'Last night? What had happened last night? He opened the door of his room and one of the cleaners clutched her arms across her chest in fright. 'Oh my God!' she exclaimed. 'You gave me such a fright. I thought for a moment you were him!'

'Who?' asked Jamieson.

'The maniac. The ripper,' replied the woman.

'You said something about last night,' said Jamieson.

'The swine killed another woman last night. I was just telling Ruby here. It was only half a mile down the road from where I stay.'

'Another woman?'

'Young lass. She'd just said good night to her boy friend. The bastard must have been waiting for her.'

'What are the police doing? That's what I want to know,' exclaimed the other woman angrily.

'Too right. It isn't safe to cross your door these nights. Them with their free uniforms and rent allowances.'

'And they retire on a big pension at fifty. My brother-in-law's boy Ronnie joined the police and I know for a fact…'

Jamieson withdrew from the conversation and closed his door. He could feel the pulse beating in his temple. He fought with his imagination but it insisted on giving him another nightmare thought to consider. There had been another death in the city and it had occurred on a night when Gordon Thomas Thelwell had said he was at choir practice. But he hadn't been. Jamieson knew that for a fact.

The enormity of what he was considering kept Jamieson paralysed in his seat while he worried about it. Could Thelwell not only be deliberately causing the deaths of women patients at the hospital but could he… could he possibly be the psychopath who was slaughtering women in the city? Could Thelwell be the ripper?

Jamieson started to think in practical terms and that meant obtaining hard evidence. He wondered about a correlation between the other killings and Thelwell's choir practice nights. Perhaps he could find out from St Serf's? He would think about that later. For the moment, his immediate priority was to obtain the surgical listing for the day in gynaecology. He called the theatre sister.

'Mr Morton is operating at ten. Will you be attending?'

Jamieson said that he would and said that on no account was the operation to begin without his being present.

'Very well doctor,' replied the sister, her voice betraying the puzzlement that she felt.

Jamieson called Blaney in the Central Sterile Supply Department and asked about the availability of spare instrument packs for surgery in gynaecology.

'We have about a dozen,' Blaney replied.

'I need three.'

'When?'

'Right now. I'm coming across to collect them.'

When Jamieson returned with the instruments he saw Clive Evans arrive in the car park and waited for him in the doorway to the lab. 'I want you to come with me to theatre this morning. Does that present any problems?'

'No I don't think so,' replied Evans. 'Are you going to tell me why?'

'I want you to remove some instrument packs and screen them for bacterial contamination.'

'If you say so,' said Evans. 'These ones too?' he asked seeing what Jamieson was carrying.

'No. These are the ones they are going to use,' said Jamieson. 'They just don't know it yet.' He looked at his watch and added, 'I'll stop by your office in fifteen minutes. We'll go up to Gynaecology together.'

Jamieson returned to his room and called Sci Med in London. Miss Roberts said that no one was available at the moment could he leave a message? Jamieson said that he needed to know the time of death of last night's killing in Leeds as soon as it was established. Miss Roberts said that she would pass on his request.

Jamieson's heart sank when he got to theatre and found Thelwell scrubbing up. Thelwell spoke first. 'I take it there's no objection to my being present as an observer in my own theatre?' he said acidly.

'None,' said Jamieson flatly. 'Provided that your swabs are still negative, you've applied nasal barrier cream, and you don't approach the table directly.'

'My swabs were always negative.' said Thelwell through tight lips. 'But I've used Naseptin as I always did in the past in any case.'

Jamieson joined Thelwell at the basins and started to scrub his hands and forearms. Clive Evans did the same.'

'I see we have a member of our esteemed Microbiology Department present,' sneered Thelwell. 'To what do we owe this honour?'

'I am here at Dr Jamieson's request,' said Evans without emotion.

'Ah yes,' said Thelwell with what for him, passed for a smile.

The surgical team of Phillip Morton, an assistant, the anaesthetist, the theatre sister and a junior nurse were waiting when Thelwell, Jamieson and Clive Evans joined them.

'May we begin?' asked Morton.

'Not yet,' said Jamieson. He turned to the theatre sister and asked, 'Sister will you please show me the instrument packs for this morning's operation.'

The nurse showed Jamieson the packs without comment and he examined the numbers. He had to swallow when he saw that they were different from the numbers on the packs that he had found in the cupboard the night before. These ones were the ones that had been missing from the cupboard! These were the ones that Thelwell had collected from CSSD personally! They must have been put into the cupboard at some time during the night. Jamieson went over to the cupboard and looked for the packs that had been in there. They had gone.

Jamieson turned round and said to Morton, 'I want you to use these instruments this morning.' He nodded to the packs that Evans was holding. 'Dr Evans is going to take the other ones away for analysis.'

'What on earth is going on?' exclaimed Morton.

'I'm sorry. Explanations will have to wait,' said Jamieson. 'Please just do as I ask.'

'Very good,' said Morton with a shrug of his shoulders.

'Wait!' interrupted Thelwell. 'Might I remind you all that this is still my department and my theatre. I demand to know what is going on!'

'Call it simply a spot check on surgical instruments,' said Jamieson. 'You have no objection to that have you Mr Thelwell?'

Jamieson could see the burning anger in Thelwell's eyes over the mask. 'I prefer to be kept informed of these things,' said Thelwell. 'Is that too much to ask?'

'Spot checks wouldn't be spot checks if they were advertised,' said Jamieson.

'May I proceed?' asked Phillip Morton with more than a trace of impatience in his voice.

'Of course,' said Jamieson. 'We are just leaving.'

As Clive Evans reached the door of the theatre he collided with Thelwell who had turned to leave at the same time. The instruments he had been carrying were scattered all over the floor outside the door.

'Clumsy oaf!' snorted Thelwell and disappeared out through the swing doors. Evans turned to face Jamieson, looking bemused. 'He deliberately barged into me!' he exclaimed.

Jamieson looked at the knives, scalpels and forceps lying all over the floor and sighed in frustration. The tests for sterility would now be useless. Evans began picking up the instruments. 'What do you want done with them?' he asked.

'Return them to CSSD for cleaning and sterilising,' said Jamieson. 'I'm going to have a word with Mr Thelwell.

Jamieson was furious at what Thelwell had done but he was also afraid of what it inferred. If Thelwell had deliberately bumped into Evans, it must mean that he had done it to prevent microbiological examination of the instruments. It had been a clever thing to do on the spur of the moment. Quick thinking, clever and devious. Wasn't that how Ryan had listed the hallmarks of the psychopath?

Jamieson found Thelwell in his office opening letters. His secretary had not been in the outer office so Jamieson had simply pushed open the door which had not been properly closed. At first Thelwell was unaware that he was standing there. He was obviously still in a temper and it showed in the way he was opening the envelopes with what a silver paper knife. He inserted the blade at a corner with momentary precision and then ripped each envelope open with a single upwards slash. Jamieson cleared his throat and Thelwell stopped what he was doing and looked up.

'What do you want?' he snapped. 'Or is it another spot test?' He punctuated the remark with a snort.

Jamieson had to work at keeping the anger he felt under control. He said, 'You have just prevented the examination of the surgical instruments in your theatre by spreading them all over the floor. I think that demands some explanation.'

'What the hell are you talking about?' rasped Thelwell. 'That idiot from Microbiology barged right into me. A typical Richardson protege. Now, if you will be so kind, I have things to do.' Thelwell sat down and started to read his mail. He pretended that Jamieson was no longer standing there.

Jamieson said slowly and quietly, 'I want to know exactly what you did with the instruments you collected from CSSD yesterday.' He watched Thelwell carefully for his reaction.

Thelwell stopped reading, settled back in his chair and let out his breath in a long, slow sigh. 'My, we have been busy,' he said.

Jamieson waited for his answer.

'I brought them back here.'

'Where?'

'Here, to my department.'

'Why should a consultant surgeon play at being a hospital porter?' asked Jamieson slowly.

'Because this consultant surgeon cares enough about his patients to monitor the sterilising of the instruments to be used in their operations and then make sure that they are not tampered with before they are used.'

Jamieson found himself taken unawares by the directness of Thelwell's answer. He had to be careful. He wasn't dealing with a fool. Was the man just clever? Or very clever? Clever enough to pretend that he was investigating the very act that he could see he was about to be accused of?

'Tampered with?' said Jamieson.

'It occurred to me that this was a possibility,' said Thelwell.

'I see,' replied Jamieson. He tried to trap Thelwell by saying, 'So yesterday you brought the instruments up to the theatre from CSSD and put them away in the theatre instrument cupboard yourself?'

'Not exactly,' said Thelwell, walking round the trap. 'I kept them locked away in my desk overnight. I put them in theatre this morning shortly before the operation was about to commence.'

'And the instruments that already were in theatre?'

Thelwell unlocked the cupboard in the left pedestal of his desk and brought out the packs he had substituted. 'I was going to take them back to CSSD for re-sterilising.'

'Have you any reason to believe that instruments have been tampered with?' Jamieson asked.

'Just a precaution,' replied Thelwell. 'But I felt it was warranted. As the same thought has obviously occurred to you, you can hardly argue the point.'

Jamieson stayed silent.

Thelwell said, 'I can assure you that the instruments Evans dropped on the floor were absolutely sterile and had been under lock and key here in my office ever since they were removed from the autoclave in CSSD.'

'I see,' said Jamieson. He had not managed to trick Thelwell into lying or saying anything that might not conceivably be true. 'Perhaps we can compromise?'

'On what?'

'On an agreed procedure for sterilising and storing instruments and dressings,' said Jamieson.

'What do you have in mind?'

'I suggest that instruments are not stored in the theatres at all. I suggest that they are collected fresh from CSSD immediately before they are required.'

Thelwell thought for a moment and then said, 'Agreed.'

'I'll take these back down with me,' said Jamieson nodding to the packs from Thelwell's desk. Thelwell handed them over.

Jamieson returned to his room in the lab after setting up the new procedure for instruments with CSSD and the administration people. Moira Lippman asked if he had a moment to speak. He said that he had but then his phone rang. It was Macmillan from Sci Med.

'Time of death on the murder in Leeds last night has been set at some time between ten thirty and eleven.'

Jamieson thanked him and put down the phone. He had been hoping for a time of death after eleven thirty when Thelwell had returned home but that comfort had been denied to him. He tapped the end of his pen on the desk while he thought. Behind him, Moira Lippman cleared her throat to remind him of her presence.

'Sorry,' he said. 'I was miles away.'

'I repeated your tests on the Pseudomonas,' she said.

Jamieson smiled. 'What happened?'

'You were quite right. There were three significant differences in terms of biochemistry. In fact I did some extra tests and found two more.'

'Five?' exclaimed Jamieson.

Moira Lippman nodded. 'Very strange,' she said. 'In fact one might almost think that… No, it's silly.'

'What is?'

'No, really. It isn't worth mentioning.' With that Moira Lippman turned on her heel and left Jamieson alone again.

Jamieson reflected for a moment on how much he hated when people did that.

The first indication that all was not well in the post-surgical care ward in the Gynaecology department, came at three thirty when Hugh Crichton called Jamieson and said, 'You did ask to be kept informed of any other surgical infections breaking out in the hospital?'

'Yes.'

'It's beginning to look as if several women in surgical gynaecology who had their operations within the last ten days have developed fever and signs of wound infection.'

Jamieson closed his eyes for a moment then said, 'Go on.'

'There's not much more to report really. Samples are on their way down to the lab for bacteriology. I just thought you should know.'

'How are the women?' asked Jamieson.

Crichton cleared his throat nervously before replying, 'They are rather ill actually. It all happened very suddenly and their condition has been worsening all the time.'

'Thanks for telling me.'

Jamieson put the phone down and cradled his head in his hands for a moment while he thought. More infection and again in Thelwell's unit. If the damned Pseudomonas strain was responsible again the whole place would have to be closed down. There was no alternative. He went to talk to Clive Evans.

'I've just heard,' said Evans when Jamieson entered. 'The specimens will be here at any moment.

'So you will know by tomorrow morning if it's the Pseudomonas to blame?'

'Tomorrow for sure but we can do a few microscope slides on the specimens directly. We should be able to get an idea from them.'

'How long?'

'Half an hour.'

'Let me know as soon as you have a result, will you?'

'Of course.'

Jamieson was trying to call Sue for the fourth time that day and still without success when Clive Evans came into the room. Jamieson could see that he had the results of the primary tests. He replaced the receiver.

'I've just had a look at the stained slides,' said Evans.

'And?' asked Jamieson anxiously.

'I don't think it's the Pseudomonas.

'You don't?' exclaimed Jamieson.

'They're Gram positive cocci rather than Gram negative rods.'

'So what do you think?'

'All the indications at the moment are that it's a Staphylococcus infection,' said Evans.

'A different infection?' said Jamieson sounding bemused.

'It seems to be, but we won't know for sure until the morning when the cultures have had time to grow up.'

Jamieson turned away, wresting inside his head with the implications of what Evans had said. 'Another outbreak of post-operative infection in the same unit but caused by a completely different bug?' he murmured.

'That's how it looks,' said Evans. He could see that Jamieson was deep in thought so he said, 'If you'll excuse me, I've got things to do.'

'Thanks,' said Jamieson absently.

Jamieson walked over to Gynaecology at six thirty. The condition of the infected women in had worsened and there had been speculation that some of them might actually die before morning if the right antibiotic was not found. The choice of antibiotic treatment had already caused disharmony between Thelwell and his team. They were all agreed that penicillin was proving ineffectual. This was not too surprising because most hospital strains of Staphylococcus had become resistant to the drug over the years but Thelwell's insistence that Cephalosporin should continue to be used and Morton's insistence that it was having not having an effect either was causing tight lipped anger all round. Jamieson intervened to suggest that they treat the women with more than one antibiotic at the same time. After a brief discussion they agreed on a regime of three drugs with close monitoring of the patients' condition so that the regime could be altered if it was proving ineffectual.

Jamieson took the ward sister to one side and asked her about the infected patients. 'How many patients do you have in the ward Sister?'

'Seventeen.'

'And of these only eight have become infected?'

'So far,' said the sister.

'Do the eight have anything in common?' asked Jamieson.

'I don't understand.'

'I'm looking for the reason why eight of the seventeen patients have developed wound infections and the other nine didn't. Did they all have their operation on the same day? In the same theatre? Were the operations performed by the same surgeon? That sort of thing.'

'I'll check for you.'

Jamieson followed the woman to the ward duty room and waited while she checked the records. He became aware that his presence at her shoulder was making her uncomfortable so he turned away and looked at some post-cards pinned up on the wall until she had finished. Two were views of sun-splashed beaches in the Mediterranean; the rest were saucy sea-side cards almost invariably featuring large bosomed nurses and captions of the 'Blimey Nurse!' sort.

'Only two had their operations on the same day,' said the sister. 'Some operations were carried out by Mr Thelwell others by Mr Morton. Some were done in Gynae; three were done in the Orthopaedic theatre. No obvious common factor.'

'There must be one,' maintained Jamieson. 'If they all became infected at the same time there must be one.'

'I can't think,' said the sister.

'Nor can I at the moment,' agreed Jamieson, racking his brain. 'But there has to be a common link. There are just too many for it to be chance wound infection with an airborne bug.'

A nurse came into the duty room and apologised for interrupting before saying, 'Sister, it's Mrs Galbraith. She's very ill.'

The ward sister left the room. Jamieson could hear cries of pain coming from the ward. He left and returned to the residency.

As he climbed the stairs Jamieson thought he heard a slight sound on the first landing as if someone were standing there. He paused but now could hear nothing. Normally this would not have merited any consideration at all but his nerves were taut. There was something strange going on in this hospital, maybe even something evil. The knowledge brought fear and suspicion with it. He continued up to the head of the stairs but was cautious about turning the corner. The thought that someone was lurking there had become almost unbearably strong. He made noise with his feet to suggest that his next step would bring him round the corner and then drew back his right fist. An arm emerged from the shadow and Jamieson prepared to let fly. He only just managed to stop himself in time when he caught a glimpse of the wrist and realised that it was a woman's.

'What the hell!' he exclaimed grabbing the figure by both wrists and pulling her out of the shadows.

'Steady on!' said Sue. 'Why so jumpy?'

Jamieson was speechless with surprise and dismay at what had almost happened. 'What on earth!' he exclaimed. 'I nearly laid you out.'

'I can think of better welcomes,' said Sue. 'Why so nervous?'

'What are you doing here?' exclaimed Jamieson. 'I've been trying to contact you all day.'

'Do we have to speak on the stairs?'

Jamieson opened his door and they both went inside.

'I was feeling guilty about how I treated you on the phone yesterday so I thought I would come up and say I was sorry. The people in the gate-house told me where you were staying. I saw you start to cross the courtyard when I came in the front door so I thought I would give you a surprise.'

Jamieson shook his head and took her in his arms to hold her close. He was still upset at what had happened. 'You're crazy,' he murmured.

'Some welcome.'

'I'm sorry. It's lovely to see you but…'

'Relax. I don't intend interfering in anything. Daddy has arranged accommodation for me in the town so I won't be in your way.'

'Your father?' said Jamieson.

'Don't go all cold on me,' said Sue. 'He doesn't interfere a lot in our lives and you know it. He has money and he likes to see me happy so where's the harm? I wanted to be near you especially right now.'

'Why right now?' asked Jamieson.

'Because I'm pregnant,' replied Sue.