Fenton's winter

FOUR

The following morning brought yet more wind and rain and Fenton, who had harboured a lifelong hatred of wind, found his patience strained to the limit. "Will it never let up!" he growled as he opened the curtains to look on wet roofs and whirling chimney pots. "Another wrestling match with the bike."

Jenny was about to point out the merits of four wheeled transport but then thought better of it for there was no need, she reasoned. She looked at the black sky. Another couple of weeks of this and it could be a nice little Ford by the Spring.

Fenton arrived at the lab with water running off the front of his leathers like a mountain stream. The letter box in the heavy front door of the lab rattled in the wind as he stood in the outer hall peeling them off with hands that had gone numb with cold. He hung them up as best he could and opened the inner glass door, blowing his fingers in an attempt to restore circulation.

"And Jack the shepherd blows his nail…" said Ian Ferguson.

"Pardon?"

"Shakespeare," said Ferguson.

"Oh," said Fenton, following him into the common room where he found Alex Ross speaking to Mary Tyler.

Mary Tyler had previously been employed on a part time basis in the department but had been coerced back into working full time by Charles Tyson since the demise of Neil Munro and Susan Daniels. "Good morning Mary, back to getting up early in the morning eh?" Mary Tyler replied that, with three young children, she was always up early. Fenton poured himself some coffee and warmed his fingers on the mug.

Charles Tyson arrived, brushing the rain from the shoulders of his overcoat as he put his head round the common room door. He asked that Fenton go up to see him when he was ready. Fenton allowed Tyson enough time to reach his office and take off his wet things before joining him. He waited patiently while the consultant organised his papers and settled into the seat behind his desk. "It's about the Saxon report," said Tyson still rearranging piles of paper.

"I left it on your desk," said Fenton.

"The sterilising records are missing from it."

"What sterilising records?" asked Fenton.

"We have to include details of how we sterilised the plastic samplers for the machine."

"I didn't find any records among Neil's things."

"Damn. He must have been aware of the fact."

"Perhaps they are still down at the Sterile Supply Department?" suggested Fenton.

"Would you check and let me know?"

Fenton said that he would, adding that he was just about to go up to the administration block anyway. He would call in to see Sister Kincaid on his way back. "Nigel Saxon told me that they were confident of getting a license for their machine by the end of the month," he said.

"I heard that too," said Tyson. "And from the number of phone calls I've been getting from the Scottish Office about this damned report I don't think he is being overly optimistic. All the stops have been pulled out for Saxon.

"Friends in high places?"

Tyson grunted.

"It's funny when you think about it," said Fenton.

"What is?"

"The Scottish Office with their trouser legs rolled up."

Tyson smiled but did not say anything.

Fenton saw from a ground floor window that the rain had slackened off and decided to sprint up to the main hospital without changing out of his lab coat. He ran up the drive and took the stone steps three at a time to reach the shelter of the main entrance. A domestic, dressed in green overalls, was polishing a brass plaque set in the wood panelling, placed there in remembrance of some long forgotten names. The woman looked down at his feet and the muddy prints he had just made on the mosaic floor. "Sorry," he said. The woman shook her head and returned to her polishing without comment. A nurse was having an argument over laundry baskets with a porter as he passed along the main corridor.

"I'm telling you! Ward ten gets…" The voices trailed off behind Fenton and merged with new sounds, clangs from ward kitchens, children's yells, hurrying feet. He reached Jenny's ward just as she was crossing the corridor with a steel tray in her hand.

"What brings you out of your ivory tower?" she asked.

Fenton told her that he was on his way to the administration block to sort out some misunderstanding over service contracts taken out on lab equipment.

"What's the problem?" asked Jenny.

"Archaic equipment and no money to replace it."

"So what's new? Do you have time for a cup of tea?"

"A quick one."

Fenton was sipping his tea in the ward side room when a student nurse came in looking ashen faced. Jenny put down her cup and got to her feet. "What's the matter?" she asked.

Another nurse came into the room. "It's Belle Wilson," she said, "She's dead. I think she killed herself."

"The ward maid," said Jenny in answer to Fenton's look. They followed the second nurse next door to the sluice room where a small, middle aged woman, dressed in green overalls, was lying slumped over one of the large white porcelain sinks. Her eyes were wide and lifeless, her right arm dangled limply in the sink in a pool of red.

"She cut her wrist," said the nurse.

Jenny felt for a pulse in the woman's neck but knew that it was useless. She was quite dead.

Fenton stared at the marble white face under the crop of recently dyed red hair and thought that she looked like a clown lying over a theatrical basket.

"I'll phone the front office," said Jenny quietly.

Fenton was left alone in the room. He looked more closely at the woman's wrist. There was something odd about it. He looked even closer. The cut was not in her wrist at all. It was in the palm of her hand! He went to find the nurse who had discovered her and asked, "What was Belle Wilson doing before she cut herself?"

The nurse was taken aback, "I'm not sure," she stammered.

"Think!" said Fenton.

"Eer…eer…Cleaning vases. I remember now Staff Nurse asked her to wash out the flower vases."

"Where?" asked Fenton looking about him. "In here?"

"Next door," said the nurse, "In the broom cupboard."

"Show me."

Fenton followed the nurse into a small, dark, wood panelled room that smelt strongly of Lysol. His foot hit noisily off a metal bucket before the nurse had had time to find the light switch behind a forest of brush and mop handles. They saw the broken glass on the floor. Fenton knelt down to gather the pieces.

"She must have dropped one," said the nurse, still puzzled at Fenton's behaviour.

"Any more bits?" asked Fenton.

"There by the sink."

Fenton picked up a jagged piece of glass from the draining board and saw the red stains on it. He swore under his breath.

"I don't understand," said the nurse.

Belle Wilson cut herself accidentally on the broken vase and bled to death from a cut on her palm. She didn't deliberately cut her own wrist. She was murdered. She's another victim of that bloody lunatic."

Fenton found Jenny in the sluice room and told her what he had discovered. She approached the body and bent over the sink to examine the dead woman's hand. She could now see that, as Fenton had said, the river of red emanated from a deep wound on her palm, not her wrist. "Look at the blood in the sink," said Fenton.

"What about it?"

"It's still liquid. It hasn't clotted."

The police were on the scene quickly, being already on hospital premises with a mobile incident room that had been parked behind the administration block since the death of Neil Munro. Fenton called Tyson at the lab to say that he was going to be delayed and why. He was still on the telephone when Inspector Jamieson came into the duty room and found him there. He waited till Fenton had put down the receiver then continued to look at him without saying anything. Fenton could almost hear his mind working.

"Well, well, Mr Fenton," growled Jamieson, "A bit out of our way aren't we?"

"I was just passing," said Fenton limply.

It was another forty minutes before Fenton was allowed to leave the ward and continue on up to the management offices, an errand that he now had little patience for, knowing how far behind with his work he was slipping.

Fenton was waiting for a clerk to return with the relevant file when Nigel Saxon appeared at his elbow and read the frustration in his face. "Trouble old boy?"

Fenton told him what the problem was. Saxon was less than sympathetic. "I love hearing about problems with our competitors. Now, if you were to buy a Saxon Analyser…"

"This is the National Health Service," said Fenton by way of an answer.

"What on earth is going on?" asked Saxon noticing people scurrying about. Fenton told him.

"Another one? Dear God."

Fenton asked Saxon what he was doing there.

"Lunch with the health board, their way of saying thank-you for the disposables." said Saxon.

"Bon appetit," said Fenton.

The clerk returned with the service contract file and Fenton flicked through the pages to find the relevant section with Saxon looking over his shoulder. "Damnation," he said softly, "The company are right; there's a clause excluding the main transformer board. We'll have to pay."

Two orderlies were loading a steriliser with goods taken from a metal trolley as Fenton entered the Central Sterile Supply Department. They lined up the heavy cage with the rails on the floor of the chamber and slid it slowly inside, taking care that nothing tumbled off. On the other side of the room three women, wearing white overalls and hair nets, were sifting through a massive pile of forceps, wrapping each pair individually and placing them in an assembly tray. Fenton walked over to them. "Sister Kincaid?"

"In her office," said one of the women, pointing with the instruments she held in her hand.

Moira Kincaid looked up from her desk as Fenton's shadow crossed the glass panel on her door. She motioned him to enter and asked to what she owed the honour of a visit. Fenton told her what he was looking for and got a positive reaction. "They are here," said Moira Kincaid. She opened her desk drawer and withdrew a pink cardboard folder. "I didn't know what was to happen to them but they are all in here." Fenton flicked through the papers and said, "This seems to be what's required."

"They are just simple record sheets of the sterilising cycles used for Dr Munro's samplers. They are all the same, just the standard run."

"Pieces of paper to you and I Sister," said Fenton, "But a career to some others not a million miles from here." He was still angry about a contract exclusion that he felt the administrators should have picked up on at the time of signing. Through the glass panel he saw a porter come into the sterilising bay and speak to one of the orderlies. Shortly afterwards the orderly burst into the office. "Have you heard Sister? There's been another murder!"

Moira Kincaid looked at Fenton who nodded and said, "A maid in ward twelve."

As he left the office and closed the door behind him Fenton heard a warning buzzer sound and the ventilation fans turn on. He paused to watch the orderlies he had seen earlier lower their face visors and pull on heavy gauntlets. They manoeuvred a trolley into position and the door to one of the autoclaves swung open letting steam fill the white tiled area like a Turkish bath before the fans started to deal with it. They locked their trolley on to the guide rails and pulled out the load cage, grunting with the effort as one of the wheels refused to engage properly. Fenton saw the number above the autoclave and realised that this was the steriliser that had been used in Neil Munro's murder. He shivered involuntarily at the thought. Even with its huge mouth open and its insides empty the shiny steel cavern seemed full of menace. Just a machine, he reasoned. It had no mind of its own. It was only obeying orders but whose orders? That was the question.

Fenton walked out through the swing doors and climbed the stairs to ground level wondering just what it was about the Sterile Supply Department that he disliked so intensely. As he reached the top of the stairs he realised what it was; it didn't have any windows. It was situated in a basement and lit entirely by artificial light, white fluorescent light that made everyone look sickly pale.

Charles Tyson was taking news of the latest death badly. Fenton thought that he had never seen him look so ill and was very much aware of the change that had come over Tyson since the start of the killings; the man had aged quite visibly. The pastel shirts that he favoured now seemed several collar sizes too large and a universal greyness had descended on him, making even the stubble shadow on his face seem grey against the winter pallor of his skin. Fenton had begun to wonder whether or not the strain was the only reason for the change or whether there might be some underlying clinical reason for it.

Fenton respected Tyson. He did not know if he liked him for the truth was that he hardly knew the man. He doubted whether anyone did for Tyson was a very private person. As head of department he was excellent but that was the only role anyone had ever seen him play. Neil Munro had told him once that Tyson had served in the army and had seen active service in Korea but that and the fact that he was not married was about the sum total of his knowledge of the man.

"Seems fine," said Tyson looking through the folder that Fenton had brought him. Fenton told him about the problem with the service contract. "How much is it going to cost?"

"Seven hundred pounds."

"All because somebody in the office didn't read the small print. This will practically wipe out all the benefit the hospital gained from the free supply of plastic disposables from Saxon Medical," said Tyson shaking his head.

"You could kick up hell at the next board meeting," said Fenton.

Tyson shook his head again and said, "No, they would only close ranks. Besides I don't want to antagonise the management at the moment. I was thinking of trying for one of these new analysers for the lab. Rumour has it that there's some charity money up for grabs."

"What are the chances?" asked Fenton.

"Who knows? Actually, I was thinking it might strengthen our case if we could reuse the plastic samplers. They work out quite expensive if we have to throw them away each time."

"I could run some tests," suggested Fenton.

"You have enough on your plate at the moment," said Tyson.

"It shouldn't take long," said Fenton I could get the lab staff to volunteer a few drops of blood, run the samples through the analyser, autoclave the samplers a few times then re-run the samples. Compare the values before and after sterilising?"

"If you really think you could manage?" said Tyson thoughtfully.

"No problem," said Fenton.

It was late in the afternoon, as Fenton was trying to cajole Mary Tyler into providing a blood sample for the new tests, that Nigel Saxon came into the lab to collect a copy of the final report on the Blood Analyser. "Don't give into him Mary whatever he's after," joked Saxon. "Now, if you would care to have dinner with me this evening…"

"I'm a respectable married woman," protested Mary Tyler.

"They're always the worst," grinned Saxon.

"As you are here Nigel…" said Fenton in a tone of voice that put Saxon on the defensive.”What are you after?" he asked suspiciously.

"Your blood," said Fenton. "Quite literally." He told Saxon that he was collecting blood samples from 'volunteers' to run some new tests on the Saxon Analyser. It could even lead to a sale, he confided. Saxon agreed as did Mary Tyler, Ian Ferguson, Alex Ross and four of the others.

"When?" asked Saxon.

"Before you leave if that's all right?" said Fenton. Saxon said that it was but seemed a bit dubious about the whole business. He came back after collecting the report from Charles Tyson and was led into a small side room by Fenton. "Slip off your jacket and roll up your sleeve." Saxon did as he was bid and sat down with his arms on the table in front of him. He looked nervous.

Fenton finished rummaging in a drawer and joined Saxon at the table holding a piece of rubber tubing in his hand. "I'll just wrap this around your upper arm," he said. "Perhaps you could hold it there?" Saxon reached across and held the tubing in place while Fenton slapped the inside of his arm to make the veins stand out. He slipped a sterile needle on to the end of a disposable ten ml. syringe, swabbed the exposed area of Saxon's arm with an alcohol impregnated swab and pushed the needle smoothly into the vein. Dark red blood flooded into the syringe until it had reached the ten ml. mark then Fenton withdrew it and pressed another alcohol impregnated swab over the site of entry. "Just hold that there for a moment," he said to Saxon.

With the sample safely in its container and the container in the fridge Fenton held Saxon's jacket for him while he put it back on. Saxon said, "I hope my father appreciates what I do for our company!"

He suffixed the remark with a loud laugh but Fenton noticed the beads of sweat along Saxon's forehead. He really had been afraid.

It was nearly a quarter past seven when Fenton finally got through with his day's work. Thinking that he was the last one left in the lab he was surprised to see a light on under one of the doors when he came downstairs. It made him feel a little uneasy. He crossed the hall quietly and listened outside the door for a few seconds. There was no sound from inside. He opened the door cautiously and looked in startling Alex Ross who had been sitting writing. "Good God, you nearly gave me a heart attack," said Ross.

"Sorry. You're here late this evening."

"The monthly accounts," said Ross. "I didn't have time during the day."

"Fancy a drink?"

"Good idea," said Ross, putting down his pen and rubbing his eyes. "I've had quite enough for one day."

The two men walked the short distance to the Thistle Arms and joined the early evening drinkers. It was a grimy little pub that relied much more on the custom of regulars than passing trade. Little or no concession had been made to decor and it remained essentially a Scottish man's pub, a place where still the presence of a woman would be frowned upon. The solid Victorian bar counter was highly polished but bore the scars of countless generations of carelessly stubbed cigarettes while the floor was covered in linoleum that had once been green but was now an indeterminate dark shade under the dim, inadequate lighting.

Several solitary drinkers sat at tables along a wall, their faces bearing tell tale signs of a life that had been none too kind; escape lay in the amber fluid in front of them. A few small groups chatted at the bar, men on their way home, some still carrying the badges of their trade. A railway guard in his gendarme's cap, a security guard with his hat moulded to suggest that he was really Burt Lancaster in Submarine Alley, an insurance agent in grubby raincoat with battered briefcase. A noisy group of students sat in the corner, savouring the haunts of the working man but retaining their university scarves as an insurance of distance.

The two barmen were of the old school, spotless white aprons and hands that were never idle, constantly wiping imaginary spillages from the counter, eyeing the levels in the glasses along the bar, anticipating where the next order would come from. The smaller of the two, narrow shouldered and bespectacled, looked up as Ross and Fenton approached. "Still cold outside?" he asked.

"Freezing," said Ross. He ordered whisky for them both.

As they stood at the bar Fenton ran his eye along the gantry noting that nearly all the space was taken up by whisky, a good range of single malts and nearly every known blended variety. Other spirits were represented by solitary bottles. The contents of the glasses along the counter reflected the stock on the gantry, and probably constituted the reason for it, with the traditional 'half and a pint' clearly to the fore. He took comfort from the fact that some things never seemed to change. It might be a sociologist's nightmare but in certain places in Scotland drinking remained a man's game.

Ross threw back his head and drained his glass, declining Fenton's offer of a second drink and pleading 'hell from the wife' as a legitimate excuse. Fenton wished him good night and ordered another for himself. The barman handed him a copy of the evening paper to look at and said that Rangers had bought another English player.

"Really?" said Fenton, not having any interest in football but feeling obliged to display some reaction.

"Not that it will do them any good," said another man at the bar, taking the strain off Fenton and diverting the barman's attention.

Fenton drank up his beer and went to the lavatory. It was a dingy, brick-built cellar that had been painted so many times that the grouting between the bricks had all but disappeared. Rust clung to the pipework and old iron cisterns fixed to the wall above the urinal. He stood there, head tilted to one side to read the graffiti and heard the door open behind him. But no one joined him at the wall.

Feeling more comfortable Fenton zipped his fly and turned round to find two men standing there, they were looking straight at him. The older of the two, a thickset man wearing leather jacket and jeans came towards him, the other remained leaning against the exit door. Without saying anything the first man swung his fist into Fenton's stomach with a power that suggested he might once have done it for a living. Fenton's eyes opened wide as he doubled over but only in time to meet the boot that was directed up into his face. His cheek bone shattered in a haze of pain.

The whole affair seemed to be being conducted in absolute silence, no jeers, no insults, no words, just the cold, professional application of pain. The boot swung in again, this time into Fenton's ribs, overloading his appreciation of agony; he felt consciousness slip away from him. The frustration of not even being able to protest vied with the pain for his receding attention as he slid slowly down the wall, feeling the porcelain of the urinal cold against his cheek before his face finally came to rest in the gutter at the bottom. The stench that filled his nostrils made him vomit weakly, adding to the cocktail of blood and urine. The boot thudded into him again but it was by now a long way from Fenton who had drifted off into oblivion.

Fenton emerged sporadically from the darkness to snatch an occasional sight or sound, a flashing blue light was reflected in glass somewhere, rain drops caressed his forehead, a hand touched him gently. There was a moustache…a cap…a siren that never faded into the distance, search light beams on a low ceiling, voices, but far away…very far away.

Fenton surfaced from the blackness and opened his eyes to find everything still and bright. He stared upwards till the object he had elected to focus his attention on resolved itself into a light fitting. There were dead flies in it. He took a deep breath and, in doing so, attracted the attention of a nurse who now saw that his eyes were open. Her voice was soft and gentle. "So you're back with us," she said

Fenton opened his mouth to ask where he was and a flight of burning arrows tore into his cheek. His gasp brought a gentle chide from the nurse; the soft voice said, "Lie still…rest…don't try to speak."

Three days had passed before Fenton could sit up and concern himself with the more humdrum matters of life like the itch that persisted inside the heavy strapping on his ribs, the whereabouts of his motor bike, his jacket, the unpaid electricity bill in the pocket. He attempted to smile when Jenny came to see him but immediately wished that he had not when his broken cheek bone did not see the funny side of things. He had been able to give the police good descriptions of his attackers but no clue as to motive. It had been just a mindless act of violence.

The novelty of grapes, Lucozade and get well soon cards began to wear thin after a couple of days; Fenton was now well enough to feel bored stiff and said so with increasing frequency to the nursing staff who, had heard it all before. But his persistent badgering paid off on Friday when he was allowed to go home by taxi after promising to take things easy. He was just in time to see Jenny's brother Grant who was on the point of leaving for home with his son Jamie who was wearing a patch over one eye. Fenton asked how the boy had got on at the hospital.

"The surgeons decided that they should delay operating until he's a little older, maybe next year." said Grant.

Fenton looked down at the little boy who was staring up at the plasters on Fenton's face. It was as if they both suddenly realised that they had a lot in common and an instant rapport was struck. Fenton bent down and asked the boy about the toy fire engine that he was carrying.

Grant looked at his watch and announced that he and Jamie would have to be off. He thanked Jenny and shook Fenton's hand before ushering Jamie out the door.

Jenny closed the door and looked at Fenton. "You should still be in hospital," she accused.

Fenton smiled and said, "It's good to be home."

Jenny kissed him. "It's good having you home."

By the following Wednesday Fenton was climbing the wall with boredom. Still confined to the flat he made endless cups of tea, pacing up and down between times with occasional pauses to look out at the rain. He telephoned Charles Tyson at the lab to be told that he was out at a meeting. He did speak to Ian Ferguson for a while but ran out of things to say after being assured that the lab was coping well despite his absence.

In mid- afternoon Fenton answered a ring of the door-bell to find Nigel Saxon standing there.

"How's the invalid?" asked Saxon.

The conversation, as most conversations involving Saxon usually did, degenerated into talk of women, cars and booze but it did cheer Fenton up and made him smile for the first time in days. In addition Saxon announced that he was giving a dinner party for everyone in the lab to celebrate the successful conclusion to trials on the Saxon Analyser.

"When?" asked Fenton.

"Saturday evening."

"Where?"

"The Grange Hotel. It's not too far from the lab so the duty staff will be within bleeper range and can flit back and forth if necessary.

Jenny arrived home with the news that she would be going on night duty after the week end. "But I'm off all this week end," she added in response to Fenton's expression.

"Good, then we can go to the party." said Fenton. He told her about Saxon's invitation.

On Friday morning Fenton visited his general practitioner to be declared fit to return to work. Having had no need of a doctor in the past year he had neglected to re-register with a practitioner nearer his home and so had to cross town to the doctor he had originally been listed with when he had first arrived in the city.

Was this really the system envied by the world? he wondered as he sat in a crowded room surrounded by peeling wall paper and coughing people. The windows hadn't been cleaned for decades by the look of them and there was a strong smell of cats' urine about the place. Three back copies of Punch, a two minute consultation and he was free of the system but not the despondency it inspired.

The return bus took an age to cross town and Fenton had to keep clearing the window with his sleeve to see where he was for the atmosphere on the top deck was heavy and damp and reeked of stale cigarette smoke. A fat woman, weighed down with shopping bags plumped herself down beside him, her face glowing with the exertion of having climbed the stairs. The smell of sweat mingling with the tobacco proved to be the last straw for Fenton. He got off at the next stop and walked through the rain; he was soaked to the skin by the time he reached the flat.