Gallery Whispers

34

Legend has it that there is in Newcastle a hospital ward which is largely populated by drinkers of a famous local ale. By the same token it is said that Edinburgh's orthopaedic hospital provision exists mainly to patch together the victims of motorcycle accidents.

Neither fable stands up to close examination. In particular, the East of Scotland's reputation for excellence in reconstructive surgery is founded on decades of exceptional work with patients, many of them children, suffering from congenital or degenerative conditions.

Dalkeith Orthopaedic Centre had been open for less than a year, Detective Sergeant Steve Steele learned from the plaque on the wall of its main entrance. He vaguely remembered the wrangling which had preceded the decision of the previous government to commit funds to the project, public and surgical opinion having been at odds over the construction of a specialist unit in times of financial shortage.

Eventually, the Ministers of the day had given the nod to the electors, mollifying the medics by providing the new hospital through a private finance initiative.

'What exactly is a PFI, sir?' Steele asked Mackie as they stepped through the main entrance to the centre, passing into a welcoming reception hall, well appointed both with furniture and potted palms.

'The only thing I know about it is that someone makes a buck out of it, long-term,' the detective superintendent answered, dryly.

He stepped up to the reception point and introduced himself, and his colleague. 'We have an appointment with Miss Berry, the Head Pharmacist.'

The young man behind the desk gave him a cool, appraising look, then pointed towards the busy waiting area. 'If you'll take a seat, gentlemen; I'm sure she'll be with you when she can.' Something about his tone needled Mackie. He suspected that the receptionist had had other meetings with police officers.

'I don't want a seat,' he said, quietly. 'I've got plenty of seats. You just tell her we're here.'

The detectives stood by the desk, watching the youth as he pushed a button on his telephone console and spoke quietly into its microphone. 'Your two-thirty appointment, Miss Berry,' he said. They heard a bright voice answer. 'I'll be right there.'

'Do you think this bloke was going to jerk us about, sir?' Steele asked, loudly enough to be heard on the other side of the desk.

'It happens, Stevie,' said Mackie. 'It's an occupational hazard. Damn silly, though, for we coppers never forget.' He leaned towards the young man. 'Bloody elephants, we are.'

They had been waiting for less than two minutes when the chief pharmacist bustled round a corner. She was a pleasant round-faced woman in her late thirties, with close-cropped auburn tinted hair and big round spectacles. She looked at the two men, then settled on the older. 'Mr Mackie?' she asked, looking up at him with a hand outstretched. 'I'm Margie Berry.'

He shook it. 'That's right; this is DS Steele.' He smiled. 'You picked us out right away.'

The little woman grinned back at him, tugging the lapels of her white coat. 'Nothing odd about that. You two can stand unaided. Most people come in here on crutches.'

The superintendent looked across at the waiting area, and saw that the patients clutched an assortment of sticks, Zimmer frames and other supports.

'Come along to my department,' said the pharmacist, 'and I'll tell you why I asked to see you.' They followed her round the corner from which she had come, down a long corridor and through a door at the end. The hospital pharmacy was smaller than Mackie had expected.

Margie Berry appeared to have two assistants: a man and a woman, each in their twenties, were working at desks, and a third was vacant.

There was no room for. anyone else.

'Bill, Jenny,' she called out as she swept into the room. 'Take your teabreaks now, please.'

'Okay Marge,' the man answered, with a grin. 'We'll get out so you can play your game.'

Mackie looked at the door as it closed on the two assistants. 'So they don't know what this is about either?'

'Hell, no. That wouldn't have been fair, either on them or on the person involved.'

'So,' said the superintendent, 'you've found a discrepancy in your stocks?'

Miss Berry shook her head. 'No, I didn't say that. I keep a running check on my supplies, Mr Mackie. If I had a discrepancy within the pharmacy, I would know about it in the week it happened. Everything that's gone out of here tallies exactly with the prescriptions submitted.'

She looked at Steele. 'A hospital pharmacy operates just like a high street chemist, sergeant,' she explained. 'Prescription drugs go out only on a doctor's signature. As for diamorphine and the like, that has to be signed for again, on receipt.'

'How about drugs held on wards?' asked the young detective.

'They're kept in a secure container and dispensed by a senior nurse.

That's the responsibility of the ward sister.'

'I see; so if anything was taken, the chances are it would go from there?'

'No; the certainty is that it would. In this hospital at least.'

'And can you pin it down to a single ward?', 'Easily,' Margie Berry replied. 'A record is kept there of drugs administered to each patient. I can tell by looking at it, and at prescriptions issued, exactly how much should be in the drugs trolley at any given time. Every so often, I will visit a ward, unannounced, and verify the figures.

'When your department called asking me to check on diamorphine stocks, I did very discreet spot checks on all wards, going back several weeks, and found discrepancies on two of them. Not huge in themselves, but added together, we're talking about a significant dose of diamorphine.'

'Enough to kill?' Asked Mackie, intently.

'Enough to kill a pony, never mind a person.'

'In what form was the stuff taken?'

'In phials, for injection. Diamorphine is used here mainly in postoperative situations, so we shove it into the patient's arm or bum with a hypo, rather than administering it through a pump, as they often do on medical wards.'

'When did the stuff disappear?'

'Over a four-day period, around two weeks ago.'

'And is there a linking factor?'

The pharmacist looked at the superintendent. 'Only one that I can find. The drugs were all issued on the prescription of the same doctor.

But what is really unusual is that he, rather than the ward sister or senior nurse, signed for them personally.' She paused.

'So gentlemen, it's in deepest confidence — and this is why I asked my assistants to vacate the premises — that I'm giving you the man's name. He's Doctor Surinder Gopal, a Registrar on the staff of Derrick Strang, the Clinical Director. But guess what… he's missing.'