Gallery Whispers

71

'Sarah?'

She looked up from changing Jazz's Pampers. The infant, his strong legs getting straighter by the day, kicked and struggled as she fastened the pad and slid him into his sleep suit. 'Yes?'

'Can I borrow that brain of yours?'

She picked up her son and held him out at arms' length. 'Sure, if you'll take charge of this fellow for a bit. I know it's Lads' Night, and you have to go in half an hour, but see if you can tire him out first.'

Bob accepted the burden, and without a word, hefted his chortling son on to his shoulder, fireman style. 'I'll bet you'd fancy coming along with me, wouldn't you, pal.' For many years, he had been one of a small select band who gathered in North Berwick every Thursday to practise their limited footballing skills in the Sports Centre games hall.

He stood Jazz on his feet on the nursery floor and rolled a soft rubber ball over to him. 'Let's see what you can do.' The toddler swung his left foot at the ball, missed it completely and fell on his padded bottom.

'Just like your dad,' said Sarah.

'Try the other peg,' said Bob. 'Puskas did okay, and one of his legs was only for standing on.' He retrieved the ball and passed it again, to his son's right. Jazz kicked out again, and made contact. 'There you are. Know what, kid? I think I'll buy a set of goal posts for the back garden, for you and Mark.'

'And for you, as well you know. Now, why do you need my brain?'

He smiled at his wife as he passed the ball back. 'It's to do with the Weston and Murray investigations.'

'You're really getting your teeth into those, aren't you. I wonder if Andy knows what a favour he did you by asking you to take them over from him?'

'He didn't go that far. Like I said, he asked me to "give an overview". I quote.'

'Listen, he knows you even better than you do, in some ways. What he gave you was an open invitation to take over those investigations, and just looking at you, I can tell you're doing just that. Now, what do you want from me?'

Bob rolled the ball into the corner of the nursery, sending Jazz chasing after it. 'I've been thinking about that heroin,' he began. 'The stuff that was used to see Gaynor Weston on her way. We ran out of leads from the hospital pharmacies, and officially, we're satisfied that it didn't come from any of them. Given the priority that has been attached to the investigation up to now, we didn't look at the possibility that it might have come from other than a hospital pharmacy.

'I was thinking about asking other forces for assistance, asking them to check pharmacies in their areas, until we came up with this link between Weston's daughter and Murray's niece. Then Brian Mackie called me this afternoon to say that the boy Raymond's been selling pills up in Furryboots city. That's made me wonder: is there another way that the diamorphine could have been obtained? 'Would you like to think about that while I'm out tonight, and see if you can come up with any theories?'

'Sure,' she said, bending to sweep Jazz up from the floor. 'I've been pondering on that for a while, as a matter of fact. I can give you a workable theory right now. Take someone with a steady hand who's good with a hypo; then give that person access to phials of diamorphine.

If you use the finest needle you could puncture the rubber top of the bottle and draw the heroin into a syringe; it's a clear liquid, so you could leave the needle in place, attach another syringe and simply replace it with water.

'That done, you return the phial to the drugs trolley. No one's going to notice the microdot, for that's all that would show, on the rubber seal. The only person who'll be any the wiser will be the poor patient who's injected with water.'

Bob frowned, as he stroked his son's head gently with his big hand.

'How many phials would it take to kill?'

'Haifa dozen and you'd go out like a light.'

'Yet there was only one puncture mark on Gaynor Weston's thigh, wasn't there?'

'So what?' Jazz was dropping off to sleep, so Sarah's voice was a whisper. 'If you were a doctor, or a nurse, you'd just put a line in and administer them through that, one after another.'

'What about Murray?' he asked her. 'You said you couldn't pin down the drug that was used on him.'

'I couldn't for the purposes of evidence. The lab report showed a whole cocktail of substances in his bloodstream; there were steroids, morphine, ibuferon, and two sedatives, lorazepam and temazepam.

All of those could have been administered orally, and would have been normally prescribed to someone in Mr Murray's condition.'

'Was the morphine the same as the other stuff?'

'No. This was oramorph; it comes in ampoules usually. You break off the top and the patient swallows it.'

'Could you extract that from the container without anyone knowing?'

'No way. Anyhow, you'd need too much of it. I'll tell you what I did find unusual though; the use of two different sedatives from the same family. One or the other, but not both.'

'Does that tell you anything specific?'

'No, but I'll take a guess. I would say that whoever did this took a look at Mr Murray, made a judgement on his condition, then took some morphine tablets and temazepam, ground them down with a mortar, formed a solution with boiling water, then later on, injected it.

You would do that for speed of absorption, rather than feed them it in solid form.

'The shot didn't kill him, but it rendered him unconscious and allowed him to asphyxiate without distress.' She shrugged one shoulder, since Jazz was weighing down the other.

'Those are my theories, for what they're worth. They're all you're getting out of me tonight; professionally at least. Now, if you've got some time to spare before you go to kick the crap out of your pals, go and check Mark's homework, while I put this one to bed.'