White death

FOUR

Marlborough Court

London

July 2007

Dr Steven Dunbar opened his eyes at the ring of the alarm and let out a groan. He could have done with another hour in bed but he had to be at the Home Office by ten. Normally, a summons to the Home Office with the prospect of a new case to investigate would have had him fired with enthusiasm and champing at the bit but a slight over-indulgence in gin and tonic the night before had taken the edge off this and left him with a nasty headache instead. He made some strong black coffee and used it to wash down three aspirins before taking a shower and lingering longer than usual in the soothing spray before he revisited his problem.

Steven’s problem was Jenny, his nine-year-old daughter, and her new-found skill in manipulating grown-ups.

Steven’s wife Lisa had died of a brain tumour many years before and since that time Jenny had lived with his sister-in-law Sue and her solicitor husband Richard in the Dumfriesshire village of Glenvane in Scotland. She had been brought up as one of their family along with their own two children, Robin and Mary, with Steven making a point of visiting as often as he could — usually every second weekend, at least for a week in the summer and with special efforts being made at birthday time and Christmas.

In the early years, Steven had seen the arrangement as being temporary — he just needed time to get back on his feet after the nightmare of losing Lisa — but as time had gone on, reality had struck home and he had come to accept that there was no way he could do the job he did and bring up a daughter on his own. Apart from that Jenny was happy and settled with Sue and Richard and their family and they had quickly come to love her as one of their own.

Sue had been very close to Lisa and often remarked that she could see so much of her sister in Jenny as she grew up. Steven had noticed this too and it could bring a lump to his throat. The thought that Lisa lived on in Jenny gave him something to cling to in dark moments when he found himself dwelling on his loss — something that still happened from time to time, even after all these years.

Usually, something simple would trigger it off, seeing a family walking by the Embankment on a sunny afternoon, opening the door to his apartment on a winter’s evening and finding nothing there but darkness and silence. These incidents, however, were few and far between these days but when they did happen, Steven had to remind himself that he didn’t have a lifestyle that permitted the playing of happy families on anything approaching a regular basis. He had a job that was demanding, unpredictable and occasionally downright dangerous. He didn’t know where he would be from one day to the next and, on more than one occasion over the years, he’d come within an ace of losing his life.

He had met Lisa on his first big investigation for Sci-Med after having been sent to a hospital in Glasgow where she had been one of the nurses. That particular assignment had brought both of them into danger although they had seen this as the exception rather than the rule with neither suspecting that the job would be any kind of impediment to married life. Now with the benefit of hindsight, he had to admit that there had been several more ‘exceptions to the rule’ over the years, perhaps too many for him even to consider inviting another woman to share his life without him having to give up the job.

This did not mean that female company had been absent from his life during his widower years. A number of women had appeared on the scene like shooting stars, bringing love back into his life, but, for one reason or another, these relationships — and a couple of them had been very special — had all proved ill-fated before the need for the final hurdle to be crossed. Could he give up the job? He wasn’t at all sure.

Jenny’s latest ploy had been to play off Sue and Richard against him. If Sue had occasion to discipline her she would react by pointing out that she didn’t have the right; she wasn’t her real mother and that she wanted to go and live in London with her father. When Steven told her that this was not possible she had accused him of not really loving her and abandoning her in Scotland. Sue and Richard were very understanding about Jenny’s behaviour and recognised it for what it was — childish tantrums — as did Steven. Jenny could not have had any more loving parents than Sue and Richard and she loved them too except when she was having one of her moments.

Despite this, Steven still felt bad about the whole thing. Perhaps it was guilt over never having really tried to find the kind of job that would have permitted him to bring up a daughter or perhaps it was hearing the accusations that Jenny had levelled at him about not loving her, but he had felt bad enough to climb into the bottle on the previous evening. But today was another day and he had to get his act together before he went to see John Macmillan at the Home Office.

Steven had been born and brought up in the Lake District, in the small village of Glenridding on Ullswater where he had had an idyllic childhood. Being raised in the shadow of the Cumbrian mountains had fostered in him a great love of the outdoors. He had done well at school which had encouraged parents and teachers to push him towards medicine and he had duly complied by studying medicine although his heart had never been in it. After qualifying and doing his registration year, he had stopped pretending and admitted to his nearest and dearest that this was not the career for him. He had bitten the bullet and informed his family that he was joining the army.

Army life had suited Steven down to the ground. A naturally strong and athletic man, he had taken to it like a duck to water, serving first with the Parachute Regiment and then on secondment to Special Forces where his medical skills were put to good use, ensuring over the years that he had become an expert in field medicine with his skills honed in the deserts of the Middle East and the jungles of South America.

The operational life of a Special Forces soldier, however, has a lifespan not much longer than that of a professional footballer and Steven had recognised this as he approached his mid-thirties. Time for him was running out and the bleak prospect of a return to civilian life was looming on the horizon. The few options he could see had not seemed attractive. The medical career train had long passed him by and demand for his specialist skills in wound treatment and bullet removal under field conditions was not going to be great in civvy street. He saw himself becoming an in-house medic for some large insurance company or working in a liaison role in the pharmaceutical industry, but neither appealed to someone who had always known and craved adventure.

He was saved from the humdrum, however, by John Macmillan who ran a small, elite unit at the Home Office called the Sci-Med Inspectorate. This comprised a small body of medical/scientific specialist investigators who would look into the possibility of crime in areas where the police lacked expertise. Steven was taken on board as a medical investigator and had found his niche in an organisation that only recruited the best. It was a pre-condition that Sci-Med investigators had to have had other careers in which they had demonstrated resourcefulness and initiative on top of professional expertise and above all, in John Macmillan’s estimation, be blessed with a great deal of plain common sense.

Macmillan took the view that no man knew how he would react in times of great personal danger until he was actually placed in that situation and tested. Very few ever were in the course of ‘normal’ jobs. Paint-ball wars and building bridges over imaginary rivers on company weekends was fine for salesmen but not for Sci-Med people. Heroics on the rugby pitch were one thing but continuing to fight on when the man beside you has just been cut in half by automatic weapon fire was quite another. Steven had been tested for real and had come through with flying colours. He had become one of Sci-Med’s top investigators.

Steven still didn’t feel too well but there were no outward signs of this as he dressed in dark blue suit, light blue shirt and Parachute Regiment tie and checked his appearance in the mirror, making sure his dark hair wasn’t standing up. Macmillan did not like sloppiness. He checked his watch and set off for the Home Office.

As he climbed the stairs he knew that the first thing Jean Roberts, Macmillan’s secretary, would ask about would be Jenny and so it proved.

‘She’s growing into quite the little madam,’ replied Steven.

‘Ah,’ said Jean. ‘Getting to that age?’

Steven nodded. ‘How’s the choir doing?’ he asked, wanting to change the subject and knowing that Jean’s membership of the South London Bach choir was one of the cornerstones of her life.

‘Busy, busy, busy,’ replied Jean. ‘One concert every week for the last three weeks and we have a ten-day tour coming up in two months’ time.’

‘That should keep you out of mischief.’

‘Who’s keeping who out of mischief?’ asked John Macmillan, coming out of his office and slapping a file into Jean’s in-tray. ‘Good to see you, Steven,’ he said, shaking hands. ‘It’s been a while.’ He turned back to Jean and said, ‘If you could get these out by tonight, I’d be obliged.’

‘Yes, Sir John.’

Steven reflected on Macmillan’s knighthood as he followed him back into his office and closed the door. It had been granted in the New Year’s honours list and was, in his view, long overdue. Macmillan had always been his own man and had guarded Sci-Med’s autonomy over the years with a zeal that had irritated many in the corridors of power. Suggestions by the powerful that Sci-Med might back off in certain investigations when they came too close to home were always met with refusal and expressions of support for his people. He never excused or ignored any wrong-doing among the rich and powerful of the land and had, as a result, made many enemies along the way. He had once confided in Steven that certain individuals would move heaven and earth to stop him being recognised for Sci-Med’s achievements so Steven had been tickled pink to see Macmillan’s name come up in the honours list. He hoped that his own success in thwarting a potentially disastrous attack by Al-Qaeda on the UK and US government infrastructures might have helped pave the way for the award because he liked and respected the man enormously and had on several occasions in the past good cause to thank him for his backing when he personally had ruffled the feathers of the establishment.

Steven had been on leave for the past two months, recovering from traumas suffered in his last assignment and regaining fitness at a military camp in North Wales through an arrangement with his old regiment.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Fit and well,’ replied Steven.

‘Jean said you were up in Scotland when she contacted you?’

‘I was up seeing Jenny.’

‘How is she?’

‘I think I’ve just had a glimpse of the terrible teens to come.’

‘Oh dear,’ smiled Macmillan. ‘Girls are always so much more trouble than boys in my experience.’

‘So people keep telling me.’

Macmillan settled back in his chair, looking every inch the Whitehall mandarin, tanned, smooth skin belying his sixty odd years, silver hair swept back, confidence oozing from every pore. He looked at Steven for a moment before saying, ‘Nothing too serious I hope?’

‘Not in the great scheme of things, I suppose. It was just a bit of a shock to discover that she no longer sees me as her knight in shining armour who appears out of the mist from time to time bearing gifts and telling tales of fighting evil. She now sees me as a flawed human being who chose to abandon her in a far-off land.’

Macmillan smiled and said, ‘I’m sure that’s not true but it sounds like something all fathers in your position have to go through. The irony is that if you really had abandoned her and she never saw you at all, she’d regard you as a saint and make all sorts of excuses for you.’

‘I suppose.’

‘Don’t let it get you down. You’ve always had Jenny’s best interests at heart. She’s always been a much loved little girl. I remember celebrating her birth in this very office.’

Steven nodded, anxious that the conversation should move on.

Macmillan flipped open a file on his desk. ‘Dr Scott Haldane, aged thirty-five, general practitioner in a family practice in Edinburgh — at least he was until he took his own life, leaving a wife and two young children behind.’

Steven screwed up his face. ‘Thirty-five? No age at all. What’s our interest?’

‘I’m not sure that we have one but… it’s possible. His wife is absolutely adamant that he did not commit suicide.’

‘Not an uncommon reaction,’ said Steven. ‘It must be a very hard thing to come to terms with.’

‘Well, she apparently has no intention at all of accepting it. She insists that her husband was murdered and has been seizing every opportunity to say so in public. She insists that he was a devoted husband and father, a committed Christian, happy and settled in his work and with everything to live for.’

‘What do the police say?’

‘The body was found in woodland quite near where he lived — a place known as the Hermitage of Braid. He’d cut his wrists. There was nothing to suggest it wasn’t suicide apart from the fact that there was no note and the police failed to establish any reason why Haldane would want to end his life. He seems to have been everything his wife says he was. Perhaps for the same reason, they didn’t come up with any reason why someone would want to kill him either.’

Steven thought for a moment before saying, ‘This is all very sad but I’m sorry, I don’t see where Sci-Med comes in.’

‘Haldane’s wife is an intelligent woman: she’s a nursing sister at the new Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh. She insists that her husband was murdered over something to do with one of his patients.’

‘One of his patients killed him?’ exclaimed Steven.

‘Nothing like that,’ said Macmillan. ‘The practice was treating a child for a skin complaint. The mother wasn’t happy with the way her child’s case was being handled by their GP and a transfer was made to Haldane’s list. He referred the child to a skin clinic and something called vitiligo was diagnosed.’ Macmillan gave Steven an enquiring glance.

‘Not really my area but, as I remember, it’s a fairly harmless pigment problem leading to patches on the skin — more embarrassing than dangerous.’

‘That would fit with what I have here,’ said Macmillan. ‘Apparently the child, however, was very sensitive about her condition and her mother came home one day to find — in her opinion — that she’d attempted to remove the patch with boiling water.’

‘My God,’ said Steven.

‘According to Haldane’s wife, there was some disagreement about this. Haldane was sure the scalding had been an accident.’

‘What an awful situation,’ said Steven. ‘How is the child?’

‘She’s still in hospital and quite seriously ill.’

‘Was she able to throw any light on what happened?’

‘She’s hardly said a word since the “accident”.’

‘Poor lass. How old?’

‘Thirteen.’

‘A very self-conscious age,’ said Steven.

‘Any thoughts so far?’

‘Just from what you’ve told me, it’s not inconceivable that the girl did it deliberately, in which case Haldane may have felt guilt over not having referred her for psychiatric help earlier. Whether that might have tipped him over into taking his own life… well, who knows?’

‘Haldane’s wife is adamant that her husband did not believe for a minute that the child had done it deliberately. He was convinced it had been an accident.’

‘I think the popular term could be “in denial”,’ said Steven.

‘Mmm. On the other hand, his wife says that he seemed to be much more upset about some other possibility that he refused to discuss with her.’

‘You mean that someone else might have scalded the girl?’ asked Steven with wide eyes.

Macmillan flinched at the suggestion. ‘I don’t think that was what she meant at all. She says that her husband started making lots of telephone calls, demanding to speak to people about the case, but he constantly ran into some problem because the girl was on some monitoring list that she thinks was called “green sticker patients”. Apparently it made her notes difficult to obtain.’

‘What’s this green sticker business all about?’ asked Steven.

‘That’s where you come in,’ said Macmillan. ‘I’d like you to find out. Have a root around; see what you come up with but most importantly, don’t stand on anyone’s toes, especially not Lothian and Borders Police. They won’t have forgotten the last time you strayed on to their patch. I’ve asked Jean to find you somewhere discreet to stay while you’re up there. She’ll give you details on the way out along with the file.’

‘On my way.’

Jean Roberts smiled when Steven emerged from Macmillan’s office and brought out a folder from the top drawer of her desk which she handed to Steven. ‘All we have on the Edinburgh case. Feel good to be operational again?’

‘I guess,’ smiled Steven. ‘Sir John tells me you were arranging accommodation?’

‘Yes, he said he wanted it to be somewhere discreet where your presence would hopefully go unnoticed. I’ve booked you into a B amp;B in a lovely Victorian building just north of Edinburgh’s New Town called Fraoch House — Fraoch means “heather” in Gaelic. My sister and I stayed there last year when we went up for the festival. It has everything you’ll need. I’ve included directions in the file.’