Ken McClure - Fenton's winter

"Really?" said Kirkpatrick, his eyes opening wide. He had not reckoned on being returned to the office in a police car. This was an added bonus. Would they use the flashing light on the return journey? And would a constable hold the door open for him when he got out? By God, this would show that bitch in accounts that Maxwell Kirkpatrick was not a man to be trifled with.

Tyson pulled on a pair of surgical gloves with traditional difficulty and took the test tubes to the sink as Inspector Jamieson arrived. He gently tipped the Saxon tube on to its side and let the blood stream out in a thin, even flow. "You know," he said, "It's quite ironic really, this stuff is probably going to turn out to be the most efficient anticoagulant known to man."

"I think Neil had plans to investigate that," said Fenton.

"How so?"

"He had a range of standard anticoagulants and a bottle of solvent in a locked cupboard in his lab. I think he must have been planning on trying to solubilise the plastic in order to test its anticoagulant capacity before he realised the significance of the blood groups."

Fenton was intrigued by the amount of care that Tyson seemed to be exercising in dealing with the plastic test tubes. As he checked his gloves yet again for signs of damage he became aware that Fenton was watching him. He said quietly, "Worked it out yet?"

The truth dawned on Fenton. "The dirty tube…it wasn't a dirty tube at all. It was your blood! You have group AB blood."

"Correct. I was lucky, I haven't had any reason to come into contact with the damned stuff for any length of time but I don't relish coming that close again."

"Any news about Mr Saxon Inspector?" Tyson asked.

"Mr Saxon will be shortly helping us with our inquiries sir," said Jamieson getting up to leave Fenton screwed up his face at the official jargon but he had his back to the policeman.

"I take it you and Inspector Jamieson don't get on too well?" asked Tyson when the door had closed.

"Something like that," agreed Fenton.

"The business over Jenny?"

"I suppose so."

"You may not like it but Jamieson was right to do what he did. On the face of it he had every reason to suspect Jenny and what's more, the very fact that he saw the link between the deaths in the hospital and the boy's death up north makes him good at his job!"

"If you say so."

"I do. Now that we have established that, let's drink to the end of this damned business." Tyson opened a desk drawer and took out a half full bottle of malt whisky. "Fetch a couple of beakers will you? Glass ones."

Fenton lay along the sofa with his head on Jenny's lap and closed his eyes while she played with the curls of his hair.

"That's nice," he murmured.

"Nothing is too nice for the hero of Princess Mary."

"I just hope the police picked up Saxon," said Fenton.

"You know, I still find it hard to believe that Nigel Saxon was the cause of all this," said Jenny distantly.

Fenton opened his eyes. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Well, he was brash and loud but basically I always thought of him as weak, just like a big labrador dog. I just can't picture him killing someone in cold blood. Can you?"

Fenton thought for a moment then said quietly, "I agree but he must have done unless you have a better idea?"

Jenny shook her head. "No, but there's something not quite right about it…"

"What do you say we concentrate on something else?"

"And just what could that something be?" asked Jenny with a smile.

Fenton drew her to him and left her in no doubt.

The atmosphere in the flat might have been considerably different had Fenton known that, while he had been making love to Jenny, Nigel Saxon had not been safely in police custody. In fact, he was not even in the country for he had taken an afternoon British Airways shuttle flight from Glasgow to London Heathrow and had subsequently boarded an Olympic Airways flight to Greece.

Fenton was furious when he heard the news from Charles Tyson and immediately blamed Jamieson. "All he had to do was pick him up. I suppose he gave him a lift to the airport and carried his bags into the terminal!"

"It wasn't the Inspector's fault," said Tyson calmly.

Fenton looked sceptical.

"James Dodds phoned Saxon Medical after you called him yesterday. He saw no reason not to and thought that they should be aware of the problem with their product. He called them before he called the police so Nigel Saxon knew the game was up even before Inspector Jamieson had been informed."

"I'm sorry," said Fenton.

Fenton left Tyson's room and closed the door quietly. His thoughts returned to Saxon and his anger was reborn. He swallowed it for the moment but, for the rest of the week, it lay in his stomach like a lead weight.

Press and television coverage of the end of the 'Princess Mary Affair' was extensive and raised a number of questions and issues for ambitious politicians to exploit. Was the screening procedure for National Health Service products adequate? they asked. Perfectly so, said the government of the day. Clearly not, hollered Her Majesty's Opposition. Once again the government had been found lacking. The air vibrated with the sound of stable doors being slammed. The thalidomide tragedy was resurrected. Why had we not learned our lesson? The American Food and Drug Authority had banned thalidomide in the United States; the odds were that they would have spotted the problem with Saxon plastic as well. Nonsense, retorted the Health Department. Cover-up! cried the Opposition. Heads must roll! bayed the press and cast on their knitting.

"Ye Gods, it's all so predictable," complained Jenny as she put down the evening paper. "If one says black the other says white."

The financial press had a different set of priorities. They paid lip service to the 'awful human cost' but it was the financial mess that Saxon Medical had created that really captured their imagination. Had the money involved in the take-over actually changed hands? they wanted to know and, if the license had been sold by Saxon, had the responsibility been transferred with it? Would International Plastics be liable to lose millions, not only in the loss of the product, but in law suits brought against them for compensation by the relatives of the victims?

Speculation along these lines had already done damage to International's share prices but the company remained silent, saying nothing in public, although it was not too hard to guess what they were saying in private. Fenton supposed that cohorts of their lawyers would be working round the clock in an attempt to shed blame.

Saxon Medical took a different approach. They simply shut up shop and went to ground. John Saxon, founder of the company and Nigel's father, walled himself up in his Georgian mansion in a Glasgow suburb and refused to see anyone. The workforce had been paid off and Nigel, of course, had fled to Greece.

No public mention had been made of any police interest in Nigel Saxon and, as yet, no enterprising journalist had sought to forge a link between Neil Munro's death and the Saxon plastic tragedy. This gave Fenton an idea for it occurred to him that a conviction against Nigel Saxon would be of monumental importance to International Plastics. If the company could establish that Saxon had known about the defect in the plastic before the license had changed hands surely the deal would be deemed to have been fraudulent? It was very much in International's interest that Nigel Saxon be brought to justice. The thing was, International knew nothing of any criminal involvement in the Saxon Plastic affair. What would happen if he were to tell them?

Fenton thought about it for the rest of the afternoon and began to like the idea. Surely in the circumstances International Plastics would mount their own investigation, employ the best agents in the country to track down Saxon, ferret him out, bring him back?