Ken McClure - Chameleon

'I'm happy to settle for that,' smiled Jamieson.

Moira put the culture plate into the incubator and asked, 'What exactly is it that you want to do with the bug?'

'I want to do some routine biochemical tests, get a feel for the beast if you like. At the moment it's just a collection of facts and figures on paper. If I actually do the things myself I think I might have a better notion of what it's all about.'

'Standard range of tests?'

'Full range.'

'You won't be able to do them until your culture has grown up overnight. Would you like me to prepare the tubes for you in the morning?'

'That would be a big help,' agreed Jamieson. 'But I don't want to interfere with your other work.'

'No problem,' said Moira. 'I'll show where to find them in case I have to go up to the wards in the morning.

Jamieson called in at the administration block to inquire about Staff Nurse Marion Fantes only to be told that, according to the ward records, she was off duty until seven forty-five on the following morning. He was resigning himself to having to wait to talk to the nurse when the clerk added that she lived in the nurses' home in the hospital. There was a chance that she might currently be there. Jamieson thanked the man and asked where the home was situated. He followed the directions he was given and found himself in a square outside a broody, dark, three-storey building that stood next to the hospital kitchens.

A sign said, The Thelma Morrison Home for Nurses, and a stainglass window on the front of the building above the doorway depicted a nurse tending to the wounded of the Crimea. Was having a 'heritage' all that big a deal? The whole damned business seemed to him to consist of constant allusions to a history filled with the killing and maiming of others. A glorification of them, not a derogation. Sometimes he thought it might actually be quite nice to live in a country with very little 'heritage'. Somewhere where there was no bullshit. Somewhere where the buildings were new and everything worked. Was there such a place?

The square was noisy. It was filled with the clanging of food trolleys and hissing of steam from the kitchens whose three loading bays opened out on to a yard. A porter was singing an operatic aria badly as he manhandled a heavy container in opposition to the will of its castors on the cobbles. Jamieson thought the man might be hoping for 'discovery'. Someone from a television talent show would step out from behind one of the bins and lead him to overnight stardom. He had that air of ingenuous awfulness about him. He pitied the night nurses that had to sleep through the racket during the day.

He entered the nurses' home and was confronted with a staircase in front of him and corridors running to both sides but no indication of who lived there or of any room plan. There was a desk but it was unmanned and there seemed to be no one about. Jamieson found the place strange. It had the aura of a church, a property conferred on it by the light coming through the stainglass window which, as Jamieson could now see, filled the entire wall of the first landing on the stairs.

The dull, red carpet deadened his footsteps as he moved along the corridor to explore further. The air was still and musty and had a cold edge to it that only stone built buildings can impart to their interiors. He was looking at a perfectly formed spider's web on the reel of a fire hose when he heard the front door open and saw a man in an ill fitting navy-blue uniform shuffle across the corridor with cup and saucer in his hand. He planked himself behind the desk and reached underneath it for a newspaper. He had not seen Jamieson and so was startled when Jamieson walked towards him and coughed to attract his attention.

''Ere! What's your game!' exclaimed the man, obviously startled. 'You shouldn't be in here!'

'I'm looking for Staff-Nurse Fantes,' said Jamieson.

'Well, you're supposed to ask at the desk not wander about the bleedin' corridors.'

'You weren't at the desk,' said Jamieson evenly and eyeing the cup and saucer.

The man imagined he caught a whiff of management about Jamieson and decided to play safe. He changed his tone to a more ingratiating one and asked, 'And who might I enquire is wanting her?'

'Dr Jamieson and it's official not personal,' added Jamieson, anticipating the next question.

'I'll just see if she's in doctor,' said the man with what he imagined was a friendly grin but which made him look like a dachshund with tooth-ache. He put on a pair of spectacles one handedly and traced his finger down a list of residents before picking up an internal phone and tapping three digits. He shot Jamieson another grin while he waited for a response and seemed disappointed not to get one in return but his call was answered and he gave the message to the person at the other end.

'She'll be down in a moment Doctor,' said the man putting down the phone and missing the rest at the first attempt. 'You can wait in the day room. It's along here.'

Jamieson followed the hunched figure along the bottom corridor and was shown into a large, high-ceilinged room to wait for the nurse. There was a tall, elegant fireplace at one end with an embroidered fire screen standing in front of it and a brass log box beside it. Cold rooms and empty fire places, thought Jamieson. There was something very British about it. Faded oil paintings of English rural scenes hung on the white walls at regular intervals and a number of assorted arm chairs that had seen better days were dotted about the lino covered floor. Copies of, Nursing Standard and various women's magazines were stacked in neat piles on a small, black table.

Jamieson checked his watch; it was three-fifteen. The door opened and a small, dark girl in her late twenties, thin at the shoulder but broad at the hips came into the room and closed the door quietly behind her before announcing herself as Marion Fantes.

Jamieson said who he was and why he had come to Kerr Memorial.

'I see,' said the girl but her eyes betrayed the fact that she was trying to work out why Jamieson had come to see her.

'It's about the swabs that were taken as part of the surgical team screening.' said Jamieson.

'But they were negative,' said the girl quickly.

'Indeed, that's why I'm here.'

'I don't understand,' said the girl.

'They were too negative.'

The girl shook her head slightly in bewilderment. 'Too negative?'

'No bacteria at all,' said Jamieson.

'Is that bad?' asked the girl, obviously feeling that it wasn't.

'Not bad,' said Jamieson quietly. 'It's unusual, unless of course you were on treatment involving anti-bacterial drugs… but there is no mention of that on your medical record.'

The girl held Jamieson's gaze for a moment then dropped her head and looked at the floor. Her shoulders visibly drooped forward. 'What a fool,' she said softly. 'I should have thought of that. What a fool.'

Jamieson waited quietly until the girl had recovered her composure. Somewhere in the building a door slammed and the noise reverberated round the room challenging the length of the silence.

'You are quite right.' Marion Fantes said softly. 'I am on treatment.'

'What's the problem?'

'Cystitis. I'm taking ampicillin.'

For a moment Jamieson could not see what the girl was so upset about. Cystitis was a common enough complaint in young women, perhaps correlated with sexual activity and often attracting the adjective, 'honeymoon' but in this day and age this was hardly a matter for either secrecy or embarrassment. Then he realised what the problem must be. 'You didn't go to your doctor?' he said.

The girl shook her head.

'You took the drugs off the ward?'

Marion Fantes nodded.

Jamieson let out his breath in a long sigh then he said, 'You do realise that taking any drugs off the ward is an offence that renders you subject to instant dismissal?'