Ken McClure: Chameleon

Thelwell gave a quiet grunt of disapproval as he looked around for the salt cellar. His exaggerated movement alerted Marion to the problem and she handed it to him. 'Considering the lives they lead, I'm surprised there aren't many more,' he said. He sliced the top of his first egg with a decisive sweep of his knife.

John Richardson, consultant bacteriologist at Kerr Memorial yawned and scratched at the stubble on his chin. He grimaced as he saw the rain outside and murmured, 'Ye gods, another day nearer the grave.'

'I think that's why I married you,' said a woman's voice from under the covers. 'Your infectious sense of optimism.'

'I think you have just talked yourself out of a cup of tea,' said Richardson.

'I take it back,' said the voice lazily.

Richardson smiled. 'You should have been a politician with such limpet-like adherence to principle,' he said. 'Tea or coffee?'

'Tea. You're up early.'

'I've got a lot on and that chap from London is coming today, you know, the one I told you about,' said Richardson still looking out at the rain.

'The government investigator,' said Claire Richardson with mock solemnity.

'That's the one.'

'What is he exactly? A bureaucrat?'

'No, I understand he's medically qualified. He's from some body called the Sci-Med Monitor.'

'Do you think he's going to make any difference?'

Richardson shrugged and rubbed his chin again. 'Normally, I would have said no, but who knows? Right now I'm willing to agree to anything before someone else dies needlessly. We've tried everything we can think of to find the source of the infection but we keep coming up with blanks.'

'Frustrating.'

'And embarrassing,' added Richardson. 'It's making me look a complete fool, as Thelwell never fails to point out.'

'They can't blame you,' said Claire. 'You've covered every test in the book and you're one of the most experienced bacteriologists in the region.'

'Counts for nothing when women start dying and I can't tell them why.'

'You've still no notion at all where the infection might be coming from?'

'None.'

'Isn't that a bit odd?'

Richardson gave a bitter laugh and said, 'You're beginning to sound like Thelwell.'

'I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way. It just seems strange that you haven't managed to find the source when you said yourself that it was an everyday sort of bug and there's such a lot known about it.'

Richardson looked at his wife's worried face and smiled. He said gently, 'I know you didn't and you're right, it is strange. That's what makes me feel that we haven't missed anything in the tests. The bug isn't hiding somewhere in the hospital, it's being carried by a member of staff.'

'But surely you've tested all the staff?'

'Of course,' agreed Richardson. 'And they were all negative.'

'Back to square one.'

Richardson nodded and turned away as a loud click from the kitchen told him that the kettle had boiled.

'How is your new assistant settling in?' Claire called through to him.

'Evans? He's first class,'

Claire Richardson smiled affectionately at her husband as he returned carrying a tray with her tea and biscuits on it. She said, 'You say that about all your staff. You're a big softie, John Richardson.'

'Nonsense,' said Richardson gruffly. 'He's an excellent microbiologist and he has certainly taken a weight off my shoulders.'

Claire Richardson smiled at the unease her husband always displayed at any suggestion of a compliment. There was a definite mannerism associated with it. He would reach up his left hand to rub his neck as if he had an itch there. She had never mentioned this to him. 'If I were thirty years younger I could fall in love with you all over again.' she said.

'What some women will say to get tea in bed,' muttered Richardson shuffling out of the room.'

Jamieson swung the car in through the gates of Kerr Memorial and was waved to a halt by a uniformed man. He had to sit still while the man made a detailed inspection of his windscreen and then indicated that he should wind down his window.

'No permit,' said the man as if it were a death sentence.

Jamieson reached into his inside pocket and produced the ID card that he had been provided with by Whitehall. The man looked at the photograph and then at Jamieson. He repeated this operation three times before committing himself to reading what was on the card. This he did with a thoroughness that Jamieson felt sure would have been a credit to an accountant at the Bank of England. The man handed him the card back and stretched himself to his full height. 'Not in my instructions,' he said, putting his hands behind his back and standing tall like a human wall.

'I beg your pardon,' said Jamieson when he felt that no more was forthcoming.'

'My instructions are clear,' said the man. 'No one comes through these gates without a permit authorised and signed by the Hospital Secretary. You'll have to leave.'

Jamieson looked at the man and the man diverted his eyes to stare into the middle distance which officialdom always finds so compelling. Jamieson bit his tongue and reversed the car out through the gates. The rain on the rear screen made it more difficult than it might otherwise have been and did nothing to improve his temper. 'What a start', he muttered. The "full authorisation of Her Majesty's Government" and I can't get through the bloody gates… '

He found a parking place after a five minute hunt through the streets and switched off the engine with a sigh. He gave himself a couple of minutes to see if the rain might ease off before starting on the half mile walk back to the hospital but the slight lightening in the sky he thought he detected had disappeared. The rain got heavier and Richardson's mood grew blacker as his hair got wetter. He flirted with the paranoid thought that the man on the gate had been primed to make things awkward for him, part of the lack of co-operation he was prepared for but then he dismissed the thought. That would be just too childish. Wouldn't it? He avoided looking at the man on the gate as he passed through on foot, feeling like a captured soldier being forced to parade through the streets of his conqueror. He started to follow the signs for 'Administration'.

'Do you have an appointment?' asked the woman in response to Jamieson's request to see the hospital secretary. She spoke with a nasal whine that made her even less attractive than the fact that she was decidedly round shouldered and had a parchment dry skin. Her hair was tied up in a tight, grey bun and her spectacles hung from a gold chain.

'Not exactly but I think you will find he is expecting me.'

The woman gave a humourless smirk as if she had caught Jamieson out and said. 'Mr Crichton does not see anyone without an appointment.'

Jamieson, his hair still wet from the walk and his temper barely in check took out his ID card and put it down with slow deliberation on the desk in front of the woman. Struggling to keep rein on his tongue, he said. 'Just tell him I'm here… please.'

The complacent smugness of a minor minion began to waver and was replaced by uncertainty. 'I'll have to check,' she stammered and then turned on her heel to disappear through another door still clutching Jamieson's card. She returned a few moments later with a short man trailing behind her. He was holding Jamieson's card in his left hand while pressing a large white handkerchief to his nose with the other. Jamieson had to wait until the man had finished wiping his nose before he spoke. 'Perhaps I can help?' said the man.

'Are you the hospital secretary?'

The man gave a self-deprecating little smile and said, 'Actually no, I'm Mr Cartwright. I'm afraid Mr Crichton does not see anyone without an appointment.'

Jamieson's frustration got the better of him as a small pool of rain-water built up around his feet. He leaned on the desk counter and said solicitously, 'Mr Cartwright, will you please inform Mr Crichton that I am here and do it now!'