Ken McClure - Wildcard

‘Well, no heroin,’ muttered Saxby when he had opened up the body to expose the internal organs. ‘But a hell of a lot of blood. She’s been bleeding internally from…’ He paused while he made a closer examination. ‘Just about every-bloody-where. Christ, are you sure this is the right body?’

‘Her toe tag says “Ann Danby”, and she was the only woman in the fridge,’ replied the technician. ‘Looks about the right age, too.’

‘Yes, thank you for your forensic input,’ snapped Saxby.

The technician said nothing and kept his eyes fixed on the table.

‘Jesus, she was leaking like a sieve. This wasn’t caused by whisky or bloody sleeping pills. Let me see those admission notes again.’ Saxby snatched them, smearing them with bloody mucus from his gloves in the process. ‘No mention of illness. Shit, I don’t think I like this…’

‘What d’you think was wrong with her?’ asked the technician. Normally he wouldn’t have dared ask, but the apprehension in Saxby’s face gave him the impetus.

‘I don’t know,’ murmured Saxby. He seemed mesmerised by the insides of the corpse. ‘I’ve read about this but I’ve never actually come across it. I think she may well have been suffering from haemorrhagic fever.’

‘What’s that when it’s at home?’

There was a long pause before Saxby said, ‘Suffice to say, the last thing on earth you would want to do to such a case is perform a PM on it.’

‘It’s dangerous, then?’

‘Bloody lethal,’ whispered Saxby, turning pale. ‘What have I done?’

‘Are you absolutely sure about this?’ asked the technician.

Saxby shook his head slowly and said, ‘No, but I can’t think of anything else it could be.’

‘So where do we go from here then?’ The technician was still calm, in spite of what he was hearing. He had his faith to thank for that. He knew God was on his side.

Saxby came out of his trance and started snapping out instructions. ‘We need a body bag. I’ll give you a hand getting her into it, then wash down the entire place in disinfectant. When you’ve finished, dump all your clothes in the steriliser bin and shower for at least ten minutes.’

‘What about you?’

‘I’m going to talk to the police first and then Public Health.’

Saxby locked the door to stop anyone coming in, and went to the phone. ‘I need to talk to the officers who discovered Miss Ann Danby’s body last night… Even if they are off duty… Then wake them up… Yes, it is urgent.’ Saxby hung up and waited. Six minutes later the phone rang and he snatched it up. ‘Sorry to disturb you, Constable Lennon, but this is most important. Did anything last night give you reason to think that Miss Danby had been ill recently?’

Tom Lennon rubbed the sleep from his eyes with one hand while he got his thoughts into order. ‘Her mother said that she spoke to her a few days ago and she thought she was coming down with flu, and one of the neighbours said that she had been off work for a couple of days.’

‘Thank you, Officer,’ said Saxby, his tone suggesting that this was bad news. ‘Was there any mention of her having been abroad recently?’

‘None at all, but the subject didn’t really come up.’

‘Do you have a phone number for her mother?’

‘Give me a minute; it’s in my notebook.’

Saxby tapped the phone impatiently as he waited, then scribbled down the number on a wall pad. He dialled it immediately.

The technician sluiced down the PM table while he listened to Saxby being ‘nice’ to Ann Danby’s parents. At least he didn’t say what kind of doctor he was and what he had just been doing, but watching Saxby apologise profusely for his ‘intrusion on their grief’ and then offering his ‘heartfelt condolences’ was like watching a man commit an unnatural act.

‘Has Ann been abroad recently?… She hasn’t… You’re absolutely sure about that?… Yes, I see… Majorca in 1998.’

Saxby put down the phone and stood there looking thoughtful while the technician, mop in hand, pushed a tide of disinfectant across the floor ever nearer to his feet.

‘Progress?’ asked the technician.

‘Maybe I was a bit hasty in pushing the panic button,’ said Saxby. ‘She hasn’t been abroad for two years, and even then it was only bloody Majorca. I don’t think it can be what I thought it was. Bloody odd, though.’

‘So all this is unnecessary?’

‘Better safe than sorry.’

‘What about the samples you took?’

‘Send them to the lab in the usual way.’

‘And the shower?’

‘Won’t do you any harm.’

Edinburgh

‘Yes, what is it, Jean?’ snapped Paul Grossart.

His secretary moved back involuntarily from the intercom, surprised at his tone of voice. A change had come over her boss in the last week or so. Ever since the Americans’ visit he had been preoccupied and on edge. ‘I have a Mr Brannan on the phone for you.’

‘I don’t know any Brannan, do I?’ asked Grossart.

‘He’s a journalist with the Scotsman. He wonders if he might have a few words.’

Grossart paused and swallowed hard before saying, ‘Put him through.’

‘Mr Grossart?’ said a friendly sounding voice. ‘Jim Brannan, science correspondent of the Scotsman.’

‘What can I do for you, Mr Brannan?’ said Grossart, adopting a neutral tone.

‘There’s a rumour doing the rounds that Lehman is making a big cut in its transgenic research initiative.’

‘What gives people that idea?’ asked Grossart defensively.

‘You paid off a number of staff at the end of last week.’

Grossart had to think fast. He hadn’t realised that this was a newsworthy event but it was a fact that Lehman had paid off a number of support staff engaged on the Snowball project whose services were no longer required. They were relatively low-grade, and none had been privy to the overall aims of the project, but a couple were part-qualified junior technicians and might have been able to figure out something. ‘We are a cutting-edge research company, Mr Brannan,’ said Grossart. ‘Our priorities constantly have to change with the ever-advancing state of scientific knowledge. The loss of jobs was simply the unfortunate fall-out from a course adjustment we had to make.’

‘So Lehman isn’t abandoning its transgenic animal work?’

‘We remain committed to exploring every avenue of medical research which will benefit mankind,’ replied Grossart.

‘I trust I can quote you on that,’ said Brannan sourly, thinking he could have found a better quote in a Christmas cracker.

‘Of course.’

‘It was a bit sudden, this “course adjustment”, wasn’t it?’

‘Not at all. We’d been considering it for some months.’

‘Right,’ said Brannan slowly, sounding less than convinced. ‘So nothing went wrong, then?’

‘Nothing at all,’ said Grossart.

The conversation ended and Grossart took several deep breaths before looking at his watch and doing a mental calculation. He punched the intercom button and said, ‘Get me Hiram Vance in Boston.’ He tapped nervously on the desk until the connection was made.

‘Paul, what can I do for you?’

‘They know,’ hissed Grossart hoarsely. ‘For Christ’s sake, Hiram, they know. I’ve just had the press on the phone asking about the shutdown of the Snowball project.’

‘Slow down, Paul,’ said Vance, sounding calm and controlled. ‘Just take it easy and tell me exactly what happened.’

Grossart gave him the details of his conversation with Brannan.

‘Then what the hell are you worried about?’ said Vance. ‘You said exactly the right thing and it’s my guess that will be an end to it.’