Ken McClure - Wildcard

Stomach wounds were bad, and Pelota’s was particularly awful in that there had been intestinal damage: the contents were oozing out into his peritoneal cavity, increasing the danger of infection many-fold. Steven spoke automatically to the man as he worked, assuring him that help was on its way and all would be well soon. Pelota passed out and Steven felt for a carotid pulse; it was still there, but weak.

The last time Steven had dealt with such a wound he had been sheltering in a hollow in the desert while on operation in the Middle East. His patient on that occasion had been a fellow soldier whose insides had been opened by a grenade booby trap. The soldier had died because sophisticated help had been a long way away. Pelota’s chances would only be marginally better if he reached hospital in time. He had already lost an enormous amount of blood.

Mozart’s ‘Eine kleine Nachtmusik’ gave way to the even more beautiful sound of an ambulance on its way. The wail of a police car joined the chorus. The thought of police involvement made Steven start thinking about the criminal aspects of what had happened, as well as the measures necessary to keep the wounded man alive. Pelota had a bone-handled kitchen knife protruding from his stomach and presumably he hadn’t put it there himself. Was it conceivable that the attempted murder had had something to do with his decision to tell Steven who Ann Danby’s lover was? It was a chilling thought. What could be so important about keeping a love affair a secret? What depended on it? A marriage? A career? A reputation? All three?

The ambulance stopped outside the door and two attendants entered the restaurant, carrying emergency equipment. They froze when they saw the man on the floor. ‘Jesus Christ!’ said one. ‘What the fuck?’ said the other.

‘He’s been stabbed in the stomach; there’s intestinal damage. He needs intravenous fluid quickly.’

‘Who are you?’ asked the first attendant suspiciously.

‘I’m a doctor and this man needs help fast.’

‘No one said anything about this amount of blood. You’ll have to wait for a specialist crew.’

Steven couldn’t believe his ears for a moment. ‘What?’ he exclaimed.

‘There’s a special service operating for high-virus-risk cases,’ replied the man, looking down at Pelota.

‘This is nothing to do with the virus,’ exclaimed Steven. ‘He’s been stabbed, for Christ’s sake, and if he doesn’t get to hospital soon he’s going to have no chance at all of making it.’

‘We’ll call a special equipment vehicle,’ replied the man, leading his colleague outside and leaving Steven speechless. As they left, two police officers from a Panda car came in.

‘Shit! Nobody said it was a bloody murder,’ complained the first.

‘At the moment it’s an attempted murder,’ said Steven through gritted teeth. ‘He’s still alive but he has to get to hospital.’

Another police car drew up and two CID officers entered. ‘Would you please step away from the victim, sir,’ said the first.

Steven looked up from holding an improvised linen swab against Pelota’s wound. ‘If I step away he’ll die,’ he said. ‘Your call.’

‘I’m sure the ambulancemen know what they’re doing, sir. So if you’ll please just step back…’

‘The ambulancemen are calling an ambulance,’ said Steven evenly. ‘I’m a doctor, and right now I’m the only thing between him and that great big kitchen in the sky.’

One of the ambulancemen came back into the restaurant and said, ‘It’ll be ten minutes. All the specials are out on shouts at the moment.’

There was a brief conversation between police and ambulancemen while Steven continued trying to stem the blood. The ambulancemen were adamant that they weren’t going to touch anyone exuding that amount of blood, certainly not without the special protective anti-virus suits.

‘So give me your equipment,’ said Steven.

The two men looked doubtful.

‘C’mon, for Christ’s sake. I’ve got to get a drip into him. He isn’t going to last ten minutes like this.’

The ambulancemen opened up their special equipment bag and Steven rummaged among the contents. ‘I need saline,’ he snapped. One of the men went to fetch it from the vehicle outside. Steven took the saline pack from the man and attached the giving set to it, asking one of the policemen to hold the plastic reservoir above the patient while he inserted the shunt needle into Pelota’s arm.

The minutes passed like hours as Steven worked and the emergency services watched. The show came to an end when Pelota’s head rolled to one side and his eyes opened but didn’t see. Steven felt desperately for a pulse and found nothing. He let his head slump against his chest for a moment before looking slowly up at the others and saying, ‘He’s dead.’

It was after three in the morning when Steven finished talking to the police. He couldn’t tell them much, apart from the fact that Pelota had been about to help him with his own inquiries, but hadn’t got round to it, thanks to the intervention of a kitchen knife. In theory, he wasn’t obliged to tell them anything at all, but Pelota had been murdered and police forces tended to resent anyone hiding behind rank or position where murder on their patch was concerned. Steven had no wish to antagonise those he might need help from in the near future, so he had given them all the information he could. The idea, however, that Pelota might have been killed to stop him revealing V’s identity he kept to himself for the time being. The police said that they would keep him informed of any progress and gave him a lift over to where he’d left his car earlier.

He drove slowly back to the hotel, where he immediately made for the mini-bar and splashed a miniature of Bombay gin into a tumbler. He added only an equivalent amount of tonic before downing it quickly. What a night, he thought, what a fucking awful night. He threw himself down on the bed and looked up at the ceiling. If only Pelota had survived long enough to say something, things might have been so different. He might well have been talking to Victor by now and on his way to fitting a very large piece of the jigsaw into the puzzle.

But Pelota had died, thanks to those bloody obstinate jobsworths and their bloody union rules… Steven stopped himself going down this road, recognising that he was being unfair because of pent-up anger and frustration. Ambulancemen were only human like everyone else, and this was the real world, not the realms of TV drama where nurses were angels and doctors saints and the emergency services were crewed solely by self-sacrificing heroes.

The simple truth was that people were people and these days, in Manchester, the virus was uppermost in everyone’s mind. The men were probably right to take the stance they had. In fact, maybe it had been his own fault for not giving the emergency operator more information about Pelota’s condition; but he simply hadn’t had time. Pelota would have died there and then if he’d delayed in order to give details. Oh fuck, what did it matter now, anyway? He was back to square one with a vengeance, and apportioning blame wasn’t going to help — as if it ever did. He ran a bath and poured himself another gin, weaker this time.

Lying in the suds, he began to have doubts about his whole approach to the investigation. Quite early on, he had decided that Victor was going to be a crucial player in the game and had concentrated his efforts on finding him. That had been reasonable when it was a case of just two outbreaks of the virus, but perhaps he should have reconsidered when the Scottish outbreak had occurred. Now, at four in the morning, it seemed highly unlikely that Victor could be the missing link to both outbreaks. There was an unpleasant fact to be faced: Victor might be a red herring.