Ken McClure - Wildcard

‘Are you suggesting that the Lord created a virus specifically to kill Sister Mary Xavier?’ said Steven, mildly irked at the platitude and the terminal complacency of the deeply religious.

‘I don’t think that He would necessarily construe it that way.’

‘How would He construe it, Reverend Mother? Viruses like the one infecting Sister Mary cannot exist outside a living host. Their only function is to kill.’

‘Perhaps their only function known to us, Doctor.’

Steven conceded gracefully. ‘You say you’ve already been asked about Sister Mary’s movements?’ he asked.

‘The people from the Public Health Service were as adamant as you that our sister must have been in contact with the outside world during the last few weeks, but the simple truth is that she has not been outside these walls for much longer than that. Neither has she had contact with anyone other than the sisters and perhaps the priest who comes to hear our confession. I myself can guarantee that.’

‘I take it the good father is keeping well, Reverend Mother?’

‘Apart from being concerned about Sister Mary Xavier’s health, Father O’Donnell is as well as any seventy-year-old can reasonably expect to be.’

Steven wondered if the Reverend Mother was reading his mind. The intelligent look in her eyes said that she might well be and that was why she had volunteered the priest’s age. He decided against asking for an antibody test on him. ‘As a matter of interest, when did Sister Mary Xavier last go out into the world, Reverend Mother?’ he asked.

‘Ours is a contemplative order, Doctor. We tend not to go out into the world at all. Rather, we pray for it and everyone in it.’

‘I see,’ said Steven. ‘Then the sister has not left these walls in over a decade?’

‘It would not be quite true to say that,’ replied the nun. ‘Sister Mary did not enjoy good health. The doctors decided last year that she needed an operation so she went into St Thomas’s Hospital in Hull for a few days some nine months ago to have it done. The Lord saw fit to return her to us fit and well.’

‘Good,’ said Steven. ‘What exactly was wrong with her?’

‘She lacked energy and tired easily; she often had to struggle for breath,’ replied the nun. ‘She gave us cause for alarm on more than one occasion and came dangerously close to collapse, but since the operation she’s been as right as rain, praise the Lord.’

‘She’ll need all her energy to fight this virus,’ said Steven.

A knock came to the door and a sister appeared to say that Reverend Mother was required immediately: Sister Mary Xavier was asking for her.

‘Of course,’ said Steven as she excused herself. He watched the two women bustle off down the corridor to the west wing, and then left the building. He sat in his car, wondering how someone who had not been outside the convent for nine months could possibly have contracted viral haemorrhagic fever. As he admitted defeat, a single bell began to toll and he knew instinctively that it was the death knell for Sister Mary Xavier.

Listening to the sombre sound of the bell, Steven wondered if it might not be tolling for all he had been taught about the mechanics of viral infection. None of this made any sense. Viruses needed a living host to maintain them and allow them to replicate. They did not have the wherewithal to lead an independent existence, not even as a simple sleeping spore, in the way that some bacteria could. Sister Mary Xavier must have contracted the infection from a living source, or else the textbooks would have to be re-written. The thought brought a wry smile to his face. Textbooks were always being re-written: it happened every time a fact emerged to take the place of expert opinion.

Steven was determined to keep thinking along logical lines. None of the other nuns was ill so Mary Xavier must have picked up the virus outside the convent. That left the unpleasant little fact that she hadn’t been outside the convent in the last nine months. Steven cursed in exasperation and leaned forward to rest his forehead on the top of the steering wheel while the tolling of the bell and the patter of the rain on the roof continued to mock him.

On impulse, he decided to drive into Hull and ask at St Thomas’s Hospital about the nature of Sister Mary’s illness and subsequent operation. He couldn’t see how it would help, but he would be amassing more information about a wildcard patient and, until such times as answers were forthcoming, no one could say what was going to be relevant and what was not. In the meantime, doing anything was better than doing nothing.

Mr Clifford Sykes-Taylor, FRCS was not at all sure about divulging information about his patient, and said so in no uncertain terms. He treated Steven to a monologue about slipping standards of patient confidentiality and the erosion of the patient-doctor relationship. He was a short, tubby man but with all the self-confidence in the world and a booming voice that belied his size. A spotted bow tie assisted in his quest to establish presence.

Steven imagined that he might have to stand on a box at the operating table, but certainly no one would have trouble hearing him.

‘I do have the authority to ask you for this information,’ said Steven calmly.

Sykes-Taylor sighed and said, ‘The authority, yes, of course, the authority, always the authority. Well, I’m not at all happy about authority’s role in this. I see it as a betrayal of my patient’s trust, and in my book my patient comes first. So far you haven’t given me one good reason why I should tell you anything.’

‘I’ll give you three if you like,’ said Steven. ‘One, like you I am a doctor, and the information will go no further. Two, I have the legal right to compel you to give me it if necessary. Three, your patient is dead; she died an hour ago.’

Sykes-Taylor looked surprised and then alarmed. ‘I hope you’re not here to suggest that my surgery played any part in her demise?’ he said, suddenly suspicious and defensive.

A surgeon’s epitaph for his patient, thought Steven. ‘No, Mr Sykes-Taylor, I’m not suggesting anything of the sort,’ he said. ‘But I would like to know why Sister Mary Xavier required your services in the first place.’

A look of relief spread over Sykes-Taylor’s face. ‘People sue if you as much as look at them the wrong way these days,’ he said, managing a half-smile for the first time. ‘Bloody legal insurance has gone sky-high this year, I can tell you. I sometimes wonder why I bother operating on the buggers, for all the thanks I get.’

Steven wondered what had happened to agonised concern about patients’ interests, but didn’t think it in his own interest to say so because Sykes-Taylor had got up to open his filing cabinet. He returned to his desk and flipped open a bulky cardboard file, slipped on half-moon glasses and began reading.

‘Ah yes, the good sister had a heart problem — she’d had it for the past five years or so. It manifested itself in the usual way, a lack of energy, breathlessness, that sort of thing. She was initially diagnosed as having a weak mitral valve — it was operating at around seventy per cent efficiency, but until the beginning of the year she wasn’t considered a high-priority case. At her check-up in December last year, however, it became apparent that the valve was becoming weaker and the stenosis worse: we thought there was a chance that it might fail completely, so we listed her for corrective surgery. She was brought in in February. She wasn’t in hospital long and the operation was straightforward and, as far as we were concerned, very successful. She left here feeling like a new woman and, to my knowledge, she hasn’t had any problems since — apart from the fact that she’s now dead.’