Ken McClure - Donor

Dunbar shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think that’ll be necessary.’

‘Is there anything else I can help with?’

‘Not for the moment,’ smiled Dunbar. ‘I’m going to take the afternoon off, see the delights of Glasgow.’

‘Don’t hold your breath,’ said Ingrid.

Why was a sneer considered by so many to be the basis of sophistication? he wondered idly as he watched the door close.

He set off for Helensburgh just after one o’clock after checking the route in the AA road maps thoughtfully provided with the car. It seemed straightforward enough, just a matter of following the northern shore of the Clyde down to where Helensburgh sat at the foot of the Gare Loch. As he drove along the Clydebank expressway and out along the Dumbarton Road he passed the turn-off to Lisa Fairfax’s place. He couldn’t help but think of her sitting there in the flat with her demented mother. It made him reflect on how people’s lives could be ruined by notions of filial duty.

The sun was shining when he drove into Helensburgh and parked down by the sea front. The matron of The Beeches had told him to follow the signs directing tourists to Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s famous Hill House; the hospice was located in Harlaw Road, the street running parallel to and a little behind Hill House, but he had time in hand so he decided to stretch his legs first and also find something to eat. He had given lunch a miss in Glasgow because he hadn’t been sure how long the journey down would take him. In the event it had taken under an hour. He watched the waves for a bit until the wind chilled him, then he went in search of a bar or cafe. He found an outlet of the Pierre Victoire chain, where he had a mushroom omelette and a glass of wine. He followed this with two cups of good coffee and a consideration of what he was going to ask Sheila Barnes — if, indeed, she was in any position to answer.

The Beeches was a large, stone-built Victorian villa with ivy clinging to its walls on the two sides Dunbar could see as he approached. In another setting it might have been forbidding but here, above the town and with views over the water, it seemed pleasantly neutral in the pale yellow, wintery afternoon sunshine. Dunbar rang the bell, and was led along to the matron’s office by a woman orderly dressed in a pink uniform and thick brown stockings. Her shoulders sloped dramatically from left to right. As he followed her he had to fight a conscious urge to emulate her posture. He was very aware of the warmth of the building and suspected that they must keep the heating full on.

‘Dr Dunbar, please come in,’ said a pleasant woman in her late forties in response to the orderly’s announcement of his arrival. She had prematurely white hair, suggesting that she had been blonde in her youth, and wore the kind of professional half-smile affected by senior nursing staff to put strangers at their ease.

‘Mrs Barnes is awake, although I have to say that she couldn’t recall you when I told her you were coming.’ The smile didn’t waver but her eyes asked the question.

Dunbar felt a pang of guilt. ‘It’s been a very long time, Matron. Many years.’

‘Well, I’m sure it’ll all come back to her when she sees you, and you can have a nice chat. We like old friends to call, and Sheila doesn’t have much longer to go, I’m afraid.’

‘Is she comfortable?’ asked Dunbar.

‘She has her moments of discomfort, but on the whole we’ve got her pain under control. You may find her a little sleepy. She’s on morphine.’

‘Someone told me her husband has cancer too,’ said Dunbar.

‘It’s true, I’m afraid. They both contracted it at almost exactly the same time. Very strange. I can’t ever recall that happening before. Cyril has the room next door to Sheila. Would you like to see him too?’

Dunbar shook his head and said, ‘I never knew Cyril.’

‘I’ll have Morag take you up now.’

The orderly was summoned back and she led Dunbar along the carpeted corridor and up the stairs to a pleasant bay-windowed room on the first floor.

‘Mrs Barnes, your visitor is here,’ said the orderly as she entered. Dunbar entered and the orderly backed out and closed the door. He approached the bed, where a painfully thin woman lay. Dunbar knew her to be forty-seven, but she looked twenty years older. Her face was etched with pain lines and her eyes seemed unnaturally large because of the hollowing of her cheeks.

‘Mrs Barnes, I’m Steven Dunbar.’

‘I don’t know you,’ said Sheila Barnes in a voice that didn’t rise above a whisper.

‘No, I’m afraid you don’t,’ he agreed, ‘but I had to ask you about an allegation you made while you were a nursing sister at the Medic Ecosse Hospital.’

Sheila Barnes gave the tiniest snort of derision. ‘After all this time?’

‘Yes. I’m sorry, but something happened recently that makes these questions necessary. You maintained that a patient had been given the wrong organ in a transplant operation. Is that right?’

‘There was no other explanation.’

‘Was it a patient you were particularly fond of?’ asked Dunbar.

Sheila Barnes shook her head slowly. ‘No,’ she said. ‘He was a little shit, as I remember. Why are you asking me this now?’

Dunbar saw no point in telling her anything but the truth. He said, ‘Because another nurse working there has made exactly the same allegation.’

Dunbar imagined he saw a sharpness appear in the big eyes. ‘Has she now?’ she said thoughtfully.

‘A staff nurse in the transplant unit.’

‘Did anyone listen to her?’

‘She was dismissed.’

Sheila Barnes frowned and said, ‘What are they doing in that place?’

‘That’s what I’m trying to find out,’ said Dunbar. ‘I’d like you to tell me all you remember about your patient.’

Sheila Barnes rested her head back on the pillow and let out a long sigh. She looked up at the ceiling in silence for a moment, then said, ‘I can do better than that. Get my handbag. It’s over there on the chest of drawers.’

Dunbar did as he was bid.

‘You’ll find a set of keys in the front.’

Dunbar found the keys.

‘They’re the keys to our house in Glasgow. I wrote everything down at the time. You may find that more useful than the suspect memory of a sick woman. Go there. Cyril and I won’t be coming home. It’s a black notebook. You’ll find it in the right-hand dressing-table drawer in our bedroom.’ She gave Dunbar the address.

‘If that’s what you want.’

Sheila Barnes fell back on her pillows again as if exhausted. ‘One mix-up is possible, but two…?’ she said distantly.

Dunbar looked back at The Beeches as he closed the gate behind him. The meeting had seemed strange but that was often the way with people who were very ill and under heavy analgesia. They had an air of detachment about them which suggested wooziness but they often still retained a clarity of thought that was as sharp as a razor and could take you by surprise. Despite the travails of her illness, Sheila Barnes had struck him as an intelligent, down-to-earth woman and, like Lisa Fairfax, not at all the type given to hysterical outbursts. Another nail in the coffin of the ‘neurotic nurse’ theory.

But, he wondered as he got back into the car, did that help? As far as he could see, eliminating one possibility left two others. Either both nurses had been mistaken in their conclusions or — the least attractive scenario of all — both were right and if that were the case… God knows where that was going to lead him. He decided he would go round to the Barneses’ house that evening and pick up Sheila’s journal. Maybe that would help him get a better feel for what had really gone on at the time.