Ken McClure - Donor

‘Who else would want to kill Sheila Barnes?’

‘Agreed,’ said Dunbar, but there was hesitation in his voice.

‘Something’s troubling you?’

‘I can’t help thinking it was a very odd way to shut someone up. You’d think they’d want to do it as quickly as possible, not let nature take its course.’

‘Thanks,’ said Lisa flatly. ‘Very reassuring.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to alarm you. I was just thinking out loud. Obviously they must think time’s on their side. What do you think?’

‘Let’s see what your people come up with before we call in the police,’ said Lisa.

‘If you’re sure?’ said Dunbar.

She nodded uncertainly, as if she was using up every ounce of bravery she could muster in the gesture.

‘Good girl. In the meantime don’t open the door to any tradesmen unless they’ve got proper identification and credentials. Even at that, I’m going to arrange for surveillance outside.’

Lisa nodded again.

As soon as he got back to the hotel, Dunbar established a modem link with the Sci-Med office in London, using his notebook computer, and sent a two-word message, GLASGOW RED. Sci-Med would now know they had a criminal case on their hands, and any request made by Dunbar would be given priority. At some point in the next few days he would have to justify his action. If at all possible he would have to do it in person in London but, as he was the man on the ground right now, the decision was his.

After a few moments his computer bleeped, and Sci-Med’s reply came up on the screen: GLASGOW GREEN. His message had been received. There followed an instruction to adopt one of three encrypting procedures available on Sci-Med computers. From now on, to ensure complete security, all his messages would be encoded automatically before travelling down the phone lines, as would the return messages from Sci-Med. Dunbar did as instructed and was asked if he had any immediate requests. He asked for discreet, low-level surveillance at Lisa’s address. He didn’t believe she was in any immediate danger, but it was as well to think ahead. He was assured that this would be done. Asked if there was anything else, he replied that there was nothing that couldn’t wait until daybreak. He needed some sleep; it was two thirty in the morning.

Despite the lateness of the hour, sleep did not come easily. The events of the day went round in his head like scenes on a fairground carousel. The more he searched for answers, the bigger the questions seemed to get. Even niggling little worries demanded his attention. He was thinking about how he would return the equipment he’d borrowed from Radiology when a thought struck him. At the hospital, when he’d seen the surgical team get into the lift with the child, they’d taken her up to the second floor. He’d thought nothing of it at the time but now he realized that that would have taken them up to the east wing of Obstetrics, the one being used for the Omega patient. Why were they taking the child up there?

Dunbar was up early in the morning. The first thing he did was check his coded computer mail file. It had already been updated with a list of phone numbers, which he noted down in the small notebook he always carried. They were special numbers for the police and other authorities in the area, and would get him whatever assistance he needed, at priority level. There were also two bank account numbers he could use to obtain emergency funding. There was a Sci-Med telephone number to be used at any time of the day or night in making special requests and, finally, a directive that he should make personal contact at his earliest convenience. It was the standard package for Sci-Med investigators in the field when they asked for full operational status.

For the moment, everything depended on establishing the origins of the radioactive source. He asked Sci-Med to get the radioactive sample couriered to London and to arrange laboratory analysis of it. The evidence, he warned them, was little more than radioactive dirt. Would they do their best to identify the unknown isotope and its source?

As usual, he was impressed at the way Sci-Med didn’t question his requests. They simply accepted them and asked if he had any more or if there was anything else they could do to assist. This is the way an administration should work, he thought. They smoothed the way for the real function of the organization. In many government institutions administration had become an end in itself. In the worst cases, roles were reversed. Front-line workers existed only as administration fodder, to be administered, to provide information, data and statistics for administrators. Their true function had been totally undermined.

From what he’d heard from friends and colleagues, the NHS was well on the way to this state already. More and more medical and nursing time was taken up with the filling in of forms, the answering of questionnaires and complying with audit and monitoring procedures — generally being subject to the whims of an administration seeking to justify and multiply its own existence.

Dunbar scrounged some cardboard and adhesive tape from Reception and used it to make a small parcel of the lead pipe containing the debris. He checked the outside thoroughly with the radiation monitor before taking the package downstairs to await collection. He brought some black coffee back up with him and thought about what he was going to do next. He was going to drive down to Helensburgh to see Sheila Barnes, ostensibly to return her journal to her. He had planned to do so anyway, but now his number-one priority was to ask her if she could remember who had installed the phone junction box on her living-room wall and when. Maybe she could come up with a description or even a name.

After much heart-searching, he had decided not to tell her about the radiation source. She was dying and had accepted her fate with good grace. Telling her of his suspicions would only bring bitterness to her last days. It might also oblige him to inform the police, he acknowledged. Was that the real reason he wasn’t going to tell her? Sometimes it was all too easy to fool oneself about true motivation. He hoped it really was for Sheila’s sake, but he couldn’t be sure.

He had not yet left the hotel when a courier arrived to pick up the parcel containing the isotope. The man was surprised at how much the small package weighed. ‘What you got in here then?’ he joked. ‘Lead?’

Dunbar took his time driving down to Helensburgh. Driving at moderate speed meant that he didn’t have to concentrate too hard on the road ahead. There was time to think of other things and he definitely needed time to get his thoughts in order. The question was where to begin. There seemed to be no logical starting-point. He had never felt so much at sea in an investigation. The only real crime to come to grips with was the planting of the isotope in Sheila Barnes’s house, but surely that had been done to keep her quiet about something that had gone before, the death of a child. So what were the real circumstances surrounding the child’s death — and presumably Amy Teasdale’s too — that warranted murder to conceal the truth?

The room was being kept shaded but Dunbar could see that Sheila was close to death. Her emaciated body was so fragile that it seemed that the slightest breeze coming in the window might turn her to dust. He watched her sleep for a few moments after the care assistant had gone, wondering whether it might not be better if he just left. If she was sleeping she wasn’t in pain and that was probably the most important consideration… but he needed to ask her about the junction box. A moral dilemma.

‘Sheila?’ he said quietly.

There was no response.

He tried once more, then turned on his heel to leave. He had almost reached the door when he heard Sheila stir behind him. ‘Peter? Is that you?’