Ken McClure - Donor

He rolled on to his back and tried to get his wits back. He ran through his surroundings in his head, the framework, the dimensions of the trays, the gaps between the trays and the walls, the gap between his body and the ceiling. There was only one chance, he concluded. If he could dislodge the top tray and tip it up so that it fell down through the frame, giving him access to the lower tray, there was a chance he could get out of this mess. The trouble was, both he and Angela were lying on it.

There wasn’t room to dislodge it sideways, he reckoned. It would have to be dislodged front to back and then twisted so that it fell diagonally through the frame. The chance of achieving this seemed so slim that he didn’t want to think about it. He simply started trying. He felt that the bones in his fingers must snap as he applied more and more pressure to the metal tray in an attempt to lever it and the combined weight of two bodies over the end of the frame. At the third attempt he managed it, sweat running down his forehead and stinging his eyes despite the cold. Fear was triumphing over temperature.

The next thing was to edge the tray forward. This time his arms had to take the strain as he took as much of his own weight as possible off the tray by pressing his hands against the side walls. He hooked his feet over the back edge of the tray and inched it slowly forwards so that as much of it as possible rode up on the front lip of the frame until it was stopped by the door.

Dunbar took a breather. He was literally poised between life and death. His right foot was going to decide the outcome of his predicament. If, when he thumped it down hard on the bottom edge of the tray, the tray didn’t twist and go crashing down through the gap, complete with Angela and himself, he could forget any other plan. There wouldn’t be any.

He took a moment to focus all his attention on the toe of his shoe. There could be no drawing back in deference to pain. Every ounce of strength he possessed had to go into the kick. He slowly raised his foot until his heel was stopped by the ceiling — a pitifully small length of travel. He brought his foot down with all the force that fear and focus could muster. The tray twisted and went down through the gap, bottom first. Dunbar and Angela finished up in a semi-erect embrace, leaning against the door.

Dunbar eased the tray slowly out of the way and tried to prop Angela up in the corner so that he could feel for the pin. After a few seconds, the searching palm of his right hand made contact with the pin. He felt his way up the back of the door until he found the hole for the pin, keeping his left index finger in it until he had the pin in place. He inserted the pin and gave it an almost despairing thump with the heel of his right hand. The clasp released and the door swung slowly and mockingly back. Dunbar put his hands down on the floor outside and dragged himself free. He lay on the floor for a few moments, breathing deeply and looking back at the maw of the fridge that had so nearly become his tomb.

His relief at being alive gave way to considerations of his present predicament. He had to put things back in order in the fridge and return Angela to her upper berth. He got somewhat unsteadily to his feet and pulled her fully out of the fridge. It took only a moment for him to restore the fallen tray to the top runners and slide it in. When he was satisfied it was running true, he slid it half out again, lifted her up and fed her slowly on to it. He closed her eyes with his finger tips and replaced her head cloth. ‘Requiescat in pace, Angela,’ he said. He slid the tray home and closed the door.

As he recovered from his ordeal, Dunbar turned his attention to the question of the pig and what had happened to it. He was almost certain that it had been taken to the post-mortem suite along the corridor. The chains above the operating table, he now knew, must be animal hoists. The question was, could he find out what exactly they were doing to it there without being discovered?

The affair in the mortuary fridge had taken a lot out of him; he had no heart for more heroics, but he did think he could get into the ante-room outside the PM room without being seen. Once in there, he might be able to see something of what was going on inside.

Dunbar went through his usual routine of listening at the door before opening it and then cautiously looking up and down the corridor. Luck was still with him. He ran along to the door to the PM suite and listened for voices again. He couldn’t hear anything but this was a bit of a gamble. If there was someone in the suite he’d better have his story ready. Nothing too elaborate, he decided. Better to play the bumbling English civil servant just having a look around the hospital. He opened the door; there was no one there. He entered quietly and looked through the glass panel in the door leading to the scrub room. Three jackets were hanging on pegs on the wall. Taking a deep breath, he moved through the scrub room and sidled up to the glass panel in the door leading to the PM room itself.

He saw what he supposed he had expected: an autopsy being carried out on the pig. Three gowned and masked figures were working on the carcass, which was secured to the table by leather straps. Its insides were exposed through a sweeping incision from its throat to its genitals. The huge operating light above the table illuminated the scene with a brilliance that made the scarlet hellish bright.

Dunbar was puzzled. Why should the three people at the table be fully gowned, gloved and masked for an animal autopsy? Such precautions were more appropriate for work on a living patient, when aseptic technique was paramount in avoiding subsequent infection. They seemed to be removing certain of the pig’s internal organs and transferring them to plastic wrapping and then to stainless steel containers. Dunbar presumed this was for histological work later in the lab, but then a sudden awful doubt crept into his mind. That was why they were removing them, wasn’t it? Surely they didn’t intend using the animal’s organs for anything else?

He tried to make out who the masked figures were but it proved impossible. He gave up and slipped out of the scrub room, through the ante-room and out into the corridor. As soon as he got back to his office he phoned Lisa.

‘I know it’s late, but can I come over?’

‘Of course.’

‘A pig?’ exclaimed Lisa.

‘They were dissecting it with full aseptic precautions.’

‘But why?’

‘I think it’s reasonable to assume that it must have had something to do with Ross’s research programme.’

‘He’d be using pigs?’

‘Almost certainly. The pig stands in line to become man’s best friend in that department. The immunology journals are full of experimental work on them. Their organs are the right size for us if the rejection problems can be dealt with, and there’s a lot of work going on into that.’

‘But at night and in the Medic Ecosse Hospital?’ protested Lisa.

‘That worries me too,’ agreed Dunbar. ‘That’s why I wanted to talk to you. They were treating the pig as if it were a human patient. Gowns, masks, the whole bit. It just made me wonder.’

‘Good God you don’t think they were planning to use…?’

Dunbar’s mind too rebelled against the thought, but he couldn’t dismiss the notion that what he had seen might explain why two patients appeared to have been given the wrong organ.

‘But surely you need all sorts of permission and sanctioning for anything like that?’ said Lisa.

‘I’m sure you do. Unless you just go ahead and do it anyway.’

‘Do you think that’s what they did to Amy? Gave her a pig’s kidney?’

‘It’s something we have to consider.’

‘What are you going to do?’