Ken McClure - Pestilence

When he got home Saracen decided to return to duty on the following morning and telephoned Nigel Garten to tell him so. The news was greeted enthusiastically by Garten who wondered perhaps if Saracen

‘could possibly’ take over his period of duty with Chenhui Tang as he had been called to an all day meeting of the Skelmore Development Committee at the Council Chambers. Saracen bit his lip and agreed. Involvement with the Development Committee was rapidly becoming the jewel in Garten’s crown of excuses for avoiding work. This would be the third all day meeting he had attended in the past month.

Saracen sensed political ambition awakening in Garten and thought the man well qualified. All front and no substance. He was the right age and held the right status in the community to present well in the political arena. The more usual background of business success was provided, in Garten’s case by his father-in-law, Matthew Glendale, a wealthy and prominent local builder. It was a connection that had cost Garten dear for, for Mildred Glendale, Garten’s wife, had achieved uniqueness in Saracen’s mind as the most unpleasant woman he had ever met. Tremaine, on meeting her, had summed her up succinctly with the comment, ‘sensitivity of a dead pig, manners of a live one.” Saracen might have argued with the ethics of such a remark but not the accuracy. From time to time Saracen had wondered if Garten might have been different had he not married the malicious Mildred but he concluded not. To be so lazy and parasitic demanded congenital short-comings not just acquired ones.

Chenhui Tang smiled when she saw Saracen come through the swing doors of A amp;E. She touched her head with her hand and said with a strong accent, “Your head…it is all right now?”

“Fine,” smiled Saracen. Conversation with Chenhui invariably involved a lot of smiles. They filled in the gaps where words should have been. “Are we busy this morning?”

“Yes, yes, busy,” said Chenhui with an exaggerated series of nods and smiles.

Saracen liked Chenhui and thought that she would make a good doctor. He respected her for that and would have liked to have known her better but the communication barrier between them was just too great. He had visited her once in her room at the doctors’ residency and had found it full of tutorial books on the English language. They had occupied an entire shelf along one wall, a monument to complete failure, he had thought at the time.

Alan Tremaine, who had been on duty during the night, signed off officially and handed over responsibility to Saracen with a report on the night’s ‘business’. There had been an accident in the local brewery resulting in several cases of severe scalding, a motor-cycle accident resulting in a fatality, the pillion passenger. The Police were still trying to contact relatives. They would probably turn up during the morning.

Saracen nodded and checked up on the present location of the burns cases in anticipation of phoned inquiries. “Anything else I should know?”

“The Police brought in a man at three this morning. He had ‘collapsed’ in the cells; hit his head on something…”

“Did it wash?”

“No other bruises on him.”

Saracen nodded.

“The X-Rays were OK, just knocked himself out.”

“Good. Off you go then.”

As the doors closed behind Tremaine, Chenhui came up to Saracen looking harassed. “You come please!” she said.

“I come,” smiled Saracen and followed her to the treatment room to begin another day.

The mid-morning admission of a housewife who had overdosed on Valium made Saracen wonder about Timothy Archer and how he was getting on. He had decided not to ask Nigel Garten about the Myra Archer case lest this be misconstrued, or more correctly, construed as unwarranted interference or even implied criticism. He did however resolve to check up on the case details recorded in the admission book when he got the chance.

He got the chance in the early afternoon when a lull developed. Nurses were chatting as they polished and tidied instrument trays and re-stocked cupboards and shelves. Chenhui sat with one of her English language books, her mouth moving silently. Saracen flicked through the pages of the admissions book and scanned down the entries for the evening of the twelfth. His index finger stopped on the entry for Myra Archer. Medic-Alpha Alert…Myra Archer, Flat 2, Palmer’s Green Court…Dead on Arrival…No known relatives…Medical Officer, Dr Chenhui Tang. There was no mention of a Post Mortem report.

Saracen closed the book and replaced it on the shelf. He went and sat down beside Chenhui who looked up from her book and smiled. Saracen glanced at the page she had been studying. It was headed, ‘At the Seaside’…How is the weather? The weather is fine. What colour is the sky? The sky is blue.

“Chenhui, do you remember a Mrs Myra Archer?” asked Saracen. He fully expected her to smile, repeat the name slowly and then look thoughtful. Instead her smile disappeared instantly, her eyes filled with something that looked like fear and she became so nervous and agitated that she dropped the book she had been looking at. Saracen picked it up and handed it to her.

“No…No Myra Archer,” said Chenhui, looking more and more like a frightened mouse.

“But…” Saracen stopped himself. “No matter,” he smiled, “It must have been a mistake. Forget it, it wasn’t important.”

Chenhui got up and excused herself leaving Saracen to look thoughtfully after her as she left the treatment room. “Now what was that all about?” he said quietly. It suddenly appeared as if Archer had been right. There had been something odd about the way his wife’s case had been handled. The question was what? He considered everything he knew about the affair. According to Timothy Archer there had been some kind of mix-up over which hospital his wife had been admitted to and, with Chenhui involved a misunderstanding was certainly on the cards. Had that been it? Had some failure in communication been responsible for a delay in admitting Myra Archer to hospital and, if so, had it been a serious delay? Could it have been responsible for her death?

If it had then there had obviously been a cover-up and Nigel Garten must have been involved for he was the one who had spoken to Archer. Saracen felt a hollowness creeping into the pit of his stomach. This was exactly the kind of situation he did not need in his life, not a second time.

His inclination was to do nothing and he tried to rationalise this course of inaction by telling himself that whatever he did it was not going to bring Myra Archer back to life. Any kind of enquiry would be sure to cause embarrassment, anguish and a great deal of unpleasantness. Chenhui might end up being dismissed; maybe even Nigel Garten too after a sacrificial inquiry by the Health Board for the benefit of the Press. He himself would establish his credentials beyond doubt as a viper who would never find another nest in medicine…Was that the real reason for doing nothing? he wondered. If someone had really died because of Chenhui it could happen again and, if it did, would it not be as much his fault as hers for having said nothing? “Shit,” said Saracen out loud.

As business began to pick up in A amp;E Saracen did his best to pretend to Chenhui that nothing was amiss. He had still not decided what to do for the best for both options seemed equally unattractive but, by tea time, he had come up with a third alternative. He would carry out an investigation on his own and reach his own conclusions about the death of Myra Archer. If he concluded that a foul-up had contributed to her death then he would speak out. If, on the other hand, he felt that she would have died anyway he would be content to let the matter rest.