S Bolton - Sacrifice

I got ready to close up the site and started thinking. Dana had told me that most dentists on Shetland are NHS. If that were true, then whilst patients might visit a number of different surgeries scattered over the islands, their records would be on this one central database and accessible by yours truly, courtesy of a rather weird password, which would probably be changed the minute the hierarchy found out I'd been meddling. This was my one chance.

Which you are not going to take. You've done what you set out to do, proved the body in the peat wasn't Kirsten; it's up to the police now.

But dental records, like all medical records, are confidential. Even police working on a murder investigation couldn't gain automatic access to them. A court order, at least, would be needed and from what I'd heard, there were no plans to apply for one. This was a pretty unique opportunity. No one on the murder squad could do what I was doing right now. The big question, though, was whether the search was even remotely manageable. Just how many dental records would I have to look at?

No, that is not the big question, Tora! The big question is: why aren't you packing up and going to find a room somewhere to spend the night?

I switched to the Internet and called up the site of the Scottish Census. I knew the population of Shetland was in the region of 25,000, including the migrant workers on the oilfields, but I had no idea how many women there were in the twenty-five to thirty-five age group. Which, you could argue, was a bit unprofessional for the resident obstetrician, given they were what management consultants call my prime target group. The Scottish Census for 2004 was the most recent available and it told me that the number of women on the islands aged between twenty and thirty-four was 2,558: an impossible number to check.

Good, that's settled then, let's go and get some rest.

Could it be narrowed down at all? Not everyone is registered with a dentist. I remembered reading somewhere that a lot of people neglect their teeth, something like half the population. That would bring the number down to around 1,200. And my friend from the field had had dental work. If she was an island woman and an NHS patient, her records were here for me to find.

She isn't an island woman. DI Dunn's investigation has ruled out all the missing women from the islands. You and Dana were wrong.

Don't like being wrong. I went back to the dental database, wondering if I could sort the data. I pressed the button for data sort and put in my criteria: female patients, resident on the island, aged between sixteen and thirty-four. I'd have liked to specify a narrower age band but the system wouldn't let me. Then I was looking at a list of names. I scanned to the bottom of the page. 1,700 patients. Still an impossible search. I got up and crossed to the coffee machine.

OK, think, tired brain, think. 1,700 women, aged between sixteen and thirty-four years old. There was a real, good chance the lady from the peat was one of them, if only I could… Of course! I shot back to my desk and scanned the list of search criteria. Yes! There it was: date of last appointment. My friend had been dead since early summer 2005; I just had to get rid of all the women who'd attended the surgery since then. I typed in '1 September 2005', which I guessed would leave a big enough margin for error, and pressed search. It took a few seconds, then… sixty-three women left on the list.

It was a manageable – if lengthy – search. Five minutes per patient to be really sure; it was already seven thirty and I was shattered. On the other hand, this really was my only chance. By tomorrow morning my unauthorized hacking would have been discovered and terminated…

quite probably along with your employment

… and I had to make it worthwhile.

In my desk drawer, under Filing and Misc., was a copy of the print-out I'd given Dana at the start of the week: the list of women who'd given birth on the islands during the spring and summer of 2005. I began to compare the two lists, looking for a woman who had given birth that summer and, simultaneously, ceased to feel the need for regular dental check-ups. It took some time, as both lists were sorted by date rather than alphabetically, but thirty minutes and two cups of coffee later I was pretty certain there were no matches.

Exhaustion hit me at that point. There was really no getting round the birth issue. The woman had had a baby and any woman who had done so on the islands that summer had to be on my list. She must have visited a dentist privately. Unfortunately, I still had to work till two a.m. and go through the sixty-three records or I'd never know for sure.

The phone rang. This was it then: Gifford summoning me to his office. I considered ignoring it but knew he'd just come and find me.

'Hello.'

'It's Dana. Are you OK?'

'I'm fine, just tired.'

'I have just had the devil of a row with my inspector. I can't believe no one called me last night. You must have been out of your wits.'

'Something like that,' I confessed. 'I was a bit surprised not to see you.'

'I'm supposed to be in charge of this blessed investigation. Can you believe what the official line is? I wasn't called out because there was no direct link to the case. What happened last night was just somebody's idea of a joke.'

Logically, I probably should have been disturbed that Dana took the events of the previous night as seriously as I did. And yet I found myself reassured. I guess, given the choice, most of us would opt for in danger before delusional.

'You don't go along with that theory then?' I said.

'Are you kidding me? What are you up to right now?'

I explained about conning the nurse into giving me the password and my examination of Kirsten Hawick's records. If she was disappointed, she gave no sign. Then I told her about my plans to go through the rest.

'How many more do you have to look at?' she asked.

'Sixty-three,' I told her.

'I'm coming in to help. I don't like the idea of you being there on your own.'

I stood up, peered out of the window. Gifford's car was still there.

'No, you'll be far too conspicuous. I'll be fine. There's loads of people around. I'll call when I'm done.'

'Thanks, Tora, I mean it. Look, let me give you my address and home phone number. Come round, it doesn't matter what time.'

I scribbled the details down and she was gone. I was on my own and, in spite of all my best intentions and the well-meaning advice of those wiser than myself, I called up the first set of X-rays.

TWO HOURS LATER, I'D RULED OUT TWENTY-TWO OF THE names on the list. It was all starting to look like a complete waste of time, but I'm one of those people who can never leave a job unfinished. I knew I'd be here for the duration.

First, though: sustenance. I locked my office and went down to the canteen. I piled my tray high with fatty carbohydrates and added a Diet Coke. I ate like a robot, hardly lifting my eyes from the tray, and then went back to my office.

Another hour and a half, another two cups of coffee and either something was going wrong with the hospital electrics or I was seriously in need of sleep, because the room around me had grown decidedly dimmer. I looked up at the neon strips above me. I hadn't noticed any flickering but the light just wasn't what it had been a couple of hours ago. The sky outside seemed unnaturally dark too, even allowing for it not being far off midnight. There must be a storm coming.

I looked back at the screen, but could barely make it out. The sharpness of the X-ray image had blurred into a confused mass of shapes and shading. Words were indistinguishable. I knew I had eighteen more records to check, but it just wasn't possible. I'd print them off, go find a bed and read through them in the morning. I closed my eyes, shook my head and then opened them again. It was no better; if anything, worse: I was staring at a black screen with words that had been bright green. Now, they were no colour at all, just dullish marks of light that seemed to be growing in size.