still and musty and had a cold edge to it that only stone built buildings can impart to their interiors. He was looking at a perfectly formed spider's web on the reel of a fire hose when he heard the front door open and saw a man in an ill fitting navy-blue uniform shuffle across the corridor with cup and saucer in his hand. He planked himself behind the desk and reached underneath it for a newspaper. He had not seen Jamieson and so was startled when Jamieson walked towards him and coughed to attract his attention.
''Ere! What's your game!' exclaimed the man, obviously startled. 'You shouldn't be in here!'
'I'm looking for Staff-Nurse Fantes,' said Jamieson.
'Well, you're supposed to ask at the desk not wander about the bleedin' corridors.'
'You weren't at the desk,' said Jamieson evenly and eyeing the cup and saucer.
The man imagined he caught a whiff of management about Jamieson and decided to play safe. He changed his tone to a more ingratiating one and asked, 'And who might I enquire is wanting her?'
'Dr Jamieson and it's official not personal,' added Jamieson, anticipating the next question.
'I'll just see if she's in doctor,' said the man with what he imagined was a friendly grin but which made him look like a dachshund with tooth-ache. He put on a pair of spectacles one handedly and traced his finger down a list of residents before picking up an internal phone and tapping three digits. He shot Jamieson another grin while he waited for a response and seemed disappointed not to get one in return but his call was answered and he gave the message to the person at the other end.
'She'll be down in a moment Doctor,' said the man putting down the phone and missing the rest at the first attempt. 'You can wait in the day room. It's along here.'
Jamieson followed the hunched figure along the bottom corridor and was shown into a large, high-ceilinged room to wait for the nurse. There was a tall, elegant fireplace at one end with an embroidered fire screen standing in front of it and a brass log box beside it. Cold rooms and empty fire places, thought Jamieson. There was something very British about it. Faded oil paintings of English rural scenes hung on the white walls at regular intervals and a number of assorted arm chairs that had seen better days were dotted about the lino covered floor. Copies of, Nursing Standard and various women's magazines were stacked in neat piles on a small, black table.
Jamieson checked his watch; it was three-fifteen. The door opened and a small, dark girl in her late twenties, thin at the shoulder but broad at the hips came into the room and closed the door quietly behind her before announcing herself as Marion Fantes.
Jamieson said who he was and why he had come to Kerr Memorial.
'I see,' said the girl but her eyes betrayed the fact that she was trying to work out why Jamieson had come to see her.
'It's about the swabs that were taken as part of the surgical team screening.' said Jamieson.
'But they were negative,' said the girl quickly.
'Indeed, that's why I'm here.'
'I don't understand,' said the girl.
'They were too negative.'
The girl shook her head slightly in bewilderment. 'Too negative?'
'No bacteria at all,' said Jamieson.
'Is that bad?' asked the girl, obviously feeling that it wasn't.
'Not bad,' said Jamieson quietly. 'It's unusual, unless of course you were on treatment involving anti-bacterial drugs… but there is no mention of that on your medical record.'
The girl held Jamieson's gaze for a moment then dropped her head and looked at the floor. Her shoulders visibly drooped forward. 'What a fool,' she said softly. 'I should have thought of that. What a fool.'
Jamieson waited quietly until the girl had recovered her composure. Somewhere in the building a door slammed and the noise reverberated round the room challenging the length of the silence.
'You are quite right.' Marion Fantes said softly. 'I am on treatment.'
'What's the problem?'
'Cystitis. I'm taking ampicillin.'
For a moment Jamieson could not see what the girl was so upset about. Cystitis was a common enough complaint in young women, perhaps correlated with sexual activity and often attracting the adjective, 'honeymoon' but in this day and age this was hardly a matter for either secrecy or embarrassment. Then he realised what the problem must be. 'You didn't go to your doctor?' he said.
The girl shook her head.
'You took the drugs off the ward?'
Marion Fantes nodded.
Jamieson let out his breath in a long sigh then he said, 'You do realise that taking any drugs off the ward is an offence that renders you subject to instant dismissal?'
The girl nodded and said, 'Of course. It was a stupid thing to do. I suppose I just didn't think at the time. I quite often get cystitis and my doctor always gives me ampicillin. I suppose I just thought that this time wouldn't have been any different so I didn't bother with the trip across town and the forty minute wait in the waiting room. It's so depressing.'
'How long have you been a nurse?' asked Jamieson.
'Nine years.'
'Any thoughts of marriage?'
The girl gave a bitter laugh and said, 'It's ironic really. I got the cystitis after a week's holiday with my boy- friend in the Lake District. At the end of it we broke up for good and now this.' She looked at Jamieson with an air of resignation and asked, 'What happens now?'
Jamieson looked at the sorry figure in front of him and considered his options. The official line was easy to take. He should report the girl and she would be dismissed. End of matter. But there were more things to be considered in the circumstances. The girl was thirty-one? Thirty-two? She had lost her boy-friend and she wasn't the most attractive girl he had ever seen. What would happen to her if she lost her job as well, not only her job, but her career? He could see the threat of embittered spinsterhood looming large on her horizon. Her record said that she was an excellent nurse. Was it really right to destroy all that? The rules said that it didn't matter what drug was stolen or for whatever purpose.
Jamieson decided to disagree. Any girl who had spent eight years of her life working in institutions like Kerr Memorial and living in places like the Thelma Morrison Nurses' Home deserved personal consideration and it wasn't heroin she had taken, just ampicillin, an antibiotic that graced half the bathroom cabinets in the land. Jamieson took a deep breath and said, 'Nothing.'
'I don't understand,' said Marion Fantes looking puzzled.
'To-night you take a trip across town and you wait for forty minutes in the waiting room along with the screaming kids and the coughing bronchitics. You read old copies of Punch and What Car until the buzzer sounds for you and then you tell your GP that you've got cystitis. That is the way — the only way — you get ampicillin in future. You never ever take anything from the ward again. Understood?'
Marion Fantes looked as if she could not believe her ears. Her face lit up like a sunrise as she fought for words to express her gratitude. 'I'll never be able to thank you enough,' she said.
'Hop it,' said Jamieson. He looked at his watch again. It was time to go and see Thelwell. He wasn't looking forward to that. As he left the nurses' home, the singing porter was aiming for the top note of Nessun Dorma. He missed.
FIVE
Jamieson entered the Gynaecology Department through a side door but found the narrow passage leading to the stairs barred by a number of large cartons. Two orderlies stood in front of the boxes waiting for a service lift to descend.
'Won't be a minute,' said one of the men when he saw Jamieson come in. Jamieson nodded and waited. The lift was of the old fashioned type, completely open to view from all sides, more like an iron cage than a modern
