whisky down his throat in one swift, sudden movement taking pleasure in the burning sensation it provoked. He returned to watching the people below as they hurried homewards, heads bowed against wind and rain but he really didn't see them, his mind was too full of what had happened at the hospital.
On impulse Fenton turned and threw the glass he had been holding into the fireplace; he had to break the awful silence. But almost immediately he felt ashamed at what he had done and began picking up the pieces cursing softly as he did so. When he had finished he took off his leathers and poured more whisky into a fresh glass before sitting down in an arm chair and hoisting his feet on to the stool that lurked round the fireplace. Half way through the bottle he fell asleep.
Just after nine thirty Fenton was aroused to a groggy state of wakefulness by the sound of keys rattling at the lock and the front door opening. A blonde girl in her mid twenties with bits of nurses' uniform showing beneath her coat came into the room and stood in the doorway for a moment before saying, 'God Tom, I've rushed all the way home and now I don't know what to say.'
Fenton nodded.
'It's just so awful. I keep thinking it can't be true. How could anyone…Isn't there a chance it could have been some kind of freak accident?'
'None at all. It was murder. Someone pushed Neil into the autoclave and pushed the right buttons,' said Fenton.
'But why? What possible reason could they have had?'
'None,' said Fenton, 'It had to be a lunatic, a head case.' He swung his feet off the stool and sat upright in the chair.
'Have you had anything to eat?' asked Jenny.
'Not hungry.'
'Me neither but we'll have coffee.' Jenny leaned down and kissed Fenton on the top of his head. As she straightened up she removed the whisky bottle from the side of his chair and put it back in the cabinet before going to the kitchen. She returned a few minutes later with two mugs of steaming coffee. Fenton took one in both hands and sipped it slowly till the act of drinking coffee together had re-established social normality.
'Do the police have any ideas?' asked Jenny.
'If they did they didn't tell me,' said Fenton.
'I suppose they spoke to everyone in the lab?'
'At least twice.'
'What happens now?'
'We just go on as if nothing…' Fenton stopped in mid sentence and put his hand up to his forehead. Jenny reached out and took it. She said softly, 'I know. Neil was your best friend.
Tom Fenton was twenty-nine years old. After graduating from Glasgow University with a degree in biochemistry he had joined the staff of the Western Infirmary in the same city as a basic grade biochemist. One year later he had met the girl who was to become his wife, Louise. In almost traditional fashion, Louise's parents had disapproved of their daughter's choice, frowning on Fenton's humble origins, but had been unable to stop the marriage which was to give Fenton the happiest year he had ever known. Louise's gentleness and charm had woven a spell which had trapped him in a love that had known no bounds, a love which was to prove his undoing when both she and the baby she was carrying were killed in a road accident.
Fenton had been inconsolable. He had fallen into an endless night of despair which had taken him to the limits of his reason and had threatened to push him beyond. Time, tears and a great deal of Scotch whisky had returned him to society but as a changed man. Gone was the happy, carefree Tom Fenton. His place had been taken by a morose, withdrawn individual, devoid of all drive and ambition.
After a year of being haunted by the ghost of Louise Fenton had taken his first major decision. He had applied for a job abroad and, four months later, he had been on his way to a hospital in Zambia.
Africa had been good for him. Within a year he had recovered his self confidence and could think of Louise without despairing; he could even speak about her on the odd occasion. He had enjoyed the life and the climate and had renewed his contract on two occasions bringing his stay to three years in all before he suddenly decided it was time to return to Scotland and pick up the threads of his old life. The prevailing economic climate and the perilous state of the National Health Service had made it difficult for him to find a job quickly and he had spent a year at Edinburgh University in a grant aided research assistant's post before applying for, and getting, his current position at the Princess Mary Hospital.
The sudden return to the demands of a busy hospital laboratory after a year of academic calm had been a bit of a shock but he had weathered the storm and established himself as a reliable and conscientious member of the lab team. The fact that the Princess Mary was a children's hospital and the lab specialised in paediatric techniques pleased him. Working for the welfare of child patients seemed to compensate in some way for the child he had lost.
After a year he had scraped together the deposit for a flat of his own in the Comely Bank area of the city and, on a bright May morning, assisted by Neil Munro and two of the technicians from the lab, he had moved in. The flat was on the top floor of a respectable tenement building that had been built around the turn of the century and featured high ceilings with cornice work that had particularly attracted him to it in the first place. It had south facing windows which, on the odd occasion that the skies were clear in Edinburgh, allowed the sun to stream in from noon onwards. The undoubted reward he reaped from having to climb four flights of stairs up to the flat was the magnificent view. As Autumn had come around he had watched the smoke from the burning leaves hang heavy in the deep yellow sunshine and had come to understand fully what Keats, who had once lived in the same area of the city, had meant by 'mists and mellow fruitfulness.'
In the last year Fenton had met Jenny, a nurse at the hospital. She was very different from Louise but he had been attracted to her from the moment they met. Their relationship was easy, undemanding and good. Marriage had not been mentioned but Jenny had moved in to the flat and they were letting things take their course.
…
Jenny Buchan was twenty-four. She had been born in the small fishing village of Findochty on the Moray Firth, the youngest of three children to her father, George Buchan, a fisherman all his life. He had died in a storm at sea when she was fourteen leaving her mother, Ellen, to fend for the family but luckily it had not been too long before her two older brothers, Ian and Grant, had reached working age and had followed their late father into the fleet fishing out of Buckie. They now had their own boat, the Margaret Ross, and, between them, they had provided Jenny with three nephews and two nieces. Jenny herself had travelled south to Aberdeen after leaving school and had trained as a nurse at the Royal Infirmary before moving further south to Edinburgh and the Princess Mary Hospital where she had settled in happily. She had spent her first year in the Nurses' Home before moving into a rented flat with two other nurses and living in traditional, but pleasant chaos.
She had met Tom Fenton at a hospital party and had been drawn to him in the first instance because he had seemed genuinely content to just sit and talk to her. His dark, sad eyes had intrigued her and she had resolved to find out what lay behind them until, after their third date, he had told her about Louise and alarm bells had rung in her head. If Tom Fenton had decided to dedicate his life to the memory of a dead woman then she, Jenny Buchan, had not wanted to know any more. She need not have worried for, after an idyllic picnic in the Border country, Fenton had taken her home and made love to her with such gentleness and consideration that she had fallen head over heels in love with him. Despite this she had still decided to make her position clear. One night as they lay together in the darkness she had turned to him and said, 'I am Jenny, not Louise. Are you quite sure you understand that?' Fenton had assured her.
The rain assisted by a bitter February wind woke them before the alarm did. 'What's the time?' asked Fenton.
'Ten past seven.'
'What duty do you have?'
'Start at two.'
'You mean I've got to get up alone?'
'Correct.'
'Good God, listen to that rain.'
