Chameleon

'Yes dear.'

Thelwell regretted his sharpness and apologised saying, 'I'm afraid I'm a bit on edge. This business is getting me down.'

'I understand dear. Come to bed.'

'Later.'

'Yes dear.'

Scott Jamieson woke at three in the morning. He usually did when something was troubling him. It was no comfort to know that he was one of thousands in the country who woke regularly at this time. Nature had decreed that three in the morning was the hour when people with problems ranging from the unmanageable size of their mortgage to true manic depression would wake to face their personal hell. Optimism required daylight. Despair thrived in the dark.

He felt alone as he lay in the subdued night-light of the strange ward listening to the sounds of the night. He missed not having Sue next to him. He missed not being able to stretch his arm over her sleeping body to cuddle in to her. He resolved to oppose any possible suggestion in the years to come that they change to single beds. It irked him that he had got off to such a bad start in his new job. Almost subconsciously he flexed the fingers of both hands beneath the bandages to assess how painful they were. It was academic really for he had already decided to start his investigation in the morning however badly he felt. As it happened, they did not feel too bad at all.

His impatience to get on with the job was not entirely due to his inability to come to terms with imposed idleness. It was reinforced with the belief that if he did not get on with the investigation Sci-Med might well feel obliged to send in someone else and that would mean that he had failed, a completely unacceptable state of affairs for Scott Jamieson whatever extenuating circumstance there might be.

As Jamieson closed his eyes and tried to get back to sleep in the ward, the telephone rang beside John Richardson's bed and woke him from a deep sleep. He took a few moments to clear his head and then held the receiver to his ear.

'I'm sorry to trouble you at this hour,' said Clive Evans's voice but I was called out a couple of hours ago for a patient in post-op, one of Mr Thelwell's patients, a Mrs Sally Jenkins. She's being showing signs of wound infection and Mr Thelwell's registrar took swabs for testing.'

'And?'

'Gram-negative bacilli and a positive oxidase test. It looks like it's the Pseudomonas again. I thought you would want to know.'

'Yes, thank-you,' said Richardson putting down the phone. His wife who was awake beside him asked about the call.

'Another post-operative infection in Gynaecology.'

'But I thought Thelwell had closed the Gynae theatre?'

'He did,' replied Richardson thoughtfully. He insisted on moving his scheduled operations to the Orthopaedic suite until we had traced the source of the outbreak.'

'Then it looks like he took the infection with him.'

Richardson looked at his wife and said, 'This is exactly what I have been saying all along. If we can't find the source of infection in the theatre itself then the fault must lie with the staff. It's time we swabbed the whole surgical team again; we must have a carrier among them. It's the only logical explanation. For some unknown reason we must have missed him…'

'Or her.'

'Or her, the first time around.'

Jamieson awoke to the sound of two nurses talking. They were standing in the doorway of his room, one with her hand on the door knob and the other standing in the corridor outside with a steel tray in her hand. As he became fully awake Jamieson could make out some of their conversation.

'They say he cut her to pieces,' said one of the girls.

'That's what I heard too,' agreed the other. I don't understand how no one heard her screams.'

'Maybe they did,' said the other girl. 'They just pretended not to, a sign of the times, I'm afraid. People just don't want to get involved.'

The nurse with her hand on the door handle noticed that Jamieson was awake and cut short the conversation to come into the room and close the door behind her.

'What was that all about?' asked Jamieson.

'A prostitute was murdered in the city last night,' replied the girl.

'I heard about that,' said Jamieson.

'No, this is another one. It happened last night. You're thinking of the first one.'

'Two in two days,' exclaimed Jamieson.

'He cuts them up,' said the girl.

Jamieson grimaced.

'Just like Jack the Ripper, they say.'

Jamieson guessed that 'they' would be the morning papers.

'How are you feeling?'

'Right as rain. I want to leave as soon as I can get the dressings changed.

'I think you should wait till Dr Carew has seen you. You're an important patient.'

Jamieson smiled at the girl's frankness and said, 'I'll take the responsibility.'

'If you say so doctor.'

Jamieson was back in his room in the doctors' residency shortly after breakfast and was pleased to see that the wall behind the bath had been repaired and the heater was back on its mounting. All the same he could not see himself using it again however cold the room might feel. He telephoned the hospital secretary's office and informed him that he was ready to start talking to people.

Crichton was surprised that Jamieson was back in action again so soon and expressed concern over the wisdom of leaving the ward so quickly. Jamieson bore it patiently then asked for help in organising his day.

'Fate has taken a hand Doctor, ' said Crichton. 'A patient that Mr Thelwell operated on yesterday has developed an infection despite the fact that the operation was carried out in a different theatre in a different part of the hospital. We are holding a meeting at ten to discuss the situation. Perhaps you would like to attend?'

'I would indeed,' agreed Jamieson. 'Just one question. Where was the patient taken after her operation?'

'The post-operative ward in Gynaecology.'

'Thank you,' said Jamieson and put down the phone. So they had changed the theatres and that had made no difference, thought Jamieson. That left the theatre staff themselves as a possible source of infection or possibly the post-op ward in Gynae. The patient had been brought back there after her operation. Jamieson made a mental list of the questions he wanted to ask at the meeting.

There was a general air of gloom about the men who had assembled in Hugh Crichton's office to discuss the latest problem case. Crichton said to a serious looking, thin-lipped man, 'I don't think you’ve met Dr Jamieson yet have you?… Dr Jamieson, this is Mr Thelwell, consultant surgeon in Gynaecology.'

Jamieson smiled across the table and Thelwell gave a barely perceptible nod in reply. Jamieson was then introduced to Phillip Morton, Thelwell's registrar and then to Clive Evans whom he admitted he had already met.

'First of all gentlemen, how is the patient this morning?' asked Crichton.

'She's very ill,' said Thelwell. 'Chemotherapy is having no effect.'

'So it's the same strain as the others?'

'Looks like it,' said John Richardson. 'We'll know for sure when the antibiogram is ready.'

'Has there been any progress in determining the source of the outbreak?' asked Carew.

Richardson shook his head and Thelwell gave an audible snort which caused the others to move uncomfortably in their seats. Richardson carried on as if he had not heard. 'All the swabs we took from the theatres and the recovery wards were negative for the organism in question. In fact the standard of cleanliness was rather high.' Thelwell gave another snort and Carew shot him an angry glance but still said nothing.

'Where were the swabs taken from?' asked Jamieson.