nasal swab for analysis as requested.'
Richardson looked puzzled and Jamieson intervened to clear up the mystery. 'I requested it,' he said. 'Mr Thelwell was using Naseptin at the time of his last screen.'
'Very well. Ask Dr Evans to deal with it,' said Richardson. 'And say I'd like to see the result in the morning. In fact, tell him to put the culture in my incubator.'
'Yes doctor.'
Jamieson returned to his room after picking up a copy of the local evening paper from a trolley doing ward rounds. He made himself some coffee and sat down to glance at the front page while he ran a bath. Another woman had been found murdered in the city. Her picture was on the front page, looking totally incongruous in a swimming costume and holding an ice cream cone on some foreign beach. Jamieson imagined that this was the best the woman's family had been able to come up with at the request of the paper.
Marion Stubbs had been a respectable secretary with a firm of Chartered Surveyors. She had been working late, the paper reported. Police were refusing to speculate at this stage as to whether the murder was connected with the deaths in the city a few days earlier. At the moment they were actively seeking a gang of youths who had been travelling on the same bus as the woman. Witnesses were urged to come forward. There was a rough map of the area where Marion Stubbs' body had been found and an 'X' marked the spot.
Jamieson took his bath and then phoned Sue. It was good to hear her voice. 'How are you getting on?' she asked.
'Slowly,' replied Jamieson.
'What does that mean?'
'It means that this damned bug seems to appear out of fresh air; it kills a patient and then disappears again.'
'Does that mean you won't be coming home this week-end?' asked Sue with obvious disappointment in her voice.
'No it doesn't,' replied Jamieson quickly. 'I'll be home tomorrow night. I'm not exactly hot on the trail of anything up here.'
'Don't let it get you down,' said Sue, hearing the note of dejection in Jamieson's voice. 'You'll get the break you need. After all, if it had been a straightforward investigation you wouldn't have been sent up there in the first place.'
'I suppose you're right,' said Jamieson. 'Anyway, I'll see you tomorrow night.'
'You don't know how good that makes me feel,' said Sue gently.
'You can tell me tomorrow.'
'When can I expect you?'
'I can't say for sure. I don't know what time I'll get away from here.'
'Would you like me to prepare anything special for you?'
'Just the black nightie,' replied Jamieson.
'Incorrigible, quite incorrigible.'
Jamieson got into the Microbiology lab in the morning to find people whispering in corners. He looked in on Clive Evans' lab to find Moira Lippman alone. 'What's going on?' he asked.
'I think you'd better hear it from Dr Richardson or Dr Evans,' she replied.
Jamieson shrugged his shoulders and asked, 'Where do I find them?'
'They're both in Dr Richardson's office.'
Jamieson retraced his steps through the lab and knocked on Richardson's door.
'Come in,' said Richardson, 'You've come at just the right moment.'
Jamieson entered and closed the door behind him.
'In what way?'
Evans handed Jamieson a small, round, plastic dish and said, 'This is the culture from Thelwell's nasal swab.
Jamieson looked at the spreading bacterial growth on the plate and removed the lid of the culture dish to smell it. It smelt of cut grass. 'Good God,' he said quietly. 'The Pseudomonas.
'A pseudomonas,' insisted Richardson. 'The question now is, is it the one that has been causing all the trouble?'
'When will you know?'
'Moira is putting up the antibiotic tests now,' said Evans.
Jamieson was full of conflicting emotions. If Thelwell proved to be a carrier of the killer strain it would mean that, in all probability, he had been responsible for the recent surgery deaths at Kerr Memorial. How could the man live with himself after that? On the positive side it would mean that at least the cause of the outbreak would have been identified and the problem would now be over. His job would be complete and he could report an end to the affair to Sci Med.
Jamieson wondered how the staff would react to such news. Sympathy and understanding would not readily be forthcoming for such an objectionable character as Thelwell. At the moment, Evans appeared to be neutral but Richardson was showing distinct signs of gloating. Jamieson could not honestly say that he blamed him after what he had suffered at the tongue of Thelwell.
Jamieson had an unpleasant thought. He asked, 'How is the patient he operated on yesterday?'
It was obvious from their faces that neither Richardson nor Evans had thought to inquire. 'I'll ring now,' said Richardson.
Evans and Jamieson sat patiently while Richardson listened to what was being said on the other end of the telephone. They had to wait again when Richardson put the phone down slowly and took a moment to gather his thoughts. 'She has a temperature this morning,' he said finally. 'And she's in some pain.'
Jamieson noted that any suggestion of gloating had disappeared from Richardson entirely. He had just been reminded of the awful human cost involved in the affair.
'Will you speak to Mr Thelwell?' Evans asked Richardson.
Richardson hesitated and Jamieson said, 'I think under the circumstances I had best do that,' said Jamieson.
'I would be grateful,' said Richardson. 'It would not come well from me.'
Jamieson returned to his tiny room to call Thelwell's secretary. There was an envelope lying on his desk; he opened it before dialling. It was the report from the Sci-Med lab on the Pseudomonas. Their analysis had failed to uncover the presence of any extraneous plasmid DNA. Jamieson frowned. He had been wrong. The bug had not been invaded by outside elements to make it resistant to antibiotics; it was a killer in its own right.
This was a surprise. At least it was a surprise to him. Something told him that it would not come as such a surprise to John Richardson. The last time they had spoken Richardson had seemed to hint at this being a possibility. He had asked to be informed about carbon source tests. Why? What did Richardson suspect?
'Mr Thelwell's secretary,' said the voice in the ear-piece.'
'This is Dr Jamieson. I wonder if I might have a word with Mr Thelwell?'
'Is it important?'
'Very.'
Richardson was no longer in his office when Jamieson called in on his way out of the lab so he left the report he had just received from Sci-Med on the consultant's desk along with a little note saying, 'You were right. How did you know?'
Jamieson knew that it was going to be difficult to tell Thelwell what he had to. It seemed to grow more difficult with each step he took up the stairs until he found himself even hesitating to knock on the door outside the surgeon's office.
'Mr Thelwell can give you five minutes,' said the secretary when Jamieson finally entered. 'He has a busy schedule.'
'Had', thought Jamieson. His life is not ever going to be quite the same again.
Thelwell frowned when he saw Jamieson. 'Yes?' he said with an exasperated sigh. 'What now?'
'I've come about your nasal swab test,' said Jamieson.
'What about it? I didn't use cream this time.'
'I know. The lab grew Pseudomonas from it.'
