'Are you sure?'
The question made Fenton think before saying, 'No, I suppose I'm not, come to think of it. All of us in the lab get protective vaccines from time to time because we handle so much contaminated material.'
Jenny said, 'Just suppose Susan had been given a large dose of anti-coagulant instead of say, an anti-typhoid injection. She wouldn't have known would she?'
'That would make our killer a doctor or a nurse, someone with access to the wards and the staff.'
'Can you find out if Susan did have any inoculations shortly before her death?' Jenny asked.
'It will be in the lab personnel files.'
'I could try to find out who has been on duty in the staff treatment suite over the past few weeks.'
'I've just had another thought,' said Fenton, pausing for a moment to see if it made sense before committing himself. 'The staff treatment suite is next to the Central Sterile Supply Department, where Neil was killed.'
'And anti-coagulants are not on the restricted drugs list; they're not kept under lock and key…'
'So they would be readily available and the killer would not have to account for them…'
'Let's suppose some more,' said Jenny, the adrenalin now flowing fast. 'Suppose Neil went to the Sterile Supply Department to see Sister Kincaid and found that she wasn't there. We know she wasn't; she was at lunch. He went next door to look for her and stumbled on the killer messing with injection vials.'
'So the killer murdered Neil to keep him quiet? Makes sense.'
'It also makes it a man,' said Jenny, 'I can't see a woman overpowering Neil can you?'
'No, and there was no sign of a weapon having been used. You are right; it had to be a man, and a powerful man at that. Neil was no seven-stone weakling.'
At seven fifteen next morning Jenny left for the hospital, leaving Fenton still in bed. They had arranged to meet at lunch time to discuss progress in what they had agreed to find out. Fenton rose at eight, washed, dressed and sat down at the kitchen table with orange juice and coffee to read 'The Scotsman' which had popped noisily through the letter box while he was shaving. He scanned the front page for mention of the hospital and was relieved to find only a few lines near the bottom to the effect that inquiries were still continuing into the sudden deaths of two members of the biochemistry department.
Finding the silence oppressive he turned on the radio. ‘1-9-4-Close to you…' droned the jingle as Fenton took his glass and cup to the sink. The sound of the 'current number four in the charts' filled the kitchen briefly before he changed the waveband and found Vivaldi instead. He tidied away the dishes and wiped the work surface where he had spilled orange juice.
The minute hand on the kitchen clock moved jerkily on to eight thirty as Fenton switched off the radio and checked that he had his keys in his pocket before leaving. He tried to keep the noise of his feet on the stone steps down to a minimum as he descended but they still echoed around the stair well; the noise reverberated off the high ceramic walls.
Fenton waited until ten o'clock, when he knew that Liz Scott, the lab secretary, would be at her busiest then went downstairs to the office. 'Good morning Liz, I just want to check when my next T.A. B is due…Don't worry, I can find it myself.'
'Thanks, I'm snowed under at the moment.'
Fenton took the keys that were handed to him and approached the filing cabinet by the window. The sound of rain against the grimy, barred window all but obliterated the noise of the top drawer being pulled out. He flicked through the index cards till he found what he was looking for. Daniels, Susan…Age…Weight…Height…Blood Group… X-Ray Record…Inoculations! Last entry…T.A.B. vaccine given on…Fenton's heart missed a beat. February fifteenth! Two days before she died! He steeled himself to present a calm exterior when he turned round and handed the keys back to Liz Scott. ''Find what you wanted?' she asked without looking up. Fenton said that he had and returned upstairs. Instead of going to his own lab he went into Neil Munro's room and sat down for a moment. Should he tell someone what he had discovered? And, if so, who? Tyson? Jamieson? It was too soon to say anything he decided; he needed more to go on. He would wait until he had seen Jenny at lunch time.
Fenton took out the chemicals and equipment he had removed from Munro's locked cupboard and spread them out on the bench in front of him. He re-arranged a number of plastic test tubes into a symmetrical pattern on the desk top and idly balanced two small beakers in the centre while he considered what he knew. Munro had requested blood from the transfusion service and he had been working with anti-coagulants. These two factors made him feel very uneasy. But what else was there to go on? A meaningless series of figures in a notebook and the letters C.T. which Charles Tyson said were nothing to do with him…So what did they stand for?
Fenton was balancing a third beaker on top of the other two when the door opened and the pile collapsed. Nigel Saxon stood there. 'Sorry, did I do that?' he asked.
Fenton reassured him and admitted that he had just been playing with the tubes.
'I see,' said Nigel Saxon, but sounded as though he didn't really. 'I hate to keep pressing you like this but…'
'I know, the report on the analyser.' said Fenton.
'Have you managed to look at Susan's final figures?'
'I've been through them. They seemed fine apart from one failure, a patient named Moran. Susan wrote that no analysis was obtained. Were you with her when this test was performed?'
'Neil Munro and I were both there,' said Saxon. 'We decided that the ward must have sent the sample in the wrong kind of specimen container.'
'It happens,' agreed Fenton.
'Was that the only thing?'
'Everything else seems fine.'
Saxon smiled broadly and said, 'Good, then we'll still get our license by the end of the month.'
'That soon?' exclaimed Fenton in amazement.
Fenton's surprise took Saxon aback and he flushed slightly in embarrassment. 'Sometimes the wheels of bureaucracy can turn quite smoothly you know.' he said.
'Saxon Medical must have a magic wand,' said Fenton.
'A plastic one,' said Saxon.
As Saxon made to leave Fenton said, 'The Moran sample, it was run through the conventional analyser wasn't it? I mean as well as the new one?'
'I presume so'.
'Same result?'
'As far as I know.'
Fenton met Jenny at one o'clock. She was standing at the main gate as he walked up to the hospital from the lab. She smiled as she saw him but had to wait to allow an ambulance to pass before crossing the road to link her arm through his. 'Where shall we go?' she asked.
'Let's walk for a bit,' said Fenton. They didn't speak until they had left the noise and bustle of the main road and turned down a side street. 'How did you get on?' Jenny asked.
'Susan Daniels had a TAB inoculation two days before she died.' said Fenton. 'It looks as if you could be right.'
'I don't think I really want to be,' said Jenny. Fenton asked her if she had managed to come up with anything.
'Sister Murphy has been in charge of the staff treatment room for the past three months.'
'Old Mother Murphy? Florence's batman?'
'The very same.'
'Doesn't sound too hopeful.' said Fenton.
'There's more.' Jenny had to pause for they had rejoined the main road and a bus roared past them making conversation momentarily impossible. When it had passed she said, 'The doctor doing the staff inoculations is one of the new residents, Dr David Malcolm. He's been doing it for about a month and what's more…he is the resident on ward four, Timothy Watson's ward.'
'Do you know him?'
'By sight. He's about six feet tall and broad with it.'
Fenton halted in his stride to allow a woman pushing a pram to pass them, he caught up again. 'Do you know any more about him?'
