'Well, well, Mr Fenton,' growled Jamieson, 'A bit out of our way aren't we?'
'I was just passing,' said Fenton limply.
It was another forty minutes before Fenton was allowed to leave the ward and continue on up to the management offices, an errand that he now had little patience for, knowing how far behind with his work he was slipping.
Fenton was waiting for a clerk to return with the relevant file when Nigel Saxon appeared at his elbow and read the frustration in his face. 'Trouble old boy?'
Fenton told him what the problem was. Saxon was less than sympathetic. 'I love hearing about problems with our competitors. Now, if you were to buy a Saxon Analyser…'
'This is the National Health Service,' said Fenton by way of an answer.
'What on earth is going on?' asked Saxon noticing people scurrying about. Fenton told him.
'Another one? Dear God.'
Fenton asked Saxon what he was doing there.
'Lunch with the health board, their way of saying thank-you for the disposables.' said Saxon.
'Bon appetit,' said Fenton.
The clerk returned with the service contract file and Fenton flicked through the pages to find the relevant section with Saxon looking over his shoulder. 'Damnation,' he said softly, 'The company are right; there's a clause excluding the main transformer board. We'll have to pay.'
Two orderlies were loading a steriliser with goods taken from a metal trolley as Fenton entered the Central Sterile Supply Department. They lined up the heavy cage with the rails on the floor of the chamber and slid it slowly inside, taking care that nothing tumbled off. On the other side of the room three women, wearing white overalls and hair nets, were sifting through a massive pile of forceps, wrapping each pair individually and placing them in an assembly tray. Fenton walked over to them. 'Sister Kincaid?'
'In her office,' said one of the women, pointing with the instruments she held in her hand.
Moira Kincaid looked up from her desk as Fenton's shadow crossed the glass panel on her door. She motioned him to enter and asked to what she owed the honour of a visit. Fenton told her what he was looking for and got a positive reaction. 'They are here,' said Moira Kincaid. She opened her desk drawer and withdrew a pink cardboard folder. 'I didn't know what was to happen to them but they are all in here.' Fenton flicked through the papers and said, 'This seems to be what's required.'
'They are just simple record sheets of the sterilising cycles used for Dr Munro's samplers. They are all the same, just the standard run.'
'Pieces of paper to you and I Sister,' said Fenton, 'But a career to some others not a million miles from here.' He was still angry about a contract exclusion that he felt the administrators should have picked up on at the time of signing. Through the glass panel he saw a porter come into the sterilising bay and speak to one of the orderlies. Shortly afterwards the orderly burst into the office. 'Have you heard Sister? There's been another murder!'
Moira Kincaid looked at Fenton who nodded and said, 'A maid in ward twelve.'
As he left the office and closed the door behind him Fenton heard a warning buzzer sound and the ventilation fans turn on. He paused to watch the orderlies he had seen earlier lower their face visors and pull on heavy gauntlets. They manoeuvred a trolley into position and the door to one of the autoclaves swung open letting steam fill the white tiled area like a Turkish bath before the fans started to deal with it. They locked their trolley on to the guide rails and pulled out the load cage, grunting with the effort as one of the wheels refused to engage properly. Fenton saw the number above the autoclave and realised that this was the steriliser that had been used in Neil Munro's murder. He shivered involuntarily at the thought. Even with its huge mouth open and its insides empty the shiny steel cavern seemed full of menace. Just a machine, he reasoned. It had no mind of its own. It was only obeying orders but whose orders? That was the question.
Fenton walked out through the swing doors and climbed the stairs to ground level wondering just what it was about the Sterile Supply Department that he disliked so intensely. As he reached the top of the stairs he realised what it was; it didn't have any windows. It was situated in a basement and lit entirely by artificial light, white fluorescent light that made everyone look sickly pale.
Charles Tyson was taking news of the latest death badly. Fenton thought that he had never seen him look so ill and was very much aware of the change that had come over Tyson since the start of the killings; the man had aged quite visibly. The pastel shirts that he favoured now seemed several collar sizes too large and a universal greyness had descended on him, making even the stubble shadow on his face seem grey against the winter pallor of his skin. Fenton had begun to wonder whether or not the strain was the only reason for the change or whether there might be some underlying clinical reason for it.
Fenton respected Tyson. He did not know if he liked him for the truth was that he hardly knew the man. He doubted whether anyone did for Tyson was a very private person. As head of department he was excellent but that was the only role anyone had ever seen him play. Neil Munro had told him once that Tyson had served in the army and had seen active service in Korea but that and the fact that he was not married was about the sum total of his knowledge of the man.
'Seems fine,' said Tyson looking through the folder that Fenton had brought him. Fenton told him about the problem with the service contract. 'How much is it going to cost?'
'Seven hundred pounds.'
'All because somebody in the office didn't read the small print. This will practically wipe out all the benefit the hospital gained from the free supply of plastic disposables from Saxon Medical,' said Tyson shaking his head.
'You could kick up hell at the next board meeting,' said Fenton.
Tyson shook his head again and said, 'No, they would only close ranks. Besides I don't want to antagonise the management at the moment. I was thinking of trying for one of these new analysers for the lab. Rumour has it that there's some charity money up for grabs.'
'What are the chances?' asked Fenton.
'Who knows? Actually, I was thinking it might strengthen our case if we could reuse the plastic samplers. They work out quite expensive if we have to throw them away each time.'
'I could run some tests,' suggested Fenton.
'You have enough on your plate at the moment,' said Tyson.
'It shouldn't take long,' said Fenton I could get the lab staff to volunteer a few drops of blood, run the samples through the analyser, autoclave the samplers a few times then re-run the samples. Compare the values before and after sterilising?'
'If you really think you could manage?' said Tyson thoughtfully.
'No problem,' said Fenton.
It was late in the afternoon, as Fenton was trying to cajole Mary Tyler into providing a blood sample for the new tests, that Nigel Saxon came into the lab to collect a copy of the final report on the Blood Analyser. 'Don't give into him Mary whatever he's after,' joked Saxon. 'Now, if you would care to have dinner with me this evening…'
'I'm a respectable married woman,' protested Mary Tyler.
'They're always the worst,' grinned Saxon.
'As you are here Nigel…' said Fenton in a tone of voice that put Saxon on the defensive.”What are you after?' he asked suspiciously.
'Your blood,' said Fenton. 'Quite literally.' He told Saxon that he was collecting blood samples from 'volunteers' to run some new tests on the Saxon Analyser. It could even lead to a sale, he confided. Saxon agreed as did Mary Tyler, Ian Ferguson, Alex Ross and four of the others.
'When?' asked Saxon.
'Before you leave if that's all right?' said Fenton. Saxon said that it was but seemed a bit dubious about the whole business. He came back after collecting the report from Charles Tyson and was led into a small side room by Fenton. 'Slip off your jacket and roll up your sleeve.' Saxon did as he was bid and sat down with his arms on the table in front of him. He looked nervous.
Fenton finished rummaging in a drawer and joined Saxon at the table holding a piece of rubber tubing in his hand. 'I'll just wrap this around your upper arm,' he said. 'Perhaps you could hold it there?' Saxon reached across and held the tubing in place while Fenton slapped the inside of his arm to make the veins stand out. He slipped a
