agency midwives and temporary doctors. I think it must have been one of them.”
A young punky nurse standing at the nurses’ station, her nose pierced, joined in, “We have the basic info on a central computer, such as the time and date of admission and discharge, and sadly in your sister’s case, that her baby died. But nothing more detailed. Nothing about their medical history or the medical staff looking after them. I did check with the psych department yesterday. Dr. Nichols said her notes hadn’t ever got to him. Told me our department should ‘pull our socks up,’ which is pretty angry coming from him.”
I remembered Dr. Nichols commenting that he didn’t have your psychiatric history. I hadn’t known it was because your notes had got lost.
“But aren’t her notes also on computer somewhere? I mean the detailed information, as well as the basics?” I asked.
The senior midwife shook her head. “We use paper notes for maternity patients, so the woman can carry them with her in case she goes into labor when she’s not near her home hospital. We then attach the handwritten notes of the delivery and it’s all meant to be safely stored.”
The phone rang but the senior midwife ignored it, focusing on me. “I really am sorry. We do understand how important it must be to you.”
As she answered the phone, my initial relief that your notes were lost became weighted by suspicion. Did your medical notes hold some clue about your murder? Was that why they were “lost”? I waited for the senior midwife to finish her phone call.
“Isn’t it odd that a patient’s notes just go missing?” I asked.
The senior midwife grimaced. “Unfortunately it’s not odd at all.”
A portly consultant in a chalk-striped suit who was passing stopped and chipped in, “An entire cart of notes went missing from my diabetic clinic on Tuesday. The whole lot vanished into some administrative black hole.”
I noticed that Dr. Saunders had arrived at the nurses’ station and was checking a patient’s notes. He didn’t seem to notice me.
“Really?” I said, uninterested, to Chalk-striped Consultant. But he carried on warming to his theme. “When they built St. John’s hospital last year, no one remembered to build a morgue and when their first patient died, there was nowhere to take him.”
The senior midwife was clearly embarrassed by him and I wondered why he was being so open with me about hospital errors.
“There’s been relocation of teenage cancer patients and no one remembered to transport their frozen eggs,” continued Chalk-striped Consultant. “And now their chances of a baby when they’ve recovered are zero.”
Dr. Saunders noticed me and smiled reassuringly. “But we’re not totally incompetent all of the time, I promise.”
“Did you know that women were being paid to take part in the cystic fibrosis trial?” I asked.
Chalk-striped Consultant looked a little peeved by my abrupt change of subject. “No, I didn’t know that.”
“Nor I,” said Dr. Saunders. “Do you know how much?”
“Three hundred pounds.”
“It could well have been a doctor or nurse being kind,” Dr. Saunders said, his tone considerate. And again he reminded me of you, this time for thinking the best of people. “There was that nurse in oncology last year, wasn’t there?” he asked.
Chalk-striped Consultant nodded. “Spent the department’s entire transport fund on new clothes for an old man she felt sorry for.”
The young punky nurse joined in, “And midwives sometimes try to help hard-up mums by giving them nappies and formula when they leave. Occasionally a sterilizer or a baby bath finds its way out too.”
Chalk-striped Consultant grinned. “You mean we’ve reverted to the days when nurses were caring?”
The punky nurse glowered at him and Chalk-striped Consultant laughed.
Two pagers went off and a phone rang on the nurses’ station. Chalk-striped Consultant walked away to answer his page; the punky nurse answered the phone; the senior midwife was answering a patient’s buzzer. I was left alone with Dr. Saunders. I’ve always been intimidated by handsome men, let alone beautiful ones. I associate them not so much with inevitable rejection as with turning me completely invisible.
“Would you like to have a coffee?” he asked.
Probably blushing, I shook my head. I didn’t want to be the recipient of emotional charity.
I have to admit, that despite still being with Todd, I entertained a fantasy about Dr. Saunders, but knew that it wasn’t one to pursue. Even if I could create a fantasy in which he was attracted to me, his wedding ring prevented it from stretching into something long-term or secure or anything else I wanted in a relationship.
“
“You said you found her notes going missing suspicious?” asks Mr. Wright.
“To start with, yes. But the longer I was at the hospital, the harder it was to imagine anything sinister happening. It just seemed too public, a cheek-by-jowl working environment with people literally looking over one another’s shoulders. I couldn’t see how anyone would get away with something. Not that I knew what that ‘something’ was.”
“And the payments?”
“The people at St. Anne’s didn’t even seem surprised by them, let alone suspicious.”
