Wright held his gaze again and Saracen read accusation in it, or imagined that he did before Wright said that he would fetch one and turned to go back inside.
Saracen flicked through the pages with what he felt were five thumbs and found the entry he was looking for. Call to Flat 2, Palmer’s Green Court. Patient Myra Archer…severely cyanosed…suspect cardiac arrest…medical officer on board, Dr Tang. Alarm raised by neighbour, Mrs M. Le Grice. Time of call, 21.34 hours. Arrival at Palmer’s Green, 21.47 hours. Arrival at Skelmore General, 22.04 hours.
Saracen felt a strange mixture of deflation and relief. There appeared to be nothing wrong at all with the response of Medic Alpha, no suggestion of delay or mix-up. So why had Chenhui Tang behaved the way she had when the name of Myra Archer had been mentioned?
Saracen noted that the driver on the night of the twelfth had been Leonard Wright whom he now saw returning with a pen. He let the pages fall back but as he did so he felt the one he had been looking at come loose. There had been no reason for it to have done so apart from the one that flew into Saracen’s head. It was not the original page! It was a substitute that had been lightly glued in!
Saracen accepted the pen from Wright and wrote down some details of the motorway accident before returning it to him. “Good, all done,” he said, closing the book and handing that back too. “Much obliged.”
“No problem,” replied Wright.
Saracen walked out of the ambulance station with contrived casualness, conscious of every movement of his limbs and convinced that Wright was staring at him all the way up the hill to the gate but he steeled himself not to turn round and check.
Saracen made directly for the whisky bottle when he got in to the flat and took a big gulp. Just what the hell was he getting himself into he wondered. The thing seemed to be snowballing out of all proportion with first the suggestion of a cover-up and now the deliberate falsification of records. The question of what he should do next bothered him. Commonsense and a desire for self preservation said that he should drop the whole affair like a hot potato but he recognised that that was no longer an option. If he were to do that then the unanswered questions would gnaw at him until he finally did seek the answers put the matter to rest…or whatever.
It occurred to Saracen that there would have been a nurse from A amp;E on board Medic Alpha when it had answered the call to Myra Archer. Perhaps he could persuade Jill Rawlings to make a few discrete enquiries and find out what she could. He picked up the phone and dialled the Nurses’ Home. It was engaged, come to think of it, thought Saracen, it always was. He tried twice more before he eventually got through and asked for Jill. There was a long pause while distant voices echoed along corridors.
“Hello,” said Jill Rawlings’ voice.
“Hello Jill. It’s James Saracen. Are you free this evening?”
Jill Rawlings agreed to meet Saracen for a drink at The Blue Angel at eight.
The pub was busy when they arrived but a couple obligingly vacated a table as they entered and they took it before anyone else did. They were served by a teenage girl who sniffed intermittently as though she had a heavy cold and spoke very slowly and deliberately. Asking Jill if she wanted ice and lemon in her drink amounted to an ‘in depth’ interview.
“Well, no one is going to get drunk round here,” smiled Jill as her interrogator shuffled off towards the bar.
“I have a favour to ask,” said Saracen.
“Never on a first date Doctor.”
When Saracen finally did manage to explain to Jill what he wanted her to find out for him she became more serious. “Did something go wrong?” she asked.
“That’s what I want to find out,” replied Saracen. “Discreetly.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“And I will now buy you dinner.”
They ate at an Italian restaurant, one of two in Skelmore, and afterwards Saracen drove Jill back to the Nurses’ Home where she thanked him for dinner and said that she would be in touch.
Chapter Four
It was four days before Saracen saw Jill again when their duty stints coincided on Friday morning. He raised his eyes in question when she came into the crowded treatment room and she nodded briefly and self-consciously in reply. Saracen mouthed the word ‘lunch?’ to her and she nodded again.
They ate in the hospital staff canteen, a huge rambling barn of a place which reminded Saracen of a school assembly hall and where the acoustics were such that the air was constantly filled with the clatter of crockery and cutlery from the kitchens. The tiled walls were clean to shoulder height, where the agreement with the unions expired and then grew progressively filthier as they climbed to meet the vaulted ceiling some twenty feet above the lino clad floor. Proper cleaning would have required the erection of scaffolding and so was out of the question but, for the most part, poor lighting hid the dirt.
“You spoke to the nurse?” asked Saracen.
Jill Rawlings said that she had. “It was Mary Travers; she’s a friend of mine. She said that the patient was severely cyanosed when they got to her, almost navy blue in fact. They gave her oxygen on the way back to the General but then there was some discussion as to whether or not she should be taken on to the County Hospital.”
“Why?”
“Mary didn’t know. Dr Tang just told them all to stay on board while she spoke to Dr Garten. When she came back Dr Tang told Mary that the patient would be going to the County and, as she would be going with her, there was no need for Mary to stay on board. Mary was well over her duty period so she was quite glad. She returned to A amp;E and signed off.
“So as far as Nurse Travers was concerned the patient was being taken to the County Hospital?”
“Yes.”
“And she was alive when Nurse Travers left her?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ask about times?”
“Mary couldn’t remember. She suggests you check the ambulance log book.”
“I already did.”
“And?”
Saracen hesitated before replying. It had been his intention to involve Jill as little as possible in the affair for her own good but it was becoming too difficult and he did want to discuss it with someone so he decided to confide in her. “The record says that Myra Archer was dead on arrival at Skelmore General. There was no mention of a transfer to the County Hospital.”
“But why?” exclaimed Jill in astonishment.
“Why indeed,” said Saracen.
Jill asked what had made Saracen suspicious in the first place and he told her of his meeting with Timothy Archer.
“Poor man,” said Jill when he had finished.
Saracen confessed that, at first, he had been sceptical about Archer’s story and had put it down to the man being overwrought. But now there seemed to be grounds for believing that there had indeed been some kind of foul-up over his wife’s treatment and a subsequent cover-up.
“But why would Garten involve himself in the cover-up?” asked Jill. “Surely the blame was down to Dr Tang?”
“That puzzles me too,” Saracen agreed. “I can’t honestly see Garten putting his career on the line to save a junior doctor.”
“Or anyone else for that matter,” added Jill.
“Then he must be involved in some way.”
