Macandrew. Student at the Institute of something or other?’
‘That’s her,’ said Dewar, feeling as if a heavy weight had suddenly descended on his shoulders. ‘You said she was dead?’
‘The report from the attending officers said she was a gonner.’
‘I see,’
When Inspector Grant heard she was a student at the institute he said he was going up to the hospital. That was the last I heard. That was about an hour ago.’
‘Where did they take her?’
‘The Royal Infirmary.’
‘Thanks,’ said Dewar, feeling numb.
‘Do you want me to call you back when the computer’s had a look through your names?’ asked Johnstone.
‘No, I’ll get back to you later. I’m going to see if I can catch Grant at the hospital.’
Dewar felt sick in his stomach. He hadn’t known Sandra Macandrew well but well enough to like her as a person and see that she was a bright student with a promising future. Now she was dead. Hit and run, Johnstone had said, the second person from Malloy’s lab to die in the space of a month. The uneasy feeling he’d been — carrying around with him had just multiplied tenfold.
Mounting frustration at the slowness of the traffic was pushed to even higher levels at not being able to find a parking place near the hospital. He tried reminding himself there was no hurry; Sandra was dead, but his instincts overruled his reason. His gut feeling was that somehow Sandra’s death must have had something to do with the smallpox thing and the sooner he got to the hospital and talked to Grant about it the better.
He saw a Ford Fiesta start to vacate a place by the kerb so he braked abruptly to the annoyance of the driver behind. He ignored the angry tooting and waited until the Fiesta had pulled away before putting the Rover in nose first and abandoning it with its tail sticking out untidily.
‘Arsehole!’ shouted the driver who’d been held up. Dewar ignored him and headed for the hospital. He only had eyes for the infirmary which loomed in front of him against the night sky. It was an old fashioned hospital, all towers and turrets on the outside — like a Disney castle, with endless corridors and peeling ceilings on the inside. Light spilled out from the A amp;E entrance, lighting up the ambulance apron where two vehicles stood waiting for fate to play its next card. Dewar entered through the automatic doors and approached the desk.
‘Sandra Macandrew,’ he said to the clerk. ‘Hit and run victim, brought in dead about an hour ago. Are the police still here? I’m looking for Inspector Grant in particular.’
The clerk looked at him over his glasses. ‘And you are?’
Dewar showed him his ID.
‘Are you Ms Macandrew’s own doctor?’ asked the man.
‘No,’ answered Dewar, wondering why the question was asked in the first place and what the politically correct term was these days for mental defective. Differently intelligent, he supposed. Right now he didn’t feel like going to war with obstructive officialdom.
‘Are you a relative?’
‘No,’ replied Dewar, now having difficulty keeping his temper. ‘Is Inspector Grant still here or not?’ he asked again in level tones devoid of social nicety.
‘Ms Macandrew’s not dead,’ said the man, trumping Dewar’s card.
Dewar felt stunned. He felt his mouth drop open. ‘Not dead,’ he repeated in a bewildered voice.
‘She’s in a bad way; she’s in intensive care but she’s not dead. The police are still here. I’m not sure if your Inspector Grant is one of them.’
Dewar asked for directions and followed them quickly without actually running, a memory from his early medical training. Nurses and doctors don’t run inside the hospital. They can walk fast but they don’t run. He found Grant who had just been briefed on Sandra Macandrew’s injuries by a young looking doctor who’d then disappeared into a side room in the Intensive Care Unit.
‘How is she?’
‘How did you know?’ Grant asked him.
Dewar told him about his phone call to headquarters. ‘What happened to her?’ he asked.
‘She was cycling home from work and some drunken bozo ran into her and didn’t stop. The street was well lit. Her bike had serviceable lights and her jacket had fluorescent tape on it so there was no excuse for not seeing her. He must have been pissed out his mind.’
‘I hope you get the bastard,’ said Dewar looking through the glass panel to the room where Sandra was lying. Two nurses were busy with her. With so much bandaging and intubation it could have been anyone lying there, he thought. ‘What did the doctor say?’
‘Fractured skull, multiple fractures to both arms and legs, her collar bone’s smashed and her pelvis is damaged. I think the bottom line is, touch and go, poor lassie. Malloy’s not going have much of a research group left at this rate. I’m beginning to think that place is jinxed.’
‘Were there any witnesses?’ asked Dewar.
‘Nothing useful. A couple of people said they saw the car speeding off after they heard the crash. They couldn’t tell us the make, not even the colour under the street lights. A light one they thought. There were lots of people about but their eyes automatically went to the victim and stayed there. By the time they thought to look for the car it had gone.’
‘But you’ll get paint scrapings from her bike?’
Grant shrugged. ‘For whatever good that’ll do, unless it was a white Rolls Royce or a yellow Ferrari. If it’s from a blue Ford I don’t fancy our chances.’
‘Have you considered it wasn’t an accident?’ asked Dewar, still looking through the glass panel.
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Supposing it was attempted murder.’
Grant came over to join Dewar in looking through the glass partition. ‘Have you any reason to believe that?’ he asked.
‘No,’ admitted Dewar. ‘No good reason but gut feeling tells me it was. I think someone deliberately tried to kill her.’
‘Why?’
Dewar decided to trust Grant completely. ‘The Iraqis have been trying to get their hands on smallpox virus,’ he said.
‘Christ! I thought that was a thing of the past.’
‘It involves reconstructing it from fragments of the viral DNA that are used in research but it’s difficult. I think they tried forcing Ali Hammadi to do it for them but he killed himself so they need someone else. I think Sandra Macandrew might have been approached; we suspected they might try something like this. That’s why I’m back here. If they did and Sandra turned them down they might consider she knew too much. If she were to report them to the authorities we’d have the evidence we need to nail them to the wall. We might still get it if and when she regains consciousness. Are your men planning to stay with her?’
‘An officer will be stationed here throughout the night in case she comes round although the medics don’t think that’s too likely.’
No one can ever be sure in a case like this,’ said Dewar. ‘It’s always hard to define or quantify brain damage. I think it would be a good idea if there was more than one officer with her,’ said Dewar. ‘And they should be made aware of a possible further attempt on her life.’
‘Okay,’ said Grant. ‘But I take it there’s no proof of this?’
‘No,’ agreed Dewar. ‘But I’ll take responsibility, and I want to be the first to talk to her when she comes round.’
‘By rights a serious crime has been committed and we should speak to the victim before …’
Dewar interrupted and held up his hand. ‘I understand that,’ he said ‘But millions of lives could depend on what she has to say,’ interrupted Dewar. ‘If the Iraqis asked her to do something, I have to know what exactly what it was so we can find out what stage they’re at in the reconstruction. I know the right questions to ask. You don’t.’
‘I thought the glamour boys were sitting on the Iraqis,’ said Grant, changing the subject.
