shudder to think what might have happened if it hadn’t come about.’
Turner wanted to point out that the Children’s Hospital might have been equally successful in stabilizing Amanda in the long run, but he didn’t. He realized that Kate was euphoric and excited and meant no slight to his own hospital. He simply said, ‘I wish her all the luck, Kate, not that I think she’ll need it.’
Lack of proper sleep almost caused Dunbar to make a serious mistake. He wanted to start work at once on analysing Ross’s research data disks and had loaded the first one into the computer in his office when he remembered the monitoring cable. He hit the eject button with a thump, and the disk popped out into his waiting hand. The blood started pounding in his temples. Had the disk registered its presence on screen before he’d hit the button? He hadn’t seen it come up in the corner of the screen but then he hadn’t been looking closely.
Fear had now made him very wide awake indeed. He had to act quickly. He brought out his notebook computer and quickly loaded the disk into it. He needed to know its title. The disc was named simply ‘Research Data One’. This was a bit of luck. He ejected it and replaced it with a blank disc which he initialized as ‘Research Data One’. There was no reason why he couldn’t have a disk of his own with that title. He’d leave it lying around on his desk, just in case anyone had seen Ross’s disk register when he’d put it in. He quickly transferred some accounts data to it, then, satisfied that he’d covered his tracks as well as he could, put Ross’s disk into his notebook computer and started to work through the data.
True to character, Ross was meticulous with his experimental records. They made straightforward reading to someone with a medical background. Dunbar found out exactly what he wanted to know, and quickly. That was the good part. The bottom line said that Ross and his colleagues had made much progress in altering the genetic make-up of experimental pigs to contain elements of the human immune system. The bad news was that they were still a very long way from being able to transplant pig organs into human subjects with any hope of success.
The records showed that immunological problems had plagued the programme from the outset. Ross and his team were struggling with a lack of stability in the transgenic pigs’ make-up which had brought progress practically to a halt and showed no sign of resolution in the near future. They had not even started to address the problems associated with the possibility of viral transfer from pigs to humans, the objection that was currently the main stumbling-block as far as government licensing was concerned.
This all meant only one thing to Dunbar. His recent doubts were well founded. He’d been on the wrong track all along. With things the way they stood, Ross would not have dreamed of attempting pig-to-human transplants.
After checking that she was still at home, Dunbar drove back to Lisa’s place to tell her the bad news in person. ‘There’s been no big research breakthrough,’ he said dejectedly. ‘Ross is nowhere near being able to transplant animal organs successfully. There’d have been no point in even trying. We were wrong.’
‘But the kids still died,’ said Lisa. ‘And I’m still certain they were given incompatible organs.’
Dunbar nodded.
‘And you actually saw them removing organs from a pig at the hospital.’
‘I’ve no doubt that Ross is up to something,’ agreed Dunbar. ‘But it’s not as straightforward as we imagined. Ross is just too clever a man. I tried making a list of everything out of the ordinary I’d seen at Medic Ecosse, to see if I could fit more pieces into the puzzle, but no success so far.’
‘What sorts of things?’ she asked.
Dunbar shrugged. ‘Little things. There’s a kid in at the moment, Amanda Chapman. She’s waiting on a kidney transplant. Medic Ecosse gave her a marrow puncture she didn’t really need — all her blood stats were known already. Everyone seemed to know that except the people in charge of her treatment.’
‘A marrow puncture?’ exclaimed Lisa as if it meant something to her.
Dunbar felt a chill across the back of his neck. ‘Yes. Why?’
‘Amy had that done as well,’ said Lisa.
‘Amy Teasdale had a marrow puncture she didn’t need?’
‘I remember one of the housemen pointing out that it wasn’t necessary, but Dr Ross insisted she had one anyway.’
‘Tell me about it,’ said Dunbar. ‘I want to know everything that happened to Amy.’
‘You know most of it. She was a difficult case. She’d been ill almost from the time she was born, and appealing to Medic Ecosse was a last resort for her doctors.’
‘So no one was too surprised when she died,’ said Dunbar thoughtfully.
‘Put that way, I suppose not,’ agreed Lisa. ‘People were more surprised that the hospital took her on in the first place when things hadn’t been going too well for them financially and Amy seemed a bit of a lost cause anyway.’
‘A bit like Amanda.’
Lisa looked questioningly at Dunbar but he chose not to elaborate. Instead, he said, ‘Then you rocked the boat when you started saying that Amy died because she’d been given the wrong organ?’
‘I suppose so. You see, she was only a lost cause when they couldn’t find a suitable kidney for her, but within weeks of coming in to Medic Ecosse they did. By rights she should have been perfectly okay after her transplant.’
‘There was an Omega patient in the hospital at the time, wasn’t there?’ said Dunbar, still half preoccupied with his own thoughts.
‘Yes. How did you know?’
‘I checked the dates of free transplant patients before Amanda Chapman against those of Omega patients.’
‘Why?’
‘I thought at first that the hospital might be using income from Omega patients to cover the costs of expensive free referrals.’
‘And now?’
‘There’s more to it. I wonder if Kenneth Lineham was a free transplant patient too?’
‘Couldn’t you check?’
‘The list of free referral patients didn’t include names. I suppose I could-’ He broke off in mid-sentence.
‘What is it?’
‘I’ve just remembered something,’ said Dunbar excitedly. ‘Sheila Barnes, in her journal, got quite upset at one point because an Omega patient seemed to be getting more attention than her patient. That means there was an Omega patient in the hospital at the same time as Kenneth Lineham. He must have been the first free transplant patient, Amy was the second and now Amanda Chapman is number three. All apparently hopeless cases taken on out of the goodness of Medic Ecosse’s heart and always at the same time as an Omega patient.’
‘But surely that means-’
‘That Amanda Chapman is in great danger,’ interrupted Dunbar. ‘Just like the others.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘We need more than just suspicion,’ said Dunbar, exasperation showing on his face. ‘We need hard evidence and we haven’t got any. We don’t even have a clue what they’re really up to.’
Lisa looked alarmed. ‘We can’t just do nothing,’ she said.
‘I’m going to talk to Clive Turner. He might have an idea.’ She nodded.
Dunbar called Turner at the Children’s Hospital. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner,’ he began. ‘The truth is, I haven’t been able to find out discreetly why Amanda Chapman was given an unnecessary marrow puncture.’
‘As it happens, I don’t think anyone is going to be too upset, even if it was a mistake,’ said Turner.
‘What’s changed?’
‘A kidney’s become available for Amanda. Hadn’t you heard?’
‘No, I hadn’t,’ said Dunbar slowly. ‘That is good news.’ He said the words but his head suddenly seemed full of broken glass. It was happening all over again. It was happening to Amanda just as it had to the others. She was going to die. She was going to reject her transplant.
‘Amazing luck really,’ continued Turner. ‘She’s a very fortunate young lady.’
‘Clive, could I come over there? I need to talk to you.’
‘Why… yes, I suppose so. Is something the matter?’
‘I’m not sure. How about now?’
