Sisters of Mercy Read online

  He looked at his watch. ‘Twenty-past … stay here a moment, would you?’ He made for the door.

  ‘Where are you going?’ I cried.

  ‘Just to my car to get something.’

  I waited in the open doorway — couldn’t bear the thought of him driving away … A car door slammed and he reappeared.

  ‘Tell me how this gangster got involved,’ he said, when he was back inside. ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Sutton. Leonard Sutton.’ I tried to gather my wits. ‘His wife, she died in my ward, he attacked me and I told him she’d been murdered. Then he came round here with a couple of thugs …’

  ‘Here, to this house?’

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Yesterday. He threatened me; ordered me to get him the information about the patients and staff; told me one of his thugs — Polo — would come here this morning and collect it.’

  ‘Is that it?’ He pointed to the envelope. ‘The information?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Let me have it. D’you have a phone?’

  I gave him the envelope and showed him the phone. ‘Go over to the window and watch for him while I —’

  ‘He might see me.’

  ‘So what if he does? You’d naturally be looking out for him. D’you know Sutton’s address?’

  ‘No. Latchvale, I think.’

  He keyed in a number. ‘Extension thirty-seven, please … Andy? It’s Tom Jones here. I need a favour, urgently … yeah. A villain in the West Midlands called Leonard Sutton … Latchvale, that’s all I’ve got … hang on … What does he look like?’ he called over to me.

  I gave him a few details which he repeated, together with my number, before putting the phone down.

  He looked at his watch. ‘Half-past … listen, when he comes, let him inside, but then keep clear of him. So that he can’t grab you. Got that? And let me do the talking.’

  I nodded, then said, ‘He’s here.’

  ‘OK, remember what I said.’

  A moment later, the doorbell gave a long, continuous ring. I opened it and Polo strode inside. He seemed even more massive and intimidating than before, and I wondered how Jones could possibly …

  ‘You got the stuff …?’ He saw Jones … ‘’Oo the fuck’re you?’

  ‘My name’s Jones. I’m from the Department of Health.’

  He turned on me and, remembering, I took a couple of paces back.

  ‘So you did squeal …’

  ‘No, she didn’t,’ said Jones. ‘She told the police two weeks ago and the information’s only just got to me. I’m looking into these killings now — if there are any — and I don’t need any help. Tell your boss that. You can also tell him I’ll talk to him if he wants, but that’s all. OK?’

  Polo glared back at him for a moment, then said, ‘I’ll tell ’im. An’ I’ll take what I came for — the stuff Mr Sutton told me to get —’

  ‘No, you won’t. That’s no concern of yours now. Tell your boss I’ll talk to him.’

  ‘Mr Jones —’ I’d seen Polo’s hand go into his pocket and now it came out with the knife.

  ‘I said I’ll take the stuff,’ Polo said. ‘Where is it?’ As he spoke, the blade snapped out, but at the same time, to my amazement, a gun conjured itself into Jones’s hand.

  ‘Drop it.’

  ‘You won’t use that,’ Polo said.

  Jones said softly, ‘Try me,’ and both Polo and I believed him.

  He lowered the knife. ‘Aw right, but like I said, Mr Sutton’ll be back —’

  ‘I said, drop it.’

  There was a pause, then the knife fell on the carpet. ‘Out.’

  Polo walked to the door and opened it.

  ‘I’ll remember you,’ he said nasally, then pulled it closed behind him.

  Jones went over to the window. I heard a car engine start, then he said, ‘He’s gone,’ and put his gun away and picked up the knife. ‘I shan’t forget him, either. Remind me to —’

  ‘D’you always carry a gun?’ I burst out.

  ‘Yes, usually,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Is that legal? Do the police —?’

  ‘It’s both legal and necessary — I’d have thought the necessity was illustrated just now —’

  But by this time, I’d broken down again. He held me rather awkwardly as I sobbed on to his neck.

  ‘Come and sit down. Over here.’ He led me to the sofa, gently disengaging himself. ‘I’ll make you some tea or —’

  ‘Whisky. Over there.’

  He went over to the sideboard and picked up the bottle. ‘You’ve been punishing this already, haven’t you?’

  ‘So I want to punish it some more,’ I snapped. Irrationally, I felt annoyed with him for not holding me longer.

  ‘OK.’ He poured me a small tot and brought it over. ‘When did you last eat?’

  ‘I don’t know. Yesterday. I’m not hungry.’ I found a cigarette and lit it.

  ‘I’m going to make you some tea,’ he said. ‘Is that the kitchen through there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I heard him filling the kettle, and a few minutes later, I heard the toaster pop. A little while after that, he brought out a tray on which was a plate of beans on toast and some tea.

  ‘Hardly cordon bleu, but it might help.’ He held it out to me.

  ‘I told you, I’m not hungry.’

  ‘Try it.’

  Of course, I was hungry, so much so that I asked for a repeat order.

  ‘Better now?’ he asked when I’d finished, and I nodded. ‘D’you think you could try and tell me what’s been going on now?’ He had a distinct London accent, I noticed, a bit like Polo’s, but not so nasal.

  ‘Before I do that, could you tell me how … why you’re involved?’

  ‘Sure. As I said, I work for the Department of Health. It’s my job to investigate … allegations like the one you’ve made.’

  ‘So the Latchvale police contacted you?’

  ‘Indirectly — which reminds me — I must apologize for the delay in contacting you, but your statement took some time to reach us.’

  ‘I’m surprised it reached you at all,’ I said, ‘since I withdrew it about a week after I’d made it.’

  ‘I know that. But when we saw it, we were impressed enough to want to look into it. Anyway, you’d better tell me your story.’ As he said this, his eyes met mine. They were a clear hazel, I noticed, like my own. He brought out a small cheroot. ‘I take it you don’t mind if I smoke?’

  ‘Hardly.’ I pushed the ashtray towards him as he lit it.

  His hair was a light brown as well; short, so that it looked like the fur of a small neat animal, a field vole — no, something more purposeful — a weasel perhaps, or a stoat. He was somewhere in his thirties.

  He looked up again as if to say: Well, come on then.

  ‘About five weeks ago,’ I began hesitantly, ‘I felt that … too many patients in my ward were dying when I hadn’t expected them to. It does happen, but not this often. Anyway, I began to keep a record of them …’

  It took me about half an hour, during which time his eyes never left my face, although he hardly spoke. When I told him about Sutton, my voice began to tremble again, and when I got to how Stephen had disbelieved me, I began to feel angry.

  ‘Was a post-mortem done on any of the patients?’ he asked, when I’d finished.

  ‘No. They rarely are when patients die in hospital and the cause of death is obvious.’

  ‘When did Mrs Sutton die?’

  ‘Early yesterday morning.’

  ‘I wonder if we could arrange for a PM on her … ?’ he said thoughtfully, then looked back at me. ‘What proportion of patients would you normally expect to die in ITU?’

  ‘It varies a lot, but about twenty per cent.’

  ‘OK. Shall we have a look at these patients now, and your statistics.’

  He read slowly through the notes I’d made for Miss Whittington, asking
questions and making notes of his own. Some of the questions, I couldn’t answer without the patient records that were on the computer. Then he got to my statistical analysis.

  ‘Unless your basic data is inaccurate,’ he said, ‘I can see nothing wrong with this.’

  ‘But Stephen — Dr Wall — told me I was wrong to have used percentages; besides which, I should have used the chi-square test, probably with Yates’s correction.’

  He laughed. ‘That seems unnecessarily complicated. Unless your ward is full all the time, percentages are more accurate, and probability limits are perfectly adequate for your figures. But we can go through it again.’

  He opened his briefcase and brought out a large calculator, and after checking over my basic data as much as we could, he input the figures.

  ‘You were right,’ he said at last. ‘That number of deaths is clearly outside ninety-five per cent probability limits. Which, at the very least, leaves questions to be answered.’ He sat back. ‘So, what are we going to do about it?’

  ‘You believe me, then?’

  ‘Statistics don’t lie.’

  ‘But I thought there were lies, damned lies, and statistics?’ I said, repeating Stephen.

  ‘So there are, if you’re a politician. Or a civil servant trying to screw cash out of the Treasury. But we simply want the truth. Any idea who’s behind it?’

  I shook my head. ‘None.’

  ‘Not even the wildest guess?’

  ‘No.’

  He let out a breath. ‘So it’s down to detective work and elimination. What shift are you working tomorrow?’

  ‘I’m back on eight till four.’

  ‘Is there anywhere where we can work and talk in private?’

  ‘There’s my office. Although people will wonder who you are, what you’re doing.’

  ‘That’s not a problem. I’ve already made arrangements with your nursing officer, Miss Whittington, to spend some time with you. So far as she’s concerned, I’m a finance auditor, collecting figures for the Department of Health.’

  I shook my head slightly in bewilderment. ‘How did you manage that?’

  ‘My boss telephoned her boss. Told him we needed some figures from the West Midlands urgently.’ He’d taken out his wallet again, this time showing me a card which identified him as a finance auditor.

  ‘So what do you want to do tomorrow?’ I asked.

  ‘Your ward’s computerized, you said?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He took a breath and released it. ‘The first thing we have to do is work out whether these killings are planned or random —’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Does our putative killer select each victim for some abstruse reason, or just take the opportunity to kill any patient when it occurs? Or have they poisoned some central supply of drugs? So I’ll need all the information you can find about the patients who died, so that we can see if they have anything in common. The list of staff you got for Sutton — is it complete?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘D’you have records of all the staff shifts and work rotas over this period?’

  ‘Yes, but not on computer.’

  ‘That’s all right, so long as you can get them together in a reasonably coherent form. What I need to do tomorrow is to get an idea how ITU functions — as would a real auditor — and then to meet as many of the staff as possible. Also, I’ll have to visit any other wards and departments connected with yours — you did say that two of the dead patients had been transferred to the Coronary Care ward, didn’t you? Can we do all that, d’you think?’

  ‘It might be difficult in one day. It would make it easier if we left chasing up the staff rotas till the weekend —’

  I was interrupted by the phone.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Sister Farewell? It’s Miss Whittington here.’

  ‘Oh, hello, Miss Whittington.’

  ‘I hope I haven’t disturbed you. I understand you’ve been on night duty.’

  ‘No, you haven’t disturbed me.’

  ‘Good. The reason I’m ringing is that I’ve had a rather curious request from the Department of Health. They’ve sent an auditor here to look into the relationships between ITU and other departments.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes. I understand you’ll be back tomorrow morning. Will you be able to spare him any time then?’

  ‘Er — I think so, yes.’

  ‘Good. But, Sister, I’d like you to keep me informed about what questions he asks, what it is he wants to know.’

  ‘Of course, Miss Whittington.’

  She hesitated … ‘There was one other thing, Sister …’

  ‘Yes?’

  I heard her take a breath. ‘Dr Wall tells me he thinks you’ve been under an inordinate amount of stress recently — something that had already occurred to me, you may remember …’

  I didn’t hear the rest. You bastard! I thought furiously. How could you?

  I heard myself agreeing that we should discuss it, then replaced the receiver.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ Jones asked, but before I could reply, the phone went again.

  ‘For you,’ I said, holding it out to him.

  ‘Hello? Oh, hello, Andy … hang on a minute while I find a pen …’

  I leaned back into the sofa while he found pen and paper and closed my eyes. I don’t know whether it was the sleepless nights, the release of tension after Polo’s visit or Stephen’s treachery, but a savage pain started pulsing behind my eyes and I wanted nothing more than to forget everything and sink into my bed …

  The drone of his voice stopped and I realized he’d been speaking to me.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I said, is there any reason why we shouldn’t go in now and get the patient records from the computer? So I could make a start on them.’

  ‘Yes, there is.’ The words came with difficulty. ‘I can’t remember when I last felt this awful. Also, it would look odd. I’m not expected until tomorrow morning.’

  ‘You might have a point there — we don’t want to alert the person we’re after. Listen, I’m sorry you feel so rough, but it would help if you could answer a few more questions before I go.’

  ‘Go?’ Fear banished the pain for a moment and I sat up. ‘Mr Jones, I’d … I rather assumed you’d stay — for tonight, anyway. Sutton isn’t going to be very pleased with me after Polo’s told him what’s happened.’

  ‘Stay here, you mean?’

  ‘If you think your reputation could stand it. I do have a spare room.’

  ‘All right,’ he said after a moment, not really liking it. ‘I’ll need to collect some things from my hotel, though. And let my wife know where I am.’

  I didn’t like the idea of being left alone at all, so I went with him to his hotel while he collected a few things, although I can’t remember much about the journey.

  When we got back, he started asking more questions about the patients on my notes, but I was too tired to make much sense, and after a while, he gave up.

  ‘Can I use your phone?’ he asked. ‘I want to find out about a PM on Mrs Sutton, among other things.’

  ‘Help yourself.’

  I staggered away upstairs before he could think of anything else, took a couple of paracetamols and went to bed.

  Strangely enough, I didn’t sleep immediately. The pain in my head slowly diminished to a manageable point in the middle of my brow, and all the while, I was aware of Jones’s voice droning away on the phone downstairs. It was oddly comforting.

  *

  I was awoken by a persistent tapping. Didn’t realize it was from my door until he said, ‘Sister, I need to speak to you. It’s important.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Half-past eight.’

  I’d slept for eight hours, although it didn’t feel like it.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I’ll tell you when you come down. Would you like a coffee?’

/>   ‘All right.’

  I dragged on some clothes and splashed some water on to my face before going down. He was sitting on the sofa, smoking a cheroot. Two mugs of coffee were on the table in front of him.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ I looked for my cigarettes, then realized I didn’t want one.

  ‘A problem is exactly what we’ve got,’ he said deliberately.

  ‘Well?’ I sat on the sofa beside him and took a mouthful of coffee.

  ‘I’ve been on the phone to my boss for most of the day — which reminds me, I’ll have to reimburse you for that …’

  ‘I wish you’d get to the point.’

  ‘All right.’

  It occurred to me that he really was worried about something.

  ‘While my boss accepts my judgement that there probably have been killings at your hospital, he says we need some hard evidence.’

  The coffee had begun to clear my head. ‘You said something earlier about arranging a PM on Mrs Sutton.’

  ‘Indeed I did. Unfortunately, her funeral’s tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Can’t it be delayed?’

  ‘It could, yes, but my boss would prefer to avoid that.’

  ‘But I can’t see —’

  ‘Listen. You’ve already been to the police and told them people were being murdered on your ward. Then you went back and told them it was all a mistake —’

  ‘But you know why I —’

  ‘Yes, but it doesn’t alter the fact that you withdrew your allegation, and that a death certificate’s been signed for Mrs Sutton. To get a PM done now, we’d have to convince the coroner, and that would take some doing.’

  ‘But surely your department could —’

  ‘It could be done, yes, but what d’you think Sutton’s feelings would be at this stage? Especially if the PM didn’t find anything.’

  ‘But I thought you said you believed me.’

  ‘I said that there was nothing wrong with your analysis and that it needed investigating.’

  I slumped forward. ‘So what can we do about it?’

  ‘Mrs Sutton’s body’s still in the hospital mortuary. We go and get a blood sample from it ourselves — tonight.’

  9

  ‘You’re out of your mind.’ I said it quite calmly.

  ‘No,’ he said equally calmly. ‘My boss told me that if we really couldn’t do it, he’d try and get it done officially. But the news would get out — there’s no way we could stop it. And it could be potentially disastrous for you — not to mention your career.’