When he got there he found the rest room empty, the only signs of life being a thermos flask sitting in the middle of the table with its lid screwed on the wrong thread and a piece of grease proof paper that had recently held sandwiches. He looked out of the window and saw an attendant cleaning the windscreen of one of the vehicles.
“Where is everyone?” asked Saracen.
“Try the duty room.”
Saracen walked slowly through the corridor to the back of the building. He passed a room emitting bursts of static noise and looked round the door to see the sole radio operator engaged in conversation. He continued along to the door marked, ‘Duty Room’ and heard voices coming from inside. They were arguing about football. Saracen knocked and went in. The talking stopped.
“Can I help you?’ asked a short bald man in shirt sleeves.
Saracen looked around for a familiar face and picked out Leonard Wright, a driver he knew to be on the Medic Alpha rota. “Could I have a word,” he asked.
Wright followed Saracen out into the ambulance yard and asked, “What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to examine Medic Alpha’s log book if that’s possible,” said Saracen. Saracen thought he saw the smile on Wright’s face waver but it was only for a second and it could have been his imagination.
“What’s the problem?”
“No problem really. I just need some information about the time of the smash up on the ring road a few days ago. I forgot to make notes at the time.
Wright appeared to hold his gaze for a moment before saying, “I’ll get it.”
Saracen was aware that his pulse was racing. Lying was hard work when you weren’t used to it and the guilt of knowing that you were lying changed your perspective on everything.
Wright returned with the log book and Saracen smiled in what he hoped was relaxed fashion but he felt the strain at the corners of his mouth. Wright had opened the book at the correct page for the ring road accident. That made it more difficult for there was no excuse for thumbing through the pages. Saracen pulse grew even faster.
“I’ll just make a note of these,” he said stalling for time. He fumbled in his pocket for a pen and found an excuse instead. He left his pen where it was and said, “What a twit. I don’t seem to have a pen with me. I wonder…”
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.