Donor (11 page)

He walked back to Lisa’s street and found the number he was looking for. He pressed the entryphone button.

‘Yes?’

‘Steven Dunbar. We spoke earlier.’

The electronic lock released with a loud buzz that made Dunbar think of an electric chair and he entered the building. The entrance hall was well lit and had recently been painted. It was lined with terracotta tubs that would hold pot plants in season. At the moment they held nothing but bare earth. He climbed the stairs quickly to the third floor and found one door ajar. There was no name-plate on it but he assumed this to be the one. He knocked. ‘Miss Fairfax?’

‘Come in. I’ll be right with you. The living room’s on your right. Find yourself a seat and sit down.’

Dunbar closed the door behind him and walked up to the end of the hall and in through the door to his right. He chose to look out of the window rather than sit. Although it was dark outside, the curtains had not been drawn and he could see the lights on the far side of the Clyde like strings of pearls on black velvet. He thought he heard a movement behind him and turned to greet Lisa Fairfax.

‘Hello, Miss …’ His eyes widened as a woman in her late seventies came towards him with a wild look in her eyes and her arms outstretched.

‘Joshua! You’ve come home,’ she exclaimed, and made to embrace him warmly.

Dunbar was taken by surprise. He tried to fend her off, gently because she seemed so frail, but she persisted in her attempts to hug him.

‘I think there’s been some mistake,’ he offered weakly. He retreated and fell backwards over the arm of a couch – he hadn’t realized it was so close behind him.

‘Oh my God,’ exclaimed another woman as she came into the room. ‘Mother, stop that! Stop that at once!’

Dunbar did his best to recover his composure and looked up into the distressed face of Lisa Fairfax.

Lisa was in her early thirties, slim, attractive, with shiny jet-black hair tied back and deep, dark eyes that suggested intelligence but at the moment were filled with alarm and embarrassment.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I thought she was still asleep. She suffers from senile dementia.’

Dunbar nodded and let out his breath in a long sigh. ‘I’m sorry I’m not Joshua,’ he murmured kindly as Lisa put her arms round her mother and led her out of the room, remonstrating with her gently as if she were a small child. She returned alone a few minutes later.

‘I’m sorry, I was sure she was asleep, otherwise I’d never have let you come in like that. Can I get you a drink?’

Dunbar smiled at the progression to social normality. ‘Gin, if you have it.’

Lisa poured them both a gin and tonic, the slight tremor of her hands still betraying her embarrassment. She handed a tumbler to Dunbar and said, ‘Please sit down.’

‘Shouldn’t she be in hospital?’ Dunbar asked.

‘She should,’ replied Lisa. ‘But there’s little chance of that these days. Her condition can’t be cured so the hospitals won’t take her. She’s been “returned to the community” after a brief admission for assessment. That’s government policy.’

‘Surely you must get some kind of help?’

Lisa shook her head. ‘I am the “community” as far as the authorities are concerned. She’s my mother so it’s down to me to care for her. The only way I can get help is if I buy it. I was doing that but I don’t have a job any more.’

‘Sounds awful.’

‘I’ve known better times,’ said Lisa.

She said it matter-of-factly rather than with self-pity. She struck Dunbar as capable woman who was up against it but coping well.

‘Tell me about Amy Teasdale.’

Lisa’s face relaxed into an extremely attractive, albeit distant, smile. Her eyes said that she was grateful for Dunbar glossing over what had happened. ‘Ah yes, Amy,’ she said, before pausing for a moment to compose her thoughts.

‘Amy was a perfectly ordinary little girl apart from the fact that her kidneys weren’t properly functional. Practically from the time she was born she’d been in and out of one hospital after another, so she was well used to them. Because of that she wasn’t the uncomplaining little heroine the press likes kids like her to be. In fact, she could be a right little madam at times, if things weren’t to her liking. I suppose that was because she’d been spoilt by parents and relatives because of her condition, but in spite of it we all liked her. She was one of ours, and we were delighted when word came through that a suitable kidney’d been found. She’d been waiting for years and within weeks of coming to us a kidney had been located and the word was that the match was good, something around eighty per cent compatible, if I remember rightly. It seemed like a dream come true.’

‘So you expected a good result?’

‘Of course. It was an excellent match and kidney-transplanting has become practically routine these days. There was no reason to expect anything else. We were looking forward to seeing Amy skipping down the ward and saying good-bye. She could look forward to a normal life.’

‘But that didn’t happen.’

‘No. She rejected the kidney and died soon after the operation.’

‘Who carried out the operation?’

‘Dr Hatfull, one of Dr Ross’s surgical team.’

‘What did you think of him?’

Lisa looked shocked at the question. She said, ‘It’s hardly my place to pass comment on the medical staff.’

‘I’d still like to know what you thought of him. This is all confidential, remember. Nothing you say will be repeated outside this room.’

‘I thought Dr Hatfull was an excellent surgeon. In that unit they all were. It’s a very prestigious place to work, a good career move, as they say. There was always a waiting list for surgical and nursing appointments.’

‘But you still think something went wrong?’

‘I am convinced Amy was given the wrong kidney. Her reaction was so strong that it must have been due to the presence of radically foreign tissue inside her. The immunosuppressants she was given just couldn’t cope. She died in agony, poor mite.’

‘Have you any idea how she could possibly have been given the wrong kidney?’

She shook her head. ‘I’ve been thinking about that ever since it happened and I know all the arguments against it. There was only one organ sent from the donor hospital, so how could there be a mix-up? The tissue type was tested both at the donor hospital and at Médic Ecosse and found to check out, but I know what I saw. I’ve seen rejection problems before and Amy was a classic case of a patient being given incompatible tissue. Nothing will convince me otherwise.’

Dunbar found himself impressed by Lisa Fairfax. She wasn’t over-emotional or hysterical. She was a sensible, straightforward, down-to-earth woman with a lot of common sense.

‘What did you do about it at the time?’

‘I went to the director of nursing staff and told her what I felt. It went down like a cotton-wool sandwich. I was told to pull myself together, that I was emotionally overwrought and that I should think about the damage I could do to the hospital with such “wild allegations”.’

‘But you weren’t put off?’

‘No, although in my present circumstances I sometimes wonder if I should have kept my mouth shut,’ said Lisa with a strained attempt at a smile. ‘But no, I went to Dr Kinscherf and Mr Giordano and asked them to investigate the possibility that Amy had been given the wrong kidney.’

‘And got the same reaction?’

‘More or less. They said my concern for my patients did me credit but becoming emotionally involved with them could distort my judgement. Amy’s rejection of the donor kidney had been just one of those things, an unfortunate roll of the dice. There are still lots of immune responses that the medical profession doesn’t fully understand. They suggested I take some time off – in practice they suspended me from duty. They kept paying me but it was conditional on my seeing my GP and some old trout with a frontal lobotomy they called a counsellor. She was supposed to “help me through my trauma” i.e., make me see sense and keep my mouth shut. When I failed to play ball with the trout or take the GP’s Prozac highway to inner peace and contentment, they sacked me. Now here I am with no job, locked up twenty-four hours of the day with a doolally old person who used to be my mother, secure in the knowledge that things can only get worse.’ She threw the remains of her drink down her throat.

Dunbar felt uncomfortable. Saying he was sorry seemed in adequate, so he just nodded.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Lisa. ‘I shouldn’t be saying these things to a total stranger.’

‘Total strangers are often the best people to say these sort of things to,’ he replied.

She smiled slightly, as if happy at finding someone else who knew that.

‘You’ve given me a problem,’ said Dunbar.

‘How so?’

‘I came here expecting to find a nurse who had got too involved with her patient and who had made a hysterical allegation born of grief. You’re not the type. I find myself believing you, but perhaps you can see my difficulty?’

‘I know what I saw.’

Dunbar’s look suggested to Lisa that her reply was inadequate. She said, ‘Oh, I accept that the right organ was sent and that it arrived safely and checked out, but nothing will convince me that it was transplanted into Amy.’

‘Does the name Sheila Barnes mean anything to you?’

Lisa looked blank. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said.

‘Sister Sheila Barnes?’

‘A nurse? At Médic Ecosse?’

‘Yes.’

‘Doesn’t ring a bell. Should I know her?’

‘Not really,’ replied Dunbar, getting up out of his chair. ‘I just wondered. Thanks for seeing me. It’s been a big help. I really hope things get better for you.’

‘What’s coming for me won’t go past me,’ said Lisa.

‘Pardon?’

‘It’s a Scottish expression,’ said Lisa. ‘The equivalent of
que será será
.’

Dunbar pulled up his collar and looked up at the stars as he stepped out into the street. It was nice to see a clear sky but the price for it was a temperature now dropping below zero. He was unsettled. Lisa Fairfax was absolutely sure that Amy Teasdale had been given the wrong organ at her transplant operation. From what he’d seen and heard of Lisa, he could not dismiss her as neurotic, nor as someone who had been too involved with her patient. But how could she be right? Where could this ‘wrong organ’ have come from? You didn’t find drawers marked
DONOR ORGANS
in hospitals. If the correct organ had been sent and received, surely that was the end of it. The rejection response must have been just one of those inexplicable things that sometimes happened. Fine, but in the case of Médic Ecosse it had been two of those things.

The only thing he was sure of as he pulled out into the traffic on Dumbarton Road was that he was going to see Sheila Barnes at the hospice in Helensburgh. He was beginning to feel more than a little uneasy about the whole business.

Dunbar spent the following morning at his desk in the hospital making notes from the figures on the computer disks and asking Ingrid to provide some more information about certain topics. He had identified a lack of information about catering costs at Médic Ecosse and thought that asking her to prepare a breakdown of meal costs over the past eighteen months should keep her busy while he concentrated on other things. He was relieved not to have stumbled on anything that had been missed from the disks supplied by Giordano’s office. The information given to him was on the whole pretty comprehensive.

Halfway through the morning he noticed something else. The patient records had at first seemed satisfactory in terms of listing treatment given and correlating this with itemized costing, enabling him to check billed sums against monies received but, in treating this as an academic exercise to fill in the time, he noticed an anomaly. The records of Omega patients’ bills were not itemized. There was no way of checking on their treatment.

He could see why Giordano’s office had thought he might well be satisfied with only the final sum – it was many thousands of pounds in all cases – but it was something he could ask Ingrid about. In the meantime, he rang The Beeches Hospice on his mobile phone and asked if he might visit Sheila Barnes that afternoon.

‘Are you a relative?’ asked the female voice.

Dunbar paused momentarily to reflect on how often that question was asked every day. ‘No, just an old friend,’ he lied.

‘I see. Well, I don’t see any problem there. We encourage our patients to live as normal a life as possible up to the very end. Shall we say three o’clock? I have to suggest a time so that we can adjust Mrs Barnes’s medication accordingly. It would be a wasted journey if she was asleep when you arrived. On the other hand, we have to keep her as comfortable as possible. It’s sometimes a fine line.’

‘I understand,’ said Dunbar, starting to feel guilty about what he was doing, though not guilty enough to call the whole thing off. ‘I’ll be there at three.’

Ingrid returned shortly before lunch-time with facts and figures about how much patient meals cost to prepare, what the clients were charged and what the profit margins were. ‘I’m sure you’ll find we haven’t been undercharging.’ She spoke pleasantly but managed to convey that she thought she’d been sent on a fool’s errand.

‘It’s as well to have all the figures to hand,’ said Dunbar, hoping he sounded like an accountant.

‘Is there anything else you’d like me to do?’ asked Ingrid.

‘As a matter of fact there is. I’m a bit puzzled about the information given to me on the Omega patients.’

Ingrid’s expression became serious. ‘Really? Why?’ she asked.

‘Well, basically there isn’t any.’

Ingrid looked puzzled. She came over to stand behind Dunbar and peered down at the screen. ‘I was sure I saw figures for them when I copied the disk for you.’ She leaned over and tapped computer keys until patients’ records came up, then kept one elegant finger on the down-key to scroll through them.

‘There,’ she announced, removing her finger and pointing at the screen. ‘There’s one. A ten-day stay, netting seventeen thousand pounds. Not bad, eh?’

‘But for what?’ asked Dunbar.

Ingrid looked at Dunbar in a way he found hard to interpret. She was either puzzled or seeing him as some kind of mental defective. ‘Forgive me, Doctor,’ she said. ‘I thought your interest lay in establishing that we were maximizing our income from clients and getting the best possible return for the investment of taxpayers’ money?’