Sisters of Mercy (9 page)

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 …’