Born in a Burial Gown (30 page)

Her face softened. ‘They’re blood count results, obviously. A full blood count, the main three. Anyone can see that. You should be able to see that. You’ve had enough of them, for goodness sake.’

Fluke felt numb. How had he failed to see it? These were numbers he should have instantly recognised. Leah was right. He’d been twisting the answer in his hands for nearly a week now. Looking without seeing. Up until then, he’d always thought his lateral thinking was good. He knew what the numbers were; he didn’t even need Leah to explain them. The 2.3 was the white blood cell count, 8.7 was the haemoglobin and 92 was the platelet count. The numbers were low. Not as low as Fluke’s had been during some stages of his treatment, but lower than a healthy person. It was the blood of someone who was ill.

Fluke handed the card over to her and leaned forward. ‘Is there any way we can find out who these belong to?’

Fluke and Leah arrived at West Cumberland Hospital less than an hour later and parked in the staff area at her insistence. He’d argued that it was police business, that a murder investigation was no place for a doctor but she’d insisted on accompanying him. In truth, he’d no choice in accepting her help. He’d asked her to check their medical records but blood test results didn’t work like that apparently.

‘Look,’ Leah had said, ‘although everything is computerised, the analyser machines that run the full blood counts in Cumbria’s haematology departments are on stand-alone systems. There isn’t a database that can be searched. The blood would have been taken by a phlebotomist, entered into the analyser and a report printed out. That report would have then given to the department who’d asked for it and they record the results on the patient’s records. Searching for blood test results can only be done manually, and unless there’s some way of narrowing it down, it’ll take ages. Days, even weeks – and that’s only if we’re able to get round patient confidentiality.’

Fluke knew the last part was a big ‘if’. He couldn’t see any way he could reasonably ask a magistrate for permission to go through an entire department’s patient records, even for a murder investigation.

‘It isn’t just haematology who ask for full blood counts, Avison, you know that, don’t you?’ she said. ‘West Cumberland must do well over a hundred FBCs a day.’

Fluke didn’t respond. He knew she was right, but he had a few things in his favour now. He knew the results weren’t Samantha’s. Up until she’d been shot, she was physically healthy. The fact the numbers had been found with her body meant that they were probably the killers. Assuming he wrote them down when he was in her flat, Fluke had a rough idea when. He ran through the scenario. The killer arrived at her flat, circumnavigated her security systems and waited for her. Before she’d returned, he either received or made, and Fluke’s money was on received, a phone call with his blood test results. He wrote them down on the nearest thing to hand, a notepad. He then tore off the top page to keep and left the notepad with the body rather than leave it in the flat, fearing exactly what had happened - the numbers being retrieved by some smartarse technician in a lab somewhere.

The second thing in Fluke’s favour, and why he went straight to West Cumberland Hospital, was that he thought it unlikely that the deposition site being so close was a coincidence. Fluke was sure the killer must have seen the building site when he was at the hospital. He fully expected to be able to see the deposition site from the ward the blood test came from. The third thing, and why he’d eventually agreed to Leah coming, was that she knew all the other haematologists in the county and haematology ran the phlebotomy department in all hospitals. If they didn’t order the test themselves, it certainly went through them.

‘It’ll be easier if I go in and have a word with Nick Weighman, West Cumbria’s consultant, first,’ Leah mused. ‘There’s no way he’d ever give you open access to his files but he might give a nod in the right direction, enough for your lot to get a search warrant or at least know if you’re in the right area.’

Against his better judgement, Fluke explained the case in as much detail as he dared on the journey across to the west. She impressed him by only asking the questions she needed answers to and respected there were things he couldn’t tell her. He was already in a grey area legally. Despite the investigation progressing quickly in the previous two days, he had very little on the killer yet, so he wasn’t much help to her.

Before they arrived, he asked Leah something that had been nagging at him for the previous quarter of an hour. ‘I’m not buying him being a Cumbrian, Leah. It makes no sense. The victim was in hiding. She’d spent a lot of time, effort and money in making herself invisible.’ Leah said nothing, but he thought she could see where he was going. ‘And then she just happens to move to within forty miles of a professional killer? I don’t think so. I think he tracked her here,’ he added.

‘So how was he getting results from a Cumbrian hospital?’ she finished for him.

‘Exactly. Unless he got a phone call from a hospital from another part of the country. In which case we’re fucked.’ He glanced over at her. It had been the first time he’d sworn in her presence. ‘Sorry.’

She ignored it. ‘It’s not necessarily a problem. There are many people in the UK who have to move around with their job. Or their lifestyle. Some of them need ongoing treatment. We aren’t going to turn them away.’

‘What about private patients? Do we have them here?’

‘Yes, we have them here. Lots of doctors also have private contracts. Pays more and it’s a much nicer way to work, if I’m honest. More time with the patient, no waiting times. You’ll have seen the private patient rooms at our hospital.’

‘Would a private patient be able to walk in off the street and demand a blood test?’

She considered it for a minute. ‘No, I don’t think so. They’d have to have a doctor somewhere leading on their care. But it would be simple enough for that doctor to ring or send a letter asking for continuation treatment for a specified timescale. Cumbria gets over fifteen million tourists a year so it’s not unusual. Sometimes getting away on holiday for some fresh air is worth the inconvenience of swapping doctors for a bit.’

‘So, if you can ask Doctor Weighman if he’s had any new patients in the last few weeks, that should narrow it down to a manageable number. Follow that with the fact that he was probably at the hospital four or five days ago. If he won’t give you a name, at least try to get him to confirm he actually has someone who fits the description. I can get a court order on that basis,’ Fluke said before adding, ‘Probably.’

Still discussing the best way to approach Doctor Weighman, they entered the main foyer and turned left towards the Henderson Suite where haematology was situated.

Fluke took a seat in the waiting area outside the ward while Leah went to see Doctor Weighman. Fluke picked up a magazine, more to avoid having to speak to anyone than any desire to read about a miracle diet or why a particular celebrity felt it necessary to tell the world about how some botched anal bleaching ‘had ruined their life’.

He spent the time reviewing the recent development and what it meant to the investigation. He’d called Towler and updated him. He asked him to get Jo Skelton on to drafting two warrants: one for the hospital’s CCTV coverage, and another to access someone’s medical records although he didn’t have a name yet.

It was the first lead on the killer since Ackley had left the note that started it all, a note found a few hundred yards from where he was sitting now. It reminded him he wanted to check something.

Fluke got up and walked along the corridor looking for a window. He found a walkway with windows leading to the phlebotomy lab but it was facing the wrong way and overlooked the roof of a lower part of the hospital. Fluke could see air-conditioning units and a dead seagull, but not the building site where the body had been dumped.

He walked back to the waiting area and spoke to a nurse, flashed his badge and was briefly allowed onto the ward.

He walked through the men’s ward towards the window. Half the beds were occupied and most of the men appeared to be sleeping. Fluke had spent most of his time on a similar ward in Newcastle so he knew the fatigue they would be feeling. The windows were south-facing. He could see the road leading to the village of Cleator Moor. It also afforded a perfect view of the new development. Fluke could see the yellow police tape and a lone uniformed officer, miserable in the light invasive rain, guarding the crime scene. Fluke took out his smartphone and snapped a few photos.

Fluke thanked the ward nurse and walked back out. Instead of sitting down in the waiting area, he carried on along the south side of the hospital to see which other wards had views over the crime scene. There was only the dental department that would receive patients. The rest seemed to be administrative and storage. The basement floors would be too low. He considered taking the stairs to the floors above but decided he’d wait for Leah. He took the same seat in the waiting room. An elderly couple were seated near him and they smiled at him. He smiled back but said nothing. He never knew what to say to people on a cancer ward.

Fluke retrieved his phone and opened his mail. While he waited for a decent signal, he looked at the device in his hand. It could hardly be called a phone anymore. It was a computer, a calculator, a games centre, a camera and an mp3 player. He could watch television and check his emails. He had more technology in his phone than Neil Armstrong had in Apollo 11, although with so many battery-draining functions, it might as well be a landline with the amount of time it had to spend on charge. Three bars finally appeared and Fluke composed a brief email to Towler, attached the photos he’d just taken, and sent it.

An office door, offset from the ward, opened, and Leah beckoned him over.

Fluke was introduced to Nick Weighman who wasn’t at all what he’d been expecting. Closer to seventy than sixty, he had a mass of thick white hair. Not the kind of drab white hair that had once been dark hair that had lost its colour. It was hair that wanted to be white. He was a tall, thin man. On his desk was a souvenir ice axe and there were mountaineering photos on the wall with him beaming in all of them. In most of them, he didn’t look much younger than he did now. Some were of him in cold-weather gear on mountain ranges Fluke knew weren’t in the UK. In one photo, Weighman had an arm wrapped around a man who looked like a Nepalese Sherpa. Fluke couldn’t see the mountain’s profile but guessed the photo had been taken during an assault on Everest. A serious mountaineer then. No prizes for guessing why he lived here. Some of the most challenging rock climbing in the UK was to be found in the Cumbrian mountains. Fluke liked him immediately.

Leah summarised the situation and at the end, Doctor Weighman gave Fluke the bad news.

‘Can’t do it, I’m afraid. Patient confidentiality is absolute. There’s just no way round it. No way will you get permission to go through my files either, no court will allow it. If you had a name, they would. But an entire ward’s files. Nope. Sorry.’

Fluke wasn’t deflated; it was what he’d been expecting. Another of the many hurdles the case was throwing up. A doctor protecting the name of a suspect came as no surprise. The other thing Fluke noticed was that Leah wasn’t deflated either. In fact, she looked as though she had news, news she wanted to share.

‘Do you want a coffee, Inspector?’ Doctor Weighman said unexpectedly.

Fluke could have used one but wanted to get back to HQ and start working on ways to get a warrant. He was just about to decline politely when he noticed Leah staring at him and nodding. Aware that he hadn’t been involved in their conversation, he said yes.

‘I have some things to sort out here. I suggest you go to the fresh coffee cart in the foyer and get yourself a cup, it’s rather good. Get me a doughnut while you’re there will you?’ he said with a slight smile. ‘Oh, and if Penny is on, you may want to ask her about the tall American gentleman she seems to have quite the crush on.’

Fluke stood there stupidly. ‘Excuse me?’ he said.

An American?

‘Come on, Avison. Let’s go and get a cup of coffee,’ Leah said, guiding him out the office and back through the ward before he could ask anything more.

‘What the hell just happened?’ he asked as they walked back out towards the foyer.

‘Shush,’ she said in a tone that said, don’t ask questions.

‘Fine,’ he said. He’d let whatever was happening play out.

There was a small queue at the cart, one of the fake nostalgic wooden ones that nevertheless seemed to produce excellent coffee. Fluke and Leah stood in silence while they waited to be served. The vendor was a middle-aged woman, Women’s Institute or WRVS by the looks of things, one of those women who volunteer for things. Cumbria seemed to produce armies of them for some reason. He often thought that if even half of them withdrew their services, the county’s infrastructure would collapse. She was chatting to every customer as if they were friends she hadn’t seen for months. When it was their turn, Fluke ordered three coffees; he assumed they had to return with the doughnut anyway.

‘You wouldn’t be Penny by any chance, would you?’ Leah asked.

‘Yes I am, my dear. What can I help you with?’

Fluke stepped in and explained what they were after. Luckily, Penny seemed to have been blessed with common sense and a desire to be helpful. She readied their coffees, put up the ‘Back in five minutes’ sign, and found an empty table for the three of them.

Fluke briefly told her what he could; that he was looking for a man and he may be American. He added the little he’d been able to get from Darren Ackley.

Penny immediately knew whom he meant. She described him as about forty, around six feet tall. ‘Looks like he spends, or spent, a lot of time outdoors. Some time abroad as well, judging by his complexion. Weather-beaten and brown.’

‘And he’s definitely American?’ Fluke said.

Penny looked at him like he was idiot. ‘He didn’t have a strong accent but I’ve been to the States a few times; my daughter lives in New York. We travel when Geoffrey and I are over there. I couldn’t place him so asked him whereabouts he was from and he was a bit vague. Just said, ‘The east coast,’ if I remember.’