Death Before Time (11 page)

Chapter 13

He found the keys and went out. It was dusk and no one was around. He slipped through the main door of the unit - the lobby was lit but there was no sign of the orderly. He crossed quickly to the office wing, the down stroke of the T; unlike the wards, the door didn’t have a combination lock on it.

He went silently along the corridor to Ranjid’s room.

Although it wasn’t dark outside yet, there was hardly any light and he had to peer at the keys to find one the right size. With the third, the lock turned with a satisfying snick. He went in and re-locked the door behind him.

To use the light or not?

He had to, if he wanted to see properly, and the window faced away from the wards …
better
pull
the
blinds
,
though
.

He surveyed the room. Ranjid’s medical degree hung framed on one wall, a picture of an Indian temple on the other. A spider plant descended like a waterfall from the window sill - now that he was here, he realised he had no idea what he was looking for … well, he’d know if he saw it.

There was a box of vinyl gloves on the side bench.
Might
as
well
- he pulled a pair on.

Tried the desk drawers. Locked, but one of the keys soon opened them. The top ones held pens, a stop-watch, a spare stethoscope and a diary.

He flicked through the diary, but found nothing of interest. He recognised one or two names –
Lunch
with
Patrick
presumably meant Fitzpatrick and
Helen
spoke for itself.

In the bottom drawers, there were some files, patient files … was this it? His heart beat harder as he went through them … but they all seemed to be “fallers”, patients with broken bones, maybe a special interest of Ranjids …

He noted down all the names nevertheless.

Underneath the files, he did find something unexpected – a girlie mag. The girlies portrayed inside were Asian, as was the writing, but otherwise, it was depressingly similar to the ones he remembered seeing as a boy – well, nothing changes, the world over ...

It was somehow pathetic in a medic of Ranjid’s standing.

He replaced everything and then went through the filing cabinet and cupboards, but didn’t find anything of interest.

The computer? No – anything incriminating would be covered by a password. He re-locked everything and let himself out.

No sound, other than a phone ringing somewhere in the distance. Feeling slightly foolish, he wiped the door handle before going to Edwina’s room.

He locked it behind him, closed the blinds and began as before with the desk drawers.

Nothing in the top ones, but again, the bottom one held a surprise, this time a bottle of vodka. He gingerly lifted it out and set it on the desk. It was half full – or half empty, depending on your state of mind. So maybe Edwina needed help in keeping up her easy going image …

He checked the rest of the drawers and made a quick search of the room, but as before, found nothing.

Philip’s office, to his surprise, wasn’t even locked. Well, unlike the others, maybe he had nothing to hide – in his office, anyway …

He nevertheless re-locked the door behind him.

The windows of this room did face the wards, but would anyone be looking? He couldn’t search without light … and in the unlikely event anyone
did
notice, they’d assume Philip had come in for something.

The bookcase on the wall
was
locked and glancing at the titles, he thought he could understand why: there was the first edition of an old friend,
Dacie
and
Lewis
, an ancient
Topley
and
Wilson
and an equally venerable
David
. He would have loved to look through them, but didn’t dare.

The desk drawers were locked as well and he was sorting out which key to use when there was a knock on the door –

“Philip? Philip, are you there?”

Several things happened at once: he jumped as he recognised the voice - Ranjid’s - and dropped the keys, which made a loud rattle on the desk …

“Philip?” The door handle rattled – “Who is in there?”

Fraser had grabbed the keys and was halfway to the window when he heard another kind of rattle, the one of a key going into a lock …
Christ
! Did he have one to Philip’s room as well?

The blind made screeching noises as he fought his way underneath and scrabbled at the handle of the window … it squeaked open and he tumbled through and onto a rose bed … picked himself up and ran -

Into the darkness between the unit and the next building … he heard a shout from the window but kept running -

Frasier stopped … he hadn’t been seen by anyone yet, but if he was seen running, they’d remember …

He walked – fast, but not too fast – back toward the flats, his heart beating sickeningly … he felt dizzy and drew deep breaths. He suddenly remembered the gloves and pulled them off –

They’d been shredded by the rose bushes and he hadn’t even noticed … he stuffed them into a pocket.

He looked at his watch, half nine, and his hands were bleeding …

Ranjid was probably already calling the police – would he be suspected? Possibly, by Ranjid – but what the hell was
he
doing there?

Never mind that now,
think
… he’d been seen at just after eight by Terri –
but
not
since
…

If he get to Bristol, he could establish an alibi …

Yeah - drive there now, straight to Mary’s.

Pick up a few things, wash his hands? No, go straight there.

He found the car, unzipped the tonneau and drove off - fortunately, there was a back way out, so he didn’t have to drive past the unit. He drove gently, not making too much noise.

He’d been sweating earlier, but was shivering after a mile. He stopped and put up the hood.

On the motorway, he kept under 80 – wouldn’t do his alibi a lot of good to be caught speeding – and reached Mary’s at a quarter past ten.

“Fraser! Is something the matter … what have you done to your hands?”

*

Once inside, the more he tried to explain, the more bemused she looked. At last she said tiredly:

“All right Fraser, I don’t know what you’ve got yourself into this time, but I’ll say you were here at nine.”

He cleaned up his hand, then phoned Tom.

The silence at the other end as he told him about it was more eloquent than any amount of swearing could have been. Then Tom said wearily,

“What possessed you, Fraser?”

“It seemed … “ He swallowed.

“Like a good idea at the time?”

“Just too good an opportunity to miss. I thought I might find something useful ... ”

“And did you?”

“No.”

“Two rules, Fraser – no, three. Never search peoples’ offices unless you’ve got a specific object in mind. Never do so unless you’ve got either an escape route or an explanation for being there. And never,
never
forget that Sod’s law will invariably operate. Got that?”

Fraser nodded miserably. “Aye.” He swallowed again. “Sorry.”

“All right.” A sigh drifted down the line (possibly because Tom could remember doing much the same sort of thing himself when he’d started). “You did right to get back to Bristol. Is your mother in law OK about giving you an alibi?”

“I think so.”

“Better let me speak to her.”

Fraser handed her the receiver. Yes, she did remember Mr Jones, and yes, she thought she realised the importance of what Fraser was doing.

She handed it back.

“Should I still come up tomorrow?” Fraser asked him “I mean, what if the police come looking for me here?”

Tom thought for a moment, then said, “No, stick to what you were going to do – we’ve got a lot of stuff to talk about. See you tomorrow.”

Fraser got his story straight with Mary, then went home.

*

He caught the nine o’clock train in the morning. He was the last to arrive again.

“Ah, Fraser,” Marcus said. “You’d better sit down and tell us about it.”

He spoke, Fraser thought, more in sorrow than in anger - Shakespeare? He put it out of his mind as Marcus poured him some coffee. Neither of the other two said anything.

“Thanks.” He took a gulp of the coffee, burned his mouth, and began telling them, feeling his face burning as well.

When he’d finished, Tom said, “You heard a shout as you ran away – could he have recognised you?”

Fraser shook his head. “Unlikely. I was into the shadows before I heard it.”

“OK. You’re certain no one saw you going into the hospital?”

“Aye. I wouldn’t have gone through with it otherwise.”

“So no one saw you there after eight?”

“No.”

“And you’re sure you didn’t leave any prints?”

“I am.”

Tom let out a breath. “Well, thanks to a mix of luck and serendipity, I think we may have got away with it.”

Jo said, “But whoever’s doing the killing is going hear about this – won’t it put them on their guard?”

Thanks
Jo
, Fraser thought.

“No, I don’t think so,” said Tom. “That’s what I meant by
we
. Hospitals get broken into all the time. Since none of the doors they
know
the intruder got through were locked, there’s no mystery as to how it was done. Fraser had a perfectly good reason for being there at eight, and thanks to his alibi, couldn’t have been there at nine. I think we’re OK.”

“Won’t they wonder why Armitage’s door was locked if he usually leaves it unlocked?” – Jo again.

“I’m not too worried about that either,” Tom said. “The intruder might have locked it with the key inside, or if there wasn’t one, maybe Singh got confused about whether it really was locked or not.”

Marcus asked whether they’d got anything positive out of it? “For instance, those names you took down Fraser … ”

Fraser said he’d look them up when he got back. “I don’t think they’ll tell us anything though, they just didn’t seem right.”

“We’ve learned a bit about their peccadilloes though, haven’t we?” Jo observed. “The bosses, I mean - I wonder what Fraser would’ve found if he’d made it into Armitage’s desk.”

Marcus smiled faintly, then turned back to Fraser. “It wasn’t a bad idea keeping an eye on the patients, although it’ll be a lot easier when you can both do it.” He paused. “I imagine Tom’s already said all that’s needed about the other.”

Fraser nodded. He could feel his cheeks glowing again and hoped that his beard hid it.

“Did you bring the other list? The at risk patients?”

He found it and handed it over. Marcus glanced down it, then handed it on to Tom, who did the same before passing it to Jo.

Tom said, “But they’re all well at the moment?”

“They were at eight last night. There have been two others, though ... “ He told them about the false alarms.

“But these weren’t people you’d thought of as at risk?” Tom said.

Fraser shook his head. “And they got better.” He drew a breath. “After last night,” he said, “I hope to God I’m right about all this … “

“Well, now would certainly be a great time to tell us you’d got doubts,” Jo murmured into the silence.

“A week’s nothing,” Tom said after shooting her a look. “Forget it.”

After another short silence, Marcus asked him if he’d been able to look at the drug system and he told him what he’d found out from the two nurses.

“Sounds like standard practice,” said Jo. “I’ll take a closer look at it when I get there.”

“There is another problem,” said Fraser. “I should’ve thought of it before, but it only occurred to me during the false alarms.” He looked round. “What do we do if one of these patients
does
get resistant pneumonia before we work out how it’s being done?”

“I’d wondered about that,” said Jo.

“How d’you mean?” said Tom.

“Well, I couldn’t just stand by and watch them die, but if we did anything to prevent it, then we risk whoever’s doing it realising we know.”

Marcus said, “Couldn’t you, as a doctor, simply put them on a different antibiotic?”

“
I
probably could, although I’d likely be asked to explain why later. Jo couldn’t. She’d have to suggest it to a doctor and she’d almost certainly be told to give the ampicillin more time to work.”

“And by the time I did manage to persuade someone,” said Jo, “it’d probably be too late. I don’t like it either.”