Donor (18 page)

There was one last possibility: the cistern in the loft. Did the Barneses have a loft ladder? They did. Dunbar found the short pole with the hook on the end and used it to open the hatch cover and swing down the ladder. He climbed up the metal treads, torch in hand, and swung the beam around the dark recesses of the roof space. He saw a grey plastic cistern and modern piping, mostly wrapped in plastic lagging.

It was plain that the plumbing in the house had been entirely re-done in the not too distant past. He was about to close the hatch when he saw, below the red plastic tank used to back up the central-heating water supply, something lying between the rafters. He picked it up. It had once been part of an overflow pipe from the old cistern. It was about eight inches long and, more importantly, it was made of lead.

He closed up the loft and brought the pipe down into the living room. He slipped the little foil packet inside it and, using the handle of the screwdriver, flattened the ends of the pipe to seal the packet inside. He ran the probe over the outside and was pleased to hear that the radiation was now in check. He could hear only background clicks. He screwed the plastic cover back on the junction box and stood up. He had a sick, hollow feeling in his stomach as if he had been going up too fast in a lift. It was one thing being afraid of what you were up against, but when you didn’t know what that was it made you doubly fearful. He looked back at the junction box and wondered who had installed it. It must have been so easy. Someone posing as a telephone engineer perhaps? Supposedly checking a fault in the line? He could see how it could have been done without arousing any suspicion.

He put his things back into his briefcase along with the lead-shielded sample of debris and shone the torch around the floor area to make sure he hadn’t left anything behind. He composed himself for a few moments before preparing to run the gauntlet of the security light once more.

This time he wasn’t so lucky. He had only taken one sideways step with his back pressed against the wall when the light clicked on, illuminating him and the garden. He felt as if he had just come on stage at the London Palladium. Instinctively he sprinted to the corner of the house and threw himself flat in the shrubbery. As he did so a light came on in the Proudfoots’ upstairs bedroom and a face appeared at the window; a hand started clearing a patch in the condensation on the glass in order to see out.

Dunbar wasn’t at all sure about his cover so he was reluctant to move a muscle lest movement attract attention. He couldn’t even afford to turn his head to look up at the bedroom window. His peripheral vision suggested that there was someone still there.

At that moment a cat chose to saunter across the garden path, sniffing the night air and haughtily ignoring the human being at the window above him. The cat sensed Dunbar’s presence and stopped in its tracks to stare at him. Dunbar closed his eyes and prayed. This could go either way. Either the neighbour would think that the cat had triggered the light and go back to bed or he would notice that the cat had found something and get suspicious himself.

After what seemed like an eternity, the bedroom light went off and all was quiet again. The cat moved off to more interesting things and Dunbar lay stock still for a further three minutes until the security light had reset itself. Moving slowly backwards and out of range, he quickly glanced both ways in the street before jumping over the fence and walking briskly back to his car. The night air and the icy cold did nothing to help his state of mind. He was filled with apprehension. He had become involved in something that was much bigger than he could ever have imagined at the outset. Sheila Barnes and her husband getting cancer had been no accident.

Thinking about Sheila made him wonder about Lisa. If they – whoever they were – had set out to murder Sheila Barnes, might they not try to do the same to Lisa? Dunbar’s foot flew to the brake pedal and the tyres squealed in protest. He executed a three-point turn with more noise than elegance and started racing through the streets to her flat.

‘Who is it?’ asked a sleepy-voiced Lisa.

‘Steven Dunbar. I have to talk to you!’ said Dunbar into the entryphone.

‘Do you know what time it is?’ she protested.

‘I have to see you. It’s important.’

‘It had better be,’ said Lisa, releasing the lock.

Dunbar sprinted up the stairs, carrying his briefcase under his right arm. Lisa was waiting for him at her front door, wearing dressing gown and slippers. Her arms were crossed over her body in deference to the cold. She quickly ushered him inside.

‘This had better be good.’

‘I think you’re in danger.’

‘What? What are you talking about?’

The sleep had gone from Lisa. She was now wide awake and alert. She watched as Dunbar, ignoring her, brought out the radiation monitor from his briefcase and unclipped the probe. He went directly to the telephone and started tracing the cable back along the wall. There was no sign of any new junction box.

‘Have you had any visits from a telephone engineer in the past few weeks?’ he asked, starting to move the probe to other areas of the room.

‘Telephone engineer? Will you please tell me what’s going on?’

‘Have you?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure.’

‘Any other workmen calling unexpectedly?’

‘No, no one.’

Dunbar began to relax.

‘Will you please tell me what all this is about?’ said Lisa.

‘I’d better just check your bedroom.’

Lisa said, ‘Dunbar, I’ve heard some crummy lines in my time, but this takes the prize.’

Dunbar didn’t smile. He said, ‘It looks as if Sheila Barnes and her husband didn’t get cancer through some quirk of fate. I think someone may have planted a radiation source in their house.’

Lisa’s eyes went as round as saucers. ‘A radiation source? You mean it could be murder?’

Dunbar nodded. ‘Could be.’

‘But why? I mean who?’

‘Only one name comes to mind,’ said Dunbar.

‘You mean Médic Ecosse?’ exclaimed Lisa.

Dunbar shrugged. ‘You can’t buy radioactive isotopes at the corner shop. Who else would have access?’

Lisa sank into a chair and held her hands to her face.

Dunbar said, ‘I had the awful thought they might be doing the same to you.’

Lisa shook her head slowly. The confidence had gone from her eyes. She looked like a little girl who had suddenly become very afraid.

He put down the probe and wrapped his arms round her for a few moments. ‘There doesn’t seem to be anything here,’ he assured her. ‘But I’d better check the other rooms.’

She nodded and led the way. The flat was clean.

‘Are you all right?’ Dunbar inquired gently when they returned to the living room.

Lisa looked up and shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Where do we go from here?’ she asked.

‘Until I know for sure, I have to assume that they did this to Sheila to shut her up about the child who died, although the method is positively bizarre. We could call in the police right now but that might stop us finding out what’s behind it all.’

‘Then you do believe there’s something in what Sheila Barnes and I have been staying?’ asked Lisa.

‘I think I did even before this.’

‘Supposing you don’t call the police. What’s the alternative?’

‘Sci-Med can continue the investigation in secret.’

‘I want to know why Amy died,’ said Lisa. ‘I want someone to pay for it.’

Dunbar nodded.

‘On the other hand, I’m scared,’ she confessed.

Dunbar did not offer false reassurance.

‘What about the radiation source you mentioned? What’s going to happen to it?’

‘It had already been removed but I found traces of it. They’d concealed it in a telephone junction box on the wall – that’s why I was checking your phone line. I collected some debris from the box. I’m going to ask the Sci-Med people if they can identify the isotope and find out where it came from. There aren’t many establishments that supply radioactive materials in the UK, and they’re all obliged to keep strict records.’

‘So they’ll be able to tell if it was ordered through Médic Ecosse?’

‘That’s my hope,’ said Dunbar. ‘If we can show that Sheila was murdered, and link her death to Médic Ecosse, all the stops will be pulled out in a search for the motive. If we call in the police right now and then find that we can’t link the two, the whole thing will be blown.’

‘Who else would want to kill Sheila Barnes?’

‘Agreed,’ said Dunbar, but there was hesitation in his voice.

‘Something’s troubling you?’

‘I can’t help thinking it was a very odd way to shut someone up. You’d think they’d want to do it as quickly as possible, not let nature take its course.’

‘Thanks,’ said Lisa flatly. ‘Very reassuring.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to alarm you. I was just thinking out loud. Obviously they must think time’s on their side. What do you think?’

‘Let’s see what your people come up with before we call in the police,’ said Lisa.

‘If you’re sure?’ said Dunbar.

She nodded uncertainly, as if she was using up every ounce of bravery she could muster in the gesture.

‘Good girl. In the meantime don’t open the door to any tradesmen unless they’ve got proper identification and credentials. Even at that, I’m going to arrange for surveillance outside.’

Lisa nodded again.

As soon as he got back to the hotel, Dunbar established a modem link with the Sci-Med office in London, using his notebook computer, and sent a two-word message,
GLASGOW RED
. Sci-Med would now know they had a criminal case on their hands, and any request made by Dunbar would be given priority. At some point in the next few days he would have to justify his action. If at all possible he would have to do it in person in London but, as he was the man on the ground right now, the decision was his.

After a few moments his computer bleeped, and Sci-Med’s reply came up on the screen:
GLASGOW GREEN
. His message had been received. There followed an instruction to adopt one of three encrypting procedures available on Sci-Med computers. From now on, to ensure complete security, all his messages would be encoded automatically before travelling down the phone lines, as would the return messages from Sci-Med. Dunbar did as instructed and was asked if he had any immediate requests. He asked for discreet, low-level surveillance at Lisa’s address. He didn’t believe she was in any immediate danger, but it was as well to think ahead. He was assured that this would be done. Asked if there was anything else, he replied that there was nothing that couldn’t wait until daybreak. He needed some sleep; it was two thirty in the morning.

Despite the lateness of the hour, sleep did not come easily. The events of the day went round in his head like scenes on a fairground carousel. The more he searched for answers, the bigger the questions seemed to get. Even niggling little worries demanded his attention. He was thinking about how he would return the equipment he’d borrowed from Radiology when a thought struck him. At the hospital, when he’d seen the surgical team get into the lift with the child, they’d taken her up to the second floor. He’d thought nothing of it at the time but now he realized that that would have taken them up to the east wing of Obstetrics, the one being used for the Omega patient. Why were they taking the child up there?

TEN

Dunbar was up early in the morning. The first thing he did was check his coded computer mail file. It had already been updated with a list of phone numbers, which he noted down in the small notebook he always carried. They were special numbers for the police and other authorities in the area, and would get him whatever assistance he needed, at priority level. There were also two bank account numbers he could use to obtain emergency funding. There was a Sci-Med telephone number to be used at any time of the day or night in making special requests and, finally, a directive that he should make personal contact at his earliest convenience. It was the standard package for Sci-Med investigators in the field when they asked for full operational status.

For the moment, everything depended on establishing the origins of the radioactive source. He asked Sci-Med to get the radioactive sample couriered to London and to arrange laboratory analysis of it. The evidence, he warned them, was little more than radioactive dirt. Would they do their best to identify the unknown isotope and its source?

As usual, he was impressed at the way Sci-Med didn’t question his requests. They simply accepted them and asked if he had any more or if there was anything else they could do to assist. This is the way an administration should work, he thought. They smoothed the way for the real function of the organization. In many government institutions administration had become an end in itself. In the worst cases, roles were reversed. Front-line workers existed only as administration fodder, to be administered, to provide information, data and statistics for administrators. Their true function had been totally undermined.

From what he’d heard from friends and colleagues, the NHS was well on the way to this state already. More and more medical and nursing time was taken up with the filling in of forms, the answering of questionnaires and complying with audit and monitoring procedures – generally being subject to the whims of an administration seeking to justify and multiply its own existence.

Dunbar scrounged some cardboard and adhesive tape from Reception and used it to make a small parcel of the lead pipe containing the debris. He checked the outside thoroughly with the radiation monitor before taking the package downstairs to await collection. He brought some black coffee back up with him and thought about what he was going to do next. He was going to drive down to Helensburgh to see Sheila Barnes, ostensibly to return her journal to her. He had planned to do so anyway, but now his number-one priority was to ask her if she could remember who had installed the phone junction box on her living-room wall and when. Maybe she could come up with a description or even a name.