Beneath the Bleeding

Denby looked bemused. ‘I think you’ve been watching too many episodes of Spooks, Dr Blessing. Robbie Bishop is a footballer, not a KGB defector.’

Elinor stared at the floor. This was what she’d been afraid of. But the reason that had driven her through the door in the first place still existed. ‘I know it sounds ridiculous,’ she said. ‘But none of us has been able to come up with an alternative diagnosis that makes sense of the symptoms and the fact that the patient is not responding to any of the drug regimes we’ve tried.’ She looked up. His head was cocked to one side and although his mouth was a tight line, his eyes expressed interest in what she had to say. ‘And I’m not saying this to flatter you into taking me seriously. But if you can’t work out what is clinically wrong with Robbie Bishop, I don’t think there can be a straightforward explanation in terms of a viral or bacterial illness. Which only leaves poison. And the only poison that makes sense is ricin.’

Denby jumped to his feet. ‘This is crazy. Terrorists use ricin. Spies use ricin. How the hell does a premiership footballer get ricin into his system?’

‘With respect, I think that’s somebody else’s problem,’ Elinor said.

Denby rubbed the palms of his hands over his face. She had never seen him flustered, never mind this agitated. ‘First things first. We need to check whether or not you’re right.’ He looked expectantly at her.

‘You can do an ELISA test for ricin. But even if they’ve got the right antigen in stock and they fast-track it, we still won’t get the results of a sandwich ELISA till tomorrow.’

He took a deep breath and visibly pulled himself together. ‘Set the wheels in motion. Take the bloods yourself, take them straight to the lab. I’ll call ahead, make sure they know what’s coming down the line. We can start treatment –’ He stopped dead, his mouth hanging open. ‘Oh fuck.’ He squeezed his eyes shut momentarily. ‘There is no bloody treatment, is there?’

Elinor shook her head. ‘No. If I’m right, Robbie Bishop’s a condemned man.’

Denby slumped back into his chair. ‘Yes. Well, I don’t think we need to share this possibility with anyone just yet. Not until we know for sure. Don’t tell anyone else what you suspect.’

‘But …’ Elinor frowned.

‘But what?’

‘Shouldn’t we tell the police?’

‘The police? You were the one who said it was someone else’s problem, determining how the ricin got into his system. We can’t call the police in on a hunch.’

‘But he’s still having lucid spells. He can still communicate. If we wait till tomorrow, he could have lapsed into a coma and he won’t be able to tell anyone how this happened. If it happened,’ she added, seeing the ominous expression on Denby’s face.

‘And if you’re wrong? If it turns out to be something quite other? This department will have lost all credibility within the hospital and the wider community. Let’s face it, Dr Blessing, two minutes after we call the police in, the media will be screaming from the rooftops. I’m not prepared to put my reputation and that of my team on the line like that. I’m sorry. We don’t tell anyone – not another living soul – until we get the ELISA results and we know for certain. Are you clear on that?’

Elinor sighed. ‘I’m clear.’ Then her face brightened. ‘What if I was to ask him? When we’re alone?’

Denby shook his head. ‘Absolutely not,’ he said firmly. ‘I will not have you interrogate a patient like that.’

‘It’s kind of like taking a history.’

‘It’s nothing like taking a history. It’s playing at Miss bloody Marple. Now please, let’s not waste any more time. Get started on the ELISA protocol.’ He managed a faint bloodless smile. ‘Good thinking, Doctor Blessing. Let’s just hope for once you’re wrong. Apart from anything else, Bradfield Victoria have no chance of making it into Europe next season without Robbie Bishop.’ Elinor’s face must have revealed her shock for he rolled his eyes and said, ‘I’m joking, for Christ’s sake. I’m as worried about this as you are.’

Somehow, Elinor doubted that.

Tony started awake, eyes wide, mouth stretched back in a silent scream. The power of morphine dreams to recreate the gleam of the axe, the battle cry of his attacker, the smell of sweat and the taste of blood was terrifying. His breathing was fast and shallow and he could feel sweat curdling on his top lip. Only a dream. He deliberately controlled his breathing and gradually the panic subsided.

Once he’d calmed down, he tried to raise his wounded leg from the hip. He clenched his hands into tight fists, the nails biting into his palms. The veins on his neck corded up as he strained to move a limb that seemed to have been transmuted into lead. The futile seconds stretched out, then with a grunt of frustration, he gave up. It felt as if he’d never move his left leg again.

Tony reached for the bed control and eased himself upwards. He glanced at his watch. Half an hour till they would bring his evening meal. Not that he felt like eating, but it was a way of punctuating the day. He almost wished his mother had stayed. At least it gave him something to butt against. Tony shook his head, aghast at the thought. If his mother’s company was the answer, he was asking the wrong question. Not that there weren’t aspects of the history of their relationship that he ought to confront and deal with. But this wasn’t the time or the place. He wasn’t sure when or where would be appropriate for something so potentially painful, but he knew it wasn’t here and now.

Still, it couldn’t wait for ever. Carol had met her now, and she would have questions. He couldn’t just blank her; Carol deserved more than that from him. The problem was where to start. His childhood memories lacked a narrative. They were fragmentary, a series of incidents loosely linked like dark beads on a tarnished chain. Not all of the memories were bad. But his mother featured in none of the good ones. He knew he wasn’t the only person with such an experience. He had treated plenty of them, after all. Just one more aspect of his history he shared with the crazies.

He flapped his hand in front of his face as if swatting a fly and picked up the remote control. He began to flick through the limited range of channels. Nothing engaged his attention, but he was spared having to make a decision by a knock at the door.

The person on the other side didn’t wait for an invitation. The woman who marched in looked like a peregrine falcon run to fat. Glossy brown hair swept back from her forehead in a wavy bob that stopped just short of her shoulders. Deep-set hazel eyes gleamed beneath perfectly shaped eyebrows and the hawk’s nose jutted out from plump cheeks. The sight of Mrs Chakrabarti lifted Tony’s spirits far more than any TV channel could have. Here was more interesting news than BBC24.

She was trailed by half a dozen acolytes in white coats who looked young enough to be doing sixth-form work experience. She gave Tony a swift, practised smile as she reached for his notes. ‘So,’ she said, looking at him from under her brows. ‘How’s it feeling?’ Her accent bore a greater resemblance to that of the royal family than to the denizens of Bradfield. It made Tony feel as if he should doff a cap or tug a forelock.

‘Like you replaced my leg with a lead pipe,’ he said.

‘No pain?’

He shook his head. ‘Nothing the morphine can’t take care of.’

‘But you’re not feeling any pain once the morphine kicks in?’

‘No. Should I be?’

Mrs Chakrabarti smiled. ‘It’s not our preferred option. I’m going to take you off the morphine drip tomorrow morning, see if we can achieve the pain management by other means.’

Tony felt the clutch of apprehension. ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’

The smile grew positively predatory. ‘Just as sure as you are about the advice you give your patients.’

Tony grinned. ‘In that case, let’s just stick with the morphine.’

‘You’ll be fine, Dr Hill.’ She replaced the chart and studied his leg, angling her head round to see the twin drains carrying bloody fluid away from the wound in his knee. She turned to the students. ‘You’ll see there’s not much coming off the wound site now.’ Back to Tony. ‘I think we might take the drains out tomorrow and get this splint off so we can get a sense of what you’re going to need. Probably a nice cylinder cast.’

‘When can I go home?’

Mrs Chakrabarti turned to her students with the perennial condescension of the surgeon. ‘When can Dr Hill go home?’

‘When he can bear weight on his leg.’ The speaker looked as if he should be delivering newspapers, not clinical judgements.

‘How much weight? His whole body weight?’

The students exchanged covert glances. ‘When he can get around with a Zimmer frame,’ another offered.

‘When he can get around with a Zimmer frame, do a leg raise and climb stairs,’ a third chipped in.

Tony could feel something inside his head stretch to its limit. ‘Doctor,’ he said forcibly. When he had her attention, he spoke very clearly. ‘That was not an idle question. I need to not be here. None of the important things in my life can be accomplished from a hospital bed.’

Mrs Chakrabarti wasn’t smiling now. This, Tony thought, must be what a mouse feels like eyeball to eyeball with a raptor. The only good thing about it is you know it’s not going to last long. ‘That’s something you have in common with the vast majority of my patients, Dr Hill,’ she said.

His blue eyes glittered with the strain of not showing his frustration. ‘I’m perfectly aware of that. But unlike the vast majority of your patients, nobody else can do what I do. That’s not arrogance. It’s the way that it is. I don’t need two functioning legs to do most of the things I do that matter. What I really need is for my head to function, and that’s not happening very well in here.’

They glared at each other. None of the students fidgeted. They barely breathed. ‘I appreciate your position, Dr Hill. And I understand your sense of failure.’

‘My sense of failure?’ Tony was genuinely puzzled.

‘It was one of your patients who put you here, after all.’

He burst out laughing. ‘Good God, no. Not one of my patients. Lloyd Allen wasn’t one of mine. This isn’t about guilt, it’s about giving my patients what they need. Just like you want to do, Mrs Chakrabarti.’ His smile lit up his face, infectious and compelling.

The corners of her lips twitched. ‘In that case, Dr Hill, I’d say it’s up to you. We can perhaps try a leg brace rather than a cast.’ She eyed his shoulders critically. ‘It’s a pity you don’t have better upper body strength, but we can try you on elbow crutches. The bottom line is that you have to be mobile, you have to be committed to your physiotherapy and you have to be off the intravenous morphine. Do you have someone at home to take care of you?’

He looked away. ‘I share the house with a friend. She’ll help.’

The surgeon nodded. ‘I won’t pretend the rehab isn’t tough. Hard work and a lot of pain. But if you’re determined to get out of here, we should be able to free up your bed early next week.’

‘Early next week?’ There was no hiding his dismay.

Mrs Chakrabarti shook her head, chuckling softly. ‘Someone split your patella with a fire axe, Dr Hill. Just be grateful you live in a city whose hospital is a centre of excellence for orthopaedics. Some places, you’d be lying there wondering whether you’d ever walk properly again.’ She dipped her head in farewell. ‘One of this lot will be here tomorrow when they take the drains out and the splint off. We’ll see where we go from there.’

She moved away from the bed with her entourage in tight formation behind her. One of them scuttled in front of her to open the door and the surgeon nearly walked into Carol Jordan’s raised fist. Startled, Mrs Chakrabarti recoiled slightly.

‘Sorry,’ Carol said. She looked at her hand and smiled sheepishly. ‘I was just about to knock.’ She stepped aside to let the doctors pass and raised her eyebrows at Tony as she walked in, loaded with cargo. ‘That looked like a royal progress from the Middle Ages.’

‘Close. That was Mrs Chakrabarti and her body slaves. She’s in charge of my knee.’

‘What news?’ Carol asked, dumping assorted carrier bags and easing the laptop in its case on to Tony’s bed table.

‘I’m probably going to be stuck in here for another week,’ he grumped.

‘Only another week? God, she must be good. I thought it would take a lot longer than that.’ She began to unpack the carrier bags. ‘Ginger beer, dandelion and burdock, proper lemonade. Luxury roast nuts. Books as requested. All the Tomb Raider games Lara Croft ever starred in. Jelly beans. My iPod. Your laptop. And …’ She produced a sheet of paper with a flourish. ‘The access code for the hospital’s wireless broadband.’

Tony mimed astonishment. ‘I’m impressed. How did you manage that?’

‘I know the senior nurse from way back. I told her how much easier her life would be if you were online. She seemed to think that a total breach of hospital regulations was a small price to pay. You’ve obviously made an impression already.’ Carol shrugged off her coat and settled into the chair. ‘And not in a good way.’

‘Thanks for all of this. I really appreciate it. You’re a lot earlier than I expected.’

‘Privilege of rank. I suspect I’m going to have to show my warrant card next time I want to get in, though.’

‘Why’s that?’ Tony handed her the power cord for his laptop. ‘There’s a socket behind you, I think.’

Carol got up and stretched behind the chair to plug it in. ‘The Robbie Bishop fan club.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Have you not seen the news? Robbie Bishop’s here, in Bradfield Cross.’

Tony frowned. ‘Did he get injured in Saturday’s match, then? I’m so out of touch in here, I don’t even know if we won.’

‘One–nil to the Vics. But Robbie wasn’t playing. He supposedly had flu, but whatever it is, it got bad enough for him to be admitted here on Saturday. And I just heard on the radio that he’s been moved to the ICU.’

Tony whistled. ‘Well, it’s obviously not flu, then. Are they saying what the problem is?’

‘No. They’re just calling it a chest infection. But the fans are out in force. You can’t see the main entrance for a sea of canary yellow. Apparently they’ve had to bring in extra security to keep the more enterprising ones at bay. One woman even dressed up in a nurse’s uniform in a bid to get to his bedside. I’m sure she won’t be the last to try something like that. It’s a big problem, because you can’t close the hospital to the public. The patients and their families wouldn’t stand for it.’

‘I’m surprised he’s not in one of the private hospitals.’ Tony opened the bag of jelly beans and stirred them with his finger till he found his favourite buttered popcorn flavour.

‘Neither of the private hospitals in Bradfield has the facilities to deal with acute respiratory problems, according to your friendly senior nurse. They’re fine if you want a new hip or your tonsils out, but if you’re seriously ill, Bradfield Cross is where you want to be.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Tony said wryly.

‘You’re not ill,’ Carol said briskly. ‘You’re just a bit more damaged than usual.’

He pulled a half-smile. ‘Whatever. I’d still bet that Robbie Bishop will be walking out of here ahead of me.’

Tuesday

Sometimes being right was no pleasure at all, Elinor thought as she stared at the lab report. This was definitely one of those times. The test results were incontrovertible. Robbie Bishop had enough ricin in his system to kill him several times over.

Elinor paged Denby, asking him to meet her at the ICU. As she crossed the covered walkway that linked the labs to the main hospital, she couldn’t avoid the sight of Robbie Bishop’s fans, their patient vigil rendered pointless by the piece of paper she held in her hand. According to one of the women in admin who had been holding forth in the staff canteen that morning, the hospital had been inundated with offers of blood, kidneys and anything else that might be donated to help Robbie. But there was nothing anyone could give Robbie now that would alter the fate in prospect.

As she approached the ICU, she folded the report in half and shoved it in her pocket. She didn’t want any of the security staff to glimpse its contents as they checked her ID before allowing her into the unit. The tabloids had their spies everywhere; the least she could do was to ensure Robbie’s last hours were as dignified as possible. She cleared security and crossed the reception area, spotting Martin Flanagan slumped against the end of a sofa. When he saw her, he jumped to his feet, eagerness and anxiety chasing the exhaustion temporarily from his face. ‘Any news?’ he asked, his flat Ulster accent lending the simple question an incidental air of aggression. ‘Mr Denby’s just gone in. Did he send for you?’

‘I’m sorry, Mr Flanagan,’ Elinor said automatically. ‘There’s really nothing I can tell you right now.’

His face collapsed in on itself again, hope disappearing with her words. He dragged his fingers through his silver-streaked hair, a beseeching look on his face. ‘They won’t let me sit with him, you know. His mum and dad are here, they get to be with him. But not me. Not now he’s in there. I signed Robbie when he was just fourteen, you know. I brought him on. He’s the best player I’ve ever worked with and he’s got the heart of a lion.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t believe it, you know? Seeing him brought so low. He’s been like a son to me.’ He turned his face away from her.

‘We’re doing all we can,’ Elinor said. He nodded and dropped back on to the sofa like a sack of potatoes. It didn’t do to get emotionally involved, she knew that. But it was hard to see Flanagan’s pain and not feel connected.

Being in the ICU was one of life’s great levellers, she thought as she walked into the dim space with its bays crammed with equipment. Here, it didn’t matter whether you were a household name or a nobody. You got the same total commitment from the staff, the same access to whatever means it took to keep you alive. And the same restrictions on visitors. Immediate family only, and they could and would be unceremoniously shunted to one side if necessary. Here, the needs of the patient were paramount, and here the medical staff ruled supreme, if only because the patients were in no fit state to question them.

Elinor headed straight for Robbie Bishop’s cubicle. As she drew near, she could see the couple sitting on the left of the bed. A man and woman in their middle years, they were both clearly in the grip of the tension that comes with abject fear. Their focus was fierce and aimed exclusively at the figure wired to the machines. For all the notice they were taking of Thomas Denby standing at the end of the bed, he might as well be invisible. Elinor wondered if they had grown so accustomed to seeing their son from afar that they were somehow transfixed by his proximity as well as his infirmity.

She paused on the fringes of the group, the dim lighting creating a chiaroscuro effect that made her feel as if she were spying on a diorama in a gallery. At the heart of it, Robbie Bishop, a pale mockery of his former glossy self. Hard to imagine now, that mastery of the beautiful game, those fluid breaks down the wing and the curving crosses that had created so many opportunities for Bradfield Victoria’s strikers. Impossible to equate the puffy, waxen face with the glowing good looks that had earned millions promoting everything from organic fruit and vegetables to deodorant. His familiar mop of light brown hair, expertly streaked to make him look like a surfer dude, was lank and dark now, grooming being lower on the priority list of hospital staff than it was on that of premiership footballers. And Elinor was the one who was about to wrench the last shreds of hope from this dramatic tableau.

She took a step forward and cleared her throat tactfully. Only Denby registered her arrival; he turned, gave her a half-nod and ushered her away from the bedside towards the side office where the nurses were stationed. Denby smiled at the two nurses sitting in front of computer terminals and said, ‘Can you give us a minute, please?’

Neither looked particularly pleased at being shunted out of their own space, but they were conditioned to obey consultants. As the door closed behind them, Elinor pulled the test results from her pocket and handed them over. ‘It’s not good,’ she said.

Denby read the report, his face impassive. ‘No room for doubt there,’ he muttered.

‘So what do we do now?’

‘I tell his parents, you tell Mr Flanagan. And we do everything we can to make sure that Mr Bishop suffers as little as possible during his last hours.’ Denby was already turning, making for the door.

‘What about the police?’ Elinor said. ‘Surely we have to tell them now?’

Denby looked perplexed. ‘I suppose so. Why don’t you do that while I talk to Mr and Mrs Bishop?’ And he was gone.

Elinor sat at the desk and stared at the phone. Eventually she picked it up and asked the hospital switchboard to connect her to Bradfield police. The voice that answered sounded brisk and down-to-earth. ‘My name is Elinor Blessing and I’m a Senior House Officer at Bradfield Cross Hospital,’ she began, heart sinking as she realized how improbable her news was going to sound.

‘How can I help you?’

‘I think I need to talk to a detective. I need to report a suspicious death. Well, when I say death, he’s actually still alive. But he’s going to be dead before too long.’ Elinor winced. Surely she could have put it better than that?

‘I’m sorry? Has something happened? An assault?’

‘No, nothing like that. Well, I suppose technically, yes, but not in the way you’re thinking. Look, I don’t want to waste time explaining this over and over again. Can you just put me through to someone in CID? Someone who deals with murder?’

Tuesdays, Yousef Aziz made a point of dropping in on his main middleman. Knowing what he knew, it was hard to motivate himself, but for the sake of his parents and his brothers, he forced himself to do more than simply go through the motions. He owed them that, at least. His family’s textile business had survived in the teeth of fierce competition because his father had understood the value of personal relationships in business. That had been the first thing he had taught his two elder sons when he had initiated them into First Fabrics. ‘Always take care of your customers and suppliers,’ he’d explained. ‘If you make them your friends, it makes it hard for them to dump you when times get tough. Because the first rule of business is that times will always get tough sooner or later.’

He’d been right. He’d weathered the collapse of the textile business in the North when cheap imports from the Far East had all but obliterated British garment manufacturers. He’d hung on by the skin of his teeth, always keeping one step ahead, jacking up the quality of his merchandise when he couldn’t pare his costs any further, carving out new markets at the higher end of the game. And now it was all happening again. This time, the customers were driving the changes. Clothes were going for a song, fall-apart fashions available in chain stores for peanuts. Buy it cheap, wear it once, sling it. The new philosophy had infected a whole generation regardless of class. Girls whose mothers would have taken poison rather than enter a cut-price fashion store rubbed shoulders with teenage mothers on benefit in Matalan and TK Maxx. So Yousef and Sanjar were sticking to the tried-and-tested formula for survival.

And he hated it. Back when his father had started the business, he’d been dealing mostly with other Asians. But as First Fabrics had stabilized and established itself, they had to deal with all sorts. Jews, Cypriots, Chinese, Brits. And the one thing they all had in common was that they acted like 9/11 and 7/7 had given them the right to treat any Muslim with contempt and suspicion. All the misapprehensions and downright deliberate misunderstandings of Islam operated as the perfect excuse for racism. They knew it wasn’t acceptable to be openly racist any more, so they’d found another way to express their racism. All the stuff about women wearing the hijab. The complaints about them speaking Arabic or Urdu instead of English all the time. Fuck, had they never been to Wales? Go into a coffee bar there and suddenly it’s like nobody ever learned English.