Cutting Edge (34 page)

“Rightly or wrongly,” Bernard Salt was saying, “the impulse is always to calm the patient down, give something to deal with the residue of the pain, basically ensure as little agitation as possible. Last thing you want them to do, dwell upon what happened. Difficult enough to forget, I should have thought, without willingly reliving it all the time. No, you can apologize, you can try to explain.”

“Smooth it over,” suggested Skelton.

“Absolutely.”

They were in the consultant’s office, Skelton and Salt facing one another from the two comfortable chairs, Patel off to one side on a straight-backed chair with a leather seat. Among the questions he wanted to ask, why wait until someone else gave us this information, why not come forward with it yourself? The sister who did point them in this direction, what were her motives? Another of a different kind, what was Skelton’s degree in? But he remembered somebody saying, the superintendent was not a graduate at all. When Skelton had entered the Force, relatively few recruits had been graduates; even fewer had been Asian, black.

“There is always, I suppose,” Skelton was saying, “the danger of legal action in cases such as this?”

Salt tapped his fingers together, brought his heavy head forward once.

“And so to do anything which might seem to be accepting liability …”

“Quite.”

Skelton let his glance stray towards the window. After the brave showing of sunshine, today’s skies had reverted to an all-over anonymous gray. “I believe there was an instance, four years ago. An … er … laparotomy, if I have the term correctly.”

“An exploratory examination of the abdomen,” said Patel.

Salt glared at him with something close to hatred.

“The patient claimed to have been awake throughout the operation,” Skelton continued. “Damages were sought from the health authority, who settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. You were the surgeon in charge of that operation.”

“The patient,” Patel said, less than comfortable with both of the older men staring at him, “was in a ward on which Karl Dougherty was working as a nurse.”

Salt shook his head. “I can only take your word for that.”

“It is true,” said Patel. “Dougherty himself remembers the incident and, as far as we have been able, we have checked the records.”

“I’m sure you have,” said Salt, a tone neither quite accusation nor patronization. “And I am sure you have discovered that in November of last year, during an appendicectomy, the anesthetic was found not to be functioning correctly and the operation was abandoned.”

Skelton looked across at Patel and Patel, who had come across no such information, nodded wisely.

“Only a few months before the operation to remove the gallbladder,” Skelton said, “there was considerable adverse publicity around a woman who claimed to have been conscious while giving birth by Caesarian section.”

“Certain newspapers,” Salt said, “I am sure sold a great many extra copies.”

“Not only were the health authority sued, but also the surgeon in charge and the anesthetist. I think that is correct?”

“In the light of that,” Skelton went on, “it’s reasonable to imagine the authority, the hospital managers, would be very loath to attract similar publicity so soon again. Quite apart from the financial loss, what might seem to the general public like a falling away of professional standards, that would be something to be avoided at all costs.”

“Not at all costs, Superintendent. There is no sense of anything having been covered up. And as for this hospital, I can assure you that, cheek by jowl, our record in these cases compares very favorably with others of a similar size.”

“I’m sure it does.”

“The number of operations that are carried out …”

“Please”—Skelton spread his hands—“Mr. Salt, even if such issues were my concern, you would not have to convince me that what you say is true.”

Salt cleared his throat and stretched out his legs, drawing them back up again towards his chair.

Skelton glanced over at Patel and nodded.

“The operation to remove Mr. Ridgemount’s gallbladder, sir, the anesthetist was Alan Imrie and his assistant was Amanda Hooson.”

“Correct.”

“At the time of the operation, Tim Fletcher was attached to you as a junior houseman?”

“I believe … I should need to check to be … Yes, yes. I suppose it’s possible.”

“The surgical ward in which Mr. Ridgemount was a patient, Karl Dougherty was a staff nurse on that ward.”

“He may have been. I’m sure you know that better than I.”

“Dougherty, Fletcher, Hooson—after the last of these, at least, why didn’t you come forward?” Skelton asked.

“I had never drawn the connection you are suggesting.”

“Never?”

“Superintendent, Dougherty may have been one of the nurses who cared for Mr. Ridgemount. During his time at the hospital, so would a good many others. And as for Fletcher, I can’t imagine that his contact would have been more than peripheral.”

“So you never thought it might be relevant—what happened to Ridgemount?”

“What he alleges happened.”

Skelton looked at the consultant keenly. “He made it up?”

“An operation, Superintendent, it’s a traumatic thing. It has been known for patients to hallucinate, for their imaginations to distort what actually happened under the anesthetic.”

“And you’re saying that’s what happened in Ridgemount’s case?”

“I’m saying it’s a possibility.”

“It’s also a possibility that he was telling the truth.”

“Yes.”

“Ridgemount,” said Patel, “he was threatening legal action also.”

Bernard Salt nodded. “At one time.”

“Against yourself, the senior anesthetist, and the health authority?”

“So I believe.”

“You’ve no idea, sir,” asked Patel, “why the action was dropped?”

“None. Although, my supposition at the time was that whoever had been advising him didn’t consider his case strong enough to take to court. Either that, or he changed his own mind about what actually happened.” Salt made a point of looking at his watch. “Gentlemen,” he said, rising to his feet, “I am in danger of being late for theater.”

“The anesthetist in charge that day,” Patel said as they were passing through the door, “Imrie, wasn’t he also involved in the cesarean section? The case that was settled out of court?”

“I believe he was.”

“If we wanted to speak to him?” Patel said. “He no longer appears to be on the staff of the hospital.”

“Eight months after the Ridgemount operation,” replied Salt, turning in the corridor to face the two policemen, “when legal action was still threatened, Alan Imrie committed suicide.”

Instead of going directly to the operating theater, Bernard Salt went to Helen Minton’s ward, where she was just finishing hand-over.

“I assume this is more of your dried-up spite. Dragging this wretched Ridgemount affair back into the open.”

Helen Minton arched her back and stood her ground. “I thought telling people of your inadequacies as a man was not enough. I thought they should understand how far the same inability to face the truth or to accept your responsibilities is present in your professional life as well.”

While this confrontation was taking place, a zoology student named Ian Bean, fresh back from a field trip to Robin Hood’s Bay, walked into Skelton’s station and asked to speak to whoever was in charge of the Amanda Hooson murder inquiry.

Less than an hour later, Ian Carew was released from police custody without charge, thirty-two hours after he had been arrested.

Forty-two

“Whatever you do or don’t do,” Ridgemount said to his son, “don’t be forgetting the split peas. One thing I don’t want, come back out of breath from pedaling up that hill, find the peas have gone to mush, bottom of the pan burned out. Am I understood?”

“Umh,” grunted Calvin, headphones pushed tight inside his ears. “Urn, umh, umf.” What he liked about those old bands like Black Sabbath, when they hit a rhythm it stayed hit.

“Calvin!”

Calvin’s eyes widened and he swayed out of his father’s reach. Headphones were going to be removed, he’d do it himself.

“You hear what I said?”

“Split peas, watch ’em. Satisfied?” Sound squeaked from the headphones that dangled from one hand.

“Listening to that garbage the whole time, turned up loud as it can go, be deaf this side of twenty-one.”

“Better than being a fool.”

Calvin started down the stairs to his room, his father standing by the front door, pointing his finger. “Take care, boy. Just you take care.” Whether he was still going on about the peas, or meant Calvin’s mouth, Calvin didn’t know.

“Whatever else we’ve done on this one,” Skelton said, “we’ve not exactly covered ourselves in glory. The Assistant Chief’s already had the Senior Consultant Anesthetist on the phone talking about undermining public confidence, asking where the virtue is in unnecessarily tarnishing professional reputations, causing additional distress to the relatives of the dead.”

“Imrie?”

Skelton nodded.

“Not much concern about the poor bloody patient in all that lot.”

“Closing ranks, Charlie. We know about that as well as anyone. A copper stands accused, one of the public brings a complaint, nine cases out of ten, what’s the first thing we do? Get the waggons round and form a circle. Keep the buggers out. Doctors, they’re no worse than any others.”

“Maybe, sir.”

“All I’m saying, Charlie, if we are close to something, let’s not screw it up. Take care. Just take care.”

“Right,” Resnick said. “Kid gloves.”

David McCarthy had promised Resnick fifteen minutes, no more, a meeting in the brasserie on High Pavement, across from St Mary’s Church. Around the corner, in Commerce Square, the first of the old Victorian lace factories was in the hands of the developers and would soon be architect-designed studio apartments, luxury condominiums, a gymnasium, a pool, a sauna.

Resnick had met McCarthy once before and recognized him as he came in, a slightly hunted look, briefcase in one hand, portable telephone in the other. He was finishing a call as he came through the door.

“So,” McCarthy said, carrying his glass of Aqua Libra over to the corner Resnick had staked out, “why the renewed interest in this old chestnut?”

Briefly, Resnick told him.

McCarthy leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. Cuff links, Resnick thought, noticing the solicitor’s pale blue shirt, thought they were a thing of the past. Like those daft suspenders for men’s socks.

“You’re not, of course, asking for anything that might be considered privileged information?”

“What I want to know,” Resnick said, “why was the action dropped?”

“Client’s wishes.”

“Not your recommendation?”

“Absolutely not. We had every chance of building up a good case.”

“If anything, then, you’d have been encouraging him to stay with it?”

“Financially, it would have served his interests best.”

“But not in other ways?”

McCarthy took a drink, glanced at his phone as if it were about to ring. “A similar situation to cases of rape, balance out the distress a client is put through reliving the experience in court against the potential gains. Here’s a man, held down, physically violated, and powerless to do anything about it at the time. How much does he want to talk about it, describe it, have what he believes to be true attacked, even ridiculed? No, he decided enough was enough.”

“Nothing to do, then, with Alan Imrie’s death?”

“Imrie?”

“The anesthetist.”

McCarthy pursed his lips. “I’d forgotten.”

“You can’t remember Ridgemount talking about it at the time?”

“No,” the solicitor replied after some moments’ thought, “he would have been aware of it, I’m pretty sure of that. But, no, I can’t recall him mentioning it. As far as I know, it didn’t affect his decision.”

Resnick nodded. McCarthy sampled the well-publicized delights of Aqua Libra. Libra, Resnick thought, anything but what it was. “The other personnel involved in the operation,” he said, “even though they weren’t named in the suit, you’d have determined who they were?”

“Right down to whoever pushed the trolley in and out.”

“You’d have told your client the names?”

McCarthy fidgeted with the mechanism of his briefcase’s double lock. Some people used the first digits of their phone number as the combination, others their wife’s birthday.

“I can’t see why I should. No, I don’t think so.”

“Not if he’d asked? Straight out.”

“I don’t know.” His telephone rang and he picked it up almost before the sound could register, listened, nodded a couple of times and told the caller he would ring right back. “I really don’t recall his having done so.”

“The names though, they would have been around, committed to paper? It couldn’t have been out of the question for him to get a look at them without you realizing. At some point he would have had the chance to write them down, make a photocopy even. What I mean is, he could have known who they were, as you say, even the porter wheeling the trolley.”

“Yes,” said McCarthy. “That’s right. That’s reasonable to assume.”

His portable telephone rang and Resnick got to his feet. “You don’t have to rush off,” McCarthy said, one hand over the mouthpiece. “I’m okay for another few minutes.”

“Enjoy them,” Resnick said. “Do the concise crossword. Dismantle the phone.” He touched McCarthy lightly on the shoulder in passing. “Thanks for your help.”

Great thing about the way the house was so high up, built near the crest of a hill, even his own room below stairs, there was no way in which he was overlooked. Except from the garden and who was likely to be standing out there in the garden? His father, maybe, but his father was off somewhere, hopefully getting back into being a fetcher and carrier, bringing home something good for their dinner.

Calvin stretched back on the bed, rearranging the pillows a little, get them really comfortable. This new stuff he’d got, Jamaican, the kid who’d sold it to him had said, but Calvin knew enough to know that didn’t mean a thing. It was good, though. Good stuff. Good shit. So good, in fact, he thought he would have another joint. Sometimes, lying there, instead of smoking, he would masturbate, thinking, maybe about the woman who worked in the ice cream van in the park. Sitting inside surrounded by all those Cool Kings and Juicy Fruits and Raspberry Torpedoes. Got the radio tuned to the pirate reggae station. White overalls: he was certain she didn’t have anything more than some skimpy kind of stuff underneath. Often, in the park, he would choose a spot where he could see her clearly, sprawl there listening to his music, watching what she did. Never once, she paid him any heed, gave any sign she knew he was even there. But Calvin knew enough to know different.