David Trevellyan 03 -More Harm Than Good (4 page)

       
“Sebastian had it?” he
said.

       
“He did,” she said.
“Just as we thought. He was off-site today, but I had to wait for his assistant
- that useless Julie - to nip out to Starbucks.”

       
“They both denied having
seen it. Idiots.”

       
“They always do.”

       
“It was in his bottom
drawer?”

       
“Where else? And look,”
she said, pointing to a coffee stain on the folder’s tattered front cover. “See
the state it’s in? It wasn’t like that when we sent it back to them, last
time.”

       
“Well, that’s the least of
our worries,” he said. “Good work, finding it. And
Mags
?
Keep your ears open. Any more complaints about
you-know-who
- any incidents at all, however small - I want to
know.”

       
The woman started back
towards the door, but stopped after one step.

       
“Your visitor,” she
said. “He doesn’t have an appointment. Is he...? Or do you want me to...?”

       
“What do you think?” the
man said, turning back to me. “Are you...?”

       
“Don’t worry,” I said,
after a moment. “You clearly have bigger problems than me. Lost files. Coffee
stains. The stuff nightmares are made of. I’ll be getting out of your hair now.
So to speak.
And I’ll find someone else to help me.”

       
“Good idea,” the man
said. “Best of luck with that.”

       
“I think I’ll start with
the police. I’m sure they’ll be much more interested.”

       
I wasn’t even half way
out of my chair before the man spoke again.

       
“Wait,” he said. “You’re
calling the police? Here?
To the hospital?
Why? What’s
the problem?”

       
I lowered myself back
down and met his gaze, but I didn’t reply.

       
“Look, maybe we got off
on the wrong foot,” he said after a few seconds, then flashed me a sickly
smile. “Why don’t we start this conversation all over again? If there’s a
problem, I’d be more than happy to help. That’s what I’m here for, at the end
of the day. There’s no need to go calling anyone else.
So,
please.
Tell me what’s wrong.”

       
I didn’t answer. His
change of heart wasn’t fooling anyone. I was inclined to just walk out and let
him believe I was following through with the police. The local plod was
unlikely to spring into action over a pair of stolen boots, obviously, but the
prospect of a horde of uniforms descending on the place seemed to have got him
pretty rattled. In another second I’d have been heading for the exit, but then
my eyes were drawn to the poster above the man’s head. It showed a huge shark
about to snap up a tiny minnow, with the caption, “AMBITION - If you can’t swim
with the big fish, stay out of the water.”

       
“Can we at least start
with your name?” he said.

       
I decided to stay.
Partly to give him the chance to atone for the posters.
But
mainly because old habits
die hard
. I wanted to see
why he was so worried about the police.

       
“David
Trevellyan
,” I said, after a moment, and went on to explain
the problem with the missing
Grensons
. He listened
carefully, without interrupting, and looked increasingly confident as I went
along.

       
“OK,” he said, when I’d
finished. “No worries. I have people who can take care of this for you, quite
easily.
Mags
, could you get Stan on the phone for me,
please?”

       
“Um,
Mr
Leckie
is out of the office today,” she said. “A very
urgent family situation unexpectedly cropped up, again, I understand.”

       
“This is the Head of
Security we’re talking about?” I said.

       
The man gave nothing
away.

       
“Because I heard all
about his urgent situation,” I said. “It was him I originally went to see.”

       
“Well, it’s nothing to
worry about,” the man said. “
Mags
, can you get Lydia
for me, instead?”

       
The
woman
nodded and made her way back
out to her own desk, once again keeping a
wide berth as she skirted around me.

       
“Lydia’s our Deputy
Security Chief,” he said. “She’s very thorough. This kind of thing is more in
her remit, anyway. Probably better that she handles it, in reality.”

       
“I’m putting her
through,” the woman said from the outer office, and after another split second
the man’s phone began to ring.

       
“Ready?” he said,
pressing a button. “I’m putting her on loudspeaker.”

       
“Lydia McCormick,” a
younger woman’s voice said, sounding tinny and disembodied through the
low-quality equipment.

       
“Lydia, this is Mark
Jackson,” the man said. “I’m here with one of our patients, a
Mr
David
Trevellyan
.”

       
I didn’t correct him.

“David’s staying in one of the observation rooms on
B wing, and he has some concerns over the security of personal possessions in
that area,” he said.

       
“What kind of concerns?”
she said. “Can he be more specific?”

       
“Theft,” I said.

       
“Then there’s no need to
worry,” she said. “There have been no thefts reported from any of our primary
patient accommodation units in over eighteen months. None at all since I’ve
been here, in fact.”

       
“Well, there’s been one
now,” I said.

       
“When?” she said, above
the distant rattling of a computer keyboard. “I can’t see any record of
anything.”

       
“There won’t be a record
yet,” the man said. “That’s why David’s here. His boots were stolen from his
room this morning, apparently.
While he was in the MRI suite.
So we do at least have a clear window of time to focus on. He’s understandably
upset about this - and I’m disturbed about it too - so I’d like you to look into
it, Lydia. As a matter of urgency.”

       
“Of course,” she said.
“I’ll jump on it straight away. Can you just tell me what happened to the S103,
though? I’ll need someone to track it down, and get it on the system as quickly
as possible.”

       
“What’s an S103?” I
said.

       
“It’s our basic Security
Incident reporting form,” she said. “You have completed one?”

       
“No, I haven’t,” I said.

       
“Do you have a copy over
there, at least?” she said.

       
“No.” I said. “I’ve
never set eyes on one.”

       
“Well, that’s not a
problem,” she said. “Just ask
Mags
to print one out
for you - she can pull one off the intranet - then ask her to whizz it over to
me once you’ve filled it out, and I’ll get the wheels in motion.”

       
“What information do you
need for this form?” I said.

       
“Oh, not much,” she
said. “It’s not hard.
Just the basics.
What
happened.
Where. When. Brief descriptions will be fine.”

       
“I’ve already told you
more than that,” I said. “I’ve detailed exactly what happened. And given you a
precise description of the boots.”

       
“I know,” she said. “But
that was an oral report. We need it on paper.”

       
“What other questions
are on the form?” I said.

       
“Oh, none really,” she
said. “There’s not much to it.”

       
“So if you already have
the information, and the form doesn’t give you anything new, why do you need
it?” I said.

       
“Because we need the
form itself,” she said. “That’s what kicks the process into gear. We can’t move
without one.”

       
“Why not?” I said. “Why
can’t you start now?”

       
“Because we don’t have
the form,” she said.

       
“But the form doesn’t
tell you anything you don’t already know,” I said. “It’s pointless.”

       
“It isn’t pointless,”
she said. “It’s the start of the process. There’s no case without one. Nothing
for us to work with.”

       
“OK,” I said. “How about
this. You make a start now, before the trail goes completely cold, and I’ll get
the paperwork across to you as soon as I can.”

       
“No,” she said. “I need
the form first. That’s how the system works. We can’t do anything without one.
We can’t be fully accountable, otherwise.”

       
“Mark?” I said, looking
directly at the man on the other side of the desk. “This is crazy. Help me out,
here.”

       
The man put both hands
over his face and then pulled them sideways for a moment, spreading his skin
and stretching his eyes into narrow slits.

       
“Sorry,” he said,
letting go of his cheeks again. “If my Deputy Head of Security says we need a
Form S103 before we begin, then we need a Form S103 before we begin.”

       
“Thank you, Mark,” she
said. “It isn’t hard to fill in,
Mr
Trevellyan
. And believe me, nothing can be done without
one.”

       
“Is that right?” I said,
standing up to leave.

       
“Where are you going?”
the man said.

       
“Back to my room,” I
said. “I feel like I might need a second assessment for my head wound, after
all. I’m going to get that taken care of, then see about what you’ve been
telling me.”

       
“Sounds like a plan,”
the man said. “Let me know if there’s anything more I can do. Lydia - anything
to add before
Mr
Trevellyan
leaves us?”

 
      
“No, nothing else from me,” she said, then there was a click,
and her voice was replaced by a harsh, grating dial tone.

       
“Well David, I’d like to
thank you for coming in,” the man said, pressing a button on his phone and
shutting off the irritating noise. “I appreciate the chance to clear this
matter up. I’m sure you’ll be satisfied with the outcome - Lydia really is good
at what she does - and I’m glad she was able to clarify the process for you.
Good luck with the rest of your treatment. And please, check back with me at
any time.”

       
I turned my back and
walked away, thinking that Mark Jackson had actually been right. The
conversation with Lydia really had clarified things for me. But probably not in
the way he’d expected. Because from the moment she’d mentioned the S103, I’d
been absolutely certain about one fact.

       
No one in that place was
going to give me any meaningful help. So, if I ever wanted to see those boots
again, I was going to have to get them back by myself.

Chapter Four

It took a full quarter of an hour for me to retrace my steps through the
hospital’s maze of
colour
-coded corridors, but when I
reached my room I found that someone had at least come by and cleared up the
mess while I’d been gone. I hit the button to call for a nurse, and with
nothing else to do while I waited, lay on the bed and flicked through a dozen
channels of daytime television. I rejected the soap operas straight away.
And the quizzes.
There were no news or current affairs
programmes
to be found. A cooking competition seemed
vaguely promising for a while, but I finally settled on a talk show where a
seventy-year-old man was being taken to task for sleeping with his thirty
something sister-in-law. The host was adamant this was wrong, but the guy
himself was standing his ground. He insisted he was entirely justified. He’d
already got his third wife’s teenage daughter pregnant, after all. And with the
girl temporarily off-limits, how else were his prodigious needs to be met? The
audience was still grappling with that one when his wife made her entrance.
Things were shaping up nicely, but before I could see whether she would make
good on her threat to kill him with her bare hands, there was a knock on my
door. It was time to be a patient again.