Trauma (19 page)

'Yes Doctor Logan,' said Sarah through her teeth.

Before either had time to say anything else, an alarm went off on the console desk and a nurse called out, 'Beta three! Cardiac arrest! Steven Miles!’ Logan and Sarah both ran through into Beta suite and personal animosity took second place to dealing with the emergency. Sister Roche arrived close behind with the crash trolley and Logan took charge. The cardiac monitor over the patient's bed had gone to flat-line instead of spikes and a continuous monotone had replaced the comforting regular bleeps. The patient, Steven Miles, was a seventeen year old boy who’d fallen from a third storey window and fractured his skull. He had been in a coma for four weeks but this was the first sign of complication.

Sarah took over from Logan in the application of cardiac massage while he prepared to shock the patient. One solitary green spike on the oscilloscope had been the only reward for their efforts after ninety seconds.

'Preparing to shock,' announced Logan loudly.

The nurses cleared everything out of the way.

'Clear!' said Logan and everyone stepped back as the current was applied to the patient's chest. There was a loud thump and the patient's body responded to the voltage racing through him with an involuntary jump. The monitor started to bleep again and the horizontal base line on the 'scope broke into spikes. But the sound was irregular, two shorts followed by a pause then three quick bleeps followed by the monotone again. Logan applied the paddles again.

Two bleeps followed by the monotone.

A third attempt was no more successful. Logan straightened up and put down the paddles. 'We've lost him,' he said as the continuous monotone jangled everyone's nerves. 'All agreed?’

Everyone did.

Logan noted the time of death and added, ‘Turn that damned thing off.' He walked away leaving Sarah and the two nurses with the dead seventeen-year-old. Sister Roche said to the younger nurse, 'He has Sigma probes. Inform the lab, will you?'

Sarah said, 'I'll do it. I need to ask them for some more chart paper anyway.'

Patients with Sigma Probes who died had to have them removed by skilled technicians. It was a delicate procedure and the probes were expensive but could be re-used after cleaning and sterilising if undamaged. When a Sigma patient died the HTU staff would call the lab and they would come immediately to deal with the body. Sarah called the number written on the wall beside the phone in the duty room and was told that the team was on its way. They would also bring her more Sigma chart paper. Within ten minutes Steven Miles' body was removed from the unit.

A shadow hung over HTU for the rest of the morning. It inevitably did when a young person died. It always seemed so unfair, almost as if an unjust mistake had been made and everyone felt aggrieved by it. But by three in the afternoon, Beta three was no longer empty. A new patient had been admitted. He was a forty-four year old demolition worker who had been hit on the head by falling masonry. The empty bay was no longer a focus for grief and reflection. A new challenge had moved in to fill the vacuum.

The patient had been stabilised by the A&E team before transfer to HTU. Sarah checked his pulse and blood pressure again to make sure that there had been no worsening of his condition in the move. Satisfied that he still seemed stable she set about connecting the monitoring probes to his head. Logan arrived in the bay while she was positioning the last one. 'Everything all right?' he asked.

'He's stable,' replied Sarah.

'How about blood tests?'

'On their way to the lab.’

'He's going to need surgery,' said Logan. 'Did you send blood for cross matching?

'Also on its way,' said Sarah. 'But surely he's too weak for surgery?'

'Agreed,' said Logan. 'So what would you suggest in the meantime?'

'A full scan in the morning?' suggested Sarah. 'That should give us some information about the degree of damage sustained without putting him under any added stress.

'Pencil it in then,' said Logan. 'You can do it.'

Sarah did not react to the suggestion. She simply said, 'Very well. Is he to have Sigma probes inserted?'

Logan shook his head and said, 'I don't think so. The area of trauma is well defined and limited. We'll decide after we see the X-rays.'

Sarah found it difficult to look Logan in the eye for fear that he might see suspicion there. Another part of her wanted to accuse him openly of complicity in John McKirrop's death. She was glad when he left. Shortly afterwards Nurse Barnes came hurrying towards her. 'Sister Roche asks if you would mind taking a telephone call?'

Sarah followed the nurse back to the duty room where Sister Roche, with her hand over the mouth-piece of the phone said, 'It's about Mr McKirrop.'

Sarah, feeling puzzled, accepted the receiver. 'Hello, this is Dr Lasseter. How can I help you?'

'Hello Doctor. This is Father Ryan Lafferty. I was wondering how Mr McKirrop was?'

Sarah put her hand up to her forehead in anguish. 'Oh I'm sorry,' she said. 'How awful, I should have telephoned you earlier. Mr McKirrop died yesterday morning. I informed the police but I clean forgot about you Father. I'm most terribly sorry. You didn't see the television report?'

Lafferty could tell that Sarah's distress was genuine. He said as gently as he could, 'Actually, I don't have a television.'

'Oh, I'm sorry,' said Sarah, 'but that's no excuse anyway. I don't know what came over me I really am most ...'

Lafferty tried to assure Sarah that no great harm had been done before asking, 'I don't suppose that he regained consciousness at all then?'

'Well, yes he did,' stammered Sarah, feeling both embarrassed and ashamed at her oversight. 'That is to say, no he didn't . . .'

'I don't think I understand,' said Lafferty.

'I'm sorry,' said Sarah who had now gone into an apologetic spiral. 'It's sort of debateable really. The official view is that Mr McKirrop did not regain consciousness.'

And the unofficial view?' asked Lafferty, bemused by it all.

'I think he did for a short while,' said Sarah weakly.

'Well, I'm sorry to hear of his death,' said Lafferty. 'I hope he has an easier time in heaven than he did on earth.'

'Quite so,' said Sarah.

'Thank you Doctor.'

The phone went dead and Sarah replaced the receiver. She rubbed her forehead again, still angry with herself.

Lafferty let out a weary sigh and stared balefully at the telephone in front of him. He felt utterly dejected. McKirrop had died without his getting a chance to speak to him so he was nowhere nearer finding out the reasons behind the stealing of Simon Main's body. He had read just about every book he could find on the subject of black magic and satanic ritual. He was staring into space when the housekeeper, Mrs Grogan came in and asked him what he would like for tea.

'Boiled eggs, I think Mrs Grogan.'

'Very good Father. They won't be l . . .' Mrs Grogan stopped when she read the title of the book lying on the table in front of Lafferty. 'Scottish Witchcraft' by Nicholas A. Macleod.

Having failed to find anything of use in the general academic works on Satanism, Lafferty had decided to investigate the possibility that the reason for Simon Main's exhumation might be related to some local or regional ritual or ceremony. There was precedent for this in that many towns and villages around the country had fairs or customs of their own which dated back to pagan days.

Lafferty was about to assure Mrs Grogan of the innocence of his interest but he stopped himself. It was devious, he knew, but perhaps a little misunderstanding like this might be exactly what was needed to free him from the yolk of Mrs Grogan's cooking. 'Was there something else Mrs Grogan?' he asked innocently.

Mrs Grogan looked startled at the question. 'No, no Father,' she said, backing towards the door. 'Nothing at all . . . I'll get your eggs.'

Lafferty returned to his reading.

* * * * *

John Main pulled on his leather jerkin and checked that he had his keys in his pocket before setting out for his second evening of pub crawling in a row. John McKirrop's unforeseen death had given him a new idea so he had decided to put his idea about asking around the spiritualist community on hold for the moment. The down and out's' death had been reported on television so the cemetery story would briefly be news again. People would talk about it in pubs. In these circumstances anyone who knew anything might be encouraged to say something, if only to impress. Main had set himself the task of visiting every pub within a one mile radius of the cemetery in the hope of picking up some gossip.

He was presuming of course, that those involved in the crime were local to the area. If this was so - and it was a big 'if', someone might let slip something, even a rumour would be a start. Last night had yielded nothing. That left tonight and maybe tomorrow night before public interest started to wane and the story would be forgotten again.

Main walked into the Cross Keys Bar and found it half empty. It was obviously a working man's pub. Three tables were occupied by domino players and two men in dungarees were playing darts in an alcove at the back. Not exactly the kind of place to find Satanists, thought Main but what did Satanists look like. Christopher Lee? Peter Cushing? What did they wear? Black silk capes? If they did there would be no problem finding them.

'What'll it be?' asked the barman as Main reached the bar counter, still looking around him.

'Half of lager,' said Main. He would have preferred a large gin but the night was young and there was a long way to go.

'There you go,' said the barman, putting down the drink in front of him. Main paid him and decided to push things along. 'I see McKirrop's dead then,' he said.

The barman looked blank. 'Who's McKirrop?

'That old guy who tried to stop the body snatchers. It was on the telly.'

'Body snatchers?' repeated the barman who Main had decided was not rocket scientist material.

Another customer joined in. He said to the barman, 'You know, these bastards who dug up the kid's body in the cemetery up the road.'

'Oh aye,' said the barman.

'Sick bastards,' said the other man.

'Aye,' said the barman.

No one else responded. Main finished his drink and left. He fared no better at the second bar or at the third. He ordered a gin and tonic at the fourth, partly to break the monotony of half pints of lager but mainly because he was feeling fed up. An unwelcome shaft of realism was starting to penetrate the clouds of his obsession. This was a stupid idea. It was the act of a desperate man who had run out of ideas. It was time to see reason, time he pulled himself together, time he went back to work and started to pick up the pieces of his life. Main read all this in the bottom of his empty glass while he leaned on the bar counter. It was the first time his resolve had wavered and he didn't like the feeling. It was very close to hopelessness.

'Same again?' asked the barman.

Main looked up and shrugged. 'Why not,' he said.

Shortly after eleven o'clock Main found himself in the lounge bar of a pub called the Mayfield Tavern. He'd lost count of the number of pubs he'd been in that evening and with each failure he’d become more and more depressed. His alcohol intake had reflected this and he was far from sober although not overtly drunk. The alcohol, as alcohol always did, had merely exaggerated his mood. His lips were set tight and his eyes reflected the unbearable sadness he felt.

To the barmaid he was just another face at the bar, a man in the corner drinking quietly and keeping himself to himself, just another sad man. The world was full of them.

The bar seemed to have a wide mix of customers, unusual in this day and age, thought Main. Most pubs attracted allegiance from one sort of customer rather than another. Here, there were two tables occupied by students; they looked scruffy but their voices gave them away. They were obviously going on to a party and were trying to decide what they should take along in the way of drink.

Main moved his attention to the various couples dotted around the room. Most were young but there was a middle aged duo whose complexions said that they drank a lot. The man had a small suitcase at his feet, the kind people used in the nineteen fifties, the sort that German spies used to carry in early British films, the sort that Crippin might have carried his implements in. Main couldn't guess what the couple did.

There were two working men standing at the bar, still in their overalls. They obviously hadn't been home. Both had hands that were stained with black grease. Main guessed at mechanics. He probably could have found out if he had wanted to by listening to their conversation which had been animated for the last fifteen minutes but half the verbiage seemed to consist of the word 'fucking'. Main took a sound bite.