Second Opinion Read online

  ‘One of the babies you saw that night was a cot death — they found him yesterday morning. I did the PM yesterday and —’

  ‘Cot death?’ Susan frowned and her face looked heavy again as the line of her nose and jaw once more took on the shape of a nutcracker. ‘Let me see if I can remember. There were three that night in the early part and then four more later on. Now, can I recall — yes, a frail pair of twins I wasn’t at all happy with, had them sent to SCBU but I know they’re all right. I saw them this morning. Coming along nicely. I think they’ll do. Oh, and a small-for-dates. I think the mother might have been a cocaine-abuser — no hard evidence, but Sister there seems to think it likely and —’

  ‘Not that one,’ George said. ‘This was a fine infant, very healthy as far as the look of the body went. Big child, almost six kilos.’

  ‘Eleven pounds?’ Patricia said, interested. ‘Was the mother diabetic?’

  George shook her head. ‘No, we thought of that, I do assure you.’ Patricia had the grace to redden. ‘Insulin is one of the things I look for early, especially with a particularly large infant. There’s nothing in the mother’s history or the accounts of the pregnancy and labour. All very straightforward. Domino delivery — or meant to be — so there were no worries about it at all. Yet the baby died, and frankly I can’t find any cause.’ She stood gnawing her lower lip for a moment, glowering, and then snapped with some sharpness, ‘I hate using the cot-death label. It’s so goddammed unsatisfactory!’

  ‘I do sympathize,’ Susan said and her face lost its hardness. ‘It’s not so bad when you can find the answers.’

  ‘Precisely. So I just wanted a word —’

  ‘To see if I missed something when I did the checks?’ Susan didn’t sound particularly acid, but George felt herself get pink again.

  ‘Not at all,’ she said hurriedly. ‘It was this note.’ She pulled the PM request form out of her file yet again and showed it to Susan.

  Susan stared down at it, read it and then shook her head. ‘Nothing to do with me,’ she said. ‘It couldn’t be, could it? The child was a patient in Matty, not my ward. I didn’t even know it had died.’

  ‘I know. It’s a long shot but …’ George shook her head. ‘The registrar, do you know him? Didier St Cloud.’

  ‘St Cloud … Oh yes, the one who looks like a dish mop.’

  George grinned. Susan’s own close-cropped grey hair gave her a look of a lavatory brush, in her private opinion. To hear such a judgement on another’s appearance from someone as unprepossessing as the Senior Paediatric Consultant was undeniably funny. ‘Yes. That’s the one. He didn’t type the note, and I thought … Well’ — she shrugged — ‘I’m not sure what I thought, to tell the truth. So I just decided to come over here and check. I suppose I’ll have to ask the nurses and mid-wives on Matty.’ She shook her head again. ‘It’s odd, isn’t it?’

  ‘What? Three cot deaths since the summer? I suppose so,’ Susan Kydd said.

  ‘Actually, I meant the note,’ George said. ‘Let’s face it, with a throughput like ours, it’s a statistical likelihood we’ll have a few cot deaths from time to time. No, it was the fact that someone thought to write this note that I found odd.’

  ‘Well, I’m afraid I know nothing about it,’ Susan said briefly. ‘And I really have to get on. It’s gone eleven and I haven’t even been to the SCBU yet. Was there anything else?’

  ‘No, no thanks,’ George said and stood back to let her pass, and then watched her as she went hurrying away across the big central play area to the door marked ‘This way to the Special Care Baby Unit’. Beside her Patricia Collinson sniffed loudly and lusciously.

  ‘If she makes any more cracks about the place being a mess when she came back from bloody Bucharest I’ll murder her, I swear I will,’ she growled. ‘Honestly, we’d only been in here a couple of weeks when off she swanned and then Petra Samson went sick and we were short staffed on the nursing side too and what did she expect? But does she make allowances? Does she hell! She never stops niggling —’

  ‘Well, put it down to high standards,’ George said, uneasy to be the recipient of nursing confidences about another consultant. ‘She clearly cares a lot about the children.’

  ‘No one would argue with that! That was why she took a month’s unpaid leave to go to Romania. I just wish she wouldn’t nitpick so much about silly little details now she’s back, that’s all.’

  ‘What was she doing in Romania?’ George asked, not only to change the tack of the conversation, but also because she was, as always, totally unable to control her passion for news titbits, however miniscule. No one could accuse her of gossiping with nurses about other consultants just because she showed an interest, surely.

  ‘Babies with AIDS,’ Patricia said and made a face. ‘We saw this video, you know? Someone had put it together from all the stuff on telly and were using it to raise funds. Now Barrie Ward’s finished, the committee that raised the cash was looking around for something to do, and someone brought the video, and Susan saw it. Off she went like a bullet from a gun, looked after some of them and then had to come back. But she goes often now. It’s not as bad as it was a couple of years ago, seemingly, but it’s still not good.’ She looked gloomy. ‘If I know her, she’ll be off to Bosnia next to care for kids there and give us hell the minute she gets back because she doesn’t like the way we store the request forms for haematology or something.’

  ‘You should be proud of her,’ George said, a touch reprovingly. ‘It’s tough, that sort of work.’ She too had seen the films of the children of Romania and had wept over them. ‘I’m not sure I could do it.’

  ‘Oh, hell, of course we’re proud of her! If we weren’t, do you think I’d be complaining like this? It’s just that she’s such a nitpicker! Everything has to be just so for Judy, and some days she drives me potty. Especially as I’m not the world’s best-organized soul.’ Patricia grinned then. ‘Forget it, do, Dr Barnabas. It’s been a bad morning. That Dr Choopani’s been on and on at us and —’

  ‘Dr who?’

  ‘Local GP. Diljeet Choopani. Always on about something. I have to say, when it comes to nitpicking he beats Judy into a cocked hat. He’s been trying to admit a child with gastroenteritis all morning and we keep telling him we haven’t got an isolation bed and there’s no way this side of the millennium we’ll take her into a general bed, but will he stop whining?’ The phone, as if on cue, rang and she growled, ‘I’ll bet you all I’ve got to a penny piece this is the old bugger again.’

  She picked up the phone and fluted, ‘Barrie Ward, Sister speaking,’ and then grimaced horribly at George to show she was right. ‘No, Dr Choopani. I’m afraid she’s not around just now. What?’ She listened for some time, her face blank with surprise. ‘Oh! Well, thank you for letting us know,’ and hung up. And swore loudly.

  ‘Got the child into Kings, over the river, would you believe!’ she said. ‘Positively gloating, he was. I loathe that man, I really do —’

  ‘Well, I must be on my way,’ George said quickly, not wanting to listen to another of Patricia Collinson’s prolonged whines about her problems — something she was clearly settling down to enjoy — and she picked up her file and moved out of the nurses’ station. ‘Thanks for your help, anyway.’

  ‘Sorry we couldn’t do more,’ Patricia said, settling down to her papers again. ‘Maybe the nurses on Matty’ll know whatever it is you want to find out.’

  ‘Maybe,’ George said. ‘If I get round to asking them. It doesn’t really matter that much, I suppose. I was just — well, curious.’ She looked at her watch. ‘And I’d better call the coroner, or I’ll miss him.’

  She went, grateful to leave the hubbub of the ward behind. The children had begun to whoop in excitement as the lunch trolleys arrived. There were times, occasionally, when she fretted over the fact that here she was, thirty-six and still childless, let alone husbandless; and others, like this, when she was grateful for the pleasant places in which
her lines had fallen, even if they weren’t places which included such close relationships.

  A thought which, inevitably, reminded her of her conversation last night with her mother. Tomorrow she’d be here, with Aunt Bridget in tow, having arranged a flight just as soon as George had called her. If that wasn’t enough to cure her of any yearnings for family life, she told herself gloomily as she made her way back to her laboratory, nothing was.

  4

  She had no time to think about anything, however, neither her mother nor the matter of the note on Baby Popodopoulos’s file, because the lab was in an uproar when she got back to it. An agitated wide-eyed Sheila — who always got immensely excited whenever she had the opportunity — greeted her with an air of great portentousness and told her almost before she’d got inside her office that the mortuary was ‘positively groaning at the seams with bodies, a ghastly RTA over on the other side of Leman Street and the place is milling with police and —’

  George sighed, put down her files and reached for her dressing-room key. ‘I’ll see for myself, Sheila,’ she said repressively. ‘Who has the PM requests and the notes?’

  ‘Mr Constant’s down there and so’s that nice young policeman. You know, the Scottish one and —’

  ‘Right, I’ll get on, then,’ George said firmly and went, cutting off Sheila in mid-flow, clearly to her annoyance. George changed as fast as she could into her greens, tying her hair up tightly in a cap. It was horrid the way the smell of the place clung to her hair if she wasn’t careful. She remembered fleetingly how she’d thought a while ago that she preferred the smell of her mortuary to that of the maternity ward, and allowed herself a sardonic sniff at her own stupidity.

  The PM room, when she reached it, was indeed in a hubbub. All three of the slabs had occupants and Danny, the mortuary porter, was busy cutting the clothes off them under the beady eye of DC Michael Urquhart from Ratcliffe Street police station, while Harold Constant, the coroner’s officer, stood in close colloquy with someone George couldn’t quite see, since Constant was a sizeable man whose bulk hid his companion. On the far side of the PM room a young uniformed constable was standing looking a touch pale and anxious. George sighed. The last thing she needed was six foot plus of fainting copper on the floor getting in everyone’s way. She went over to him and said cheerfully, ‘Good morning!’ and looked at him closely.

  He swivelled his eyes to look back at her. She could see the line of sweat on his upper lip and grinned sympathetically. ‘Good morning, madam,’ he said. He was hoarse.

  ‘I’m Dr Barnabas,’ she said crisply. ‘And I think you’d be better off waiting outside. You don’t look too wonderful. Smells a bit in here, doesn’t it?’

  The boy went even paler and closed his eyes for a moment and she said sharply, ‘Steady! Just lean on the wall and when you feel able, get out —’

  ‘Hey there, Dr B., you pushin’ my officers around again? Ain’t you got enough of your own people to bully?’

  ‘I do not bully!’ she said wrathfully, turning round, realizing at last to whom Harold Constant had been talking. ‘And well you know it, Gus! I was in fact showing the guy a bit of sympathy, which is more than you’d do for them. Look at him! He’s as green and sweaty as an old cheese. Let him go, for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘If he’s green and sweaty, all the more reason for him to stay,’ DCI Hathaway said, peering into the young policeman’s face. ‘Are you green and sweaty, Chester? Shame on you! You ought to know better. Stop it at once and settle down.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the young policeman said, staring woodenly over Hathaway’s head, and George made a sharp noise of irritation through her teeth and turned back to the slabs.

  ‘OK. He’s your guy, you bully him your way if you must. But if he keels over don’t expect my staff to pick him up. You can do it yourself.’

  ‘He wouldn’t dare,’ Gus said amiably. ‘Would you, Chester? No. Knows better’n to do any faintin’ around me. I’d murder him.’

  ‘And I’d be glad to give evidence to that effect at your trial and see you well banged up,’ George snapped and the young policeman began to look a little better, clearly enjoying the sight of Detective Chief Inspector Hathaway getting his share, as he was later to describe the episode to his mates in the canteen at Ratcliffe Street nick. But Hathaway only chuckled, winked at Chester and went back to his talk with Harold Constant, who was looking far from pleased.

  ‘Three in one afternoon,’ Harold muttered to George as she settled to dealing with the first body. ‘Sorry to throw it at you in such a rush, but there’s some question of one of ‘em having had a heart attack before the crash and besides we think one of ‘em’s a bloke we want over a bit of naughty with other people’s cars. That’s why I’m here, o’course. Wouldn’t usually hang around a routine RTA, would I? No. Anyway, we have to know as soon as possible, so as to sort out the legalities. There’s some problem over the insurance, wouldn’t you just know, as well as someone wanting to sue —’

  ‘Which one?’ George asked as she pulled on her gloves and again flexed her heavy left hand. This would be her first adult PM since her return and dealing with a sizeable adult body was harder work than an infant’s, especially when there was rigor present, as there was in the bodies she now had to deal with. Stiff muscles in the corpse and weak muscles in the operator, she thought at the back of her mind, add up to a hell of a lot of hard work. Oh well, the sooner I find out if I’m up to it the better. Like that young copper learning how to stand throughout a PM without passing out, I suppose. She looked up and caught Gus’s eye and he winked at her companionably. She smiled back involuntarily. Dammit, it is fun to see the old bastard again, she thought. She’d missed the laughs.

  It was a long afternoon as she went doggedly through the three cadavers, but at the end of it the answers were clear enough and Harold Constant went off in a much more cheerful frame of mind.

  ‘I’ll let ‘em know, then. The chap in the Rover had the heart attack and that was why he swerved and hit the Nissan head on. That’s going to sort out a lot of trouble. The other passenger in the Nissan was all set to sue the survivor of the Rover crash for dangerous driving and she’s in no state to cope with anything, poor thing. She’s up in intensive care now. Ta, Dr Barnabas. Helps a lot to have this so clear and so soon.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ she said and turned to go to her shower and change of clothes, but Gus stopped her as the room emptied and Danny stowed away the bodies one by one, ready for the undertakers to collect.

  ‘Here, hang about a bit!’ Gus called in an aggrieved tone. ‘Haven’t set eyes on you this past month and there you are slopin’ off like I ain’t here! Do me a favour!’

  ‘Of course you’ve seen me!’ she said. ‘You came to visit me in Dagmar Ward.’

  ‘Oh, that.’ He waved a dismissive hand. ‘You can’t count that. You was in that flippin’ box and I had to stand outside and shout through the bleedin’ glass. That’s not visiting someone, is it?’

  ‘It’s the only possible way when the patient has an infection that could be nasty,’ George said. Although she wouldn’t admit it to him for the world, she did in fact agree that being shouted at through a double layer of glass was hardly satisfactory communication.

  ‘Well, fair enough. Glad to see you up an’ about, anyway. You quite fit again?’ He looked at her a little sharply and his voice had a gruff note, and she was touched. That his concern was genuine was undoubted and she smiled at him.

  ‘I’m fine, Gus. Just fine. And you?’

  ‘Oh, me, I’m as chipper as a mouse what’s broken through the larder door. More work’n we know what to do with and half the force off with ingrowing toenails —’

  ‘Ingrowing —’

  ‘Oh, they’ve got their bloody doctors to call it flu, but I know lead swingin’ when I see it.’

  ‘I’d like to see you with this current flu!’ George said. ‘You’d be moaning and groaning like a — like a —’

  ‘
Yeah, well I haven’t got it, so you can’t. And you’re wrong. When I’m poorly, take it from me, I’m as good as gold. Give me a bottle of Scotch and the papers and I’ll get better so fast you won’t even miss me. So, any news around the place?’

  ‘News?’ She laughed. ‘I’ve only been back on duty a day or so! No time yet to collect all that’s going on. When I do, you’ll be the last to know, I promise.’

  ‘Mean cow,’ he said amiably. ‘Life blood to a copper, gossip is, and she won’t share it.’

  ‘I will when it’s necessary. Now, can I go and change?’

  ‘Into what? Fairy Fanny on a fir tree?’

  ‘Very funny. Oh, shit!’ She lifted both hands in the air and made fists of them. ‘I meant to talk to Constant. I bet he’s gone.’

  ‘Hang on, I’ll see if I can catch him for you,’ Gus said at once and went, his check overcoat streaming behind him and his curly hair bouncing in its usual energetic fashion. George followed him more slowly. It was unlikely Constant was still around, no need to hurry; but she had been warmed by Gus’s immediate willingness to find him for her. It was good to see him again, and maybe not just for the laughs.

  As she reached the door of her changing room, Gus reappeared at the far end of the corridor with Constant in tow. The fat man was puffing a little and she thought with a stab of amusement that Gus, stocky and hard muscled as he was, looked, at a good four inches shorter, like a particularly self-important tug pulling a singularly heavy liner and she laughed.

  ‘What’s the rush?’ Constant was clearly aggrieved. ‘I have to get back to the office with this stuff urgently, you know.’

  ‘Which was why you was dallyin’ with Madam Sheila up there and having a nice little natter?’ Gus said and Constant threw him a murderous look. ‘It won’t take a mo’, will it, Dr B?’

  Now George looked at him murderously. ‘It’s private,’ she said shortly. But Gus laughed.

  ‘Do me a favour, darlin’! Since when do you have private discussions with old Harold here? Don’t make me go jumpin’ to any conclusions. I will if you insist on whisperin’ sweet nothings into his ear.’