04:10
A consultant once taught her: ‘If you get on with everyone at work, then you’re not working enough.’
Her hands now trembled from the verbal tirade that had just erupted. Her cheeks were wet and her shoulders tense. She began to rue letting the consultant get beneath her skin.
Leaving the pressure canister of A&E to the calmer security office was just the tonic she needed. Hopefully the visit would yield an answer – the answer…
She knocked on the door, which had a texture similar to cork. It was sliced in half to form two hatches.
The top half swung viciously open.
Philippa was grateful it swung inwards.
An Afro-Caribbean man with a well-trimmed beard stood with one hand on his hip. ‘You are?’
‘Hi, I’m Philippa, the medical registrar on-call,’ she said trying to peer around the uniformed giant.
The security guard turned briefly to work out what it was that had caught the doctor’s eye. When he was unable to locate the culprit, he asked, ‘Yes, what do you want?’
‘Can I come in? I need to ask you something.’
He paused, as if assessing the potential risks of allowing this petite harmless girl inside the multi-monitored room.
‘Please; it’s important.’
He unlocked the bottom half of the door and shepherded her in.
‘I’m Wes. Sit down,’ he said offering her the option of a creaking wooden three-legged stool or a leather-clad recliner chair on wheels. He took a seat himself and the whole cushion noticeably sank with his weight.
Philippa opted for the latter but regretted it as the moment she slid upon the smooth fabric, she found herself fighting the urge to fall asleep – to be cuddled by the soft buffers on each side.
The security office was untidy to say the least. The walls were cream though they were supposed to be white, half papered and half tiled, divided coincidentally in line with the split across the door. A corner storage unit had been untidily improvised with a saw, to slot where the wall descended at rather an acute angle.
‘One of my colleagues had a cardiac arrest tonight and died. I think he had a seizure. However, we were just wondering – I know it sounds ridiculous – but is there any way we could look together at the cameras to see if – if anyone else was around there at the time?’
‘You’re thinking someone might have murdered him,’ Wes asked, with a patronising chuckle.
‘We just want to explore all possibilities,’ she explained.
‘That’s fine by me, a bit of company is good until my colleagues gets back, but you are shooting wide with that possibility.’
‘Do you know Gemma? The SNP?’
Wes stole the biro from behind his ear and began flicking it between his fingers. He nodded casually.
‘She told me about this patient… Eric Pails?’
‘The guy’s a troublemaker,’ he said with a frown. ‘Steer clear if you see him. But he’s no murderer.’
‘Has he been found yet?’
‘No but Bud and Gab are scouting him out.’ He checked the time. ‘We give it to five o’clock. If we still haven’t found him, we may just have to assume he’s left for good… and probably better we hope he has – for everyone’s good.’
‘Would we ever get the police involved?’
‘Police? Probably not in his case unless staff are worried that he’s dangerous to the public or himself.’
He turned to face the monitors and threw on a pair of bifocals, promptly fast-forwarding his age two decades and reflecting the array of multi-coloured auras in all directions. Under this light, Wes’ beard was noticeably greyer and the rays worked like soldiers, excavating the facial trenches on his forehead and around his mouth.
Philippa realised there was in fact just one single cinematic monitor divided into nine main screens although some were then further subdivided. At the bottom of his screen was a waterfall of black wires that flowed out of view behind the busy desk.
The security guard typed with just his index fingers and made certain each key was squashed to the hilt, which was painful for a touch-typist like Philippa. But with every letter, Philippa felt her heart accelerate with hope but also fear of who might appear on the camera; to have used the exit and potentially be the killer.
‘Which cameras do you need to check?’ he asked, at last.
‘Do you have any cameras on the portacabins?’
‘The portacabins outside? Where was your colleague killed?’ he asked with a sarcastic tone.
‘He was found in the anaesthetists’ mess – I think it was portacabin fifty-five?’ she replied, grateful for her thick skin.
‘Fifty-five? That doesn’t exist.’
‘But it had fifty-five on the side…’
‘Hold on a moment.’ Wes picked at a flake of skin hanging off his nostril then skidded across to the cabinet across the room. He tried the top drawer.
It gave way after a very forceful yank the second time.
Inside, Philippa spied a huge stash of papers, some in torn clear plastic envelopes, others loose. He glossed over them until he found a familiar document, then pushed the drawer as far in as the heaps of misaligned paper allowed.
Philippa got up off the chair and went to inspect the screens over the guard’s shoulder.
‘You must be talking about these cabins here,’ he said tapping on the map. ‘These two portacabins are numbers three and four.’
‘Whichever one is on the top,’ Philippa clarified.
‘Are you sure it said fifty-five?’
The medical registrar nodded with assurance.
‘They must be markings by the original company,’ he mumbled to himself.
But the more Philippa thought about it, the more she questioned whether she had noticed the large white numbers on the side of the cabin that time she met up with Rob Gadra for a coffee in the mess. How that seemed so long ago…
‘Then that would be portacabin three,’ he muttered. ‘No, we don’t have a camera on any of those cabins. They’re quite new and I don’t think the hospital intends to keep them there for long.’
‘What about the hospital exits?’
‘Yes, we will have eyes on all of them. Which ones do you want?’
‘The back exit, close to the Chartwell Unit, please.’
‘Let me see,’ he said, successfully working his magic. ‘That would be this one.’
Philippa shuffled the heavy chair over. ‘Can you rewind back to two o’clock? If anything happened, it would have done so between two and three.’
Her bleep brought extra acoustics to the dull harmonies performed by the various tech arranged around the room.
She sighed at the relentlessness of the job. ‘Do you have a phone?’
‘Just behind you,’ replied Wes.
Philippa answered her bleep. But she kept a devoted eye on the screens as the security guard sped through the recordings. She took down the details of another referral – a man refreshingly middle-aged with chest pain, but less refreshing was the stuttering junior trying to make the referral.
‘Did the pain sound cardiac?’ Philippa queried.
‘Well he said it began at –’
‘It’s a yes no question.’
‘It might have radiated… no, it didn’t sound cardiac.’
‘And you said he’s had this pain on and off for how long? Four weeks?’
‘About four weeks, possibly five now I come to think about it.’
‘His ECG…’
‘His heart tracing showed a sinus rhythm. Rate was about eighty-four beats per minute.’
‘Sinus would have been enough,’ Philippa told him, keeping an eye on Wes as he scrolled through the images.
At last, the doctor cut to the chase. ‘I know it’s not cardiac pain and I know his first blood test was normal but our protocol states we need to send off a second one.’
‘When is it due?’
‘In two hours.’
‘Can’t you just keep him in A&E and send him home if it’s normal? Admitting him onto the ward for the second test is a bit unnecessary isn’t it?’
‘Dr Balsack just wants to be sure and the patient would breach.’
This war was becoming personal. Unnecessary tests costing unnecessary resources. She didn’t mind admitting sick patients but it was the ones being brought in wastefully, such as this that made the job frustrating. Protocols took the thinking out of the medical profession.
The defensive referral reminded her of the lumbar puncture Dr Steer had demanded and the thought made her nervously adjust her dress collar. When was she ever going to get the time to do it?
Philippa slammed the phone down just in time to see a recording of herself hurriedly using her badge to unlock the back exit with Karan making firm strides next to her. Gemma then came into view a few seconds later, following suit; even in slow motion, it was clear she was sprinting.
‘Wait; that’s us running to the cabin. You’ve gone too far ahead,’ Philippa told the security guard.
‘I’ve checked the recordings through, even went back a little further than you advised. Look here: this is you coming back in from the outside,’ he said. ‘I take it you were out there in the cabin?’
‘Yeah.’
Then Wes began to fast-forward the tape. ‘This guy goes out for a fag.’
‘Wait, can you zoom in on him?’
Wes obliged.
‘That’s the porter,’ mumbled Philippa. He was wearing his jacket, but as Wes said was not out there long.
‘Then moving on to three o’clock: this is you leaving the building with your colleagues. Between that time, nobody else uses the exit.’
Philippa howled. ‘What about Surgical Four. Is there a way to go through who entered the ward between…’?
Wes shook his head. ‘Surgical Four used to be where the toxic waste went. It’s the only ward that doesn’t have eyes on it. Anything else you need from me?’
‘No thanks,’ she replied. ‘I’d best get back to my patients.’ Of course, she only meant one patient and he needed to know everything.
The Chartwell Unit had become her base for the night, which was peculiar given it was possibly the furthest point away from the Ops Room. Wes may have been the guardian of the hospital but the two nurses on shift here, Effy and Sarah represented her security, protecting her VIP: Shinji Nyarko.
The detective’s eyes had paled over the course of the shift and his eyelids reached for his chin. The whirring fan had added to its collection of victims as evidenced by the eclectic collection of flower petals scattered on the lino floor.
‘You’re going to need a unit of blood, Shinji,’ Philippa advised. ‘It’s been ordered and will come to the ward within half an hour. How are you feeling?’
Shinji Nyarko nodded appreciatively. ‘I’m getting sleepy but I shouldn’t even complain given you’ve been on your feet all night.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Philippa said. ‘You have enough on your plate for me to be burdening you with my problems.’
‘Let’s call it a truce,’ he replied with a smile.
‘Is there anything I can do to help you otherwise? Water? Tea?’
‘I’ve just had some water thanks. The chemo has left a metallic taste in my mouth that I haven’t been able to shake off since the day it began. Tea doesn’t agree with me anymore. I know the NHS gets an awful lot of complaints these days but you have all been truly fantastic.’
I wish more people shared your view… she thought, referring to Mary Surrey’s daughter. ‘Shinji, I think I saw the killer.’
‘Tell me what happened.’
Philippa relayed the incident by Charlotte Barber’s bedside.
‘Definitely male?’
‘Ninety-nine percent.’
‘Did you see anyone similar when you went to view the security cameras?’
‘No – only the porter for a cigarette. No other person walked through the exit between my meeting with Rob and his… death…’
‘Then the killer may have used a window to avoid the cameras perhaps…’
‘Or…’ replied Philippa, ‘Let me see the map again?’
Shinji handed the printed sheet of paper to her.
‘There’s the cemetery. The killer was outside already… it makes sense, Shinji. Justin was walking in the direction of the portacabins from this point here. He killed Rob then lied about not being the one who put the cardiac arrest call out. I’m sure it’s him. We just have to prove it.’
‘What about the call from the killer after the event?’
‘Justin was no longer at the scene so he could easily have called me.’
‘Where was he?’
‘I don’t know. I sent him away.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Everyone had left, but I told him to leave the arrest call early because if he’s behind this all, I didn’t want to give him the opportunity to sabotage things.’
‘Does he have access to the portacabin?’
‘It wouldn’t matter. Rob knows him; he would have opened the door for him. He already did once during this shift.’
‘And what is he wearing tonight?’
‘Pink shirt and navy trousers.’
‘But this person staring back at you; he was wearing dark clothing?’
‘The hoodie would have easily covered his pink shirt.’
Shinji nodded. ‘If you’re convinced Justin is the culprit, then let’s think how we can catch him red-handed.’
Every few days... 