Free Tangled Web by Ken McClure Page B

mean?’
    ‘I’m simply pointing out that we don’t know for sure that one of my people was responsible.’
    Harcourt looked openly incredulous. ‘You’re surely not suggesting that someone walked in off the street and did it for a laugh, are you?’
    Sepp tried manfully to keep his anger in check. He spoke more slowly. ‘The fact of the matter is,’ he asserted, ‘that people are in and out of the Path department all day long. You must know that. I’m simply saying that it is not inconceivable that someone other than a member of my staff caused the mix-up.’
    ‘You’ve no security?’
    ‘It’s a mortuary not a bloody bank,’ snapped Sepp, finally losing patience with Harcourt’s aggressiveness.
    ‘All right, all right,’ said Harcourt, suddenly realising he was pushing Sepp too far and backing off. He made an open-palmed gesture with his hands and said, ‘Let’s not start fighting among ourselves, but if it was someone from outside your own staff, that would surely imply malicious intent rather than an innocent mix-up, wouldn’t it?’
    ‘I suppose it might,’ agreed Sepp.
    ‘Hard to believe.’
     
    Medical Superintendent’s
    Office 2p.m.
     
    ‘I suppose the parents took it badly?’ said James Trool, medical superintendent of the hospital as he poured chilled water from a carafe into the crystal glass in front of him on the table. He was an undistinguished looking man, large but with coarse features and a penchant for wearing light coloured suits and brightly coloured ties – a trait that had only surfaced when he’d married his second wife, Sonia, some two years before. It was a marriage that had surprised many because Sonia, an American, was almost twenty years younger than he was; beautiful and very wealthy in her own right. They had met when her daughter was admitted to the hospital after a bad car crash, the same crash that had killed her first husband.
    ‘You could say,’ replied Harcourt, fiddling with his cuff links and severely editing his answer. ‘The father called me an oily little bastard and assured me we wouldn’t be getting away with it, as he put it. He promised we’d be hearing from his lawyers.’
    ‘Par for the course,’ said Trool, with a hint of bitterness in his voice. He leaned forward and put his elbows on the table, saying, ‘You know, I can remember a time when people faced up to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune without the need for counselling , or whatever they call it, and large injections of compensation .’ He endowed the words with extreme distaste.
    ‘I wouldn’t mention that to the press if I were you,’ said Harcourt.
    ‘Of course not,’ said Trool. ‘Our deepest sympathy will be extended to the family. Our hearts will go out to them … in an effort to minimise the damage their bloody lawyers are about to do to us.’
    ‘With respect Dr Trool, I think you’re being a bit harsh. It was a terrible thing to have happen to them.’ The speaker was a slight woman in her late thirties. She was Inga Love, director of nursing services.
    ‘Indeed it was, Miss Love but it was an accident . These things happen. No one meant it to happen. To use it as the basis for screwing money out of the hospital is damn nearly criminal in my book.’
    ‘Something tells me the Griffiths are not going to see it that way,’ said Harcourt.
    ‘Of course they’re not,’ snapped Trool. ‘ We have been to hell and back ,’ he mimicked. ‘ We don’t want anyone to go through what we have gone through. It’s not the money that’s important, it’s the principle. Yugh! Makes me want to throw up.’
    ‘It can’t be easy to have something that awful happen to your child, Dr Trool,’ lectured Inga Love.
    Trool grunted.
    ‘If I can just remind you,’ interrupted Harcourt, ‘I have to brief the press in fifteen minutes. Perhaps we could agree on our approach.’
    ‘The usual,’ said Trool. ‘Damage limitation. Thoughts with the family at this time,