Free Donor by Ken McClure Page A

skimpy. A young patient named Kenneth Lineham had, like Amy Teasdale, died after rejecting a transplanted kidney. The organ had been deemed highly compatible with his own tissue type but, again like Amy Teasdale, he had undergone immunological rejection of the organ after the operation. Sister Barnes, like Lisa, had maintained that there had been a mix-up somewhere along the line and he had been given the wrong organ. A preliminary investigation of her allegation failed to find any evidence of this and she had resigned in protest.
    Dunbar could certainly understand why the Sci-Med computer had drawn attention to the situation. The two nurses had made almost identical claims about two different patients almost three years apart, and both were experienced transplant-unit nurses. But, it had to be said, there was a total lack of scientific evidence in both cases. The women’s assertions seemed to have been based on gut feeling and very little else.
    Dunbar wondered if there had been any other cases of apparently severe immune rejection in patients receiving organs classed as perfectly compatible by lab testing. This was something he could check on the computer. He had access to the main Sci-Med computer through the IBM notebook he carried with him. All he needed was a convenient telephone line, and the hotel was equipped with telephone points for modem connection.
    He logged on to the London computer through his access number and password and started asking questions about kidney-transplant records. There were plenty of them; kidney transplant had become an almost routine operation over the past few years. He had to narrow down the data available to that pertaining to unsuccessful transplants in the last two years. Asking the right questions was always the key to a successful computer search. Having access to all the data in the world was no use at all unless you knew exactly what to ask.
    A lot of thought had gone into the systems design of the Sci-Med service. He further narrowed down the information to patients who had died within two days of their operation, as had Amy Teasdale and Kenneth Lineham. He then asked how many of them had been given kidneys with an 80 per cent compatible rating with regard to host tissue. The answer was none.
    Dunbar stared unseeingly at the screen for a few moments. He was thinking about the result. Only two patients in the UK in the last three years had died within two days of their operation after receiving highly compatible organs, and both had been patients at Médic Ecosse. Coincidence? That couldn’t be ruled out, he supposed. Two wasn’t a large number, maybe statistically insignificant. Perhaps there were more cases just outside the 80 per cent compatibility figure. He asked the computer the same question with a less stringent figure on compatibility, reducing by first 5 then 10 per cent. The two Médic Ecosse patients were still the only ones. He then looked at cases in which the patient had died within the first month after transplant. There were ten, and without exception there had been other circumstances involved in their deaths. The two Médic Ecosse deaths remained out on their own. They were a puzzle.

FIVE
     
     
    In the morning Dunbar asked at the desk about his hired car and was told that it was already in the car park. He signed the relevant documents and was given the keys to a dark blue Rover 600Si. It was just after nine. He thought he would let the office day begin before he added his presence to it. He arrived at Médic Ecosse Hospital a little before ten and made himself known at Reception. A pleasant woman in her late thirties, smartly dressed in a dark suit and pristine white blouse that successfully conveyed the impression of cool efficiency, said he was expected. If he cared to take a seat someone would be with him shortly.
    The someone in question turned out to be a short, dark-haired young woman, also wearing a business suit, who introduced herself as Ingrid