Free Ward Z: Revelation by Amy Cross Page B

glanced back at the doorway, only to see that he still had company.
    “You're sweating,” Freeman told him.
    “I'm not.”
    “Yes you are. I mean, you're always sweating, you're one of those people, but this time you're sweating more than normal. You're positively glistening.”
    “Well, it's hot in here!”
    “And you're sizzling like a pig on a spit,” Freeman continued. “You know what's going on with these bags of waste, and I think you should tell me before I dig deeper.”
    Sighing, Marlowe looked over at the window, as if to make sure that there was no chance of anyone overhearing their conversation. He opened his mouth to reply, but the words seemed to catch in his throat and he took a moment to check his phone.
    “Camp Everbee is a charitable organization,” he said finally, wiping sweat from his brow, “and officially we operate entirely on the donations made by people who send their children to spend time with us, as well as sponsorship from a few local companies and a very, very small sum that comes from fund-raising activities. We don't receive any money from the state. Nothing. Everything that happens here happens because of the hard work of the staff. There are no handouts whatsoever.”
    “Sounds tough.”
    “You have no idea.”
    “So Crystal decided to top up the books with some extra services?”
    Marlowe sighed.
    “This has her signature all over it,” Freeman continued. “No offense, Dean old boy, but I don't think you're the type of guy who'd initiate something like this. You play along, sure, but actually setting it up would require a little more nous. I reckon she just lured you in with a few sweet promises, and then she had you running around doing her bidding.”
    “Most medical waste isn't really hazardous,” Marlowe told him cautiously. “I mean, it's not like it's radioactive or anything, it's not the really bad stuff. It's just waste that happens to contain a small amount of blood and other body fluids. Most of it's from a cancer ward, anyway, so it's really no different to the waste that the camp generates on a daily basis anyway. It's just stuff that's too dirty to be reused. People get so funny about this sort of thing. It's completely irrational.”
    “And it has to be incinerated.”
    “Technically, yes, but only because bureaucrats have stuck their money-grubbing noses -”
    “And incineration is expensive,” Freeman continued, with a knowing grin, “so it's not entirely impossible that a hospital seeking to cut corners would pay someone a lesser amount to just make the problem go away. If that means dumping large quantities of waste a few hundred miles away, they probably figure it's not a very big risk. They can use a middleman to transport the bags, so plausible deniability is an option in the unlikely event that they get caught. A set-up like that could save hundreds of thousands of pounds a year.”
    “But -”
    “While other people in the chain could also make a pretty profit. Seems like it's a win-win for everyone.”
    “Exactly -”
    “Except for anyone who comes across those bags. By the way, whoever dumped them really should have bothered to remove the labels that identify the bloody hospital. Then again, I guess they must have arrogantly assumed that they were untouchable.”
    Marlowe sighed again, as if he was struggling to come up with the right words to explain his position. “Those bags,” he said eventually, “contain nothing worse than low-grade medical waste. Worse things get flushed into rivers and the ocean every day, and nothing bad comes of it. Plus, it's all more than a year old. The hospital it came from doesn't even exist anymore, so we're talking about a historical program that ended a while back. I'd also point out that without that program, Camp Everbee would have gone bust. It's thanks to Crystal's side-deals that you and I have jobs.”
    “There are twelve sacks sitting out there,” Freeman continued. “They're rotting, they're