Free Fenton's Winter by Ken McClure

the window. The
sound of rain against the grimy, barred window all but obliterated
the noise of the top drawer being pulled out. He flicked through
the index cards till he found what he was looking for. Daniels,
Susan...Age...Weight...Height...Blood Group...X-Ray
Record...Inoculations! Last entry...T.A.B. vaccine given
on...Fenton's heart missed a beat. February fifteenth! Two days
before she died! He steeled himself to present a calm exterior when
he turned round and handed the keys back to Liz Scott. "'Find what
you wanted?" she asked without looking up. Fenton said that he had
and returned upstairs. Instead of going to his own lab he went into
Neil Munro's room and sat down for a moment. Should he tell someone
what he had discovered? And, if so, who? Tyson? Jamieson? It was
too soon to say anything he decided; he needed more to go on. He
would wait until he had seen Jenny at lunch time.
    Fenton took out the chemicals
and equipment he had removed from Munro's locked cupboard and
spread them out on the bench in front of him. He re-arranged a
number of plastic test tubes into a symmetrical pattern on the desk
top and idly balanced two small beakers in the centre while he
considered what he knew. Munro had requested blood from the
transfusion service and he had been working with anti-coagulants.
These two factors made him feel very uneasy. But what else was
there to go on? A meaningless series of figures in a notebook and
the letters C.T. which Charles Tyson said were nothing to do with
him...So what did they stand for?
    Fenton was balancing a third
beaker on top of the other two when the door opened and the pile
collapsed. Nigel Saxon stood there. "Sorry, did I do that?" he
asked.
    Fenton reassured him and
admitted that he had just been playing with the tubes.
    "I see," said Nigel Saxon, but
sounded as though he didn't really. "I hate to keep pressing you
like this but..."
    "I know, the report on the
analyser." said Fenton.
    "Have you managed to look at
Susan's final figures?"
    "I've been through them.They
seemed fine apart from one failure, a patient named Moran. Susan
wrote that no analysis was obtained. Were you with her when this
test was performed?"
    "Neil Munro and I were both
there," said Saxon. "We decided that the ward must have sent the
sample in the wrong kind of specimen container."
    "It happens," agreed
Fenton.
    "Was that the only thing?"
    "Everything else seems
fine."
    Saxon smiled broadly and said,
"Good, then we'll still get our license by the end of the
month."
    "That soon?" exclaimed Fenton
in amazement.
    Fenton's surprise took Saxon
aback and he flushed slightly in embarrassment. "Sometimes the
wheels of bureaucracy can turn quite smoothly you know." he
said.
    "Saxon Medical must have a
magic wand," said Fenton.
    "A plastic one," said
Saxon.
    As Saxon made to leave Fenton
said, "The Moran sample, it was run through the conventional
analyser wasn't it? I mean as well as the new one?"
    "I presume so".
    "Same result?"
    "As far as I know."
    Fenton met Jenny at one
o'clock. She was standing at the main gate as he walked up to the
hospital from the lab. She smiled as she saw him but had to wait to
allow an ambulance to pass before crossing the road to link her arm
through his. "Where shall we go?" she asked.
    "Let's walk for a bit," said
Fenton. They didn't speak until they had left the noise and bustle
of the main road and turned down a side street. "How did you get
on?" Jenny asked.
    "Susan Daniels had a TAB
inoculation two days before she died." said Fenton. "It looks as if
you could be right."
    "I don't think I really want to
be," said Jenny. Fenton asked her if she had managed to come up
with anything.
    "Sister Murphy has been in
charge of the staff treatment room for the past three months."
    "Old Mother Murphy? Florence's
batman?"
    "The very same."
    "Doesn't sound too hopeful."
said Fenton.
    "There's more." Jenny had to
pause for they had rejoined the main road and a bus roared past
them making conversation