Free Fenton's Winter by Ken McClure Page A

momentarily impossible. When it had passed
she said, "The doctor doing the staff inoculations is one of the
new residents, Dr David Malcolm. He's been doing it for about a
month and what's more...he is the resident on ward four, Timothy
Watson's ward."
    "Do you know him?"
    "By sight. He's about six feet
tall and broad with it."
    Fenton halted in his stride to
allow a woman pushing a pram to pass them, he caught up again. "Do
you know any more about him?"
    "Only that it's his first
residency and that he hasn't asked any of the nurses out."
    "Maybe he's married."
    "No."
    "Gay?"
    "If he is he's not the
effeminate type I'm told."
    The sky darkened and Fenton
felt the first spot of rain on his cheek as another brief respite
from the weather came to an end. The man in front of them stopped
walking in order to put on a plastic raincoat. An old woman
threatened Jenny's eyesight as she struggled to put up her
umbrella. Fenton pushed it gently out of the way as they passed
getting a dirty look for his trouble. They took refuge in a small
cafe where the air was already dank with the condensation from wet
clothing. The coffee was lukewarm and instant. "What do we do now?"
Jenny asked.
    "Tell the police," replied
Fenton.
    "I'm glad you said that," said
Jenny. "This business scares me to death."
    When they returned to the
hospital Fenton left word at the administration block that he would
like to see Inspector Jamieson as soon as the policeman found it
convenient. Jamieson duly turned up at the lab at half past two as
Fenton was loading blood samples into a centrifuge. He watched what
Fenton was doing for a few moments before moving across to the
bookcase and peering through the glass doors in order to read the
titles while he waited. He quickly tired of that and moved to the
window.
    Fenton closed the lid of the
centrifuge and set the timer to run for ten minutes before pressing
the start button and crossing the room to wash his hands in the
sink. Jamieson still had his back to him; he was silhouetted
against the cold grey light in the window.
    "Sorry about that," said Fenton
apologising for the delay. Jamieson turned round and smiled
dutifully. "How can I help you?" he asked.
    Fenton told Jamieson
everything. He told him how he and Jenny had come to suspect that
the killer was one of the medical staff and how they had gone about
gathering evidence to support their contention.Everything, he said,
seemed to point to Dr David Malcolm being implicated in the
killings.
    Jamieson listened without
interruption, fiddling throughout with his moustache, brushing it
upwards with his forefinger then smoothing it down again with both
thumb and forefinger. "I see sir," he said when Fenton had
finished. There was a long pause during which a distant clap of
thunder heralded even more rain. Fenton was puzzled for, although
he had not expected Jamieson to leap to his feet in excitement, he
had anticipated a bit more than the catatonic trance that he
appeared to have gone in to. At length the policeman got to his
feet and said, "Thank you sir, you did the right thing in telling
us."
    "That's all?"
    "What did you expect?" asked
Jamieson pointedly dropping the 'sir'.
    "Some comment I suppose. Some
reaction?" replied Fenton.
    "I'm a great believer in horses
for courses sir," said Jamieson.
    "What does that mean?"
    "It means that I don't tell you
how to run your lab and you don't tell me how to do my job."
    Fenton saw the anger in
Jamieson's eyes and was about to argue that he was only trying to
help when Jamieson interrupted him.
    "Give the police a little
credit sir. We were perfectly well aware that Miss Daniels had had
an inoculation shortly before her death; we also know that Sister
Murphy administered it because Dr Malcolm was off duty that day. We
also know that Dr Malcolm wasn't here on the day that Dr Munro was
murdered because he was attending a one day seminar at Stirling
Royal Infirmary; in fact, we were able to eliminate Dr Malcolm from
our