Chameleon (2 page)

At university, he made the first mistake of his young life when he underestimated the demands of first year medicine and spent too much time socialising when he should have been studying. He had come close to failing the exams but scraped through and was careful not to make the same mistake again. He eventually graduated in the top one third of his class. An elective at a Boston teaching hospital in the United States had been followed by residencies at two London hospitals and a decision to become a surgeon.

He had met Sue, who was then a student nurse, during his appointment as surgical registrar at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge and, like so many men who had known a string of girl friends, Jamieson had fallen head over heels in love when the real thing happened. He had known at once that Sue was the girl he must marry and eight months later he did.

Sue's father, a Surrey stockbroker, had given them a splendid wedding in the village where Sue had been brought up. They were married in the Norman village Church on a beautiful sunny day with Scott and his brothers adding colour to the gentle green of English grass by wearing full highland dress. Tartan had mingled easily with taffeta and champagne had sparkled in glasses shaded by floppy hats as both families and a host of relations celebrated the wedding of a golden couple whose horizons seemed unbounded.

Ironically it was Jamieson's unfamiliarity with any kind of failure that had made him so unable to cope with it after the car accident. He was unconscious for nearly two weeks and very weak when he finally did come round but as soon as his strength started to return he felt sure that it would only be a matter of a few weeks more before his life would return to normal. He would start operating again and resume his career path to the top. When it finally dawned on him that recovery was going to be a long, slow process and there was still a question mark over how complete it would be, he had started to behave with a petulance and ill temper that he had never displayed before.

His general rudeness to the hospital staff and in particular to the people who cared about him most had been compounded with long periods of relentless self-pity, with suicide at its main theme. Throughout it all Sue had shown a maturity beyond her years and she had brought him through the darkest period of his life to accept what lay before him - before
them
as she had never tired of pointing out. She eventually succeeded in restoring Jamieson to a point where he became thoroughly ashamed of himself and of his insufferable behaviour. From this point on Jamieson had improved day by day until now when, although there was still a large question-mark over his professional future as a surgeon, he was definitely restored to her as her husband, the old Scott Jamieson.

'Good luck,' said Sue as Jamieson turned at the door and kissed her on the cheek.

'If they want me to catalogue bedpans I'm not taking the job is that understood?' said Jamieson.

'Understood,' said Sue with a smile. 'But I'll get something special in for dinner just in case.' She stood in the road waving until the car had disappeared round the corner at the end of the lane.

Scott Jamieson always had to steel himself to leave the peaceful Kent village where he and Sue lived go up into central London in July or August. It invariably made him short tempered with its crowds and oppressive heat when the sun shone. But today the sun did not shine and a dull greyness gave the buildings in the city a blanket anonymity as he drove to an underground car park behind Trafalgar Square and collected his ticket at the barrier. It was a slow, five minute spiral before he found a place being vacated by an elderly man. The man was having difficulty reversing due to an inability to turn his head properly. Each attempt was accompanied by a corresponding increase in engine revs until, when he had finally succeeded, the entire parking level was filled with drifting blue smoke.

Jamieson locked up his car and sprinted up the stairs to begin his walk to Whitehall, weaving in and out groups of tourists who were moving along aimlessly and seldom looking in the direction in which they were travelling. He had to halt and make three attempts to pass a Japanese man, Nikon held to his face, moving synchronously with him each time he decided to change direction. The Japanese man's wife laid a hand on her husband's forearm and the impasse was resolved with an oriental bow and an occidental smile.

A uniformed man stopped Jamieson at the entrance to the Home Office and Jamieson produced his letter. He waited patiently while the man read it and then announced that he would have to check. He made a phone call on the internal system and then said, 'Miss Roberts will be down presently.' He invited Jamieson to take a seat and indicated to a bench in the hallway.

Jamieson sat down and idly watched the pedestrian traffic. A serious young man, wearing glasses that threatened to fall off his nose, shuffled quickly along the corridor simultaneously sifting through a sheaf of papers. The man had feet which pointed outwards, giving him the air of a silent-film comedian. His inattention to direction caused him to collide with two girls carrying tea cups. The tea slopped on to the floor as the girls tottered backwards holding their cups at arms' length. The man looked up from his papers and appeared not to realise that he had been the cause of the bother. He smiled briefly and walked on leaving the typists looking daggers after him. Jamieson smiled sympathetically and one of the girls shook her head.

Two men, wearing conservatively dark suits, approached from the other direction, speaking in loud voices and moving slowly. Jamieson noticed that the uniformed men stiffened at their approach.

'Absolutely,' said one of the men as they passed Jamieson without apparently noticing he was there. 'That kind of authorisation can only come from the Minister himself.'

Jamieson watched their backs as they passed the uniformed men without a glance, totally engrossed or pretending to be, in what they were saying. God save me from office society, he thought.

A woman wearing a mauve suit emerged from one of the lifts and walked purposefully towards him; she was carrying a clip-board. 'Dr Jamieson?' she enquired. Jamieson agreed and the woman made a tick on her clip-board before saying, 'I'm Miss Roberts. If you would like to come this way please.'

Jamieson and the woman exchanged a brief smile as their eyes met in the lift and then the woman studied her feet for the remainder of the journey while Jamieson looked intently at the floor indicator. He was in fact trying to remember the name of the perfume the woman was wearing. In the confines of the lift it was strong and for some reason, quite haunting. Femme! he remembered just before the lift doors opened. He now remembered why it was haunting. In his teens he had once had a holiday romance with a girl who subsequently drenched her letters in the stuff.

The doors slid back and the woman led them along a corridor to stop outside a room marked 'Suite 4.' Jamieson was left alone for a moment in a small ante room before the woman returned and said, 'The committee will see you now.'

Miss Roberts held the door and Jamieson walked into a large room which would have been sunny had not the sky been so overcast. He found three men there. The middle one did the introductions. 'Dr Armour, he said, indicating to his left to a small, grey haired man sporting a polka-dotted bow-tie, 'and Dr Foreman,’ he said, turning to his right. A thick-set man with coarse, oiled hair which came to a widow's peak on his narrow forehead gave a cursory nod. 'My name is Macmillan,' said the man in the middle, turning his gaze back to Jamieson. There was nothing rude in his stare but Jamieson was aware of being appraised. Macmillan was in his fifties, tall, slim and his complexion bore the smooth tan that Jamieson associated with good living. His silver hair swept back from his forehead to sit comfortably on the collar of his blue, Bengal-striped shirt.

'Let me explain,' said Macmillan. 'We represent the medical section of the Sci-Med Inspectorate.'

Jamieson looked blank and Macmillan continued. 'We are a relatively small body; we have a staff of twenty and we investigate and, if feasible, deal with problems arising specifically within the areas of science and medicine in this country.'

'I'm sorry. I don't think I follow,' said Jamieson.

Macmillan said, 'Frankly it's hard to be more specific. Our brief is so wide and varied.'

'You said 'problems',' said Jamieson. 'What sort of problems?'

Macmillan touched his finger tips together and then moved his hands apart in a deliberate gesture of vagueness. 'Matters of medical practice, matters of ethics, matters of circumstance and occasionally matters of criminality.'

'I'm still lost,' confessed Jamieson looking at Foreman. 'Surely the police would handle anything of a criminal nature?'

'Indeed,' said Foreman. 'But only once it was established that a criminal offence had taken place and that's where the difficulty can sometimes lie. There are times and circumstances when the police simply do not have the expertise to operate in certain areas. They have specialist officers of course, as in the case of the Fraud Squad, but when it comes to science and medicine for example they need expert help.'

'There is the forensic science service,' said Jamieson.

'True but they are back-room boys, both by inclination and by training. They are largely for after the event. Occasionally we need people up front and that's where the Sci-Med Monitor comes in. Let me give you an example. In the not-too-distant past, drug related offences suddenly started to rocket in a certain northern university town. The police had no success in finding out where the stuff was coming from until we put one of our people in on the ground. Three weeks later we had our answer. Four post-graduate students in the science faculty were manufacturing the stuff. They had all but cornered the market in hallucigenic agents. They all worked in different departments and each was responsible for obtaining a few of the chemicals needed for the manufacturing process. Because the materials were being spread out over four different order lists suspicion was not aroused until our man, who had access to all the paper work and the time to peruse it, spotted what was going on.'

'I see,' said Jamieson. 'I wouldn't have. I have no idea how to make LSD.'

'We wouldn't expect you to,' said Armour. 'Our chap in that instance was a biochemist. Because, as Macmillan said, our brief is so wide, we have to fit our person to the job. Let me give you another example. 'One of our biggest pharmaceutical companies was being embarrassed by rumours of success which had no basis in fact. One of our people traced the problem to a scientist working in a prestigious biotechnology unit located in one of our top universities. The individual in question had invested every last penny he had in the drug company's shares and then 'leaked' a false story to the newspapers about the unit having come up with an effective vaccine against AIDS and how the pharmaceutical company had been given the right to manufacture it. Because the leak had originated in such an eminent establishment the press swallowed it and printed the story. The company's shares shot up of course and the man made a killing.'

'I didn't even buy shares in British Gas,' confessed Jamieson.'

'Again we recognise that this is not your area of expertise,' said Macmillan.

'Then what is?' asked Jamieson.

'You are a surgeon and you also have considerable knowledge of other medical specialties thanks to your unfortunate accident and your auxiliary training in the intervening time. We think that this would make you a valuable asset to Sci-Med.'

'You said that you tend to fit people to the job in hand. Have you a specific job in mind for me?' asked Jamieson.

'As a matter of fact we have,' said Macmillan. 'The problem is surgical, not criminal, and that's largely why we think you are the man for the job.'

'I'm all ears,' said Jamieson. For the first time in many months he felt interested and intrigued at the prospect of a job.

Macmillan opened a file in front of him and removed something from the top of the pile. It was a single page report, typed on blue paper. He handed it to Jamieson.

Jamieson read the document in silence, his concentration under threat from the fact that the three men were watching him. He learned that two women had died in recent months after undergoing surgery in the Gynaecology Unit at Kerr Memorial Hospital in Leeds. Both had contracted post-operative infections from which they had later died.

'What's the problem?' asked Jamieson.

'The women, both in for fairly minor surgery, contracted a Pseudomonas infection after their operations and treatment proved ineffectual.' said Macmillan.

'Do you know why?'

'The strain turned out to be antibiotic resistant.'

'The usual problem with Pseudomonas,' said Jamieson.

'Quite so,' said Armour, 'but this one was particularly bad. Even the specialised drugs wouldn't touch it.'

'Nasty,' said Jamieson. 'Did they manage to trace the source of the infection?'

'No, and that's the real crux of the problem,' said Macmillan. 'Despite intensive investigation by the staff of the Microbiology Lab at the hospital and a flurry of disinfection after the second death, the problem has persisted; three days ago a third woman contracted the infection. She's very ill.'

'That's all a bit odd,' said Jamieson. 'Surely with a bit of co-operation between the labs and the surgical teams it should have been possible to identify the source of the outbreak and clear it up?'

'You have put your finger on the problem when you said "co-operation",' said Armour. 'The head of surgery at Kerr Memorial is rather a difficult man. Thelwell's his name. He is currently blaming the lab for failing to identify the source of the infection. Richardson, the consultant bacteriologist, is naturally having none of it. He maintains that if the wards and theatres are clean then the fault must lie somewhere within the surgical team itself.'

'Both sides have become entrenched,' added Macmillan.

'That makes things awkward,' agreed Jamieson.

'The local press haven't got on to the staff disharmony angle as yet but it can only be a matter of time. They're already showing signs of latching on to the problem as a political football. You know the sort of thing, cut-backs equal dirty hospitals, understaffing means danger for the patients.'