Beneath the Bleeding. Val McDermid

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СКАЧАТЬ soon as was humanly possible, like some bloody Chinese peasant dropping one in the ditch then getting back to the paddy field. And for what?

      Her mother had taken reluctant charge of the boy. She didn’t have much choice since it was her daughter’s pay packet that kept them all afloat. Vanessa remembered enough of her own childhood to know the regime she was condemning her son to. She tried not to think about what Tony’s days would have been like and she didn’t encourage him to talk about it. She had enough to contend with, running a busy personnel department, then branching out to set up her own business. She relished the challenge of work, but she didn’t have energy to spare for a whiny kid.

      Credit to him, he got that pretty early. He learned to put up and shut up, and to do what he was told. When he forgot himself and bounced around her like a puppy, it only took a few sharp words to knock the stuffing out of him.

      Even so, he’d held her back. No doubt about that. All those years ago, no bloke wanted to settle down with some other man’s kid. He was a handicap professionally too. When she was getting her own business established, she’d had to keep the travel to a minimum because her mother kicked off if she was left overnight too often with the boy. Vanessa had missed chances, failed to build fast enough on the contacts she was making and played catch-up too bloody many times thanks to Tony.

      And there had been no pay-off. Other women’s kids got married and provided grand-kids. Photos on the desk, anecdotes in the meeting breaks, family holidays in the sun. Ice-breakers, all of them. Confidence-builders. The bricks and mortar of professional relationships that generated business and earned money. Tony’s continuing failures meant Vanessa had to work that much harder.

      Well, it was payback time now and no mistake. Things couldn’t have worked out better if she’d planned it. He was stuck in hospital, groggy with drugs and sleep. No hiding place. She could get access to him whenever she wanted and pick her moment. All she had to do was make sure she avoided the girlfriend.

      Her PA slipped in and wordlessly delivered the coffee that always arrived within minutes of her settling behind her desk. Vanessa opened up her computer and allowed herself a grim little smile. Fancy Tony landing a woman with looks and brains. Carol Jordan wasn’t the sort of catch Vanessa expected of her son. If she’d imagined him with anyone, it would have been some mousy slip of a girl who worshipped the ground he walked on. Well, girlfriend or no girlfriend, she was going to have her way.

      Elinor raised her hand to knock then paused. Was she about to commit career suicide? You could argue that, if she was right, it didn’t matter whether she spoke up or not. Because if she was right, Robbie Bishop was going to die anyway. Nothing could alter that. But if she was right and she didn’t speak up, someone else could die. Whether accident or intent lay behind whatever had happened to him, it could happen to someone else.

      The thought of having another death on her conscience swung it for Elinor. Better to make an arse of herself in a good cause than have to deal with that. She rapped on the door and waited for Denby’s distracted, ‘Yes, yes, come in.’ He looked up impatiently from a stack of case notes. ‘Dr Blessing,’ he said. ‘Any change?’

      ‘In Robbie Bishop?’

      Denby pulled a half-smile. ‘Who else? We claim to treat all our patients equally, but it’s not exactly easy when we have to run the gauntlet of football fans whenever we enter or leave the hospital.’ He swung round in his chair and looked through the window to the car park below. ‘Even more of them now than when I came back in after lunch.’ He turned back as Elinor began to speak. ‘Do you suppose they think being there can influence the outcome?’ He sounded more bemused than cynical.

      ‘I expect it depends whether they believe in the power of prayer. I did see a pair of them huddled in a doorway saying the rosary.’ She shrugged. ‘It doesn’t appear to be helping Mr Bishop – he seems to be deteriorating steadily. The fluid on his lungs is building up. I’d say respiratory distress is getting worse. There’s no question of him coming off the ventilator.’

      Denby bit his lip. ‘No response to the AZT, then?’

      Elinor shook her head. ‘Nothing discernible so far.’

      Denby sighed and nodded. ‘Damned if I know what’s going on here. Oh, well. So it goes sometimes. Thanks for keeping me posted, Dr Blessing.’ His eyes returned to the files on his desk in dismissal.

      ‘There was one thing?’

      He looked up, eyebrows raised. He appeared to be genuinely interested in what she had to say. ‘To do with Mr Bishop?’

      She nodded. ‘I know it sounds crazy, but have you considered ricin poisoning?’

      ‘Ricin?’ Denby looked almost offended. ‘How on earth would a premiership footballer be exposed to ricin?’

      Elinor battled on. ‘I’ve no idea. But you’re a terrific diagnostician and when you couldn’t come up with anything, I thought it must be something a bit off the wall. And I thought, maybe poisoning. So I checked it out on the online database and all his symptoms match ricin poisoning – weakness, fever, nausea, dyspnea, cough, pulmonary oedema and arthralgia. Add to that the fact that he’s not responding to any of the medications we’ve tried him with … I don’t know, it fits the way nothing else does.’

      Denby looked bemused. ‘I think you’ve been watching too many episodes of Spooks, Dr Blessing. Robbie Bishop is a footballer, not a KGB defector.’

      Elinor stared at the floor. This was what she’d been afraid of. But the reason that had driven her through the door in the first place still existed. ‘I know it sounds ridiculous,’ she said. ‘But none of us has been able to come up with an alternative diagnosis that makes sense of the symptoms and the fact that the patient is not responding to any of the drug regimes we’ve tried.’ She looked up. His head was cocked to one side and although his mouth was a tight line, his eyes expressed interest in what she had to say. ‘And I’m not saying this to flatter you into taking me seriously. But if you can’t work out what is clinically wrong with Robbie Bishop, I don’t think there can be a straightforward explanation in terms of a viral or bacterial illness. Which only leaves poison. And the only poison that makes sense is ricin.’

      Denby jumped to his feet. ‘This is crazy. Terrorists use ricin. Spies use ricin. How the hell does a premiership footballer get ricin into his system?’

      ‘With respect, I think that’s somebody else’s problem,’ Elinor said.

      Denby rubbed the palms of his hands over his face. She had never seen him flustered, never mind this agitated. ‘First things first. We need to check whether or not you’re right.’ He looked expectantly at her.

      ‘You can do an ELISA test for ricin. But even if they’ve got the right antigen in stock and they fast-track it, we still won’t get the results of a sandwich ELISA till tomorrow.’

      He took a deep breath and visibly pulled himself together. ‘Set the wheels in motion. Take the bloods yourself, take them straight to the lab. I’ll call ahead, make sure they know what’s coming down the line. We can start treatment –’ He stopped dead, his mouth hanging open. ‘Oh fuck.’ He squeezed his eyes shut momentarily. ‘There is no bloody treatment, is there?’

      Elinor shook her head. ‘No. If I’m right, Robbie Bishop’s a condemned man.’

      Denby slumped back into his chair. ‘Yes. Well, I don’t think we need to share this possibility with anyone just yet. Not until we know for sure. Don’t tell СКАЧАТЬ