‘Where’s that?’ asked Dunbar.
‘Geneva.’
‘Sweet Jesus,’ muttered Dunbar.
‘Something wrong?’
‘Ross has some connection with Geneva, a consultancy, something like that.’
‘Switzerland is full of private clinics,’ said Turner. ‘I don’t think you can read anything too sinister into that.’
Dunbar held up his hands in defence. ‘I know, I know,’ he said. ‘It’s just that everywhere I turn I find little clues like that. I just can’t fit all the pieces together yet.’
Turner looked at him in silence for a few moments before saying, ‘I wish you luck. I feel sort of responsible for Amanda; I suggested the referral in the first place.’
‘And I didn’t raise any objection,’ said Dunbar with a wry smile. ‘That makes me equally guilty. You said the organ was “available through the Kohl Clinic”. What exactly does that mean?’
‘I’m not sure,’ confessed Turner. ‘I suspect it means that the patient isn’t actually in the clinic but the clinic is handling the arrangements.’
‘I see,’ said Dunbar thoughtfully. He sensed that Turner wasn’t telling all he knew. ‘Handling the arrangements?’ he prompted.
‘All right, I have my suspicions,’ said Turner. ‘There’s a black market in human organs just like there’s a black market in anything else that there’s a demand for. I suspect this Kohl Clinic may be a front for that sort of thing.’
‘I’ve heard stories of healthy people selling a kidney to make money in places like India,’ said Dunbar. ‘I didn’t realize how widespread it was.’
‘It goes on. I’ve heard tell that they even have a tissue-type register of people who are prepared to do this so they can call them in when a request comes through.’
‘God, what a world,’ sighed Dunbar.
‘That’s just a guess,’ insisted Turner. ‘And these organs don’t come cheap. It wouldn’t make any sense in Amanda’s case if Medic Ecosse are doing the paying.’
‘No, it wouldn’t,’ said Dunbar. ‘But not making sense is par for the course.’
‘I’m sorry, I’m not being much help.’
‘You’ve given me something else to think about.’
‘You really are worried about this transplant, aren’t you?’ said Turner.
‘I’ve got such a bad feeling about it. But on the face of it, Amanda’s in a top-class hospital under the care of a world-famous surgeon and she’s about to receive a kidney with an eighty-four per cent compatibility rating. What can I do?’
‘Not a lot,’ said Turner.
‘Incidentally, they did a marrow puncture on Amy Teasdale too. It wasn’t a mistake. Ross knew she’d had one done before.’
‘He must have wanted stem cells,’ said Turner. ‘Wonder why? Maybe something to do with his immuno-preparation work.’ He shrugged and asked, ‘Is there anything else you’d like me to do?’
‘Just be available,’ said Dunbar. ‘Right now, I don’t know why or what for.’
‘I’ll give you my home number and a mobile as well.’
Dunbar returned to Medic Ecosse. He supposed he felt better for the chat with Turner, but he was far from easy in his mind. As he parked his car and walked round to the front of the hospital, a taxi drew up outside the front entrance and two men got out. They were well-dressed and had the aura of successful professional men, Dunbar noted as he passed that one was carrying a very expensive alligator-skin medical bag. Both had American accents.
Out of curiosity, Dunbar lingered near Reception, pretending to look for something in his briefcase.
‘We’re expected,’ said one of the men as they reached the desk.
‘Dr Ross left word,’ said the receptionist. She rang the bell for the porter and said to him, ‘Show these gentlemen up to the Omega wing, will you?’
Dunbar waited until the three men had disappeared before approaching the receptionist.
‘Dr Dunbar, what can I do for you?’
‘Those two men. Who were they?’
‘I couldn’t rightly say, Doctor. Dr Ross just advised me that two medical gentlemen would be arriving sometime this afternoon. Sounded American, if you ask me.’
SIXTEEN
Dunbar sat at his desk and embraced the silence. He took slow, deep breaths as an aid to thinking clearly and rationally; mounting frustration had been preventing this. He knew exactly what he wanted to do. He wanted to put a stop to Amanda Chapman’s transplant operation, but he couldn’t. This was the unpalatable bottom line that was making him so uncomfortable. He couldn’t because he had no good reason to. If he tried, he would be seen by all and sundry as some kind of interfering lunatic, at best suffering from a sudden nervous breakdown, but more probably reviled as a madman of the sort who mowed down the innocent.
No one would listen and they couldn’t be blamed. There was really nothing of substance to consider. For that reason they would all be against him, the hospital, the transplant unit, Amanda’s parents, Sci-Med, everyone. Even if he were to succeed in stopping it, the chances were that Amanda would still die because she couldn’t get a transplant in time when — as others would not be slow to point out — one had been available. He would be seen as her murderer and all because he suspected things weren’t going to turn out well for her.
He knew that unless he worked out exactly what Ross was up to by the time the donor kidney arrived from Geneva, he was going to have to sit still and do nothing. If, as he suspected, Amanda should reject her transplant, like Amy Teasdale and Kenneth Lineham, it would still be his fault because he hadn’t done anything to stop it. Talk about the devil and the deep blue sea. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. He cursed and got up to start pacing the room.
Once more he juggled the pieces of information in his head, trying to make a coherent picture, but they still wouldn’t fit. Maybe there weren’t enough or maybe there were too many and not all of them relevant.
He was distracted by the sound of a taxi’s diesel engine as it drew to a halt and idled noisily at the front door. He looked down to see another person carrying a medical bag had arrived. There was certainly lots of activity surrounding the Omega patient. Soon, he reflected, there would be lots of activity surrounding Amanda Chapman. He frowned and asked himself again: what’s the connection?
Amanda had been taken to the Omega wing for her unnecessary marrow puncture. He hadn’t been able to come up with a reason for it but at least he knew that the test itself wasn’t a simple mistake of duplication. Amy had been subjected to the same procedure. Ross had insisted on it. What was it that Turner had said? He must have wanted stem cells for his immuno-preparation work.
Dunbar suddenly saw the light. The tests hadn’t been performed for the benefit of the patients at all. Ross hadn’t wanted duplicate tests done. He’d needed stem cells from the patients for a purpose other than the obvious one of checking their immunotype. There was no repetition of unnecessary tests at all. There never had been.
He felt a frisson of excitement. He was getting somewhere at last. Immuno-preparation work? Where had he come across that term recently? Turner had used it but he had seen it somewhere else. If only he could remember… The phone rang and broke his train of thought. He cursed and answered it. It was nothing important.
Dunbar tried to recover his concentration but failed. The moment had gone. He decided to cut his losses and waste no more time wondering. He connected his notebook computer to the phone line to call up Sci-Med. He wanted the latest information they had about James Ross.
His interest quickened at once: they’d found out something about Ross’s Geneva connection. Their earlier problems had been due to an inability to trace a Medic International hospital or clinic in Geneva. The reason for this was simple. There was no such place and Medic International had no interests at all in Geneva. Ross had been going there for other reasons; he also owned a house there, a villa overlooking the lake. He had paid $2 million for it three years ago.