‘Jesus,’ muttered Dunbar. So money was involved after all. Big money. You didn’t buy a house like that on eighty grand a year. He saw that there was more information to come and scrolled down the screen. Ross had an interest in a Swiss medical recruitment agency called Roche Dubois. It specialized in the recruitment of high-grade staff for private clinics all over Europe. Doctors, nurses, technicians of all sorts, could find highly paid work if they were good enough. The agency was above-board and had a good reputation. It specialized in finding positions for American nursing and medical personnel wishing to work in Europe for whatever reason, although exchanges for European nationals were also arranged.
Dunbar wondered if this was relevant. Did Ross have reason to recruit medical staff on his own behalf? He thought about the American doctors being shown to the Omega wing. Could all the secrecy, stone-faced guards and strange medical people coming and going really be ascribed to a need for confidentiality? No, there had to be more to it.
The Omega patients were the key to the whole damned thing, Dunbar decided. It wasn’t that the money they brought in was being used to subsidize NHS charity patients. Quite the reverse. The NHS patients were being used in some way for the benefit of Omega ones. That must be why Ingrid had feigned ignorance when he had mooted a connection between them and Omega patients over funding. She knew what was going on. He had thrown her by making the connection but for the wrong reason.
This still didn’t help. The only connection he was aware of was the marrow puncture done on Amanda Chapman in the Omega wing and the fact that there had been Omega patients in the hospital when Amy Teasdale and Kenneth Lineham had been patients.
Just who the hell were these Omega patients? he wondered angrily. What were they really there for? He had the hollow feeling that he was running out of time. He needed information and he needed it fast. It was time to change tactics. No more pussy-footing around. He would cause a fuss by asking questions openly. Maybe he couldn’t stop Amanda’s operation, but he could certainly create the illusion that he knew much more than he did. That might scare someone in the know; it might scare them enough to achieve the same end. It was a dangerous game to play, though. Ignorance was never a position of strength.
He picked up the phone and called Ingrid’s extension. ‘Ingrid, would you come over, please?’
Ingrid arrived and smiled. ‘You have something for me?’
‘I want to know who the current Omega patient is. I want her name and I want to know why she’s here. I also want to know where she was before she came here and who referred her to Medic Ecosse.’
Her smile faded. ‘I’m not sure I can do that,’ she stammered. ‘The strict confidentiality surrounding-’
Dunbar interrupted her. ‘I need that information. I need it now, please.’
Ingrid tried to recover her composure. ‘Are you absolutely sure?’ she asked tentatively. ‘If you’ll forgive my saying, it doesn’t seem to be strictly relevant to the investigation and monitoring of accounts.’
Dunbar had anticipated such opposition. ‘On the contrary,’ he said, ‘I have reason to believe that the true income from Omega patients is not being declared.’
‘But you’ve seen the figures,’ said Ingrid, taken aback. ‘The profit for the hospital amounted to many thousands of pounds.’
‘I’ve seen the declared profit,’ agreed Dunbar. ‘I’d like to see for myself how the figures are arrived at. For that reason I want to know all about the current Omega patient, who she is, why she’s here, and I need verification of her condition from an outside source, preferably the hospital or clinic that referred her to you.’
‘I see,’ said Ingrid. ‘I very much doubt if Mr Giordano or Dr Kinscherf will agree to this.’
‘If they don’t, I will lodge a formal complaint of obstruction with my colleagues at the Scottish Office and suggest that an investigation be mounted immediately by the Serious Fraud Office.’
Ingrid tried to maintain eye contact with Dunbar, by way of a challenge, but she failed after a few moments. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she said quietly; she was obviously unnerved at seeing a side to Dunbar she hadn’t encountered before.
The door closed behind her and Dunbar remained in his chair, sitting perfectly still, wondering how well he’d played his hand. Would they give in and tell him what he wanted to know or would they try to delay as long as possible? He had to admit that the latter would be the bright thing to do. They were vulnerable only as long as the Omega patient was in the hospital. Once she’d gone they’d be safe. She’d be lost in the mists of secrecy. His only hope lay in Ingrid relaying his threat to call in the SFO as being imminent. They might just believe that his interest was still financial and gamble on giving him the information he asked for. After all, no figures had been declared for the current Omega patient. They had nothing to worry about on that account. He decided to help matters along by exploiting the fact that his computer screen was being monitored. He sat down at it and started drafting a letter requesting that the Scottish Office consider calling in the SFO on the grounds that he’d been denied access to files he thought might be concealing fraud.
After nearly half an hour, Ingrid returned, carrying a file. ‘Here are the notes you asked for, Doctor,’ she said without emotion. ‘I’m asked to remind you of their strictly confidential nature. Please inform me as soon as you’re finished with them.’
‘Of course.’
Dunbar felt a thrill of excitement as he flipped open the cover and started to read.
The patient was a thirty-year-old Saudi Arabian woman, the wife of a sheikh with extensive oil interests and an income to match. She was pregnant for the third time. Her first two babies had been stillborn from a congenital heart defect. The sheikh, who doted on his wife, was anxious that she be monitored every step of the way through her current pregnancy. The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, had been given the task but after it was diagnosed at an early stage, through the use of the latest foetal monitoring equipment, that the foetus was suffering from the same cardiac defect as the others, the woman had been removed from the Mayo and flown across the Atlantic to Medic Ecosse. Corrective surgery was planned immediately after a successful birth.
Dunbar noted the name of the attending physician at the Mayo Clinic, Dr Gordon Hasselhof, and closed the file. There was certainly more to it than just a difficult birth, but did it help him at all? It was difficult to see how little Amanda Chapman could be involved in the obstetric care of a thirty-year-old Middle Eastern woman. He phoned Ingrid and told her he was finished with the notes. They were collected within minutes and without comment.
There was one question that sprang to mind though — although it might not be relevant, thought Dunbar. Why had the woman been transferred to Medic Ecosse? The Mayo Clinic was one of the most famous medical institutions in the world. A transatlantic flight and the trauma of moving to yet another strange country and hospital could not have been the most restful experience for the patient. What had precipitated it? Had there been some kind of disagreement over her treatment at the Mayo? Some undisclosed problem?
It had not been Dunbar’s intention at the outset to contact the referring doctor or hospital; he had made his request for their identity purely as a safeguard against being fobbed off with anything Medic Ecosse cared to tell him. But now he decided he would make inquiries. In his present state of ignorance, no detail should be overlooked. He looked at his watch. Making adjustments for the time differential, it would be around 10 a.m. in Minnesota. He asked the switchboard to make the call.
‘Good morning. Mayo Clinic. How may I help you?’ said a robotic female voice.