“I came to say how sorry I was about your grandson,” said Neef. “An absolute tragedy.”
MacSween nodded and Neef noted how haunted his eyes looked. It alarmed him. MacSween shouldn’t have come back on duty so soon. He obviously needed some kind of medical help to get him through the crisis.
“Are you OK, Frank,” Neef asked gently.
MacSween stared at him and Neef thought for a moment that he hadn’t heard his question.
“That wee laddie meant so much to me,” said MacSween. “I know he was only a baby but he symbolised the future for me somehow.”
Neef thought of the hollowed-out hedge hideaway in MacSween’s garden and his plans for a tree-house.
“When I held him it was as if I was holding the life force itself. It seemed to vibrate in him, tingling in his tiny arms and hands. Can you imagine what it’s like to feel that when you spend most of your life touching dead flesh?
Neef shook his head unsurely. He had known that MacSween was going to take the death of his grandson badly but not this badly.
“And his breath. Have you ever smelt a baby’s breath, Mike? It’s beautiful... absolutely beautiful. And d’you know what?”
“What?” asked Neef quietly.
“I killed him.”
“You did what?” exclaimed Neef, totally taken aback by the comment.
“I killed him,” said MacSween. “I don’t know how and I don’t know when exactly but I know I did.”
“Frank I really don’t think you should be on duty. You’ve had an awful shock and you need time...”
MacSween held up his hand and looked Neef straight in the eye. “I’m not out of my mind, Mike. I just know that I did. You see, I had a phone call just before you came in.”
“What sort of a phone call?” asked Neef as MacSween paused and his eyes seemed to glaze over.
“It was from the hospital up in Yorkshire, the one they took Nigel to. They had the results of the PM.”
“And?” prompted Neef.
“Bilateral pneumonia... obscuring extensive bronchial carcinoma.”
“Jesus Christ,” exclaimed Neef. “What the hell’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” said MacSween distantly, “But there’s no way a baby could have inadvertently been exposed to a carcinogen like Melanie Simpson or Jane Lees. The carcinogenic agent must have been still in the girls’ bodies and somehow I must have taken it home and contaminated Nigel with it.”
“That doesn’t make sense, Frank. Everything points to the inhalation of fumes being responsible.”
“Then that must be wrong,” said MacSween.
“But if it had been something particulate, your people would have found it when they examined the sections under the microscope. There was nothing out of the ordinary. No particles. No fibres.”
“This is not a coincidence,” insisted MacSween. “Common sense simply will not wear it!”
“You’re right,” agreed Neef quietly. “But blaming yourself isn’t the answer. He was thinking of Charlie Morse. MacSween didn’t yet know of the confirmation of Charlie’s cancer.” He almost balked at the thought of piling more misery on to MacSween but he felt he had to. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you about Charlie Morse,” he said.
MacSween looked at him strangely as if not understanding the words. “My God, I’d forgotten about Charlie,” he said. “He’s got it too?”
Neef nodded and said, “I’m afraid so. Charlie’s riddled, to use their words.”
“What the fuck is going on?” exclaimed MacSween, his voice a hoarse mixture of anger and frustration.
“We’d better get the Public Health people over here right away,” said Neef. “We’ve got to try and make some sense of this before we have a major outbreak on our hands.”
“A major outbreak of what?” asked MacSween, looking as puzzled as he sounded.
Neef understood MacSween’s dilemma. He had used the phrase without thinking. You had outbreaks of food poisoning, not cancer. You couldn’t have an outbreak of cancer. “To tell you the truth, I’ve no bloody idea,” he confessed.
Neef returned to his own office and called Lennon at the Public Health Service. He wasn’t in the building but on hearing who was calling, Neef was given a mobile number. Lennon answered against a background of traffic noise.
“I think we should have a meeting as soon as possible,” said Neef. “There’s been another development.”
“Another case?”
“Yes, a baby in Yorkshire.”
“Would you repeat that?”
“You heard correctly. The baby was the grandson of our pathologist, Frank MacSween.”
“Bloody hell,” said Lennon. “I can get there about five?”
“That’s fine. We have to talk.”
Neef looked at his watch. It was three thirty. If Eve was in visiting Neil this afternoon, he would tell her about the remission being over. Neil hadn’t been feeling too well that morning. She’d probably suspect that something was wrong anyway. Better to tell her outright. He called through to the duty room on the internal line and asked the staff nurse if Eve was in the unit.
“Miss Sayers arrived about three o’clock,” replied the nurse.
Neef walked along to Neil’s room and paused when he saw Eve through the glass. She was reading Neil a story. He was not his usual self. He was lying quietly beneath the blankets on his bed, his eyes peeping out the top. They never left Eve.
Neef entered the room quietly and approached the bed. “Hello, you two,” he said softly, squatting down on his haunches beside Eve who was sitting on a chair with the story book across her knees. “I suppose I’m interrupting as usual?”
“You certainly are,” replied Eve. “We were just getting to the bit where the wolf starts to huff and puff.”
Neef looked at Eve and saw in her eyes that she knew something was wrong. She was acting a part.”
“In that case, I’d better not interrupt any more,” said Neef. “Perhaps we could have a word before you go?” he said to Eve.
Eve nodded with something approaching suspicion in her eyes. “Of course,” she said.
“See you later, Neely,” said Neef to Neil who blinked in reply.
Neef used the intervening time to tell Lawrence Fielding about Frank MacSween’s grandson.
“There’s something dreadfully wrong about all this,” said Fielding. “Charlie Morse getting it was stretching coincidence to the limit but now, Frank MacSween’s grandson, a baby... Makes you think we’re all at risk... from something we don’t really understand.”
Neef nodded. “If it’s any comfort I feel the same.” He told Fielding about the meeting to be held at five. “I’d like you to be there,” he said. “But not a word to anyone else, a staff panic is the last thing we need.”
“Understood,” said Fielding.
A gentle tap came to the door and Neef knew it was Eve. “Come in,” he said softly.
Eve entered and crossed the floor to his desk looking as if she was walking on burning coals. “Neil’s remission is over, isn’t it?” she said quietly.
“I’m afraid so,” replied Neef. “I suspected it when I looked at the side of his face by the river on Sunday. Lawrence Fielding has confirmed it; the tumour has started to grow again.”
“What kind of a God would let that happen to a kid like Neil? It makes no sense,” said Eve. “It makes you feel that life’s just so pointless.”