Double Blind (18 page)

She took a deep breath. “No, we have to talk about it. I’ll be all right.”

“Well, can you think about anyone with a motive?” I asked. “A rivalry with another doctor perhaps? Had Reid threatened to fire a nurse recently, or had a falling out with someone?”

Grace’s eyes lit up. “Good idea. Anita, did you ever see him arguing with anyone?”

Anita began to unscrew the top from her bottle. She stopped and looked up at us. “What about Eric Hill? The sales rep. Remember I told you, Kate, that he was meeting Dr. Reid late one night about a week ago? That was very unusual and Dr. Reid was in a foul mood that evening. He and Eric could have been fighting about something. And Eric would have access to all those drugs. We should talk to him.”

“Not so fast,” said Grace. “You can’t run around accusing people of murder. And if Eric did have something to do with it, then it could be dangerous. It’s better that the police handle it, which they will if anything shows up in the toxicology report.”

“But it’s still a couple of weeks away isn’t it?” I asked. That was far too long. Anita was in danger. We had to move more quickly than that.

“Kate’s good at charming people into talking to her,” said Anita. “I’ll introduce her to Eric and we’ll see what we can find out.”

I took a big gulp of water. Anita was right that Eric might be a good lead and Grace was right that it could be a rash move. We risked warning him that we were on to him, or worse, we could provoke him into some kind of retaliation. Still, we had few other options. “Let’s give it a try,” I said, draining the last of my water.

“We’ll find him first thing in the morning,” Anita said. “He’s always here early.”

Grace looked at her watch. “I think I’ll call it a day then. A hot bath and a glass of wine are beckoning.”

Anita stood. “I have to get back to work.”

Just then, Grace’s pager went off. “So much for that great idea,” she said. “There’s an incoming body. Come on, I’ll walk you out.”

In the corridor we met two orderlies pushing a gurney towards the autopsy room. A white sheet covered a figure underneath. There was no aura over the dead body, but that was normal in my experience. The auras always disappeared when the person died. Somehow that made me feel better. When I’d first started seeing them, I’d thought of auras as alien beings, attaching themselves to victims, sucking the life from them. Later, I’d realized that they were organic, a living part of the body. On my best days, I thought of them as visiting angels, ready to accompany the fated person from this life when the time came.

“This one is yours, Dr. Trillo,” one of the men said.

Grace gave me a quick hug. “Be careful tomorrow, Kate, and let me know how it goes.”

Turning, she followed the orderlies back to the autopsy room, one skewed wheel on the gurney clicking rhythmically in the silence.

We found Eric the next morning, pouring himself a cup of coffee in the fourth floor staff kitchen.

“Hi Eric!” I heard the fake warmth in Anita’s voice and hoped he wouldn’t notice. “This is my friend Kate. She’s taking me out for lunch as soon as I’m off duty.” She made a show of looking at her watch. “Good lord, I’m late. Must run. Can you pour some coffee for Kate? I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

He raised an eyebrow, but turned to take a cup from the shelf. “Milk?” he asked.

“Yes please, but I can do it. You don’t have to.”

“I’ll do anything Anita tells me to do,” he said. “She normally avoids me like the plague.”

I took the cup from him, noting the gold links threaded through his pristine white shirt cuffs. His dark blue suit looked expensive, as did his red silk tie. It was a shame his appearance was marred by his bad skin, which had a greasy sheen under the kitchen lights.

“Why would Anita avoid you?” I asked. “Aren’t you a doctor, a colleague of hers?” I’d decided that appearing to know nothing about him might elicit the most information.

His laugh was dry, like desiccated leaves scraping along a pavement. “No, I’m not a doctor. I’m a sales rep from one of the pharmaceutical companies that supplies drugs to the hospital.”

He took a business card from his pocket and gave it to me. “PharmAnew,” I said, reading the company name out loud. “How long have you worked there?” I tucked the card into my wallet and put it in my shoulder bag.

“Ten years, more or less,” he said. “It’s good job, apart from having to deal with doctors.” He gave another dry laugh.

“You don’t like doctors?”

“Not really. They look down on drug reps. To them, we’re just like car salesmen. I have a Chemistry degree from Imperial College, but that makes no difference.”

“So why do you do it then?”

“Because the money is good— really good— and there are plenty of perks. I don’t mean to complain. It’s not that bad. And some of the people I deal with are nice. Here, for example, the nurses are a decent lot.”

“Do you spend much time here?”

“A fair amount. This place is one of my key accounts. I have a couple of other hospitals in London and I do a lot of work with private clinics. But yeah, sometimes I feel like I live here.” He looked around the cramped, ill-lit kitchen. “Although thank God I don’t. I have a penthouse in Canary Wharf with views up the river.” He smiled. “One of the perks.”

I sipped my coffee. It wasn’t awful. “What other perks?” I asked. “Apart from the money?”

“Sales conventions in exotic places. They’re boondoggles, really, for the doctors who attend. Lots of free booze, free food, fancy hotel rooms and rounds of golf or casinos and nightclubs, depending on where they’re located.” He shrugged. “It’s good advertising. Keeps our products front and center when a doctor’s prescribing.”

He eyed me suspiciously. “Why? Are you looking for a job?”

“Maybe,” I said. “I’m always looking around for something interesting to do. My dad says he should have called me Kat, not Kate. You know that phrase, curiosity killed the cat? That’s me. I’m just the nosy type.”

He smiled. “I get paid to be interested in other people. The more I know about a doctor, the more likely it is that I’ll convince him or her to use our products.”

“So you know personal stuff about all the staff here?”

Eric poured himself another cup of coffee. That was a good sign. He wasn’t rushing off.

“Depends on how you define personal. Mostly, I know about their kids, their hobbies, that kind of thing.”

He flicked back a cuff to look at his watch, even though there was a clock on the kitchen wall. The watch was big and gold, rather gaudy for my taste, but it probably sent the right signals to anyone who cared about that sort of thing.

“So you talk to doctors directly about drugs?” I asked.

“Of course. I also talk to nurses, pharmacists, and anesthesiologists. Heck, I’d talk to the office cat if there was one.” His face took on an intent look, eyes slightly narrowed and focused on me. “Unlike in the USA, we can’t do direct to consumer advertising, so the only way patients know about the drug options available to them is via their doctor. That’s why it’s so important that we educate all medical professionals, let them know what’s out there, what’s new, what’s working. We share study data with them, that sort of thing. If we can make people’s lives better, or save lives, then I’m doing my job right.”

“That’s wonderful,” I said. “It must be so rewarding to know you’re helping people.” I paused. “Like poor Dr. Reid. Anita says he was an amazing doctor. Did you know him?”

Eric’s eyebrows came together, and his mouth tightened. “Yes, I know all the doctors here.”

“That’s right, of course,” I said as though just remembering. “I thought I’d seen you somewhere before. I shared a lift with you and Dr. Reid, about a week ago.”

He didn’t respond, so I carried on talking, watching his face. “It’s so sad. To be under so much pressure that you’d commit suicide. I can’t even imagine how that must feel.”

He took another swallow of his coffee. “So, they are saying it was suicide?” he asked finally.

“Apparently, yes. Isn’t that awful? Right here, in the hospital.”

Eric remained silent, lips clamped together.

“I suppose Dr. Reid never asked you for any advice on medications like anti-depressants?” I asked. “I mean, you’re the expert. I’m sure you could have helped if you’d known what was going on?”

He put his cup on the counter before pulling his cuffs straight. “Not my job. I don’t prescribe, I promote. Nice to meet you, Kate.”

He strode out of the kitchen. Even from the back, he looked angry. What did that mean? That he was guilty? Or just that he was offended by my questions? He certainly seemed to have a chip on his shoulder about the lack of respect shown him by the doctors. But that wouldn’t be enough of a motive to kill one of them, would it?

Despondent, I went to find Anita. I hadn’t learned much from Eric. If he were involved, I’d just waved a big red flag in front of him. I saw her at the reception desk, chatting with a couple of nurses. She excused herself and came over as soon as she saw me.

“Well, what did you find out?”

“That Eric has a big chip on his shoulder,” I said. “But that’s all.”

“Damn. Well, it was worth trying. Listen, I really do have patients to see. Why don’t you go home? I’ll come over after work.”

“Will you be all right? I hate leaving you alone.”

Anita waved her arm around, encompassing the hallway, which was busy with patients and visitors, and the nurses’ station where a doctor had joined the nurses.

“Alone? I wish.”

“Okay. Text me when you’re leaving, then I’ll know you’re on your way home.”

“You sound like my mother.”

Just as I turned to go, a short, pudgy man in a tweed jacket and creased tan pants hurried towards us. “Dr. Banerjee, can I have a word please?”

When he reached us, he stuck his hand out to shake Anita’s. “Detective Parry,” he said. He was in his fifties, with sandy hair combed over to hide his pink scalp. He smelled of smoke.

“I’d like to ask you a few questions, doctor,” he said. “Can we use your office? It won’t take long. Just a minute or two.”

Anita grabbed my hand. “Come with me,” she whispered.

When we were seated in Anita’s office, Parry pulled a notebook from his jacket pocket.

“I expect you have everything on computers nowadays,” he said, “But I prefer the old-fashioned tools. Just as efficient.”

“So are you investigating Dr. Reid’s death?” I asked.

He frowned at me. “And you are a doctor too?” he asked.

“No. A friend. The name is Kate Benedict.”

He raised his sandy eyebrows. “I see.”

Jotting some notes in his book, he asked me a few questions about where I lived and if I worked. When he’d finished, he looked up at Anita.

“Can I ask where you were on Tuesday night?“ he asked Anita.

“I was with Kate at her place. I got there at about 6 p.m. We both rushed straight back here when I got a message from one of the nurses.”

“And what time was that?”

“Nine-fifteen, more or less. I didn’t really pay attention.”

Tapping his pencil against his notebook, he asked if I could confirm that Anita had been with me on the evening of Dr. Reid’s death.

“Yes,” I said. “So you’re treating this as a murder?”

He leaned forward, lowering his voice. “No, actually not. Just going through the motions on orders from higher up, to let the staff know that administration is taking this seriously. No one wants their doctors committing suicide. It’s bad for morale, not to mention the hospital’s reputation.”

“Well, heaven forbid that Dr. Reid’s death be allowed to upset anyone.” Anita’s voice was heavy with sarcasm.

“It’s better for the hospital’s image to have a doctor killed on the premises than to commit suicide?” I asked.

He shrugged.

“But we do think it was murder,” I said.

“What makes you think that?”

“He wouldn’t have killed himself,” said Anita. “There was no note. And those drugs that killed him? He didn’t request them from the pharmacy, not on the day he died or any day before that. So where did they come from? We think someone else used them.”

“Someone stuck an IV in the doctor’s arm?” Parry’s tone was incredulous. “And how would that work?”

“We think he was drugged. The killer gave him something or used ether to knock him out for long enough to get the IV started.”

“Uh huh.” Parry snapped his notebook closed and stood up. “Interesting theory. I’ll give it some thought. Thanks again for your time, ladies.”

“Idiot,” muttered Anita after he’d left the office. “We should march to the police station and demand that a real detective take over the case.”

Standing, up, she retied her hair in a tight bun. We reached the door just as Pauline arrived. Her face was pale. “Anita, I thought you should know. It’s Isaac Kaminski.”

“What?” Anita hurried away with Pauline, leaving me alone in her office. I kept the door open so I could see everyone coming and going and, when that got boring, I watched pretty pictures of babies floating across her computer screen while I tried to analyze everything Eric had said. Fifteen minutes later, Anita came back to the office. Her mascara was smudged and her eyes looked red.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Can you take a break?”

She nodded, taking a seat on the visitor chair. “One of our patients died. He was only fourteen.” Anita rubbed her eyes. “Dammit. We’re not supposed to lose them like that.”

My nephew, Aidan, was fourteen. I couldn’t imagine losing him, although we’d come close the previous year when he’d had peritonitis. He’d also had an aura, which had helped me get him to a hospital in time. Still, he’d been very sick for a while. I shivered, remembering the agony of watching him suffer.

“I’m sorry, Anita.” I said. “What happened?”

“I saw Isaac when he first came in. He’d been diagnosed with end-stage renal disease, which meant he needed a kidney transplant. I wasn’t part of the surgical team for that one but I saw him at a follow-up appointment a month after the operation. I seem to remember that he wasn’t responding well to the post-operative medication. It was an immunosuppressant, a drug designed to prevent the immune system from rejecting the new organ. He was showing some symptoms of side effects. High blood pressure, increased BUN values. It wasn’t my case of course. I was just an observer.”