Second Opinion Read Online Free PDF Page A

and see what she could take to Gus. One thing was sure, though; she wasn’t at all happy about dismissing this infant’s death as just another cot death tragedy. Three similar deaths in five months did not, in her estimation, seem very likely. So after she got things running again as they should here at the lab, she’d put herself about a bit; and then she made a face as she realized how easily she’d slipped into using one of Gus’s familiar phrases. Bloody man, she thought, I’ll show him! And felt absurdly elated.
    It was an elation which lasted her all through the day and only faded when she had to settle down in front of her phone at nine o’clock that night to call her mother, who should be at home at around four in the afternoon. Or was it now a six-hour time difference? She could never remember.
    This call, she thought gloomily as she dialled the fourteen digits that would connect her with her old home, would not be easy. She sat staring at the freshly painted walls of her new flat, listening to the series of single rings in her ear and visualizing the big old parlour at home with its over-stuffed chesterfields and deep loungers and her pa’s roll-top desk where the phone stood, seeing her mother coming out of the kitchen through the old swing door to answer it, and when the phone was at last picked up said, in the brightest voice she could, ‘Ma? So how are you, hon? It’s George. How’re things?’ And settled down to listen.

3
    
    ‘What note?’ Didier St Cloud said and rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. He was in his theatre greens and the line of his face mask, which had been tied far too tightly, still marked the bridge of his nose. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
    ‘It was attached to the PM request form,’ George said patiently. ‘On the Popodopoulos baby.’
    ‘Nasty one that. The mother was in a shocking state, poor thing. The whole family was — awful. But I did no special note about it. Only the normal ones.’
    ‘Look, I’ll show you,’ George said and flipped through her file. ‘If I haven’t left it down on my desk, that is — No, here it is. Look.’ She thrust the path. lab request form across Sister Lichfield’s desk and he bent his head to look at it.
    ‘“This is the third infant death we’ve had in Maternity since the summer.?? Linked”?’ he read aloud. He shook his head, puzzled. ‘How could I have written this? It’s typed.’
    George looked around the cluttered office. ‘Well, there’s a typewriter here,’ and she lifted her chin to indicate the rather battered machine that sat on the small desk on the other side of Sister Lichfield’s office. ‘Some people type everything, and I’m glad of it. It’s a damn sight easier to read than their handwriting, I can tell you.’
    ‘Well, I guess you’re stuck with my awful scribble,’Didier said cheerfully. ‘I’m a technoprat. I could no more type on that than fly. It’s electronic, for Gawd’s sake, so this is nothing to do with me!’ He flicked the note with thumb and finger and pushed it back at her.
    ‘Odd though, isn’t it?’ George said, stowing the note back in her files. ‘Don’t you think? Someone writing that …’
    Didier shrugged. ‘I don’t see why. It’s not all that surprising, is it? I mean, we have had three cot deaths up here since — when was it? July. I suppose someone thought they ought to point it out to you, seeing you’ve been away. If you’d not been off sick, you’d have known about them all, wouldn’t you? I dare say someone bright remembered that and typed the note just to make sure you knew. Which rules me out again. I’m not that bright.’ He grinned disarmingly at her and stretched. ‘It’s the old hospital superstition, isn’t it? They say these things always come in threes. And it’s sort of true. I’ve just delivered my third set of twins this month. Not bad, eh?’
    ‘It might be, if they were yours and not the parents’,’