forehead, ye dick.' A nicotine-stained finger went up to a spot above the delivery boy's left eyebrow. 'There.'
What was the tattoo like, did you get a good look at it?
'Are ye jokin' me? Get a good look at it!' The voice rose with incredulity. 'A big bastard covered in blood, wired to the moon and staggerin' about the place like a drunk and ye think I'm gonna start examinin' his face? On yer bike.'
But the scraps were helpful; taken along with all the other sightings and descriptions, a picture was forming.
6
5.00 pm
Dr Frank Clancy sat at his desk in the basement of the Mercy Hospital, deep in thought. The basement was the nerve centre of the hospital's laboratory and pathology work. Each day specimens of human tissue were brought there to be sliced, inspected and microscopically examined. Samples of blood, urine, sputum and faeces, along with swabs from outside and inside the body were analysed and reported. Grasped firmly in Clancy's right hand was a quarter A4 page with an FBC (full blood count) result on patient Harold Morell, ward three, four levels above.
As consultant haematologist to the Mercy Hospital Clancy was in overall charge of interpreting and advising on the many blood results churned out from the wards every day. He was a young man, just turned thirty-eight, with a shock of curly black hair. At six foot three, his boyish face was easily spotted around the wards. He had trained in Dublin, London and Chicago before being appointed to the prestigious consultant position three years previously. He frowned as he scanned the results for the sixth time in as many minutes, then turned to the PC in front of him and began tapping on its keyboard, pulling himself closer to the edge of the desk. He typed in MORELL first, then HAROLD , followed by the same patient's date of birth and address . FILE NUMBER 276DE149 flashed on the screen. Clancy clicked on the OPTIONS button, then chose HAEMATOLOGY . Within seconds all of Harold Morell's blood results appeared in chronological order. Clancy began scrolling to find the very first recorded FBC, a basic analysis reflecting his blood level and a count of the many sub-divisions of cells necessary to fight infection, allergies et cetera. It looked normal, dated 23/04/90 when Morell had first attended the out-patient department of the Mercy Hospital. Clancy checked to see what clinic he had been booked under. CARDIAC flashed on the screen. Next he scrolled slowly along the many blood tests ordered on Harold Morell in the years since. It took almost thirty minutes. They all looked basically normal, a rise in his white cell count reflecting an infection during one in-patient stay the only blip in an otherwise stable haematology pattern.
Clancy sighed and leaned back in his chair. He turned again to the blood result now lying innocently on the desk beside the PC, pulled a pair of reading glasses from the breast pocket of his white coat and perched them on his nose. Harold Morell's blood picture had changed, suddenly and dramatically. Dangerously and recently.
Clancy stood up, stretched and yawned, and walked slowly to a bench on which rested a row of microscopes. He sat down in front of one, flicked the light source and a tiny, intensely bright beam trained on a blood-red smeared glass slide set in place under the lens. Clancy slipped off his glasses and squinted down the eyepiece. With one hand he moved the slide about underneath, with the other he focused. Each time he shifted the slide a different view of the blood cells appeared. No matter which way it was moved the underlying picture was the same. Harold Morell's blood was severely depleted in white cells, those vital to fight off even the most trivial infection. There was an almost total absence of neutrophil polymorphonuclear leucocytes. He removed the slide and replaced it with a different one, this a bone-marrow smear.
Earlier, in ward three above, Clancy had sat behind Harold Morell as the
What was the tattoo like, did you get a good look at it?
'Are ye jokin' me? Get a good look at it!' The voice rose with incredulity. 'A big bastard covered in blood, wired to the moon and staggerin' about the place like a drunk and ye think I'm gonna start examinin' his face? On yer bike.'
But the scraps were helpful; taken along with all the other sightings and descriptions, a picture was forming.
6
5.00 pm
Dr Frank Clancy sat at his desk in the basement of the Mercy Hospital, deep in thought. The basement was the nerve centre of the hospital's laboratory and pathology work. Each day specimens of human tissue were brought there to be sliced, inspected and microscopically examined. Samples of blood, urine, sputum and faeces, along with swabs from outside and inside the body were analysed and reported. Grasped firmly in Clancy's right hand was a quarter A4 page with an FBC (full blood count) result on patient Harold Morell, ward three, four levels above.
As consultant haematologist to the Mercy Hospital Clancy was in overall charge of interpreting and advising on the many blood results churned out from the wards every day. He was a young man, just turned thirty-eight, with a shock of curly black hair. At six foot three, his boyish face was easily spotted around the wards. He had trained in Dublin, London and Chicago before being appointed to the prestigious consultant position three years previously. He frowned as he scanned the results for the sixth time in as many minutes, then turned to the PC in front of him and began tapping on its keyboard, pulling himself closer to the edge of the desk. He typed in MORELL first, then HAROLD , followed by the same patient's date of birth and address . FILE NUMBER 276DE149 flashed on the screen. Clancy clicked on the OPTIONS button, then chose HAEMATOLOGY . Within seconds all of Harold Morell's blood results appeared in chronological order. Clancy began scrolling to find the very first recorded FBC, a basic analysis reflecting his blood level and a count of the many sub-divisions of cells necessary to fight infection, allergies et cetera. It looked normal, dated 23/04/90 when Morell had first attended the out-patient department of the Mercy Hospital. Clancy checked to see what clinic he had been booked under. CARDIAC flashed on the screen. Next he scrolled slowly along the many blood tests ordered on Harold Morell in the years since. It took almost thirty minutes. They all looked basically normal, a rise in his white cell count reflecting an infection during one in-patient stay the only blip in an otherwise stable haematology pattern.
Clancy sighed and leaned back in his chair. He turned again to the blood result now lying innocently on the desk beside the PC, pulled a pair of reading glasses from the breast pocket of his white coat and perched them on his nose. Harold Morell's blood picture had changed, suddenly and dramatically. Dangerously and recently.
Clancy stood up, stretched and yawned, and walked slowly to a bench on which rested a row of microscopes. He sat down in front of one, flicked the light source and a tiny, intensely bright beam trained on a blood-red smeared glass slide set in place under the lens. Clancy slipped off his glasses and squinted down the eyepiece. With one hand he moved the slide about underneath, with the other he focused. Each time he shifted the slide a different view of the blood cells appeared. No matter which way it was moved the underlying picture was the same. Harold Morell's blood was severely depleted in white cells, those vital to fight off even the most trivial infection. There was an almost total absence of neutrophil polymorphonuclear leucocytes. He removed the slide and replaced it with a different one, this a bone-marrow smear.
Earlier, in ward three above, Clancy had sat behind Harold Morell as the
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