Captives

TWENTY

16 APRIL 1977

The tumour was as large as a man's fist.

Dexter looked at it lying in the metal dish, a huge collection of dead cells, darkish brown in colour, tinged a rusty red from the congealed blood which coated it. It had been taken that morning, from the skull of the dead man they had found in Ward 5 the previous day.

Now Dexter observed the tumour and tapped a pen gently against his chin, his thoughts running pell-mell through his mind.

'What about the others?' he asked.

Colston sighed and shrugged his shoulders, pulling up a chair beside the desk.

'Four out of the five are exhibiting similar symptoms to those of Baker,' he said. 'I checked them over this morning before I did the autopsy.'

'Damn,' snapped Dexter, getting to his feet. He crossed to the window of his office and looked out over the well-manicured lawns and the tall trees that swayed in the wind.

'Is there anything we can do?' he asked, without looking at his companion.

'If the tumours are developing at the same rate then I could operate, try to remove them. We'd at least save their lives,' Colston told him.

Dexter watched as an intern led two patients across the, lawn, one of them kicking a football ahead of him like an excited child.

'You said four out of the five were exhibiting similar symptoms,' he said quietly. He turned to face Colston. 'What about…'

The other doctor shook his head, cutting him short. 'So far no change,' he said.

A slight smile creased Dexter's lips.

'Then we're doing something right,' he said, clutching this small piece of optimism as a drowning man clutches the proverbial straw.

Colston sucked in a deep breath.

'And we're also doing something very wrong,' he said. 'That's the third death in as many months. If the tumours in the other four continue to develop…' He allowed the sentence to trail off.

Dexter returned to his desk and tapped the five files stacked in front of him.

Each one bore the note: WARD 5 in its top right hand corner. Below that was the name of the patient.

'What do we do?' Colston wanted to know. 'Stop?'

'Certainly not,' said the other man indignantly. 'It will work, Andrew. I'm sure of it.'

'Then at least modify the process until we see the progress of the other five.'

Dexter shook his head again.

'The other four,' he interjected. 'You said one of them was still all right.'

'It might just be a matter of time before a tumour develops there too…'

Dexter interrupted again.

'No,' he said with conviction. 'It won't. I just believe it won't.'

'Because it's what you want to believe.'

'Do you blame me?' he snapped.

There was a long silence, finally broken by Colston. 'No, I don't blame you,' he murmured. 'And don't worry, I'm not going to back out on you. Not now.'

Dexter smiled appreciatively and picked up the files marked Ward 5.

He flicked through the first four relatively quickly.

It was the last of them that interested him.