The blighted son, p.1
The Blighted Son, page 1
Copyright © Peter Harris (2024)
The right of Peter Harris to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First published by Cranthorpe Millner Publishers (2024)
ISBN 978-1-80378-226-3 (eBook)
www.cranthorpemillner.com
Cranthorpe Millner Publishers
To my wife, Wendy
Chapter 1
Just before midnight on a bitter January night, two men and a woman appeared at the end of a long hospital corridor heading purposefully to the cardio-thoracic operating theatre.
One of the two men, heart surgeon James McCloud, a youthful-looking Scot in his late forties, was carrying a white box marked with a large red cross and the words “Human Organ”. Inside, wrapped in plastic and packed in ice, was a donor heart he had recovered only an hour or so earlier from a brain-stem dead road accident victim.
Walking briskly alongside him down the corridor at Roundthorn Hospital in Manchester, was a specialist transplant nurse who had been with him during the organ recovery, and a uniformed hospital security officer.
Two other men, both dressed in hospital scrubs, who had been awaiting their arrival, stood at the other end of the corridor. One recorded their time of arrival in a spiral-bound notebook. The other took a series of quick-fire photographs.
Noting the time was journalist Edwin Benn, the medical correspondent of the national daily The Informer, who had been invited to witness the operation by the lead surgeon. With him was his newspaper colleague, photographer Mike Wolff, who had worked with Edwin on several other medical assignments and was one of the few staff “snappers” not likely to faint at the sight of blood under the heat and glare of the operating theatre lights.
‘Is everything on schedule?’ Edwin asked the surgeon as they all walked into the operating theatre, aware that he looked anxious, even unusually stressed.
‘Yes, except for the big delay on the motorway due to an accident. We had to call the police and arrange an escort,’ he replied bluntly without stopping.
‘Were you delayed long?’ Edwin asked.
‘Perhaps half an hour but luckily we made it in time. Will talk to you later. We need to get started.’
Edwin and Mike realised that it was not the right time to ask any further questions and withdrew to the back of the operating theatre, as the transplant team, led by heart surgeon Mr Jonathan Barr-White, moved into position around their anaesthetised patient. The patient’s own unhealthy heart had already been removed, and he was being kept alive mechanically by a heart-lung monitor that pumped the blood around his body and breathed air into his lungs.
The gaping cavity in his chest was waiting for the new healthy donor heart to be plumbed in, in the hope that it would shortly begin to beat naturally, giving the patient the chance to lead a new and normal life.
All that Edwin and Mike knew was that the patient was James Karl Fisher; that he was fifty-two years old; lived alone following a divorce and, ironically, ran a health and fitness club called Big Jim’s Gym. Some five months earlier, he had been diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy – severe cardio-arterial disease following a massive heart attack that had left his heart tissue irreparably scarred.
During a brief interview conducted before the transplant, the cardiologist had told Edwin that the patient likely had a genetic heart condition, which had manifested itself when he was pumping iron in his gym, attempting to lift heavier and heavier weights. Eventually, his heart could no longer take the strain.
Judging by the brief glimpses they had of the patient before all but the site of the operation was covered with sheeting, they concluded that he had the physique of a stocky, clean-shaven wrestler. As he moved carefully around the operating table taking impromptu images, Mike noticed what he thought was a dagger tattoo on his right bicep and another smaller tattoo that looked like a skull on the side of his neck.
‘Looks like he could be an ex-soldier, a military guy of some sort,’ said Mike.
‘Very likely. We’ll find out soon, no doubt,’ Edwin replied.
As they spoke, the donor’s heart was lifted reverently from its box and placed in position in the recipient’s chest cavity. Edwin made another note of the precise time, knowing it would add contemporaneous reportage and drama to the article he would be writing for his newspaper. Photographer Mike, who had the advantage of being over six feet tall, held his Nikon camera above his head and took more pictures over the heads of the team encircling the operating table.
Almost immediately, the lead surgeon confidently but painstakingly began attaching the donor heart to the open-ended matrix of blood vessels in the hope it would begin naturally to pump the patient’s blood around his body, signalling that the initial surgical phase had been a success.
Under the heat of the theatre lights, beads of perspiration began to appear on the surgeon’s brow and, every now and again, a nurse wiped them away and threw the tissues into a bin. Everyone worked methodically, knowing precisely what was required of them at any one time. Very little was said.
Some three hours after the donor’s heart arrived, lead surgeon Mr Barr-White moved away from the operating table and walked over to Edwin and Mike who had remained at the back of the operating theatre at a discrete distance from the patient and the surgical team.
‘I think it’s high time for a coffee, gentlemen. If you’d like to follow me, we can go through to the surgeons’ restroom.’
‘I take it that all is going well, Jonathan,’ said Edwin, who, as the newspaper’s medical correspondent, had established a first-name relationship with Barr-White and his senior surgical colleagues.
‘So far, no major hitches, I’m pleased to say. The donor heart, we know, was a good match and it is now beating on its own which is always a great relief. Sometimes we have to stimulate the donor heart into action electrically but there was no need for that on this occasion.’
‘That’s just wonderful. Is there much left to do now?’ Edwin asked.
‘Just close up the chest cavity and tidy up, as it were. I can leave that to the team. That’s what they will be doing now.’
Inside the small restroom, the surgeon removed his face mask and poured himself a coffee from a flask.
‘Relax, gentlemen… you don’t need to wear your masks in here. Sit down and we can have a chat before I have to go back into theatre to ensure that all is well.’
Edwin and Mike followed his example and, after removing their masks, they each poured themselves a coffee and sat down in two easy chairs.
‘There’s some biscuits in the tin if you’d like something with your coffee,’ said the surgeon, pointing to a biscuit barrel alongside the flask.
His casual, easy-going demeanour belied the fact that he had just stitched the heart of one man into the chest cavity of another, giving the patient, in all probability, his only chance of ever again leading a normal, active life.
‘If you gentlemen don’t mind, I’m going to have a pipe of tobacco,’ the surgeon continued, reaching into the top pocket of his jacket hanging on the back of the door and removing a chunky well-used briar with a curly stem.
‘Not at all. I used to smoke a pipe myself until a couple of years ago,’ said Edwin.
‘Some of my colleagues take a pretty dim view of it and as a medical man I know that I cannot justify it. I’m not setting a very good example, but there are times when there’s no substitute for a pipe of tobacco.’
‘I know just what you mean. I always used to tell people that I wasn’t hooked on tobacco, just addicted to pipes. There’s something very tactile about them: knocking out the ash, priming the bowl, filling it, patting down the tobacco – all that sort of thing. It’s something of a ritual.’
As Edwin spoke, the surgeon filled the bowl of his briar with an aromatic Dutch tobacco and lit up, blowing out a cloud of smoke.
‘I once read something about a famous author – can’t remember his name – who said that for the pipe smoker, the world need never come any nearer than the end of the bowl. I could always relate to that when I smoked,’ Edwin continued.
‘I’ll remember that,’ said the surgeon. ‘Now, what can I tell you about this transplant?’
Edwin switched into journalist mode. ‘What happens next when he comes out of theatre?’
‘Everything has gone pretty smoothly so far, so I would expect that he would be moved onto the ICU – the intensive care unit – where he will be put on a ventilator to help with his breathing, with tubes inserted into his chest to drain away any build-up of fluid from around his lungs and heart. He will also receive fluids and pain control medication intravenously.’
Edwin continued his questioning. ‘How long would you expect him to be in the ICU?’
‘Not for much longer than a few days, after which we will move him to a hospital room, where he is likely to remain for a week or possibly two and be carefully monitored for any signs of rejection. This, as you know, is the most serious cause of failure with transplant patients and it is vital that they are put on immunosuppressants to decrease the risk of the body attacking the donor heart,’ the surgeon explained.
‘For how long will he have to take immunosuppressants?’
‘All transplant patients have to take them for the rest of their lives.’
‘How long is it likely to be before he can receive visitors in hospital?’ asked Edwin.
‘As soon as we think he’s well enough, we will allow him to have a limited number of visitors. In fact, there’s every possibility that we can arrange – if he is willing – for you to come along and interview him on the ward in a couple of weeks, maybe even sooner.’
‘I was going to ask you about that. We would most certainly like to have a chat with him when he is well enough. Presumably, we could also take photographs?’
‘If he’s agreeable, it would be fine by me and the hospital, I’m sure.’
‘We’ll be carrying the story of the transplant in tomorrow morning’s paper, but it will be just the basic facts including some comments from yourself. It would be nice to know him as a person – his interests, his family, his background, likes and dislikes – that sort of thing. A human-interest story, I suppose, in a nutshell.’
Mike, who had not contributed to the conversation this far, interposed. ‘We noticed he seemed to have a tattoo of a dagger on his arm and possibly another one, perhaps a skull, on the side of his neck. We were wondering if he was a military man?’
The surgeon drew on his pipe and blew a cloud of tobacco smoke into the air, giving himself time to contemplate his response.
‘Now this is off the record; most definitely not for publication, gentlemen… He has several distinctly bizarre tattoos on various parts of his body and there are some that are rather unsavoury and provocative, to say the least. But we are not here to judge people’s political or religious views, but simply to try and save their lives whether we approve of their morals or not.’
Edwin pressed him further. ‘Jonathan, when you say provocative, in what way, may I ask?’
‘This is not to go in the paper, I stress, but my colleagues and I, including the nurses, took the view that some of the tattoos were blatantly racist, even white supremacist. I don’t feel I should say any more than that.’
‘Understood. Let me assure you that nothing of that nature will appear in the article. In fact, we couldn’t publish that sort of thing without giving him the opportunity to explain and, obviously, that’s not something that would be possible just now,’ Edwin reassured him.
‘I can see that it’s intriguing – we were all shocked to see his tattoos as well – but we are not here to judge him. He is simply a patient who required a new heart. When he is eventually back at home and has made a full recovery, I accept that there are circumstances in which it could become newsworthy. But not now,’ the surgeon reiterated.
‘Absolutely not now, I can assure you. But just out of interest, have you noticed anything, any little incident, that would seem to confirm your suspicions about his extremist views?’ asked Edwin.
‘There were the odd little things that were noticed, yes.’
‘What sort of things, may I ask?’
‘Well, when he was told he was being listed for a transplant, he seemed very keen that I would be doing it and not my colleague, Mr Jelani. And when he was on the ward, the nurses noticed that he only ever spoke directly to the White nurses. If he wanted something, he always asked them.’
‘That’s awful – hard to believe anybody could be like that…’ Edwin paused. ‘I know I really shouldn’t say this but he really does not sound like the nicest person in the world, to put it mildly.’
The surgeon took another long drag on his pipe and patted down the tobacco with his index finger. ‘I’m sure you are right but let’s just leave it at that. Right now, he is nothing more than our patient and it’s our job to try and give him a new lease of life. The type of life he leads is no business of ours.’
‘Jonathan, let me just say that I am just planning on writing a straight news report about the transplant – nothing remotely controversial – and that would also be the case if and when we manage to fix an interview with him when he is well enough and back on the ward.’
As Edwin finished speaking, one of the transplant nurses tapped on the door and opened it simultaneously.
‘Mr B, I think we are ready to move him out of theatre. Would you like to come back and check all is well before we move him through to ICU?’
Mr Barr-White stood up instantly, knocked the ash from his pipe into a metal waste bin and prepared to scrub up again before going back into the operating theatre.
‘OK, gentlemen, I take it you have got all you need for the time being. I look forward to reading your article and seeing the photographs.’
*
After barely four hours sleep, Edwin drove to the office to compose his article for the following day’s newspaper. But as arranged, before switching on his PC, he called the hospital to check that all was well with the patient. There were happily no problems.
‘Let it run, Edwin,’ said the news editor, Ross Hetherington, a moustachioed, heavy-smoking Scot in his late fifties. ‘We’re planning on using a few paras as a taster on page one and a double page spread inside with pics.’
‘OK, Ross,’ Edwin replied, contemplating a punchy intro.
The real life-and-death drama of the transplant was still very fresh in his mind, and once he was satisfied with his opening sentences, the article developed its own natural momentum, with chronological references to all the key stages, from the arrival of the donor heart to the patient’s transfer to ICU.
It appeared the following morning under the banner headline: Fitness Fanatic Big Jim Has Lifesaving Heart Transplant and was accompanied by four of Mike’s photographs, including one showing the tense moments when the heart arrived and another when the patient was returned to the ICU, on which it was possible to glimpse his face behind the matrix of tubes and face mask.
‘Nice piece, Edwin,’ said Ross, who, as usual, had an Embassy tipped cigarette drooping from the side of his mouth. ‘When d’you think we’ll be able to do a bedside interview with him for a feature follow-up? I’m interested in finding out more about this guy.’
‘Could be in a week if all goes well, Ross. I reckon that we’re going to get some interesting letters and calls from people who know him before then. I’ll certainly be surprised if we don’t.’
‘You’re probably right,’ said the news editor, as the ash from the cigarette cascaded down his beige waistcoat.
*
Edwin’s prediction proved to be right. Four days later, a steady stream of letters started to pour into the newsroom from readers. Most of the letters were sent anonymously from people who had either been victims of a catalogue of racist attacks in which he had seemingly been involved over several years or who knew of his criminal record.
One, in particular, stood out from all the others. It came from a native Barbadian man who said he had served a prison sentence in Liverpool at the same time as Fisher. He stated that, with the help of other racist accomplices, Fisher had subjected him to months of violence and abuse that had been largely ignored by the prison staff.
In a handwritten scrawl on school exercise-book paper, it read:
Just seen your article about James Fisher. All I can say is it was a waste of a good heart saving the life of that evil, Nazi bastard. Would have done the world a favour if they had let him die and rot in Hell. You should check out what he got up to when he was in Liverpool, all the time he did in jail, all the people he hurt. You should put that in your paper.
