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.It wouldn’t matter if they collapsed in a gibbering, incontinent heap as soon as they were out the back of the ambulance, because by that time the bed would have been filled with a shorter-term admission, or more probably closed altogether.’‘But wouldn’t it damage his professional reputation if patients he’d declared fit turned out to be complete messes?’‘Not necessarily.The thing with crumbles is that they can genuinely switch from fitness to decrepitude or vice versa overnight.You’ll get some old dear with a few of her pages stuck together, brought in from a nursing home because of a chest infection.She looks like she’s at death’s door for a week, then one morning you come in and she’s drinking her tea and shrieking at imaginary cats.Equally, she might get her strength built up and appear to have made a complete recovery, then cack it the first night she’s back in the home.The only damage Jeremy’s reputation would suffer would be if he sent a few like that to the same home and they noticed whose name was on the paperwork each time.’‘And what happens to the patient, now that the bed’s no longer available?’‘The nursing home has to get on the phone and try to get her a bed somewhere else – in another hospital, and therefore in another Trust.Jeremy reduces the long-term patient levels and they get to close the GRH and sell up to Kickback Properties Inc.‘But why kill him?’ she wondered aloud.‘He must have been blackmailing Lime – taking money for clearing the wards then threatening to blow the gaffe about the whole thing unless he gave him more.’‘It’s more likely he was just killed in case he ever said anything,’ said Parlabane.‘No blackmail, just covering tracks.Because I feel the stakes for Lime could be a lot higher than putting the Trust in the black and scoring a few K on the side from the property deal.He was talking to that company down south about the site a long time ago, before anyone knew it was remotely likely to become available, and the name of that developer is not the same as the one that’s bidding for the GRH.I’d be very surprised if Capital Properties didn’t turn out to be a front for a joint venture between Four-Square Developments and a Mr Stephen Lime, which would further explain why he’s recommending the Trust sells the site at a knock-down price.Where is this place anyway?’Sarah unlocked the door.‘Come on back to the room and get dressed.You can see it from there.’Dawn was thinking about breaking, at the stage where it was rolling about under the sheets after its alarm had gone off, weighing up the pros and cons of getting out of bed.There was a glow of light from beyond the horizon, tinting the city in faint, shadowy hues, like a huge room lit by a lamp with a dimmer switch.The castle cut the skyline with a tetchy cragginess, ill-tempered elderly resident of the district with a fragile tolerance of the newcomers to its neighbourhood.And not far beyond the longest spines of its shadow, just past the borders of the Old Town, in the vicinity of law courts, local government, big business and one of Europe’s busiest tourist honeypots, sat a crappy wee spread-out collection of prefabricated, low-rise bus shelters posing as a geriatric hospital.Ah,’ said Parlabane, looking out of the window.‘Get the picture?’ Sarah asked, redundantly.‘I’m thinking international class hotel with extensive conference facilities, maybe a shopping complex,’ he said.‘Underground parking, centrally located office spaces, very exclusive residential development.whatever.Except that the deal’s off if some wee scrote of a doctor opens his gub.‘Acres of prime site in the centre of one of Europe’s most prestigious and historic capital cities for three mill.Now that’s a bargain worth killing for.’TWENTY-THREE‘Aw for fuck’s sake.’There was a sharp tutting noise from the staircase behind where McGregor stood in the doorway.‘Oh, sorry.Excuse the language, Mrs eh.’‘Kinross.’‘Aye.Sorry.It’s not a pretty sight.’‘He’s away then,’ said the wee woman, peering up to the landing where the policeman and woman stood.‘Afraid so.’McGregor had instantly regretted releasing the missing digit detail to the press.He had had no idea there could be so many nine-fingered males in the Lothians, and the cooperative public hadn’t let the ‘at least 6’5” tall’ part of the description deter them from reporting every bastarding one of them, never mind the specification that it was the right index finger that was lacking, and not the left pinkie, right thumb or either arm.The call had come at about ten o’clock that night, after an endlessly irritating day, and he had feared the worst when the switchboard operator told him what it was in connection with and he heard the prim, elderly tones at the other end.He had listened to the part about the nine-fingered man staying in her guest house with stoic patience, inclining gradually away from professional politeness when she started on about him killing her dog and trying to fake its accidental death in next door’s garden.When she said she had him tied to his bed in a room upstairs, McGregor was about to send a car round to pick her up and let her consider the folly of wasting police time at leisure in the surroundings of a particularly smelly cell [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]