1989, p.7
1989, page 7
Gradually, the reception area emptied and by half past noon, nobody new came to replace the treated patients. At last, there was only Allie and a middle-aged woman hunched into a stained beige raincoat, a crumpled bloodstained tissue held to her nose. The receptionist looked up. ‘Dr Diack will be out in minute,’ she said. It sounded as if she grudged every word.
Allie smiled her thanks and put her book away, relieved not least because she barely had ten pages left. The door opened and a stocky man with a blaze of thick red hair and a pink, freckled face strode through, thrusting his arms into a tweed jacket. He took one look at Allie and stopped in his tracks. ‘I know you,’ he said.
It sounded like an accusation. And Allie knew there was no denying it.
11
It was a salutary reminder of what Allie had almost forgotten – that in Scotland, Stanley Milgram’s theory of Six Degrees of Separation seldom made it past three. The man standing before her was the ex-boyfriend of Rona’s cousin. Their paths had crossed at a family wedding a few years previously. Allie stood up and greeted Dr Derek Diack with a smile. ‘I never knew your surname.’
‘And I never thought of you as “Alison”,’ he replied, closing the gap between them and extending a hand. ‘I came through that door fully intending to give you the bum’s rush.’ He shrugged. ‘But since it’s you . . .’
‘I appreciate it. Are you breaking for lunch?’
He scoffed. ‘Lunch? You’ve got to be kidding. I hardly manage a toilet break these days. No, I’m off to a meeting. The health board wants me to set up a clinic for drug users. Fat chance. I’ve no time for that. I’ve already been ambushed five times today – they get me when I park my car, they sneak in behind legit patients. Not that I blame them. They’re desperate.’
‘We could talk on the way?’
He looked at his watch. ‘OK, I’ll drive.’ He made for the door, Allie following him. She had no idea how she’d get back to Muirhouse or if her car would still be there when she did, but she had to make the most of a lucky break. She followed him out, hurrying to keep pace with his long strides, switching her microcassette machine to record as she went.
His car was a Ford Cortina, too ancient to hold any attractions for thieves or joyriders but the engine started smoothly enough at the first attempt. ‘So you’re chasing a story about Edinburgh exporting its AIDS epidemic down south?’ He was as sharp as she remembered. No point in trying to bullshit him.
‘I’m more interested in why it’s happening. I’ve spoken to a few of the guys who have gone to Manchester and I’ve heard three different explanations.’ She outlined what she’d been told and he nodded his agreement.
‘All of that’s true. Edinburgh only has one dedicated clinic for treating drug users. They’ve got four beds for addict rehab. Just one of those beds is for Pilton and Muirhouse.’ His voice was bitter. ‘We’ve got something like four hundred heroin users in Muirhouse. No wonder anybody who can manage it is getting out.’
‘Why is the service so inadequate?’
He scoffed, again. ‘Edinburgh’s always tried to deny it’s got an underbelly. It’s all about the church, the lawyers, the academics. They’ve got a crick in their necks from looking the other way, ever since Burke and Hare were raiding the churchyards to provide bodies for the anatomists to dissect. They don’t want to acknowledge there’s a problem.’
‘So it gets worse?’
‘Exactly. It took them forever to set up a needle exchange. There was nowhere in the city to get a clean needle. We caught people stealing used needles from our sharps bin, for God’s sake. Raking about, exposing themselves to other folks' infections.’ His voice was a low growl, but his driving was still thankfully attentive. ‘There’s a new campaign group got going, they’re trying to raise money for an AIDS hospice. It’s an uphill struggle – most people don’t want to be associated with AIDS. But those guys are determined. Good luck to them.’
They were in the city proper now. Allie worried they were running out of time. She needed to make a move on her second story. ‘I heard one of the drug companies was running a research project in Edinburgh. Were you not part of that?’
He flashed her a quick glance. ‘Where did you hear that?’
‘I’ve got a friend who’s a researcher for a drug company, a different one. Did I get that wrong?’
He frowned at the traffic lights that were holding them up. ‘No. You heard right. There was a drug trial. But it got stopped in its tracks. No warning, they just closed it down. I don’t know, I wasn’t directly involved.’ Diack turned into a car park behind a decaying 1960s office building tucked between an office block and a tenement. He turned off the engine and looked at his watch again. ‘This is me.’
‘Who can I talk to about this?’
‘Dr Death.’ He smiled at her shock. ‘Paul Robertson. He runs the rehab unit I was talking about. They call him Dr Death because, they say, if you have a consultation with him, it means you’re going to die.’ He pulled a face. ‘They’re mostly right.’
‘Where do I find him?’
‘Notebook?’ He gestured at her. Allie handed it over. Diack scribbled on the pad. ‘I’m trusting you here, Allie. Don’t let me down.’
*
Allie had very little idea of where she was, other than somewhere south of the city centre. She walked back to the nearest main road and waited in the biting wind for a taxi. The driver was surprised at her destination, muttering something about danger money. ‘You sure you know what you’re doing?’ he asked. ‘I wouldnae want my wife going down there by herself.’
‘Just as well I’m not your wife, then.’ For all sorts of reasons, Allie thought.
Her car was where she’d left it, minus its hubcaps. It could have been worse. Though she couldn’t quite believe there was enough of a market in second-hand hubcaps for it to be worth the effort. She drove back down to the sea and parked with a view across the water to Fife. Time to wear her news editor hat. She spoke to two of her freelances, seeking updates on what they were working on. Allie was aware that none of the men she used as hired guns liked working for her. What galled them even more was that they couldn’t accuse her of having slept her way into the job. So it was no surprise that neither of them had much to report. Allie suggested some lines of inquiry to both, stressing that she wanted something positive by the morning or she’d pass the job to someone else. It was no empty threat; the clear-out of journalists across the tabloid empires of Ace Lockhart and Rupert Murdoch meant there was no shortage of hungry operators.
The third freelance wasn’t on the end of a phone. Presumably out on the road doing what Allie was paying him for. Either that or in the pub. She paged him, asking for an update, then checked in with the London newsdesk. ‘What’s cooking?’ the deputy news editor demanded. ‘Have you got a juicy page lead for me, Burns? A shocking revelation from Coronation Street? Or some rock twat throwing a wobbler at the Hacienda?’
‘Steady on, Ronnie. It’s only Wednesday. I’ll have something for you, never fear.’ She ran through the freelance assignments – a Yorkshire MP allegedly having an affair with a cricketer’s wife; a soap star reportedly diagnosed with breast cancer; new developments in the search for the Lockerbie bomber.
Ronnie gave her a grudging seal of approval. ‘It’s a start. You’ve got the talking brick with you, haven’t you? Do they have mobile phone signals up there in the heather?’
‘I’ll be here if you need me, Ronnie. Now, I’ve got work to do. And so have you.’ She endured another exchange of banter then escaped. According to her A-Z map of Edinburgh, Dr Death’s clinic was across the city in a former infectious diseases hospital in Liberton. Plenty of time to get there before close of play. Thanks to Rona’s cousin’s taste in men, things were breaking her way for once.
12
It had clearly been a long time since the hospital that housed Dr Death’s AIDS ward had been state of the art, Allie thought, dodging the potholes in the car park in search of a space. It was a crumbling red-brick building with the kind of metal window frames that produced condensation on the inside nine months of the year. The ground-floor windows were all frosted glass; good for privacy and interior gloom.
Allie responded to a couple of pager messages, dealing with a freelance, then picking up a tip from a local paper reporter and passing it on to yet another of her superannuated stringers to flesh out. Then she made for the entrance. Nobody challenged her as she walked in with an air of confidence. It smelled like a hospital; disinfectant with bass notes of school dinners and bedpans. Diack had told her to look for Ward 17 and she spotted the sign in time to avoid breaking stride. Up a flight of stairs and down a hall, a faded track worn in the vinyl flooring. She passed the entrance to the ward, looking for the door on the left behind which she’d find Dr Paul Robertson’s office.
It was an unassuming door, looking more like a janitor’s cupboard than a consultant’s office. There was no nameplate, as Diack had warned her. ‘Otherwise people would just barge in constantly.’ Allie knocked. No response. Without much hope, she tried the handle. From behind her, a light tenor voice with a strong Glasgow accent said, ‘Are you trying to break into my office?’
She turned swiftly to face a tall thin man with a narrow head and dark brown hair cut close to his scalp. His features were sharp and two frown tracks separated his eyebrows, but his eyes were warm and the lines that sprang into definition when he smiled had clearly been etched by good humour. ‘Dr Robertson?’ Allie cursed herself for sounding so jumpy.
‘That’s me. Are you the lassie Derek Diack warned me about?’
Thirty-five, and still men were calling her a lassie. As usual, she bit back a retort and smiled. ‘I’m flattered. Didn’t realise I merited a warning. I’m Allie Burns, Sunday Globe.’
He gestured towards the door and she stepped aside to allow him to unlock it. ‘I’m normally wary of you lot,’ he said as he waved her inside. ‘I’ve been burned too many times by hysterical headlines. Big black lies that blight my patients’ lives.’ He looked her up and down and pointed to a chair set at one corner of his desk. ‘But Derek says I’ve to give you a chance. Which in my book means giving you enough rope to trip yourself up. Soon as you do? There’s the door.’
Allie sat. ‘Fair enough. Did he tell you what I want to write about?’
‘The exodus. I can’t blame them for going. When they told me I could have a treatment unit, I asked for fifty beds. They gave me four. We take patients in extremis. They endure medieval deaths. Diseases of sheep. Tumours in the brain. Convulsions, vomiting blood. The worst of it is that they’ve bought into the media message. Mostly, they think this is what they deserve. Running down south is their last act of defiance.’ His style was dramatic. She could imagine him in a health-board meeting, making the bureaucrats squirm. But not quite enough to change their minds.
‘You run outpatient clinics as well?’
He shrugged one bony shoulder. ‘For what it’s worth. Eat better. Try these steroids. Here’s some extra-strong antibiotics for your pneumonia. Oh, and some soothing cream for that rash that makes you scratch till you bleed.’
‘What about the pharmaceutical companies? Are they working on more effective drugs?’ She made it sound casual, but he’d been warned.
A sharp cackle of laughter. ‘Derek said you’d try to corner me on that one.’
‘I’m not trying to corner you, I’m trying to find out what’s going on.’
‘Derek said he explained the general lack of enthusiasm?’
She nodded. ‘Not enough profit to be made.’
He nodded, approvingly, and leaned his elbows on the desk, steepling his long bony fingers. ‘But now we’ve got evidence of heterosexual transmission, and the so-called innocent victims of contaminated blood products from the US. Which means a couple of research institutes have the foresight to see this is only going in one direction. And we are the perfect petri dish. We’ve got the facilities for all sorts of testing, and we’ve got a significant population of infected patients. Do you know how we know we’ve got such a big sample?’
Obediently, Allie said, ‘How?’
‘It’s not because they’re all so concerned for their health that they rush off to get tested. For all sorts of reasons, the longer you can kid yourself you’re not positive, the better. No. What we had in Edinburgh was an epidemic of hepatitis B that was reaching its peak round about the time HIV was infiltrating our intravenous drug users. And for some reason that escapes me now, we froze the blood samples we took from the HepB testing. Then once we had a test for HIV, some bright spark thought it would be a good idea to defrost all the HepB samples and test them for HIV. And we discovered we had an epidemic on our hands. One surgery had a hundred and sixty-four positives.’ He pursed his lips and shook his head. ‘Unimaginable.’
‘I’m amazed you got that many patients to consent. Knowing what it would mean.’
He closed his eyes and sighed. ‘It was done without consent.’
Allie was too shocked to curb her response. ‘But surely that’s unethical? Don’t people have a right to decide if they want to be tested?’
He waggled his hand indeterminately. ‘Scientists sometimes get overexcited. Yes, they should have been consulted. But they weren’t. Bad for them, good for science.’ He jumped up and crossed to a small fridge on the floor by the desk. For a moment, Allie wondered whether he was about to produce some fiendish experiment. He looked over his shoulder and grinned. ‘Diet Coke or Irn Bru?’
It was no contest when she was back in Scotland. ‘Irn Bru, please.’
He passed her a can, took one for himself then sat down again. They tore off their ring pulls almost simultaneously and let them fall to the metal desk with a tinkle. It was a tiny moment that broke the tension. ‘So that’s why the researchers came to you with the drug trials?’ Allie asked after they’d both taken a swig.
‘We were the obvious choice once the word got round. To begin with, it was just observational studies, trying to get a sense of the progression of the disease. There’s such a wide variation. Some people are dead within months of a diagnosis; others are still doing OK three, four years on. The researchers were keen to try to identify what factors impacted the speed of the development of full-blown AIDS. That’s going nowhere yet. But now we’re starting to get somewhere with DNA analysis, who knows? We might crack the code.’
‘But until then, we need medicines.’
He frowned at her. ‘What’s your interest in this? What’s the story?’
‘You had a drug trial going on here that came to a sudden halt. Why?’
‘That’s hardly a tabloid story, is it?’
‘I’m curious.’ Allie let her answer hang.
Robertson took a long pull on his fizzy drink and stifled a burp. ‘It started quite well. Patients reported feeling less weak, their appetites started to return. Their T-cell count rose slightly. Then they turned a corner and collapsed. Three of them suffered heart attacks, two fatal. Three others went into respiratory shock.’ He stared at the desktop, unmoving.
‘How many were in the test study?’
‘Twenty-four. All volunteers. Twelve on the drugs, twelve placebos. All the problems were with patients on the drugs.’
‘What happened?’
‘The researchers wanted to carry on. They made a strong case for the problems being with the patients, not the drug. I refused to continue. I stopped the trial.’
‘And that’s the end of the story?’
‘It should be, shouldn’t it?’ His gaze was speculative.
‘But you don’t believe it? You think they’re still trialling the treatment?’
He said nothing.
‘Dr Robertson? If people are being put at risk, should they not be told?’
He met her eyes. ‘They should. But not everybody lives in a place where they have control over their own decisions.’ He got up and crossed to a filing cabinet. He took out a slim folder and extracted a single sheet of glossy paper. He passed it to her. ‘This is the company we dealt with. Zabre Pharma. It’s not hard to find out where else they operate.’
‘Can I keep this?’
He nodded. ‘Getting an HIV diagnosis is a death sentence. Chances are, it won’t always be. But right now, it is. Patients don’t deserve to be robbed of what little time they have. If we’re going to start treating victims of this illness like they don’t matter, where do we stop? Treat smokers with lung cancer like guinea pigs? Inject weird drug cocktails into morbidly obese people with heart problems?’ He stood up. ‘Fuck that. Away you go and do your worst, Miss Burns.’
13
By ten that evening, Allie was willing to concede that she’d covered all the angles her Edinburgh stories had to offer. She’d spoken to a pair of charity support workers, to the woman who ran the needle exchange, and to four regular users of the service. She had it all, from the tragic tales of dead friends to the police who staked out the needle exchange in the hope of arresting dealers, from the angry parents of a young haemophiliac infected by US blood products to the father whose two children had been born with HIV they’d contracted from their sex-worker mother.
And to the girlfriend of one of the men who had died during the aborted drug trial. Janine denied she had a drug habit herself. ‘I smoke a wee bit o’ dope. No’ every day. I never got into the heroin. Gordie once took me to a squat in that block in Muirhouse they call the Terror Tower. It was full of folk off their faces. I hated the whole thing – sharpening old needles on matchboxes, washing syringes out with their own blood. Honest to God, it gave me the dry boak. I said I was never going back.
