Sick to Death by Douglas Clark

Author:Douglas Clark [Clark, Douglas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2019-01-16T22:00:00+00:00

5 |

Green said to the girl behind the medicines counter, ‘We’re police. We’d like to see the pharmacist.’

She left them without a word. In a moment a middle-aged man appeared from behind a frosted-glass dispensing screen. He was bespectacled and bald, with greying side patches of dark hair neatly brushed. He looked nervous, questioning, as if expecting bad news. Masters guessed it cost him quite an effort to approach them and speak.

‘I’m the pharmacist. Frane. I own the shop.’

‘We’d like a few words with you in private,’ Green said.

Frane looked even more perturbed. ‘Of course. If you’d come round the end of the counter.’ The girl was standing by, saying nothing, but looking slightly apprehensive. Masters smiled at her and said, ‘Don’t worry. We only want some information.’ She smiled back at him, gratefully. Frane heard the message. He seemed a little more cheerful as he ushered them into the dispensary.

‘We’re investigating the death of a diabetic girl, Mr Frane.’ Masters explained.

‘Oh, yes.’

‘You’ve heard about the case?’

‘The one there was an inquest on a few days ago?’

‘That’s right.’

‘I didn’t have anything to do with supplying her insulin.’

‘No. We realize that. All we’re here for is to get some information about insulin and the amounts the patient takes. You see, Mr Frane, all the talk about diabetes and its treatment is way above our heads, so we’ve come to an expert to help us out.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘Will you be willing to answer a few questions?’

‘If I can. Yes.’

‘Thank you. Now the dead girl was using Rapitard insulin.’

‘Rapitard? Yes. That’s the neutral insulin with the bluey-green colour code. Easy to remember, Rapitard. Both labels have very similar colour triangles.’

‘Perhaps you would explain? Colour triangles?’

‘Let me see, now, there are how many different types of insulin? Soluble, protamine, globine, isophane …’ He counted on his fingers as he went through them. ‘Nine. Yes, nine types. And every type is designated by a different colour.’

‘Rapitard is bluey-green?’

‘Correct. But there are two strengths of all those nine. Forty units per mil and eighty units per mil. And strengths, too, have to be colour-coded.’

‘I see.’

‘The colour for U forty is blue, and for U eighty, green—on all types. So what we do is to divide the square packing label into two triangles. The bottom left triangle is coloured either blue or green to denote the strength. The top right triangle has its individual colour to denote the type. Well, like I said, Rapitard is easy to remember, because its own colour is bluey-green, while its strength colours are blue and green.’

Green looked a little lost and Masters wasn’t quite sure he’d got it, but he said to Frane, ‘That’s very clear. Now to talk about the amounts in the syringe at each injection.’

‘Very small. Very small. But, of course, they differ with every patient according to his or her needs.’

‘Do they?’

‘Most certainly.’

‘I see. So you can’t tell me how much this girl would inject each time?’

‘Not unless I knew how much …’

‘She got four ten mil phials to last her exactly four weeks.

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