‘How many?’ Ewan stared at Theresa in her charge-nurse uniform, blue scrubs with the NHS logo. He wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly.
‘Eight,’ Theresa said, stirring her coffee. She had one of those reusable flask things, chrome and black, saving the planet. He looked at his own Costa takeaway and felt guilty.
‘Eight strokes or eight dead?’
‘Eight dead. Sixteen strokes in total.’
Ewan shook his head and looked around the hospital café. It was neutral and bland, open plan and high ceilings, swathes of broken humanity hobbling and wheeling past to get x-rays, treatment, bad news. Visiting families with teddies, chocolates, balloons, trying to cheer up someone’s stay.
He looked at Theresa. He’d known her for twenty years, half of being a journalist was your contacts. He first met her working on a clinical-waste scandal before this new site existed, when she was a young nurse in the old place at Lauriston. She didn’t know everything that was going on, of course, but she knew someone who did. He’d called ahead and asked what she could find out about a sudden increase in strokes and she’d come up trumps. All it cost him was a coffee and the occasional withering look.
‘Let me get my head around this,’ he said. ‘Sixteen strokes came into RIE last night, and eight of those are already dead?’
‘Correct.’
‘What are the normal rates?’
Theresa was an attractive woman, early forties but she looked younger, despite her black hair greying at the temples. Green eyes, strong jaw, happily married to a cop.
She shook her head. ‘One or two admissions a night, if that.’
Ewan had his notebook out, scribbled down the numbers. Theresa wouldn’t be quoted on the record, more than her job was worth.
‘That’s crazy.’
Theresa nodded. ‘The stroke unit is overwhelmed. They’ve grabbed beds in other wards.’
Ewan sipped his coffee, tasted like burnt water. ‘What’s going on, T?’
‘There’s more,’ Theresa said, leaning forward. She was a gossip at heart, all good contacts were. She wasn’t in it for a payoff. Most of her tips were moral, she wanted people to know about some NHS bullshit. But this was just sharing weirdness for the sake of it.
‘Most stroke patients are old men with high-risk factors. Morbid obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol, smokers, heavy drinkers. But none of these new admissions had any risk factors.’
‘None?’
Theresa spread her hands on the table. ‘Teenagers, young women, middle-aged.’
‘No old people at all?’
‘One guy out walking his dog when he couldn’t sleep, but he was fit as a fiddle. That’s the other thing.’
Ewan was writing this down, waving his fingers for her to carry on.
‘They were all outdoors.’
‘What?’
‘Every one of them was outside when it happened. And all within around twenty minutes of each other.’
‘This is…’
Theresa leaned in. ‘I know, right? And that’s not even the weirdest thing.’
Ewan shook his head. This was big, but he was already worrying how he would persuade Patterson of it. Newspapers didn’t like unexplained mysteries, those were for true-crime podcasts or ghost stories.
‘They all had exactly the same type of stroke. Strokes are either ischaemic, haemorrhagic or transient. They each had a severe haemorrhagic stroke, all in the same part of the brain, the cerebellum.’ She tapped two fingers against the back of her skull. ‘Very rare.’
Ewan stopped writing. ‘What does this mean?’
She leaned back, sipped from her flask. ‘You tell me.’
‘It’s not just a coincidence, right? So maybe there’s some outside agent involved. Poison?’
‘Poison doesn’t cause stroke.’
‘Radiation?’
Theresa smoothed her scrubs and placed her flask on the table. ‘The doctors haven’t had time to worry about it, they’re just trying to treat all the new patients.’
Ewan rubbed at the back of his head, trying to imagine what his cerebellum looked like. Would he miss it if it was gone?
‘One last thing,’ Theresa said. ‘Three of them recovered.’ She cleared her throat like that was nothing.
‘You mean they’re getting better?’
Theresa smiled, she loved sharing secrets. ‘No, completely recovered. As in, they were absolutely fine just hours afterwards. Second scans this morning revealed that the haemorrhages had completely cleared. They’ve already been discharged.’
‘What?’
Theresa lifted her shoulders in a shrug.
‘Have you ever heard of that before?’ Ewan said.
‘Nope.’
‘Is it possible?’
Theresa looked coy. ‘I’m not a stroke expert, Ewan.’
‘In your opinion?’
She waited a moment, building her own wee drama. ‘It’s not possible.’
Ewan tapped his pen on the table. ‘Have you got details for those three, names and addresses?’
Theresa pouted. ‘I shouldn’t give out that information, you know that.’
Ewan angled his head, as if to say that’s why they were both here.
Theresa pressed her lips together. ‘Check your inbox, I already sent it.’
He pulled his phone out. Three names, ages, addresses. Northfield in Edinburgh, Longniddry and Dirleton. He pictured the three places on a map, they were roughly in a straight line. Then he remembered he’d already driven past Dirleton today, it was just along the road from Yellowcraigs Beach where that thing washed up. He didn’t believe in coincidences, years of journalism had drilled that into him. This was something. He read the name, Heather Banks, and checked the address. This was definitely something.
He looked at Theresa, who was smiling, and he smiled back. ‘Thanks.’