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the moment, feeling good about stealing the upper hand. “Your secretary told me.”
    “Yeah. Trinnock’s up in cottage country for the next few days. He and all the other health-unit bosses are meeting in Muskoka. And thank goodness, too. It’ll give us a little breathing room. I just couldn’t face him when I saw his name light up last night on my Call Display.”
    Zol glanced at his watch. With any luck, Natasha would have found Mrs. Patel by now. His pulse quickened as he pictured Natasha, her graceful fingers poised over her notepad, her sharp mind discovering the unlikely thread that would link the vegetariancar salesman with the Rhodes Scholar dentist.
    The phone rang, its red flashing light indicating that Anne was calling from her desk at the reception area in front of Trinnock’s office. She might have been classed as a secretary, but she was the administrative heart of the health unit. She never interrupted if she knew Zol had a visitor. A knot of apprehension gripped his stomach, banishing his sense of euphoria.
    “Sorry to disturb you, Dr. Szabo.” Anne sounded rattled. “I know you’re busy with Dr. Wakefield. But there’s a man on the line. He said — he said I’d be sorry if — if I didn’t put him through immediately.”
    “Did he give his name?”
    “No. He sounds like an older man, with an accent. European, I think.”
    “Did he say what he wants?”
    “I tried to take a message, but he won’t speak to anyone but you.”
    “I guess you’d better put him on.” Zol cupped the mouthpiece with his palm and turned to Hamish. “This sounds like a touchy relative from Shalom Acres. Everyone’s been pretty upset over there lately. I’d better speak to him.”
    Hamish scanned his notes as if hunting for unfinished business. “No problem. I’ll catch up with you later.”
    “I have a feeling,” said Zol, “we’re going to be dumped from our frying pans into a whole lot of fires before this roast gets carved.”

CHAPTER 4
    On the way back to Caledonian Medical Centre on Mud Street in the far southeast of the city, Hamish stopped at the car wash to collect his thoughts while three men lathered the road salt and street grime from his Saab. When he’d interviewed for the position at Caledonian two years ago, he’d been enormously relieved to find that Mud Street was no muddier than any other street in the city.
    The car wash was the perfect place to think without interruptions. Impenetrable to pagers and mobile phones, it was a haven from an intrusive world. Zol’s outburst over what Hamish said to Brenda McEwen had been a slap in the face. Unfair and totally uncalled for. Hamish picked at his cuticles. He had the feeling Zol knew more than he was letting on, that he didn’t believe the English beef connection. Hamish peered through the suds on the windshield. The white noise of the water jets, usually so soothing, did nothing to quell his trepidations. When the fans shut down, he left the car wash and turned cautiously into Stone Church Road.
    His cellphone trilled immediately.
    “Hamish Wakefield speaking.”
    “Hi, Hamish, it’s Jeff Suszek.” One of the Emerg docs at Caledonian. “Got a case for you. But I can hardly hear you.”
    “This is as loud as I get.”
    “Oh, yeah. Sorry,” he said, then explained that he had a farmer who’d arrived at the Emergency Department earlier with an infection in his right arm. He’d been bitten by one of his mink. The entire upper limb was infected — red, swollen, and extremely painful. The man had a fever but wasn’t delirious.
    “By the look of the wounds, the mink must have been pretty mad about the idea of being turned into a winter coat,” Suszek said with a chuckle. “But seriously, I need to know what antibiotics to start him on. Do mink carry any kind of exotic diseases?”
    “Extremely painful, eh?” said Hamish.
    “Won’t let me near his arm.”
    “Sounds pretty bad. Give him a tetanus shot, and I’ll be there in