Tangled web, p.22
Tangled Web, page 22
‘God, that’s nice,’ murmured Gordon, as his eyelids grew heavy. He reached up his hand and found Mary’s. He held it against his cheek for a moment before slipping off into a deep sleep. His last happy thought was that she hadn’t taken it away.
Gordon’s first depressing thought on waking up at seven-thirty was that he had failed to get a sample of tissue from Anne-Marie Palmer’s body and it was now too late: her remains had been destroyed. He swore and sat up, encouraging his head wound to remind him that this was a bad idea. He sank slowly back down on the pillow and lay still while he wondered if his last chance to get any real evidence had gone. He wasn’t at all sure what he would do now but a first step would be trying to get out of bed.
The effects of the painkillers he’d been given the previous night had now completely worn off leaving him aching in places he hadn’t realised he’d got. He sat up and swung his legs round, but with the slowness and difficulty of a man forty years his senior. He was just about to try standing up when Chief Inspector Davies arrived.
‘Not a bloody thing,’ announced Davies by way of greeting.
Gordon looked at him, hoping for an explanation but felt apprehensive about the look of self-satisfaction on Davies’s face.
‘Not a bloody thing, Gordon.’
‘Do we go on like this or are you going to tell me what you’re talking about?’ asked Gordon sourly.
‘We didn’t find one single thing to corroborate your story about being tied up in the boiler house last night,’ said Davies. ‘Not one little thing.’
‘But you must have found bits of tape? And that rag he stuffed in my mouth? I threw it on the floor,’ protested Gordon.
‘Not a thing.’
‘Blood on the transporter from my head? There must be something!’
Davies shook his head slowly. ‘Nothing.’
‘Well, maybe the boiler-house man cleaned up. Did you ask him?’
‘Of course we did,’ said Davies softly. ‘He came on duty at eight, just before I came over here. That was the first sign of him: there is no night shift.’
‘Well …’ Gordon began before failing to find any words to follow up with. He waved his hands helplessly as he tried to think of an explanation.
‘Don’t tell me,’ said Davies with a humourless smile. ‘Carwyn Thomas came back from the dead to clean up the boiler house and mess up your alibi.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ snapped Gordon.
‘You think I’m being ridiculous?’ said Davies, feigning astonishment.
‘What about the mortuary?’ said Gordon, putting his hand gingerly to his bandaged head wound. ‘There must have been blood on the floor after he hit me.’
‘If there was, he cleaned that up too,’ said Davies.
‘Anne-Marie’s body!’ exclaimed Gordon. ‘It’s not there any more, is it?’
‘It is missing,’ agreed Davies.
‘At last we are agreed on something,’ sighed Gordon, letting his head fall back on the pillow. ‘You can’t really believe that I had a hand in Thomas’s death?’ he said.
‘Let’s wait and see what the pathologist says. In the meantime you can tell me about this secret research you say Professor Thomas was involved in.’
In his present condition, Gordon had little heart for it but he sat on the edge of the bed and supported his head in his hands while he got his thoughts in order.
‘I don’t think Anne-Marie Palmer was really Anne-Marie Palmer,’ he began. It was a bad start as far as the policeman was concerned. He rolled his eyes.
‘I think she was the result of a human cloning procedure performed in Thomas’s IVF unit.’
‘Human cloning procedure? You mean like in creating a copy of a living person?’
Gordon nodded.
‘Can you prove this?’
‘That’s what I was trying to do last night when I got knocked unconscious and sent to an early cremation. I found out through a friend that Anne-Marie Palmer’s body had been transferred to Caernarfon General at Thomas’s request. I wanted to get a tissue sample for DNA fingerprinting before he’d had a chance to destroy the evidence. Unfortunately I met him in the car park when I arrived and I think he suspected that was why I was there. Now it’s too late to get the proof I was after. Anne-Marie went into the incinerator.’
‘Of course, you could have put Anne-Marie Palmer’s body into the fire, couldn’t you?’ said Davies.
‘Why the hell would I do that?’ exploded Gordon, his exasperation boiling over. ‘My whole reason for being there was to prove that she wasn’t the natural child of the Palmers. Her body was evidence as far as I was concerned. Why would I want to destroy it? What possible motive could I have had?’
‘Maybe you discovered that Anne-Marie was in fact the Palmers’ natural child so you wanted to get rid of the evidence before you made a complete prat of yourself - yet again! Professor Thomas might have caught you in the act and had a heart attack all because of you and your loony ideas.’
‘What a fine mind you have, Davies,’ said Gordon caustically.
‘You’re in deep enough shit as it is, Gordon,’ growled Davies. ‘Don’t make things worse for yourself.’
Gordon ignored the warning. ‘Who’s carrying out the pathology on Thomas?’ he asked.
‘Dr French.’
‘The same man who agreed to transfer Anne-Marie’s remains to Caernarfon at Thomas’s request.’
‘What are you trying to say?’
‘I’m not trying to say anything. I’m just pointing out that the body, despite being subject to Crown Prosecution Service regulations, was moved here at the request of Carwyn Thomas. I think so that he could destroy it but I don’t know what he told French. I understand they were in the same golf club, so, instead of making up stories about me, why not ask French about it and ask him why he agreed to do something so grossly illegal.’
‘You’re not exactly making yourself popular round here, are you Doctor?’ sighed Davies.
‘I don’t think I’d like to be popular round here,’ replied Gordon with plain meaning.
Davies left and Mary came in. ‘Can I take it, you two haven’t exactly become firm friends yet,’ she said, looking after the departing Davies.
‘You could say,’ said Gordon wearily. He was still sitting on the edge of the bed.
‘You’ve decided to leave us then?’
‘I feel okay,’ said Gordon.
‘You’ll have to sign the form,’ said Mary, suspecting that any argument would be useless. She was referring to the liability waiver that had to be signed when a patient wanted to leave before an official discharge was granted.
‘No problem.’
‘I’ll be off duty soon. Coffee?’
Gordon agreed and got his clothes out from the bedside locker. The act of bending down brought on a severe headache and he sat back down on the edge of the bed for a moment.
‘Sure you won’t change your mind?’ asked Mary.
‘I’m going.’
TWENTY TWO
‘I suppose Professor Thomas’s death changes everything?’ said Mary, as they took coffee in the hospital cafeteria.
‘It’s certainly not going to help John Palmer,’ said Gordon, feeling low. ‘Thomas was probably the only person in the world who could have told me why Anne-Marie Palmer was murdered. It might be academic now but I can’t even follow up on my suspicion that she wasn’t really the Palmers’ child. The evidence went into the incinerator.’
‘It’s still so hard to believe the professor was involved in something like that,’ said Mary. ‘I didn’t know him well but you get a feeling about people. He always seemed such a genuine man.’
‘It did seem out of character, I’ll grant you,’ Gordon agreed.
‘Maybe none of us is all that we seem,’ said Mary ruefully.
Gordon agreed. ‘It’s the age of the image.’
‘What will you do now?’
‘I’m not at all sure,’ said Gordon, with a shrug of the shoulders. ‘I think my only chance lies in finding something that Thomas left in writing. I keep thinking he must have made notes about his experiments or kept some kind of records: he couldn’t possibly have kept everything in his head. Scientists don’t do that.’
‘I hope you’re right.’
‘He was pretty thorough by all accounts. It would be out of character for him not to.’
‘Where will you start?’
‘Maybe I’ll take another look at his lab. I might have more success when I’m not so nervous and I didn’t exactly have a lot of time last time.’
‘Won’t the police have sealed it off?’
‘No reason to,’ said Gordon. ‘The medical staff on the spot seemed satisfied that it was death by natural causes despite what Davies was proposing about my involvement. Anyway, the PM results should be out today.’
‘Do you really have to do this all on your own?’ asked Mary. ‘Surely there must be someone in Thomas’s unit who could help you look through his files and records? Isn’t it possible that some of the people there might even have suspected that something odd was going on?’
Gordon realised that he should have thought of this himself. ‘You’re absolutely right,’ he said. ‘I could have a word with Dawes. He’s the chief cytologist in the IVF unit; to all intents he was Thomas’s right-hand man. If anyone was in a position to smell a rat, he was. I’ll talk to him.’
Mary was glad to see that the cloud of depression had lifted a little from Gordon. ‘I’m off to bed now,’ she announced. ‘But I’m not on duty tonight. Why don’t you come round this evening? I’ll cook for us.’
Gordon smiled broadly and said, ‘That sounds good to me. I’ll look forward to it. Tell me where you live.’
Mary wrote her address on a page of a small, spiral-bound notebook she took out of her handbag and tore it off to give to Gordon. He said that he knew it.
‘About eight,’ said Mary. ‘Your car’s still at Caernarfon?’
Gordon said that it was. It was still in the car park at the hospital.
‘I’ll run you up.’
Gordon protested but Mary insisted, saying that she was in no great hurry to get to bed as she wouldn’t be on duty that evening and it was always difficult to sleep on shift change-over nights. It was just coming up to nine thirty when she dropped him off in the car park at Caernarfon General and he waved good-bye. The prospect of dinner with Mary had already done much to raise his spirits. He found it hard to keep the smile off his face as he walked up to the hospital.
The staff in the IVF unit were talking in little huddles as Gordon passed through on his way to find Ran Dawes. The snatches of conversation he picked up suggested that they were still in a state of shock at the news. They were also concerned about what might happen to their jobs, should the hospital decide not to continue with the unit. He found Ran Dawes sitting at one of his microscopes. Dawes turned round when Gordon asked, ‘Can we talk?’
‘Of course,’ replied Dawes. ‘I’m on autopilot: I’m just going through the motions this morning. I still can’t believe it.’
‘Gordon nodded. ‘Actually it’s a bit delicate,’ he said, half looking over his shoulder.
Dawes looked intrigued. ‘We can talk in my office,’ he said, indicating to the door at the end of the microscopy lab.
The room was small and cluttered but, unlike the main cytology lab, it had a window in it. Dawes cleared away a pile of scientific journals from the chair in front of his desk and invited Gordon to sit. He himself he sat down on a swivel chair behind the desk and leaned forward to rest his elbows on it. ‘How can I help?’ he asked.
Gordon saw no easy way of approaching the subject so he took the plunge. ‘I think Professor Thomas was involved in some illegal experimentation,’ he said. ‘I think he was dabbling in human cloning.’
Dawes looked shocked. ‘You can’t be serious?’ he exclaimed.
Gordon affirmed that he was. ‘I think that’s why the unit’s figures for ICSI were worse than other labs. Donor DNA was being injected into patients’ ova instead of their husbands’ sperm. The high failure rate from these implants was skewing the figures.’
‘God Almighty,’ exclaimed Dawes. ’I don’t rightly know what to say.’
‘You didn’t suspect anything?’ asked Gordon, disappointed that Dawes’ reaction already suggested that was the case.
Dawes shrugged and said not. ‘It never even occurred to me. What put you on to this?’
‘Let’s say, it’s where my interest in Anne-Marie Palmer’s death has led me,’ replied Gordon. ‘I think Anne-Marie herself was the result of a cloning experiment: I don’t think she was the natural child of the Palmers at all and this fact had a bearing on her death. ’
‘My God,’ whispered Dawes. ‘But I suppose that might well explain her deformity.’
‘Last night I met Professor Thomas in the car park when I came up to the hospital. He helped me gain access to the mortuary where it was my intention to take a tissue sample from Anne-Marie: I wanted her DNA fingerprinted to get conclusive proof that she’d been cloned, but it didn’t quite work out that way.’ He told Dawes what had happened.
‘You think Carwyn tried to kill you?’ exclaimed Dawes, his voice now strained. ‘This is absolutely incredible.’
‘I was destined for the incinerator along with Anne-Marie Palmer’s body,’ said Gordon. ‘I survived but her remains didn’t, so I can’t prove what Thomas was up to. That’s where I’d like you come in.’
‘Me?’
‘I need your help,’ said Gordon. ‘He must have written something down about what he was doing; he couldn’t have kept it all in his head. I have to find these notes or records to have any chance at all of convincing the police that there was more to the death of Anne-Marie Palmer than met the eye.’
‘So who do you think did kill her?’ asked Dawes.
‘I don’t know,’ confessed Gordon. ‘But I am convinced that her death was linked to what’s been going on here in the unit. I found her file in Thomas’s lab along with a lot of stuff on human cloning.’
`You searched the professor’s lab?’
Gordon nodded.
‘Now you come to mention it …’ said Dawes thoughtfully, ‘Carwyn had become rather secretive about what he was doing on his own account.’
‘Did you normally share the lab work?’
‘Between three of us.’
‘Will you help me?’ asked Gordon.
‘I’ll certainly do what I can,’ agreed Dawes. ‘Where would you like to start?’
‘I think we should make a thorough search of his lab and office and see what we come up with.’
Dawes nodded but said, ‘I think I’ll have to leave you to do that on your own while I explain to the symposium delegates just what’s happened. I’ll suggest that we suspend proceedings as a mark of respect. We’ve only got one more day to go anyway but I suspect the press will be swarming all over the hospital by lunchtime.’
‘Probably,’ said Gordon. ‘Maybe you could mention to the rest of the IVF unit staff that I’ll be around for a bit?’
Dawes nodded and said that he would. ‘I’ll be back by lunchtime,’ he said. ‘You can tell me how you’ve got on and we can talk about what you’d like to do next?’
Gordon arranged to meet Dawes outside in the car park rather than inside the hospital. ’It’ll stop the staff wondering what we’re up to.’
Dawes accompanied Gordon along to Thomas’s office where they found the door locked. ‘Damn,’ said Dawes. ‘I’ll ask Rita.’ He left Gordon alone for a few moments before returning with a key and saying, ‘His secretary had a spare.’ He unlocked the door, handed the key to Gordon and said, ‘I’ll leave you now. Hope you find what you’re looking for. See you later.’
Gordon entered Thomas’s office and closed the door behind him. This time there was a feeling of anticlimax and sadness. The pictures on the wall seemed to be a poignant reminder of a brilliant career that had taken a fatal wrong turning, but it wouldn’t be the first, he mused. He walked across to the lab door and paused to look out of the window through the slats of the venetian blinds as he’d done last time. He saw Ran Dawes hurrying across the yard but then saw him stop as if someone had called out to him.
James Trool came into view and the two men stood talking for a few moments. Gordon drew back involuntarily when both men looked up at the window. He supposed that they were discussing the tragedy that had befallen Thomas, but he wondered if Dawes might be telling Trool about his presence. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
Thomas’s lab looked pretty much as it had on the last occasion. He supposed that the man hadn’t had much occasion to use it again, what with the symposium taking up so much of his time, although he did notice that the articles on cloning were no longer sitting by the microscope. He noticed that there was a layer of dust on its plastic cover.
He pulled out the drawer where he’d found Anne-Marie Palmer’s medical file last time and found it empty. He stood there for a moment, transfixed by the empty space, considering that he’d made a mistake, although quite sure in his own mind that he hadn’t. He pulled out several other drawers in quick succession but the file wasn’t there either. They were all completely empty.
Gordon cursed and faced the fact that the file had gone the same way as the articles on cloning. The lab had been cleared out. ‘Shit,’ he exclaimed, resting both hands on the bench then he had another thought. The freezer! What about the bloody freezer? He hurried over to the chest freezer and pushed up the lid to find what he’d feared. The frozen foetuses had gone too. Only test tubes and chemical bottles remained.
Gordon cursed again. His chances of proving anything now seemed more remote than ever. He supposed that Thomas must have been panicked into destroying everything - maybe that was why he’d had a heart attack. Then Gordon remembered that he’d also had a lot of cleaning up work to do before that, down in the mortuary and in the incinerator room too. It struck him as odd that Thomas had done all that clearing up … then he’d destroyed everything in his lab that could possibly implicate him in cloning experiments … and then he’d had a heart attack and died. It all suddenly seemed just too tidy to be true.
