A Life for a Life (9 page)

‘We’ve come to take you down to the station, sir.’

‘It’ll have to wait, my fiancée’s ill and I have to go and—’

‘This isn’t a request, sir.’

‘She’s
ill
, dammit – I’m sorry, but you’ll have to—’

One of them gripped his arm. ‘Please don’t make this –
hweeer…
’

His breath wheezed out as Fraser’s elbow jabbed into his belly and he fell back clutching it. The other lunged at him, but his chin somehow ran into Fraser’s fist. Fraser pushed him over and leapt into his car, gunned the engine, ploughed through his neighbour’s lawn and away.

Oh shit shit shit what have I done…?

He put his foot down.

For insurance purposes, the MGB is classified as a sports car, but other than for its road holding, it has no advantage over an average family saloon, let alone a police car. Two of them cut him off a mile from Mary’s house.

He got out and stood still as they cuffed his hands behind his back and bundled him into one of the cars. As they set off, he said quietly but firmly to the plainclothes man next to him, ‘I’m sorry for the trouble I’ve caused, but will you please phone my GP and ask him to go and see my fiancée? She’s very ill.’

The plainclothes man said after a pause, ‘And where is your fiancée?’

‘At 22, Laurel Gardens. I was trying to get to her. Please, she’s very ill.’

The man stared at him a moment before putting the call through to the station.

11

They left him in a room with a police constable and an equally silent cup of machine coffee, all part of the softening up process, he assumed. After about half an hour, he demanded to know what was being done about Frances. The constable passed the question on and the answer came back that Dr Parker had been called. Fraser had already been asked if he wanted legal advice and had spoken to the only firm of solicitors he knew, the one that had handled his house conveyance.

After another thirty minutes or so, the door opened and Lyn Harvey came in, accompanied by a tall, rather good-looking woman of about Fraser’s age.

‘Your GP, Dr Parker, has seen your fiancée and says to tell you that there’s nothing to worry about.’

‘Thank you,’ said Fraser.

‘This is Mrs Croft, the solicitor you requested.’

‘Agnes Croft.’ She held out her hand to Fraser. It was cool and soft. She turned to Lyn. ‘Perhaps we could be left alone, Inspector.’

Over the next two hours, she took notes and asked questions while Fraser told her everything he could think of, up to his
faux pas
that morning.

‘I’ve been kicking myself ever since,’ he said.

‘And so you should,’ she said. ‘Striking a police officer is just about the worst crime there is in their book – and it’s given them more authority over you than they’d have otherwise had.’ She sighed. ‘Oh well, from the sound of things, they were going to arrest you anyway. Let’s find out what they’ve got.’ She stood up. ‘Remember, pause before you answer each question in case I tell you not to answer it.’

They were taken down to a windowless room with recording equipment on a table against the wall. Fraser sat with Lyn Harvey opposite him and a tall, soldierly man with a moustache adjacent to them both. Agnes Croft sat as near as she could to Fraser.

Lyn tested the equipment, then named those present. The tall man was Superintendent Garrett.

‘Dr Callan, you told me yesterday that your relationship with Dr Flint – and I quote – “wasn’t very good”. That was something of an understatement, wasn’t it?’

Fraser said after a pause, ‘As a professional person, that was how I saw it and wished to describe it.’

‘I see. Could you tell us how, and why, your relationship with her came to deteriorate so much – over the last two years, shall we say? As you saw it,’ she added, with the merest touch of irony.

Once again, Fraser described his dispute with Connie over Alkovin, trying to present it as dispassionately as possible.

‘So in effect,’ Lyn said when he’d finished, ‘she exiled you to America for three months?’

‘If you care to put it like that, yes. It turned out to be quite a useful experience,’ he added.

‘One witness has told us that Dr Flint described it as a cooling-off period, your last chance, and gave you the option of accepting it or facing dismissal.’

Thanks, Ian…

‘Well, Dr Callan?’

‘In essence, that’s true.’

‘This witness also said that a state of open warfare existed between you and Dr Flint.’

‘That is an exaggeration.’

‘Is it? The people we’ve spoken to at your workplace all agree that the relationship between you was appalling.’

‘As I told you yesterday, it wasn’t very good. Open warfare is an exaggeration.’

After a slight pause, Lyn continued, ‘You returned from America on Friday, 7th May to discover that your fiancée, Frances Templeton, had leukaemia and was being treated by Dr Flint?’

‘Yes.’

‘It must have come as a shock?’

‘Yes, it did.’

‘Your fiancée knew about her condition several days before your return, and yet she chose not to tell you about it. Why was that, d’you think?’

Agnes came in quickly. ‘Don’t answer that for the moment, Fraser.’

Lyn continued as though the interruption hadn’t taken place. ‘You’re very worried about your fiancée, aren’t you, Dr Callan?’

‘You know I am. She’s now suffering from clinical depression and her mother phoned me this morning to tell me she was having a fit – that’s why I tried to get away from your officers.’ He thought he might as well get it in while he could.

‘You must have been horrified when you discovered on your return that Dr Flint was treating her with Alkovin?’

‘I wasn’t pleased.’

‘More understatement?’

Fraser didn’t reply and Lyn went on, ‘On Saturday, 8th May, after visiting your fiancée in hospital, you went to see Dr Flint in her office, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where you threatened her.’

‘I did not.’

‘You didn’t threaten her?’

‘No.’

‘We have a witness who overheard your conversation with her.’ She extracted a sheet of paper and read from it… ‘Dr Flint said, “Are you threatening me, Fraser?” and Dr Callan answered, “Yes, I am threatening you.”’

Thank you, Terry
, Fraser thought, then said, ‘That has been taken out of context.’

‘Really? The statement continues: Dr Flint said, “All you have to threaten me with is violence,” and then, “Would you kill me, Fraser?” Dr Callan replied, “If anything happened to Frances, then I would kill you.”’ Lyn looked up. ‘And something did happen to Frances, didn’t it? The very thing you’d feared – she developed clinical depression. Didn’t she, Dr Callan?’

Agnes said, ‘We seem to be straying into rather esoteric areas. I request a break to talk with my client.’

Garrett said, ‘You had plenty of time to talk to your client earlier, Mrs Croft. We’ve been going for less than an hour and I think we should hear Dr Callan’s answer to DI Harvey’s question. We’ll break before long.’

Lyn said, ‘Frances developed clinical depression, didn’t she, Dr Callan?’

‘Yes.’

‘You must have found it very upsetting?’

‘Of course I did.’

‘And it made you angry?’

Fraser glanced at Agnes, who nodded. He said, ‘Yes, it did.’

‘And on Friday, 2nd July, after Frances had been diagnosed with clinical depression, you went and – er – had it out with Dr Flint?’

‘I conveyed my feelings to her, yes.’

‘A witness describes hearing a scream from Dr Flint’s room and the words “Help, he’s assaulting me,” and upon investigation, found her in a distraught state. She had bruising to the wrists, while you had slap marks on both sides of your face.’

‘She did slap me,’ said Fraser, ‘which is why I held her wrists – to prevent her doing it again.’

‘Why did she slap you, Dr Callan?’

Another nod from Agnes.

‘She told me I needed counselling because of my relationship with Frances and I told her that she was in no position to judge other people’s relationships.’

Lyn said disbelievingly, ‘She slapped you for that?’

‘Yes.’ He didn’t add that she’d also kneed his balls.

‘I see. So then she accused you of assault and called in the police, since when you’ve been suspended pending enquiry?’

‘That’s true, but—’

‘Effectively, that’s the end of your career, isn’t it, Dr Callan? I think we’ll take a break now,’ she said before Fraser could reply.

*

‘She’s twisting everything around to make it look as bad as possible.’

‘Of course she is,’ Agnes said. ‘That’s her job. The advantage from our point of view is that it tells us what kind of case they’re trying to build. Tell me again about the so-called threat you made to Dr Flint – everything you can remember.’

Fraser did so. Agnes continued:

‘This man Stroud, does he have any grudge against you?’

‘He might have,’ Fraser said, and told her how JS had asked him to look into the laboratory and how he’d then seriously considered retiring Terry. ‘I can’t swear that Terry knew about it, but I’m as sure as I can be that he did.’

‘All right. Now tell me again about the last row, the so-called assault.’

Once again, Fraser did so.

‘I think you were right not to mention the knee to the groin,’ Agnes said. ‘Forget it for now.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Let’s see what Act Two brings.’

*

This time, Garrett opened the questioning, asking Fraser to describe again the events after Connie had phoned him. His voice was surprisingly soft and, to Fraser, the more menacing for that.

After he’d finished, Garrett said, ‘The stick you found on the steps – was it lying across the steps, or flat on one of them?’

Fraser thought. ‘Flat, I think.’

‘What made you pick it up?’

‘It looked untidy, I assumed someone had dropped it.’

‘And you noticed nothing strange about it?’

‘Not at the time, no.’

‘The knobbed end was quite heavily bloodstained.’

‘Yes, I realised that later, but I didn’t notice it at the time.’

‘You told us how you pushed the door open – is that something you usually do when calling on people?’

‘No, but there was no reply to my ringing and I noticed it was ajar, so I—’

‘A lot ajar, or a little?’

‘A little. I pushed it open and—’

‘Still holding the stick?’

‘Yes. I called out and then saw Dr Flint lying there…’

‘What did you do with the stick then?’

‘I – I put it down when I tried to see if there was anything I could do for her.’

‘Put it down where?’

‘On the floor…’

‘You don’t sound very sure about that.’

‘I was more concerned about Dr Flint than the stick.’

‘You see, Dr Callan, Mr Farleigh has told us that you were still holding the stick when he found you with Dr Flint’s—’

‘Then he’s a bloody liar!’ Fraser shouted.

Agnes leaned forward, touched his arm in warning. He swallowed, said, ‘I want to tell you something about Leo Farleigh, Superintendent – if anyone killed Connie, then it was him, he had a lot more motive than me.’

‘Tell us about Mr Farleigh’s motive, Dr Callan.’

Fraser, knowing he hadn’t introduced the subject at the best time or in the best way, glanced at Agnes again before telling them about Connie’s call to him, how she’d said she was worried about the “others”… ‘She could only have meant Leo and Ian Saunders, that they’d have tried to prevent her changing her mind about Alkovin.’

‘How could they have known she’d changed her mind?’

‘She must have told them – I asked Leo when he arrived if she’d phoned him and he said yes.’

‘He’d just found you crouched beside a dead body with a stick in your hand, Dr Callan. He wasn’t going to disagree with you about anything.’

‘Are you saying she
didn’t
phone him?’

‘BT have a record of her call to you, but no record of her calling Mr Farleigh.’

‘Well, if you know she called me, then why—’

‘We know she
called
you, but not what she said. We have only your word for that, Dr Callan.’

There was a silence while Fraser absorbed this, then Garrett said, ‘Let’s get back to Mr Farleigh for a moment, doctor. I believe you had an – er – altercation with him quite recently, on Tuesday, 15th June, in fact?’

‘We had words, yes.’

‘He says you nearly throttled him when he tried to commiserate with you about Miss Templeton.’

Fraser took a breath and told him what had happened. ‘He was trying to score points, Superintendent, that’s why I lost my temper. It was wrong of me, I know, but I was short of sleep.’

Garrett said deliberately, ‘PC Booker, one of the officers who tried to arrest you this morning, is in hospital with a suspected fractured jaw – is that because you were short of sleep as well?’

Fraser closed his eyes for a moment. ‘I’m truly sorry to hear that, Superintendent, but you know how, and why, it happened,’

‘Indeed I do, Dr Callan. The point is, though, that since your fiancée developed leukaemia, you seem to have developed a rather short fuse.’ Barely pausing, he said, ‘You and Dr Flint had a sexual relationship, didn’t you?’

Fraser said, ‘That was over two years ago—’ at the same time Agnes said, ‘Don’t answer that.’

Garrett continued as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘Even so, it does go some way to explaining the intensity of the hatred between you, doesn’t it?’

‘Don’t answer, Fraser.’

Garrett leaned forward and spoke softly. ‘I don’t think you’re a murderer, Dr Callan.’

Fraser looked up at him.

‘I think you’re a man under great stress. Your fiancée’s dangerously ill, your career’s in ruins. There but for fortune – who knows what any of us would do under those circumstances…?’

Fraser gazed back at him, mesmerised, like a bird by a snake.

‘We know that Dr Flint phoned you. Perhaps she did offer some sort of olive branch, asked you to come over and talk about it. Perhaps she then made it clear she still expected your capitulation, and in the heat of the moment, you grabbed the stick… didn’t realise what you were doing. That wouldn’t be murder, Dr Callan, not in my book. We’re human, we all know about human frailty…’