Murder of a Dead Man (25 page)

‘This is the man we’re looking for, Mr Marks.’

Dan produced a photograph of Tony. ‘I see from the expression on your face that you know who he is.’

‘You’re seeing something that isn’t there, Inspector.’

‘Were you aware that he was a convicted murderer when you operated on him? Did he agree to be your guinea pig? Did you promise him a new face, and a ticket to a new life? Did you offer him anything else, Mr Marks? Money? A job? Before you dumped him on skid row?’

‘You have evidence to substantiate this line of questioning, Inspector? Because if you don’t, you’ll be hearing from my lawyer.’

Dan opened his briefcase and pulled out a file.

It was a photocopy of the one Daisy had found in the hospital giving the medical details of a face transplant carried out on a twenty-eight-year-old male.

‘There’s no date on this. Or any indication of who the surgeon was.’ Marks barely glanced at the papers before handing them back to Dan.

‘Look at the end of the document, not the beginning.’

Marks turned over the pages. A name and date was scrawled at the bottom of the last one. ‘But that isn’t my writing – it could have been added to the document at any time.’

‘But you agree the document originated with you?’

‘I don’t have to listen to this.’ Laurence Marks left his chair.

‘No, you don’t, Mr Marks. But there is sufficient evidence in these papers for the authorities to apply for your extradition.’

‘On what charge?’

‘Perverting the course of justice. That’s a serious offence in a murder inquiry with eleven dead and thirty injured. All I’m asking for is an hour or two of your time. Your conference has finished for the day. I promise you, any information you give me relevant to the face transplant you carried out on this man,’ he tapped the photograph of Tony, ‘will remain confidential.’

Laurence Marks hesitated. ‘Are you promising me immunity from prosecution?’

‘Only from charges relating to the actual transplant. Not the subsequent or prior events.’

‘And the harvesting of the face?’

Dan had already stretched his authority beyond its limits. ‘Not the harvesting.’

Laurence Marks invited Dan to his suite. The air-conditioning kept the atmosphere at a comfortable temperature; the double-glazing effectively shut out the noise from the street; the beige and blue decor neither pleased nor displeased. They could have been in a five star hotel in any city in the world.

‘Drink?’ Marks went to the bar.

‘No thank you.’

‘Take a seat.’ Marks poured himself a large bourbon. ‘You can begin by telling me exactly how you think I can help you.’

‘Perhaps it would be better, Mr Marks, if I began by telling you what we know. We know you operated on a healthy young man, removing his face and transplanting the face of Anthony George who had recently died of natural causes. We also know there was no medical reason for the surgery, and shortly afterwards your guinea pig patient was living rough on the streets.’

‘You say there was no medical reason for the transplant, Inspector. What if I told you the operation was pioneering, successful and has proved of incalculable benefit to the development of the face-transplant programme and the well-being of subsequent patients?’

‘My approval or disapproval is immaterial, Mr Marks. Who approached you to carry out this particular face transplant – and why?’

‘If I told you, I would be in breach of patient/doctor confidentiality.’

‘We have established that you were working in the hospital where Anthony George died. And you were on duty the night the face was removed from his corpse.’

‘I may have been on duty at the hospital that night, but I wasn’t the only surgeon on the premises capable of carrying out that procedure.’

‘You were the only consultant plastic surgeon on duty that night. We have sworn statements from every member of staff in that hospital, detailing their whereabouts at the time Anthony George’s face was removed. Even two years later, we should be able to establish that you had the opportunity.’

Marks carried his glass over to a chair, and sat down. ‘So did others.’

‘A scandal could affect your career and the transplant programme,’ Dan warned.

‘You’d risk sabotaging, perhaps even ending, a programme vital to the rehabilitation of damaged people, to carry out a personal witch hunt against me?’

‘I will do whatever is necessary to remove a murderer from the streets,’ Dan replied.

‘If I tell you what I know, will you give me your word that you won’t contact the press about our programme?’

‘I can guarantee that.’

‘The operation was performed in a private clinic. I rented the room and the theatre facilities and engaged an anaesthetist and a nurse to look after my subject.’

Dan winced at the use of the word “subject”.

‘And the recipient?’

‘If I knew his name, I’ve forgotten it.’

Dan produced the folder of photographs. He removed a studio shot of Adam Weaver, taken when he’d been working on the detective series. ‘Was this the man?’

‘It was.’

‘You’re certain?’

‘Absolutely, I studied that face before grafting on the new one.’

‘There was nothing wrong with it?’

‘No.’

‘Didn’t you ask why a man with perfect facial features should want a transplant?’

‘I knew he was a convicted killer serving a life sentence. He’d put his name forward as a subject prepared to assist in medical research.’

Dan had heard of medical research programmes being carried out in prisons. The testing of new antibiotics and cures for the common cold. But there was a world of difference between those programmes and what Marks had done to Weaver.

‘Did you discuss the nature of the surgery with your subject beforehand?’

‘It wasn’t necessary. I required a guinea pig.

The man had volunteered.’

‘You said his name wasn’t important, yet you knew he was serving a life sentence?’

‘His face had been splashed across the front pages of the newspapers; he was appealing against his sentence.’

‘Did you speak to Adam Weaver’s solicitor?’

‘Adam Weaver?’

‘Your subject.’ Dan’s patience was wearing thin.

‘No.’ Mark’s reply was too quick, too finite.

‘Because there was no mention in the press of an appeal, but if there was to have been one, his solicitor would have known about it, and,’ Dan raised his eyes to Marks’s. ‘Weaver’s solicitor has the same surname as you.’

Laurence Marks drained his glass and walked over to the bar. ‘Brian Marks is my uncle. I was living in his house when I did the transplant.’

‘And Brian Marks was both Anthony George’s and Adam Weaver’s solicitor.’

‘I did not discuss the transplant programme with my uncle.’

Dan remained sceptically silent.

‘I needed a donor and I needed a subject. I was in touch with the prison authorities. My subject had signed a medical release form stating that he wished to participate in research programmes. The donor face was available. If I hadn’t taken it that night it would have been cremated a few days later.

Anthony George was carrying a donor card. I checked with the casualty sister.’

‘A card that has no validity unless it is endorsed by next-of-kin,’ Dan said.

‘Research was at a crucial stage. Subjects were in short supply. A major project was in danger of losing its funding, and it wasn’t as though anyone was damaged.’

‘Except possibly your subject, Mr Marks.’

‘A convicted killer, Inspector Evans.’

‘Want coffee? I’ll hold it for you,’ Trevor said to Anna.

‘It’s time to call a taxi.’ Anna held up her hands. ‘I have to go to the hospital. My dressings need changing.’

‘Take the rest of the afternoon off.’

‘I intend to. It was bloody agony the last time they did it. In fact it’s bloody agony all the time. I don’t think I’ve slept through a night since it happened.’

‘Could be because you’re sleeping with Peter.’

Knowing Trevor was fishing for gossip, Anna smiled. ‘I am not. And in case you haven’t noticed, the man’s a pussycat in my hands.’

‘You’ve pulled his claws?’

‘And he hasn’t even noticed. Do you know what sounds irresistible? A couple of tranquillisers, a good video, a bottle of wine, and fish and chips.’

She grinned at him ‘They promised to free my thumbs today, so I should be able to grip without getting my bandages filthy.’

‘Grip what? Peter’s neck?’

‘Hopefully, with plastic bags over my hands, a bath sponge.’

Trevor left his desk. ‘I’ll run you to the hospital.’

‘There’s no need. The taxi service is good.’

‘After a morning spent in this place, I’m ready for a break.’

‘Did you discuss this first transplant with anyone, Mr Marks?’

‘Like who?’

‘Your colleagues? Your uncle?’

‘Not everyone forgets what they’ve already said, Inspector. I told you my uncle knew nothing of this; but my colleagues knew of my success. I delivered a report to the firm sponsoring the programme and medical representatives from rival programmes, and I took care to see that my work was properly documented, and photographed.’

‘There were no photographs in the file we saw in the burns unit in England.’

‘There wouldn’t have been. Given the press coverage the guinea pig had received, I insisted on concealing both the subject’s and the donor’s identities. Only the sponsors were given full photographic evidence.’

‘And your sponsors were satisfied with that?’

‘I’d accomplished what no other surgeon in my field had. I’d proved that a face transplant could be carried out with minimal scarring, and many people have had cause to be grateful to my trail-blazing since,’ he added smugly.

‘You say the procedure was fully documented, did that include release forms giving both the subject’s and the donor’s permissions?’

‘The documents included copies of Anthony George’s donor card, and the subject’s medical release forms.’

‘For that specific surgery?’

‘For general medical research.’

‘You removed the donor face?’

Marks remained silent.

Dan tried another tack. ‘Where was it kept until the transplant took place?’

‘In ideal conditions in the clinic until I was ready to use it. I admit I transported it there myself.’

‘Then you carried out the transplant. And afterwards?’

‘Afterwards?’

‘Post-surgical treatment?’ Dan pressed him.

‘I kept the subject tranquillised to minimalise damage from inadvertent movements during the healing process. I saw him daily for a week after the operation and on a twice-weekly basis for three weeks after that. By then the man had made a full recovery. I then left the country.’

‘And the man?’

‘I never saw him again.’

‘You didn’t arrange for him to be returned to prison?’

‘I can’t be expected to keep tabs on my ex-patients.’

‘Not even a guinea pig of such importance?’

‘The last time I saw my patient was a month after the transplant. I then left the UK to take up the position of director of a transplant programme here in the States that had been offered to me by the programme sponsors.’

‘You didn’t monitor your subject’s long-term reaction to your pioneering surgical techniques?’

Dan asked.

‘At the risk of repeating myself, I followed his case for a month, no longer.’

‘Dr Randall, who works on a similar programme to yours, told one of my colleagues that patients frequently develop problems of adjustment after a face transplant.’

‘I would say inevitably, rather than frequently.’

‘Yet knowing this, you didn’t arrange for your guinea pig to receive post-operative psychological evaluation?’

‘I carried out the procedure on an experimental basis, on a volunteer.’

‘Who, in your opinion, had no rights?’

‘Convicted murderers have few rights in the eyes of the law.’

‘Did you prescribe any drugs for him?’

‘The usual. Painkillers, tranquillisers…’

‘Enough to turn him into a junkie?’

‘I resent the inference, Inspector.’

‘This man,’ Dan held up the photograph of Tony again, ‘was filmed by a television crew less than a month ago. He was showing signs of substance abuse.’

‘You can hardly blame me for the state of a patient two years after my last professional appointment with him.’

‘When you left the country, did you arrange for your patient to receive any further treatment at all?’

‘The surgery was successful, the subject made a full physical recovery.’

‘And that was it. The end of your

involvement?’

‘I have told you all I know, Inspector. This interview is at an end. I have retained the original donor card and medical research consent forms.

Should you try to prosecute me, I will counter-sue.’

‘Let’s see if I understand what you’ve just told me,’ Dan said slowly. ‘You arranged for a perfectly healthy man to be spirited out of prison, peeled off his face and transplanted a dead man’s face on to his skull for no reason other than you wanted to see if it could be done?’

‘I was certain it could, and the surgery’s success vindicated my belief.’

‘And like Frankenstein, you created a monster?

Possibly one that murders.’

‘You gave your word. Immunity in exchange for information.’

‘So I did, Mr Marks. But I didn’t give my word that I wouldn’t file on a charge of aiding and abetting a prisoner to escape.’

‘Dan here. Adam Weaver is wearing Anthony George’s face. I’ve had confirmation from the surgeon who carried out the operation.’

‘He talked to you?’ Peter said in surprise.

‘Eventually. Pull out all the stops to bring Weaver in.’

‘We’ve been trying,’ Peter answered irritably.

‘I’ll be back with you tomorrow.’ The line went dead.

Peter looked at Bill. ‘That was the inspector; our man is definitely Adam Weaver.’

‘I thought we knew that before Dan went to America?’

‘Now we have full confirmation.’

‘What did he say about the Marks connection?’

Bill asked.