Wildcard (7 page)

Lennon held up his hands in apology and said, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. I was just trying to establish if there was anyone who might have seen your daughter in the last two or three days, someone who could throw more light on why she felt driven to take her own life.’

‘No one.’

‘A close female friend, perhaps?’

A look of anger flitted across Mrs Danby’s face as she thought she saw an implicit suggestion in the question, but it faded and she responded with a curt shake of the head before covering her nose and mouth again with her handkerchief. Her shoulders started shaking with silent sobs.

Mr Danby cleared his throat twice before managing to whisper, ‘You’ll want me to identify her?’

‘Yes, please, sir, when you feel up to it.’

‘I’m not sure about the procedure in such cases …’

‘There will have to be a post mortem, sir. After that the body will be released to you. You can go ahead and make arrangements pending the issue of a death certificate.’

‘Thank you, Officer.’

‘I don’t want them defiling Ann,’ Mrs Danby blurted out. ‘Leave my baby alone!’ She broke into uncontrollable sobs, and her husband put his arm round her and tried to comfort her. ‘Make them leave her alone, Charles. I don’t want them … doing things to her.’

Both policemen moved uncomfortably in their chairs as her raw grief reached them. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Lennon. ‘It’s mandatory in such cases.’

Mr Danby nodded his understanding and suggested with his eyes that they should leave.

‘Christ, that was awful,’ said Clark as they drove off.

‘It couldn’t be anything else,’ replied Lennon.

‘What a night. What a bloody awful night.’

‘You’ll have worse.’

‘That poor woman. It was as if we just destroyed her life.’

‘We didn’t. We were just the messengers, disinterested parties in other people’s lives. We tiptoe in and then we tiptoe out again – and then we forget.’

‘Forget? How can you possi—’

‘You do because you’re not involved personally and there’s no alternative. Either you learn to forget or you get out of the job double quick. Understood?’

‘Understood.’

‘Come on, I’ll buy you a bacon roll.’

Ann Danby was third on forensic pathologist Peter Saxby’s list the following morning. ‘So what have we here?’ he asked in his usual imperious manner as the mortuary technician transferred the body from the fridge transporter trolley to the PM table. The head hit the metal table with a bang and Saxby snarled, ‘Must you be so bloody clumsy, man?’

The technician mumbled an apology and melted into the background.

Saxby read from the file he was holding. ‘Ann Danby, white Caucasian female, thirty-three, believed to have overdosed on malt whisky and barbiturates. No suspicious circumstances as far as our boys in blue are concerned. Not exactly
Silent Witness
material, is it? Unless, of course, we find a Malaysian
kris
up her arse and two kilos of heroin in her peritoneal cavity, eh?’

The technician smiled dutifully. He didn’t like Saxby. He found him crude and insensitive but tried to make excuses for his behaviour, as befitted a soldier of the Salvation Army, something Saxby was unaware of. He waited while the pathologist made an external appraisal of the body and spoke his findings into the microphone that hung above the table. When Saxby had finished, the technician realigned the instrument tray at the head of the table and stood by as the pathologist made the first incision, a long, sweeping cut from throat to groin.

‘Well, no heroin,’ muttered Saxby when he had opened up the body to expose the internal organs. ‘But a hell of a lot of blood. She’s been bleeding internally from …’ He paused while he made a closer examination. ‘Just about every-bloody-where. Christ, are you sure this is the right body?’

‘Her toe tag says “Ann Danby”, and she was the only woman in the fridge,’ replied the technician. ‘Looks about the right age, too.’

‘Yes, thank you for your forensic input,’ snapped Saxby.

The technician said nothing and kept his eyes fixed on the table.

‘Jesus, she was leaking like a sieve. This wasn’t caused by whisky or bloody sleeping pills. Let me see those admission notes again.’ Saxby snatched them, smearing them with bloody mucus from his gloves in the process. ‘No mention of illness. Shit, I don’t think I like this …’

‘What d’you think was wrong with her?’ asked the technician. Normally he wouldn’t have dared ask, but the apprehension in Saxby’s face gave him the impetus.

‘I don’t know,’ murmured Saxby. He seemed mesmerised by the insides of the corpse. ‘I’ve read about this but I’ve never actually come across it. I think she may well have been suffering from haemorrhagic fever.’

‘What’s that when it’s at home?’

There was a long pause before Saxby said, ‘Suffice to say, the last thing on earth you would want to do to such a case is perform a PM on it.’

‘It’s dangerous, then?’

‘Bloody lethal,’ whispered Saxby, turning pale. ‘What have I done?’

‘Are you absolutely sure about this?’ asked the technician.

Saxby shook his head slowly and said, ‘No, but I can’t think of anything else it could be.’

‘So where do we go from here then?’ The technician was still calm, in spite of what he was hearing. He had his faith to thank for that. He knew God was on his side.

Saxby came out of his trance and started snapping out instructions. ‘We need a body bag. I’ll give you a hand getting her into it, then wash down the entire place in disinfectant. When you’ve finished, dump all your clothes in the steriliser bin and shower for at least ten minutes.’

‘What about you?’

‘I’m going to talk to the police first and then Public Health.’

Saxby locked the door to stop anyone coming in, and went to the phone. ‘I need to talk to the officers who discovered Miss Ann Danby’s body last night … Even if they are off duty … Then wake them up … Yes, it is urgent.’ Saxby hung up and waited. Six minutes later the phone rang and he snatched it up. ‘Sorry to disturb you, Constable Lennon, but this is most important. Did anything last night give you reason to think that Miss Danby had been ill recently?’

Tom Lennon rubbed the sleep from his eyes with one hand while he got his thoughts into order. ‘Her mother said that she spoke to her a few days ago and she thought she was coming down with flu, and one of the neighbours said that she had been off work for a couple of days.’

‘Thank you, Officer,’ said Saxby, his tone suggesting that this was bad news. ‘Was there any mention of her having been abroad recently?’

‘None at all, but the subject didn’t really come up.’

‘Do you have a phone number for her mother?’

‘Give me a minute; it’s in my notebook.’

Saxby tapped the phone impatiently as he waited, then scribbled down the number on a wall pad. He dialled it immediately.

The technician sluiced down the PM table while he listened to Saxby being ‘nice’ to Ann Danby’s parents. At least he didn’t say what kind of doctor he was and what he had just been doing, but watching Saxby apologise profusely for his ‘intrusion on their grief’ and then offering his ‘heartfelt condolences’ was like watching a man commit an unnatural act.

‘Has Ann been abroad recently? … She hasn’t … You’re absolutely sure about that? … Yes, I see … Majorca in 1998.’

Saxby put down the phone and stood there looking thoughtful while the technician, mop in hand, pushed a tide of disinfectant across the floor ever nearer to his feet.

‘Progress?’ asked the technician.

‘Maybe I was a bit hasty in pushing the panic button,’ said Saxby. ‘She hasn’t been abroad for two years, and even then it was only bloody Majorca. I don’t think it can be what I thought it was. Bloody odd, though.’

‘So all this is unnecessary?’

‘Better safe than sorry.’

‘What about the samples you took?’

‘Send them to the lab in the usual way.’

‘And the shower?’

‘Won’t do you any harm.’

FIVE

Edinburgh

‘Yes, what is it, Jean?’ snapped Paul Grossart.

His secretary moved back involuntarily from the intercom, surprised at his tone of voice. A change had come over her boss in the last week or so. Ever since the Americans’ visit he had been preoccupied and on edge. ‘I have a Mr Brannan on the phone for you.’

‘I don’t know any Brannan, do I?’ asked Grossart.

‘He’s a journalist with the
Scotsman
. He wonders if he might have a few words.’

Grossart paused and swallowed hard before saying, ‘Put him through.’

‘Mr Grossart?’ said a friendly sounding voice. ‘Jim Brannan, science correspondent of the
Scotsman
.’

‘What can I do for you, Mr Brannan?’ said Grossart, adopting a neutral tone.

‘There’s a rumour doing the rounds that Lehman is making a big cut in its transgenic research initiative.’

‘What gives people that idea?’ asked Grossart defensively.

‘You paid off a number of staff at the end of last week.’

Grossart had to think fast. He hadn’t realised that this was a newsworthy event but it was a fact that Lehman had paid off a number of support staff engaged on the Snowball project whose services were no longer required. They were relatively low-grade, and none had been privy to the overall aims of the project, but a couple were part-qualified junior technicians and might have been able to figure out something. ‘We are a cutting-edge research company, Mr Brannan,’ said Grossart. ‘Our priorities constantly have to change with the ever-advancing state of scientific knowledge. The loss of jobs was simply the unfortunate fall-out from a course adjustment we had to make.’

‘So Lehman isn’t abandoning its transgenic animal work?’

‘We remain committed to exploring every avenue of medical research which will benefit mankind,’ replied Grossart.

‘I trust I can quote you on that,’ said Brannan sourly, thinking he could have found a better quote in a Christmas cracker.

‘Of course.’

‘It was a bit sudden, this “course adjustment”, wasn’t it?’

‘Not at all. We’d been considering it for some months.’

‘Right,’ said Brannan slowly, sounding less than convinced. ‘So nothing went wrong, then?’

‘Nothing at all,’ said Grossart.

The conversation ended and Grossart took several deep breaths before looking at his watch and doing a mental calculation. He punched the intercom button and said, ‘Get me Hiram Vance in Boston.’ He tapped nervously on the desk until the connection was made.

‘Paul, what can I do for you?’

‘They know,’ hissed Grossart hoarsely. ‘For Christ’s sake, Hiram, they know. I’ve just had the press on the phone asking about the shutdown of the Snowball project.’

‘Slow down, Paul,’ said Vance, sounding calm and controlled. ‘Just take it easy and tell me exactly what happened.’

Grossart gave him the details of his conversation with Brannan.

‘Then what the hell are you worried about?’ said Vance. ‘You said exactly the right thing and it’s my guess that will be an end to it.’

‘I’m not so sure,’ said Grossart hesitantly.

‘Trust me,’ said Vance. ‘A story about a few guys losing their jobs isn’t exactly Watergate, is it? By tomorrow it’ll be yesterday’s news.’

‘Brannan knew they were working with transgenic animals.’

‘Who isn’t these days, in our line of business?’ said Vance. ‘Relax, Paul.’

‘If you say so.’

‘One thing worries me, though,’ said Vance, sounding less friendly. ‘I see our UK share price has dropped sharply.’

‘The market here’s a bit volatile at the moment,’ said Grossart, feeling his throat go dry.

‘I certainly hope that’s all it is,’ said Vance. ‘I wouldn’t like to think anyone there was trying to unload large numbers of our shares, if you get my drift?’

‘I’m sure that’s not the case,’ lied Grossart.

‘Glad to hear it,’ said Vance. ‘You have a nice day.’

Grossart tried to reciprocate but the line went dead.

Glenvane, Dumfriesshire

It had been a good day and Steven had insisted that Sue and Richard go out to dinner while he babysat: they didn’t often get the opportunity, so there was usually one night when he offered to do this on his visits. Earlier, he and Sue had taken the children up to Edinburgh, where they had visited the zoo, eaten ice cream and generally had a fun time. The children had walked like the penguins, growled like the lions and behaved like the chimpanzees all the way home. The afterglow of a happy day was still with him as he watched a film on late-night television while nibbling potato crisps and sipping a Stella Artois. He always found it easy to unwind at the house in Glenvane. It seemed a million miles away from the bustle of London.

The earth was in danger of being hit by a giant asteroid but the missiles launched by the USA were on their way. Men with caps and epaulettes carrying several kilos of scrambled egg watched their progress on a giant screen, but instead of a nuclear impact Steven’s mobile phone went off and he hit the mute button on the TV remote.

‘Dunbar.’

‘Duty officer at Sci-Med here. Mr Macmillan would like you back in London as soon as possible, Dr Dunbar.’

‘I’m on leave.’

‘Perhaps you’d like to tell him that yourself.’

‘What’s the problem?’

‘Don’t know but you could try working the words “shit” and “fan” into a well-known phrase or saying.’

‘Gotcha. I’ll catch the first flight in the morning.’ As Steven spoke, he heard the clatter of a diesel engine outside and saw Sue and Richard get out of a taxi. They were giggling like naughty children and it made him smile.

‘Bad news?’ asked Sue when she saw the phone in his hand.

‘I’m on the first flight to London.’

‘Tough luck, old son,’ said Richard. ‘But I’m glad they didn’t take you away earlier, because we have just had a bloody good time.’ He slumped down into an armchair with a silly grin on his face. ‘We really are very grateful, you know.’

‘Not nearly as grateful as I am to you two,’ said Steven, thinking on a different plane. ‘I couldn’t begin to tell you.’