Chameleon (28 page)

'Strange,' said Jamieson. 'She must have written something down.'

'Maybe she took it with her to see Thelwell,' suggested Evans.

'Ye gods,' said Jamieson not relishing a second visit to the Thelwell house.

'Will you check?'

Jamieson nodded.

'Want me to come with you?'

'No need,' said Jamieson. He left Evans and telephoned Chief Inspector Ryan to arrange access to the house in Latimer Gardens. He was relieved to be told that Marion Thelwell and her daughters had gone off to stay with relatives for a few days. The forensic people had finished in the house and garden and he would be able to get the keys from the officer stationed at the front of the house to keep the morbidly curious at bay.

The policeman at the gate stiffened when he saw Jamieson approach and moved from one foot to the other. Jamieson sensed that he was preparing to bar his way. He probably thought that he was yet another journalist after some lurid copy to satisfy the insatiable needs of the tabloids. Jamieson showed his ID and said that he had permission from Chief Inspector Ryan to enter the house. The constable checked through the radio clipped to his lapel and after a burst of static Jamieson caught the word 'Affirmative.'

The house was silent, a brooding silence that Jamieson felt was oppressive. It was as if the walls and floors resented his presence there. He climbed the stairs slowly, reluctant to create any noise and feeling like an intruder in private grief. He opened the door to what had been Gordon Thelwell's study and stepped inside.

He found nothing on Thelwell's desk to indicate any contact between Moira Lippman and Thelwell at all. Jamieson looked through the drawers and finally the waste paper basket and again drew a blank. He felt sure that Moira would have had notes. She had told Sue that she wanted to talk about the results of some tests. That meant that there must be lab notes somewhere. Apart from routine procedure it was in the nature of people who worked in labs to keep notes.

Had Thelwell destroyed them? He had to acknowledge that this was a possibility but if he had, how had he done it? He had not left this room. His wife had said so. There was no fireplace and there was no document shredder in the room. He conducted another search but again drew a blank. Maybe Moira hadn't brought them with her but if they weren't here and they weren't at the lab where else could they be? Her own flat? Jamieson decided to make that his next port of call. He started to tidy up by putting back the contents of the waste paper basket when suddenly he heard footsteps on the stairs. His first thought was that it must be the policeman from the door but the sound was wrong. What he was hearing were the footsteps of a woman.

The door opened and Marion Thelwell stood in the doorway. Jamieson felt guilty and embarrassed. He started to apologise by saying that he had understood that the house was going to be empty.

'I had to come back for some things for the girls,' said Marion Thelwell, her voice devoid of emotion. 'Did you find what it was you were looking for?'

Jamieson looked at her dull eyes and the deep lines in her face. It was obvious that she had had no sleep.

'Actually no,' he said softly.

'What was it?'

'When Miss Lippman came to see your husband last night. I think she had some notes, perhaps a lab notebook with her. I was looking for it.'

Marion Thelwell looked long and hard at Jamieson as if he were a stain on the ground and then said slowly and deliberately, 'The Lippman girl phoned Gordon last night and said that she had to speak to him. He did his best to dissuade her, in fact, he told her point blank not to come. But she must have come over anyway, only she never got here.'

'But ...'

'I repeat; she never got here. She must have been murdered outside somewhere and her body placed in our summer house.'

Jamieson looked at the floor in an attempt to hide his disbelief which he felt sure must show in his face. 'And your husband, Mrs Thelwell? Where was he at the time?' asked Jamieson with as much delicacy as was possible in the circumstances.

'Gordon was locked up in his study as I've already told the police. He never left the house.'

Jamieson eyes moved involuntarily to the study window and confirmed to himself that it overlooked the garden. Thelwell could have left the room by the window.

'Can I ask how you know that it was Moira Lippman who called him on the phone?' said Jamieson

'I took the call.'

'And how did you know what was said?'

'I listened in on the extension in the hall,' said Marion Thelwell without a trace of guilt.

Jamieson looked at her without speaking until she felt obliged to elaborate.

'I knew that Gordon had stopped going to choir practices some time ago. I thought there might be another woman even though I found that hard to believe.'

'Why?' asked Jamieson, detecting an odd note in Marion Thelwell's voice.

She gave a mirthless shrug and said, 'Gordon was never very physical if you get my meaning. Not even in our courting days.'

Jamieson nodded. 'Weren't you ever tempted to find out where your husband went when he went out?' he asked.

'At first but then I became frightened. I decided that I didn't want to know ...'

Marion Thelwell started to shake with pent-up emotion. Jamieson found the sight alarming for there was absolutely no sound coming from her, just a series of silent shuddering convulsions. He pressed her further. 'Because the killings had started in the city?' he asked.

Marion Thelwell continued to shake. She nodded. She made no attempt at argument.

Jamieson put his arm round her and led her to a seat. 'You need a drink,' he said softly. 'Is there anything up here?'

Marion Thelwell indicated with her right hand and Jamieson opened up the bureau she had pointed to. There was a crystal decanter sitting there on a silver tray with four glasses. He poured Scotch into one of them and handed it to her. He watched her take a long gulp and said, 'You've been through a lot. You must be absolutely exhausted.'

'That's nothing to what's to come,' replied Marion Thelwell distantly and Jamieson could not disagree. 'It's not so much for myself I worry but the girls ... Other children can be terribly cruel. I'll have to take them away somewhere, somewhere where we'll not be known. Start a new life. Isn't that what they say?' A new life. Marion Thelwell put her hand to her head and closed her eyes. There was silence in the room.

Jamieson had difficulty in finding Moira Lippman's flat. He had to stop twice and ask for directions before finding the small back street and the number he was looking for. He had half expected to find no one at home, fearing that Moira's flat mate might have gone to work, so he was pleasantly surprised when a voice behind the door replied, 'Who is it?'

'It's Dr Jamieson from Kerr Memorial. I spoke to you on the phone last night.'

'Can you prove who you are?' said the voice.'

Jamieson put his ID card through the letter box and waited patiently while the door was unchained and then unlocked. The door opened a few inches and Jamieson could look down at a thin, dark girl in her mid twenties. She had a sallow skin and large hazel eyes which mirrored the apprehension she felt.

Jamieson smiled.

'You can't be too careful,' said the girl opening the door further and taking off the final restraint to allow Jamieson to enter.

'I thought you might have gone to work,' said Jamieson.

'I couldn't after what happened to Moira,' said the girl. 'Besides the police wanted to ask me a few things.

'Like what?'

'Like what time Moira got in last night and what time she left. Things like that.'

'Were you here when she got back from the hospital last night?' asked Jamieson.

'Yes I was.'

'Was Moira carrying anything?'

'Only her briefcase. Why do you ask?'

Jamieson, excited by the girl's reply, ignored her question and asked, 'Can I see it please?'

The girl shook her head. 'No you can't.'

'Why not?'

'Because she took it with her when she went out.'

'Are you absolutely sure?' asked Jamieson.

'Absolutely. I watched her take out some papers from it and check them over before putting them back. I remember her actually saying that she had to show them to someone from the hospital. Thelwell I think she said his name was. Would you like some coffee?'

Jamieson agreed absent-mindedly because, for the moment, his mind was elsewhere. If Moira had taken her notes with her why hadn't he found them in Thelwell's house? What had happened to them? The briefcase hadn't been in the hut with her body and it hadn't been in Thelwell's study so where the hell was it?

'Penny for them,' said Moira Lippman's flat mate returning with two mugs of instant coffee.

Jamieson smiled apologetically and said, 'I'm sorry, that was rude of me.' They spoke a little about Moira and agreed what a nice person she had been. Jamieson asked the girl if she was in the same line of work.

'I'm a physiotherapist at the Royal,' replied the girl. 'Bacteria give me the heebie jeebies.'

'So you two wouldn't talk about work much?' said Jamieson.

'Not really, although I did ask her about the infection problem of course.'

'What did she tell you?'

'That is was caused by bacteria that were very difficult to treat. I can't remember what she called them.'

'Nothing more than that?' asked Jamieson.

'Maybe,' smiled the girl. 'But it probably washed over me. I didn't understand most of it.'

Jamieson smiled and they fell to talking about other things while he finished his coffee. During the lulls he took note of his surroundings. The flat was clean and tidy but none of the furniture matched. There were several small piles of crockery on an old Welsh dresser but again, it didn't match. It was a typical rented, furnished flat, the kind he used to live in when he was a student. He drained his coffee and took this as his cue to get to his feet. He shook hands with the girl and they said that they would probably see each other at the funeral.

Jamieson sat in the car for a moment before starting the engine. He wondered about the missing briefcase. It was important. Maybe Thelwell had dumped it somewhere outside his house after murdering Moira Lippman. An outside rubbish bin, the garden compost heap? He decided to drive back to Latimer Gardens and check.

'Something in particular you're looking for sir?' asked the constable as he watched Jamieson empty the rubbish sack outside the kitchen door of the Thelwell house.

'A briefcase.'

The officer gave Jamieson a hand to sift through the refuse and then replace it when they had no luck. They pitchforked their way through the compost heap with the same lack of success.

'What makes you think it's here sir' asked the policeman.

'I just hoped it was,' said Jamieson.

The constable gave Jamieson a puzzled look. 'Hoped sir?'

Jamieson shrugged and said, 'Because if it's not here it means that someone took it and that means I have to figure out who and why.'

* * * * *

'You're not happy,' said Sue as Jamieson stood with his back to her at the window.

'I'm not happy,' agreed Jamieson.

'Want to talk?'

'I'm uneasy about the whole thing. There's something fundamentally wrong.'

'Explain.'

First Richardson finds something out about the infection and then commits suicide before telling anyone. Then Moira Lippman finds out something, maybe the same something, and gets herself murdered before she can tell anyone.'

'Thelwell killed them both to keep them quiet,' suggested Sue.

'And then committed suicide himself? Why go to the bother of killing someone to keep them quiet when you are going to kill yourself anyway?'

'The man was deranged.'

'Maybe, but it’s all a bit too convenient.'

'I don't follow.'

'There were no papers or notes in Richardson's office to suggest what the theory was he had been working on. None at all.'

'So Thelwell took them,' suggested Sue.

'And now the same thing has happened with Moira Lippman's notes. She gets murdered and now there's no trace of them.'

'Same thing. Thelwell took them.'

'But Thelwell didn't have them. I looked everywhere.'

'Maybe he destroyed them.'

'But how? Marion Thelwell is positive that her husband did not leave his study last night. According to her he did his damndest to dissuade Moira Lippman from coming round; it was she who insisted. So now we have to believe that Thelwell climbed out of his study window and waited for Moira to arrive. He murdered her in the garden, climbed back into the house, destroyed her notes and her briefcase, God knows how, and then committed suicide. It doesn't make sense.'

'What's the alternative?' asked Sue.

Jamieson turned round and faced her before saying, 'The alternative is that someone else killed Moira and took her notes.'

'Not Thelwell? I don't think I like the sound of that,' said Sue slowly.

Jamieson agreed with a forced smile. He said, 'But maybe you are right. Maybe it was just the irrational behaviour of a lunatic.'

'What are you going to do?'

'Leave it all to the police. For my part I am going to insist that all instrument packs in storage and all dressing packs in the Gynaecology wards are re-sterilised. When that is done I think surgery can re-commence safely and I can report as much to Sci-Med.'

'And then we can go home?'

'Yes,' smiled Jamieson.

'How long?'

'Couple of days.'

'I'm counting the hours.'

'Let's count them in bed.'

Once again the rain started and pattered against the window pane.

THIRTEEN

The rain persisted through the night, waking Jamieson who was a light sleeper at the best of times, with the noise it made against the tall windows of the residency. At seven he gave up trying to sleep and got up. He washed and shaved as quietly as possible to avoid waking Sue who was still in a deep sleep.