Tangled Web (12 page)

Ellen Edwards came out into the yard to meet Gordon as he parked the Land Rover and tried to find a dry line of approach to the house. Two sheep dogs stalked him on the flanks as he tiptoed cautiously through the mud, sending hens clucking off in all directions. ‘I should have put on my wellies,’ he joked. ‘How is he?’

‘You know Glyn, Doctor, he keeps on insisting I’m making a lot of fuss about nothing but I can see he’s in great pain. He didn’t even try to go out on the hills this morning: it’s just not like him.’

Gordon did his best to scrape the mud off his shoes on the metal scraper bar by the door before entering the warmth of the kitchen and following Ellen through to where Edwards lay with his bandaged leg stretched out along the couch in front of him. He grunted when he saw Gordon come in.

‘Fell off the quad I hear,’ said Gordon. ‘That’ll teach you to play Michael Schumacher at your age.’

The comment got a grudging grin from Edwards whose complexion after a lifetime on the hills almost matched the reddish orange of the curtains in the living room. Gordon could tell from his eyes that Edwards was in considerable pain. ‘Let’s have a look, old son,’ he said, opening up his bag and taking out scissors to cut away the old dressings. The leg felt very hot and there was an unpleasant smell coming from the bandaging. ‘When exactly did this happen?’ he asked.

‘Three days ago,’ said Edwards. ’Didn’t seem too bad at first but it’s giving me merry hell now.’

Gordon examined the exposed wound closely and made a face. ‘It’s infected,’ he said. ‘That’s what’s giving you the pain. Do you know what caused the cut?’

‘Sharp stone,’ said Edwards.

‘You’re sure no metal was involved? No rusty nails or barbed wire?’

‘It was a stone, I’m sure,’ said Edwards.

‘Good, I’m just going to take a swab for the lab then I’ll write you up for some painkillers so you’ll get a sleep tonight and I’ll give you an antibiotic to fight the infection. You should notice a big difference by Saturday. If you don’t, give me a ring.’

‘I will, Doctor,’ said Ellen, ‘and I’ll see that he takes his medicine.’

Gordon took a swab from his bag and slid off the outer tube, taking care not to touch the sterile tip against anything else before rubbing it gently along the gash to absorb a sample of the exudate. He placed it back in the tube and wrote Edwards’ name on the outside before dropping it back into his bag. He put a fresh dressing on the wound then stood up saying, ‘There you go, you’ll be right as rain by next week.’

‘Thanks Doc.’

Gordon tore the prescription off his pad and handed it to Ellen. ‘This should do the trick,’ he said, then turning to Edwards, he added, ‘Easy on these fast corners, boyo.’

Gordon tip toed back to the car and checked his watch: it was a few minutes after noon. There would still be time to visit Prosser’s before the meeting at one.

He parked the car in his usual place down by the harbour in Caernarfon and walked round the outside of the castle walls to begin working his way back up through the narrow lanes to reach Mould Street and the premises of J. Prosser and Son. A bell above Prosser’s door gave a solitary ‘ting’ as he entered and a man wearing a dark suit and black tie materialised from the back. ‘How can I help?’ he asked reverentially. His hands were folded in front of him and his head held slightly to one side.

‘Mr Prosser?’ Gordon asked cheerily.

‘Yes …’ answered the man, uncertainty creeping into his voice.

‘I’m Tom Gordon. I’m a GP in Felinbach. I’ve been co-opted on to the inquiry team investigating the Megan Griffiths affair.’

Prosser’s manner changed in an instant. The hands fell to his sides and his shoulders sagged forwards. ‘Whoever was responsible for that deserves a right old bollocking,’ he said.

‘I agree,’ said Gordon. ‘I was wondering if I might ask your staff a few questions?’

Prosser looked suspicious. ‘What is this?’ he growled. ‘If that lot think they’re going to shift the blame on to me and my staff they’ve got another think coming. It had nothing to do with the boys or me. The coffin was closed when we collected it from the general.’

‘No, nothing like that,’ Gordon assured him. I’m doing this off my own bat. It’s nothing official I assure you and I realise you’re under no obligation to talk to me at all but I thought, as you’ve obviously got nothing to hide, that you might be willing to help?’

‘If you put it that way,’ said Prosser slowly. ‘Ask away. The boys are out in the yard cleaning the vehicles.’

‘Thanks,’ said Gordon, ‘I appreciate it but I wonder if I might ask you something first?’

Prosser led Gordon into the same small office he had used to talk to Morgan Griffiths on that awful morning and invited him to sit. ‘What can I tell you?’ he asked.

‘I’d like you to tell me exactly what happened when you opened up Megan Griffiths’ coffin.’

Prosser swallowed before answering, ‘I’ll never forget it as long as I live. People keep saying I should be used to awful sights with my job but I wasn’t prepared for anything like that, see … bits and pieces … Jesus.’

‘Didn’t the plastic bag make you suspicious before you opened it?’ asked Gordon.

‘What plastic bag?’ asked Prosser slowly and cautiously as if fearing it might be a trick question.

Gordon felt his limbs become heavy and the hairs on the back of his neck start to stand on end. ‘Are you telling me that the bits and pieces, as you call them, were not contained within a plastic bag? That they were visible when you opened the lid?’

‘Absolutely, that’s what gave me such a shock like.’

On top of everything else, this was probably what Gordon wanted to hear least in the whole world. If there was no bag, there had been no mix-up. It was as simple as that. The person who had put the waste into the coffin had known full well what they had been doing. But maybe the bag had been there, and had simply burst open. He asked Prosser if this might not be the case.

‘I didn’t see no bag,’ he replied.

‘What happened to the contents?’ asked Gordon.

‘The hospital sent down a van, sealed them in one of their bags … and took the whole lot away, coffin and all.’

‘So
that’s
when the material went into a disposal bag, thought Gordon. He thanked Prosser for his help and said, ‘Maybe I could speak with your men now?’

Prosser led the way through the back shop and out into the yard at the back where two hearses and a black limousine were parked. One man was hosing down the limousine while the other two sat on wooden crates, smoking and watching him. They got up when they saw Prosser who turned and nodded in Gordon’s direction. ‘This is Dr Gordon; he’d like to ask you some questions about the Griffiths business.’ Prosser introduced the three men. ‘This is my son, Paul.’

Gordon could see the strong family resemblance.

‘This is Tyler Morse and the fellow with the hose there is Maurice Cleef. I’ll leave you to it.’

Gordon thanked Prosser and nodded to all three men who were dressed in their mourning clothes but wearing plastic aprons over them.

‘As I understand it,’ said Gordon, ‘Megan Griffiths’ coffin was already closed and had the lid screwed down when you went to collect it at the hospital mortuary?

‘That’s right; it wasn’t anything to do with us,’ said Paul Prosser.

‘You collected it personally, did you?’ Gordon asked.

‘No, Maurice here did.’

Cleef, a painfully thin six footer with a sallow complexion and sunken eyes, turned off the hose and walked over to join them. Water was running off his apron on to his Wellington boots. ‘What’s the problem?’ he asked.

‘No problem,’ said Gordon pleasantly, ‘I’m just trying to clear up a few details. Tell me, when you went up to the hospital to collect Megan Griffiths’ body, did you expect to be putting her into the coffin yourself?’

‘I suppose I did,’ replied Cleef.

‘So what did you think when you found the coffin already closed and ready for collection?’

Cleef shrugged his shoulders. ‘I suppose I thought that must have been the arrangement,’ he said. ‘And nobody had told me.’

‘The arrangement?’

‘I thought Paul here or his father had made an arrangement with the lads at the mortuary to close up the coffin and forgotten to tell me, like.’

‘But that wasn’t the case?’

Paul Prosser shook his head. ‘We knew nothing about it.’

‘If it came as a surprise to you, did you say anything about it to anyone at the hospital?’ Gordon asked Cleef.

Another shrug. ‘Not as I recall.’

‘Not even to the mortuary attendants?’

‘I didn’t see them, did I?’

‘Did you see anyone else?’

‘Not as I recall.’

‘You simply walked in, picked up the coffin and walked out again?’

‘Why not?’ asked Cleef defensively. ‘That’s what I was there for.’

‘No reason,’ said Gordon but he was intrigued by the nervous twitch that had started on Cleef’s left cheek and the look in his eyes that suggested extreme unease, maybe even fear.

NINE

Gordon arrived at the meeting and apologised for being a few minutes late. Swanson volunteered that they were actually just waiting for the two mortuary attendants to come up from Pathology. He had requested that they present themselves for questioning and Mr Harcourt was bringing them upstairs. Gordon was about to tell everyone what he had discovered when a knock came to the door and Harcourt put his head round it to announce that that he had mortuary technician, David Meek with him. Swanson nodded and said, ‘Let’s at least go through the motions.’

Meek was ushered to a seat in front of the committee. He was a slight individual with greasy dark hair and a speech impediment that made understanding what he said difficult at first but it was something that became progressively easier as ears became attuned to his voice.

Gordon was surprised that the man turned out to be more resentful than nervous and displayed a marked sullenness throughout the interview. He was subjected to robust, if not openly aggressive, questioning for almost fifteen minutes but maintained ignorance of anything to do with the Megan Griffiths affair. He seemed openly annoyed that he was being questioned about something he clearly felt he’d been asked about too much already.

Meek was followed by the other attendant, an older man named Henriques, who smelled strongly of pipe tobacco and had a disconcerting habit of wiping his lips with the back of his hand before and after every answer. He said much the same as Meek, his answers often matching Meek’s word for word. He knew nothing at all about any mix-up and had no suggestion to make as to how it could have happened.

Swanson’s disappointment was obvious when the interviews were over.

‘Pretty much as we expected, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘What d’you feel? Were they lying to save their jobs or were they telling the truth?’

’I believed them,’ said Christine Williams.

There were resigned murmurs of agreement from the others. Once again, Gordon was about to say what he’d found out at Prosser’s when another knock came to the door and Harcourt came back in. ‘Any luck?’ he asked.

‘They continued to deny all knowledge of any mix-up and I think it’s fair to say we believed them,’ said Swanson.

Harcourt looked sceptical. ‘Personally, I think they’ve worked out that, if they both keep mum or tell the same story, they’ll keep their jobs and no one will be able to touch them for the mix-up. Common sense says that it had to be down to them.’

‘It wasn’t a simple mix-up,’ Gordon announced.

‘I’m sorry?’ said Harcourt as the room fell silent.

Gordon told them about his visit to Prosser’s. He concluded by saying, ‘The person who put the biological waste into Megan Griffiths’ coffin knew exactly what they were doing. There was no innocent mix-up involving waste bags. The material was never actually inside a biological waste bag until it was put in one by the men sent over by the hospital to recover it.’

There were gasps from the others and requests for more information. Harcourt seemed to lose colour. ‘I don’t think I understand,’ he said. ‘Are you saying that it was a deliberate, malicious act, designed to shock or discredit the hospital in some way?’

Gordon shook his head. ‘I hardly think so; the person responsible could not have anticipated the coffin being opened again, so, if things had gone to plan, no one would ever have known about it.’

‘I think Dr Trool had better hear this,’ said Harcourt. He left the room, saying he’d be back shortly.

Swanson took Gordon to one side and asked, ‘You’ve obviously had some time to think about this on the way over, have
you
reached any conclusions?’

Gordon said that he thought some kind of mix-up might still be possible, although now it would have to involve the disposal of Megan Griffiths’ body at some earlier time, followed by an attempted cover-up using the contents of the biological waste bag to make up weight in the coffin.

‘What sort of disposal?’ asked Swanson.

‘Good question.’

Harcourt returned with a grim looking James Trool who came into the room, gasping, ‘This is all I need. The papers will have a field day when they get hold of it: they’ll crucify us. Are you absolutely certain?’

‘The undertaker is adamant that the waste material was not held inside any kind of bag. That being the case, it could not have been put there by mistake,’ said Gordon.

Trool shook his head. ‘I thought a mix-up was bad enough,’ he said, ‘But the suggestion that the act was deliberate just beggars belief. This could do the hospital untold damage and it’s come at the worst possible time, just when we were looking forward to some well-deserved, positive publicity.’

‘Why do you say that?’ asked Swanson.

‘The IVF symposium next week,’ replied Trool. ‘Some of the world’s leading authorities on
in vitro
fertilisation are coming to Caernarvon General to pay tribute to the work of Professor Thomas. They are holding a four-day symposium and we were anticipating some favourable press and television coverage. I need hardly point out that this sort of thing means a lot to hospitals these days when we are all competing for funds. We have here a centre of excellence in Professor Thomas’s unit and public awareness of that fact is so important. A successful symposium could put us up there on the stage with some of the best hospitals in the country. Now it looks like all that press attention will go to the Griffiths business.’