He suddenly heard voices and the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs.
‘In here,’ he shouted and waited for the door to open.
Gerry Heffernan sat back in his chair. Along with some others in CID he’d found Wesley Peterson’s short incarceration rather
funny at first. But his amusement had abated when he learned that Wesley’s captor hadn’t been picked up by the patrol cars
he’d sent to prowl the area.
It seemed that the intruder had broken in by smashing a pane of glass in the back door and turning the key that had been left
in the lock. Gerry resolved to have a word with the search team about basic home security. The
neighbours, Ruby and Len Wetherall, had seen and heard nothing. Once they’d closed their curtains at sunset and switched on
the TV, they became oblivious to the world outside – or so they claimed.
But Gerry had other things to think about, such as the need to tie up their investigations at the Podingham Clinic. Carl Utley
was hardly an unbiased witness, but Gerry was still certain that his story contained some element of truth. And even though
their mystery corpse in the river had died from natural causes, he couldn’t forget what Colin said about the faint ink marks
on the torso. Together with all this, Tony Persimmon’s links with the clinic and his dispute with James Dalcott only added
to Gerry’s building suspicions that something was going on at the Podingham – and that whatever it was could have led to a
bullet being shot into James Dalcott’s brain.
Even though the clinic was on his mind, he was surprised to receive the news that Fiona Verdun was at the front desk wanting
to speak to the officer in charge.
He looked at his watch. He had plenty of time before Sandra Ackerley’s TV appearance produced a hoped-for torrent of information
about Mabel Cleary’s disappearance, so he strolled down the corridor to the front desk, wondering what Fiona Verdun could
possibly want.
He found her in Reception, sitting upright on a plastic-covered bench. She stood as he approached and clenched her hands nervously.
‘Miss Verdun? I’m DCI Heffernan. What can I do for you?’ He knew he sounded hopeful but, in his experience, a spot of optimism
never did any harm.
She glanced round. She seemed jumpy, as though she suspected there were spies hiding in the corners.
‘Shall we go somewhere more private?’ Gerry said.
The answer was a nod.
He led Fiona through the door to the heart of the police station, stopping to punch the security code into the electronic
lock.
‘Now then, love,’ he said once they were comfortably settled in Interview Room two. ‘What would you like to tell me?’ He took
his dog-eared notebook from his jacket pocket and searched for a pen. Eventually he found one in the top pocket of his shirt
and gave Fiona an avuncular smile.
She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve just left the Podingham. Walked out.’
‘Oh aye? Why was that?’
‘I had a row with Mr Powell. Told him I didn’t like what was going on there.’
‘We’ve had the place searched and we didn’t turn up anything that –’
‘You wouldn’t. Welman and Powell covered their tracks well. And Pharmitest turned a blind eye.’
‘To what?’ He waited expectantly, watching her face.
After a short silence she spoke again. ‘Powell and Welman bring in people from abroad; sometimes eastern Europe, sometimes
further afield. They get paid for donating a kidney. It’s big money for them I suppose but … Powell has a long list of wealthy
patients in need of a transplant. Supply and demand. Market forces.’
Gerry stared at her for a few seconds. ‘Go on.’
‘A friend of Welman’s brings in the donors illegally on his yacht. They’re brought ashore at night and taken to the clinic.
They stay there for a couple of weeks to recuperate then they make the return journey. Look, I’ve
never had much to do with Powell’s side of things and I’ve only just found out what’s been happening. I was told Powell just
used the facilities for routine private surgery. I knew there were sometimes foreign patients but Welman told me the clinic
had some arrangement with a doctor abroad.’
Gerry ignored her protestations of innocence, although he suspected they were sincere. She’d probably believed what she was
told because it was easier that way. ‘Who else at the clinic is involved?’
‘The staff aren’t encouraged to ask too many questions. It was one of the nurses in the surgical unit who told me. She got
worried when the police started sniffing around. She hadn’t been happy about it for a while.’
‘And now you’ve decided to blow the whistle?’
‘You could put it like that.’
Gerry leaned forward, taking her into his confidence. ‘A woman’s body was found in the River Trad with ink marks on the torso.
Our pathologist thinks they could be the sort of marks a surgeon makes before an operation. Is our mystery woman one of Powell’s
patients?’
Fiona gave a little nod. ‘The nurse I talked to said there’d been an incident. One of the donors lied about a heart condition
and she died just before she was due to go into theatre. She was in the country illegally.’
‘So they couldn’t risk reporting her death to the authorities?’
Fiona shook her head. ‘Powell said he’d sort it – report the death – but the nurse didn’t know what had happened to the body.
She’d assumed it had been taken to one of the hospital mortuaries – she’d no idea they’d just dumped it in the river.’
‘Her, not it.’ Gerry spoke sharply. ‘The patient who died was a woman. Do you know her name?’
Fiona stared at him for a moment then shook her head. ‘Look, when I found out what they’d done I had to tell someone.’
Gerry picked up the phone. Welman and Powell had to be brought in for questioning. After a short conversation, he returned
his attention to Fiona. ‘Did Dr Dalcott know about all this?’
Fiona’s eyes widened. ‘I shouldn’t think so. Dr Dalcott and Dr Shallech work in the drug trials unit which is completely separate.’
She hesitated. ‘But if he found out somehow … Is Mr Powell going to be arrested?’
‘Concealing a death and dumping a body in the river is a crime, love. Not to mention the illegal transplants. It’s up to the
Crown Prosecution Service what they want to charge him with. And I should think the General Medical Council will be interested
and all.’
She gave a weak smile, a shadow of her old, confident self. But then she’d had a shock.
‘You’ve done the right thing, love,’ he assured her, then, after an awkward silence, asked, ‘Have you anything else to tell
me about James Dalcott?’
She considered the question for a few seconds. ‘A week or so before he died he took a day off. A personal matter, he said.
He asked me if I’d ever been to Looe.’
‘Looe?’
‘In Cornwall. It’s only about an hour away. I told him it was a nice place.’
Gerry frowned. Looe hadn’t been mentioned before as far as he could remember. Or had it? He’d have to read over the files
again.
When Gerry stood up Fiona spoke again. ‘Do you think Dr Dalcott’s murder might be connected with what was going on at the
clinic?’
‘I’ve no idea, love. I take it you’re not thinking of going back there?’
She looked a little smug as she shook her head. ‘No way. I’ve just had a text to say I’ve got a job at a health spa in Plymouth.
I’m going to manage the place at double the salary.’ She gave him a sly smile as he summoned a constable to show her off the
premises. He ought to have known she’d time her revelations about the Podingham Clinic to perfection.
Looe. It might mean nothing but it was worth checking out.
Wesley was very tempted to cancel his meeting with Nuala. But she had said that she had some information so he told himself
that he’d probably be neglecting his duty if he didn’t go. However, he resolved to be careful. And if things got sticky, he
could always cool her enthusiasm by going on about his children, he thought with a smile.
After returning to the incident room to report his findings to Gerry and receive the news of Fiona Verdun’s revelations, he
drove over to Tradmouth police station because he was yearning for a bit of peace and quiet away from the bustle of their
temporary Neston base. He sneaked up to his own office on the first floor and settled down with a cup of tea from the machine
in the corridor to study the transcript of George Clipton’s murder trial, focusing his attention on the sections that Clipton’s
son, James Dalcott, had highlighted in fluorescent green.
The highlighted paragraphs seemed to be extracts from
witness statements. The largest section concerned the testimony of Dr Clipton’s locum, Dr Liam Cheshlare, who had only been
with the practice a couple of weeks when the tragedy occurred. He had been on friendly, but not intimate, terms with the deceased,
Mrs Isabelle Clipton, and he assured the court that Ned Longdon, odd-job man and regular at the local hostelry, who claimed
to have seen him arguing with the victim earlier that day in woodland near her home, had been mistaken. They had met by chance
and they’d been sharing a joke, nothing more, and surely the jury wouldn’t take the word of a notorious local drunk over that
of a respected professional man. It seemed back then in the 1950s the jury had agreed with Dr Cheshlare and had duly disregarded
Ned Longdon’s testimony.
Then there was the evidence given by Isabelle’s friend from the bridge club – the one she’d allegedly spent so much time with.
Only half the time that Isabelle claimed to have spent with Betty Cox, Betty had been otherwise occupied with her golf-professional
lover. Betty told the court that Isabelle had seemed preoccupied just before her death; perhaps even a little frightened.
The nanny’s low opinion of her charge’s mother and the disapproval of this starchy but seemingly sincere young woman – a Miss
Enid Buchanan – was almost palpable. Mrs Clipton, she claimed, had ignored poor little Jimmy most of the time and had rather
too many racy friends for her liking. Isabelle Clipton was an unfit mother who’d paid little attention to her poor little
Jimmy – in the nanny’s statement the child was always referred to as ‘poor’ and ‘little’ as if those were his additional Christian
names. After a good deal of prompting by the defence counsel, the
nanny admitted that Mrs Clipton seemed to be afraid of something or someone – and that, in her opinion, this something or
someone wasn’t necessarily Dr Clipton, whom she usually treated with something approaching contempt. But the police in those
days didn’t follow this up as fully as Wesley himself would have done. The prosecution made its case that George Clipton was
a cuckold, driven to strangle and disfigure his wife out of jealousy. And George Clipton was hanged by the neck until he was
dead.
It was the nanny who had found Isabelle’s body, lying in the quiet lane behind the house. The prosecution claimed that Dr
Clipton had encountered his wife there – perhaps he’d even gone out looking for her. A quarrel had ensued which ended when
the doctor had finally snapped, placed his hands around his wife’s slender neck and squeezed the life out of her. Liam Cheshlare,
the locum, had heard the Cliptons having ‘words’, as he put it, on a number of occasions. The young man was horrified at what
had happened, of course, but somehow not really surprised.
Wesley pulled the photograph out from under the file. The three people: George and Isabelle Clipton and Liam. Now he knew
who Liam was – Dr Liam Cheshlare – and he couldn’t help wondering whether the young doctor was still alive. He would ask one
of the team to trace his whereabouts – he’d like to speak to someone who’d actually been there.
He had to face the fact that the evidence against George Clipton seemed pretty solid, if a little circumstantial. Perhaps
he’d got it all wrong. Perhaps the tragic history of James Dalcott’s parents had nothing to do with his death after all.
He stared at the photograph. There was something
about the young man in the background that looked vaguely familiar. He might even have seen him somewhere recently, many years
older, his face and body afflicted with all the indignities and infirmities that come with age. He closed his eyes, trying
to remember, but it was no use. And there was always a good chance that he was mistaken.
He read through the papers again, thinking that there might be something he’d missed – something important. Then he recalled
something that made him smile. Enid Buchanan – Nanny Buchanan. When Pam had been pregnant with Michael she had bought an assortment
of books on baby care and studied them closely, treating the advice as holy writ … until she realised that most of that advice
conflicted. Wesley had teased her about one she particularly liked – a book by a woman called Nanny Buchanan. The name had
conjured for him a mental picture of a stout woman in an old-fashioned starched nurse’s uniform pushing a pram the size of
a small car around a London park. Nanny Buchanan – firm but fair with a belief in the benefits of fresh air and cod liver
oil.
Somehow he had imagined that James Dalcott’s old nanny would be long gone – married maybe, with the attendant change of name.
But if she was indeed the author of the book Pam had bought …
He had been feeling confusion, and maybe even despair, but now a fresh excitement coursed through his body. He picked up the
telephone and punched out his home number. Pam answered after the third ring.
‘Hello again.’
‘Hi.’ There was a pause. ‘Don’t tell me, you forgot to say that you’re not going to be in till after midnight.’
‘It’s nothing like that,’ Wesley said quickly. ‘Look, have you still got that book about baby care? Nanny Buchanan?’
‘Why?’
‘Have you got it?’
‘It’s probably on the bookshelves in the dining room with all the other books I’ve been intending to give to the charity shop.’
‘Can you find it for me?’
There was a pause. ‘Why? Has someone brought an abandoned baby into the police station and you need some helpful hints?’
Wesley smiled. ‘I’ll tell you when I see you. Can you get it for me – please. I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t important.’