Tangled Web (35 page)

Gordon closed his eyes again, wishing he were somewhere else.

Mary continued, ‘We’re thinking of a keeping aside a special bed just for you because you’re here so often. What on Earth possessed you to break in to Dawes’ house?’ she asked.

‘All right, all right, give me a chance, will you?’ said Gordon, holding up his hands in self-defence. He insisted that he hadn’t broken in; he’d been given a key and had just gone to take a look around when some madman had attacked him.

‘Clem Rees,’ interrupted Davies. ‘Slightly to the right of Saddam Hussain is old Clem. He sister’s place was done over by yobs two or three months ago. Duffed her up bad, they did. Clem didn’t take it too well. I think he sees himself as Charles Bronson in that film
Death Wish
? He says you attacked him and he had to hit you in self- defence. Is that right?’

‘What d’you think?’ said Gordon sourly.

‘Do you want to press charges?’

Gordon shook his head. ‘First things first.’ he said. ‘I found out lots of things in that house today. Did you get the passbook?’

‘Clem presented it as evidence of your intention to rob. He was quite disappointed to find out you really were a doctor. Surprises me too some times.’

‘And me,’ agreed Mary.

‘You’ve
got
to find out where that money came from,’ insisted Gordon. ‘It’s the key to the whole thing. Listen to me! There’s a chance that Anne-Marie Palmer might still be alive.’

Davies and Mary gave each other a look that suggested that Gordon might really have gone too far this time and it was perhaps time for sectioning him under the auspices of the Mental Health Act.

‘I’m serious. Just listen, will you?’ Gordon told them both what he’d discovered at the house in Aberlyn and finally felt he was getting somewhere in the credibility stakes when he saw the look of horror appear on both their faces as he told them about the cellar and what had gone on there. ‘So you see, it wasn’t Anne-Marie Palmer that you found in the garden, it was Megan Griffiths made to look like Anne-Marie.

‘My God, that’s sick,’ said Mary.

‘But it worked,’ said Gordon. ‘The bottom line says, they took Anne-Marie and nobody bothered to look for her. The perfect kidnap.’

‘So the big question is, what did they intend doing with her?’ said Davies.

Gordon nodded and went through the possibilities.

‘So, what d’you reckon?’ asked Davies.

‘I have to think that they wanted some or all of her organs,’ confessed Gordon. ‘If they’d wanted a cloned child I suspect the fact that Anne-Marie was so badly disabled might have persuaded them to try the cloning again rather than kidnap her. I hope I’m wrong but … ’

‘Makes sense,’ conceded Davies quietly.

‘I agree,’ said Mary, sounding very subdued. ‘But how could they do such a thing?’

‘The point is,’ insisted Gordon. ‘Maybe they
haven’t
yet. Maybe Anne-Marie is still alive.’

‘Do you really think there’s a chance?’ asked Mary.

Gordon shrugged and admitted, ‘It’s a slim one, considering the amount of time that’s elapsed, but while we don’t know for sure, we’ve got to try and find her and the key to doing that lies in that damned passbook!’

Davies was galvanised into action. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I’ll get on to the Nationwide, see what they can tell us. Mind you, if Dawes walked into their office with cash in a brown paper bag, we’re all up Shit Creek.’

Davies left, leaving Gordon alone with Mary. ‘How’s the jaw?’ she asked.

Gordon rubbed it gently. ‘Okay,’ he said.

Mary smiled affectionately and said, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you before. You’re either the bravest, most noble man I’m ever likely to come across or you’re a complete and utter pillock.’

‘Plenty of room for manoeuvre there,’ said Gordon. ‘I’d happily settle for somewhere in the middle.’

‘We’ll see,’ smiled Mary.

‘Well, I suppose you know what happens next by now,’ said Gordon, swinging his legs round and off the bed.

Mary looked at him and nodded, ‘You ask me for your clothes and then you sign yourself out?’

‘Correct.’

‘Are you sure you won’t stay in the night this time. You
were
knocked unconscious and damn it, you
are
a doctor, you should know better than to play the John Wayne thing.’

‘A man’s gotta do … ’

‘What exactly, in your case?’ asked Mary.

Gordon sighed and looked down at the floor for a moment in silence. ‘I do have my pride, you know,’ he said, finally looking up at her. ‘I’m aware of people giggling in the corridor as I turn up yet again in A&E as a patient when I’m supposed to be a bloody doctor!’

Mary stifled a giggle behind her hand.

‘I suppose I just want to be out of here. I never want to see the place again if truth be told!’

Mary sat down on the bed beside him, once again smitten with Gordon’s vulnerability. ‘Maybe you are at the right end of that spectrum after all,’ she said gently.

Gordon looked at her and said, ‘Of course if you were to kiss me long and hard I just might be able to convince that lot out there that I keep getting my head bashed in just so I can come and see you …’

‘Well, if it’s a question of saving your street-cred, Doctor, that would seem to be the very least I could do.’

They were kissing when a domestic assistant came in to remove a tray. They were still kissing when she left.

‘That should do it,’ said Gordon.

‘Did it for me,’ smiled Mary.

Gordon made to kiss her again but she put her hands on his chest. ‘I’m on duty, and you are going to go straight home to bed.’

‘If I get knocked out again can I come back for more?’

‘Don’t even dream it!’ said Mary. ‘I’ll get your clothes.’

‘Shit, my car’s over in Aberlyn,’ said Gordon.

‘No, it isn’t,’ said Mary. ‘The police brought it over here. It’s in the car park. I think they regard you as one of their own these days … or something like that.’

‘The bone!’ exclaimed Gordon. ‘The saw! They’ll need these as evidence. I didn’t tell Davies where they were exactly! I’d better get over to Aberlyn and … ’

‘
No
!’ insisted Mary. ‘You told Chief Inspector Davies about these things. His men are perfectly capable of finding them without your help, YOU are going home. Understood?’

‘Understood,’ said Gordon weakly.

‘Promise?’

‘Promise.’

Gordon drove back over to Felinbach, wondering how Davies was getting on with the Nationwide. It was now eight in the evening. He supposed that someone must have been dragged from his or her home to open up the office in Caernarfon where the account was registered. He wondered idly if they would see this as a nuisance or something to brighten the humdrum existence of working in a building society. Either way, please God, they’d come up with something useful.

Davies rang at nine thirty. Gordon snatched the receiver off its cradle.

‘We’ve got the source,’ said Davies. ‘Both payments were in the form of personal cheques signed by one Sonia Trool.’

‘
Sonia Trool?’
exclaimed Gordon. ‘Bloody hell.’

‘Make any sense?’

‘Her daughter!’ exclaimed Gordon. ‘Her daughter was blinded in a car accident. It was through the accident that she met James Trool. The little girl’s eyes were too badly damaged for a corneal transplant to be of any use but the optic nerve was undamaged so if more material were available and it was a perfect match …’ Gordon paused.

‘Jesus Christ, are you telling me they cloned a kid to steal her eyes?’

‘That’s what it looks like.’

TWENTY EIGHT

‘I take it you’re on your way to pick up the Trools?’ said Gordon.

‘It’s not as easy as that,’ said Davies. ‘According to a neighbour, they’re not at home. They left last night, saying they’d be away for a few days.’

‘Where the hell did they say they were going?’ exclaimed Gordon.

‘They didn’t. The neighbour doesn’t know and neither does Trool’s secretary. Apparently, he told her that he felt physically and mentally drained after all the strain of the past few weeks so he’d decided to take some time off. He and his wife were going to go away somewhere together.’

‘What about their daughter?’ asked Gordon.

‘No daughter,’ said Davies. ‘The neighbour told us that her mother had taken her into some clinic or other a few days ago for some minor treatment. The clinic would be looking after her until they got back.’

‘Something doesn’t sound right to me,’ said Gordon suspiciously. ‘Their daughter goes into hospital and they go off on holiday? No way! They’re up to something. Chances are, if the kid has gone into hospital, it’s for the main event! God, we’re that close!’

‘We’ve put out an alert for them but it could take some time,’ said Davies.

‘Anne-Marie doesn’t have much of that.’

‘I’ll keep you posted,’ said Davies.

Gordon felt a tremendous sense of frustration and anticlimax. There was nothing worse than just having to sit and wait but there was no alternative if they simply didn’t have a clue where the Trools had gone. Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, he thought he should have suspected Trool’s involvement at an earlier stage. He remembered Thomas’s surprise – discomfort even - at finding Trool’s car in the car park on the night he had gone back to get a tissue sample from Anne-Marie. It now seemed highly probable that it had been Trool who had tried to kill him that night and had later gone on to murder Thomas in his office. Come to think of it, he had even heard Thomas arguing with Trool, on an earlier occasion when he’d come close to being caught searching Thomas’s lab. Thomas may have confided his fears in Trool about what Dawes was up to, possibly asking him to take some kind of action in his capacity as medical superintendent of the hospital and then been frustrated by Trool’s reluctance. He couldn’t have suspected that Trool had actually been the instigator of the whole affair - or maybe he
had
and that was why Trool killed him.

God, what a mess, thought Gordon, and all through the desire to make one child see again. It occurred to him now that maybe some Faustian bargain had been struck between Sonia and James Trool over what could be done for her daughter in the long term. Their marriage had puzzled a great many people, including he himself. Perhaps the beautiful Sonia had agreed to marry James Trool on the understanding that he would restore her daughter’s eyesight? He supposed it made some kind of hellish sense … suddenly it seemed a very long time since he had last had a proper sleep. He was getting into bed when the phone rang. Thinking it might be Davies with more news, he snatched it up.

‘Just checking,’ said Mary’s voice.

‘I’m just on my way to bed, honest.’

‘Good. Any word from the police?’

Gordon told her about Sonia being the source of the payments to Dawes but swore her to secrecy for the moment. There was nothing they could do until the police found out where the Trools had gone.’

‘So it’s possible that Anne-Marie
is
still alive?’ asked Mary.

‘Just,’ replied Gordon. ‘But if she is it’s going to be a pretty close-run thing. If the Trools’ daughter has been in a clinic for a few days … the chances are frankly, not good.’

‘What kind of people are they?’ exclaimed Mary. ‘How can they see a child as a bag of spare parts? Trool’s a doctor, for God’s sake. He took the Hippocratic oath just like we did. Medicine is supposed to be about helping people, all people, not about the survival of the fittest or the richest?’

‘It is,’ Gordon assured her. ‘That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it?’

‘If you can call stitching up the heads of three drunks who had a fight after a football match and extracting an aniseed ball from the nose of a teenager, who “did it for a laugh”, helping people, then I suppose it is,’ replied Mary, summarising her most recent activities.

‘Of course it is. It means you’re one of the good guys,’ said Gordon. ‘And thank God there are still a lot more goodies than baddies in the game.’

‘Sometimes I wonder,’ said Mary.

‘Just a few bad apples.’

‘Get some sleep, Tom.’

Mary had a point, thought Gordon as his head hit the pillow. People expected such a lot of certain professions, doctors, policemen, nurses. Bad apples could do an untold amount of damage in these particular barrels.

Gordon was woken at seven by a call from the police in Caernarfon. It didn’t come from Davies personally – he was off duty - but he had left instructions that Gordon should be informed if there were any developments during the night.

‘We’ve heard from Manchester Airport that Dr and Mrs Trool and their daughter were on a BA flight to Paris two nights ago.’

‘Paris,’ repeated Gordon flatly, not knowing what to make of the news, then it registered that the officer had said their daughter was with them. ‘Are you sure about that?’ he asked.

That’s what it says here.’

‘So what’s happening?’

‘We’ve asked the French police for urgent assistance in finding them.’

Gordon put down the phone but it rang again almost immediately. This time it was Davies himself. ‘You’ve heard?’

Gordon said that he had. ‘Paris, and their daughter was with them.’

‘Don’t understand that,’ said Davies. ‘Their neighbour was adamant that the child had gone into the clinic a few days ago and that the Trools were alone when they left.’

‘Must have picked her up somewhere along the way,’ said Gordon.

‘So what the hell are they doing?’ asked Davies.

‘I’m not sure,’ said Gordon slowly. ‘This Paris thing has thrown me a bit but they’re up to something.’

‘If the kid’s already had the operation, maybe they’ve taken her away to recuperate?’ suggested Davies. ‘I mean, Paris doesn’t have to be their final destination, does it? The south of France can be very nice at this time of year.’

‘Then why not fly there directly,’ said Gordon.

‘Maybe flights were difficult. It doesn’t take that long on the TGV from Paris.’

‘Hmm,’ said Gordon, unconvinced.

‘Look, if they’ve booked into a hotel in Paris, the French police will find them,’ said Davies.