The Burden of Doubt (14 page)

‘Jack Tricklebank told me he’s thinking of going down the road of getting a solicitor involved and getting legal aid and so on,’ she continued. ‘But he won’t get anywhere – I’ve been down that road. It’s cost me thousands and I’ve got nowhere. No one will say that Cavanagh did anything wrong. Not even the press will. It’s like he’s living in a one-way toughened glass bubble where he can reach out to all his wretched patients but no one can get at him.’

Laura sat in respectful silence as Juliet Cox began to sob openly, wrapping her arms around her chest. Eventually she reached forward, touched the other woman gently on the shoulder and stood up in preparation of leaving.

Juliet Cox blew her nose again. ‘I’ll see you out,’ she said.

They walked together across the sea of royal blue carpet. ‘When I said that medics stick together, I maybe wasn’t being totally fair,’ she said reflectively. ‘There’s a young registrar called Anderson in Cavanagh’s department at the hospital whom I saw when I went for a follow up after the insurance company pulled the plug on my going back to the Willsdale. I gave the poor man an earful about what I thought of Cavanagh, and although he didn’t say anything directly I got the impression he was concerned about what was going on, and that another member of the team was also worried. It sounded as though he and this other doctor were going to try to do something about Cavanagh. But I guess it must be pretty difficult for them, grassing up a colleague.’ She paused and sighed. ‘And the bottom line is, Cavanagh’s a consultant and it seems they just don’t get touched.’

They had reached the door now. Laura reflected how often it happened that some shining nugget of information popped up after an interview had officially closed. ‘Do you think Moira
Farrell might have been the colleague the registrar was referring to?’

‘It’s possible, isn’t it?’ There was a sharp light of speculation in Juliet’s red-rimmed eyes. ‘Who better than a doctor to know that dangerous doctors should be stopped?’

Laura’s thoughts careered ahead. What if Moira Farrell had been going to blow the whistle on Cavanagh? What if Cavanagh knew and had decided to save his career by taking matters into his own hands?

Laura glanced at Juliet Cox and wondered if she had mishandled this interview, allowing the other woman to manipulate her.

Juliet opened the door. ‘I hope your enquiries reach a speedy conclusion,’ she said. ‘And thanks for listening to all my moaning. It really helps to tell the story over again to someone who shows a bit of sympathy.’ She gave one of her half smiles. ‘How pathetic is that?’ She offered her hand and Laura took it. The hand was warm and sticky with feeling, but the grip was firm.

Outside the snow was falling like freshly thrown confetti, speckling Laura’s hair with a thousand shiny white dots as she ran to her car.

By the time it was dropping dark, Shaun was in a state of drunkenness where reckless optimism and an urgent need for entertainment outweighed caution and realistic thinking. Putting a small wad of his gran’s recently unearthed treasure in the pocket of his jeans he ventured out into the wide world once more, bound for the pub at the end of the road around a mile away.

Kicking up the snow which was now hardening as the temperature dropped, he had a sense of euphoria at the thought of the freedom his gran’s hidden stash had offered him. And she’d always said she’d leave him the bungalow, so very soon he’d be pretty well set up and bloody stinking rich. He pulled down the woolly hat he had found in his gran’s wardrobe. It was one she’d knitted herself. Dark blue wool and big enough to pull down to the tip of his nose. She’d always been like that gran, so worried about knitting things too small she made them flaming huge. She’d been a funny old stick, but he’d really loved her. He just
wished it hadn’t taken her to die before he realized just how much. He felt the tears welling up again, but he pushed them back. He was going to go to that fucking pub and he was going to have a beer and get clean away with it. And no one would recognize him. He just knew they wouldn’t. He’d be fine. He thought of his gran up there in heaven looking down on him, and he knew that no one, no one at all could touch him.

Swift checked with the Registrar of Deaths. There was no one of the name of Busfield who had been registered in the past few weeks, indeed not in the past five years. But, of course, if the grandmother concerned was a maternal grandmother she would have a different name. He asked Doug to go back to Busfield’s place of work and talk again with the colleague who had mentioned the death of Busfield’s grandmother. ‘What we want is some idea of the date of death and the hospital in which she died.’

Doug went off happily enough. He’d had no joy with Tina. But then Tina had a close connection with their suspect and would be filled with all the usual human complexities and inconsistencies attaching to the dilemma she found herself in. Talking again to a casual workmate of Busfield’s was the kind of clearly defined routine policework which provided a little welcome relief.

Shaun took his pint to a table in the corner of the pub, relishing the warmth of the place, feeling the numbness of cold in his toes begin to tingle with life. He hadn’t been here in years, not since he used to pop in as an underage drinker after he’d been visiting his gran. It was all changed, tarted up with rugs on the stone-flagged floor and bowls on the window sills full of poncey wine corks.

He sipped his beer. He was coming down now from the happy feelings the wine had given him. He took long swigs of his beer, wanting a new hit like a man hooked on coke. There were four business types on the table next to him, dark suits and shirts with blue stripes, full of themselves, drinking their red wine and talking in loud voices about the cars they were driving and the holidays they were going on. Resentment rose in him, thinking of all the luck they’d have had which he’d missed. He imagined
them with happy childhoods and nice parents who didn’t fight each other and having hot dinners made for them, and pocket money. The list went on piling in his head, fuelling his bitterness. His dad had left before he even knew him. And there’d been ‘uncle’ after ‘uncle’, none of them any good. Some of them had fun hitting him and some of them jeered and called him a little
pissyarse
when he wet the bed. His gran had done her best to help but his mum didn’t want her putting her nose in.

The thoughts eddied and shifted in his head. He glanced at the business-types from time to time, his rancour intensifying. One of them caught his eye. ‘What are you staring at, pal?’ he jested, amused and full of himself, eyeing Shaun with the condescension of the landed gentry from centuries past running across some poor wretched peasant.

Shaun scowled and thrust his glance into his beer. He drank some more, but somehow it didn’t seem to be doing the trick. There was a tightness in his chest, a sudden stab of panic. He shouldn’t have come. He should have stayed safe in his gran’s house, scoffing the wine.

The men were huddled together now, conspiratorial and chuckling. Shaun thought he heard the words, ‘Catching a bit of a whiff from the local oiks, eh?’ Glancing up, he saw the one who had spoken up before look towards him again, his eyes twinkling with amused disdain.

‘Fuck off!’ he muttered, dipping his nose back into his glass.

The men went quiet for a few seconds then resumed their jolly braying.

Shaun took deep breaths, steadying himself, knowing he had to get out of the pub and get back to the bungalow as soon as possible. With slow deliberation he drained his glass, got up and made for the door. Outside the cold cut like a knife. But the darkness was a security blanket. He set off walking at a brisk pace, trying to keep his staggering steps in as straight a line as possible.

He became aware of footsteps following him, accelerating, catching up. And then they were on him. Shaun knew how to fight, he knew how to take care of himself. He threw a punch and knocked one of the bastards clean out. But there were still three of
them. The air was full of flying fists. As he lashed out he thought he’d got another one down. The yells of fury rang in his ears. Lights began to flash in his head. And then the fuzz were there, black uniforms and helmets weighing in.

Oh, Jesus, God! God! God!

Fuelled by a desperate fear for his freedom Shaun managed to squirm free of the tangle of bodies. And then he began to run.

Doug sat in his car and phoned in to the station.

Swift took the call. He was in his usual place at the end of the working day, sitting in contemplation of the whiteboard and its charting of the story so far in the Moira Farrell case. Laura was not yet back from her interview.

‘I think we might have made some progress, boss. According to Shaun’s mate, the grandmother died around four weeks ago. In one of the local hospitals, he wasn’t sure which. She was
seventy-one.
He said that Shaun had mentioned the age more than once, saying she was too young to die.’

‘Right, that sounds promising.’

‘Do you want me to get straight round to the nearest hospital and get names of female deaths in that age range for the likely dates?’

Swift considered. ‘If you do find any leads it would be too late to follow up with house to house calls. We don’t want to frighten the general public.’

‘Heaven forbid!’

‘But if you can get a list of names and addresses we could start following them up first thing tomorrow morning.’

‘Right you are, guv. Will do.’ Doug delved into the supply of sweets he kept in his car, unwrapped a mint and telephoned his wife. ‘Sorry, love, you’ll have to put my supper in the oven. Don’t even think of putting it in the dog.’ He listened to the retort with a grin, popped the mint into his mouth and set off again into the night.

Back at her flat, whilst Laura waited for a frozen steak and kidney pudding to warm up in the oven she mentally reviewed the interviews
with Adrian Cavanagh, Joe Tricklebank and Juliet Cox. Was there was a significant and possibly menacing link between Moira Farrell and Cavangah. As she reflected it began to seem more and more likely that Moira had been the doctor who was intending to blow the whistle on Cavanagh’s incompetence as a surgeon. It then struck her that the mode of the killing – a direct hit on the carotid artery – was consistent with a degree of medical knowledge.

She’d ask Swift in the morning if she could follow up at the hospital with the registrar Juliet Cox had mentioned. There didn’t seem much else to do whilst they went on waiting for Shaun Busfield to emerge into the spotlight.

Her land line trilled. ‘DC Ferguson,’ she said automatically, ever on duty.

‘Remember me?’ the voice said, velvet with seduction.

‘Saul,’ she said crisply, attempting to strip her voice of any detectable emotional response, despite the alarms zinging through her nerves.

‘Long time, no see,’ he said, his chat-up line cringingly predictable.

‘No worries,’ she told him. ‘I’ve been very busy.’

‘Ah, yes. The Farrell case.’

She made no comment. There was a small silence.

‘Am I getting the big freeze?’ he asked.

She grimaced. How could she have missed out on the banality of the guy? ‘What are you after?’ She made her voice pleasantly polite.

‘You.’

She made a small noise in her throat.

‘OK, OK, I’m getting the message. Couldn’t we at least meet for a drink?’ he wheedled. ‘Mates, huh?’

‘Mates,’ she commented. ‘Sure, let’s just leave it like that, shall we?’

He needed a few seconds to consider. ‘Just a drink, huh?’

‘Saul,’ she said, ‘we had a lovely fling.’ She winced, reflecting on how banality brought out the hackneyed in you. ‘Let’s leave it at that.’

He was still protesting as she dropped the phone back on its base and returned to the oven.

At the mortuary Doug persuaded one of the pathologists who was working late to open up the filing drawer which carried names of bodies who had been passed on from the hospital. He came away with ten names. Tomorrow promised to be a day of interesting foot-soldiering.

Shaun woke with a hangover that made him vow never to drink again. White-faced and shaking, he stumbled to the bathroom, threw up in the basin and instantly felt better. The cold in the bungalow was becoming like a physical assault, stiffening his joints and numbing the ends of his fingers and toes. He pulled on jeans and a sweater and wrapped himself in his gran’s old-fashioned candlewick dressing gown, then went back to bed. At least he’d got himself home after the fiasco last night. First those bleeding business type bastards and then the fucking police. But he’d got the better of the lot of them. He was safe again. When he felt a bit brighter he’d have a really big think about what to do next.

Doug and Laura were heading up the house to house calls in search of Shaun Busfield. An escort of two beat cars with a total complement of six uniforms built like tanks was following them, covertly covering back and front exits from the houses targeted before Laura and Doug embarked on their soft-pedal enquiries.

They had to use sensitivity in dealing with relatives who were, in the main, still grieving for lost relatives, and were puzzled and none too pleased to be visited by the police asking questions about their dead wives, mums, sisters, grandmas and aunties.

‘I don’t think I can take much more of this,’ Laura exclaimed after an interview with a tearful, lonely widower in his eighties who was very reluctant to let the officers leave.

Doug nodded agreement. ‘High time we got a break and cut to the chase.’

Shaun gave a start as the door bell rang. Then rang again. Was followed by persistent knocking on the door. He got out of bed and peeped cautiously through a crack in the curtains. Jesus Christ! There was a uniform creeping round to the back door. The knocking went on. He rubbed his chin. So they were at the front as well.

He sat down heavily on the bed. It was all over. He was a fox and the hounds were closing in. A wave of hopelessness and exhaustion swept through him. Slowly, still in his gran’s
dressing-gown,
his feet clad in the socks he’d worn ever since the flight from his own house, he went down the hallway to the front door and opened it. ‘If you want a fight,’ he told the two officers standing there, gravity, eagerness and tension etched on their faces, ‘you’re going to be fucking disappointed.’

Shaun Busfield was an old hand at being arrested. He knew his rights. He used the one call he was allowed to make in order to contact a firm of solicitors. Within the hour a young man called Tristan Brown had arrived at the station, clutching a notepad and looking concerned and apprehensive.

Swift made both Shaun and his solicitor wait until the results of the initial house search at Shaun’s grandmother’s bungalow were completed. Nothing of interest was found. He told the officer in charge to keep looking.

As Shaun was ushered into the interview-room, Laura prepared to record the exact time on the tape as the interview commenced. Swift sat alongside her, with Tristan Brown on Shaun’s side of the table, his chair pushed a little way back, his pad and pencil at the ready. In the observation room Dough found himself partnered with Damian Finch, not an entirely comfortable prospect in her view.

Shaun had taken advantages of the facilities of the custody suite and had taken a shower and shaved. But he was still in the jeans, sweater and underclothes he had been wearing for days and a faintly sour smell emanated from him.

Swift made the introductions and started the questioning. ‘Do you know why you’re here?’ he asked the glowering Busfield.

‘Haven’t a fucking clue.’

Swift gave him a long hard look. ‘There’s a TV at your grandmother’s bungalow – haven’t you been watching it?’

Busfield thought about it. ‘Better things to do.’

‘We’re investigating a murder,’ Swift said.

‘Well, I ain’t done it. And that’s the bloody truth.’ Busfield turned to stare at the tape turning in the machine and scowled at it. ‘I’ve never murdered anyone.’

‘We’re investigating the murder of Dr Moira Farrell.’

Shaun stiffened. ‘So? What’s that got to do with me?’

‘She lives in Ambleside Drive.’

Shaun gave a slow, insolent shrug – a gesture he had honed to a fine art in his youth. But the irises of his eyes shifted and flickered with unease.

‘Do you know Ambleside Drive?’ Swift persisted.

Busfield glanced at his solicitor but it was like a swimmer in difficulties appealing to a drowning man. ‘I might. Not sure.’

Swift glanced at Laura, who opened one of the files in front of her. ‘Do you work at the plumbing suppliers in Denverdale Road?’ she asked.

‘Yeah.’

‘Do you ever drive one of the firm’s delivery vans?’

Beads of perspiration glittered on Busfield’s forehead. He blew out a breath as though overcome with the heat of the room and pushed up the sleeves of his sweater. His arms were thin and muscular, covered in light-brown hairs. He laid them on the table as though they were prize exhibits. ‘Sometimes.’

‘Your firm recently supplied a number of items to Dr Farrell’s house in Ambleside Drive,’ Laura said. ‘Your foreman says that some of them were delivered in one of the vans. He said that you sometimes drive the vans when the other drivers are busy or off sick.’

Shaun bit on his lip. ‘So, what if I do?’

‘Can you tell me where you were on the morning of Tuesday January 16th this year?’ Swift came in.

‘At work, of course.’

‘Between the hours of five-thirty and six-thirty a.m.’

Shaun lifted his sinewy arms from the table and folded them across his chest. Suddenly he felt on much safer ground. ‘Tucked up in bed with mi girlfriend. I never get up ’til seven, and even then it’s a bloody effort.’ His eyes sharpened. ‘You ask Tina, she’ll tell you I was there with her.’

Swift nodded. He reached down, picked up an evidence bag containing a pair of trainers and placed it on the desk. ‘Are these your shoes?’

Shaun peered at them. ‘How can I tell? They’re all mucky, covered in mud. Could be anyone’s.’

Swift sat back and treated Shaun Busfield to a long hard stare.

Shaun busied himself peering closely at the trainers in the evidence bag. ‘They’re certainly not the ones your lot took off me at work. Cheeky bastards, leaving me with nothing on me feet.’

Swift left a long pause. ‘The trainers in the bag have Moira Farrell’s blood on them. Our forensic experts believe that it’s blood which was lost from her body around the time she was killed. They also note that the size of the trainers and the way in which they’ve worn through use is very similar to that of the trainers you let us take for analysis.’ He tapped the bag, making the plastic crackle. ‘Take a closer look, Shaun. Tell me you’re sure these trainers don’t belong to you.’

Colour rushed into Shaun’s pale face and he felt the sweat breaking out on his skin under his T-shirt. His eyes shifted from side to side like trapped animals. Beside him Tristan Brown looked almost as panic stricken.

‘You can bang on about these flaming trainers as long as you like. I’ve told you, I was in bed asleep when that woman was killed. Why can’t you get that into your thick heads?’

‘Forensics found a hair in one of those trainers,’ Swift said. ‘It matches your DNA profile.’

Shaun swallowed hard. ‘How d’you know? You haven’t done one of those swab tests, have you?’

‘We’ve already got a record of your DNA on the database,
Shaun,’ Laura came in softly. ‘Have you forgotten that? It was taken on the last occasion you were arrested. For ABH.’

Shaun frowned and his bit down on his lip. ‘Aye, well, that hair could have got into the shoe any old how. It don’t prove ’owt. You’re just trying to pin this woman’s murder on me because I’ve got previous.’

Tristan Brown leaned forward to his client but Shaun put out a hand, batting the anxious young man off. ‘Anyone could have put that hair there. You’re setting me up, you bastards, planting evidence so you can get a result. Don’t think I don’t know how you lot go on.’

‘You’ve had plenty of previous experience finding out, haven’t you, Shaun?’ Swift commented.

‘That’s all in the past,’ Shaun protested, his eyes blazing. ‘I’ve been straight for well on a couple of years now.’

Swift leaned forward and placed his hand once again on the evidence bag. ‘I asked the lab to try to get a further sample from these training shoes, Shaun. They found traces of sweat in the grime on the inside of the soles. Traces which have been analysed, and as a result we’ve got a further match on your DNA. Evidence which proves you have worn those trainers.’

Shaun’s Adam’s apple did a bungee jump. He was silent for a few moments, feeling the net closing in on him. He thrust his face forward towards the two waiting detectives. ‘Listen, I didn’t kill that woman. And if you pigs haven’t set me up, someone else has. I
I didn’t do it
!’

He swivelled to confront his solicitor, nodding towards Swift and Laura. ‘Can’t you do something about this? This lot are the criminals, they’re trying to stitch me up.’

‘This is evidence which has been collected and analysed according to the laid-down procedures and in good faith,’ Swift said formally.

‘Hah!’ Shaun flung himself back in his chair. ‘I’m not saying no more.’

‘Shaun – if you’re as innocent as you’d like us to believe,’ Swift said calmly, ‘why did you take off like a bat out of hell when our officers called to speak to you at your house?’

Shaun threw up his hands. ‘Jesus Christ, man! Why d’you think?’

‘You tell us,’ Laura invited.

‘It’s obvious! You’d decided I’d be a good’un to pin this one on. You lot’d stop at nothing. I was shitting myself thinking of what you’d do to me.’

‘Your alibi’s a bit shaky, isn’t it?’ Laura suggested. ‘Your girlfriend covering for you. A touch convenient, don’t you think?’

‘Piss off,’ Shaun growled.

Tristan Brown leaned forward, cleared his throat and spoke up. ‘Do you have any witnesses who saw Mr Busfield at the victim’s house or at the murder scene?’

‘Not so far,’ Swift said.

‘Or any evidence of his presence at the house and the crime scene?’

There was a silence.

Shaun straightened in his seat and turned to his lawyer. ‘Ay! Good for you, lad.’

Whilst Shaun sweated in his cell attended by his solicitor, and Swift conferred with Doug and Finch, Laura slipped out and drove to the hospital and asked to speak to Cavanagh’s registrar, whose name was listed on the information the consultant had asked his secretary to provide.

James Anderson was tall and slim with thick blond hair and pale skin. He had wide-set blue eyes and a long thin nose. In her mind Laura noted him down as singularly good-looking, the kind of guy women would fall for. Older women would mother him and young ones sleep with him. She reined in her fantasies and instructed herself to concentrate on the matter in hand as regards the current investigation, namely had there been any connection between Moira Farrell and James Anderson beyond that of being doctors working in the same department, and if so what was it?

Anderson took her into a tiny office which she guessed had been formed by partitioning a former larger room into two small ones. This office was the one which had retained the original 1930s style central-heating radiator which was full on making the room stiflingly warm.

Laura took off her coat and unwound her scarf. Anderson watched her then crossed to the radiator and fiddled with its controls. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘it’s stuck in full steam ahead mode.’

‘Not to worry.’

‘How can I help you? You’ve come about Moira, haven’t you?’ Anderson looked at her steadily, his eyes holding hers.

Laura dropped her gaze to her pad and pen, refusing to engage with his covert seductiveness. She reminded herself that she was here on a nod from Swift, that Finch would be furious if he knew what was going on and that it was up to her to tread very carefully in this interview. ‘We’re wanting to build up a picture of Moira: her life, her background, what sort of person she was. We’d be glad for anything you can tell us.’

Anderson thought for a few moments. ‘She was a damn good gasman,’ he said.

‘Sorry?’ Laura looked up, pen poised over her pad.

‘Gasman – it’s medical slang for anaesthetist,’ he explained.

‘Right. So you obviously had a respect for her work?’

‘Very much so. She was a good doctor to have on our firm.’

Laura glanced up again.

‘That’s medical slang for team.’

‘Right. And did Dr Farrell get on well with the rest of the team – your firm?’

‘Oh, yes. And with the patients. She’d take time to talk to them and reassure them about having a GA.’

‘General anaesthetic?’

He smiled. ‘Correct. A lot of people get quite up tight about the thought of putting themselves in someone else’s hands and being knocked unconscious.’

Laura nodded. She, herself, had never ever been in hospital but she could imagine the anxiety.

‘Moira would explain to patients just what was going to happen and how they were likely to feel. Quite a few other anaesthetists don’t bother so much. She was just really good at talking with patients,’ he added. ‘God! It’s awful to think she’s gone, and the way it happened.’

Laura watched the muscles of his face move, observed the
sadness in his eyes. If he was playing a part he was a commendably good actor. ‘We’ve heard that there are some tensions within your department,’ she said.

Anderson looked at her unblinking. ‘I’d imagine it’s rare for there to be no tensions amongst a bunch of professionals when they’re in the business of dealing with birth, life and death.’

‘Yes, indeed. So there are tensions?’ Laura came back at him.

He glanced away. ‘Yes.’

‘Was Moira involved?’

There was beat of tell-tale hesitation. ‘She wasn’t the kind of person to quarrel with colleagues.’

Laura recalled the photograph of Moira and Cavanagh in some kind of confrontation. ‘Not even with Mr Cavanagh?’

Anderson glanced down at his hands and pursed his lips. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘it’s true that there are some disagreements between some of the staff and Mr Cavanagh at present. It’s about medical procedures, nothing to do with your investigation. I really can’t say more than that.’