For the first time he smiled, and became less formal. 'Sorry about the exercises; I've just done a hip replacement on a very large man.
Lay people don't appreciate it, but orthopaedic surgery is very demanding physically, on the surgeon as well as the patients. By the time we're ready to retire, most of us need new parts ourselves.' He touched the tip of his nose with his fingertips, then pulled his elbows back, sharply.
'What's all this about, anyway?' he asked The detective shook his head. 'I'm sorry, Mr Strang; I can't tell you that, not until I've spoken to your colleague.'
'Is it a professional matter? Is it something I could help you with?'
'No, it isn't. We just need to talk to Dr Gopal, that's all. We believe that he may have information which is relevant to a current investigation.
When did he go on leave?'
'Last Monday, or rather, Tuesday morning, if one wanted to be pedantic about it.'
'What do you mean?'
'I mean that he called in on Tuesday and asked me if it would be all right if he took three weeks' leave, with immediate effect. I told him that would be okay, that I would arrange cover for his list.'
Steele made no attempt to hide his surprise. 'Did you ask him why he couldn't give you notice?'
'Of course. He said that he was burned out, and I accepted that. It happens to hard-working young doctors, you know.'
'Policemen too,' the detective murmured. 'I must try that one on my superintendent some time.'
He looked up at Derrick Strang. 'Where does Dr Gopal live?'
'Edinburgh. That's all I know. Our personnel people will have his address on file. I'll ask my secretary to get it for you.' He opened the door, and leaned into the outer office for a few seconds.
'Are you close colleagues?' Steele asked. 'Do you know each other well?'
The Clinical Director shook his head. 'I wouldn't say that. We have a cordial relationship, but it's purely professional. Surinder is a member of my team, and he does very good work. He's a very conscientious young man, as I've said, and a pleasant person into the bargain, but we rarely socialise away from the hospital, other than at the Christmas lunch and the Burns Supper.
'Nothing racial about that, by the way,' he added, hurriedly. 'Golf is the main out-of-hours activity among the clinical staff, but young Dr Gopal doesn't play the game.'
'How long has he been with you?'
Strang eased himself into his chair, facing the detective. He scratched his chin. 'Let's see. He's been with me here since we opened; before that around eighteen months at the PMR: two and a half years, give or take a month. Before that he worked up at the Western, as a junior on Nolan Weston's staff.'
Steele managed to maintain a casual tone. 'Is that Professor Weston?'
'That's right; Chair of Surgical Oncology, at Edinburgh University.
Surinder thought about specialising in that area, but he decided that the future lies in orthopaedics. He's right too; the trend in cancer is away from surgery, whereas in our field we have all sorts of new ground being broken.
'Ten years down the road, sergeant, we'll be transplanting a lot more than organs; that's a certainty.' He raised his right hand and extended the index finger. 'We can do these now, but that's only a start.'
As he spoke the door opened. Strang's secretary came into the room and handed him a note. The consultant took it and passed it to Steele.
'There you are, sergeant: Surinder's address. Maybe once you've spoken to him you can tell me what the mystery was all about.'
36
With every passing minute Karen Neville grew more uncomfortable as she sat in the centre of the restaurant, facing the door, watching each shadow cast on its glass panel by the street light outside.
Giuliano's is at its quietest in the middle of the evening, since most of its trade comes from theatre-going diners before and after the nightly performances at the Playhouse.
She took yet another sip of her San Pellegrino, and glanced at her watch yet again: it showed nine thirty-three, and her aqua minerale was almost finished. She was sure that the young waiter was laughing at her as he sidled up to her table. 'Can I bring you a glass of wine, perhaps, madame?' he asked.
'No thanks,' she said, grimly. 'You can leave a menu though.'
'You are waiting for a gentleman, si?' She knew that his accent was authentic, since most of Edinburgh's Italian restaurants employ genuinely Italian waiters.
Karen fixed him with a look that would have frozen South Miami.
The waiter simply shook his head. 'He mus' be a crazy man, to keep you waiting,' he grinned.
On another night she would have gone along with the joke, perhaps flirted with the olive-skinned youth… who was not bad looking, she admitted to herself. On another night, in fact, she might have called his bluff. But the beginnings of anger were stirring in her; at that moment he was simply a nuisance to be blown away.
'No,' she said. 'He has responsibilities at home. He has to put his partner to bed every night; Dennis is very fussy about that. I'm used to it.' At that moment, the door swung open, and Wayne Ventnor swept into the restaurant. As he approached, she noticed that his limp seemed more pronounced than it had at the conference centre.
'Karen, I am so sorry,' he burst out. 'I was afraid you'd have given up on me by now.' He smiled as he sat opposite her, and she felt her annoyance dissolve.
'Another ten minutes,' she replied, 'and you'd have found me eating.
But it's okay. Did you have trouble with your friend?'
'No, that wasn't it. Edinburgh is a bloody awful place to find a taxi, that's all. No, Dennis is never a problem. He might look a bit grumpy, but he's a good bloke really.'
'Why's he in the wheelchair?'
Wayne frowned. 'He's got some sort of degenerative disease. Not MS, but something similar. I don't know. I'm ignorant when it comes to medicine.'
'How about you? Where did the limp come from?'
'From falling off a ladder on my rig.' He smiled at her. 'Hardly your stereotypical Aussies, are we? One in a chair, the other with a bent wing.'
'You're not limping just now,' she said, softly.
They concentrated on their menu cards for a few minutes; once the deflated waiter had departed for the kitchen with their orders, Karen turned to the Australian. 'So how did the rest of your day go?'
'Just like the part you saw. The sandwiches at lunchtime were okay, though. If it hadn't been for you, that would probably have been the highlight of the day. How about you?'
The? Oh, I just went back to base and got on with the preparation of our next event.' Inwardly she groaned. Don't chuck in unnecessary detail, she scolded herself.
'And what's that?' came the inevitable question.
'A group marketing seminar for a big insurance company,' she offered, hoping that it sounded sufficiently boring to end his interest.
'What's your company called?' he asked her. For a second, she wondered whether it might be a trick question.
'I thought I told you this morning, I'm freelance. I have an associate; we trade jointly as McGuire and Neville. We don't have an office, though; we work from home.'
She imagined that she saw a shadow cross his face. 'Ah,' he said.
'You live together.'
'No we don't. I'm sorry, I meant from each of our homes. He's married, and I…' She lowered her voice. 'I'm gay.'
In the silence that followed, she asked herself what had made her say that. Did she still suspect him? Or had she simply laid down a marker of her determination to follow McGuire's advice on pillow talk? Whatever the reasoning behind her instinctive remark, his reaction made it superfluous.