“Yes,” Annie agreed. “Were the two of you very close?”
“Not really. We worked together, that’s all. Our jobs are very different, of course, but we obviously had to meet regularly to ensure the smooth running of the center.”
“But you didn’t know her socially?”
Dr. Lukas managed a weak smile. “I don’t have much of a social life,” she said. “But, no, we didn’t meet socially, only at work.”
Annie looked around the room. “It’s a nice place,” she said. “Nice center altogether. It can’t be cheap to maintain. I suppose it must be doing rather well?”
“As far as I know,” said Dr. Lukas. “The finances were Jennifer’s domain. I stick to what I know best.”
“Everyone tells me that Jennifer wasn’t her usual self the week before her murder. They say she was anxious, edgy, worried. Did you notice this?”
“We had one of our regular meetings last Wednesday,” Dr. Lukas said, “and come to think of it, she did seem a little on edge.”
“But you’ve no idea why?”
“I assumed it was man trouble, but as I said, I know nothing about her private life.”
“Why did you assume man trouble, then?”
The doctor smiled. She was a slight, thin figure, around forty, with short dark hair sprinkled with gray, hollow cheeks beneath the prominent bones and a tired look about her eyes. Her body language seemed tense, too tightly strung. “I shouldn’t jump to conclusions, I know,” she said, “but she was a very attractive woman, and I have seen her leave here with a man on a number of occasions.”
That would be Roy Banks. “Yes, we know about him,” Annie said. “But we don’t think that’s what was bothering her.”
The doctor spread her hands on the table, palms up. “Then I can’t help you,” she said.
“What about her previous boyfriend, Victor Parsons? Have you ever met him?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Apparently he’s turned up at the center and created a fuss once or twice.”
“I’m very isolated up here,” Dr. Lukas said. “I probably wouldn’t have noticed.”
“When Jennifer met her present boyfriend here, he was accompanying a young woman everyone assumed to be his daughter. Her name is Corinne and I don’t believe she is his daughter. Did you examine her?”
“When would this be?”
“About two months ago. April.”
Dr. Lukas turned to the laptop on her desk and pressed a few keys. “Corinne Welland?”
“I assume that’s the one,” Annie said. “I don’t know her last name.”
“It’s the only Corinne I had.”
“Then it must be her.”
“Then yes, I did,” said Dr. Lukas. “But I had no idea whether she was this man’s daughter or not. I never met him and she never said anything about him. It was just a straightforward consultation.”
“What happened to her?”
“She had her termination, and I assume she got on with her life.”
“Have you ever heard of Carmen Petri?”
“No,” said Dr. Lukas, just a little too quickly for Annie’s liking.
“Do you know what ‘late girls’ are?”
“Girls who are late with their periods? Girls who are dead? I have no idea.”
Annie hadn’t thought of that one, and she knew that she should have done. Dead girls. Was Carmen dead? Is that why she was one of the late girls? If so, how many others were there?
“What about girls who are pregnant and too late to have an abortion?”
“Then there would be no abortion. For one thing, it’s illegal, and for another, it’s dangerous.”
“Except if the mother or the fetus is in danger?”
“Exactly. In that case surgery may be performed. But it is not, strictly speaking, an abortion; it is a surgical procedure performed in order to save a life, or lives. Emergency surgery.”
“Yes, I understand the distinction,” said Annie. “Has the center ever been involved in such surgery?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“And you, as medical director, should know?”
“Well, you could check with the individual clinics where the terminations are actually carried out, but I very much doubt it. We’re essentially a family-planning center, though we offer a broader range of services than many other such organizations. Anyone requiring a termination after twenty-four weeks would automatically be referred to a hospital. It becomes a medical problem, not a matter of individual choice.”
“I see,” said Annie. She wasn’t going to get much farther with this. If the center was a party to illegal abortions, Dr. Lukas certainly wasn’t going to admit it, but Annie wasn’t entirely convinced by her saying that she had never heard of Carmen, or by her evasion of the late-girls issue. Perhaps she would come back to Dr. Lukas again later, she thought, as she stood up and made her polite farewell. After she’d seen Victor Parsons, at any rate. But the next time she would make sure they didn’t meet in the sterile domain of the Berger-Lennox Centre, where Dr. Lukas was clearly used to being in control.
DC Kev Templeton soon got fed up sitting around talking on the telephone. He was a man of action; he liked to rattle a few doors and feel a few collars. Now it was Monday and the world was on the move again, he was in his element. With Gristhorpe’s approval, he had set up a meeting with a DS Susan Browne, who was still working the Claire Potter case. They had agreed on a late lunch at a pub just off the M1 about halfway between Eastvale and Derby, and Templeton pulled into the car park at half past two thinking if this Susan Browne was a bit of all right he might even get his leg over before the day was done.
He walked through the dim, cavernous bar, where a few regulars sat quietly smoking and watching cricket on the TV, and went out of the back door into the garden. Templeton didn’t know if he looked like a detective or not in his jeans, T-shirt and trainers, Ray-Bans covering his eyes.
He scanned the tables for a likely-looking woman. There was only one, and when he approached her and she stood up to shake hands and introduce herself, Templeton’s heart sank. She was short and a bit thick around the middle, not his type at all. He liked the Keira Knightley type, coltish girls, long-legged and limber. Still, she had nice eyes, he thought, and her manner seemed pleasant enough. She also had a thin gold band on the ring finger of her left hand. A glass of fizzy water sat on the white table in front of her beside the menu, one of those colorful laminated types you usually find in chain pubs, which were the only sort of pubs where you were likely to get lunch at half past two on a Monday afternoon.
“Let’s get the ordering out of the way first, shall we?” she said, sliding the menu over to him. “I’ve already decided.”
Templeton scanned the colorful images of burgers, curries and fish and chips and decided that all he felt like was a prawn sandwich. Susan said she wanted a cheeseburger and chips. He almost warned her against it, given her waistline, but decided that probably wasn’t the most diplomatic way of starting off the meeting.
He ordered at the bar, bought himself a Coke and went back to the garden. Their table was in the shade of a large copper beech, and a light breeze came and went, ruffling Susan’s tight blond curls and susurrating through the leaves. At the other end of the garden a few children played on the swings and roundabout while their parents sat at nearby tables enjoying the sunshine. Templeton put his Ray-Bans on the table and gave DS Browne the full benefit of his heart-melting brown eyes.
“You’re from Western Area Headquarters, then?” she asked.
“Yeah,” said Templeton.
“Eastvale?”
“You know it?”
“Used to work there. How’s DCI Banks? Still around, I suppose?”
Templeton grinned. “We haven’t got rid of all the dinosaurs yet.”
“As I remember, he got results, and he was a pretty good boss.”
“Yeah, well… When were you there?”
“A few years back. I left just after I passed my sergeant’s boards. Did a year in uniform in Avon and Somerset, then transferred to CID in Derbyshire. How is Alan Banks doing? I heard about the fire. Sent him a card and all.”