‘I met Carwyn Thomas today,’ said Gordon, changing the subject. ‘He invited me to attend the IVF symposium next week at the General.’
‘You are honoured,’ said Julie. ‘Do you plan on going?’
‘I think I’ve got quite enough on my plate already in the way of extra-curricular activity,’ said Gordon.
‘I’d much rather you abandoned one of the other things,’ said Julie but she softened the comment with a smile.
‘Maybe I’ll manage one or two of the talks,’ said Gordon, not wanting to be drawn into any new argument over the Palmer case. ‘Anything new?’ he asked, noticing that Julie was going over their case figures for the month.
‘It’s really been quite quiet,’ she replied. ‘I think this means we’ve successfully come through another winter. The bronchitics are wheezing their way into spring and colds and flu are fading away for another year. We’re enjoying a bit of a lull at the moment.’
‘Until the hay fever and asthma people start up again,’ smiled Gordon.
‘Life’s a circle,’ said Julie.
Gordon, who had been opening the mail that had come in while he’d been up at Caernarvon as they spoke, let out a quiet expletive.
‘Trouble?’
‘It’s Rita Farningham’s histology report; the lump on her breast is malignant: they want her in right away.’
‘Oh, rotten luck,’ sighed Julie. ‘Are we talking radical surgery here?’
‘From the size and position of the lump I think they might well opt for a lumpectomy rather than anything more drastic at this stage,’ replied Gordon.
‘I hope so. She’s young.’
‘We’ll just have to hope for the best until they’ve done the scans,’ said Gordon. ‘And please God, it’s the primary lesion.’
‘Better call her in.’
‘I’ll do it now.’
Gordon poured himself a large whisky when he got in around seven and slumped down in a chair: it had been a lousy day, he decided — a promising start but a hellish end. Having to tell a thirty-four year old woman with two small children that she’d got cancer hadn’t been easy, but then, giving out that kind of news never was. It was something that he hadn’t become hardened to in the job. He’d then come in to find that the heating had failed yet again and there was no hot water for the relaxing soak he’d been looking forward to. He threw back the whisky in one big gulp and opted for a second.
How, he wondered as he sipped it, did one go about getting permission to visit a prisoner being held on remand? He pondered this for a few minutes, allowing the whisky to restore his equanimity, before deciding that he would have to seek advice on the matter. He would telephone John Palmer’s solicitor, Roberts, in Bangor in the morning and ask him. With that decided, he kicked off his shoes and padded through to the kitchen to open the freezer door, only to discover that he’d run out of packet meals. He’d had so much on his mind at the weekend that he’d forgotten to fit in a trip to the supermarket.
He looked at his watch; it was seven-thirty. He could go this evening, he reckoned, many of these places stayed open till late. First he would have some coffee, ignoring the remains of that second whisky, maybe read the evening paper and then drive along to the Tesco store that lay on the main road between Felinbach and Bangor. He’d fill the Land Rover with petrol at the same time and kill two birds with one stone.
He settled down with the paper in front of the electric fire and was reading an article about the problems caused by the spread of wild rhododendrons down in Beddgelert when the phone rang.
‘Is that the Doctor Gordon who came to Prosser’s today?’ asked a gruff sounding male voice.
‘It is. Who’s that?’
‘Maurice Cleef.’
Gordon felt a frisson of excitement grip him but he did his best to keep it out of his voice. ‘What can I do for you Mr Cleef?’
‘Look, I don’t want to get in no trouble over this Griffiths baby business, see.’
‘What sort of trouble are we talking about?’ asked Gordon calmly although he felt very different inside.
‘The deal is, I tell you what you want to know and let that be an end to it, see? You leave me out of everything after that. I had nothing to do with any of it. Is that understood?’
‘Tell me.’
‘There was a pause then Gordon heard Cleef say, ‘Shit, I’ve no more change and I’m in a call box.’
‘Give me the number and I’ll call you back.’
‘I can’t see a number. Bloody thing’s been vandalised. Bastards! Look, I’ll be in the Harlech Arms in Caernarvon. Meet me there in half an hour.’
The line went dead and Gordon replaced the receiver slowly, trying to think logically although his pulse was racing. He felt as if he’d just been given a role in a movie and wasn’t quite sure how to play it. Presumably Cleef was going to tell him who in the Pathology department had been responsible for putting the waste tissue into Megan Griffiths’ coffin.
Maybe, he thought, he should contact one of the other members of the inquiry team — say Swanson, and get him to come along as a witness. On the other hand, you didn’t have to be Albert Einstein to work out that the presence of another person would almost certainly scare Cleef out of saying anything at all. There was no alternative; he would have to go up to Caernarvon and meet Cleef alone if he really wanted to find out the name of the culprit.
Gordon had only a vague notion of where the Harlech Arms was in Caernarvon and he could still be wrong, he admitted as he turned left in the square opposite the castle and drove down the steep hill leading to the docks. He thought he’d seen a pub of that name down on the lower dock road to the west of where he usually parked his car.
The rows of dark sheds and warehouses did not seem encouraging and he was beginning to think that he’d been mistaken when a yellow pub sign loomed up out of the darkness and he read to his relief, Harlech Arms, above the door. A soldier, wearing a red tunic holding a musket and standing to attention, looked out from the sign to the dark Menai.
The road was too narrow to park outside so he crawled slowly past until he found a clear stretch of tarmac outside the entrance to a warehouse. It seemed a reasonable bet that access would not be required until the morning so he left the Land Rover there and walked back.
He was expecting the pub to be quiet, being a bit off the beaten track, so he was surprised to find it busy. The clientele were mainly men although there were a couple of women sitting at a table just inside the door. The pub itself was like a million others of its sort — smoky, dirty and less than welcoming to strangers. Cleef did not appear to be there.
‘What’ll it be?’ asked a fat barman with thinning blonde hair and a smile that might have been more convincing had it featured teeth. Gordon started to wonder what had happened to them but thought it best not to continue with this line of thought. ‘Half of Fosters,’ he said.
He was down to the last two inches in his glass and was checking his watch for the third time when Cleef finally arrived. He looked very scared.
Eleven
Cleef joined him at the bar and Gordon could see that the man was living on his nerves.
‘What will you have?’ he asked, trying to introduce a note of normality.
Cleef looked at him distantly as if drink was the last thing on his mind. ‘Err... pint of bitter,’ he said.
‘I was followed,’ said Cleef in a hoarse whisper. ‘That’s why I’m late — I had to give him the slip.’
Gordon found this melodramatic. ‘Followed? Are you sure? he asked handing over a five-pound note as the pint arrived.