Cleef waited until the barman had given Gordon his change before saying, ‘I’m sure all right. This guy was hanging about outside Prosser’s at knocking off time, and there he was again, standing across the road from my house when I left to come here. I walked around the block just to test him like, and sure enough, the bastard followed me. I had to nip up a lane and take him for a tour round the docks to lose him.’
‘But why would anyone want to follow you?’ asked Gordon.
‘It’s this Griffiths baby business,’ said Cleef, ‘I’m sure of it. I wish to Christ I’d blown the whistle at the time and been done with it.’
‘Go on.’
Cleef looked nervously around about him before saying, ‘Look, all I did was keep my mouth shut about the coffin being closed when I arrived. I didn’t know the kid wasn’t in it for Christ’s sake.’
‘Who asked you to keep your mouth shut?’
‘Dunno.’
‘You don’t know?’ exclaimed Gordon, his voice full of disbelief.
‘I’d never seen the guy before.’
‘It wasn’t one of the mortuary attendants, then?’
‘No, nothing to do with these guys — I know them well enough. They weren’t around when I got there. In fact, I was looking for them when this guy came up to me and asked what the problem was. I told him I was looking for someone to tell me why the Griffiths coffin was all closed up and he said it was nothing to worry about; they’d done it because they’d needed the space.’
‘What did you say to that?’
‘I told him they’d just have to open the bloody thing up again because I’d brought up the clothes the couple wanted their kid to wear for the funeral.’
Cleef paused and Gordon had to prompt him to go on.
Cleef looked sheepish. ‘He gave me a hundred quid to go away and keep my mouth shut — said there was no need for it to bother my conscience. The kid was dead, didn’t matter what she wore.’
‘You took the money?’
Cleef shrugged defiantly. ‘‘Course I took the money. Humping stiffs around doesn’t exactly put you at the top of the earnings league.’
‘So you took the money and brought the coffin back to Prosser’s without saying anything to anyone.’
Cleef nodded. ‘That’s it and now I wish to Christ I hadn’t.’
‘Can you describe this man?’
‘He was wearing hospital gear like a lot of them wear. You know...’
‘White coat or tunic and trousers?’
‘Tunic and trousers, mid-thirties, dark hair, tall — about the same height as me, but proper spoken like — sounded like a doctor.’
‘It’s really important that we identify this man. Can you think of anything else about him? Scars? Identifying marks? Anything at all that would be useful?’
Cleef shook his head. ‘I wasn’t with him for that long. ‘Nothing about him made much of an impression on me.’
‘Will you come up to the hospital with me and point him out?’
‘No bloody way,’ spluttered Cleef. ‘I don’t even like being here right now, talking about it with that bastard following me earlier on.’
Gordon could see that there would be no point in trying to persuade Cleef to change his mind; he was clearly scared. He tried another tack. ‘Even supposing you’re right about someone following you,’ he said, ‘there’s really nothing to suggest it has anything to do with what happened at the hospital, is there?’
‘What other reason could there be?’ Cleef retorted.
Gordon shrugged and made a few impromptu suggestions. ‘You don’t owe anyone money?’
Cleef shook his head.
‘You haven’t been seeing someone else’s lady?’
‘I wish,’ said Cleef.
Gordon had to admit that Cleef was not a front runner in the matinée idol stakes, so he changed tack again. ‘Maybe you’re just feeling guilty about having taken the money. It’s making you imagine you were being followed. Guilt can do that to people.’
Cleef became annoyed. ‘I’m telling you I was being followed,’ he insisted. ‘That wasn’t a bloody Jehovah’s witness chasing me round the docks!’
‘All right,’ said Gordon, ‘Do you think it was the same man who paid you?’
‘Don’t know. It was dark and he was well wrapped up. It could have been.’
‘Supposing I can lay my hands on some staff photos from the hospital, will you at least take a look at them and maybe point out the man?’
Cleef agreed. ‘But that’s as far as it goes,’ he warned.
The two men left the bar and parted company with Cleef saying that he was in the Harlech Arms on most nights; Gordon should seek him out there rather than by phoning or turning up at Prosser’s. Gordon agreed and walked back to the car, his eyes struggling to come to terms with the gloom and a damp mist that had come down after the rain.
He paused for a moment while unlocking the car door when he thought he heard someone cry out in the distance but there was nothing now save for the groan of a fog horn somewhere out on the Menai. He chided himself for feeling nervous but it wasn’t the nicest area to be in at night. There was no denying that it felt better to be inside the car and on the move again. His mind now turned to thoughts of food. He’d stop off and pick up a Chinese take-away before driving home.
Gordon phoned John Palmer’s solicitor, Roberts, in Bangor to ask how he should go about arranging a visit to see John; he did it between seeing two patients at morning surgery. Roberts hummed and hawed a good deal, but finally agreed to see what he could do. ‘I can make no promises,’ he warned.
‘Of course not,’ replied Gordon, adding silently inside his head, ‘Lawyers never can.’
Gordon slipped in another phone call between the next two patients, this time to ask Harcourt, the hospital manager at Caernarvon General about staff photographs.
‘All members of staff have their photograph attached to their personnel records, it’s part of our admin procedure,’ said Harcourt. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘I’d like to see some.’
‘May I ask why?’
‘I’ve come up with a witness, someone who may be able to help with our inquiry,’ replied Gordon. ‘I don’t think I want to say any more than that at the moment.’
‘I see,’ replied Harcourt. ‘Perhaps it would be better if you spoke to our Human Resources Manager, Miss Edwards.’
Gordon was put through to a woman whose rich, deep voice suggested she probably made a fine contralto in some chapel choir. ‘If you’d like to come over to the office some time, Doctor, I’m sure we’ll do our best to help,’ she said.
Gordon explained that that wouldn’t be any good; he would have to take the photographs away, probably just for one evening. He heard the woman sigh and knew that this was obviously going to pose a problem.
‘The trouble is, the photos are actually attached to the personnel files through a special bonding process and the files themselves are confidential documents. We couldn’t let you take them away, I’m afraid.’
Gordon accepted this and tried to think of a compromise. ‘Maybe a photocopy of the photographs alone?’ he suggested.
‘That might be possible,’ conceded Miss Edwards slowly, in the manner of someone not overly enthusiastic about an idea. ‘What type of staff are you interested in, Doctor and how many photographs are we talking about here?’ she asked.
‘I’m not quite sure myself,’ Gordon confessed. ‘Let’s start with the staff of the pathology department and then maybe move on to the medical staff.’
‘All of them?’
‘Just the males.’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said Miss Edwards sounding definitely cooler than she had been at the outset. ‘Perhaps you could leave me a number and I’ll get back to you in due course.’