‘Presumably because I’m not a member of the same golf club as you and Carwyn Thomas,’ said Gordon.
‘That is outrageous!’ spluttered French.
‘I agree,’ said Gordon calmly, ‘What you’re suggesting, Doctor, is that if you go down for screwing around with Crown evidence, you’re going to make sure that I go down with you. There, that didn’t take long to say, did it?’
‘There was absolutely no criminal intent in what I did,’ protested French.
‘Me neither,’ said Gordon, matter-of-factly. ‘I simply wanted a small tissue sample for DNA fingerprinting.’
‘DNA Fingerprinting?’
‘I had doubts over the true identity of the child.’
After a short pause, French said, ‘You don’t need much in the way of biological material for DNA fingerprinting.’
‘Very little,’ agreed Gordon, immediately wondering why French had said something like that.
‘Then it would still be possible.’
‘Pardon?’
‘I could let you have a pathological specimen taken from Anne-Marie Palmer at post mortem,’ said French. ‘I still have a range of lab specimens taken from her. If it would help mend fences between us, I am prepared to let you have access to what you need without asking too much.’
Gordon was excited at the prospect but not so excited that he couldn’t see that he and French would now be colluding. His concern was quickly overruled by deciding that he’d be doing what was right. If there was the remotest chance of obtaining sound scientific evidence relevant to the case, it had to be taken. Medical facts were definitely preferable in court to John Palmer’s lawyers introducing legal arguments over technicalities. Apart from that, John’s luck was so bad that the judge at his trial would probably turn out to be a member of the same golf club as French and Thomas.
‘Perhaps I could pick up a sample in the morning?’
‘Of course, and if by any chance you should be able to get the information that you want from the sample...’
‘I can’t make promises, Doctor, but I have no wish to see you get into trouble for the sake of it.’ Gordon decided that this would be an opportune moment to ask French about the post mortem on Carwyn Thomas.
‘I’m satisfied it was a heart attack.’
Fuck, thought Gordon.
‘I’ve still to get the toxicology results but I don’t think DCI Davies will be giving you any more hassle over it. Natural causes, as far as I’m concerned.’
Gordon put the phone down. He was disappointed that Thomas’s death had proved to be natural after all but he felt pleased that DNA fingerprinting Anne-Marie had become a possibility again. It seemed to signal that maybe not all the fates were against him. He poured himself a large whisky and wondered if Fairbrother at the university would be willing to carry out the tests. He’d call and ask him in the morning but he suddenly realised that sequencing Anne-Marie’s DNA would not be enough on its own; he would also need DNA samples from John and Lucy Palmer to compare the profile with. This was clearly going to be his next problem but he now had an appetite for it. He would find a way. He’d been given a second chance and now nothing was going to stop him following his theory through to the end.
He could see no possibility of getting a blood or tissue sample from John Palmer but material from Lucy alone would do. She must have had various specimens taken from her when she had been admitted to Ysbyty Gwynedd after the fire incident so it should be possible to lay hands on one of these but that would involve giving reasons to lab staff, going through channels and risking possible refusal. He supposed that, if the worst came to the worst, he could always approach Lucy directly in the Manchester hospital where she’d been transferred for plastic surgery. He’d been keeping in touch by telephone and planned to go over there in a couple of days time anyway, now that she’s settled in. But this in many ways would be the least attractive course of action. He really didn’t want to say anything at all about this to Lucy while there was still a chance he might be wrong. If that were the case and Anne-Marie should be shown to be the Palmers’ natural child, it would be unforgivable to have caused her all that angst on top of everything else. He wanted to be absolutely sure of his facts before he said anything at all to either John or Lucy. That meant obtaining samples without their knowing.
The house! Lucy’s house! thought Gordon. He had arranged for it to be made secure, but that had just involved having the broken window boarded up. As yet, he hadn’t been back there to tidy up the mess. Lucy had lost a lot of blood on the floor on that hellish night. He would be able to get the sample he needed from there.
There was a drawback in that some of the blood stains would almost certainly be his own so he’d ask Fairbrother to fingerprint a number of samples from the floor and also provide him with a fresh sample of his own blood for elimination purposes. He looked at his watch; it was just after midnight. The question now was, should he leave it until morning or should he do this right now? There was no way he could sleep; he’d go now.
As he drew up outside the house, it struck Gordon that it looked as if it had been unoccupied for years instead of only a few short weeks. This was an impression largely created by the boarded-up window and the fact that it was night time — modern streetlights seemed to exaggerate any sign of disrepair. Sunlight did the opposite. No further graffiti had appeared on the walls, but he did notice that moss was starting to creep over the path through lack of use and weeds were popping up in the cracks.
He took a few specimen containers from the medical case he kept in the Land Rover along with a pair of surgical gloves and a packet of sterile scalpel blades. It was important that he didn’t contaminate any of the samples he collected, either with each other or through contact with his own skin.
A bedroom curtain moved in the neighbouring house when he slammed the car door but he didn’t look up. Instead, he walked briskly up the path and opened the door with the key Lucy had given him at the hospital. Clicking on the hall light brought back memories of the fire and stopped him in his tracks for a moment. He felt his throat tighten. The house still smelt of burning and in his mind he could hear Lucy screaming again.
He made a conscious effort to put such thoughts behind him before beginning a search of the floor where Lucy had fallen. He identified four separate bloodstains, far enough apart to suggest that cross contamination had not taken place. Using a separate sterile scalpel blade for each, he scraped samples up into each of four specimen containers and secured the caps. He’d got exactly what he’d come for and would now call a halt. He couldn’t face doing any tidying up right now; he’d come back another time. He checked that the rooms at the back of the house were secure before locking up at the front and returning to the car.
The wind that had been the main feature of the weather over the last few days died away during the night to leave a still, calm morning when Gordon awoke at seven and looked out at the harbour. The downside to this was that the temperature had fallen, a feature that was apparent in the flat where the heating had failed to come on again. There was a frost in evidence on the rigging and mooring ropes of the resident yachts in the basin, making them look like decorations on a wedding cake. He could see that he’d be scraping the ice of the Land Rover’s windscreen before he went anywhere this morning.
He rubbed his hands and swung his arms across his chest a few times before spending a few minutes coaxing the heating into turning on. Despite having arranged to have it repaired by a firm in Bangor, there had been a misunderstanding about the time they were due to come. They had in fact turned up when he had been out and as yet, no alternative arrangement had been made.