‘I should think so,’ said Gordon. ‘He’s still under the impression that I think Thomas was the guilty man. He also still thinks that Thomas’s death has been put down to natural causes unless you’ve told anyone it was murder?’
‘It’s not common knowledge but I did inform Dr Trool that Thomas had been murdered,’ said Davies. ‘He’s been phoning up every five minutes, worried about possible scandal and the bloody hospital’s reputation. He just about had a heart attack himself when I told him what the toxicology report on Thomas said.’
‘Did you ask him to keep it to himself?’
‘He was hardly likely to go blurting it out to all and sundry was he?’ retorted Davies.
‘If Dawes hears about that report, chances are he’ll be off like a scalded cat. If not, he probably believes he’s in the clear and possibly even in a good position to take over the unit if the hospital decides to continue with it.’
‘We’d better get over there and you’d better come with us.’
‘Does that mean I’m no longer under arrest?’
‘For the moment. Do you have these reference numbers you spoke of?’
‘They’re in my wallet.’
Gordon and Davies sat together in the back of the unmarked police car that took them up to the hospital. DS Walters sat in the front with the uniformed driver. They didn’t talk much on the way: the uneasy truce between Davies and Gordon did not as yet extend to small talk.
The IVF unit seemed deserted when Gordon, leading the way, entered and started looking into rooms as they came to them. They found a group of four female technicians sitting in the staff room, drinking coffee and talking in hushed tones. They stopped when they saw Gordon.
‘Is Dr Dawes around?’ he asked.
‘I haven’t seen him today,’ said a fair-haired girl.
‘Are you expecting him?’
‘The girl shrugged. ‘He didn’t say he wasn’t coming in,’ she said. ‘But no one seems to know who’s doing what or what’s going on.’
Gordon nodded. ‘He glanced over his shoulder and said, ‘These gentlemen are policemen. We’d like to take a look round if that’s okay with you?’
‘Of course. Let us know if you need help with anything. Is it true that Professor Thomas was murdered?’
Gordon stopped in his tracks. ‘Where did you hear that?’ he asked.
‘One of the secretaries heard a rumour,’ said the girl.
Gordon turned and looked at Davies who shrugged and said, ‘Bush telegraph, faster than satellite technology.’
A man wearing thick black-rimmed glasses and a black polo shirt under his white lab coat came into the room and the girls stiffened. They got up from the table and queued to wash out their coffee mugs at the sink.
‘I’m Michael Deans, the chief technician. Can I help you?’
Again, Davies let Gordon do the talking, hoping to keep an air of informality about their presence for the moment. Gordon explained who they were and that they had hoped to have a word with Dawes. ‘I understand he’s not been in today?’
‘Not yet anyway. I’m afraid everything’s in a state of flux at the moment. We’re all in shock, you could say.’
‘Quite understandable,’ sympathised Gordon, hoping the man might be useful to them. ‘Perhaps you can help us,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a series of reference numbers here that Professor Thomas gave me; would it be possible for you to find out for us which patients they relate to and who carried out the actual IVF lab work on them?’
‘Possible yes...’ Deans hesitated. ‘But I’d need authorisation.’
Davies held out his warrant card. ‘This is all the authority you need.’
The technician took a deep breath as if giving himself time to decide whether it was worth digging in his heels or not. In the end he took the numbers from Gordon and said, ‘Follow me.’
They trooped in single file, through to the unit office where the technician asked one of two secretaries for, ‘The blue book’.
The woman looked up from her desk at the three men waiting there but did not say anything. She just opened up her desk drawer and took out a blue covered notebook that she handed over without question.
‘Police,’ said the technician by way of explanation before leading the others out into the main lab area. There was a small, glass-panelled office at the far end where he put the book down on a desk and flipped it open to start tracing the numbers Gordon had given him. He found the page he was looking for and ran his index finger down the left-hand side before stopping about a third of the way down. ‘275643... Maitland baby, malformed foetus, aborted 14 July, 1998. Parents, Iris and Glyn Maitland, 14, Ryder Close, Caernarfon.’
The man paused while DS Walters finished writing the details down.
‘Next,’ said Davies.
‘275809... Bannister baby, malformed foetus, aborted 23 August, 1998. Parents, Robert and Beatrice Bannister, 7/14, Fford Glyder, Felinheli.
275882... Griffiths-Williams baby, malformed foetus, aborted 3 November, 1998. Parents, Trevor and Ann Griffiths-Williams, Moonstone Cottage, Beddgelert.’
‘One final one,’ said Gordon. He handed over another number and the technician looked it up.
‘275933... Anne-Marie Palmer, born 14 December, 1998 to John and Lucy Palmer, Menai View, Aberton, Felinbach. Severe deformity to lower limbs, survived and went home after corrective surgery.
‘What now?’ Davies asked Gordon.
‘Who did the lab work on these four cases?’
‘All done by Dr Dawes,’ replied Deans, without having to refer to the book again.
‘Would you expect there to be siblings in cold storage for these reference numbers?’
‘It’s normal practice.’
‘Would you check please?’
Gordon and the two policemen stood by while Deans came out of the office and into the main lab where he walked over to the storage freezers. He took down a pair of long gauntlets that hung from a hook on the wall and put them on before undoing the clasp on one of the freezers, releasing as he did so, a cloud of nitrogen vapour into the air. He reached in and brought out a stack of ice-encrusted racks, clearing the front of it with his gloved hand so that he could read the labels. He found the one he was looking for and traced the correct row and number with his gloved forefinger.
‘Missing,’ he said.
Gordon and Davies exchanged a glance before Deans went on to check for vials corresponding to the other numbers. All were missing.
‘No siblings for any of them,’ said Deans.
Gordon steered Davies to a corner of the lab. ‘That’s what Thomas discovered,’ he said. ‘He wrote no siblings on Anne-Marie Palmer’s notes.’
‘But that in itself doesn’t prove anything,’ said Davies. ‘Does it?’
‘No, but it put Thomas on the right track. Normally after IVF, more than one egg would be fertilised so they’d store the ones they weren’t using for possible future use if the couple wanted more children. This wouldn’t be the case in a cloning. That’s what made him suspect that these four pregnancies were attempts at human cloning. And that’s why he got the three foetuses back from pathology. Only one resulted in a live birth — Anne-Marie Palmer. The DNA profile on her tissue will show that she wasn’t really the Palmers’ daughter.’
As they walked back over to join Deans, Gordon remembered that he had been the technician who had accompanied Thomas to the path department on the day that Megan Griffiths’ body went missing. He asked him about it.
‘There’s not much to tell,’ said Deans. ‘As I told your colleagues when they questioned me, Professor Thomas was a bit secretive about why he wanted the foetuses. I thought he and Dr Sepp were going to have a right old set-to about it when he made the request. I think Dr Sepp thought his competence was being questioned but he relented in the end, although I’m sure the argument continued when I left to bring them back up here.’