‘You didn’t come back with Professor Thomas?’
‘No, it seemed like they were going to be at it all afternoon. Professor Thomas was already late for an important meeting when I left. I met Ran Dawes coming down to remind him.’
‘Ran Dawes was on his way to Pathology?’ asked Gordon, surprise showing in his voice. ‘There was no record of him being there.’
‘Like I say, he was just going there to remind Prof Thomas that he was due at a meeting.’
‘Did you know about this meeting or was that something that Ran Dawes told you when you met him?’ asked Gordon.
‘Something he told me.’
‘Did Ran Dawes return to the unit with Professor Thomas?’
Deans thought for a moment before saying, ‘No, he didn’t, come to think of it. I remember seeing Professor Thomas come back a good bit later: I remember because he was in a bad mood, but Ran wasn’t with him.’
‘Maybe you could ask the secretaries about Thomas’s meeting on that day. Get them to check the diary. Find out what time it was at and who it was with.’
‘Okay.’
‘I think maybe we should go talk to Dr Dawes at home,’ said Davies. He turned to Deans. ‘Do you have an address for him?’
‘The office will. I’ll get it.’
Deans returned a few minutes later, saying, ‘Here you are. He stays over in Aberlyn: he rents a house there.’ He handed the address to Davies.
Davies looked thoughtful for a moment then he said, ‘It might be an idea if you were to phone him first.’
‘What d’you want me to say?’
‘Ask him if he intends coming in today. Make up your own reasons for asking.’
‘I’ll call from the office,’ said Deans.
Davies nodded to Walters who took this as a directive to accompany Deans.
‘What d’you reckon?’ Davies asked Gordon when they were alone.
‘Wouldn’t surprise me if he’s done a runner,’ said Gordon. ‘If he heard the rumour about you treating Thomas’s death as murder.’
‘Maybe that’s for the best,’ said Davies thoughtfully.
Gordon looked at him.
‘If he runs, it’s as good as an admission of guilt and it means he’s scared. He’ll be more inclined to come clean when we catch him — and we will. If he stays cool and brasses it out then we could be hard pushed to pin anything at all on him.’
‘But if the DNA test on Anne-Marie proves she wasn’t the Palmers’ child?’
‘He could simply plead a mix-up in the lab. He’d claim that Lucy Palmer was implanted with the wrong egg.’
Gordon saw Davies’s point. ‘And you could hardly DNA test everybody in the country to find out just exactly who it was he cloned,’ he added.
‘Precisely.’
‘God, you don’t think he could still get away with it, do you?’
‘A few suspicious reference numbers and a dodgy DNA fingerprint from a dead baby — what d’you think?’
‘Damn,’ said Gordon. ‘Let’s hope he talks.’
‘Amen to that.’
Deans returned and said, ‘No answer.’
‘And the secretaries say that Professor Thomas didn’t have a meeting at all on the afternoon in question,’ added Walters. ‘Dawes must have made it up.’
‘Let’s hope he’s shitting himself in some service station motel on the M6,’ grunted Davies. ‘The more scared he is, the better.’ Then Davies said they should be going and Deans made to show them out.
As they left the main lab, one of the female technicians they’d seen earlier was entering. Deans stopped her and said, ‘Top up storage tank three with liquid nitrogen, will you, Karen. I had to open it: it’s lost a bit.’
‘Will do,’ replied the girl.
Davies turned to Deans as they reached the front door and said, ‘I’d rather you didn’t spread any of this around.’
‘Understood,’ said Deans. ‘What if Dr Dawes should turn up?’
‘Let us know immed—’
Davies was interrupted by the sound of a scream coming from the main lab. All three men turned to see the girl called Karen standing in the doorway. She was wearing long gloves and a plastic full-face visor. Her hands were by her sides and she seemed unsteady on her feet.
‘Karen! What is it?’ exclaimed Deans. ‘What’s the matter?’
The girl looked at him, her face white inside the mask. Suddenly her body heaved and she vomited over the inside of her visor. Deans rushed forward to offer her support while Davies and Gordon hurried past into the main lab. At first they couldn’t see anything amiss but wisps of white vapour alerted Gordon to the fact that the heavy door to the liquid nitrogen store was ajar. He pointed this out to Davies and they both approached cautiously. Gordon pulled the clasp and a cloud of vapour enveloped them like sea mist for a moment. When it cleared they could see the frozen body of a man lying there. Despite the crusting of ice on his face and in his hair, Gordon could see that it was Ran Dawes. ‘It’s him.’
‘Christ,’ said Davies. ‘Where does this leave us?’
Gordon was lost for words.
Twenty five
‘Oh, thank God!’ exclaimed Mary when Gordon phoned her. ‘Does this mean they’ve let you go?’
‘I managed to convince them that I didn’t murder Carwyn Thomas,’ said Gordon.
‘But he was murdered?’ asked Mary.
‘He was injected with amyl nitrate. Apparently he did have a slight heart condition so the chemical over-stimulated it and provoked a genuine cardiac arrest. Pretty clever, huh? Damn nearly the perfect crime. The forensic people were really on the ball to pick up on it. He must have used a bit too much nitrate.’
‘Have they arrested Dawes?’
Gordon paused. ‘You’re not going to believe this,’ he said, his voice betraying the confusion he felt. ‘Dawes is dead.’
‘You’re right — I don’t believe it,’ murmured Mary.
‘We found his body in the liquid nitrogen store in the lab. We’ll have to wait for the PM to establish the exact cause of death but at the moment it looks like someone locked him in there and he froze to death.’
‘God, this just goes from bad to worse.’
‘Tell me about it,’ sighed Gordon. ‘What’s the time?’
‘Just after three, a bit late for lunch. Have you eaten?’
Gordon said not.
‘Why don’t we pick up some sandwiches and go for a walk somewhere. You sound as if a bit of fresh air will do you good and we can talk.’
Gordon drove over to Mary’s place and they changed to her car. She had already bought sandwiches from a local baker while she’d been waiting. ‘Let’s go to Bodnant,’ she said. ‘Do you know it?’
Gordon shook his head.
‘I think it’s my favourite garden in the world,’ said Mary. ‘I go there when I have things to think about. It’s in the Conwy valley just about eight miles south of Llandudno and it’s just reopened after the winter break. This will be my first trip this year. Maybe the rhododendrons will be out.’
It turned out to be a bit early for the rhododendrons but Gordon had to admit that the garden was something special. The fact that Mary was beside him made it even more so and he could not fail to sense the magic he’d been promised. He turned and smiled at Mary without saying anything and she nodded in reply, knowing that both felt the same.
The lack of visitors this early in the season only added to the pleasure of being able to wander along quiet paths without hindrance. It seemed the most natural thing in the world for them to have their arms around each other. They had been walking and talking for about twenty minutes, although time seemed to have stood still, when they came to a striking stone building. Gordon walked over to it, feeling strangely drawn. He touched the stone lightly with his fingertips and turned to ask Mary what it was.