‘It’s called The Poem,’ she answered quietly. ‘It’s a mausoleum.’
Gordon shrugged. ‘I can’t escape death even here. He rejoined Mary and they continued walking. ‘I thought I had it all worked out,’ he said. ‘The truth is I was wrong about just about everything.’
‘Does that include John Palmer’s innocence?’ asked Mary, with a sideways glance.
‘No, he’s innocent all right and I still believe Anne-Marie’s death was connected with what was going on in the IVF clinic, but as for everything else...’
‘You’re being too hard on yourself,’ she said, rubbing the back of his hand.
Gordon shook his head. ‘I was so sure that Thomas was guilty because of what I saw in his lab but we both know I read it all wrong. The man was completely innocent all along. That was unforgivable.’
‘You’re not a professional detective,’ said Mary. ‘But your heart’s in the right place. You were doing what you thought was right. If nothing else, you’ve goaded the police into getting off their backsides at last. Even they must recognise now after two murders that things in the IVF unit are not all above board. Try to look on the positive side.’
Gordon gave Mary’s shoulders a grateful squeeze as they continued walking.
‘What’s bugging you most right now?’
‘Dawes’s death,’ replied Gordon. ‘I thought I’d definitely got it right this time. Dawes was the guilty man — and then we find him dead just like Thomas.’
‘But that doesn’t mean to say he was innocent like Thomas,’ said Mary.
‘True,’ conceded Gordon.
‘Everything you said about Dawes still fits, doesn’t it?’
‘I suppose.’
‘If he was murdered too, it just means there’s another level to this affair. Dawes wasn’t the prime mover after alclass="underline" there must be someone else involved. Dawes must have panicked when he heard that the police were treating Thomas’s death as murder so he had to be silenced. It might help if we go through it step by step.’
Gordon smiled at Mary’s determination to introduce order and logic to a situation he had been seeing as chaotic. There was a pause in the conversation while they crossed a small wooden bridge over a tumbling waterfall. When the noise of the water had died away Mary continued, ‘Dawes makes several attempts at human cloning at the IVF clinic. They all fail apart from one; that was Anne-Marie Palmer but she wasn’t a complete success; she was born deformed. Somewhere along the line, Professor Thomas begins to suspect what’s going on and carries out his own investigation. He gets killed for his trouble. Dawes, d’you think?’
‘Probably but we can’t rule out the person who killed Dawes himself.’
‘Is there anything to connect Dawes to Megan Griffiths?’ asked Mary.
‘There is,’ said Gordon. ‘Dawes was seen going down to pathology by the chief technician in the IVF unit, on the day in question. He made something up about going there to warn Thomas about being late for a meeting but it turns out that there was no such meeting. Dawes also fits Maurice Cleef’s description of the man he’d spoken to about Megan’s body.
‘So it seems to me that Dawes was up to his neck in everything that was going on,’ said Mary. ‘What we don’t know is who he was trying to clone or why.’
‘And where Megan Griffiths fits in to all this.’
‘Still no thoughts?’
Gordon shook his head.
‘A cloned baby and a normal baby. Could somebody have wanted to compare something about them?’ asked Mary.
Gordon shrugged. ‘I just don’t know.’
They had completed a circle of the garden and were sitting on a bench seat in the upper rose terrace, looking out to the hills of Snowdonia. Mary snuggled up close to Gordon as a cold wind sprang up and let them know that winter hadn’t quite finished yet. ‘I wish the spring would come properly,’ she said. ‘I hate this time when we’re between seasons. One day it’s spring then it’s back to winter with a frost, then it’s back to spring again. You never know where you are.’
‘Know the feeling,’ said Gordon.
‘Let’s go get some coffee.’
At Mary’s suggestion, they drove on down to Betws-y-coed where they had coffee and scones in the conservatory of the George Hotel while rain pattered gently down on the roof. It didn’t seem to matter: they were oblivious to it. They were just happy in each other’s company.
‘Can I ask what you’re going to do now?’ said Mary.
‘I’m going to wait for the DNA result on Anne-Marie so at least there will be one solid piece of evidence. Davies said he’d let me know about the PM on Ran Dawes so we’ll take it from there.’
‘So you two are on speaking terms then?’
‘At the moment,’ agreed Gordon.
‘You know, logic tells me that the unknown third person was actually running the show,’ said Mary.
‘How so?’
‘I suspect, from what’s happened and what you’ve told me, that Dawes was just someone hired to carry out the cloning.’
‘Hired?’ exclaimed Gordon, sounding surprised.
‘You said yourself that he was in the ideal position to do that sort of work and he did have the expertise. I think someone paid him — probably a great deal of money, to carry out a designer cloning, if you like.’
‘You know, that’s a good thought,’ said Gordon. ‘Maybe I’ll ask Davies to check Dawes’ bank account to see if there were any large payments made into it.’
‘It’s getting dark; we should be going.’
They left the hotel and opted to take the mountain road through the Llanberis Pass back to Bangor, thereby completing a big circle. Mary accepted Gordon’s offer to drive, admitting that she really didn’t like driving on narrow mountain roads at night.
‘Let’s just take our time,’ said Gordon. ‘Unless you have to be back for anything?’
‘Nothing,’ said Mary. ‘You don’t really have a social life when you work in A&E.’ She slipped a cassette into the player on the dash and Gordon was pleased to hear Mozart drift gently out from the speakers. ‘All right?’ asked Mary.
‘Just perfect.’
‘Mary fell asleep after five miles and her head came to rest on Gordon’s shoulder for the remainder of the drive home. She woke with a start as they drew up in the car park outside her home. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ she exclaimed, taking a moment to get her bearings. ‘I must have been more tired than I thought.’
‘Don’t apologise,’ said Gordon, taking her hand in his. ‘I’ve enjoyed this afternoon more than anything I can remember in a very long time.’
‘Me too,’ agreed Mary. ‘You must come and see Bodnant with me when the spring is really here.’
‘I’d like nothing better,’ said Gordon. ‘Are you back on duty tomorrow night?’
‘Fraid so but you will let me know if you hear anything?’
‘Of course.’ Gordon leaned over and kissed her gently. Mary smiled when Gordon pulled back. ‘Was that a good night kiss?’ she asked softly.
‘Only if you want it to be,’ he replied.
‘Maybe... you’d like to come up for coffee?’
‘Very much.’
The fact that his flat was cold for the usual reason did not detract from Gordon’s feelings of euphoria one iota when he got home just after nine thirty in the morning. He hummed Mozart as he fiddled with the timer and gave the pump its customary kick. He turned on the electric fire and the kettle before checking the answer machine — there were no messages. He might have lost his job and made a fool of himself over Thomas’s involvement, but not everything in this world was going badly.