He was right. Dr Beamish-Newell evidently considered Kathy’s request the final straw. He slammed his diary down on the desk and stood up, turning away from Kathy and glaring out of the window. She watched him clasping and unclasping his hands behind his back. When he finally turned round to face her, he made no attempt to hide his anger. ‘What possible reason could you have for wanting the van?’
‘It was seen leaving the clinic on Sunday afternoon, soon after Mr Petrou was last seen here. It’s possible he was the driver. We are trying to trace his movements, and the van may be able to help us.’
‘Was he identified as the driver?’
‘No.’
‘This is getting way, way beyond a joke, Sergeant Kolla. You have done everything possible to disrupt the workings of this clinic, and I have had enough.’ His eyes held her with an almost physical force. She could imagine the effect on patients.
‘We will return it as soon as we possibly can. But if you don’t agree to surrender the vehicle voluntarily, I shall apply for a warrant, sir.’
It was clear he wasn’t used to having people talk back to him. He weighed her up for a moment before shaking his head.
‘You’d better know what you’re doing,’ he said. ‘Have it back here by tonight.’
At four o’clock that afternoon Kathy kept an appointment with Professor Pugh, made in response to her phone call earlier in the day. She was shown into his office and accepted the offer of a cup of tea. The pathologist left his desk and came and sat with her on the low chairs arranged round a coffee table in the centre of the room. He seemed preoccupied as he thumbed through a sheaf of papers.
‘Any developments?’ he asked, and listened with head bowed, nodding from time to time.
‘Well,’ he said when she had finished, ‘I don’t know that I can help a lot at this stage, but I can tell you what we’ve got so far from the tests. Blood tests now … First of all, he wasn’t HIV positive.’
He searched for a particular sheet and pulled it out. ‘Blood group … He was an O secretor. PGM group (2–2 +). The blood group of his sexual partner, on the other hand, was AB secretor. Unfortunately, the semen stains weren’t strong enough for a successful PGM grouping. Unlikely anyway after more than six hours…’
As he droned on about different classifications of the blood groups, Kathy found herself listening to the tone of his voice rather than what he was saying. The lilt had gone, his voice flat. He seemed worried.
‘… and until they get an effective PCR technique up and running it’s taking six to eight weeks to get a DNA profile. I’ve sent the semen samples anyway, though the profile won’t be much use unless you have someone to match it to — if it’s relevant at all. You particularly asked about drugs. We think we’ve found traces of MDMA.’
All these initials were beginning to go over Kathy’s head, and it took her a moment to register. ‘Ecstasy?’
‘Yes.’ He shrugged. ‘It suggests he wasn’t short of money, or the person who gave it to him wasn’t.’
‘I’m not up to date with this. Is it very expensive, then?’
‘It’s not so much that it’s very expensive as that in the past year it’s become so much more expensive than the alternative drug of choice — good old-fashioned LSD. About twenty-five pounds a unit as against five for LSD, so they tell me.’
‘Are they similar, then?’
‘To tell the truth, I’m not really sure. There’s damn-all scientific data on the effects. MDMA’s supposed to be softer, more pleasant, somewhere between a stimulant, like amphetamine, and a hallucinogen, like LSD. But in the high doses, 100 to 150 milligrams, it’s probably much like LSD. If you want to try it, let me know. I could write a paper on it.’
For a moment his face brightened, then reverted to a frown.
‘I was about to fax my preliminary report to you this afternoon anyway,’ he said. ‘You and the Deputy Chief Constable.’
Kathy blinked. He was looking down at his papers, avoiding her eyes.
‘The Deputy Chief Constable?’
‘Yes … I understand he has a personal interest in this case. Didn’t you know?’
‘I didn’t know he was asking for copies of your reports.’
‘Perhaps I’ve spoken out of turn, then.’ He looked up at her carefully, letting her know he was trying to help. ‘Perhaps you’d best forget I told you.’
Gordon Dowling found Kathy standing at a window in the office, staring out at the darkening sky. The street lights were coming on, some orange, others still cold and red. She was wondering why she was doing this. For three days she had been trying, trying hard, and had got nowhere. At the clinic she had been an outsider, attempting to get people to talk to her, help her understand. No one had. She remembered the look on the face of the last patient she had seen as she left. It was the same sensation she had had in the Jolly Roger, of being an unwelcome visitor, an alien. And it was the same sensation she had here in the force. And now Professor Pugh … All the time, she felt as if she had been charging around the outside, trying to find some way in.
‘Cheer up, Kathy,’ she heard Dowling say at her back, ‘I’ve got something for you.’
She turned and saw him standing there like a big puppy, holding two mugs of tea. She smiled. ‘Thanks, Gordon. Just what I need.’
‘I’ve got something else, too.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I found where the van went.’
He beamed in triumph at the look on her face.
‘Where?’
‘A greengrocer’s shop in Edenham. Two blokes own it — Jerry and Errol.’
‘Gordon! That’s terrific!’
‘Yeah. It was the barman in the Jolly Roger put me on to them. He knew they were friends of Petrou’s.’
‘What? He never said anything to me. How come he told you?’
Gordon looked sheepish. ‘I don’t know. He guessed you were a copper.’ ‘What about you?’
‘I told him straight off. He said I might have a word with them.’
Kathy was peeved. ‘Well … and did you?’
‘I spoke to Jerry. You’ll want to see him yourself. I said we’d meet him in an hour, after he’s closed up the shop. He wants to meet in the Hart Revived. More discreet, he says.’
Kathy raised her eyebrows.
‘So Petrou visited them at the shop on Sunday evening.’
‘No. That’s the thing — it wasn’t Petrou. The driver of the van was Dr Beamish-Newell.’
8
They sat in one of the ingle-nooks by the blazing fire in the snug of the Hart Revived. Jerry had style, Kathy decided. He was telling them a story about the unfortunate interior decor of the Jolly Roger and a biker who had become entangled in a lobster pot and fishing net after importuning an uncomprehendingly straight workman who had come in for a quick drink while repairing the road outside. He was very amusing and talked as if he were sitting with a couple of old friends instead of two police officers seeking his help with their inquiries. His large, round glasses reflected the firelight as he underlined his more telling phrases with languid movements of his hands and head. His complexion seemed ageless, although from the creases in his hands Kathy thought he must be at least forty.
‘So,’ she said eventually, steering the conversation back, ‘how do you come to know Dr Beamish-Newell?’
‘Dr Fiendish-Cruel?’ They laughed. ‘Oh, that’s what they call him up there, you know. That and a few other things. He’s a customer of ours. We supply the clinic. All organic, no pesticides.’
‘I thought they grew their own in the walled garden.’ ‘No, they can’t grow a fraction of what they use. They’re not set up for it.’
‘He’s just a customer, then?’
Jerry looked at her pointedly, pursing his lips. T didn’t say he was just a customer, dear. Unfortunately, my partner in life, Errol, has a great talent for attracting such shit, which is why I’m talking to you, isn’t it? From what Gordon tells me, it sounds as if Errol has been dancing a bit too close to the flame again, not for the first time.’