Towards seven a large white Volvo pulled into Pugh’s drive, and the boot swung up. The professor and his wife got out of the car and began carting plastic carrier-bags of shopping from the boot to the front door. It took them two journeys each, and then Pugh opened the garage doors and drove the Volvo inside. Kathy gave them ten minutes to get themselves organized, then went to the front door and rang the bell.
Mrs Pugh came to the door, a small, grey-haired woman in a thick cashmere jumper and tweed skirt.
‘I wondered if I might speak to Professor Pugh. My name is Sergeant Kolla, from County CID.’
The little woman looked intently at Kathy for a moment, then said, ‘Yes, come in, Sergeant. Funnily enough, we were just talking about you. Gareth was wondering if you might get in touch with him.’
Kathy stepped into the warm hall, which smelled of furniture polish and pine-scented air-freshener.
‘Let me take your coat. It looks a bit damp. I’ll hang it beside the boiler. Perhaps it’ll be dry by the time you leave. Gareth is in the living room with the evening paper. Come along.’
The pathologist was sitting in front of an imitation-log gas fire. He looked up at her, peering over the top of his glasses. ‘Ah!’ He got to his feet. ‘We were just talking about you, Sergeant! Come in, come in.’ He seated her opposite him beside the fire, in a plump, floral armchair. ‘Now, am I to take it that this is an unofficial visit?’
‘That’s right. I would really appreciate a few minutes of your time on an informal basis. If it isn’t too much of an imposition,’ she added uneasily.
He nodded. ‘So, it’s as if, let us say, we had met in the supermarket just now by chance, and my wife had said, as she well might, that you must come back with us and share the mug of hot chocolate which she always makes after our weekly expedition to Sainsbury’s. It’s surprising how enjoyable these little rituals become as one gets older. You do like hot chocolate?’
‘Really, I’m fine.’
‘Nonsense. Anyway, the hot milk is on and Megan will be making you one regardless.’
‘This is very kind of you. I should really have rung first.’
‘But you were afraid I’d say no, eh?’ He smiled. ‘What it is, see, we have a daughter, about your age. She’s an engineer, and I suppose watching her progress has brought it home to me how difficult it is for a young professional woman to make her way — well, for all young people these days it’s so competitive, but particularly for girls. And I would like to think, were she to encounter a problem of some kind, that some old duffer like me, familiar with her work perhaps, might spare her the time of day, see?
‘Of course, she could hardly expect him to talk to her about, say, the senior partners in the company she works for. They might be rogues for all I know, but all the same it wouldn’t be right for him to comment on that to her. But if some of the technical details of her work were to come up in discussion — things he might expect her to be familiar with anyway — well, there would surely be no harm in him talking them over with her, now, would there?’
Kathy smiled at this elaborate preamble. She noticed that the lilt was back in his voice.
‘I’m sure she’d very much appreciate that, sir.’
‘Good. And here is Megan with our hot chocolate. I was just telling Kathy here about our Marion, cariad.’
‘Yes, that’s her picture over there. We’re very proud of her.’ Mrs Pugh pointed up to a framed graduation portrait in the centre of the mantelpiece. ‘I’ll go and get on in the kitchen, then.’
‘You don’t need to go. Stay with us, cariad.’
‘No, I don’t think I will. I don’t have Gareth’s professional detachment, see, Sergeant. When he talks about body fluids and the intimate parts of people, he might as well be talking about bits of his car. But I can’t help seeing it all in my mind and picturing the horrible things that people do to each other. It makes me feel quite sick, I’m afraid. I can’t help it.’
Pugh chuckled indulgently and settled back with his mug. ‘Well, you’re wondering about Dr Beamish-Newell’s new story, is that it? He is a real doctor, by the way, in case you were wondering. I looked him up when I first came across him and that clinic of his. Interesting man, in fact. He did his medicine at Cambridge, stayed on for a while at Adden-brooke’s, then went to one of the London hospitals — Guy’s, I think. While he was a student he was quite radical. That was normal for those days, the late sixties, though not necessarily for a medical student. He was actually arrested at the Garden House riot, do you remember? No, of course not, you’d only have been about ten, I suppose. Anyway, while he was in London he became increasingly interested in alternative medicine, and in the early seventies he threw in his job and went to China to study acupuncture. He wrote an article for the Lancet about alternative medical procedures in China, and when he came back he wrote a book, Holistic Therapies or something like that, which was quite well received. Then he managed to turn his theories into practice, I suppose, at Stanhope. He’s been back to China a few times since, I believe, and he’s lectured widely about his ideas.’
‘You approve of the clinic, then, Professor?’
‘Ah, I didn’t say that. I’m not one of those medics who pooh-pooh alternative therapies as hogwash, not at all. I’m only too well aware of how little we know about how our bodies work — good lord, half the time I can hardly tell why one of them has stopped working, let alone how the rest of them manage to continue. So if someone can cure the rheumatism in your arm by sticking pins into your big toe, I say good luck, boy, so long as it works. And if someone else can take some substance that causes the same symptoms as you’re presenting, and then dilute it until there’s barely a molecule or two left in the glass, and have you drink it and cure you, even though the whole procedure seems absolutely bonkers, well, again I say good luck.
‘But what bothers me about Dr Beamish-Newell and his clinic is the arrogance of the man. He doesn’t believe he’s practising an alternative form of medicine at all — he believes his is the only way. It may be fine for encouraging people to stop smoking or think more about their diet or take a bit more exercise. A week or two at Stanhope for those who can afford it may be just the thing. But what about the poor fellow who’s got something seriously wrong and is persuaded to abandon his conventional treatments, his drugs and surgery, for the sake of some will-o’-the-wisp that has no scientific basis at all? That’s what bothers me and I’ve said so. Dr Beamish-Newell and I had a fairly vigorous exchange of letters on the subject some time ago in the Daily Telegraph. The local paper took it up and did an article on the clinic which Beamish-Newell wasn’t best pleased about. So, you see, in his eyes I’m a hostile witness. I am against him — probably trying to blacken his name. That’s how he will think. I have to bear that in mind when it comes to this business with Petrou, and so should you, Kathy.’
Kathy nodded. ‘Yes, I see. I felt something of that atmosphere of… of conviction, although I didn’t really understand what it was. That’s what made someone like the Business Manager seem so out of place. He was so normal he seemed weird.’
Pugh laughed. ‘Yes, but it would be a mistake to dismiss them as cranks. There is a lot of sound stuff in what they practise. As usual it’s the human element that complicates matters. And the man has powerful friends, don’t forget that. Plenty of important people have gone through Stanhope and been very impressed by its Director.’
‘Yes, that point has been brought to my attention.’