The woods on this side were fenced by ramshackle metal railings. A gap in them revealed a muddy path, covered by fallen leaves and overgrown with hawthorn bushes. Pushing through them, I found myself surrounded by gnarled trunks and twisted branches, unable to see the road that lay only a few yards away. I halted for a few moments, enjoying breathing air that smelled of earth and leaf mulch. I couldn’t see where the path was leading as it weaved around tree trunks, but I had a good idea. It came as no surprise when I found myself in the clearing with the lightning-struck oak inside the ruins of the ancient church.
I stopped at its edge, realizing I’d followed the same route Lola must have taken when I’d seen her here. A lone rook launched itself from the ivy-choked stones, but otherwise the clearing was deserted. In the days since I’d been there the rain had stripped most of the leaves from the trees. Set against the nearly bare branches, the crumbling gable wall looked even more stark.
I went to the same fallen pillar as before and sat down. The memory of the ugly scene at Lola’s ached like a bruise. Ward was right. The circumstantial evidence against Gary Lennox was compelling. He would have known at least one of the two entombed victims, had the building skills to build the false wall and had lost his porter’s job at St Jude’s under a cloud over missing drugs. Yet none of that would count for anything if he’d been incapacitated by a stroke for the past year and a half. That would rule him out of any involvement not only in Darren Crossly and the unknown woman’s murders, but Christine Gorski’s death as well. Lennox couldn’t have been responsible for any of them if he’d been a bedridden invalid at the time.
Unless his mother had lied.
The dates could be easily checked once the police had a court order to see his hospital and GP records. It might have been better for Ward to have waited until then, but I could understand why she hadn’t. Accessing confidential medical information wasn’t always straightforward, and Ward was under mounting pressure for results. Lennox’s guilt could be quickly established if his fingerprints matched those from the crime scene. If they did, this would be a huge coup for Ward on her first outing as SIO.
If they didn’t, then it would effectively end the police case against Gary Lennox, regardless of how long he’d been ill. And I’d have brought down all this fresh misery on Lola and her son for nothing.
Telling myself I hadn’t had a choice didn’t make me feel any better. Nor did the fact that Gary Lennox clearly needed proper medical care. That could have been arranged without what amounted to a police raid.
But I’d spent long enough brooding. Climbing to my feet, I brushed myself down and made my way back through the woods. The police officer patrolling the perimeter at the back of the hospital didn’t want to let me through, fixing me with an unfriendly stare as he made a call on his radio to confirm it was OK. It had started to cloud over as I walked through the wasteland of demolished outbuildings behind St Jude’s. I paused next to the mound of rubble where the morgue used to be. The new morgue, I reminded myself, remembering the cobwebbed original in the basement. The mound of broken concrete and bricks reached above my head, but as I paused to look at it fat drops of rain began to spatter down. The respite was over.
Leaving what remained of the morgue behind, I went to get changed.
It was late afternoon before Whelan came back to St Jude’s. The cadaver dog had worked its way down to the ground floor by then, where the open main doors at least allowed a trickle of fresh air and daylight inside. Even though the Labrador still had the basement to search, there was too much ducting and pipework for any false walls not to be immediately obvious. There was a sense that we were approaching the end now, that St Jude’s had exhausted its supply of surprises.
I should have known better.
We were in an X-ray suite from which all the equipment had been removed. Torn notices to switch off mobile phones hung from the walls, while the doors of empty changing cubicles stood open like looted sarcophagi.
‘Dr Hunter?’
I looked round to see Whelan in the doorway. Even in his mask I could see he didn’t look happy.
‘You’re needed in the basement,’ he said, turning and setting off down the corridor without waiting.
He’d reached the steps leading down to the lower level by the time I’d caught him up. ‘Has the search team found something?’ I asked.
‘They’ve got a piece of burnt bone in the boiler room, but they can’t say if it’s human or not.’ I was behind him on the steps but he didn’t look around. ‘We wondered where you’d got to earlier.’
‘Didn’t you get my message?’
‘That’s not the point. You should have told us before you left.’
‘You were busy and I was just getting in the way,’ I said, irked. ‘I thought I’d be better doing something useful.’
‘Well, next time clear it with us first.’
As far as I was concerned, there wouldn’t be a next time. But I guessed I wasn’t the only reason for the DI’s bad mood. ‘How did it go after I’d left?’
His sigh was answer enough. ‘Oduya’s causing problems. He’s advised Lennox’s mother not to give consent for her son’s fingerprints to be taken. Or hers, either. Says if we want them we’ll have to charge them first.’
That would be a blow for Ward. Unless they were given voluntarily, the police were only legally allowed to take a suspect’s fingerprints once they’d been charged. Gary Lennox was in no condition to give his consent, so permission would have to come from his mother. If she refused, it prevented the police from comparing her son’s fingerprints with those found at St Jude’s. The investigation would be at a stalemate.
‘What’s Oduya hoping to gain by that?’ I asked, as we reached the bottom of the steps.
‘Nothing, it’s just a spoiler tactic.’ Whelan set off down one of the passages. Pipes and ducting ran along the walls and ceiling, and small floor lights had been spaced out to show the way. ‘He’s trying to stop us seeing Lennox’s medical records, as well. He says if we’ve a case we should present it, otherwise we should stop persecuting a sick man.’
‘But if Lennox is innocent it’s in his own interests to be ruled out.’
‘Try telling your friend that.’
He’s not my friend. I didn’t blame the DI for being angry, though. If Lennox’s fingerprints were at the scene, left on the paint cans and in the mortar of the wall itself, then it would effectively confirm his guilt. Being blocked from establishing that on a point of law would be incredibly frustrating for the police.
But I could also understand why Oduya was doing it. Gary Lennox couldn’t speak for himself, so Oduya was going to speak for him. He’d represent the man as best he could, even if it meant delaying the police investigation. For all his self-promotion, I was starting to realize that the activist was genuinely doing what he thought was right, not simply posturing for effect.
It wasn’t going to win him any popularity contests.
‘Don’t you have enough on Lennox to bring charges?’ I asked.
Whelan shook his head. ‘Arrest, yes. Charge, no. Without the fingerprints it’s all circumstantial.’
‘Didn’t you find anything at the house?’ They would have carried out a search for any incriminating evidence at Lola’s when they arrested her son.
‘Nothing that helps. A pile of old comics and birdwatching magazines, but that was about it. Lennox was a real Billy-no-mates. He didn’t even have a computer or a mobile phone.’