I used the card David Cooper had given me and called Alison Cummings. She answered sounding young and serious. I told her who I was and what I wanted. ‘As you know, Mr Law has disappeared. His sister has hired me to find her brother. Can I ask when you last spoke to him?’
She didn’t bother to disguise her frustration and her disgust. ‘We met two days before Christmas. An earlier approach from me was turned down. Said he wanted to give the hospital a chance to respond to a complaint he’d made. They didn’t, and he made contact.’
‘So he offered to get involved?’
‘Yes. Just the best present I could’ve wished for. It meant the Coopers had someone credible to testify about what had gone wrong during Margaret’s surgery. Someone who knew what he was talking about.’
‘You must’ve been pleased.’
‘Over the moon. We celebrated. That was a mistake. I raised David’s hopes. Really, after my experiences with Francis Fallon, I ought to have been more cautious.’
‘Don’t be too hard on yourself. You thought you were on to a result.’
‘And we would’ve been if…’
‘…your star witness hadn’t gone missing.’
She sighed. ‘That was the thing. Mr Law offered us his support. Better late than never, but still.’
‘You only actually met him once?’
‘Yes. He seemed nice. Very anxious to help Margaret Cooper. I liked him. Then he spoiled it by asking me out.’
‘Why did that spoil it?’
‘I was wearing a wedding ring. But at least he was on our side.’
‘Did he say anything about the hospital?’
‘A lot. They’d had their chance to come clean and hadn’t taken it. It was up to us to see to it they did.’
‘“Us”? He actually said “us”?’
‘Absolutely. He was off to America after New Year. We were going to agree a statement when he came back. His exact words were “We’ll get them. We’ll get the bastards.” It was all so positive.’
Her voice changed.
‘You can understand why David Cooper is so crushed. Without Mr Law they’ll get nothing. Or, at the least, be tied up in litigation that’ll take years to resolve.’
I thanked her for being so forthcoming.
‘I hope you find him, Mr Cameron. Good people are depending on it.’
We ended the conversation on that note and I sat for a while, trying to make sense of what could have changed Gavin Law’s mind although I suspected I already knew.
Rape.
I was considering going home when Pat Logue breezed into the office like a man on fire, and right away I saw he was pleased with himself. He began with a question.
‘Ever dreamed about what you’d do if you won the lottery, Charlie?’
‘Haven’t given it too much thought, Patrick.’
He nodded as if he understood something that until then had passed him by.
‘Well, of course you haven’t. Never needed to. You’re from money. You see it differently. It’s just…there.’
He drew an arc in the air with his hand like a magician.
‘My side was skint three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Should’ve married a well-fixed burd with big tits. Instead, I married Gail.’
‘Good decision.’
‘No argument. And one out of two’s not bad. The point is her mob was even poorer than mine. Gail’s an orphan same as me. Her parents didn’t leave so much as a razoo. Not even enough to bury them. Fortunately they went within a couple of days of each other – did a deal with the undertaker.’
The pitiful sight of Margaret Cooper faded in my head. Patrick’s patter was doing its work; he was on form.
‘Treated me like one of the family from the off. Didn’t understand it. Still can’t. What had I ever done to them?’
I interrupted his act. ‘I’m guessing you’ve got a result on the hospital.’
He grinned. ‘When have I ever let you down, Charlie?’
I assumed it was a rhetorical question. He settled back to bask in his achievement.
‘First thing you need to know is, it wasn’t easy. Took hours to find where the porters drank. Tried the boozers nearest to the hospital. A dead loss. Not hard to understand why. Hole-in-the-wall joints. Piss poor beer. There’s a hotel. Gave that a go as well. Nada.’
He pointed an admonishing finger at me. ‘Hope you appreciate the sacrifice involved.’
Drinking and getting paid for it?
‘I may be many things, Charlie, but when it comes to beer, I’ve got standards. High standards.’
‘I’ve seen them, Patrick.’
He gave me a funny look and went on with his tale. ‘Finally tracked them down in a pub half a mile from Francis Fallon. To you and me these porter guys just wheel sick people around. So what? We don’t consider the responsibility involved. Drinking isn’t cool so they do their bevvyin’ a fair distance away.’
‘And what’s the story?’
He ran through the cast of characters on his fingers. ‘The director and Maitland aren’t popular though no surprise there; nobody likes the boss, do they? Present company excepted. Couldn’t get much at first. Dour bunch of bastards. Not the cheeriest people you’re ever goin’ to meet. Even after I bought a few pints they still weren’t sayin’. Eventually got pally with one of them. Probably an alki. Refused nothin’ but blows. Cost you a few bob, Charlie. Sorry. Worth it though.’
‘What did he tell you?’
‘Accordin’ to him, Maitland likes a drink. That makes him okay. The others thought he was an arrogant prick.’
‘And Gavin Law?’
‘Consensus is he’s a bit of a pussy hound, but they like that. Banged everything that moved, apparently.’
‘So the rape thing might be true?’
He shrugged. ‘Not mentioned, Charlie. Unusual in a gossip shop, although it could be the hospital’s managed to keep a lid on it. Sensitive stuff, after all.’
‘Yeah, but a member of staff’s been suspended on the strength of it, Patrick. Hard on the heels of another doctor. That can’t be the norm. There has to be more than the big boss not being on anybody’s Christmas card list and his arrogant brother-in-law too fond of a drink.’
‘Agree with you. Got a hollow ring to it. Two suspensions in as many months should have the jungle drums at it.’
‘So how come they aren’t? What’s the take on McMillan?’
‘Again, not much. Plenty of sympathy. Decent guy who’s had a rough time.’
‘And is off the operating list because he told somebody he was suicidal.’
Patrick stroked his chin. ‘Long faces when I asked about him. That said, no suggestions he wasn’t.’
I stood up and paced the floor. ‘Visited the Coopers this afternoon. You wouldn’t wish what’s happened to those people on your worst enemy. The wife – Margaret – she’s still breathing. About all you can say for her. Gavin Law was going to testify for them against Maitland and the hospital. Without him they’ll get nothing.’
‘So what do you want me to do?’
For the moment, I wasn’t sure.
‘It all comes back to the hospital. The common factor linking Law and McMillan is Maitland. We need more.’
Patrick threw a piece of paper on the desk. On it, scribbled in pencil, was an address and a phone number.
‘Wallace Maitland’s?’
‘The very same.’
‘Good stuff, Patrick.’
He clapped his hands together and got to his feet. ‘Now, where’s this Eskimo woman you want me to wrestle?’
Wallace Maitland crossed the road at St Enoch’s Square and made his way past House of Fraser at the bottom of Buchanan Street. An hour earlier he’d left Blackfriars pub in Merchant City – the last customer – where he’d spent most of the evening. For a change he was relatively sober. The steak and ale pie he’d eaten helped and anyway, he hadn’t been in the mood. Glasgow wasn’t short of watering holes but sitting at a bar wasn’t the fun it had been.
Jimmy Hambley was right; his drinking was out of control and that worried him. A lot of things worried him: losing his wife; the end of his career; the nagging fear he might be a murderer. And, above all, getting found out.
Since New Year’s Eve things between him and his wife hadn’t been good. Wallace was to blame; he recognised that much. And turning up at Jimmy and Martha’s covered in blood and unable to remember how he had come by his injuries was the last straw. They’d barely spoken since and he stayed away from the house; walking during the day and when night fell, walking some more. Anywhere he wouldn’t have to look at the reproach in her eyes and know he was the one who put it there. By now, she would be asleep. Time to head home.
In his heart, he didn’t believe he was capable of killing anyone and Law’s accusation had come as a shock in more ways than one. Criticism from a fellow professional, especially one who was present at the operation, was difficult to take. Law should have understood. The Coopers were desperate to have a child. He’d acted to keep that dream alive.
With a complete abruption, an emergency caesarean and a hysterectomy was the obvious course. He’d chosen to do the bold thing. The brave thing. It wasn’t his fault the bleeding wouldn’t stop and her brain had been starved of oxygen.
He’d tried. God knows he’d tried.
Colin McMillan was a different story. Maitland hadn’t a clue where he was coming from. Clearly the man was unstable. McMillan was a quiet individual who kept himself apart. Wallace didn’t know him socially and couldn’t have named anyone who did. As an obstetrician, he seemed first-class. As a colleague, he was an enigma.
Maitland had only met McMillan’s wife once, at some cheese and wine do Jimmy insisted they attend and nobody wanted to be at. She’d been a looker, though he’d detected an intensity in her and marked her as the kind of female it was better to avoid. Too much like hard work.
They’d discussed poetry, of all things. She’d rattled on about Sylvia Plath. Wallace had switched off, satisfied his first impression was correct. His knowledge of modern poets could be written on the back of a beer mat yet he knew Plath had committed suicide and, later, so did Joyce McMillan.
How about that for irony?
A glance at his watch told him it was after midnight. Usually he’d be home by now. He turned right into Mitchell Street and quickened his pace. In the narrow passage, his echoing footsteps startled him. Maitland looked over his shoulder, nervous and uncertain, seeing nothing except blackened walls covered with posters advertising clubs, and a couple of out-sized rubbish bins, crammed to the brim with cardboard.
His nerves were shot; he cursed himself for being a jittery old woman. No surprise with the pressure he was under. At any moment, the police might discover Gavin Law’s body and come for him. Law’s complaint could end his career. That gave him motive. He’d be the prime suspect.
Christ!
A dosser, sleeping under newspapers and boxes, called out incoherently from a bad dream, and Wallace was struck by a terrifying thought. He might end-up like this: during the day, shuffling through the city scrounging cheap wine to get him through another freezing cold night, his comfortable life just a distant memory he wasn’t sure had ever been real. Maitland followed the nightmare scenario through to its conclusion – dementia and death. He shuddered, more afraid than he’d ever been, and hurried on.
The car park was deserted. He put the ticket into the machine, paid the exorbitant charge and climbed the stone stairs with the sound of his own laboured breathing in his ears. At the second level, he stopped and listened. Somewhere behind him in the darkened stairwell he heard footsteps. Maitland fumbled for his keys and broke into a run. On level three, sweating and panting, he dragged the door open, fired the ignition and roared towards the exit. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a figure draw into the shadows and his heart leapt in his chest.
It wasn’t paranoia. Someone was following him.
James Hambley lay in the dark going over the events for the hundredth time, starting with Margaret Cooper. Wallace wasn’t the first surgeon to make the wrong decision; neither was he the first to refuse to accept responsibility. “The operation was a success but the patient died” wasn’t a cliché for nothing. It happened. More often than people would believe. And when it did, doctors could be confident of the support of their peers. Quite right, too. The profession had to be protected otherwise they would be inundated with lawsuits, most of them without foundation.
Gavin Law’s complaint, in itself, wasn’t such a big problem. It could’ve been dealt with and contained. Threatening to add his weight to the other side took it to another level. Hambley had seen that coming and was concerned until the rape allegation effectively neutralised the righteous Law. From there, they had little to worry about, because with Law on the back foot, the case against Francis Fallon would certainly collapse.
As he’d told Wallace, these things had a way of resolving themselves so long as they kept cool heads. McMillan was a case in point. Look how easily that had gone away.
But that hadn’t been good enough for the headstrong drunken idiot.
Hambley didn’t know what his brother-in-law had actually done on Hogmanay. Wallace arrived with evidence of violence on him, and no one had seen Gavin Law since. Had Maitland killed Law, or had Law run rather than face his rape accuser?
As director, Hambley couldn’t escape the consequences. A question had been tabled for the next hospital board meeting about the loss of two surgeons in such a short time. His management at Francis Fallon was coming under scrutiny. Not a problem. He could handle the board – most of them didn’t have a clue – but if the police suddenly found a body, then that would change everything.
The phone rang. Hambley lifted it on the third ring, hoping it hadn’t wakened Martha upstairs in bed.
‘Jimmy? Jimmy, I’m being followed.’
Wallace.
‘Calm down and tell me.’
‘Tonight. Somebody was there.’
‘Wait a minute. You’re telling me…what, exactly?’
Maitland’s voice was a savage whisper. Shona mustn’t hear what he was saying. ‘I was in a car park in town. There were footsteps behind me.’
‘Did you actually see anybody?’
‘No. But somebody was there. I swear. I didn’t imagine it.’
‘Wallace, have you been drinking?’
Maitland lost his temper. ‘No…yes…no. Only a couple. That isn’t the point.’
Hambley’s tone hardened. ‘I’m rather afraid it is, Wallace. Your lifestyle’s catching up with you. It doesn’t take much these days to set you off. We all saw that on Hogmanay. My advice is the same, except now you don’t have a choice. Seek help.’
Maitland was close to tears. ‘You’re not listening. I heard him. He stayed in the shadows but he was there.’
Hambley sighed; he was tired of this. ‘Who? Who was there?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Shit! I forgot. A private investigator was here asking about Gavin Law. Somebody called Cameron.’
Maitland froze. Fear crashed over him; he felt ill. The investigator hadn’t known Maitland’s name until Hambley let it slip. ‘What should I do?’
Wallace really was pathetic. At the other end of the line, a cruel smile played at the corners of James Hambley’s mouth. If he hadn’t been Martha’s brother, he would have sacked the bastard long ago. ‘Better hope he’s as good at his job as you are at yours. You could show him where you buried Law.’
‘Jimmy. Don’t joke. It isn’t funny.’
‘No it isn’t, is it? Not funny at all. So listen you gutless fucker. I need you back here before this board meeting. I’ve got enough on my plate without having to explain your absence as well. Keep your head down and do your job. And if I so much as sniff drink on you I’ll call the police myself and tell them what I should’ve told them on New Year’s Eve. Got it?’
‘All right. All right.’
‘Assuming this investigator catches up with you, say nothing. Not a word. So long as you keep your mouth shut, you’re in the clear.’
Maitland calmed down. ‘I’m spooking myself. Sorry, Jimmy. And thanks. I feel better.’
‘Good. Get Shona used to the idea of having you around the house more often. Like every day.’
‘What d’you mean? I don’t understand.’
‘Perhaps you thought I wasn’t serious. I am. Francis Fallon will be better off without you. As soon as the dust has settled on the mess you’ve caused, I want your resignation.’