Too bad, I hid a boot
“Professor Gabriel,” Mrs Hewitt began on a warning note, “I am sure that you, being a doctor as well as a scientist, mainain professional standards and appreciate that what I have to say to you must be kept in the strictest confidence.”
Gabriel nodded and wondered what was coming. Two chunky glasses full of soda water stood between them on a wooden coffee table. He speculated whether one of them would normally have contained whisky.
There were lots of windows on all sides of the sitting room which looked out on a garden where a strong wind was whipping the trees. Gabriel saw a couple of jackdaws struggle to control their flight; they circled awkwardly and managed to alight on the chimney of a neighbouring house.
“My husband mentioned at breakfast this morning that you have not yet handed in the pathology report on PLF, the drug being developed at Nebotec. Is that correct?”
Gabriel nodded, bending forward conscientiously. A veil of red veins spread from the wings of her nose to form a glazed flush under her sharp grey eyes.
“I can’t emphasise enough to you how important that report is. I should tell you that a lot of my family money is invested in Nebotec, in the success of Nebotec. The share price of the company has fallen significantly in the last week or so, what with all the recent publicity. Recovery would be greatly aided by the submission of PLF for a phase one trial to the FDA.”
“Yes, your husband told me a deal with a very large pharma company was likely to follow.”
She gave him a crooked smile that reminded him of Ida Lupino in High Sierra.
“James as usual has been a little boastful or injudicious,” she went on. “Probably both. He does like to push the company.”
Gabriel was irritated by Frances Hewitt’s tone. She always seemed to be talking down to him. She clearly saw herself as a superior type of person, superior at least to Gabriel in her system of natural selection which, as far as he could tell, was based mainly on accent and money.
“Then it’s not true? There is no deal.”
“I didn’t say that,” she answered carefully. “Nothing is settled yet. There are several large companies that are interested in the drugs Nebotec are developing. But it is a little premature to talk about anything definite yet. Though I’m sure it will happen. This is very sensitive information. I’m sure you understand.”
Gabriel said nothing.
“What is important is that all the data is provided to the FDA as soon as possible. As James has been asked by the police to remain in the country until the unfortunate matter of Anna Taylor’s death is sorted out, it looks as if I, as one of the directors of Nebotec, will have to go the States and organise the FDA submission. Not the way I wanted it, of course. I’ve enough to do here, as you can imagine.”
Gabriel couldn’t imagine but he nodded sympathetically.
“James tells me that there is one key element lacking from this submission and that is your pathology report. Dr Reynolds and you have examined the slides?”
Gabriel nodded but again said nothing.
“Then surely you must have come to some conclusion. Were all the tissues of the PLF-treated mice normal?”
“Oh yes, they were all normal. Virtually all the slides of the tissues we looked at were normal or near normal. But the matter is now out of my hands. I’ve given all the slides to the police.”
Her face was suddenly expressionless. His silence up to then had only been hinting that things were bad. Now it struck her that they were even worse than she had imagined. Gabriel’s words seemed to break for her the barrier of convention that had existed between them. There was a drawing in of the corners of her mouth as she tried to control her words.
“But why? I don’t see what bloody reason there can be for the police to concern themselves with the work of the company. James surely told you not to discuss the matter with anyone outside the company.”
“I really had no choice,” said Gabriel. “There was “the unfortunate matter of Anna Taylor’s death”, as you put it, to consider as well.”
She eyed him shrewdly through her glasses. Her lips were compressed into a thin line. She was struggling to control her temper and seemed to be considering how best to get her way with him.
“I don’t wish to be unhelpful,” Gabriel continued. “I was going to suggest to your husband that it might be best if a sort of mini-symposium was held later this week so that Dr Reynolds and I can present our findings. It may be clearer for the company how best to proceed after that. You would of course be welcome to attend.”
“The sooner the better. This is bloody awkward. A real shambles.”
She got up and walked over to a small cabinet and withdrew from it a bottle of whisky. Anticipating a refusal, she half-heartedly offered him some before pouring herself a measure to which she added a modicum of soda. The sip she took as she sat down opposite him seemed to revive her momentarily. She gave him an astute smile before speaking again.
“James tells me that you have not only reviewed the slides but also made some inquiries about them.”
Gabriel nodded.
“If you are being employed by the company it naturally has an interest in the nature of those inquiries. It is important that you inform the company before sharing such information with the police.”
“Wouldn’t that very much depend on the nature of the information?”
She took a sip of her drink then set it down on the table.
“Possibly, but as I said, there are a number of sensitive issues to consider in this matter.” Rather reluctantly, she added, “Nebotec is very keen to protect its sole rights to develop drugs that act on the PLF palindrome.”
Gabriel disliked Frances Hewitt, disliked her posh-posh voice. He was irritated by the way she always seemed to be talking down to him and was determined to give her a hard time.
“Is there a problem with that?” he asked.
“No, not at all,” she answered defensively. “Our patent lawyers have been very actively involved from the beginning of this project.”
Gabriel suddenly had a thought. “I was aware that Anna Taylor had questioned some of the experimental results. May I ask if she had also questioned their originality?”
For a moment Frances Hewitt looked at a loss what to say. “I had not heard that she did. But I would not be surprised to hear it. She was trouble, that girl, Nothing but trouble.”
“But it seems pretty clear that she did have doubts about some of the results and that the staff at Nebotec, your husband included, were concerned by them.”
She looked away from him. Gabriel pursued his momentary advantage. “Indeed, your husband seems to have made a considerable effort to allay her doubts.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, colouring suddenly.
Partly in revenge for the superior tone she had adopted with him earlier, he went for her with all he had. “Well, your husband was present at Nebotec on the night of the murder. Isn’t that right, Mrs Hewitt?”
Gabriel paused. She did not reply.
“And you are being blackmailed by Vishant Samant who saw him there and threatened to tell the police that he saw him enter the laboratory building?”
She stared at him and went scarlet as if in response to a blow. He saw the grey roots of her dyed hair. She waited a few seconds before responding, first picking up her glass.
“You have a very lively imagination, Professor Gabriel.”
“Not really, Mrs Hewitt. I’m just well informed.”
She held the glass tightly, a suggestion of suppressed violence. Gabriel suspected that she wouldn’t hesitate to throw it at him if he kept on at her in this way. She was, he concluded, the type to commit bloody murder to protect what she had.
“I must say that you have quite a nerve coming into my house and making such an accusation. It would be more straightforward to ask my husband these questions.”
“I’ll do that in due course, if the police haven’t already. Would you like me to tell him anything?”
“There is the question of protecting other people. I have a son at school.”
“There’s also the question of murder, which is a serious business.”
She lit a cigarette with a sharp angular movement. She was not an ugly woman but she gave the impression of ugliness with the abrupt way she looked, moved and spoke.
“I accept that,” she said and regarded him darkly for a moment as if assessing how much she should tell him. “I’m sure you have been told all manner of rumours about James and Anna Taylor. Perhaps it’s best that you should hear the truth from me.”
Gabriel put down his glass.
“James comes from a wealthy family. He does a lot of travelling in his business and he meets a very large number of people, including young women. I have always accepted that he would be subject to a certain amount of temptation. I can tell you that in the circles where I grew up that sort of thing is considered normal.”
Was he about to hear, Gabriel wondered, the latest in the long canon of Hewitt indiscretions?
As though she had read his thoughts she went on, “Of course I can spot them. They’re all the same. Pretty, little simpering types. Always smiling. She was no different. Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth...”
Gabriel found himself less taken aback than he expected by what Frances Hewitt had to say. He resented the way she rubbed it in though. She seemed to be trying to make out that she was the injured party; holier than thou, unjustly wronged, and better than she actually was. She did not directly refer to Anna Taylor by name and to clarify whom she meant he found it necessary to ask at one point, “You mean Anna Taylor?”
She gave no sign of assent but somehow made it clear whom she was referring to by not contradicting him and continuing in the same vein, “You mustn’t imagine James thought much of her. She was just factory floor, after all. It was just business — what happens in business, I mean.”
Gabriel did not like the way she spoke about Anna. As much to clarify to himself his real feelings about Frances Hewitt as to get the truth, he asked, “Mrs Hewitt, do you have a specific accusation against Anna Taylor?”
“But what I am telling you is the absolute truth. That girl set out to trap James. She was very ambitious. You knew her. Would you not agree?”
Gabriel did not wish to show that he did agree but he struggled not to indicate his assent.
“How long had “relations” as you call them, between your husband and Anna Taylor been going on?”
“Almost from the time she started working at Nebotec. She saw him as the real power there. The way to get on. She was entirely unprincipled as you would expect someone like her to be.”
“And the slides?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. James never mentioned...”
“Do you know if your husband conspired to alter the results of the pathology on the PLF-treated mice?”
“What are you saying?” she whispered. “What are you trying to tell me?”
Gabriel suddenly wanted to hurt her, to break the last of her will, to remove her utterly as an enemy.
“Only what I have just said. That the police have suspected for some time that the slides Anna was looking at the night she was murdered were tampered with. Your husband was at Nebotec at the time. And it is true, isn’t it Mrs Hewitt, that Samant saw your husband entering the laboratory building the night Anna Taylor was murdered?”
She buried her face in her hands. Her body shook with sobs. “You don’t know what I’ve been through.”
Gabriel was silent. He could think of nothing to say. It was a confusing and depressing reflection that this heartless and cold-blooded woman elicited no sympathy from him. And yet there were real tears in her eyes.
“Are they going to arrest him?”
“I don’t know,” Gabriel said. “I’m sorry to have upset you.”
She did not reply. He had an uncomfortable feeling that his words sounded insincere. He rose to leave, but before moving away spoke to her in a low voice, genuinely wishing to give good advice,
“I strongly recommend that Mr Hewitt tells the police the entire truth about his movements the evening Anna was murdered—”
It was then she suddenly exploded, removing any veneer of politeness or control in her voice.
“Get out, get out. Get out of my house, you prick,” she screamed in fury. “You fucking...”
Gabriel was completely taken aback. She was angry with him, angry with everyone, but most of all she was angry with herself.
He set off to drive back to the hospital. He did not take the direct route via the ring road but kept going toward the city. The striped awnings of the shops in Summertown slipped by as in a dream. Suddenly he turned down the street where Hewitt had pointed out to him Taylor’s flat. There was no reason he should expect Matt Taylor to be home at that time but if he was there then so much the better: he would finally have it out with him about the palindrome results.
The North Oxford street where he parked his car had a few pretty terrace houses with brightly coloured front doors but most had been pulled down to make way for a development of modern flats. Gabriel looked at the names on the bells and located that of “A & M Taylor”. The street door buzzed to let him in and he went up the stairs to the flat.
He knocked. The door opened almost immediately and he found himself face to face with Liz Reynolds.
Gabriel’s astonishment was too great to permit him to observe whether she too was astonished. For a thunderstruck moment he tried to find a gesture, a word that would conceal his emotion.
When his faculties were restored to some sort of balance he could only say, “Hello Liz, I was looking for Matt Taylor.”
“You’d better come in.”
“Is it all right?” he thought best to ask first. He had a feeling that he was interrupting a lover’s tryst. Where was Taylor? Was he hiding in the bedroom? Did Liz live here as well? Or was she merely a visitor? It was an improbable scene from an improbable melodrama.
Liz answered one of his unspoken questions before he could ask it aloud. “Matt has gone with the police to the station. They want to question him again.”
“Couldn’t they do that here?”
“Apparently not. I didn’t tell you this morning but Brook and one of his henchmen questioned me last night about where I was the evening Anna was murdered. I told them that I was at the hospital and then the college but they don’t seem to like the fact I don’t have any witnesses to account for my movements at the time.”
“Gearing told me that you almost knocked him over that evening when you cycled in to the car park at the college. You were in a great hurry.”
“I was. I was late.”
“And Melanie told me that she couldn’t find you when she wanted your opinion on a biopsy.” The two of them looked at each other. “So where were you?”
“I wasn’t anywhere other than I said. I went from the hospital on my bike to the college. I was running late so that was why I was in such a rush when I reached the college. I must have just missed Melanie. No one saw me leave the hospital and only Gearing saw me when I arrived at the college.” She looked at Gabriel who seemed to be studying her in the same way he did a microscope slide. “For God’s sake, I was on my bicycle and it was dark. How could anyone have seen me?”
“But you know what Brook thinks, don’t you, Liz? That Matt Taylor and you somehow conspired to murder Anna; that you cycled out to Nebotec before you went to the college.”
There was a silence. Gabriel was not certain whether Liz was telling the truth or not. The situation was ridiculous as well as painful.
“Perhaps you’d prefer me to go?” he offered.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course not. Sit down.”
He remained standing, as she did, with one of her thighs angled against the edge of the sofa. She almost stamped her foot in anger before her next words.
“It was Matt you came to see, wasn’t it?”
Gabriel nodded.
“How did you know he lived here?”
“Hewitt pointed out the flat to me when I drove him home from the college the other night.”
“So that was what the college dinner was all about?” There was a hint of betrayal in her voice. “What have you come here for?”
He had no thought other than to speak the truth. “I don’t know exactly. It’s all rather complicated. I wanted to ask him about palindromes—”
She interrupted him. “Yes, yes, but what were you going to do with Matt?”
“Do with him?” Gabriel wiped some moisture off his forehead. He felt a desperate desire to fill out the skeleton of the conversation. “Look, this is all too absurd. Why can’t you be frank with me? What is all this about?”
“You tell me.”
He saw almost with alarm that his appeal had not made the least impression on her.
As though humouring a fractious child, she said, “Why don’t you forget about all this, Adam?”
“Forget what? That you might have helped Matt Taylor—”
“Helped him do what?” she interrupted.
“Now it’s my turn to say ‘You tell me.’ I think I’d better go.”
He made a move to go. He suddenly seemed to think better of it and stopped himself. “My advice to the two of you is that you’d better have a good answer to what you were doing that night. My guess is that Brook has a witness who saw you at Nebotec the night Anna was murdered.”
“You know that for certain?”
“Almost certain.”
“But why would I have gone there?”
“Because Matt and you have a patent on MT-1. I would hazard a guess that there’s not a lot of difference in the molecular structure between MT-1 and PLF, which Nebotec are now trumpeting as a newly discovered molecule.”
Liz looked down. She shook her head. “You’re wrong, Adam. You don’t know the half of it.”
Gabriel felt a rush of pity for her. She was right. What did he know? Her character existed in terms beyond his understanding.
“You don’t know what I’ve been through.”
Gabriel went over and stood beside her at the window, watching her profile. He opened his mouth but did not know what to say.
Pat arrived home after Adam and promptly announced they were eating out as she had little in the fridge and was too tired to cook. Adam’s inability to cook meant that he could hardly object, though it was not what he desired after a long day. Pat made him feel that he was somehow responsible; that with some effort and a little instruction it could have been avoided. She gave him a look that condemned him to the status of a child demanding to be fed.
In his defence he essayed a bogus reply, “It’ll be a nice change,” but it fooled no one.
Their car drove out of Boarstall under an endless black cloud that did not take long to deliver the heavy rain it promised. The clicking windscreen wipers struggled to make two clear geometrical arcs through the pounding rain. The car turned off the main road onto a single track road which ran over a narrow railway bridge then climbed up a steep hill to a village that overlooked two valleys. A thick wood fringed a row of stone cottages along the main street where, in imitation of the suburbia the villagers had no doubt hoped to escape, a long row of cars and vans was parked half on the road, half on the pavement.
The village was unlit apart from a light above the sign of a stone and thatch pub opposite the church. A fire blazed inside the pub which was largely empty, probably on account of the beastly weather. A red-faced man of the wealthy agricultural kind was drinking a pint at the bar and muttering to the dark-haired landlady who looked as if she was barely listening.
Gabriel ordered drinks at the bar and a short time later the landlady brought a pint of beer and large glass of wine to their table. He thanked her and asked, “Are you serving food tonight?”
“What we’ve got is all up on the board.” She pointed to a blackboard behind the bar on which was scribbled in chalk a handful of alternatives (all with chips). Last on the list was an optimistic request to “Ask for our Special”.
Anticipating Gabriel’s query, she added with a shrug of her shoulders, “The Special is game pie.”
“What game pie?” asked Gabriel doubtfully.
“Bit of everything, you know.”
The two of them chose steak and asked for mushrooms and salad. (Chips was nearly the dirtiest word in Pat’s vocabulary.) The landlady looked offended they had not taken her recommendation. The cynic in Gabriel reckoned that was because the pie was proving hard to shift and would appear on the menu again tomorrow. She shuffled off and did not acknowledge their faint thanks.
“Why does she never smile, Adam?” Pat asked.
“She runs a pub.”
“So, that’s no reason why she can’t be pleasant and polite.”
“In my experience few pub landlords are capable of being both at the same time.”
“In the old days she would have been classed as a witch.”
“I suspect along with a lot of other women. Be glad you live nowadays rather than in those enlightened, male-dominated times when just complaining would have qualified you as one.”
“Was that the worst crime?”
“No, not having a meal ready for your husband when he got home was a lot worse.”
“That’s not funny, you misogynist pig.” She put down her glass. “The wine here is almost undrinkable...” She was soon bombarding everything with criticism. She began with Adam then turned on her students. “None of them like their set texts, and even those that do, don’t seem to have understood them.”
“I presume that includes The Witch of Edmonton?”
“Most certainly.”
Gabriel regarded women as a different tribe. He had met a few women today — Frances Hewitt, Liz Reynolds and now Pat — none of whom he could be said to have properly understood. It was their vehement feelings of compassion, hatred, disgust — and their certainty about the truth of such feelings — that he did not comprehend. He could not think of a woman of his acquaintance who did not consciously or unconsciously think like that. Pat asked questions as though she already knew the answer. He did not. It was not that women were kinder, smarter, or more virtuous than men. They were just different. Perhaps it was the effect of that extra X chromosome. After all, if it could change the look of a cell nucleus why could it not also change personality?
Gabriel leaned back and looked through the window into the pub car park where the rain was bouncing in puddles. He saw a man in a white T-shirt, probably the cook, come out of a back door and light up a cigarette. The man looked out, spat into the yard, and went in again.
“Have you worked out what happened to Anna?”
“Not really. It’s all very confusing. There are some facts that have come to light but they don’t, for me at least, make complete sense.”
“Is that essential?”
“I suspect so in this case. Certainly, Anna’s murder was very carefully planned.”
Pat did not reply and Gabriel wondered what she was thinking. He observed with a self-conscious pathologist’s eye an elderly well-dressed couple seated at the next table. They spoke with strong Oxfordshire accents and looked as if they were ritually enjoying their food. Retired locals he imagined. Himself and Pat when they retired in a few years, he reflected with some dismay.
“I wonder if you’re right, Adam,” Pat said, verbalising her own thoughts. “About the murder, I mean. You said it was a very violent murder. That means whoever did it, must have really hated Anna. Hated her a lot.”
“But why?”
“Perhaps because she was like the witch of Edmonton. Not like others. She didn’t see things the way others did.”
“You may be right, certainly at Nebotec anyway,” he acknowledged before adding, smiling, “But you don’t kill someone just because you don’t see eye to eye with them. Otherwise a lot marriages, ours for instance, would be more bloody affairs.”
“I’d just like to see you try.” She laughed. “I wouldn’t feed you for a week.”