Some men interpret nine memos
In the end it was Oxford in its usual negative and circumlocutory way that lent Gabriel a hand. The next day he drove in early, parked at his college and walked down to Gloucester Green to catch the London bus. He had to be in Bloomsbury before 9.00 to sit on a selection committee interviewing three candidates competing for a research fellowship in molecular biology — something he knew a little but not a lot about.
Town and gown had not yet stirred and the streets were almost deserted. His route took him through the centre of Oxford, down the Broad, past the college of Liz Reynolds, Gearing and Palmer. It was windy but bright and sunny. The sunshine cheered his soul but it did not entirely convince. From experience he knew that as usual, not long before midday, grey clouds would gather, bringing with them the rain that dampens everything.
As always, when faced with doing something outside his usual routine, Gabriel saw the future real by imagining it: first catching the bus to London, the single decker with its load of office workers and shop assistants; then the stop at Baker Street where he would get off; his walk across London through bustling pavements; his frosty reception by the building security officer who like a doubting Saint Peter would shake his head as he looked down the list of those expected before reluctantly ticking his name and issuing him with a plastic badge on which the word Visitor would be printed.
As he entered Gloucester Green he was greeted by something of a mini-cyclone that lashed his suit and upset his hair. The bus station of the city of dreaming spires was a couple of concrete football pitches surrounded by modern buildings. Footpaths pierced the perimeter of the “Green” beyond one of which there was a council parking lot. The sun shone crudely on the waddling fat pigeons doing battle over feeding territory; they were in no hurry to get out of Gabriel’s way and he had trouble avoiding them. Being a man who liked to live without big ideas, Gabriel preferred this side of Oxford. There was not that complacent assumption of know-all learning that he found in the grand college buildings only a short distance away; just the thick smell of people getting on with their lives, struggling to get from A to B.
He still had a little time before his bus was scheduled to leave. He felt thirsty and cast his eyes round the square. It was studded with the usual commodities of capitalism. He entered one of these, a featureless café, and emerged a minute later with a large paper cup. He sat down at a corner table — white plastic — and stirred his coffee as if it required all his concentration.
He watched a bus from London to Birmingham swing into a bay. The line of disembarking passengers blocked for a moment his view of the driver of the airport bus loading bags into the luggage bay at the side of the bus and the few passengers queuing obediently before the open bus door. The Birmingham bus took on a few passengers and then began to reverse out of its bay. A recorded stentorian male voice repeatedly cautioned: “This vehicle is reversing.”
He got up to board the London bus a few minutes later and looked round the square one last time. Perhaps it was at this moment that an idea which was not that new and certainly not an inspiration took hold of him; it was the kind, he recognised, that leads to diagnosis. It might be worth looking into when he got back in the afternoon. He paid for his Day Return ticket then sat down as the bus pulled away.
It took longer than Gabriel expected to return from London. He was held up by London rush hour traffic which, in his estimation, seemed to begin earlier and end later every year: the beginning and end were now barely distinguishable. When he entered the Pathology laboratory he was surprised to find Brook there.
“I was just going to call you,” Gabriel said after greeting him. He began a half-hearted apology — it was not his fault, after all that his bus had got back late from London — but Brook was not interested. His face had the clenched stubborn expression of a rugby forward who has suddenly been passed the ball and is determined to run as far as possible with it.
“We’ve a few things to talk over,” he said tetchily. “Is there somewhere we can talk privately?”
“My office,” said Gabriel,
Brook led the way in long strides; he was one of those men who believe they are working hard when they are moving quickly. Joan looked up from her typing in near panic when the two men sped past her.
Gabriel closed his office door behind Brook then sat down behind his desk, facing him.
“You’ll appreciate that what I have to tell you is highly confidential,” Brook began, leaning back slightly in his chair. “Information has come to light that places a member of your staff at the Nebotec lab around the time of Anna Taylor’s murder.”
“I know from Liz Reynolds that you spoke to her yesterday.”
“But I haven’t come to see you about Dr Reynolds.”
“Then who?”
“Tom Duncan.”
There was a brief pause as Brook waited for Gabriel to respond. When he remained silent, he asked him, “When you came back from Madrid, the registrar, Dr Stokes, sought your diagnostic opinion on a case, did she not?”
Gabriel nodded.
“Did she mention anything else at the time?”
“Yes. She said that she received the slides the previous evening but that she couldn’t find Liz Reynolds or Tom Duncan to get their opinion.”
“That agrees with what Dr Stokes told us.”
“And from that you infer...?”
“Quite a lot really. You see, we have information from a witness—”
“Samant, I assume.”
Grant nodded and said, “He saw a bicycle light enter Nebotec around 5.15 — he’s not exactly sure of the time. He didn’t get a good view of the cyclist because it was dark but he’s definite that he saw a light.”
“And you think that bicycle was Tom Duncan’s?”
“He wasn’t here when normally he should have been.”
“That proves nothing. He might have been elsewhere in the department or gone home early.”
“He says he didn’t. In fact he admits he lied to us. He told us that he’d gone home shortly after 5.00 when we first questioned him about his movements that night. But when we questioned his wife she said that he didn’t arrive home till late, some time between 6.30 and 7.00.”
“No, she said that he “wasn’t himself ” that night. They’re her words.”
“But not covered in blood as you would have expected Anna’s murderer to be?”
“No-o,” Brook said slowly. “And I believed her. But then he could have worn a mac and boots which he’d dumped on the way home. We’re running forensic tests on his wardrobe now.”
“Why did he go to Nebotec?”
“He says that he agreed to meet with Anna Taylor that evening. He gave her some results of tests he’d done for her.”
“Is that all?”
“No. When we asked him whether he knew Anna was going to apply for the Clinical Tutor job he looked distinctly uncomfortable. Tried to deny at first that she said anything about it to him but then pretty quickly broke down and told us that she had and that he was not happy about it.” Somewhat reluctantly, Brook added, “But he denies murdering her. Says that she was alive when he left her.”
“What results did he give her?”
“They were from a test called in... in—” Brook broke off to consult his notebook.
“In situ hybridisation,” said Gabriel. “Tom Duncan does it for his experiments on graft rejection in sex-mismatched marrow transplants. He has a probe for the Y chromosome which tells him whether the cells in the grafted marrow are male. It’s the opposite of a Barr body, which is a marker of the X chromosome. In situ is a much more sensitive and specific way of telling whether a cell is male or female.”
“So I understand,” said Brook. “He showed us the slides they looked at together.”
“I wouldn’t mind looking at them myself. So are you thinking now that Tom Duncan is your murderer?”
“He’s a suspect. That’s all I’ll say. We’ve detained him for further questioning. I thought you’d like to know,”
“I appreciate it. I wouldn’t have thought he’s the type to commit murder, though. Apart from pathology, Tom Duncan is as naïve as a child. He’s harmless, I assure you.”
“None the less he’s got a lot to explain. He was at medical school with Anna, admits they went out together, although he denies having been her boyfriend. Says she threw him over pretty quick. Who knows? He may have harboured resentment about that. Perhaps it all just boiled over when he told her that she was putting in for the job he thought was his.”
Gabriel compressed his lips, pulled at his broad snub nose and shook his head. He knew from experience that it was too easy to collect evidence that pointed to a wrong diagnosis. One assembled a whole lot of suspicious facts, made even more so in one’s own suspicious mind, and then—. No doubt if you looked into the lives of people in the street it would not be long before even the most blameless of them would appear suspicious.
“And he just happened to be wearing a thick mac and size 12 boots and carrying a handy knife in his pocket when he visited her at Nebotec. I don’t think so. Tom doesn’t fit the pattern — or the facts really. There’s no reason he would want to change the slides. You haven’t charged him, I hope?”
“No, not yet anyway,” Brook admitted.
“There’s a lot to consider in this case. I should tell you I was with Mrs Hewitt yesterday. She was to put it mildly most anxious about the PLF results.”
“She has every right to be. They’re not all kosher, as you suspected.”
“In fact, she got rather angry when I suggested that PLF might be the same as MT-1, the drug Palmer originally developed with Taylor. You should check the patent details of the two drugs.”
“We have and they’re quite interesting. It seems that Palmer took out a patent on MT-1 when he developed it, and that Taylor, who was not as wet behind the ears as Palmer imagined, did so as well.”
“I remember he was keen on patents at the dinner I had with Anna and him at my college. He seemed to think that he’d make his fortune that way. Most patents get nowhere unless they’re taken up by a drug company.”
“And isn’t that what’s happened? With Nebotec, I mean.”
“Possibly,” Gabriel conceded. “Taylor certainly must have had faith in the palindrome idea if he was prepared to take out a patent in defiance of Palmer.”
“There may have been a reason for that.”
Gabriel shifted forwards in his chair. “What do you mean?”
“Matt Taylor didn’t take out the patent alone. He took it out with your colleague, Dr Reynolds. Of course, there have been subsequent patents taken out by Nebotec. We’ll just have to look at them to see how they differ from the originals drawn up — independently it seems — by Palmer and Taylor.”
“Nebotec might find enforcing their patent on the palindrome difficult if it was known to be on a molecule that is similar if not identical to one that is already out in the public domain. I suppose it all depends on how far Liz and Matt Taylor would have been prepared to take it. Perhaps they counted on Nebotec cutting a deal with them if only to avoid a lengthy and costly legal dispute.”
Brook nodded but was only half-listening. The other half was revealed in his next words. “Taylor and Dr Reynolds have been rather close professionally, and perhaps otherwise, for many years. What do you think?”
Brook’s implication was clear and Gabriel thought that there was a measure of truth in it. Out of loyalty to Liz, he replied, “I couldn’t say.”
Brook sensed that Gabriel’s words were balanced awkwardly at the edge of truth.
“Come on, Professor Gabriel, you know yourself that Dr Reynolds introduced Anna to Matt Taylor. It must have upset her, to say the least, when he chose Anna over her. And then, to make matters worse, that she found out something about PLF which threatened the rewards she expected to gain from her patent on MT-1.”
“That too doesn’t quite fit the pattern or the facts.”
“Why not? It’s possible she was there. It’s always been debatable whether Matt Taylor had enough time after seeing Hewitt to murder his wife and make it look as if it was done by an intruder. But if Dr Reynolds did it herself or acted as his accomplice then that no longer becomes a problem. She could have broken the window and dropped Dr Taylor’s purse outside. That would also account for the disappearance of Anna Taylor’s jewellery and the fact that we didn’t find the knife when we searched the premises after the murder.”
“But, just as with Tom Duncan, that doesn’t prove she murdered Anna. You said that Samant only saw one bike light at Nebotec — and you believe that was Tom Duncan’s.”
Brook had a fierce angry look in his brown eyes which made Gabriel feel uncomfortable.
“But cyclists can ride without lights. Far too many of them do in Oxford. Not just those intent on committing murder. And we know that Gearing saw her arrive in a great hurry at the college around 6.00.”
To Brook it was all a process, not unlike a diagnostic one, Gabriel thought.
“So you’ve ruled out other suspects. What about Hewitt? From what I’ve been able to find out Samant saw him walk over to the laboratory block from the office building.”
“We know that too. In fact Samant saw him cross the other way — between the lab and his office — before he saw the bicycle light.”
“Of course that doesn’t put him out of the picture.”
“Just like everyone else who worked there.”
“By the way, did you get anywhere with what Gearing told me about Palmer’s car not being in the Fellows’ car park in Oxford?”
“Palmer says that he’d taken his car in for a service. The garage had given him a loan car, a grey Toyota. He says he left it in the Fellows’ car park overnight after returning from Nebotec.”
“And was it parked there?” Gabriel asked. “Did Gearing remember it?”
“He can’t remember if a particular grey car was there. Apparently, a lot of Fellows drive grey cars. Do you?”
Gabriel allowed himself a show of impatience. “No.”
Brook smiled. “Which is where we came in. Anyway, I’m sending a man out to have a look at the car.”
“I’ll be very interested in what he finds,” Gabriel said, his voice rising slightly. Brook thought he sounded almost excited. “It’s worth keeping an open mind at least until I present the PLF results on Friday.”
“We’ll see how much it closes after that. We’re still questioning Tom Duncan, Matt Taylor and Liz Reynolds.”
“That’s okay. And if you don’t mind, perhaps you could check out one or two facts for me before then.”
“He didn’t say much when they arrested him,” said Jane. “He looked as if he was almost expecting them.”
“You think that’s because he’s guilty?” asked Melanie.
“That’s what I wanted to ask you.”
“I thought he looked more resigned than guilty.”
“It could have been an act. He may have been laying the groundwork for a plea of insanity”
“Tom Duncan isn’t mad. Just sad.”
“Diminished responsibility then.”
“That’s the last thing anyone would say about him.”
“My stallion can be perfectly calm one minute and a mad terror the next,” said Jane, her voice wavering.
“Being male doesn’t make him guilty.”
Jane took a deep breath and puffed it out again. “Maybe, but you know something—”
“No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”
“It’s the quiet ones you have to watch,”
Melanie had reached the point where she could not resist passing her own budding pathologist’s opinion. “I think it was just a case of him working out that there was no point resisting.”
“Do you think he’s guilty?”
Melanie shook her head.
“No, though he is guilty of leaving me with a lot of work. Prof Gabriel asked me to take over his cases.” She held up a tray of slides. “I’ve got this case to show him. It looks as if he was right about that thoracic mass being a germ cell tumour and not a metastasis. Is he in?”