Later, as he lay on the bed in early evening, staring idly up at the ceiling, something inside Jamieson's head kept telling him that he had to consider it. He had to think everything through logically and without emotion. He did not have the right to dismiss anything out of hand, however repellent the notion might be. Apart from anything else it was his job to consider all the possibilities. He should do it coldly and dispassionately and eliminate each of them one by one. Jamieson started out on the process feeling that he was starting out on a journey that he had very little heart for.
It was a fact that Thelwell had collected surgical instruments personally from the CSSD. To Jamieson's way of thinking, there could be no valid reason for him to have done so. The man was a consultant surgeon, not a porter, not a theatre orderly but a surgeon. If he had gone to pick them up personally then it could only have been because he had had some strong personal reason for doing so. He had wanted to get his hands on them before they reached the operating theatre. Why? What did he want to do with them? Jamieson knew that the answer would not appear out of the blue. This was something he would have to investigate. The time for thinking was over. It was time to do something.
Jamieson knew the reference numbers that were marked on the packs that Thelwell had collected earlier from CSSD. He had made a mental note of them when he examined the graphs from their sterilising records. He would go up to the Gynaecology Department and look for them. But first he had to make sure that Thelwell was no longer around. He checked his watch and saw that it was eight o'clock. The chances were that the surgeon had gone home ages ago but just in case he called the switchboard and asked them to page Thelwell. After a wait of two minutes the switchboard confirmed that Thelwell was not in the hospital.
Jamieson entered the Gynaecology Department by the side door deciding that the fewer people who saw him the better. He did not resort to hiding in corners but did however, pause at the head of the stairs until a nurse's footsteps had faded into the distance before turning the corner and hurrying quietly along the corridor. The gynaecology theatre was right at the far end. Two swing doors, each with a circular glass window and scrape marks where trolley handles had worn away the paint led through to an outer chamber where the orderlies brought their patients on operating days. Here they would be handed over to the care of the theatre team.
A vague smell of anaesthetic mingled with a stronger odour of disinfectant as Jamieson entered the main theatre and turned on the lights. The room was instantly bathed in bright, shadowless light. Although the air temperature was at least seventy degrees the stainless steel and ceramic tiling made the room seem cold. The gas cylinders on the anaesthetics trolley, scratched and scarred on their surface through continual re-cycling, seemed incongruous amidst otherwise unblemished metallic perfection. Jamieson rested his hand on a black oxygen cylinder with its white top and looked about him. A metal cupboard caught his eye and he remembered Thelwell telling him on his tour of the department that this was where the instruments were stored.
Jamieson was conscious of the sound of his own heart beating as he crossed the theatre floor and knelt down to open the cupboard. There were six packs of instruments inside. He examined each in turn and checked its number. Packs twelve to seventeen were present. Packs eighteen to twenty-four, the packs that Thelwell had taken from CSSD earlier in the day, were missing!
Jamieson closed the door slowly and put his hand to his forehead to massage it absently with his fingertips as he thought what to do next. It was already clear that Thelwell had not brought the instruments directly to the theatre. What had he done with the missing packs? Again, there was no way that Jamieson was going to come up with the answer by thinking about it. This matter had gone far enough. He would confront Thelwell face to face and ask him what the hell was going on. He returned to the residency and asked the switchboard for Thelwell's home number.
One of Thelwell's daughters answered. 'Father is out this evening. He has a choir practice. Whom shall I say called?'
'Don't bother. It's not important,' said Jamieson. He replaced the receiver.
Jamieson felt deflated. He had prepared himself mentally for the confrontation and now it hadn't happened. He had been thwarted by a choir practice. Frustration started to gnaw at his stomach. Thelwell seemed to go to a lot of choir practices, thought Jamieson, St Serf's Church, he remembered, the Te Deum. This would, he decided, not wait till morning. He would go along to the church and talk to Thelwell when he came out. He had put on his jacket and was about to leave his room when the phone rang.
'Macmillan here.'
'Who?'
'Macmillan… Sci Med, London.'
Jamieson apologised. He was more up-tight than he thought.
'The information you asked for. The bones belonged to one Mary Louise Chapman, reported missing by her husband last night. She was twenty eight years old and five months pregnant. Forensic identified her from dental records.'
'That was quick,' said Jamieson.
'Reports of missing women have taken on a new dimension in that particular city at the moment,' said Macmillan. 'All the stops are pulled out.'
'Of course,' said Jamieson. 'But it was still very quick.'
'In truth, the police suspected it might be Louise Chapman. They found her car parked in a lane at the back of the hospital.'
'I see,' said Jamieson.
'Am I to presume that this might have some direct relevance to your investigation?' asked Macmillan.
'It's possible,' said Jamieson. I'm not sure.'
'It sounds as if things up there are not as straight forward as one might have imagined?' said Macmillan.
'That's true,' said Jamieson, hoping that he would get away with not saying any more for the present.
'Need any help?'
'Not yet.'
'Keep in touch.'
Jamieson had obtained the address of St Serf's Church from the phone book. The good thing about looking for a church, he mused as he turned off into a leafy avenue west of Harden Road, was that you could see it a long way off. The spire of St Serf's had guided him for the last half mile until now when he was faced with having to find a parking space among the Volvos and other quality cars that were lined up outside the church hall. It was that kind of an area, pleasant, comfortable, pretty. The church itself stood in a well-tended graveyard and had Virginia creeper growing along its south wall. At the moment it was green but Jamieson could imagine it turning to red in the autumn and complementing the yellow leaves which would fall from the birch trees by the boundary wall.
In the end, Jamieson found a space some two hundred metres down the road. He was a bit close to the entrance to one of the driveways but not close enough, he reckoned, to constitute a real obstruction so he left the car and started to walk back towards the church. He could hear singing coming from the hall that was tacked on to the side of the main building and he could see lights on inside. He checked his watch. It was five minutes to ten. Maybe they would finish at ten?
Jamieson strolled up one side of the street and down the other. It was a nice evening. The gardens of the large houses had obviously benefited from the soaking they had had earlier in the day and the mixed scent of the flowers was heavy in the still evening air. It made him think of Kent and Susie. He was wondering how to go about telling her that he would not be coming home at the week-end when he saw that people were beginning to emerge from the church hall. He took up a position almost opposite the entrance to the hall and waited for Thelwell to emerge.
At first, the pavement outside the church was crowded with groups of people laughing and discussing how the evening had gone and Jamieson had to keep his wits about him to avoid missing Thelwell among the people he saw moving off. As the minutes passed and the crowds thinned, Jamieson found himself considering that somehow he had missed him. The slamming doors and starting cars were now becoming less frequent. The avenue was returning to its accustomed peace and quiet and he had still not seen Thelwell come out.