‘Whose is that black Mercedes outside?’ he called out as he walked down to the kitchen. Then he saw me. ‘What the bloody hell do you want?’ he asked with a high degree of aggression in his tone.
In spite of me being a good six inches taller than him, the last thing I wanted was a fight.
I knew jockeys were small but they were also strong and wiry. I was no pushover myself. I was a regular at the Neasden gym and prided myself on keeping fairly fit. Perhaps we’d be evenly matched, but I still didn’t fancy putting it to the test.
‘Your mother and I have been having a little chat.’ I said it with a smile but it didn’t seem to help, mostly because Yvonne was still clearly very distressed.
‘Have you been upsetting my mother?’ he asked angrily.
I felt like saying that it wasn’t my doing — facing the truth had been the cause — but I thought better of it.
‘So it would appear,’ I said.
‘What have you been saying to her?’ he asked.
‘You’d better ask her that.’
Yvonne now really did burst into full-blown tears.
‘Get out!’ Tony shouted at me, taking a step forward.
‘Okay, okay,’ I said, taking one back. ‘I’m going.’
I edged past him without ever taking my eyes off his hands, then I walked down the hall and out of the front door, closing it behind me.
I sighed.
I had inserted all my thunderflashes.
I’d now just have to wait for any fallout from the explosions.
30
ASW called me as I was getting into the Mercedes.
‘The research team have had only limited success with your request,’ he said.
‘In what way?’ I asked.
‘After much persuasion, the director has finally agreed to speak with you but won’t promise to give you any information.’
‘Well, that’s a start,’ I said. ‘It could have been a pointblank refusal. I’ll go there right now.’
‘Ask for Dr Sylvester.’
‘Will do. Anything else?’
‘Not at present,’ he said. ‘How about at your end?’
‘Several fuses lit,’ I said.
He laughed. ‘Good. Keep your tin hat on.’
We disconnected.
‘Where to?’ asked the driver.
‘Cambridge,’ I said. ‘Bell Street in Cambridge.’
‘Okey-dokey,’ he said, and we set off.
A mile down the road we had to wait at a level crossing as the gates were closed manually in front of us by a man on foot.
‘This is Dullingham Station,’ said the driver. He pointed to our left. The station was, in fact, just a platform and a signal box from which the man had obviously emerged to close the gates.
‘I thought all level-crossing gates were now automatic,’ I said.
The driver laughed. ‘Not in these parts, clearly.’
A two-carriage train passed in front of us and stopped at the platform. No one appeared to get off or on.
‘Which line is this?’ I asked.
‘Ipswich to Cambridge,’ he said. ‘Runs every hour.’
The man opened the gates and we continued on our way.
Next I called Kate at work.
‘Can you do me a favour if you have a minute?’ I asked her.
‘Of course.’
‘I’d like you to ask Janie something. Better if you do it. I’m not sure she really trusts me.’
‘What is it?’ she asked.
I explained what I needed.
‘I’ll do it straight away.’
‘I’d rather she didn’t mention anything about it to Ryan or Oliver.’
‘Not much chance of that,’ Kate said. ‘Ryan sent her a text this morning asking her to go back but at the same reduced rate as before. Fair to say that Janie wasn’t very impressed.’
The Healthy Woman Centre in Bell Street, Cambridge, did not look like an abortion clinic, but what does one of those actually look like?
I suppose I had expected a modern, single-storey building with large windows, perhaps discreetly frosted for privacy. Instead it was a Victorian red-brick mid-terrace house with five steps up to the front door.
There was no brass plaque, nor any name at all, just a modern doorbell incorporated into a plastic intercom box that also contained a small camera, its lens staring out at me like an unblinking eye.
I pushed the bell.
‘Yes?’ said a tinny voice through the speaker. ‘Can I help you?’
‘I’m expected,’ I said, facing the camera. ‘My name is Harrison Foster. From Simpson White. I was told to ask for Dr Sylvester.’
‘Please wait,’ said the voice.
Presently, I heard a bolt being drawn back and the door was opened by a smart woman in a suit who I took to be in her late forties or early fifties.
‘I’m Dr Sylvester,’ she said. ‘Director of the Centre. Sorry about the security measures, but there are some strange people about and what we do here can be somewhat controversial. We’ve had the occasional protest in the past.’
She stepped to one side and allowed me in. Then she closed and rebolted the door. ‘We can’t be too careful. We used to have one of those remote openers but someone forced it, so now we use the bolt.’
She led me into a small meeting room and we sat down at the table.
‘Now, how can I help you, Mr Foster?’ she said.
‘How long have you been here?’ I asked.
‘Me or the clinic?’
‘Both.’
‘I joined the team here six years ago. I was appointed as director. I’d previously worked at clinics in Liverpool and Manchester. But the centre has been here much longer. In fact, this was the first such specialist clinic outside London. The Abortion Act came into effect in April 1968 and we opened about a year after that. And a damn good thing, too. Took abortion away from the unregistered and illegal back-street abortionists, who were little more than quacks and butchers, killing women by the score.’ Dr Sylvester was clearly very passionate about her work but I felt it was a speech she’d made often before.
‘I’m here about Zoe Robertson, Zoe Chadwick as she was then. She had an abortion here in August 2002.’
‘What about her?’ the doctor asked.
‘She’s dead,’ I said. ‘You may have heard recently of a fire in some stables in Newmarket that killed several horses.’
She nodded.
‘Zoe was the human victim of that fire. She’d been murdered.’
‘Oh dear,’ Dr Sylvester said. ‘But what has that to do with us?’
‘I think that having had an abortion may have a bearing on her death.’
‘Are you from the police?’
She made it sound like a concern.
‘No,’ I replied. I gave her one of my business cards. ‘I’m a solicitor and I represent Mr Declan Chadwick. He’s been arrested on suspicion of killing his sister but he categorically denies any knowledge of the crime. I am trying to establish his innocence.’
‘And why do you think that her former treatment here is relevant?’
‘I consider that the victim’s previous sexual abuse is germane to who might have committed this crime. Zoe Chadwick was just thirteen when she had the abortion, and I believe the pregnancy was a result of that abuse.’
‘Are you quite sure she was treated here?’
I removed my smartphone from my pocket and showed her the photo I had taken of the letter to Dr Benaud from Dr Andrews. ‘I found this in her medical records.’
Dr Sylvester took a close look at the letter.
She nodded. ‘Gavin Andrews was my predecessor here as director.’
‘Do you still have Zoe’s notes?’ I asked.
‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘I’m sure we do. We are required by law to keep records of all our procedures. They will be in our storage area in the basement.’