‘Another question I can’t answer.’
‘Are you still intending to stay over with your daughter this weekend?’
Steven sighed. ‘No, I think I’m going to have to call off. I’ll come back to London as soon as I’ve told Louise Avery’s head of department what’s happened. I don’t want her finding out from the papers. The police will be telling Louise’s parents.‘
‘Let me know when you get back. There’s something else we need to discuss: the lab report on the MRSA cultures has come in. It’s the same strain.’
Steven let out his breath in another long, slow sigh. There were times when he could turn off the day job and switch into family mode to spend time with Jenny but this definitely wasn’t one of them. The cocktail of anger, frustration and guilt that simmered inside him was best not shared with anyone. He didn’t want the dark world of his job to come anywhere near Glenvane. He called Sue and apologised for crying off.
As always, she was understanding. ‘Don’t beat yourself up over it, Steven,’ she said. ‘If you can’t come, you can’t; we all know there must be a good reason — probably one it’s best we don’t know anything about,’ she added.
‘Thanks, Sue. I’ll call Jenny when… things get better…’
‘Take care, Steven. I’ll give her your love.’
Steven gave silent thanks for having a sister-in-law like Sue and reflected on how often he’d had to call on her in the past when the job became just too incompatible with normal life. This, in turn, forced him to acknowledge that Tally had been right. His attempts to minimise the dangers of the job had been ridiculous. Danger and death were always lurking on the horizon. That being the case, he couldn’t expect any woman to share anything more than a fleeting romance with him. That conclusion was just about all he needed to make an awful day even worse.
It was now a little after nine in the evening and Steven sat in the car, pondering how he was going to tell Mary Lyons. He had a number for her at the university but she wouldn’t be there at this time and she probably wouldn’t be there in the morning because it was Saturday. He knew that many people these days chose to be ex-directory but he decided to check out directory enquiries anyway, asking for Professor Mary Lyons in the Newcastle area.
‘37 Belvedere Road?’ asked the operator.
‘Yes,’ said Steven, hearing no other option.
‘Would you like me to put you through?’
Mary Lyons answered, giving her phone number in a clear voice, which struck Steven as being charmingly old-fashioned but infinitely preferable to ‘Yeah?’
‘Professor Lyons, it’s Steven Dunbar. I’m afraid I’ve got some very bad news for you.’
‘Oh, dear,’ sighed Mary Lyons. ‘I’ve been dreading this. It has to be about Louise, hasn’t it?’
‘She’s had an accident… a fatal one. She fell from a cliff-top in Leeford earlier today.’
There was a slight choking sound and a long silence before Mary Lyons replied, ‘I don’t think for one moment you’re telling me the whole story, Dr Dunbar. This is all tied up with the man who came to the department yesterday, isn’t it?’
Steven found himself on the spot. ‘He is part of the story,’ he confessed, ‘but it’s complicated…’
‘If only I hadn’t been so stupid…’
‘No, professor, none of this is your doing.’ Steven did his best to sound reassuring, but as he knew exactly how she felt he wasn’t sure he was helping. ‘It was just an unfortunate series of events that no one could have foreseen.’
‘I take it the police will be investigating this “accident”?’
‘The authorities will leave no stone unturned in uncovering the truth,’ said Steven, fearing he sounded like a government minister under interview. ‘I promise you, justice will be done.’
‘I just can’t believe this has happened… Louise’s poor parents…’
‘The police are informing them. Professor… I know you’ve had a terrible shock but there’s something I must ask you… You said that Louise found something strange or unusual in the results of the tests she was carrying out and pointed this out to the man who came to your department?’
‘Yes, but they both agreed it had no significance for the proposed transplant.’
‘I know you said you didn’t see what the oddity was but I just wondered if there might have been something said about it that you can remember? Anything at all? I’m clutching at straws here.’
‘No, I’m afraid not. It was just something mentioned in passing.’
‘No matter,’ said Steven, acutely aware of the woman’s grief and now her discomfort at not being able to help.
‘But you could look for yourself,’ said Mary Lyons suddenly.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I’ve just remembered something. When you asked Louise to analyse these samples and she asked me for permission, I told her that a record would have to be kept of the whole thing for the benefit of the university authorities — they’re very strict about contracting for outside work, or rather the university’s insurers are. A file was opened for her on the departmental server so she could list everything she did and cost everything she used in the analysis. The last thing she would enter would be her final report, which would remain on the file until the client was billed and the account settled.’
‘And you think she might have done that before handing over the written copy?’
‘There’s a good chance she did.’
‘How many people know about this?’
‘Just myself and the lab manager.’
‘Wonderful. I take it this wasn’t mentioned at the meeting you and Louise had with the impostor?’
‘It wasn’t relevant,’ said Mary Lyons. ‘Although when he thanked us before leaving, I did remind him he would be getting a bill.’
Steven considered for a moment but didn’t see how that could have raised any suspicion. ‘It’s absolutely vital that I see that report,’ said Steven. ‘And it goes without saying that no one else hears about it, professor.’
‘Understood. When would you like to come?’
‘First thing tomorrow?’
‘Fine. It’s Saturday. Not many people will be around, certainly not in the accounts department.’
Steven drove into Dumfries and booked himself into the County Hotel where he had a late bar supper and several gin and tonics before going upstairs to spend a restless night, waves of guilt over Louise Avery’s death lapping on shores of surreal dreams in which broken bodies lay on red beaches under black cliffs and dark skies. They doused any immediate enthusiasm he might have felt for an investigation that was promising to take a turn for the better. He was up and gone by six a.m.
THIRTY-FIVE
Steven felt his pulse quicken in anticipation as he sat in Mary Lyons’ office watching her use the computer keyboard on her desk to log on to the departmental server and summon up Louise Avery’s file. The movement of her fingers was slow and deliberate; her eyes seemed to flick more than necessary between the keyboard and the screen. It made Steven reflect that this was an age thing. Regardless of intellectual capacity, people over a certain age often behaved as if they didn’t quite belong in the company of computers.
‘Here we are,’ she said, followed by another silence. ‘And… yes… she did file it.’
Steven closed his eyes and gave silent thanks as a tremendous weight seemed to be lifted from them both: they exchanged a rare smile. The head of department punched a few more buttons on her keyboard, the last with a final flourish, before getting up to walk across the room to her printer where she waited for it to grind into action. She returned with a copy of the report and gave it to Steven, saying, ‘I hope this brings justice for Louise.’
Steven nodded and made a hesitant start on his next request, perhaps too hesitant, because Mary Lyons got in first. ‘You are about to ask me to say nothing about any of this to anyone… including the police?’
‘I know it’s asking a lot, but I promise you there will be no cover-up over Louise’s death. Justice will be done, perhaps in a roundabout way, but it will happen.’