‘Go on,’ said Jon, leaning forward, elbows on the table.
‘Try Dr Eamon O’Connor BDS, MB Bchir, FDSRC (Eng), FRCS (Eng), Phd. He’s an oral and maxillofacial surgeon.’
Jon stared at him blankly. ‘What’s that?’
‘Fucked if I know,’ Rick replied, scanning down the top sheet. ‘Born 5 August 1948, Dublin. Spent five years at dental school there, then two years training as a surgical dentist at Bart’s in London. Then he took a postgraduate qualification at the Royal College. Passed it to become a Fellow in Dental Surgery.’
‘So he’s really a dentist?’ Jon asked, thinking about Tyler
Young’s missing teeth.
‘I haven’t even started yet. Then he went back to medical school as an undergraduate. Four years at Cambridge, emerging as Dr O’Connor. One year as a junior houseman at Guy’s, where he spent six months training in general surgery and six months training in general medicine.’
‘General surgery?’
‘Wait,’ said Rick. ‘There’s plenty more. Next he spent two years doing a Basic Surgical Training Rotation. Six months at the Accident and Emergency at St Thomas’s, six months in their cardio-thoracic unit, and finally one year learning plastic surgery at University College London hospital. Then he took another exam to become a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. After that he spent five years as a registrar at Guy’s. He got a consultant’s post there, and he started specialising in cranio-facial surgery.’
Rick read the next paragraph in silence, shaking his head all the while.
‘What?’ Jon demanded.
‘Get this. It says that while he was a consultant at Guy’s he reconstructed a lot of faces that had undergone major traumas. Even worked on a couple of casualties from the Falklands conflict. But his particular area of expertise, and one that he pioneered new techniques in, was removing sections of patient’s faces to allow neurosurgeons access to tumours located at the base of the brain.’
Jon got up. ‘You’re serious?’
Before he could walk round and look at the documents himself, Rick tossed the top one across the desk.
Jon sat back down and flicked through it, stopping at the last page. ‘It says here that, in 1989, he attended a hearing of the Professional Conduct Committee. Something called an FTP.’
‘Fit to Practise,’ said Rick, consulting another sheet. ‘The committee judged that his FTP was impaired due to mental ill health resulting from a drug dependency. He botched an operation and left a patient with brain damage.’
‘What was he taking?’
‘Diamorphine.’ Rick whistled. ‘He got addicted to smack. Mitigating circumstances according to this. He smashed his knee in a road traffic accident and that led to his dependency.’
Jon snapped his fingers. ‘The strange footprint! He’s never emerged from behind that bloody great desk of his. We’ve never seen him walk.’
Rick traced a finger down his sheet. ‘So they suspended him from the medical register. Then, three years later, they allowed him to practise again, but with conditions on his registration.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ Jon said, dropping the print out on the desk.
‘He’s not allowed to perform surgery.’
‘Exactly,’ said Rick. ‘He moved to Manchester and set up the
Beauty Centre in 1994.’
They parked in the side street by the Beauty Centre.
Jon looked into the rear yard of the building. ‘The Range Rover’s there. He must be in.’ Then he glanced up at the heavy sky. ‘This is coming in off the Irish sea. It won’t stop for a while yet.’
They hurried round to the front entrance of the blackened building and rang the buzzer. After waiting a couple of minutes, Jon stepped back out into the rain and looked up. Doctor O’Connor tried to shrink back from the window, but their eyes had met.
Jon held a finger to his chest, then pointed upwards. Seconds later, the lock on the door clicked open.
They moved quickly up the stairs, Jon anxious to close down his time to think. When they entered his room, O’Connor was sitting behind his desk removing the skin from another tangerine. ‘Gentlemen? You caught me just as I was about to lock up.’
They shook hands again and sat down. Jon glanced at Rick, a cue for him to begin.
‘We don’t want to keep you,’ said Rick.
‘Go ahead.’ The doctor smiled and sat back, the leather of his chair creaking slightly. ‘News about Gordon Dean?’
‘No.’ Rick slid the photo of Tyler Young from his jacket and laid it on the desk between them.
Jon studied O’Connor’s reaction. He looked down, put the half-peeled piece of fruit aside, then extended a forefinger and rotated the photo so it was in perfect alignment with the edge of his desk. As usual he kept a poker face, not a hint of emotion on it. He looked up and raised his eyebrows questioningly, the skin on his forehead barely wrinkling.
‘Have you ever seen this woman?’ Rick asked. The doctor didn’t look at the photo. ‘No.’
‘You’ve never spoken to her?’
‘How could I say? I get a lot of telephone enquiries. I could have spoken to her, but I wouldn’t know what on earth she looked like. To what is this in relation?’
‘According to her diary, she was discussing lip implants with you. Then you mentioned breast implants, too. Your prices were extremely competitive.’
O’Connor interlinked his fingers over the photograph, concealing the smiling face below. ‘That’s impossible for two reasons. One, I only perform non-surgical procedures. Two, she’s clearly under twenty-five and I’ve made it a condition of the Beauty Centre not to offer treatment to anyone below that age.’ He slid a brochure across the desk. ‘Here, you’ll find it in my introduction on page two.’
Jon got up and walked over to the shelves of books behind the doctor. O’Connor clearly found his presence there unsettling and partly turned in his seat.
Rick ignored the glossy booklet and nodded at the photograph.
‘The body of Tyler Young was recently found with her breasts, face and large amounts of her flesh removed. Have you ever spoken to Carol Miller or Angela Rowlands? Their bodies were also discovered not long ago with most of their skin missing.’
O’Connor turned his attention back to Rick. Still his expression was neutral. ‘Of course I haven’t.’
Jon spoke. ‘Interesting collection of books you have here. Tell me, Doctor O’Connor, you only perform cosmetic procedures?’
‘Aesthetic medicine, I prefer to call it.’
‘So why have you got a copy of this?’ He didn’t identify Gray’s Anatomy or take it off the shelf, trying to oblige the doctor to get out of his seat.
But O’Connor leaned forward and peered round Jon. Before answering, he looked at Rick, then back at Jon, his eyes calculating. ‘Would you mind sitting down? I can’t speak to you and your colleague if you’re hovering behind me.’
Jon shrugged and took a seat, pleased to have rattled the doctor’s apparent calm.
‘I used to perform surgical procedures. Facial reconstructions for people who’d developed brain tumours or for the victims of car crashes and suchlike. Then, rather ironically, I was involved in a crash myself. My left knee was badly damaged and I developed an addiction to painkillers.’
‘What sort of painkillers?’ asked Rick.
O’Connor’s eyes filled with shame. ‘Diamorphine. I had free and easy access to it through my surgical work. Eventually it had a detrimental effect on my ability to perform. I was investigated by the General Medical Council and my licence was suspended. After attending a rehabilitation course, I was allowed to practise again — but with the condition I didn’t perform surgery. That book is a leftover from my earlier career.’
The room was silent for a moment. Then Jon looked around and said, ‘For a business, this place is always very quiet. When do you actually treat people?’
‘Normally I use Thursdays and Fridays as my treatment days. It gives customers the weekend to recover. The rest of the week is given over to fielding enquiries, conducting consultations and, if I think it’s appropriate, booking in customers for treatment.’