16
Sullivan sat alone in the office nibbling a tasteless fruit bar and mentally devouring the information on the screenin front of her.
‘Hello there!’ The voice took her by surprise.
‘Professor Laytham!’
The pathologist stood in the doorway, smiling. It seemed to Sullivan that he had made a little more effort with his appearance than usual. A brightly checked designer shirt and light coloured chinos were not his usual style. Sullivan wasn’t entirely convinced that it was working for the professor.
‘Don’t look so surprised,’ Laytham replied. ‘My work does bring me to these parts, you know.’
‘Sorry, I was miles away.’ Sullivan excused herself. ‘Got a lot to catch up on.’
‘So I hear. Pity you can’t make tonight. You chaps do enjoy burning the midnight oil, don’t you? Mind you, there has to come a time when ‘all work and no play...’ Well, you know the rest. How about tomorrow?’
‘Er, well,’ Sullivan replied, now getting uncharacteristically flustered. ‘If I can get away...’
‘Excellent! Why don’t you drop by the hospital when you’re finished? That way, I can continue working in the unfortunate circumstance of you having to cancel again,’ he chuckled. ‘See you when I see you.’
‘Uh, sure,’ Sullivan replied, as Laytham headed off. Shaking her head with disbelief, she rose from her chair. Laytham was a nice man, she thought, but somehow she couldn’t quite see herself ever dating a last chance trendy. In fact, she couldn’t really see herself dating anyone at all. Relationships had always been a torturous source of anxiety for her. She had always preferred her own company and had become increasingly resigned to the fact that it was just as well she did.
Her thoughts were broken by Broderick returning from lunch. He was eating a chocolate muffin. Sullivan raised an eyebrow.
‘Stops me reaching for a cigarette’ Broderick announced with his mouth full. ‘Confectionary. The default position of the non-smoking stressed out professional.’
‘I’ve given up both.’ Sullivan smiled grimly.
‘Congratulations. You’ll no doubt live a long life.’
‘I doubt it,’ Sullivan replied. ‘It’ll just seem longer.’
Their double act was suddenly interrupted by a breathless Calbot striding into the room with a printed email in his hand.
‘Guv. Gerald Gregson, only child, aged ten at the time of his mother’s murder. Orphaned by his father’s subsequent suicide. Only family were the Brooks’, it seems.’
‘How close?’ Broderick asked.
‘Cousins. Very distant ones at that. They inherited the house and moved out from the U.K. They adopted Gerald and then packed him off to school in the UK.’
‘How very of the time.’ Broderick mused.
‘Not a happy bunny it seems. He was expelled from a succession of boarding schools during his teens. All claiming difficulties with him. Left school at sixteen and effectively vanished off the radar. The Brooks’ apparently never saw him again. There’s no record of Gregson ever returning to Gibraltar, and the Brooks’ never visited England.’
‘So if her message in the dust was a plea to help him, where did it come from? Guilt?’
‘Maybe,’ replied Sullivan.
‘And if he was Mrs Brooks’ house guest, then he’s been visiting Gibraltar under another name.’
‘Do you think there’s any chance he’ll still be here, guv?’
‘Unlikely. Still, we need to find him if we can.’
‘With no physical description and no known name for him, that’s going to be fun’ Calbot observed.
‘You said you could do it when you wrote in Calbot.’ Broderick teased. ‘ Meanwhile, I’ll go and kick some arse over at the Glee Club.’
Broderick’s exterior disdain for the forensic department in reality hid a deep respect for their work. He knew that good forensics was mostly responsible for all successful convictions in murder cases. Advances in forensic techniques and the wonders of DNA tracing had revolutionised detection during the last decade. At times he resented the smugness of the scientific arm of the force, but he couldn’t deny its effectiveness in identifying killers. Even if it at times took longer to get answers out of them than he would have liked.
‘We’re moving on this as swiftly as we can, I assure you.’ Richard Kemp wasn’t a man to be rushed. Not that it ever stopped Broderick trying it on anyway.
‘By swift, you mean when exactly?’
Kemp, refusing to be drawn, simply continued with his work.
‘The fibres are a woollen weave. Dark blue jacket or coat, I’d say. Samples from both scenes match exactly. The curry powder is a basic mix. Good quality though. Possibly brought over from Morocco, but that’s just a guess I’m afraid. The tobacco is most probably Dutch. Aromatic.’
‘Popular brand?’ Broderick asked.
‘Well, definitely not a ‘Condor Moment’. I’d say it’s a rarer shag. Oh, and I just received this note before you came in... It appears that things are happening rather swiftly. The blood results.’
‘And?’ Broderick asked impatiently, barely believing that Kemp had kept that information until the end.
‘Not a match with Martin Tavares, I’m afraid.’
‘You’re certain?’
‘As certain as any member of the Glee Club can be, Chief Inspector,’
Kemp turned to Broderick, a slightly confrontational look in his eye. Broderick was certainly taken aback.
‘Ah,’ he managed.
‘Yes, we’ve heard your nickname for us up here,’ Kemp said, cocking his head to one side.
‘Well, its, uh... it’s just a bit of fun, Kemp,’ Broderick explained.
‘A little explanation would be appreciated.’ The scientist insisted.
‘I don’t know...it’s just that you all look a bit the same, I suppose. Like members of a choir
- or Glee Club- I suppose. You all seem a bit...you know...?’
Kemp was enjoying seeing Broderick struggle.
‘Might it be, Chief Inspector, that you feel we sometimes ‘show off’ a bit? What with our incredible skills and hugely successful results and all? Do we upset you in much the same way as the squeaky clean and cloyingly perfect cast of the similarly named television programme ‘Glee’ most probably does?’
‘I wouldn’t go quite that far.’ Broderick was now beginning to perspire.
‘So you have watched the programme, I take it? Kemp continued.
‘I’ve seen glimpses. My daughters like it.’
‘So I’m somewhere in the right neighbourhood? Am I not?’ Kemp queried.
‘Sort of. It’s just a joke you know,’ Broderick replied weakly.
Kemp saved his most withering look till last.
‘How very amusing. Anyway, the blood still doesn’t match.’
‘Right.’
‘Goodbye, Chief Inspector.’
Broderick turned and left the laboratory feeling like a naughty schoolboy.
‘Bollocks’, he murmured.
David Green had been sitting in the small study of the Tavares home, trying desperately to clear his mind. But instead of calm descending upon him, a new anxiety entered his thoughts. He could not explain the reason that led him to leave the study and climb the stairs towards Martin Tavares bedroom. He would just check on his brother-in-law, he thought, to make sure he was asleep. He knew that he had been asked not to bother him, but some nagging and inexplicable feeling was forcing him to make sure all was well.