by Peter James
Searching for prints and DNA.
They weren’t going to find either from him. And even if they did, because he and Resmes had been in regular contact, it wouldn’t be of any evidential value.
That was a comfort.
So, OK, they had a body. Big deal. Hopefully, there was plenty to keep the police occupied with that one, with no obvious motive. And nothing to connect him.
What was of much more importance was Georgie. Her welfare and her future. He stepped into the shower and turned it on. Standing under the hard jets, he was again worrying about Resmes being found so soon. His plans needed urgent tweaking.
His plans hadn’t included being watched by someone from the car park.
77
Saturday 19 January
She stood outside the door in the weak throw of light from the corridor’s wall lamps, staring at the number, 237. She held the key in her hand. Hesitating. Every time. Tonight, there was a preternatural feel. Expectancy in the ether. She unlocked it and stepped in, even more nervous than usual. The room felt icy, like entering a walk-in freezer. She could see her breath.
Slowly, having to make a real effort to move her legs, as if she was walking through waist-high water, she made her way over to the en-suite door and opened it.
Panic gripped her throat tight. She tried to scream, but nothing came out. Staring, bug-eyed in terror, she tried again and again to scream, to shout for help. Only silence. She tried to step back, to turn and run, but her feet would not move.
Robert Resmes, naked, his hair wet, his skin covered in green blotches, rose out of the bathtub, hauling himself up on the grab rails, putting his feet over the side. She tried to back away again, but her legs still would not move.
He came towards her, his hands outstretched, an imploring look on his face. Stumbling towards her, putting his blotched arms around her, pulling her towards him, pressing his face close to hers, whispering something she could not hear.
Beep-beep-beep . . . Beep-beep-beep . . .
Georgie woke with a start, still afraid. Daylight. She was in bed. Sunlight streamed through a crack in the curtains.
Beep-beep-beep . . . Beep-beep-beep . . .
The alarm clock. Georgie reached out an arm and hit the button. Silence. She lay, sodden with perspiration and shaking. God, the dream had been so vivid, so real. Slowly, the events of last night came flooding back to her.
Robert Resmes lying on the floor in the recess of the deep-freeze room.
The police.
Questions churned in her brain. What had happened? How on earth had Robert got in there? And why? Had he fallen or had someone put him there? Who, why? She couldn’t take much more of this, it couldn’t be good for her or her baby.
She glanced at the clock. 8.31 a.m.
Saturday. It was Saturday morning. Shit. She had planned to walk the parkrun today but now it was too late to get to the start line in time for 9 a.m. Too late and she was too tired. Too wired. She hadn’t gone to bed until after 2 a.m., which was why she’d set the alarm for much later than usual.
How was Roger? There’d been no phone call from the hospital, which was a relief. That had to be good news at least. She hoped. Hoped so much that when she went in to see him today the ward nurse or a doctor or someone would give her good news about him. That they’d say he was improving, the antibiotics were working.
And at midday she was having her MRI scan. The thought scared her. Despite Kath’s constant reassurance, she knew there must be something worrying her, for her to have requested the scan. And so urgently.
She got out of bed and a sudden shiver rippled through her. Someone walking over your grave, her mother used to say, when she was younger. She never understood what her mother meant, exactly, but the words always made her shudder; she shuddered now, entering the bathroom.
She splashed some cold water on her face, then brushed her teeth, dutifully doing the full two-minute cycle, glancing at her tired face and wondering whether going for a walk might make her feel better. She still had plenty of time before the morning ward round finished and she could go in and see Roger. She dressed in her kit, sat on the bed and phoned the hospital. She was informed there’d been no change in his condition overnight. Ending the call, she went through into the living room.
As she entered, she noticed the business card on the coffee table. Blue, white and gold with the Jersey States Police shield. She remembered putting it there last night when she’d come in, to remind her that she had to call the officer today to make an appointment at the police station to give a statement. She thought for a moment. The officer had stayed on after she’d left and had quite possibly been there all night. He was likely to be asleep now. She could go this afternoon, after the scan. Besides, last night she had pretty much told him everything she knew, and simply could not explain what the medical student was doing in the hotel or how he came to end up in the freezer.
She took a couple of swigs from an energy smoothie she’d made herself and always kept in the fridge, pulled on her pink cap, then went out into the cold, bright early morning and walked briskly, warming up, down to Victoria Avenue. Kath had told her not to run but that walking was fine.
Making a left, she walked along the pavement to the crossing, then waited for the traffic lights to change. Even after they went red, she hesitated for a moment, checking that all the vehicles had stopped. Then she crossed, walking down between a hedge and the side of the Old Station Cafe to the promenade, and turned left, striding along the curve of the bay, towards St Helier. The tide was far out and several people were down on the beach and the mudflats, their dogs running free.
As she walked, her dream – nightmare – came back to her.
Robert Resmes rising out of the bath. Putting his arms around her. Whispering.
All her life she’d had vivid dreams. Strange dreams. Many of them deeply disturbing. There had been a time, back when she’d been married to her former husband, Mike Chandler, after they’d been trying for some years for a baby, when she’d gone to therapy, on the recommendation of a fertility specialist they’d consulted. He’d suggested that her anxiety was perhaps preventing her from conceiving.
The psychiatrist he’d referred her to, Dr Stafford-Jones, a bright, sympathetic man she had trusted, was an advocate of Freudian dream analysis. Dreams, he had told her, were the result of the brain trying to deal with unresolved issues that presented to the subconscious – and were usually masked in symbolism. If she could interpret the message of a dream, to establish what was bothering her subconscious, the issue would go away.
So, what was the message of last night’s dream? What unresolved issue was bothering her subconscious?
On the surface that seemed pretty clear. Robert Resmes was dead. He had been with Marcus Valentine. Valentine had operated on Roger. Roger was not recovering, to everyone’s concern. Had Marcus Valentine been the right person to do this operation? Did he have any past history of making errors, or of negligence?
Was it that simple? Was the dream telling her to check on him? She tried to think back to the expression on Resmes’s face as he stumbled towards her. Was that dream meaningful in some way – or just a nightmare after what had happened at the hotel?
She thought back to Dr Stafford-Jones. Unresolved issues. Bothering her subconscious.
Was her subconscious warning her there was something sinister going on?
In what way?
Suddenly, she remembered the strange thing Valentine had said to her at his dinner party. When he’d asked her if she’d ever hated anyone enough to kill them. And had then confessed that he had hated his mother.
What was that about?
She realized that she knew almost nothing about him, that she had simply accepted he was a trusted consultant, and made a mental note to check him out a bit more.
There was one way she might do that – and she wondered why she’d not thought to do it before.
Cutting short her planned route, she tur
ned and headed for home as fast as she could.
78
Saturday 19 January
As Kath Clow entered the admin office, she saw that a smartly dressed man and woman were seated in there. The man was in his forties, short and clean-shaven, with close-cropped hair, wearing a dark suit and shiny black shoes. He had the physique of a runner, Kath thought, always able to recognize a fellow athlete. The woman, in her thirties, had shoulder-length brown hair and was dressed in a navy two-piece. She appeared less fit than her colleague but wore a more welcoming expression. They looked like detectives. As if in confirmation, the man held out a police warrant card.
‘I was asked by the officers down in the entrance to come up here,’ Kath said.
They both stood up.
‘You are?’ the man asked.
‘Kath Clow – I’m one of the obstetricians here.’
‘Thank you for coming to see us,’ he said in a dour, neutral voice. ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Sturton and my colleague is Detective Constable Campbell. We’d just like to ask you a few questions, if that’s all right?’
‘Fine – but I can’t really spare you very long.’
‘No problem,’ DC Campbell said. She had a trace of a Scottish accent. ‘Have a seat. We won’t keep you for more than a few minutes.’
Kath sat down opposite them. DS Sturton wrote down Kath’s name and address and phone numbers.
‘Kath,’ he said. ‘OK to call you that?’
‘Fine.’ She smiled.
‘OK, Kath, can you tell us if you know a student who has been on assignment here from his medical school in Romania, Robert Resmes?’
‘Indeed, yes. He’s due to start with me on Monday.’
‘Start with you?’ DC Campbell asked. ‘How exactly?’
‘We have a programme, like most hospitals, of taking in medical students. They spend time shadowing consultants across different disciplines. Why are you asking?’
‘I’m afraid he has been found dead, but we can’t say anything more at this stage.’
‘Dead?’
Even though she had been anticipating this from her conversation with the officer down in the foyer, the words hit her like a punch in the stomach. ‘Dead? Robert Resmes?’
Both detectives nodded. ‘I’m afraid so,’ Detective Sergeant Sturton confirmed, grimly.
‘But – how – I mean – I saw him on – on Thursday. What – what’s happened?’
‘I’m afraid we can’t give you any more details at this stage. You saw him on Thursday? Can you tell us about that?’ Sturton asked.
Kath’s brain was racing. Thinking back to the news item this morning on the radio. ‘Is this anything to do with what I heard on the news about a body found in the Bel Royal Hotel?’
She could see, instantly, from their body language that it was.
‘As I said, Kath, I can’t tell you any more at this stage,’ Sturton repeated. ‘How well did you know Robert Resmes?’
‘Not well. I met him a couple of times when he was assigned to the senior consultant gynae-oncologist here and he was due to join me on Monday.’
‘Did you form any opinion of him?’
She shrugged. ‘Not really – other than that he seemed very enthusiastic and bright. A nice young man, highly ambitious I’d say. How terribly sad this is.’
‘You saw him on Thursday,’ DC Campbell said. ‘What was the reason?’
The obstetrician hesitated. Thinking back to Thursday, when the young Romanian had come into her office. And she’d sent him packing with a flea in his ear. ‘He just popped in to introduce himself,’ she replied, not wanting to open a can of worms.
‘Do you mind if I ask you a very blunt question, Kath?’ Sturton asked.
‘Not at all.’
‘Did Robert Resmes make any enemies here?’
‘Enemies? What do you mean?’
‘Perhaps a love rival? We don’t know enough about his background at this stage, Kath, but the circumstances of his death make us think he might have upset someone.’
‘I honestly didn’t know him well enough, or anything about his background. What I have heard is that he had several run-ins with the registrar Barnaby Cardigan and Marcus Valentine had had to step in more than once, but whether that is connected or not I don’t know.’
‘No worries,’ DC Campbell said.
There was a brief silence, broken by DS Sturton.
‘Kath, if there’s anything that comes to mind over the next day or two, please give me a call.’ He handed her a card, on which a number was crossed out and another written in ballpoint. ‘This is my mobile, call me any time, day or night.’
The obstetrician zipped it into her rucksack. ‘I will,’ she said. ‘Of course.’
They all stood. The two detectives thanked her for her time, and she left.
79
Saturday 19 January
Georgie sat on a sofa with her laptop and googled the name ‘Marcus Valentine’. A whole list of Marcus Valentines appeared, mostly across America, one in Trinidad and Tobago and a few in the UK. One was a dental intern, another a logistics specialist, another a stacker at Walmart and another a mortgage banking analyst.
She narrowed the search by typing ‘Marcus Valentine obstetrician’.
Instantly a row of images appeared, three of them bearing his face, then two other complete strangers. Below was a link. She clicked on it.
Marcus Valentine, FRCOG, consultant gynae-oncologist. Jersey, Channel Islands. There was a single photograph of Marcus Valentine, suited and looking serious.
Below was a long list of further links. They told her little she didn’t already know, other than that he’d cycled from London to Paris some years ago, in aid of Mind, the mental health charity, and had recently set up a Jersey charity which had raised almost £5 million of a £10 million target to establish a local research institution. He was formerly married to a woman called Elaine and the marriage had ended the decade before.
She scrolled on down the links. A testimonial from a patient; controversy over a new site for the hospital, which he had been outspoken on. A piece on Macmillan cancer care.
The search on him was pretty much exhausted. Most of the links here were for other Marcus Valentines.
She carried on to the bottom of page four, but there were no further links to him. She went back to his fundraising page for the London-to-Paris cycle and clicked through.
Hi and thanks for visiting my fundraising page. I’m cycling to raise money for Mind because I must be mental for once marrying my now soon-to-be-ex-wife Elaine, and let’s not talk about my mother. (Only joking!) Hope you can help me raise lots of money, then I might come begging for more when the ex rinses me in the divorce!
That’s obscene, Georgie thought. To publicly write that, and to belittle the work of the charity by doing so, was incredibly crass.
Then she wondered. Marcus’s former wife was Elaine.
She typed ‘Elaine Valentine’ into Facebook. There were two in the north of England and one ‘Elaine Gower-was-Valentine’ in Surrey. The profile picture of this one really stood out – she was staring at a woman who bore some similarity to Claire, if fifteen or so years older. There was nothing in her entry to link her to Marcus, but she was the closest geographically, so she decided to take a punt and see if it was actually his ex. She sent her a private message, hoping she would accept and read it.
Hi, I’m hoping I’ve got the right person, I’m sorry for this random message as you don’t know me, but it’s really important. Are you the lady who was once married to the consultant Marcus Valentine?
To her surprise, a reply came back almost instantly.
Yes, I am. Sadly.
George read the reply. Sadly. What was that about? Before she could respond, another message came through.
Are you in trouble?
Georgie sent back:
I’m not sure, but I’m very worried about something. Is it possible to have a phone call? I just want to
ask you a few things, offline.
Elaine agreed and asked Georgie for her number. A couple of minutes later Georgie answered the phone to a guarded, cultured voice.
‘I really appreciate your calling,’ Georgie said.
‘I don’t know if I can help you, but I’ll try.’
‘Thanks. It may sound odd, but I really need to know something about your ex-husband.’
‘Are you in a relationship with him, Georgina?’ the woman asked, warily.
‘He’s not my partner – I know him through friends – but there’s a few very weird things happening, and I just need to know if he’s trustworthy or not.’
‘Trustworthy?’
Georgie could hear the surprise in her voice. ‘Yes.’
‘I wouldn’t trust Marcus an inch.’
‘Can you tell me more? I mean, why not? Please, you have to tell me, I’m so worried.’
There was a long silence. ‘Look, I can hear how distressed you are, and I wouldn’t normally say this to a complete stranger. But let’s just say he has a real dark side. Something closed off no one can reach. There was something very strange that happened when he was a child that he would never speak about.’
‘What do you mean? What kind of strange?’
‘Well, there was talk in his family that when he and his sister were young he’d somehow put her down an abandoned well and kept her there overnight – apparently, he’d said it was to punish his mother when she was late yet again collecting them from school. His parents were frantic, thinking she’d been abducted.’
‘Bloody hell!’ Georgie thought for a moment. Back to that dark conversation she’d had with Marcus at the dinner party. Was that what he had been referring to?
‘I’m afraid Marcus is a very complex and disturbed character,’ Elaine went on. ‘Outwardly, he’s got all the charm, but in my experience he’s a control freak and a sociopath and I’m not just saying that because he’s my ex. I feel lucky I got out.’