Chameleon

by Ken McClure

  Jamieson found the question ridiculous just as he found Carew's apparent need to improvise an obituary for Thelwell ridiculous. Thelwell had been a shit. He had been loathed by almost everyone. There would be plenty time later to translate this into the standard, 'Didn't suffer fools gladly' routine but right now he wanted to find out what had happened. He ignored Carew's question and asked, 'What happened?'

  'He took his own life.'

  'Thelwell?' exclaimed Jamieson almost involuntarily. 'Committed suicide?'

  Carew gave a nervous glance at the door behind him and Jamieson deduced that Thelwell's family must be in the room. He lowered his voice, 'I'm sorry,' he said, 'But Mr Thelwell wasn't the sort I would have thought liable to take his own life.'

  'I suppose that goes for me too,' agreed Carew with another exaggerated shake of the head. 'But the poor man did. Who among us can ever know fully what goes on in another man's mind?'

  'What happened exactly?' asked Evans this time in a matter of fact Welsh accent that seemed to ridicule Carew's whispering air of reverence. Carew gave him a distasteful look and said, looking at Jamieson rather than Evans, 'Marion said that he was very upset when he got back from choir practice this evening. Apparently he went straight to his study and locked the door. She was alarmed some time later when she couldn't get a reply from him and in the end had to enlist the help of a neighbour to break down the door. Mr Thelwell was found to be dead.'

  'I'd like to see him,' said Jamieson.

  Carew looked shocked. 'Is that really necessary? The police are on their way and I really don't think that…'

  'I'd like to see him,' repeated Jamieson.

  'As you wish,' Carew concurred. 'He's upstairs.'

  Jamieson and Evans followed the medical superintendent up the green carpeted stairs to an oak panelled door that creaked as Carew opened it with obvious reluctance. 'Nothing has been touched,' he said. 'I strongly recommend that we keep it that way until the police have finished their business.' He stepped back in order to allow Jamieson to enter. Evans followed in his wake, attracting another annoyed glance from Carew.

  Jamieson was unprepared for the sight that met him and recoiled slightly. For some subconscious reason he had expected Thelwell to have killed himself with poison or drugs but he found the surgeon's body slumped across his desk in a crimson pool of blood. In his right hand he still held the scalpel that he had used to slit his jugular vein. Jamieson remembered how Thelwell had opened his mail with the paper knife and he grimaced slightly. Thelwell's eyes were wide open and they retained in death the sullen anger that he had managed to sustain so persistently in life.

  'Ye gods,' said Evans in a whisper. 'Why on earth…'

  'There was a brief note for his wife,' said Carew, taking an envelope from his pocket. He handed it to Jamieson.

  Jamieson removed the single sheet of blue note paper from the envelope and opened it. It read, 'My Dear Marion, It's all going to come out and I can't bear the shame. Please try to understand there are some forces inside a man which cannot be denied however strong the will. I tried but have failed so now I have to pay the price.' The note was signed with the initial 'G'. Jamieson handed it back to Carew who said, 'Most peculiar. Wouldn't you agree?'

  Jamieson gave a half nod and asked, 'What did his wife say when she read this?'

  'Marion was totally bemused,' replied Carew. 'The poor woman has no idea at all what it all means.'

  'Poetic in a way,' said Evans looking at Thelwell's corpse with his head on one side.

  'What is?' snapped Carew, still annoyed at Evans' presence.

  'That Mr Thelwell should die by his own hand just like Dr Richardson. It's almost as if it were fated for the pair of them. Constantly at loggerheads in life, still locked together in death you might say.'

  Once again, Jamieson was conscious of Evans' Welsh accent. He had often noticed that people under stress exhibited accents that were normally subdued or absent at other times.

  'I see nothing poetic about any of it,' said Carew brusquely. 'This whole infection business has done untold harm to the hospital and its reputation. And now this has to happen.'

  Jamieson continued to stare at Thelwell's corpse.

  'Do you understand the note?' Carew asked Jamieson.

  Jamieson was reluctant to answer. In the end he said, 'I think we will have to wait for the police to explain it all fully.'

  'The police? I don't understand.'

  Jamieson looked at Carew who was still waiting for an explanation and said, 'If Mr Thelwell had something to hide, a full police investigation may clear up a lot of things.

  Carew looked more bemused than ever. He was unprepared to let the matter rest at that. He said, 'I don't understand what you are getting at. What do you mean something to hide? What could he have to hide? Apart from his career and his family Gordon Thelwell had no other interests except for maybe the choir he sang with.'

  'Mr Thelwell stopped singing with the choir a long time ago. He wasn't at choir practice this evening or any other evening come to that,' said Jamieson.

  Carew's mouth fell open. 'Then where might I ask did he go instead?'

  'Tonight he went down to the red light area of the city. Maybe that's what he always did.'

  Carew's eyes opened wide. 'Gordon Thelwell?' he exclaimed. 'You mean he was consorting with… prostitutes?' Carew uttered the word as if it offended him.

  'What he was actually doing with or to them is a matter for the police to determine.'

  The full implication of what Jamieson meant suddenly dawned on Carew and he rolled his eyes skywards. 'You can't possibly mean… the killings? My God. What evidence do you have for this?'

  'Very little,' admitted Jamieson. 'But I am sure about not going to any choir practices.'

  The police arrived and after due procedure the body of Gordon Thomas Thelwell was removed and taken away in a plain black van to the City Mortuary. Jamieson and Evans watched it drive off in silence and then walked slowly back to their car leaving Carew to get on with the business of comforting Marion Thelwell and her daughters. As they neared the car Jamieson suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, prompting Evans to ask what was the matter. Jamieson did not reply. He turned to face the hedge fronting Thelwell's house.

  'What is it?' asked Evans.

  Once again Jamieson did not reply.

  Evans who had already stepped off the pavement to walk round to the front passenger door of the car came back and stood beside Jamieson. 'What's wrong?'

  'Can you smell something?' asked Jamieson.

  Evans sniffed the night air and said, 'Wet leaves? Grass?'

  'No. something else.'

  Evans sniffed again. 'Scent,' he said.

  'Perfume,' said Jamieson. 'Not just any perfume. Moira Lippman's perfume.'

  'Are you sure?'

  Jamieson did not reply. He tried to part the hedge with his hands to peer through but found it too dark. 'I'm going back,' he said to Evans.

  The two men retraced their steps to the gate of Thelwell's house and turned to make their way along the back of the hedge in the front garden. Jamieson swore as a branch he had failed to see in the darkness caught him on his bruised cheek. 'It's getting stronger,' he said as they approached the circular summer house in the darkest corner of the garden.

  'We need some light,' said Evans.

  'There's a torch in the car,' replied Jamieson. 'Can you fetch it? It's in the glove compartment.' He handed Evans the car keys.

  Evans was back within thirty seconds, using the narrow beam from the torch to pathfind his way along the back of the hedge and negotiate a passage round a rusty hose-reel and broken paving slabs that lay piled up outside the summer house.

  Jamieson felt a wave of reluctance and foreboding sweep over him. He put his hand on the door handle and froze for a few moments, feeling the rust on the handle rough on his palm.

  'Is it locked?' asked Evans, misconstruing Jamieson's reluctance to turn it.

  Jamieson finall
y turned the handle and the smell of perfume became almost overpowering. He took the torch from Evans and shone the beam around his feet. He saw the pile of sacking on the floor. A black handbag lay beside it. It had been flattened by someone standing on it and it was the source of the scent. Broken glass from the bottle protruded from its side.

  It was not difficult to discern the shape of a body underneath the sacking. 'My God,' whispered Jamieson as he knelt down to pull back the top sack. A faint haze of hessian and potato dust hung in the torch beam as it lit up a face.

  Moira Lippman was practically unrecognisable as the girl Jamieson had known in the lab. He had to turn his head to one side for a moment to gain control of his emotions and suppress the urge to vomit. The instrument of Moira Lippman's death had been a pair of garden shears but she had not simply been stabbed. She had been systematically mutilated. Her body had been opened up from lower abdomen to throat and a crude attempt had been made to open up her skull. As a final desecration, the shears had been plunged into her left eye where they remained.

  'The bastard,' whispered Jamieson. 'The absolute bastard.'

  'Do you think this is this why Thelwell killed himself?' asked Evans quietly.

  'I suppose,' replied Jamieson. 'Come on. We better get the police back here.'

  'The swine!' Sue exclaimed when Jamieson told her. 'How could anyone do such a thing?'

  'Nutters know no bounds of depravity,' said Jamieson.

  'It seems so unsatisfying to blame it all on mental illness,' complained Sue.

  'I know what you mean,' said Jamieson. 'It thwarts the desire for revenge.'

  'I suppose that's it,' admitted Sue.

  'Well, he's dead now and beyond revenge whatever excuse he might have had to hide behind in life.'

  'Does this mean it's over now?'

  'I think it does,' said Jamieson.

  'You look all in,' said Sue gently ruffling Jamieson's hair.

  'I can't say I will be sorry to leave this place,' said Jamieson.

  'Me neither,' agreed Sue. 'You know I felt it as soon as I walked through the hospital gates. It was as if there was something evil about it. They both looked out of the window at the dark shadows below. A cat leapt silently from the lid of one of the dustbins to the ground and prowled along the base of the wall opposite. It started to rain.

  'What a mess,' whispered Jamieson.

  'There was nothing you could have done that would have made it any better,' said Sue comfortingly but, for the moment, Jamieson was beyond reach of consolement. His first assignment for Sci-Med had been a nightmare. Two consultants and a senior technician from the lab had finished up dead along with five patients who had died of their infections. 'All because of one damned lunatic,' murmured Jamieson. He reflected for a moment on the human mind, so often an instrument of wonder with capabilities beyond what any computer could hope to simulate but when it turned to evil… Jamieson shivered slightly.

  'I don't suppose we will ever know how he managed to contaminate the instruments and dressings with such horrible organisms,' said Sue.

  'I suppose not,' agreed Jamieson, whose mind was still reeling from the awful sight of Moira Lippman's body.

  'That's a pity,' said Sue. 'I wish we could find out, particularly in view of what you said the other night about how unlikely it was that he could have done it by chance.'

  'We'll have to content ourselves with the fact that he's stopped doing it now,' said Jamieson.

  Sue gave a slight nod. She asked, 'Did you find out what it was that Moira wanted to see you about?'

  Jamieson shook his head.' Whatever it was, it died with her.'

  'Do you think it was the same thing that made her go out at that time of night?'

  Jamieson shook his head and said, 'I don't know. I can check her desk in the morning. Perhaps she wrote something down.'

  'Maybe she found out what you think Dr Richardson found out. Something about the infections?'

  Jamieson had the distinct impression that Sue was trying to lead him down a particular road. A pointer here, a question there. He suddenly thought he saw what she was getting at. He said, 'But if she found out about Thelwell's involvement in the deaths she wouldn't have gone to see him would she?'

  'My feelings exactly,' agreed Sue.

  'On the other hand,' said Jamieson thoughtfully, 'Thelwell was responsible for her sister in law's death. People do strange things when matters get personal. She may have gone there, knowing that Thelwell was the killer.'

  'For revenge, you mean?' said Sue. 'Poor girl.'

  They fell to silence and Sue looked at her watch. She said, 'Good Lord, look at the time.'

  Jamieson smiled thinly and put his hand round her shoulder. 'Let's turn in.'

  There was no indication on her desk or work bench of what Moira Lippman had been doing that had made her so anxious to contact either Jamieson or in the end, Thelwell. Jamieson searched all through her desk drawers and when that proved fruitless he examined all the cultures in the incubators with her writing on them. There was nothing that could not be attributed to the routine work of the lab. He was cursing under his breath when Clive Evans' voice behind him said, 'I've already done that. There's nothing.'

  'Strange,' said Jamieson. 'She must have written something down.'

  'Maybe she took it with her to see Thelwell,' suggested Evans.

  'Ye gods,' said Jamieson not relishing a second visit to the Thelwell house.

  'Will you check?'

  Jamieson nodded.

  'Want me to come with you?'

  'No need,' said Jamieson. He left Evans and telephoned Chief Inspector Ryan to arrange access to the house in Latimer Gardens. He was relieved to be told that Marion Thelwell and her daughters had gone off to stay with relatives for a few days. The forensic people had finished in the house and garden and he would be able to get the keys from the officer stationed at the front of the house to keep the morbidly curious at bay.

  The policeman at the gate stiffened when he saw Jamieson approach and moved from one foot to the other. Jamieson sensed that he was preparing to bar his way. He probably thought that he was yet another journalist after some lurid copy to satisfy the insatiable needs of the tabloids. Jamieson showed his ID and said that he had permission from Chief Inspector Ryan to enter the house. The constable checked through the radio clipped to his lapel and after a burst of static Jamieson caught the word 'Affirmative.'

  The house was silent, a brooding silence that Jamieson felt was oppressive. It was as if the walls and floors resented his presence there. He climbed the stairs slowly, reluctant to create any noise and feeling like an intruder in private grief. He opened the door to what had been Gordon Thelwell's study and stepped inside.

  He found nothing on Thelwell's desk to indicate any contact between Moira Lippman and Thelwell at all. Jamieson looked through the drawers and finally the waste paper basket and again drew a blank. He felt sure that Moira would have had notes. She had told Sue that she wanted to talk about the results of some tests. That meant that there must be lab notes somewhere. Apart from routine procedure it was in the nature of people who worked in labs to keep notes.

  Had Thelwell destroyed them? He had to acknowledge that this was a possibility but if he had, how had he done it? He had not left this room. His wife had said so. There was no fireplace and there was no document shredder in the room. He conducted another search but again drew a blank. Maybe Moira hadn't brought them with her but if they weren't here and they weren't at the lab where else could they be? Her own flat? Jamieson decided to make that his next port of call. He started to tidy up by putting back the contents of the waste paper basket when suddenly he heard footsteps on the stairs. His first thought was that it must be the policeman from the door but the sound was wrong. What he was hearing were the footsteps of a woman.

  The door opened and Marion Thelwell stood in the doorway. Jamieson felt guilty and embarrassed. He started to apologise by saying that he had understood that the house
was going to be empty.

  'I had to come back for some things for the girls,' said Marion Thelwell, her voice devoid of emotion. 'Did you find what it was you were looking for?'

  Jamieson looked at her dull eyes and the deep lines in her face. It was obvious that she had had no sleep.

  'Actually no,' he said softly.

  'What was it?'

  'When Miss Lippman came to see your husband last night. I think she had some notes, perhaps a lab notebook with her. I was looking for it.'

  Marion Thelwell looked long and hard at Jamieson as if he were a stain on the ground and then said slowly and deliberately, 'The Lippman girl phoned Gordon last night and said that she had to speak to him. He did his best to dissuade her, in fact, he told her point blank not to come. But she must have come over anyway, only she never got here.'

  'But…'

  'I repeat; she never got here. She must have been murdered outside somewhere and her body placed in our summer house.'

  Jamieson looked at the floor in an attempt to hide his disbelief which he felt sure must show in his face. 'And your husband, Mrs Thelwell? Where was he at the time?' asked Jamieson with as much delicacy as was possible in the circumstances.

  'Gordon was locked up in his study as I've already told the police. He never left the house.'

  Jamieson eyes moved involuntarily to the study window and confirmed to himself that it overlooked the garden. Thelwell could have left the room by the window.

  'Can I ask how you know that it was Moira Lippman who called him on the phone?' said Jamieson

  'I took the call.'

  'And how did you know what was said?'

  'I listened in on the extension in the hall,' said Marion Thelwell without a trace of guilt.

  Jamieson looked at her without speaking until she felt obliged to elaborate.

  'I knew that Gordon had stopped going to choir practices some time ago. I thought there might be another woman even though I found that hard to believe.'

  'Why?' asked Jamieson, detecting an odd note in Marion Thelwell's voice.

  She gave a mirthless shrug and said, 'Gordon was never very physical if you get my meaning. Not even in our courting days.'