by Val McDermid
I couldn’t believe it. They’d spent a small fortune on perimeter security and a video camera, but they didn’t have any internal tremblers or passive infrared detectors. And there I’d been, planning to keep setting the alarm off at five-minute intervals until they finally abandoned the building with an unset alarm. I almost felt cheated.
From what Alexis had told me, the second locked door I’d tried had been Helen Maitland’s consulting room. I kneeled down in front of the door and turned on my headlamp. Interestingly, the lock on her consulting room had cost twice the total of all three front-door locks. A seven-lever deadbolt mortice. Just out of curiosity, I took a quick look at the other locked door. A straightforward three-lever lock that a ten-year-old with a Swiss Army knife could have been through in less time than it takes an expert to complete the first level of Donkey Kong. Helen Maitland hadn’t been taking any chances.
It took nearly fifteen minutes of total concentration for me to get past the lock. I closed the door softly behind me and shone the torch in a slow arc round the room, like a bad movie. More wall-to-wall heavy-duty carpet in the same shade of champagne. Their carpet-cleaning bill must have been phenomenal. Curtained screen folded against the wall. Examination couch. Sink. Grey metal filing cabinet. Shredder. Printer table with an ink jet on it. Tall cupboard with drawers underneath. A leather chair with a writing surface attached to the right arm, set at an angle to a two-seater sofa covered in cream canvas. No pictures on the walls. No rugs, just basic hard-wearing, pale green, industrial-weight carpet. No desk. No computer. At least I knew it wasn’t going to take me long to search. And by the look of things, nobody had been here before me.
I started on the filing cabinet. I was glad to see it was one of the old-fashioned ones that can be unlocked by tipping them back and releasing the lock bar from below. Filing-cabinet locks are a pig to pick, and I’d had enough fiddling with small pieces of metal for one night. I was doubly glad I hadn’t had to pick it when I finally got to examine the contents. The bottom drawer contained photostats of articles in medical journals and offprints of published papers. A couple of the articles had Sarah Blackstone’s name among the contributors, and I tucked them into the waistband of my trousers.
The next drawer up contained a couple of gynaecological textbooks and a pile of literature about artificial insemination. The drawer above that was partly filled with sealed packets of A4 printer paper. The top drawer held a kettle, three mugs, an assortment of fruit teas and a jar of honey. The cupboard held medical supplies. Metal contraptions I didn’t want to be able to put a name to. Boxes of surgical gloves. Those overgrown lollipop sticks that appear whenever it’s cervical smear time. The drawers underneath were empty except for a near-empty box of regular tampons. I love it when I’m snowed under with clues.
I sat back on my heels and looked around. The only sign that anyone had ever used this room was the shredder, whose bin was half full. But I knew there was no point in trying to get anything from that. Life’s too short to stuff a mushroom and to reassemble shredded print-outs. But I couldn’t believe that Helen Maitland had left nothing at all in her consulting room. That was turning paranoia into a fine art.
I knew from Alexis that the doctor worked with a laptop rather than a pen and paper, keying everything in as she went along. Even so, I’d have expected to find something, even if it was only a letterhead. I decided to have another look in the less obvious places. Under the examination couch: nothing except dust. Under the sofa cushions: not even biscuit crumbs.
It was taped to the underside of one of the drawers below the cupboard. A card-backed envelope containing three computer disks. I slid them out of the envelope and into the inside pocket of Richard’s jacket. I checked my watch. I’d been inside the room getting on for twenty minutes and I didn’t think there was anything more to learn here.
Back on the landing, I locked the door behind me. No point in telegraphing my visit to the world. I started off down the stairs, but just before I reached the first-floor landing, I realized there was a glow of light from downstairs. Cautiously, I crouched down, edged forward and peered through the bannisters. Almost directly below me, sitting on the bottom stairs was the unmistakable foreshortened figure of a police officer.
11
To be accused of one summary offence is unfortunate; to be accused of two within a twenty-four-hour period looks remarkably like carelessness. And since a reputation for carelessness doesn’t bring clients to the door, I decided this wasn’t a good time to attract the attention of the officer on the stairs. I shrank back from the bannisters and crept towards the upper flight of stairs. In the gloom, I noticed what I hadn’t before. There actually were passive infrared sensors high in the corners of the stairwell; they were the ultra-modern ones that don’t actually show a light when they’re triggered. The reason nothing had happened when I’d waved my arms around on the upper landing earlier was that the alarm hadn’t been switched on. Thank God for the need to impress clients with the luxury carpeting.
As I crouched at the foot of the second flight, I heard the crackle of the policeman’s personal radio. I sidled forward again, trying to hear what he was saying. ‘…still here in St John Street,’ I made out. ‘…burglar-alarm bloke arrives. The key holder’s worried…Yeah, drugs, expensive equipment…should be here by now…OK, Sarge.’
Now I knew what was going on. The key holder had been nervous of leaving the building with what seemed to be a faulty alarm. Presumably, they had a maintenance contract that provided for twenty-four-hour call-out, and he’d decided to take advantage of it. It probably hadn’t been difficult to pitch the Dibble into hanging around until the burglar-alarm technician arrived. It was a cold night out there, and minding a warm clinic had to be an improvement on cruising the early-morning streets with nothing more uplifting to deal with than nightclub brawls or drunken domestics.
I tiptoed back up to the top floor and considered my options. No way could I get past the copper. Once the burglar-alarm technician arrived and reset the system, I wasn’t going to be able to get out without setting off the alarm again, and this time they’d realize it couldn’t be a fault. OK, I’d be long gone, but with a murder investigation going on that might just lead back here, I didn’t want any suspicious circumstances muddying the waters.
For all of five seconds, I considered the fire door leading off the half-landing below me. Chances were the hinges would squeak, the security lights would be on a separate system from the burglar alarm and I’d be spotlit on a fire escape with an apron full of exotica that I couldn’t pretend was my knitting bag. Not to mention a pocketful of computer disks that might well tie me right into an even bigger crime. I could see only one alternative.
With a soft sigh, I got down on my knees again and started to unlock the door of Helen Maitland’s consulting room.
I’ve slept in a lot less comfortable places than a gynaecologist’s sofa. It was a bit short, even for me, but it was cosy, especially after I’d annexed the cotton cellular blanket from the examination couch and peeled off my latex gloves. I’d locked the door behind me, so I figured I was safe if anyone decided further investigations were necessary. Looking on the bright side, I’d managed to postpone a thrill-packed evening in Garibaldi’s with some spaced-out rock promoter. And I’d used up every last bit of adrenaline in my system. I was too tired now to be scared. As I drifted off to sleep, I had the vague sense that I could hear electronic chirruping in the distance, but I was past caring.
I’d set my mental clock to waken me around nine. It was five to when my eyelids ungummed themselves. Six hours sleep wasn’t enough, but it was as much as I usually squeezed in when I was chasing a handful of cases as packed with incident as my current load seemed to be. I unfolded my cramped body from the sofa and did some languid stretching to loosen my stiffened muscles. I peed in the sink, rinsed it out with paranoid care then splashed water over my face, dumping the used paper towels in the empty bin below. It looked like Helen Maitland had even taken he
r used bin liners home. Learning a lesson in caution from her, I used a paper towel to open cupboard and box and helped myself to a pair of her surgical gloves, then moved across to the door and listened. I couldn’t hear a thing.
As quietly as possible, I unlocked the door. I opened it a crack and listened some more. Now I could hear the sort of noises that an occupied building gives off: distant murmurs of speech, feet moving on stairs and hallways, doors opening and closing. I didn’t know how appointments were spaced at the Compton Clinic, but I reckoned that the best time to avoid coming into contact with too many other people was probably around twenty-five past the hour. I softly closed the door and checked myself over. I’d taken off the ski cap and headlamp, but I still looked a pretty unlikely private patient in my black hockey boots, leggings and polo-neck sweater. Even the fashionable bagginess of Richard’s designer-label jacket didn’t lift the outfit much. If anyone did see me, I’d have to hope they put me down as someone in one of those arty jobs never seen by the general public—radio producer, publisher’s editor, novelist, literary critic.
I watched the second hand sweep round until it was time. Then I inched the door open. The landing was clear. I slipped out and pulled the door closed behind me, holding the handle so the catch wouldn’t click into place. I carefully released it and stepped away smartly. The door was going to have to stay unlocked, but with luck, by the time it was discovered, the fault in the burglar alarm would be ancient history. I tripped down the stairs with the easy nonchalance of someone who’s just been given some very good news by their gynae. I didn’t see another soul. When I reached the foot of the stairs, I sketched a cheery wave at the video camera. Then I was out on the street, happily sucking in the traffic fumes of the city centre. Free and clear.
I walked up the street to the meter where I’d left the car the night before, expecting to pay the penalty for parking without payment for the first hour of the working day. This close to the traffic wardens’ HQ just off Deansgate, it was practically inevitable. By some accidental miracle that the gods had obviously intended for some other mortal, I hadn’t been wheel-clamped. I didn’t even have a ticket.
The luck didn’t last, of course. The phone was ringing as I got through the door and I made the mistake of answering it rather than letting the machine deal with the call. ‘Your mobile has been switched off since this time yesterday,’ Shelley stated without preamble.
‘I know that,’ I retorted.
‘Have you lost the instruction manual? To turn it on, you depress the button marked “power”.’
‘I know that too.’
‘Are you coming in today?’
‘I doubt it,’ I said briskly. ‘Stuff to do. Clinkers to riddle, pots to side, cases to solve.’
‘You are still working, then?’ For once, Shelley’s voice wasn’t dripping sarcasm. It almost sounded like she was concerned about me, but that may have been my overactive imagination.
‘I’m working on the gravestone scam, plus I have two other cases that are currently occupying significant amounts of my time,’ I said, probably more abruptly than I intended.
‘What other cases?’ Shelley asked accusingly. Back to normal, thank God. Shelley as sergeant major I could cope with; Shelley as mother hen wasn’t part of the deal.
‘New cases. I’ll let you have the paperwork just as soon as I get to it,’ I said. ‘Now I’ve got to go. There’s a librarian out there waiting for me to make her day.’ I cut the connection before Shelley could say anything more. I knew I was being childish about avoiding Bill, but until I could get my head straight about my future, I couldn’t even bear to be in the office where we’d worked together so successfully.
I dumped my stale clothes in the laundry basket, left Richard’s jacket by the door so I’d remember to take it to be dry-cleaned, and dived into the shower. Needles of water stung my flesh on the borderline of pain, stripping away my world-weariness. By the time I’d finished with the coconut shampoo, the strawberry body wash and the grapefruit body lotion, I must have smelled like a fruit salad, but at least I’d stopped feeling like chopped liver.
While I was waiting for the coffee to brew, I booted up my trusty PC and took a look at the disks I’d raided from Helen Maitland’s consulting room. Each disk contained about a dozen files, all with names like SMITGRIN.DAT, FOSTHILL.DAT and EDWAJACK.DAT. When I came to one called APPLELEE.DAT my initial guess that the file names corresponded to pairs of patients was confirmed. I didn’t have to be much of a detective to realize that this contained the data relating to Chris Appleton and Alexis Lee. The only problem was accessing the information. I tried various word-processing packages but whatever software Helen Maitland had used, it wasn’t one that I had on my machine. So I tried cheating my way into the file, renaming it so my software would think it was a different kind of file and read it. No joy. Either these files were password protected, or the software was too specialized to give up its secrets to my rather crude methods.
I finished my coffee, copied the disks and sent Gizmo a piece of e-mail to tell him that he was about to find an envelope with three disks on his doormat and that I’d appreciate a print-out of the files contained on them. Then I went on a wardrobe mission for something that would persuade a doctor that I was a fit and proper person to talk to. Failing combat fatigues and a Kalashnikov, I settled for navy linen trousers, a navy silk tweed jacket and a lightweight cream cotton turtleneck. At least I wouldn’t look like a drug rep.
I raided the cash dispenser again and stuffed some cash in an envelope with the originals of the disks and pushed the whole lot through Gizmo’s letter box. I wasn’t in the mood for conversation, not even Gizmo’s laconic variety. Next stop was Central Ref. It was chucking it down in stair rods by then, and of course I hadn’t brought an umbrella. Which made it inevitable that the nearest available parking space was on the far side of Albert Square down on Jackson’s Row. With my jacket pulled over my head so that I looked like a strange, deformed creature from a Hammer Horror film, I sprinted through the rain-darkened streets to the massive circular building that manages to dominate St Peter’s Square in spite of the taller buildings around it.
Under the portico, I joined the other people shaking themselves like dogs before we filed into the grand foyer with its twin staircases. I ignored the information desk and the lift and walked up to the reference room. Modelled on the British Museum reading room, the tables radiate out from the hub of a central desk like the spokes from a vast, literary wheel. Light filters down from the dome of the high ceiling, and everything is hushed, like a library ought to be. All these modern buildings with their strip lighting, antistatic carpets and individual carrels never feel like proper libraries to me. I often used to come and work in Central Ref. when I was a student. The atmosphere was more calm than the university law library, and nobody ever tried to chat you up.
Today, though, I wasn’t after Halsbury’s Statutes of England, or Michael Zander’s analysis of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. The first thing I wanted was Black’s Medical Directory, the list of doctors licensed to practise in the UK, complete with their qualifications and their professional history. I’d used it before, so I knew where to look. Black’s told me that Sarah Blackstone had qualified twelve years before. She was a graduate of Edinburgh University, a fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and she had worked in Obs & Gynae in Glasgow, then one of the London teaching hospitals before winding up as a consultant at St Hilda’s Infirmary in Leeds, one of the key hospitals in the north. It was clear from the information here plus the articles I’d taken from the consulting room that Dr Blackstone was an expert on sub-fertility, out there at the leading edge of an increasingly controversial field, a woman with a reputation for solid achievement. That explained in part why she’d chosen to operate under an alias.
Since the book was there in front of me, I idly thumbed forward. There was no reason why she should have chosen to use another doctor’s name as an alias
, except that Alexis had told me that Sarah Blackstone had written prescriptions in the name of Helen Maitland. While it wasn’t impossible that she’d used an entirely fictitious name to do this, it would have been easier and safer to steal another doctor’s identity. If she’d done that, uncovering the real Helen Maitland might just take me a step or two further forward.
Impatiently I ran my finger down the twin columns, past the Madisons, the Maffertys and the Mahons, and there it was. Helen Maitland. Another Edinburgh graduate, though she’d qualified three years before Sarah Blackstone. Member of the Royal College of Physicians. She’d worked in Oxford, briefly in Belfast, as a medical registrar in Newcastle, and now, like Sarah Blackstone, she was also a consultant at St Hilda’s in Leeds, with research responsibilities. According to Black’s, and the indices of the medical journals I checked afterwards, Helen Maitland had nothing to do with fertility treatment. She was a specialist in cystic fibrosis, and had published extensively on recent advances in gene replacement therapy. On the surface, it might seem that there was no point of contact between the two women professionally; but the embryologist who worked on Helen Maitland’s patients’ offspring in vitro might well be the same one who worked with Sarah Blackstone’s subfertile couples. They’d certainly work in the same lab.
Even if I had all the files on the disks I’d recovered in the night, I still needed to make some more checks. The original computer files, of which I was sure these were only back-up copies, had to be on a computer somewhere. And I needed to check out whether the real Helen Maitland was sufficiently involved in Sarah Blackstone’s fertility project to be a potential threat to Alexis and Chris, or whether she was simply an innocent victim of her colleague’s deception.
Before I made the inevitable trip across the Pennines, I thought I’d make the most of being in Central Ref. Replacing the medical directory, I wandered across to the shelves where the city’s electoral rolls are kept. I looked up the main index and found the volume that contained the street where ‘Will Allen’ and his partner ‘Sarah Sargent’ lived. I pulled the appropriate box file from the shelf and thumbed through the wards until I got to the right one. I found them inside a minute.