“You caught the bus from Gloucester Green and were travelling light, only with hand luggage, as you were just staying overnight in Edinburgh. You’d an endorsed ticket on the 4.30 Oxford–Heathrow airport bus. So how did you obtain that? You’d caught the Heathrow bus quite a few times before and knew that the driver gets out of his seat and helps passengers load their luggage into the bay at the side of the bus. The driver leaves the door of the bus open when he does that. So all you had to do after obtaining your ticket was get off the bus when the driver vacated his seat to do that for a passenger at the next Oxford stop.”
“Having got off the bus how was I expected to get to the airport?”
“At Gloucester Green there’s a nearby car park. All you had to do was walk back from the High Street, pick up the car you had parked there earlier in the day, then drive to Nebotec before going on to the airport. You left the car there while you were in Edinburgh and picked it up when you came back the next day. Hewitt told me when I gave him a lift back from college that you use a garage which gives you a replacement car when they carry out a service. Gearing said that your usual car wasn’t parked at the college and you told Brook that was because your car was being serviced.
Palmer, looking a little fed up with Gabriel’s persistence, leaned back in his seat. He secretly, but not secretly enough, clenched his jaw.
“At Nebotec you entered the laboratory building via the back entrance, through the animal house. Anna was no doubt surprised to see you in your travelling gear, wearing a mackintosh. Perhaps you assured her that you needed to know the results for the meeting you were going to attend. And when she turned to show you the slide of bone marrow, you murdered her with the microtome knife you had stolen from the Pathology Department. You then replaced all the slides of bone with those you had cut and stained yourself at the hospital. You’d worked for Forsyth as a pathology technician so you were able to carry out all the processing yourself.
“You wore boots while you set about making it look as if a thief had carried out the murder, breaking the window in the store room. Then you used Anna Taylor’s swipe card to leave via the front entrance, throwing it away along with her empty purse once you were outside. You probably had a spare mackintosh and other travelling clothes in the car you used to drive to Heathrow. No doubt in due course you disposed of anything that linked you with the crime. It was your intention to put the blame on a non-existent thief or, failing that, on Taylor whom you had never liked much anyway.”
“Very neat, very elaborate,” said Palmer who sounded tired of having to explain simple facts to a nonentity — and tired above all of having to pretend to be polite. “It all sounds like one of your long diagnostic reports. But it’s well known that the longer your report the less likely it is that you have a clue what the tumour is. You should stick to pathology, Gabriel. Your analysis is really quite cretinous.”
Gabriel had not expected to be insulted. A note of anger crept into his voice. “And you should have stuck to real science, Ken.”
“Your allegations are, Gabriel, if I may say, the kind of thing ignorant students in my tutorial group might have dreamed up. Without any proof at all, not even a tiny scrap,” with his finger he measured the top of his little finger, “you come up with this outlandish theory. Just because I caught the airport bus and had my car repaired! Are you serious? You’ll be saying palindromes don’t exist next.”
“Oh, they exist all right. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they do play a role in cancer. But, as Liz Reynolds found with MT-1, they’re in normal cells as well. My guess is that MT-1 and PLF are the same palindrome.”
“I’ll grant you that MT-1 and PLF are related,” said Palmer, nodding in delayed agreement. “We hadn’t got the DNA sequence structure quite right in our initial studies, which, by the way, is why the patent that Taylor and Reynolds hold is worthless. But as for the rest of what you say, it’s pure bunkum. You’ve no proof that PLF doesn’t work and is dangerous, just as you’ve no proof that I was at Nebotec and not at the airport when the murder was committed.”
“And I grant you that my diagnosis is provisional, a morphological one if you like, not substantiated by other investigations. For that I needed Brook’s help. One of his men tracked down the loan car supplied by the garage. Fortunately the cars aren’t cleaned too thoroughly after they’re returned and it was noticed that stuck to the inside of the windscreen was a half torn piece of paper, shiny on one side, the type which is used to hold a parking ticket displayed on the windscreen. That interested Brook because outside Nebotec, a scrap of paper, shiny on one side, sticky on the other, was found by the cycle track where it runs near the road. And, as you can see, when you put the two pieces of paper together, they match.”
Gabriel held up the two pieces of paper, one in each hand, and then fitted them together; they matched perfectly along the line of the tear.
“My guess is that the parking ticket was torn when it was removed from the windscreen and that the paper holding it down was lost at Nebotec. Brook’s men trawled around the parking firms at Heathrow and discovered that you didn’t use an on-airport car park but an off-airport one with a valet service that dropped you off and picked you up after your return. That was probably necessary as you didn’t have a lot of time to play with before catching your plane. And, as you can see, the car was identified there.”
Gabriel slowly raised his finger and tapped a key which brought up a jerky series of black and white images of a car being driven through a barrier into the car park; the number plate of the car was clearly recognisable; other details, including the identity of the driver were not.
Palmer slowly raised his head and stared at the projected image of the car as if hypnotised by it. This image — this tiny new surprise — seemed to overwhelm him; the implication of this finding was as great as that of the evidence of the Barr body in the marrow cells.
“Brook is getting hold of images from other CCTV cameras at the airport and no doubt in due course will build up a more exact timeline and map of your movements there. So there are quite a few things you have to explain to us, Ken. You might as well begin with this one. Explain how it is that the loan car you got from the garage was parked at Heathrow when it was supposed to be in Oxford.”
Palmer remained silent, perfectly rigid, not moving a muscle of his face. He seemed not to see what was projected. His eyes, half closed, were fixed on the screen. The image remained precise, haunting, now fixed forever in his memory. All of a sudden, his eyes clouded and he threw back his great head. Then he got up and stood unsteadily facing the screen. There was a moment of deliberate silence, of deliberate slowness perhaps, a nervous gesture before flight which, when it came, surprised everyone including Gabriel who was looking at the screen.
He turned round when he heard the noise. But it was not so much a noise as the violent shock of movement when it was least expected — the sound of Ken Palmer who a moment before had sat lethargic in the row of lecture seats suddenly making a dash for the exit at the back of the lecture theatre.
It was hopeless. Brook and a burly male detective raced out of the projection room and cut off his retreat. The detective had grabbed Palmer’s right arm and was holding it awkwardly, causing Palmer in his struggle to cry out in pain. As the handcuffs were applied, he swung round and his terrified face fell upon Gabriel. Gabriel had expected it to be full of hate but it was distorted by fear. Instinctively he pitied him.
When the commotion was over, Gabriel shut down the computer and began climbing the stairs to the exit of the lecture theatre. He stood back and waited first for Tom Duncan then Liz Reynolds to pass through the lecture theatre door before him. Liz did not acknowledge Gabriel’s courtesy and avoided his eyes.
When he exited himself a few seconds later, Gabriel heard Hewitt tell his wife who had her head in her hands, “We’ll still get something out of it. We’ll just have to market it as a scientific reagent rather than a drug.”
Gabriel did not re
turn immediately to his office but went outside and walked down the hill towards the Accident and Emergency department. He needed to clear his head of what had just passed.
A veil of mist hung over Oxford and he could see a long line of cars, their headlights on, crawling up the hill. Opposite him there was a grassed area under threat from an incipient new build that was covered with scaffolding. It was funded by a private finance initiative, one of those that had thrown the hospital into so much debt in recent years. The scaffolding was capped by a tall orange crane which seemed to be working downwards, building from the top. A group of hard-hatted workmen stood outside shouting at each other. One of them turned round and looked curiously at Gabriel for a few seconds. He followed Gabriel’s gaze which was trained on the mist-filled horizon where there was nothing to see then resumed his work.
A short time later, as though in response to a command, Gabriel turned and walked slowly back up the hill.
Jane did not hear him enter but she got up immediately when he walked past her desk without a word. She followed him into his office.
“What is it?” he asked a little tetchily.
“Mr Poole’s secretary just telephoned. She wants to know if you’re going to the Agenda for Change meeting. They’re expecting you.”
Palindrome Page 26