Eye of the raven sd-5

by Ken McClure

  Steven feared that it might be necessary to go back and confront Lee with such an accusation but first, he supposed, it might be useful to have a word with the members of Lee’s team that he hadn’t yet spoken to, John Merton and Samantha Styles. If they could confirm or even admit to harbouring suspicions that no analysis had taken place then he would go back north again and tackle Ronnie Lee about it.

  Steven remembered that Carol Bain had mentioned that she thought John Merton had moved to a job in the medical school when he left Lee’s lab. It was after six before he got back to Edinburgh so he left it until next morning to call.

  ‘ We did have a John Merton on the staff, the university’s personnel department confirmed. ‘He left nearly eight years ago.’

  Steven asked for any forwarding address but none was known. He turned his attention to Samantha Styles. Carol Bain had said that she was working as a nursing sister in the Western General but she might well have married and changed her surname in the intervening eight years.

  Lothian Regional Health Board did not have a Sister Styles on their register, he was told. ‘How about nursing sisters with Samantha as a first name?’ he asked.

  ‘ The staff aren’t filed under first names.’

  ‘ The list is computerised, isn’t it?’

  ‘ Ye…s’

  ‘ Then run a search for “Samantha”.’

  ‘ I’ll have to ask…’

  Steven drummed his fingers lightly on the table as he waited.

  ‘ We do have a Sister Samantha Egan,’ said the voice, ‘working at the Western General Hospital.’

  ‘ Good show. How do I find her?’

  ‘ You’ll have to call the director of nursing services at the hospital.’

  Steven wrote down the number and called it as soon as he’d rung off.

  ‘ Sister Egan is in charge of ward 31,’ he was told. He asked to be transferred to the ward and was rewarded by a series of clicks and buzzes until finally the phone went dead. He called the Western General directly and asked for ward 31.

  ‘ Ward 31, Staff Nurse Kelly speaking.’

  ‘ I’d like to speak to Sister Egan please.’

  ‘ May I ask who’s calling?’

  ‘ Dr Dunbar.’

  Steven smiled as he picked up the distant words, ‘Never heard of him,’ before Samantha Egan finally came on the phone and he explained who he was and what he wanted to speak to her about.

  ‘ Ye gods and little fishes,’ she exclaimed and laughed before saying, ‘I only worked in the lab for a few months. Are you sure it’s me you want to speak to?’

  Steven said that it was and in person rather than over the phone.

  ‘ Well, on the grounds that it can’t possibly take very long, why don’t you pop up to the ward this morning. Say, eleven thirty?’

  Steven thanked her and said he’d be there.

  As luck would have it, Steven couldn’t find a parking place at the hospital. He ended up leaving the car quite a way down Carrington Road, which ran east from the hospital, down past Fettes Police Headquarters. As he got out, Peter McClintock happened to be passing. He double parked against Steven’s car for a moment and got out to ask how he had got on with Ronnie Lee.

  ‘ I’ve had better days,’ said Steven. ‘Talking to the pot plant in my room would have been equally productive.’

  McClintock looked pleased. ‘I won’t say I told you so,’ he grinned. ‘I’m surprised the bugger’s still alive. So where do you go from here?’

  ‘ I’m going to talk to one of the other people who was in the forensic lab at the time,’ said Steven.

  ‘ You’re persistent, I’ll give you that,’ smiled McClintock. ‘But you’re chasing rainbows.’

  McClintock drove off and Steven walked back up to the hospital and followed the signs to ward 31. He had to pause at the entrance to allow a porter to manoeuvre his laden trolley out through the swing doors. He took the opportunity to ask the man where he would find ‘sister’.

  ‘ Second on the left,’ mumbled the man with a vague wave of his hand. ‘Cow’s in a foul mood. It’s no ma bloody fault if there’s no’ enough sheets in this bloody hospital.’

  Steven smiled and gave him a sympathetic nod as he watched him move off, fighting his trolley over a directional disagreement and mumbling to himself about the injustice of the world. He personally found no evidence of Samantha Egan’s foul mood when he knocked and entered her office.

  ‘ Dr Dunbar, come in, I’m intrigued,’ she said, getting up and coming towards him.’

  Steven found Samantha Egan’s smile attractive and genuine. For some reason he had been harbouring a mental image of a slim dark woman wearing glasses, with a serious countenance and a permanently severe expression. Instead he found a tall, attractive brunette who seemed anything but severe.

  ‘ Oh my God,’ she said with mock alarm. ‘You haven’t come to tell me that I made even more mistakes in the lab than I thought?’

  ‘ Nothing like that,’ smiled Steven. ‘But am I right in thinking that you did work in the forensic lab when Dr Ronald Lee was the consultant there some years ago?’

  ‘ Briefly, but not much more than a few months. It was my first real job. Let’s see, I got my degree in ’91 and then I did voluntary service overseas for a year in Africa so I would have joined the lab towards the end of ’92 and then I left in the spring of ’93 to train as a nurse.

  ‘ Any regrets?’ asked Steven.

  ‘ None at all,’ replied Samantha without hesitation. ‘I did a science degree and I thought I’d be suited to lab work but my time in Africa changed all that — you know the sort of thing, sheltered middle-class girl experiences reality for the first time. There’s nothing like a bit of dirt and squalor for completing your education. Anyway, I decided that I needed involvement with people rather than test tubes and Bunsen burners. I needed the smiles, the tears. Labs are cold, sterile places.’

  ‘ But you did apply for a job in forensic science,’ said Steven.

  ‘ Yes, I did,’ agreed Samantha. ‘I thought maybe it was just me feeling a bit unsettled after my African trip and that I might feel differently after a few months so, as you say, I did apply for the job in Dr Lee’s lab.’

  ‘ Not a happy time?’ asked Steven.

  ‘ A strange time,’ replied Samantha with an infectious smile, as if she’d been looking for a suitable euphemism.

  ‘ Strange?’ Steven persisted.

  ‘ Dr Lee…’ Samantha hesitated before completing the sentence. ‘Well, let’s just say he had problems.’

  ‘ It’s all right,’ Steven assured her. ‘I’m well aware of Dr Lee’s “problems”.’

  ‘ Oh good,’ said Samantha. ‘Then it was one weird place, if you really want to know. The staff seemed to spend half their time covering up for the fact that their boss was pissed out of his skull!’

  Steven smiled and agreed that it must have been odd. ‘You must remember Carol Bain?’

  ‘ Oh yes,’ said Samantha. ‘I actually bumped in to her last year when she came to visit one of the patients. A nice woman.’

  Steven looked at her for a moment as if challenging her assessment.

  ‘ Oh, all right,’ laughed Carol. ‘She was a right cow who related more easily to dead bodies than she ever did to live ones. She seemed to resent me from the word go, so let’s say I never found her particularly helpful.’

  ‘ How about John Merton?’

  ‘ Clever chap, good at his job, taught me a lot but not enough to make me want to stay in lab work. From what I could see, he did most of the covering up for Dr Lee.’

  ‘ I understand you worked on the Julie Summers case?’

  ‘ I was on the team,’ agreed Samantha, ‘but I didn’t do much.’

  ‘ Would you remember who did what?’

  Samantha thought for a moment before saying, ‘As I recall, it wasn’t a particularly difficult case in forensic terms because of the semen found on the dead girl and the perfect match
they got with the man from the village. I think Carol did most of the DNA work on it although John did some as well. Dr Lee pottered around with fibres found on the dead girl’s clothes. I remember he got a match with fibres also found on the accused man’s clothes but then it turned out that they came from furniture in the accused man’s house and there was no dispute about the girl having been there — I think she had baby-sat for them in the past?’

  Steven nodded.

  ‘ The pantomime really got under way when most of the samples taken at the scene of the crime got chucked out and everyone started running around like headless chickens. Luckily the semen match was so strong that it didn’t matter too much. Dr Lee wouldn’t admit it was him who discarded the samples but everyone seemed to know it was.’

  ‘ What did you personally work on?’

  ‘ I was put to work on the scrapings found under the dead girl’s nails,’ said Samantha.

  Steven felt his throat tighten but he gave no outward sign of the surprise he felt at this unexpected revelation. ‘What did you do exactly?’ he asked.

  ‘ I was asked to type the blood that had been found there.’

  Steven sensed a certain reluctance in Samantha to continue. ‘And?’ he prompted.

  ‘ I screwed up,’ said Samantha, casting her eyes downward and self-consciously rubbing her forehead as if still embarrassed at the memory.’

  ‘ In what way?’ asked Steven.

  ‘ I concluded that the blood was group “O” negative but it turned out I’d used distilled water instead of saline in the agglutination tests and got false negatives. The blood was actually “A” positive.’

  ‘ Someone checked your findings?

  ‘ I was very junior. Someone always checked my work.’

  Steven nodded.

  ‘ John Merton was very kind about it and blamed the bottles being on the wrong shelves. Thank God it wasn’t Carol: she would have shouted my mistake from the rooftops. Anyway, it was that experience that made me decide that lab work wasn’t for me.’

  ‘ But the scrapings were definitely analysed before they were discarded?’ asked Steven, going for the key question with baited breath.

  ‘ Oh yes,’ said Samantha, lifting a weight from his shoulders without realising it. ‘Everything was done.’

  Steven had to accept that his theory about the examinations not being done was wrong. Lee may not have carried out the work personally but the work had been done and that was the important thing.

  ‘ Did Dr Lee himself get involved in the analysis of the scrapings?’ he asked.

  ‘ I think he did,’ replied Samantha, destroying what was left of the Dunbar theory. ‘I don’t think he was very good at DNA work but he liked to go through the motions and John was always on hand to keep him right.’

  ‘ What was the final outcome?’

  ‘ The scrapings confirmed David Little as being the murderer.’

  Steven smiled at Samantha and said, ‘You have been a tremendous help. In fact, you’ve just told me everything I needed to know.’

  EIGHT

  Steven had a lightness in his step as he left the hospital and walked back to the car. He no longer had the feeling of trying to run in soft sand. Samantha Styles had told him exactly what he needed to know; that the material found under Julie Summers’ fingernails had confirmed the case against David Little. He could return to London with an easy mind.

  Steven checked out of the hotel and drove to Edinburgh airport where he returned the hire car to Hertz before booking himself on the next British Airways shuttle flight to Heathrow. He was standing in the lounge looking out at the rain sweeping across the main runway when his mobile rang.

  ‘ Yes?’

  ‘ Peter McClintock.’

  ‘ And just in time to say good-bye,’ said Steven. ‘I’m at the airport.’ He expected McClintock to be pleased and come back with some kind of a joke but there was a short pause before the policeman said, ‘I thought you should know that Ronnie Lee’s gone missing.’

  ‘ Missing,’ repeated Steven.

  ‘ And his wife’s blaming you.’

  ‘ How in God’s name could he go missing? He didn’t look as if he could stand up let alone go missing.’

  ‘ His wife told Grampian Police that he was greatly upset by your questions yesterday and didn’t seem himself last night. When she got up this morning his bed was empty. She thinks he must have wandered off somewhere in his pyjamas in the middle of the night. The temperature dropped below freezing last night in the highlands. She’s been screaming harassment to anyone who’ll listen.’

  ‘ Who’s listening?’

  ‘ Luckily, no one at the moment but Grampian Police thought we’d like to be kept in the picture,’ said McClintock.

  Steven considered for a moment before making a reluctant decision and saying, ‘I’ve just changed my mind about leaving. I’ll stay until they find him. Let me know as soon as there are any developments.’

  Steven cancelled his shuttle ticket and went back to the car hire desk.

  ‘ Change of heart?’ asked the girl.

  ‘ Couldn’t bear to leave,’ said Steven, filling in the paperwork all over again. He saw no point in travelling back across town to the hotel where he had been staying so he checked into the airport hotel instead and called Sci-Med.

  ‘ Any idea where he might have gone?’ asked Macmillan.

  ‘ None at all.’

  ‘ But he was disturbed by your visit?’

  ‘ He was more angry than disturbed,’ said Steven. ‘I really wasn’t hard on him.’

  ‘ So where the hell has he gone?’

  ‘ I don’t think he was in any physical condition to go very far,’ said Steven. ‘I’m surprised he made it to the front door.’

  ‘ I don’t wish to pre-empt matters but did he strike you as the suicidal type?’ asked Macmillan.

  ‘ Far from it,’ replied Steven. ‘He was full of bitterness and resentment. He genuinely believes he got a raw deal when they forced him into retirement. According to him, everything that happened was just down to either circumstances or the fault of other people.’

  ‘ I think they call it “being in denial” these days,’ said Macmillan.

  ‘ If you say so,’ said Steven.

  ‘ And his wife?

  ‘ Standing by her man. She seemed to share his view. Neither seemed to acknowledge that being permanently pissed could be a drawback for a forensic pathologist.’

  ‘ This could get very messy,’ said Macmillan. ‘Let’s try to minimise the fall-out if this woman starts stirring things up all over again. I like to maintain good relations with our police colleagues wherever possible.’

  Steven grimaced as he put the phone down. ‘Easier said than done,’ he murmured.

  Steven remained on tenterhooks for the next couple of hours, not knowing what to do but feeling uncomfortable about doing nothing. He snatched up the phone when it rang. It was McClintock.

  ‘ They’ve found him. He’d dead.’

  ‘ Shit,’ said Steven.

  ‘ Apparently there’s a steep drop at the back of his house to the river.’

  ‘ There is,’ agreed Steven, thinking of the view of the Spey he’d admired from there.

  ‘ Some time last night he walked over it, only he didn’t make it into the water. He impaled himself on a sharp tree stump after falling fifty feet or so. The local plods are treating it as suicide. Seems like old Ronnie even fucked that up.’

  ‘ When’s the PM?’

  ‘ Tomorrow in Inverness.’

  ‘ I want to be there,’ said Steven. He wasn’t sure why but he didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of Lee committing suicide. A man like Lee would have seen that as letting the bastards win.

  ‘ Nothing I can do personally,’ said McClintock, ‘but I can give you the name of my Grampian contact. He’s DI Hamish Teal.’ McClintock gave Steven the telephone number.

  ‘ Thanks for your help,’ said Steven.

/>   ‘ Something tells me that a whole lot of shit is going to start flying,’ said McClintock ruefully. ‘I’d hate to be wearing a white suit.’

  Steven could think of nothing reassuring to say. He took a moment to consider before calling Sci-Med to inform John Macmillan of Lee’s death. ‘I don’t think he committed suicide.’

  ‘ Anything to back that up?’

  ‘ Just instinct.’

  ‘ Well, it’s served you well enough in the past,’ conceded Macmillan. ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘ I want to call a code red on it,’ said Steven. His request was that his inquiry in Scotland should no longer be regarded as unofficial but that he should be considered fully operational with all that entailed. In effect this would mean that he would no longer be reliant on the voluntary co-operation of individual police officers in his investigation but that his official status as a Sci-Med Inspector on Home Office business would oblige relevant police authorities to co-operate fully with any request he made. He would also be entitled to full back-up from Sci-Med who would see to it that he had everything he needed from simple information to weapons should they be necessary. He would have access to operational funds through two credit cards and access to a special phone line, which guaranteed access to a duty officer at Sci-Med at any hour of the day or night.

  ‘ Up to you,’ said Macmillan, as he usually did in this situation. The nuance in his voice however, suggested that Steven had better have a good reason in the long run for doing this. ‘Do you have your laptop with you?’

  Steven said not. He knew that he’d need one for secure electronic communication.

  ‘ We’ll get one to you. Where are you staying?’

  ‘ The airport hotel at Edinburgh.’

  Steven was called down to the lobby half an hour later. He was surprised to find McClintock standing there. ‘Room service,’ said McClintock holding out a notebook computer by the strap of its leather carry case.

  ‘ Should I tip you?’ smiled Steven.