Gallery Whispers

15

'He gets around, then, this Mr Futcher,' said the Head of CID, as he and Brian Mackie turned the corner into Crewe Road South. The Western General Hospital lies only a quarter of a mile from the police headquarters building in Fettes Avenue, and so the two detectives had decided to walk to their appointment with Professor Nolan Weston.

The rain of the previous day had gone, but the afternoon was drab and cold. Martin seemed to wear its greyness like an overcoat, to match his mood. He and Alex had spent a silent night: the crisis between them remained unresolved.

'So it seems,' Mackie answered. 'Maggie and Steele saw Katie Meams, the secretary bird, first thing this morning. She backed up his story, right enough. She told them that Futcher and she worked late the night before Mrs Weston died. When they were finished he took her for a steak, then ran her home. She invited him in for coffee and afters, as she sometimes does, she says, and he stayed until two in the morning.'

'Did Maggie believe her?'

'Yes, on balance she did. So did Stevie. They gave her a moderately hard time; made her go over the story time and again. She never varied at all. Eventually she got annoyed and went into some very graphic detail about the size ofFutcher's tackle. Impressive, apparently.

His line to the other ladies is that the wife can't take too much of it.'

The superintendent paused. 'I was thinking of asking Maggie to go along and take a look at the evidence,' he added, with a sidelong smile. 'Unless you wanted to lend me Karen Neville, that is.'

Martin chuckled, in spite of himself. 'Neville would love the job, I'm sure. But she's doing something else just now,' he said, as the two men turned into the hospital's entrance roadway.

The Department of Clinical Oncology is a complex which includes some of the newest buildings within the Western General's sprawling grounds. Mackie led the way through the automatic glass doors and into the yellow brick reception area. 'Professor Weston, please,' he said to the nursing assistant seated behind its high wooden counter.

'You're the gentlemen from the police?' she asked, quietly. Martin nodded. 'Yes, he's expecting you. If you go round the corner through the double doors and up the first flight of stairs, then through another set of doors, you'll find his office third on the right. I'll buzz him and let him know that you're coming,'

They followed her directions to the letter. As they pushed their way through the second set of doors, they found a tall man standing in the hall. He was shirt-sleeved in the warmth of the hospital, wearing the trousers of a brown suit. He was as bald as Brian Mackie, but his head seemed bigger and more pointed than the superintendent's gentle dome. 'Gentlemen,' he greeted them solemnly, 'I'm Nolan Weston.'

'Hello, Professor,' said Martin accepting the proffered handshake as he introduced himself and his colleague. 'Glad you could see us so quickly. We'll try not to take up too much of your time.'

Weston led them into a tiny room, so small that there was barely room for two chairs on the other side of his desk. 'This is about Gay, of course,' he began.

'Of course,' said the Head ofCID. 'When did you last see your exwife, Professor?'

'Three weeks ago,' the tall man answered, as he folded himself awkwardly into his swivel chair. 'She and I took Raymond, our son, up to Aberdeen, for his first term at University.'

'That's just not true, Mr Weston,' Brian Mackie exclaimed. 'You've seen her since then.' He lifted his briefcase on to his lap, opened it and took out a folder. 'Two weeks ago you removed a growth from her leg at St Martha's Private Clinic in the Grange; a procedure for which those premises are not authorised, incidentally. These are your notes, and the biopsy report, which confirmed that your former wife was suffering from a malignant melanoma.'

'Where the hell did you get those?' Weston demanded angrily.

'Those are confidential.'

'Not in the context of an inquiry into a suspicious death, they ain't,'

Martin retorted.

'Suspicious death?'

'Extremely,' Mackie went on. 'I have here also, a copy of our postmortem report, which comments on the procedure you performed, and says that secondary tumours were developing rapidly. If you read it, you'll see that your ex-wife's death was caused by a massive overdose of diamorphine. Does that surprise you?'

Nolan Weston looked at him impassively. 'It saddens me. Superintendent, but no, to be frank it does not surprise me.'

Andy Martin held up a hand. 'Perhaps at this stage, sir, you would like to consider legal representation. It might be better if this interview continued on a more formal basis.'

'No, no, no,' exclaimed the surgeon. 'Let's carry on. I want to hear where this is going.'

'Let's go back to my first question, then,' said Mackie. 'When did you last see Mrs Weston alive?'

'The last time I saw her at all, officer, was when I discharged her from St Martha's. I had a very difficult conversation with her about the biopsy report, and I offered to refer her case at once to Mr Simmers, a consultant colleague of mine. She refused to let me do that. She said that she wanted to go home for a couple of weeks to think things through and put her affairs in order.

'I agreed to that on condition that if she experienced any growing discomfort she would contact me.'

'Have you spoken to her since?'

'I phoned her a couple of times of an evening, just to see that she was all right. I spoke to her last on Monday. She said that everything was as it had been, and she said that I would hear from her on Thursday.' His head dropped briefly. 'I understand what she meant now.'

'Where were you on Wednesday night, sir? Specifically, between midnight and two am?'

'I was at home, in bed, with my wife.'

'And she will confirm that?'

'If necessary. She is extremely pregnant. She kept me awake most of the night. But why do you ask me this?'

Martin shifted in his uncomfortable chair. 'Because someone helped Mrs Weston end her life. Professor. She was injected, and a plastic bag was secured over her head.'

'She couldn't have done it herself?'

'No way. Whoever did it took away the syringe and the roll of the black tape which was used to secure the bag. She had help; no doubt about it.'

'This man she saw from time to time? Futcher, the ad-man. Was it him?'

'No. We don't think so.' There was a pause, as Weston looked from one detective to the other.

'Why were you so secretive about treating your former wife, Professor?' asked Mackie.

'Because I didn't want my present wife to find out about it,' came the retort, sharply.

'Couldn't you have referred her to someone else from the very start?'

'Gay didn't want that. She asked me to do the procedure; and I always did what she asked.'

'Including divorcing her?'

Averting his eyes once more, Weston nodded.

'Tell us about your relationship with her, please,' said the Head of CID.

The man across the desk laughed, softly. 'How long do you have?'

He leaned back in his seat, until his shoulders and the back of his head were touching the partition wall behind him. 'Gaynor and I were married for twelve years,' he began, 'and throughout that time we were extremely happy… or so I thought. Then, on our twelfth anniversary, she told me she was leaving me; just like that.

'She told me that there were things that she wanted to do with her life, and that she simply could not achieve them within the confines of marriage. There was no discussion; she just moved out, to a small flat in Barnton. A year later we were divorced by mutual consent. We had joint custody of Raymond, but it was agreed that he should live with me during the school term.

'During our separation and immediately after our divorce we didn't see much of each other; nothing at all, in fact, if Ray wasn't the reason. I heard about her, of course; heard how her consultancy career was going from strength to strength. Raymond would mention the odd name too; men's names, gentlemen callers, I suppose you'd say.

'Almost all of my life was work at that period; but not quite all. I formed a relationship with Avril, my second wife — at that time she was my secretary at the University — and five years ago, we married.

To my surprise, Gaynor didn't like that at all. She didn't speak to me for a year. Then out of the blue, I had a call from her asking me to bring Ray out to Oldbarns, to which she had just moved, for supper.

'I did that, and we had a good time together; it was like being a family unit again, almost. This became a weekly event, until one time whenRay had flu. I called her to tell her this, but she asked me if I'd like to come anyway, on my own.'

Weston looked at the two detectives. 'You have to remember, I'd never stopped loving her. So I went out there, for dinner, on the excuse that we had to discuss Ray's schooling. Our relationship changed that night: I found myself having an affair with my ex-wife.'

'Did she regret the divorce?' asked Martin.

'No. Not for one minute. The thing about Gay, you see, was her craving for danger; yet conversely, she didn't like to feel threatened.

Futcher, the ad-man, he was married too, like me. There was that element of risk of exposure, but safety too in that the involvement was purely physical.'

'What about you? You still loved her.'

'Yes, and she loved me. But we had defined our relationship long before.'

'So there was you, and there was Futcher,' Mackie intervened.

'Was there anyone else?'

A shadow seemed to pass across Nolan Weston's face. 'There may have been,' he replied. 'She told me once that Futcher and I weren't the only arrows in her quiver. Her phrase, not mine. But she never mentioned a name.'

'Might your son have known?' asked the superintendent.

'It's possible. I'll ask him, but not tonight. He's still in shock, poor lad; as are we all, to an extent.'

'It's important, sir. If you can't, we may have to interview him ourselves.'

'No, leave him to me, please. I'll have a talk with him tomorrow morning.'

'Fair enough,' Martin agreed, 'but no later. When did he get home?'

'Last night. He has a car up in Aberdeen, but I felt happier going up to collect him myself, rather than let him make such a long drive in an emotional state.'

'You must have been fairly emotional yourself. Professor.'

'I'm a surgeon, Mr Martin. I was emotional two weeks ago, when I realised that Gay was going to die. Yesterday I felt an element of relief that she. Ray and I had been spared the weeks and months of torment which we had all faced.'

'You didn't give her the diamorphine did you. Professor?' the Head of CID asked quietly.

'No sir, I did not. To be frank with you, had she asked me for it, I think I would have done. But she didn't.'

'Just as well, then,' said Martin rising slowly to his feet. 'Thank you, Professor, for your help. Brian, give Mr Weston your number, so that he can call you directly once he's spoken to his son.' The superintendent's hand had already left his breast pocket, a business card held between the first two fingers.

Nolan Weston walked his visitors to the top of the stairs. The two policemen made their way silently down to the ground floor, through the reception area, which was much busier than it had been earlier, and outside into the cold grey afternoon.

'What did you think of him?' said Mackie, as the glass doors closed behind them.

Martin stared at him, blankly, a shocked expression on his face.

'What is it, Andy?' the superintendent asked.

'You didn't see them then?'

'Who? Where?'

'In there just now, in the waiting area. They had their backs to us, but I'd know them anywhere: Neil and Olive Mcllhenney.'