Tangled Web

One

Dr Tom Gordon looked down from the top of the hill behind Felinbach, the small North Wales coastal village that had become his home over the past two years. Out in the Menai Strait, the wintry sun was setting over Anglesey and a clear sky suggested that there might be a frost tonight but it was fast approaching the middle of March so he took comfort from the thought that spring could not be far away.

Weather was an important factor in the life of a GP in rural North Wales and he felt he’d just about had enough of coaxing his Land Rover over icy roads and up snow-covered mountain tracks for one year. Today it had taken him longer that he had anticipated to get through his outlying calls because of a sudden fall of snow on the Llanberis pass, but he had still managed to complete his list and get back on time for evening surgery. Not that this would have been a major problem because his colleague and senior partner, Dr Julie Rees, herself a native of Snowdonia, understood the vagaries of travel on local roads in winter only too well: she would be ready to cope on her own if need be.

The sun was now very low and its glow was reflected off the calm sea, bathing the village below in a pleasing orange light. Felinbach was home to some fifteen hundred inhabitants who lived in a variety of houses clinging to the steep hillside leading down to the harbour. Main Street boasted six shops and two pubs — one at either end — and a third pub nestled down by the harbour wall next to the yacht chandlers. There were two bus stops on Main Street, one on either side depending on whether you wanted to go to Caernarfon in one direction or Bangor in the other.

The village had a primary school, two churches and a chapel, all of them built in Victorian times. In fact, the sepia-tint photograph of the village, displayed in the post office window and taken in 1898, showed Main Street pretty much as it looked today apart from the lampposts. The harbour area however, had changed out of all recognition in recent times, with the construction of a modern marina to accommodate the smart yachts belonging to wealthy visitors. Where once, grimy barges had filled their holds with slate from Welsh quarries, sleek catamarans with quirky names now nestled in safety while their owners enjoyed the hospitality and laundry facilities of the local yacht club.

A white baker’s van drew up alongside Gordon’s vehicle and a plump, red-faced man wound down his window to ask, ‘Everything all right, Doc?’

‘Fine thanks, Glyn,’ replied Gordon. ‘Just stopped to enjoy the view for a couple of minutes.

‘You’d be hard pushed to find a better one,’ agreed Glyn Morris, the local baker.

‘Outside of Scotland, that is,’ said Gordon, tongue in cheek.

‘Oh, I’d quite forgotten you were a Scot,’ exclaimed Morris with a smile. ‘You’ve been here a while now.’

‘Two and a half years,’ the young GP told him.

‘Can’t be that bad then?’

Gordon answered with a grin and Morris put his van into gear. ‘See you around, Doc.’

Gordon wound up his own window and prepared to move off. He supposed what Morris had said was true. It couldn’t have been ‘that bad’ or he wouldn’t have stayed so long. But was that entirely true he wondered? People often imagined that they did things out of personal choice when that was rarely the case in his view. Most people tended to move with the flow of events in and around their lives. People singing the pub anthem, ‘My Way’ were taking harmless liberties with the truth. Doing things the government’s way, the family’s way, society’s way or even the Church’s way, was usually a much more realistic appraisal.

Gordon had originally come to Felinbach to work as a locum in general practice after the trauma of divorce back home in Edinburgh. He had seen the advert for the job in the British Medical Journal and it had come up at a time when he had felt the need to be away from the trappings of his old life. He wanted to take a look at things from a distance before even thinking about making any plans for the future. North Wales had seemed like a good idea at the time.

The fact that he was still here over two years later was down to changing circumstance. He’d only been at the practice for four months when the senior partner, Dr Glyn Williams, the man who’d taken him on in the first place to help smooth his own passage into semi-retirement, had collapsed and died. Dr Julie Rees, his married daughter, had taken over the running of her father’s practice and had surprised him by offering him a full partnership if he agreed to stay on. He in turn had surprised her by agreeing almost without a second thought.

He supposed on reflection that there might have been an element of not having quite got over the pain of divorce at the time but on the other hand he had been sure that he liked Julie and felt they’d get on, as indeed they had. He also liked the village and loved the area with its breathtaking scenery. He’d come to love the mountains of Snowdonia as much as he used to love the Cairngorms and the Cuillins of home. In many ways North Wales was like Scotland in miniature. Only the great tracts of featureless moorland were missing, a blessing that rendered everything more accessible.

At the age of thirty-two, he supposed he should be thinking more about the future than he actually did but there was a certain comfort to be had from just living each day as it came. Realistically, it would be very difficult for him to return to hospital medicine after having been away for such a long time: the competition for jobs was so fierce. He had more or less resigned himself to a career in general practice but this was no great problem; he enjoyed it a lot.

There was no serious love interest in his life at the moment but mainly because he didn’t want there to be. He had enjoyed an occasional dalliance with discrete young ladies in the area and hoped that he might do so again but the scars left by his divorce made him steer well clear of anything resembling commitment. Besides, thirty-two wasn’t old; there was no need for him to rush into anything. He was six feet tall, athletic and blessed with looks and a quiet charm that women found attractive. They tended to seek him out rather than the other way around. This of course, in a small community, held certain dangers in that many of them were liable to be his patients. It was something he was acutely aware of and constantly on guard against.

Felinbach Medical Centre was situated in a small side street to the north of Main Street and stood next door but one to the Methodist chapel. It stood on the corner of a hill that led down to the marina. The only thing modern about it was the sign designating it a ‘medical centre’ when everyone still knew it as the ‘surgery’. Like the other buildings around here, it was built of Victorian stone, darkened by time and the elements, although it did have a concrete extension built onto the back, something that had been added in the sixties.

Gordon parked his Land Rover in the space next to Julie’s Vauxhall Frontera and entered the building. A pleasing warmth engulfed him and he saw that Julie had lit the butane gas heater in the hallway to augment a central heating system that often created more noise than it did heat. He could see that Julie already had a patient with her so he did not announce his return but instead, looked into the waiting room where he found some eight people sitting there, reading magazines of varying antiquity. He smiled and said, good evening before going along to his room in the concrete extension and taking his coat off. He settled himself behind his desk and pressed the buzzer to summon his first patient.

A small woman, dressed entirely in black came through the door and gave a half-hearted smile as she sat down. The wrinkles on her face spoke of a life that had been none too easy.

‘Mrs Lloyd, isn’t it?’ said Gordon. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I’m not sleeping, Doctor. I thought maybe you could give me something?’

‘Nothing easier,’ agreed Gordon then he leaned forward on the desk and said, ‘Any idea why you’re not sleeping?’

‘A lot on my mind, I suppose,’ replied the woman uncertainly.

‘It must be over a year now since Owen died?’ said Gordon gently, remembering that her husband had died of cancer.

The old woman nodded. ‘On the third of last month.’

‘And the boys, do you see much of them these days?’

‘It’s difficult for them. They’ve got jobs and families and it’s such a long way to come up here from Swansea.’

Gordon nodded. He didn’t say anything: he wanted the woman to continue speaking. Instead, she started to cry. Gordon got out of his seat and came round the desk to put an arm round her shoulders. ‘There, there now. Why don’t you tell me all about it? What’s really troubling you?’

‘It’s stupid, Doctor. I can see it is but I just can’t seem to help myself.’

‘What is?’

‘Thomas. He died a month ago and I just can’t stop thinking about him. I know it’s stupid, he was only a cat, but...’

‘It’s not stupid at all,’ said Gordon kindly. He was your cat and you loved him. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.’

The old woman’s shoulders heaved as she sobbed into her handkerchief. Gordon returned to his side of the desk and took out his prescription pad. ‘I’ll give you something to help you sleep but only for a few nights then I’d like you to consider something else.’

The woman sniffed and pocketed her handkerchief. ‘What’s that, Doctor?’

‘Thomas doesn’t need you any more,’ said Gordon. ‘He’s had his time and now he’s gone. He doesn’t need the care and love you gave him but I suspect a lot of other cats out there do. I think you should at least consider getting another one.’

‘I don’t think I could... not after Thomas.’

‘Just think about it. You don’t have to rush into anything and don’t think of it as a replacement for Thomas. It will be a new cat with a different personality and problems of its own. Promise me you’ll consider it?’

The woman managed a small smile and said that she would. Gordon showed her to the door and pressed the buzzer for the next patient. A man with chronic bronchitis, a retired miner, came in to be given a repeat prescription for antibiotics. He was followed in turn by a middle-aged woman who wanted information about hormone replacement therapy: her sister over in Bangor swore by it. An elderly man with a lump on his elbow was given assurance that it was nothing serious and a younger man with recurrent stomach pains was given something for the pain but referred to Caernarfon General Hospital for further investigation.

Gordon thought he had seen the last of the evening’s patients when a stocky young man with closely clipped fair hair knocked and came into the room. ‘Dr Gordon? DS Walters, sir, North Wales Police, I need to talk to you.’

Gordon invited him to sit. ‘What can I do for you, Sergeant?’

‘I understand that you are John and Lucy Palmer’s GP sir?’

‘I am,’ agreed Gordon, a note of concern creeping into his voice. ‘They’re also good friends of mine. What’s wrong?’

‘It’s their daughter sir, she’s gone missing.’

‘Anne-Marie missing?’ exclaimed Gordon. ‘How can she go missing? She’s only three months old.’

‘She appears to have been kidnapped sir.’

‘Kidnapped! Who’d want to kidnap the Palmer baby for God’s sake?’

‘That’s what we’re trying to establish at the moment, sir. Money’s rarely a motive in cases like this so, although we’re keeping an open mind, we’re not thinking along the lines of kidnap for ransom. We were wondering more if perhaps you or your colleague might know of any woman in the area who’s recently lost a baby... or suffered some kind of upset that might have led to her into taking someone else’s baby?’

‘I see,’ said Gordon, accepting that this would be a more likely scenario. He thought for a moment before saying, ‘No one springs immediately to mind but we’d better ask Julie when she’s through with evening surgery. She should be finished any time now. When did all this happen?

‘This afternoon sir.’

‘In broad daylight? What were John and Lucy doing?’

‘I believe they were building a snowman. Mrs Palmer had put the baby down for an afternoon nap. When she went to wake her up, the bedroom window was open and the baby had gone.’

‘My God, they must be beside themselves with worry,’ said Gordon. ‘I’d better get over there, see what I can do.’

‘There’s a WPC with Mrs Palmer at the moment, sir but you’re right, the couple are pretty upset. She’s their only child I believe?’

Gordon nodded. ‘Have you got anything to go on at all?’ he asked.

‘To be quite honest sir, not at the moment, but Detective Chief Inspector Davies is with the couple, searching for possible motives. Frankly, once money and malicious grudges have been ruled out there’s not much left: we’ll be looking at a disturbed mind, I’m afraid.’

A knock came to the door and Julie Rees put her head round. ‘Sorry, I didn’t realise you had someone with you,’ she said.’

‘Come in, Julie, we’ve been waiting for you’ said Gordon. ‘This is Detective Sergeant Walters of the North Wales Police. The Palmer baby has gone missing and it looks like she’s been kidnapped.’

‘Julie Rees, an attractive woman in her early forties, smartly dressed in dark green sweater and skirt and still with her stethoscope slung round her neck, looked shocked. ‘Good Lord,’ she exclaimed as she stepped into the room. ‘Where from? How did it happen?’

Gordon let Walters tell her what had happened before saying, ‘The police are thinking along the lines of a disturbed, would-be mother having snatched him for herself. What d’you think? Do we know anyone like that?’

Julie considered for a few moments before saying, ‘I can think of two ladies in the area who’ve had miscarriages recently and there’s been a cot death baby, but honestly I don’t see any of them doing anything like this. That doesn’t mean to say that they weren’t very upset of course, particularly Mrs Griffiths, the cot death mother — it was such a tragic thing to happen — but we’re talking about grief here not psychiatric disorder. Apart from that, all three ladies have supportive husbands and stable homes. Why the Palmer baby? It doesn’t make any sense.’

‘I know,’ agreed Gordon.

‘Why not the Palmer baby?’ asked Walters, wondering whether he was missing something.

Julie and Gordon looked at each other. ‘You don’t know?’ said Gordon.

‘Know what?’

‘Anne-Marie Palmer is quite badly disabled.’

Walters gave a low whistle. ‘I didn’t know that,’ he said. ‘The parents didn’t mention it.’

‘She’s a much-loved baby,’ said Gordon, not liking what he thought might be going through Walters’ mind.

‘Of course, sir,’ said Walters backing off slightly. He turned to Julie. ‘I wonder if I might just get a note of the names and addresses of the ladies you mentioned, Doctor Rees?’

‘Of course,’ shrugged Julie. ‘But I really think you’ll be barking up the wrong tree.’

‘It’ll just be a routine check, Doctor. We have to begin somewhere. It’s what DCI Davies terms, dotting our “i”s and crossing our “t”s — doing all the routine things so that no one can accuse us later of not having done them. I should think it’s probably the same in your job? You carry out a whole series of tests just so no one can say you didn’t do them, so you do them on autopilot while you consider what’s really wrong with your patient.’

Gordon nodded his agreement with a smile.

Perhaps the kidnapper didn’t know about Anne-Marie’s disability when he or she took her,’ suggested Julie.

‘I suppose that’s possible,’ agreed Walters but she was taken from home. It wasn’t as if she was snatched from a nursery or from her pram outside a supermarket in a shopping mall.’

Gordon felt depressed at the observation. The idea that someone had targeted the Palmer’s baby specifically for abduction seemed hard to fathom. The lurking suspicion in the air of a more sinister explanation for the baby’s disappearance made him want to help redress the balance. ‘The Palmers have been trying for years to have children,’ he said. ‘It was what they wanted above all else; they kept on trying against all the odds.’

‘All the odds, sir?’

‘Mrs Palmer couldn’t conceive in the normal fashion,’ said Gordon, choosing to ignore the warning look from Julie. Doctor/patient confidentiality was important but so was common sense. ‘The details don’t concern you, Sergeant,’ he continued, as a sop to Julie’s unease, ‘but she and her husband persisted over several years with specialised help from various clinics. They had setback after setback but still they kept on trying. In the end their baby was conceived through in vitro fertilisation carried out in Professor Carwyn Thomas’s unit at Caernarfon General Hospital.’

‘A famous clinic,’ said Walters.

‘And rightly so. It’s helped more childless couples than practically any other unit in the country bar Robert Winston’s.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘The point is,’ continued Gordon. ‘That if you go to all that trouble to have children, Sergeant, you really want to have them.’

‘But,’ said Walters, diverting his gaze for a moment, ‘It must have been a terrible disappointment for them when their child was born with problems.’

‘It was,’ agreed Gordon quietly. ‘It was a bloody shame.’

‘And so bloody unfair by the sound of it,’ agreed Walters. ‘After all they’d been through. How did the couple take it?’

Gordon’s spirits sank again as he saw where this line of questioning leading. ‘Not well,’ he confessed.

Walters remained silent but obviously expected more.

‘The baby’s condition came as a terrible shock to them, naturally.’

‘They hadn’t been warned beforehand?’ exclaimed Walters.

Gordon shook his head. ‘The pre-natal scans didn’t pick up on the problem, I’m afraid.’

‘What exactly was the problem, sir?’ asked Walters, leaning forward in his seat.

‘The bones in Anne Marie’s legs didn’t develop properly; in fact, they didn’t really develop at all. Her lower limbs were useless.’

Walters grimaced.

‘Surgical intervention was required to save her life.’

‘Intervention, sir?’

‘They had to amputate her legs.’

‘I see,’ said Walters. ‘Must have been awful for the parents.’

‘Lucy rejected her baby when she first saw it, quite natural in the circumstances, I think.’

‘And Mr Palmer?’

‘John must have found it difficult too, but he didn’t show it; he was a tower of strength to Lucy throughout.’

Walters nodded.

‘It was only a short-term problem, I assure you,’ insisted Gordon. ‘They both came to terms with the situation quite quickly and now they love their baby as much as any other couple I know.’

‘I see sir, well, thanks for your help. I’d better report back to DCI Davies. He’ll be wondering where I’ve got to.’

And very interested in what you have to tell him, thought Gordon. He was left with an uncomfortable feeling inside of him.

Walters left and Julie said thoughtfully, ‘Well, what d’you think?’

‘Just what I told him,’ said Gordon, slightly annoyed at the question. ‘I know that the Palmers love their baby; if they say that Anne-Marie’s been kidnapped then that’s exactly what’s happened. And you? What do you think?’

‘I don’t know them well enough,’ replied Julie guardedly. ‘They were Dad’s patients and then they became yours but it does seem odd that anyone would snatch Anne-Marie from home like that...’

‘I’d better get over to the house,’ said Gordon. He was anxious for the conversation to end.

The Palmers lived in a comfortable modern villa on a small, private housing development, just outside Felinbach on the way to Caernarfon. Although the snow had started to melt on the main road, Gordon was glad of the Land Rover’s four-wheel drive as he coaxed it up the steep hill leading to the estate. He parked it in front of the Palmer’s house, behind the two police cars that were already sitting there, and walked up the path. As he did so, the front door opened and two men emerged: one was DS Walters who introduced him to the other man, Detective Chief Inspector Davies.

‘Well, Doctor, ‘said Davies. ‘I think Mrs Palmer could do with some medical help. She’s a very distraught lady.’

Gordon had the distinct impression that Davies had said this in order to measure his reaction. He looked directly back at the man and thought he knew the type, physically big, a bit of a bully who probably thought he was a lot brighter than he actually was, an illusion reinforced by his position of authority.

‘I’m not surprised,’ said Gordon. ‘Have you anything to go on at all, Chief Inspector?’

‘We’re currently checking out the ladies your colleague mentioned to the sergeant here although, bearing in mind what she said, we’re not too hopeful. We’re also in the process of asking the hospitals if they’ve had any dealings with likely candidates for child abduction in the last few weeks. Apart from that, our lines of investigation are somewhat limited. Do you have any ideas yourself, Doctor?

There it was again, the appraising gaze. ‘Absolutely none at all,’ replied Gordon, shaking his head. ‘I suppose my fear...’ He broke off.

‘Yes, Doctor?’

‘It was something your sergeant said,’ confessed Gordon. ‘I was going to say my great fear is that Anne-Marie has been taken away by someone with a deranged mind.’

‘A real nutter, you mean’ said Davies. ‘A psycho, not just some woman who thinks she’s found a new doll to play with and will look after it until we find her alive and well-cared for as is usually the case with missing babies?’

‘Yes,’ agreed Gordon reluctantly, ‘A real nutter.’

‘God forbid. Such people are notoriously difficult to trace because neither rhyme nor reason comes into their thinking. Motive is usually non-existent or so convoluted as to be beyond normal comprehension,’ said Davies. ‘Happily, such people are far fewer on the ground than many of the papers would have us believe, Doctor. Chances are, that’s not what we’re dealing with here.’

‘In that case, I hope you find her soon,’ said Gordon. ‘I’d better see to my patients.’ He squeezed past, feeling uncomfortable in Davies’s presence, although he recognised that it wasn’t entirely the policeman’s fault. There was an element of conflict going on inside his own head that was contributing to his unease.

‘Tom! Good of you to come,’ said a relieved sounding John Palmer, getting up when Gordon entered the room. A woman police constable was sitting on the couch with Lucy who looked up and smiled wanly. ‘Hello Tom,’ she whispered.

‘This is a nightmare,’ said Gordon, ‘but I’m sure the police will find her soon and bring her back unharmed.’

‘I hope to God you’re right,’ said John Palmer. ‘Why on earth would anyone do this? It’s like some kind of sick punishment. We wait for years to have a baby then we get one only to have her taken away like this...’ Palmer broke down, putting his hands to his face to hide his silent sobs, only his shoulders gave him away.

Gordon ushered him to a chair. ‘You both need some help to get you through this,’ he said. ‘So no protests please, there’s nothing noble about unnecessary suffering. Just take the sedatives I’m going to prescribe for you and think positive thoughts. The police will pull out all the stops. They’ll find her.’