Crisis

31

Yvonne had stated that she wasn’t aware until a year after the event that Zoe had had an abortion. But Oliver had known, all right. Indeed, he had paid for the procedure four days before it had been carried out.

Do NOT inform the patient.

Perhaps Zoe really had thought the termination had been carried out for free on the NHS. Maybe she also believed that it was her secret. That’s what she’d implied to her mother: She never meant to tell anyone, ever.

Did that suggest that someone other than Zoe had told Oliver?

If so, I reckoned there were only two names in the frame — the two doctors, Andrews and Benaud.

I was once more in the Mercedes, on my way back to Newmarket.

I called Kate again.

‘Hiya,’ she said with happiness in her voice. ‘I was just thinking of you.’

‘Good,’ I replied with a laugh. ‘Could you do me another favour? Call Janie again and ask if she knows if Oliver knew either Dr Benaud, who was a GP in Newmarket seventeen years ago, or Dr Andrews, who used to run a clinic in Cambridge.’

‘The Healthy Woman clinic?’

‘Yes, but try not to tell Janie that.’

‘Dr Benaud or Dr Andrews?’

‘Yes. Gavin Andrews died about six years ago. And Benaud is spelt like Richie Benaud, the cricketer, with a silent “d” at the end. I don’t know if he’s still practising medicine or even if he’s still alive.’

‘I’ll call Janie right now.’

‘Thanks.’

Next I called ASW to bring him up to speed with what I’d found out.

He waited until I was finished before he said anything. ‘So you think you know why the horses died.’ He said it more as a statement than a question.

The horses, after all, were why we were retained by the Sheikh.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I do.’

‘And who killed them?’

‘Yes. But I probably don’t have the legally required evidence to prove it.’

‘How about the dead girl?’ he said. ‘Did the same person kill her?’

‘I believe so, yes.’

‘So what are you going to do?’

‘I’m still working on that.’

‘How about the police?’ ASW asked.

‘They will obviously need to be involved,’ I said. ‘I haven’t yet decided how or when. I have to get some hard evidence first. Everything is circumstantial.’

‘Be careful,’ he warned.

‘I will,’ I said... but just how careful? I required confirmation and perhaps the only way of getting that was to make the perpetrator show a hand.

‘Anything we can do this end?’ ASW asked.

‘Yes. Two things. First, get on to the Chancery Lane Medical Laboratory. See what you can find out about a sample sent to them from the Healthy Woman Centre in Cambridge on 8th August 2002. Specifically, did the lab do a DNA test on the sample and, if so, do they still have the results? And also did they do any other tests associated with it?’

‘Other tests?’ ASW asked.

‘For comparison.’

‘Yes, of course. Right. I’ll get on to it myself straight away. What’s the second thing?’

I hesitated, wondering if my other request would be a good idea after all.

‘Is Denzel in the office?’ I asked.

Denzel was of West Indian descent and was number 9 of the Simpson White operatives. He was our ex-special-forces man, our former Royal Marine commando, our fixer.

Denzel wasn’t his real name but a nickname he’d been given in the military due to his uncanny resemblance to the actor, Denzel Washington. But our Denzel was not just a pretty face. He was six foot four inches tall with big muscles, and he knew how to use them. Hence he got results.

‘Ask no questions, get told no lies’ was Denzel’s favourite catchphrase.

So we asked no questions.

‘He certainly is,’ ASW replied. ‘He’s kicking his heels around the office like a bear with a sore head. He’s desperate to be doing something.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘I can use him. I don’t think the laboratory is likely to play ball even if they’ve still got any results, so can you send Denzel off to Ealing to put the thumbscrews on Peter Robertson. I’d like to know how much he knows and, in particular, if he’s aware who was the father of Zoe’s aborted foetus.’

There was a slight pause from the other end as if ASW was mentally evaluating whether the possible gain of information outweighed the potential for any future legal complications.

I was not averse to attempting a touch of blackmail of my own.

‘Tell Denzel to convey most fervently to Mr Robertson that I have proof of his extortion activities and, unless he gives us what we want, I will present all the evidence not only to the police but also to the benefit authorities and the child-protection people. Then he’ll lose both his house and his kids, as well as his liberty. However, if he helps us, I will keep it all to myself.’

‘Is that possible?’ ASW asked.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But I would try my best. Either way, Peter’s little earner is about to come to a sudden and complete halt as the lever he is using will become public knowledge, one way or another. Either he tells us or he’ll have to explain his swollen bank balance to the cops.’

‘Right,’ ASW said, making a firm decision. ‘I’ll brief Denzel and send him over there immediately, but I must stipulate that he is to refrain from using any violence, especially if there are young children about.’

That’s fine, I thought. I knew that Denzel avoided violence unless it was absolutely necessary, say in self-defence. The threat of it was usually sufficient and anyway, in this case, there were more potent dangers to Peter’s welfare than just a few bruises.

‘What I’m really interested in is knowing who the father was.’

‘Got it,’ he said. ‘I’ll get back to you as soon as we have anything.’

We disconnected but my phone rang again almost immediately. I thought it was ASW calling back but it was Kate.

‘Janie didn’t know anything about Dr Benaud,’ she said. ‘But Gavin Andrews was an owner with Oliver for many years. They also used to play poker together every Tuesday evening. Janie says she remembers Oliver being quite upset when the doctor died so suddenly.’

So Oliver Chadwick and Dr Andrews had been card-playing chums.

I could just imagine the good doctor phoning up his friend to say that his thirteen-year-old daughter had turned up at the clinic asking for an abortion. And to hell with medical confidentiality. His friendship was more important.

And Oliver would have known the likely cause of the pregnancy, so he’d done what any good father would have in the circumstances: he’d paid for the termination and kept quiet about it, even from his own wife and daughter.

But he’d done more than that.

He’d asked his friend to extract a sample of the foetus and send it to a lab, almost certainly to determine the identity of the father.

What had been the outcome?

I could hazard a guess, but that was hardly hard evidence either.

I spent most of the afternoon typing up more of my report and waiting eagerly for news from Denzel in Ealing.

ASW called first to report that, as I had feared, the Chancery Lane laboratory weren’t prepared to release the results of any tests except to the patient or the patient’s doctor, not without a court order, and that was final.

‘They wouldn’t even confirm whether they still had them or not,’ ASW said. ‘I told them that the patient was now dead but it made no difference. In fact, if anything, that made things worse. In that case, they said, they would need an order from the coroner to release anything to anyone.’

Hopeless.

‘Well, thanks for trying,’ I said. ‘Let’s hope Denzel has more luck.’

But it wasn’t until after five o’clock that he finally called me.

‘Hello, Harrison, my boy,’ he said in his rich deep Caribbean voice. ‘Howya doing?’

He was the only one in the office who called me Harrison. It made me smile.

‘Fine, Denzel, thank you,’ I said. ‘Tell me your news.’

‘I went to see your man Peter Robertson.’ He chuckled. ‘He wasn’t too pleased to see me, I can tell you. Tried to close the door in my face.’ He sounded affronted. ‘Good job I had me boots on.’ He chuckled again. ‘But I eventually persuaded him to allow me in.’

I didn’t ask him how. Hence I got told no lies.

‘And?’ I asked in encouragement. ‘What happened then?’

‘He didn’t say many nice things about you,’ Denzel said with another laugh. ‘That’s for sure. Not when I told him what you’d said about child protection and such. Spitting, he was.’ He laughed once more. ‘Says he wished he’d thrown you off the walkway last Saturday afternoon. So I gently suggests that I might throw him off it instead if he doesn’t answer my questions pronto.’

‘And did he?’ I asked.

‘Not straight away, no.’ He laughed again. ‘So then I asks him if he knows what a mess his nice large-screen TV would make if I dropped it from four floors up, followed by the rest of his stuff. And you’ll never guess what.’ Another laugh, longer this time. ‘He threatens to call the Old Bill. So I says, go ahead, call them. I’m sure they’ll be dead keen to speak to a blackmailer.’

‘Where were his kids when all this was happening?’

‘In the room with us. We was talking real quiet, real low-key. The kids were engrossed watching something on TV.’

‘So you didn’t drop it, then?’

He laughed louder this time. ‘Naah, course not. But I would have if he hadn’t finally coughed up some answers.’

‘What answers did he give?’

‘Everything. Once he started there was no stopping him. Crying, he was, too. Sobbing. Said he missed his wife something rotten. Devoted to her, he said, in spite of her problems. Wished they’d never ever discovered about the bloody DNA test. Zoe was getting better until then, he said. Afterwards things went downhill again, and badly.’

‘How did they discover about the test?’

‘Seems she registered with a new doctor and he said something to her about the medical records having arrived safely from her former surgery. So she asked to see them, apparently on a whim. No proper reason. Just because she could. But she found something in them that led her to apply for more notes from that clinic you went to. And that led to the testing lab.’

Simple as that. Exactly the same route as me.

Be careful what you wish for.

Except she had obviously managed to get her results from the Chancery Lane Medical Laboratory, whereas I hadn’t.

‘So the lab did do a DNA test on the sample sent from Cambridge?’

‘Yes. Indeed they did,’ Denzel said. ‘And they sent the profile to Zoe as the patient.’

And now for the million-dollar question.

‘So who was the father?’

‘That’s the strangest thing,’ Denzel said. ‘Peter says he still doesn’t know, and I believe him.’

‘What? Why not?’

‘Because, even though he has the profile for the foetus, he has nothing to compare it with.’

Hence, I thought, he was blackmailing all the Chadwick sons, because they didn’t know either.

But Oliver knew. Of that I was certain.

There would have been no point in him going to all that trouble to obtain the DNA of the aborted foetus unless he had also acquired samples from the boys for comparison. Maybe he’d simply taken hair from their hairbrushes, or some saliva from a glass.

He’d have known all about how and where to obtain a DNA profile from his work with horses.

‘Is there anything else?’ I asked Denzel.

‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Other than the fact that Peter says that one of the Chadwick wives knew what had gone on in the past. Seems she’d been here last year and Zoe had told her.’

Arabella, I thought.

And she had killed herself, not because she believed her husband was guilty of murder, but because he was guilty of incest — something she had been told by Zoe but chose not to report. And she had remained married to him in spite of that knowledge, and everyone would now know it. That was the shame she couldn’t bear. Plus the fact that, due to her keeping quiet, Zoe had ended up dead.

Kate came to the hotel after her work as I was busy looking up some things on the internet.

We sat at one of the garden tables in the warm late-afternoon sunshine, having first a cup of tea, quickly followed by a glass each of chilled white wine.

‘So, have you solved the mystery?’ she asked.

‘I may have,’ I said.

She rubbed her hands together excitedly. ‘Do tell.’

I looked around us. There were people at some of the other garden tables.

‘Not here,’ I said. ‘Later. In private.’

She seemed disappointed and leaned closer towards me.

‘Just speak quietly. No one else will hear.’

But before I could say anything, my phone rang. It was Declan and he was in something of a panic.

‘Harry,’ he said. ‘We’ve had a bit of a disaster. One of the Sheikh’s fillies has got cast in her box.’

‘Cast?’

‘Stuck down with its legs under it and jammed into the base of the wall. It’s rare but it happens sometimes. Just one of those things.’

‘So what’s the disaster?’ I asked.

‘Horses tend to panic and they lash out with any leg they can still move. The filly has done this and I fear she’s broken her fetlock.’

‘How bad is that?’

‘It could be terminal,’ he said. ‘I’ve sent for the vet and put the knacker on standby.’

Just what the Sheikh didn’t need after two deaths already.

‘Could you come and see?’ Declan said.

‘Do I have to?’ I asked.

‘I think so, yes,’ he said. ‘It will have to be your decision to put her down or not.’

‘Won’t the vet decide?’

‘Maybe, but I’d prefer it if you were here to listen to what he has to say. He may be able to set the fetlock and put it in plaster. Even if she couldn’t race, she could still be a brood mare in time. Her breeding’s not bad.’

‘All right,’ I said reluctantly. ‘I’ll be there shortly.’

‘Thanks.’

He hung up.

‘Problems?’ Kate said.

‘One of the Sheikh’s horses has got cast in its box and has apparently broken a fetlock.’

I wasn’t quite sure what a fetlock was but it had to be somewhere on its leg.

‘Oh dear,’ Kate said. ‘That’s awful. It happened to a young colt in one of our boxes a couple of years ago.’

‘What happened to it?’ I asked.

‘It had to be euthanised. We were all very upset in the office.’

‘I’d better get on over to Declan’s. Will you wait for me here?’

‘Can’t I come with you?’

‘No.’ I said it rather more sharply than I had meant to.

‘Why not?’ she sounded pained.

‘I don’t want it to upset you again if the horse has to be put down.’

‘Well, at least let me drive you there,’ she said. ‘I’ll wait outside in the car.’

I smiled at her. ‘That would be great. I’ll just get my jacket. I’d better be smart if I’m representing Sheikh Karim.’

Kate drove me round to Hamilton Road in her Mini.

‘It’ll soon be warm enough to have the top down,’ Kate said. ‘I love the summer.’

‘Park on the road,’ I said.

Kate looked at me.

‘I’ll walk through to the yard.’

Kate pulled up near the yard entrance and I climbed out of the Mini but leaned down to talk to her through the open window.

‘Stay here,’ I said. ‘Lock the car doors and don’t come in under any circumstances. If I’m not back in thirty minutes, call the police.’

She suddenly looked very frightened. ‘Why?’

I smiled at her. ‘Just a precaution,’ I said. ‘Last time I went into a Chadwick yard I ended up being shut in a stable with a mad horse. I’m not keen on repeating the performance.’

‘Then don’t go in,’ she said with a degree of panic in her voice.

‘I’m sure it’ll be fine,’ I said.

She wasn’t much reassured.

‘Please let me come with you.’ She was pleading now.

‘No,’ I said resolutely. ‘Promise me you will stay right here.’

She said nothing.

‘Promise me,’ I said again, quite sternly.

‘All right,’ she replied. ‘I promise, but I don’t like it.’

‘I won’t be long. Back before you know it.’ I smiled at her again but she was far too worried to smile back.

I walked in through the yard entrance but, as another precaution, I dialled DCI Eastwood’s mobile number. He answered at the second ring.

‘Hello, Chief Inspector,’ I said. ‘I may have some information that might be helpful to you in the case.’

‘What sort of information?’ he asked.

‘I’d rather not talk about it at the moment. I’m just arriving at Declan Chadwick’s stable yard. He tells me that one of Sheikh Karim’s horses has been injured and might need to be put down.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘But if you hold on I could speak to you later.’

I explained what I wanted.

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I’ll be here.’

I put my phone carefully into the breast pocket of my jacket and walked into the yard.

Declan was waiting for me.

‘Ah, there you are, Harry,’ he said. ‘This way.’

He walked off and I followed.

‘Is the vet here?’ I asked.

‘Not yet. He’s on his way. I’ve left one of the lads with the horse.’

I looked around. Everywhere was quiet.

‘Have evening stables finished?’ I asked.

‘Always done by six o’clock. Impossible to get staff to stay any later these days. But I go around again after, just to check.’

‘To make sure none are down and cast?’ I asked.

He glanced at me. ‘Exactly.’

We walked on.

‘Oh, by the way,’ I said. ‘I have some good news for you. The police tell me that they have CCTV footage of Zoe catching the train at Newmarket on Sunday afternoon.’

‘That is good news,’ Declan said. ‘I told you so.’

We came to one of the stables where the door was wide open.

‘In here,’ Declan said, standing to one side to allow me to go in first.

There was no mad horse waiting for me inside. Indeed, there was no horse at all, nor any of the stable lads.

Only the Chadwick men, en masse.

Oliver, Ryan and Tony, with Declan coming in behind me and pulling the door shut.

‘What’s this?’ I said with a laugh. ‘Gunfight at the OK Corral?’

None of the four laughed back.