Tangled Web

Thirty

‘What do you suggest?’ asked Le Clerc.

‘I’m trying to imagine what the Trools must be thinking right now,’ said Gordon. ‘They’ve had a visit from the French police, which must have shaken them, but from what you’ve said, you just asked a few routine questions and then went away again, apparently satisfied with what they’d told you. They don’t know anything about us being here or of the conversation we’ve just had.’

‘So?’

‘I’m hoping there’s a real chance they will have seen no reason to change their plans and the operation will stay scheduled to go ahead in two days time. That being the case, I think if your men were to keep watch on the hotel and follow the Trools whenever they go out, it’s my guess they’ll lead you to where Anne-Marie is being held.’

‘That makes sense,’ agreed Le Clerc.

‘What sort of place do you think they’ll be holding her in?’ asked Mary.

‘It really has to be a hospital or possibly another clinic,’ said Gordon. ‘Under deep sedation probably — to simulate coma conditions. Then when they’re ready, they’ll bring the coma to a fatal conclusion and bingo! They’ll have their donor.’

‘But that is outrageous!’ said Balard. ‘There is no question of my permitting such an operation to be carried out in this clinic. I will telephone these people and make it clear that there is absolutely no point in going ahead.’

Gordon shook his head and said, ‘You mustn’t do that, Doctor. You’d just be telling them that they’d been found out, in which case they would almost certainly kill Anne-Marie and dispose of her body to save their own skins.’

‘Doctor Gordon is right,’ said Le Clerc heavily. ‘It would be better if you were to behave as if nothing were wrong should they phone or come here in person.’

‘Presumably they will come to visit their daughter?’ said Mary.

‘Good point,’ said Gordon.

‘Very well,’ agreed Balard.

‘And don’t say anything at all about this to any member of staff,’ Le Clerc ordered. ‘Just so they behave normally too. In the meantime, I will see that a watch is mounted on the hotel. He turned to Gordon and Mary and asked, ‘Where will you be staying, Doctors?’

Gordon looked at Mary, realising that it was something they hadn’t considered at all. ‘I’m not at all sure,’ he said, feeling stupid. ‘We came straight here.’

‘In the circumstances,’ said Balard, ‘You are both welcome to stay overnight here at the clinic. We have guest rooms for relatives of our patients.’

Gordon and Mary accepted the offer with heartfelt thanks.

‘Good, then I’ll know where to find you,’ said Le Clerc approvingly.

The policeman left and Gordon and Mary were shown to adjoining rooms on the third floor of the clinic. It had started to rain outside and puddles of water were reflecting the lights of the traffic as Mary came back through to join Gordon in looking out of the window. ‘We’re going to need some toilet things,’ she yawned. Her night duty and today’s mad journeyings were catching up with her. ‘Maybe we can find a supermarket open?’

Gordon seemed very distant. Mary asked him what was wrong.

‘I’m having second thoughts,’ Gordon confessed. ‘I’m thinking that maybe I’ve underestimated Trool: maybe he will change his plans in the light of the police visit.’

‘How so?’

Still looking out of the window, Gordon said, ‘The police may have spooked him into doing something earlier than he’d planned.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like getting rid of Anne-Marie.’

‘But he’s so close to the operation,’ she protested. ‘All this planning, all this waiting... Surely he’ll keep his nerve!’

‘All he needs are her eyes,’ said Gordon. It sounded brutal and it shocked Mary.

She looked at him in horror. ‘You mean he’ll remove her eyes and then get rid of her body as a precaution?’

Gordon swallowed and said, ‘That has to be the plan in the long run anyway. The police may just have persuaded him to do it sooner rather than later.’

‘But surely the eyes alone will be proof of his guilt,’ exclaimed Mary.

Gordon shook his head and said, ‘I think not. By any scientific criterion the eyes are his daughter’s own eyes. Anne-Marie is a clone, remember.’

‘My God, do you think he could actually get away with it?’ exclaimed Mary.

‘He could pretend that he’d managed to clone his daughter’s eye tissue in vitro and grown it up in the lab.’

‘But I thought that was impossible?’

‘It is but he could claim a breakthrough. Without the existence of Anne-Marie as evidence, no one could prove otherwise.’

The phone rang and Mary picked it up. After a brief conversation in French she put the phone back down and said, ‘That was Inspector Le Clerc. The Trools checked out of the hotel about an hour before the police got there. They did not leave a forwarding address.’

‘Oh shit!’ Gordon’s worst fears seemed to be about to come true. ‘Did he say what they’re doing about it?’

‘Just that they were doing their best to find them.’

Gordon started to pace nervously. ‘We’re going to be too late,’ he muttered. ‘Too damned late.’

Mary could think of nothing positive to say. There was nothing they could do as far as she could see, but enforced inaction was not going to make the waiting any easier. ‘Maybe we could start ringing round all the hospitals and clinics in Paris?’ she suggested, but her voice faltered as it occurred to her just how many of them there must be. ‘Maybe not,’ she conceded. The suggestion however, triggered off another thought and she said, ‘But we could ask their hotel!’

‘Ask them what?’

‘Ask them if the Trools made any telephone calls while they were staying there. Surely they must have called this other clinic at some time?’

‘Brilliant!’ said Gordon. ‘But we’d better get the police to do it; the hotel won’t give out that kind of information to us. You call them; your French is a lot better than mine.’

He stood by anxiously while Mary called the police and asked to be put through to Le Clerc. He watched her expression change from excitement to disappointment. She put down the phone and said dejectedly, ‘They already thought of that. The Trools did not use the hotel phone at all.’

‘Damnation,’ said Gordon. ‘But it was still a good idea. Try to come up with another one!’

The pair of them sat fidgeting, willing the phone to ring and bring them news, while outside the rain beat against the window. It was to be another thirty minutes before the phone did ring but even then, it wasn’t the police with more news; it was Dr Balard.

‘Mrs Trool has just arrived to visit her daughter,’ he announced in an exited whisper.

Gordon’s throat tightened and he felt the beginnings of a cold sweat break out on his forehead. ‘We must speak to her,’ he said. ‘Can you arrange it?’

‘Come down and wait in my room. I’ll see to it that she comes here before she leaves the clinic.’

‘We’ll be right down. You’ll inform the police?’

‘Of course.’

Gordon turned to Mary and said, ‘Sonia Trool is here to see her daughter. We can’t afford to just let her walk away. We must try to find out from her where they’re holding Anne-Marie.’

‘Something tells me that isn’t going to be easy,’ said Mary.

‘It might be our only chance,’ said Gordon.

Gordon and Mary waited for over forty minutes in Balard’s office before voices outside the door told them that Sonia Trool was about to be shown in. Balard indicated that they stand against the back wall to the side of the door and they did so before a knock came and Balard said, ‘Come in.’

‘You wanted to see me, Doctor?’ asked Sonia Trool as she came in, confident and looking as elegant as ever.

‘Actually, we did,’ said Gordon, pushing the door closed and standing in front of it. Sonia turned and looked shocked but only for a moment. She smiled and said, ‘Dr Gordon, what a surprise. What brings you here?’

‘This is Dr Hallam from Ysbyty Gwynedd in Wales; we’ve come here to take Anne-Marie Palmer back home with us. Where is she?’

‘I’m not sure I know what you are talking about, Doctor. Wasn’t Anne-Marie Palmer the baby who was murdered by her father back in Wales?’

‘No, she’s the baby you and your husband paid Ranulph Dawes to clone so that your child could have her sight restored,’ said Gordon. ‘Now, where is she?’

‘This is bizarre,’ protested Sonia. ‘I’ve never heard such nonsense in all my life.’ She made a move towards the door but Gordon blocked her way.

‘Let me past,’ she demanded.

‘Where, Sonia?’

‘Dr Balard, would you please call the police!’ said Sonia.

‘They are already on their way, Madam,’ replied Balard, ill at ease with what was going on in front of him.’

His reply brought another little flicker of uncertainty from Sonia but again she recovered well and said, ‘Good, then I’ll be able to have these people charged with keeping me here against my will.’

‘Do you deny that your child is here to have her sight restored?’ Gordon asked her.

‘Of course I don’t deny it,’ retorted Sonia. ‘A donor has become available and tissue is being flown in.’

‘From where?’

‘I didn’t ask,’ replied Sonia. ‘I... find that sort of thing just too upsetting.’

‘And you are such a sensitive soul, Sonia,’ said Gordon.

Sonia’s eyes flashed with anger.

‘Where’s James?’

‘Mind your own business,’ snapped Sonia.’

The police arrived and Le Clerc came into the room.

‘Inspector, these people are harassing me. I wish to leave,’ said Sonia, making a move towards the door but finding her way still blocked, this time by Le Clerc as well as Gordon.

‘Not just yet, Madam,’ said Le Clerc. ‘I need you to answer a few more questions for me.’

‘She won’t say where they’re holding the child or where her husband is,’ said Gordon.

‘Then perhaps you would be kind enough to empty out your handbag, Madam,’ requested Le Clerc politely.

‘This is outrageous,’ stormed Sonia, who looked for a moment as though she might explode but on seeing that Le Clerc seemed less than impressed with her histrionics, she capitulated quietly and emptied her bag out on Balard’s desk.

Le Clerc sifted through the contents that comprised mainly make-up items and paper tissues from what Gordon could see from his sentry position in front of the door. ‘No cards, no notebook,’ said Le Clerc.

‘But a mobile phone,’ said Mary.

Le Clerc looked at her and smiled. He picked up Sonia’s phone and started to check the call register as Sonia’s face began to register panic. Le Clerc muttered to himself, ‘UK, UK, UK... France.’ He pressed the call button and put the phone to his ear. He listened to the reply without saying anything then he switched the phone off. Still without saying anything, he took out his own phone and said into it, ‘Get me the address of the Clinique Martin, will you?’

Sonia collapsed down on to a chair in front of Balard’s desk and started sobbing loudly. ‘Le Clerc said to Gordon and Mary, ‘Let’s go. We can get the information in the car.’

As they left the room, the gendarme who had been stationed outside was sent in to take charge of Sonia Trool. Gordon and Mary got into the back of Le Clerc’s car while he and the driver sat in the front, waiting for the address of the clinic. It seemed unnaturally silent, apart from the sound of rain on the roof and the driver’s fingers drumming quietly on the steering wheel. Thirty seconds later the information came through and Le Clerc snapped, ‘Rue Dauphine!’

The silence changed in an instant as the car’s klaxon filled the air and flashing lights cleared the way ahead as the car leapt forward to start carving its way north through the evening traffic. Mary had to close her eyes on several occasions when the driver seemed to head for gaps that weren’t there in her view but always — and usually at the last moment, one opened up. When they were racing up the Boulevard San Michel, the driver asked Le Clerc, ‘Which end of Dauphine?’

‘Nearest the river,’ replied Le Clerc, who had been seeking the information on his radio. They reached the head of San Michel and turned west along by the river to finally enter Rue Dauphine on their left. The car drew to a halt outside the brightly-lit entrance to the Clinique Martin, its sign illuminated above its ambulance bay and flanked by two red crosses. It was clearly a much larger clinic than the St Pierre and larger than many small hospitals back home, thought Gordon.

They all went in together. The reception desk was staffed by two young ladies wearing smart maroon uniforms with their names displayed on enamel badges and with a red cross nestling below angel wings on their collar. Le Clerc did the talking after showing his ID to each in turn. He asked about Trool and was rewarded with what sounded to Gordon like a comprehensive reply. He didn’t catch all of it but Mary did and she whispered to him, ‘Trool is here... he’s with his patient who has been in a coma and is now close to death. He can’t possibly be disturbed at this time... his patient’s life is hanging in the balance... A theatre has been prepared in case Dr Trool feels there is a chance that an operation might save her life...’

Le Clerc turned to Gordon, uncertain of his ground and feeling ill equipped to make any kind of judgement on his own.

‘We have to stop him,’ said Gordon. ‘Right now!’

Le Clerc turned back to the receptionists and demanded to know Trool’s whereabouts in the hospital.

‘Third floor, room 316.’

Le Clerc turned on his heel and made for the elevators with Gordon and Mary hard on his heels.

‘C’mon... c’mon!’ urged Gordon as he watched the floor indicator fall with painful slowness. Even the doors seemed to take an age to slide back when the elevator finally arrived.

The arrows on the wall immediately opposite the doors as they stepped out on the third floor pointed to the right for 316 and with Le Clerc in the lead, they all hurried along the thirty metres or so to the room. Le Clerc and Gordon listened outside the door for a moment. They heard Trool’s voice saying calmly, ‘She’s fading fast — warn the theatre team to expect us in ten minutes.’

Le Clerc opened the door and stepped into the room. He said to the nurse who had just lifted the telephone, ‘Don’t bother. Other arrangements are being made for your patient.’

Trool got up from the bedside, his eyes wide with astonishment. He was wearing surgical greens with a mask slung round his neck. Anne-Marie lay unconscious with tubes inserted in her mouth and nose as a bank of electronically controlled apparatus behind her did what it had been programmed to do.

‘This is outrageous!’ blustered Trool.

‘We can certainly agree on that,’ said Gordon bitterly as he moved to examine Anne-Marie along with Mary.

‘Is she who you thought she was?’ asked Le Clerc.

‘Without a doubt,’ said Gordon, fighting against a lump in his throat. ‘This is Anne-Marie Palmer.’

Gordon’s full attention was now given to Anne-Marie as he fought to assess her condition quickly but he was aware of Le Clerc informing Trool that he was under arrest. It didn’t really register that the policeman had stopped talking until Mary let out a scream and he turned in time to see Le Clerc’s face open up in a huge crimson gash. He fell to the floor and Gordon saw the scalpel that had appeared in Trool’s hand. His eyes had a wild look in them as he first looked to Gordon and then at Mary.

Gordon pushed Mary behind him as Trool started to come towards them, exuding malice. At the very last moment when Gordon had backed away as far as he could, Trool suddenly turned his attention back to Anne-Marie. He threw down the scalpel and snatched the child up from the bed, freeing her from all her tubes and lines with a vicious tug that made Gordon wince. He ran to the door with the child under one arm, removing the key with his free hand and then locking the door behind him a fraction of a second before Gordon got to it.

‘Help Le Clerc, he’s in a bad way!’ said Gordon as he began crashing his shoulder against the door in an attempt to break it open. After a third try with no sign of success he conceded that he more likely to break his collarbone than the door lock. He grabbed the phone and called reception, declaring an emergency and asking to be released immediately. As he replaced the receiver, he was not at all sure that reception had understood his French that had been made worse by his state of high anxiety. Looking about him, he spotted the oxygen cylinder standing in the corner of the room. He snatched it up to start using it as a battering ram against the door. This was a much more successful ploy and he had broken through the panel above the lock before there was any sign of help arriving from downstairs.

Gordon released himself and ran along the corridor to the fire escape to start hurtling downstairs, two, three and even eight at a time when he lost rhythm on the last flight and had to launch himself through the air to the bottom landing. He was lucky and landed well enough to recover and race on to the emergency exit that he opened by crashing his foot against the horizontal bar.

He found himself in the clinic’s car park, looking almost directly at James Trool, some twenty metres away, still with Anne-Marie’s limp body under one arm while he searched feverishly through his pockets in what was clearly a vein attempt to find his car keys. Trool saw Gordon and froze for a moment before abandoning the search and turning to start running towards a narrow exit giving pedestrian access to the street. Gordon started off in pursuit but caught his trailing foot on a low rail when, in going for a short cut, he vaulted over a dividing wall in the car park. He went all his length and crashed into the grille of a parked Volvo.

The fall winded him but he was on his feet after a few seconds and back in pursuit. He just made it to the street in time to see Trool dodging through traffic at the head of the intersection as he ran towards Pont Neuf.

Gordon caught up with Trool in the middle of the bridge. The traffic was heavy but they were the only pedestrians on that side.

‘There’s nowhere to go,’ said Gordon as he confronted the gasping man.

Trool, still with the same wild look in his eye, looked first at the traffic to his right and then over the parapet at the Seine below. He gave a sort of half smile that suggested to Gordon that the reality of his situation was beginning to dawn on him, but the words that he spoke suggested otherwise.

‘No baby... no case, Gordon.’

The horror of what Trool meant had barely got through to Gordon when Trool simply threw Anne-Marie’s unconscious body over the parapet. Gordon was paralysed with horror for only a few seconds but it was long enough for Trool to make a dash for the other side of the bridge through the traffic. He made it three quarters of the way to the accompaniment of squealing brakes and blaring horns but an Iveco truck carrying a full load of Stella Artois beer could not stop in time. It hit Trool with a sickening thud that seemed to transcend the traffic noise. The impact threw Trool briefly up into the air, his body arching backwards to land head first on the tarmac where his skull cracked open like an egg.

Gordon turned away and hung out over the parapet, trying desperately to see any sign of Anne-Marie, but all he saw was dark, slow moving water, punctuated with reflections of the lights on the bridge. The thought that Anne-Marie was down there somewhere was powerful enough to short-circuit all other considerations. He climbed up on to the parapet and, without pausing for further thought, jumped down into the Seine.

The fall seemed to last an eternity before ice-cold water enveloped him and instantly paralysed him with cold. Panic added to his agony, as he seemed to keep on going down into the depths with little or no control over his limbs. The rigid spasticity of his arms and legs made the eventual struggle back to the surface a nightmare and even when he broke the surface with bursting lungs, he found that the cold was such that he couldn’t breathe in properly: his chest muscles refused to work. He floundered about for fully ten seconds before he had enough control of his body again to start swimming downstream to where he thought Anne-Marie might have drifted to by now.

The sheer hopelessness of his situation was beginning to grow on Gordon as he turtle-dived below the surface for the sixth time to search by feel with his arms flailing in all directions. He was now completely numb with cold and close to complete exhaustion — so much so that he knew that his own chances of survival must now be in question. It was only the fear of having to face up to the fact that Anne-Marie was dead that made him go down for the seventh time. This time his left hand touched something but he failed to grasp it at the first attempt and he had to wheel to the left to try again. His hand touched the object again and this time he knew that he had found Anne-Marie: the little bundle was the right size and shape. As to what condition she was in, he put such thoughts out of his head and held her close to him as he reached up desperately with his free arm and kicked out hard with both legs in what he knew must be a final effort to surface. He simply had no energy left.

Gordon broke the surface and took in a huge gulp of night air, then two more before taking in another and holding it inside to give him buoyancy as he rolled over on to his back to float with the baby on his chest. He could see her face in the light spilling down from the bridge but he couldn’t tell whether she was alive or dead. He clamped his mouth over hers and blew into her lungs, on the pretext that any such gesture was better than nothing at this point.

The water lapping over their faces and his own state of exhaustion prevented this measure from being either regular or correct in terms of technique but it was all he could manage as he struggled to stay afloat and tried to kick out weakly for the bank.

The slow thump of an engine reached Gordon through the water covering his ears and made him raise his head a little to look around him. Out of the darkness he could see the bows of a riverboat coming straight towards him. It was the final straw as far as he was concerned; he simply had no energy left to swim out of its way; there was nothing he could do except look up at the night sky in desperation and cry out in anguish, ‘For God’s sake! Give me a break!’

The world was suddenly filled with a blinding white light and the sound of shouting voices. Hands tugged at him and he felt Anne-Marie being taken from his grasp. He could do nothing for himself as he was pulled from the water but now he was lying on something other than water and he could breathe freely again as French voices around him said things he couldn’t understand. Suddenly, he felt like sleeping; God! how he felt like sleeping. The cold was no longer a problem and as he was starting to feel comfortable. There was no pain, only a delicious feeling of tiredness. The voices might be becoming more animated, even alarmed but he didn’t care: they were very distant now and he was drifting off into such a comfortable sleep...

When Gordon opened his eyes, he found Mary sitting there. She smiled at him with moist eyes. ‘So you’ve come back to me,’ she said.

He tried to speak but failed.

‘This really is becoming a bad habit,’ said Mary. ‘It’s hypothermia this time.’

‘The baby?’ croaked Gordon.

‘She’s going to be fine. People underestimate how tough babies really are. Trool had been keeping her under with sedatives, pretending to the nurses that she was in an ever-deepening coma, but they’ve worn off now and the bath in the Seine did her less damage than it did you.’

‘I never want to see water again. But how...’

‘Le Clerc’s driver saw you chase after Trool. He followed and saw what happened. He commandeered one of the Bateau Mouche boats moored at the bridge and rescued you and the baby. You were incredibly brave.’

‘How’s Le Clerc?’

‘He’s lost a lot of blood and he’s never going to look as pretty again but he’ll pull through.’

‘It’s over then.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Mary, running her fingertips gently along Gordon’s forehead. ‘It’s finally over.’

‘Isn’t science wonderful,’ murmured Gordon, suddenly feeling very sleepy again.