‘Are there many part-time staff here?’ Wesley asked.
‘A few. Some work full time in hospitals and as GPs. And a couple, Dr Shallech and Dr Brown, are retired but they help with
our drugs trials.’
They were led across the lofty hall to a polished mahogany door at the end of a wide corridor. A wooden sign bearing Dr Welman’s
name was fixed to the centre of the door, the letters formed elegantly in gold. His title was given below the name as ‘Clinical
Director’.
Fiona looked a little nervous as she raised her hand to knock. Perhaps, Wesley thought, she would be in trouble later for
not heading them off. But this didn’t bother him. If Dr Welman had information about James Dalcott that he wished to hide,
he needed to find out.
The word ‘Come’ echoed from inside the office. A monosyllabic order. Fiona opened the door and stepped back.
Wesley entered the room first. Dr Welman was sitting behind a monumental antique desk and he stood up as they came in and
held out his hand. He was a small man, thin, with sparse grey hair. It was difficult to tell his
age which might have been anywhere between sixty and a well-preserved seventy-five. Wesley had expected him to look annoyed
at the intrusion but instead his expression was one of polite concern. Standing by the desk was a tall woman in her late sixties
or perhaps even her early seventies. Her hair was cut in an immaculate grey bob and a pair of glasses was perched on an aquiline
nose. She wore rather a lot of make-up and the residue had settled in the lines on her face, emphasising rather than concealing.
Dr Welman stood up. ‘Come in, officers. Do take a seat. This is Dr Shallech. She works here in our trials department.’
‘You knew Dr Dalcott?’
Dr Shallech assumed a serious expression. ‘Yes, but we often worked here at different times so I wouldn’t say I knew him well.
But I was shocked to hear about his death, of course.’ Her voice was low pitched and rather husky, as though she was a habitual
smoker, but Wesley’s nose didn’t catch any lingering scent of tobacco. She looked at Dr Welman. ‘I really must get back to
the department.’
She inclined her head politely to Wesley and Rachel before picking a file up off the desk. ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ she said
before hurrying out of the room.
When she had gone Wesley made the introductions and, to put Welman at ease, he mentioned that his sister had worked with James
Dalcott.
Suddenly Welman’s face lit up. ‘Peterson? You’re not by any chance Mr Joshua Peterson’s son are you? James mentioned that
he was working with his daughter – Maria, is it?’
‘Maritia.’
‘He said her brother was a detective inspector.’
‘Yes. I broke with family tradition and didn’t attend medical school.’
‘Your father is one of the most distinguished cardiac surgeons in the country.’
Wesley thought he detected a note of criticism – of mild disapproval that he’d chosen to pursue criminals rather than follow
the rest of the family into the medical profession – but he ignored it.
‘You’re a surgeon yourself, Dr Welman?’
The man behind the desk suddenly looked wary. ‘I worked in medical research and took early retirement but Pharmitest wanted
someone experienced to administer their facility here.’
‘Is surgery carried out here?’ Wesley asked innocently.
‘We have some facilities for private surgery. Routine procedures mainly. When Mr Powell retired from NHS work, he took charge
of our surgical department.’
‘Where did you work before you retired?’
Welman cleared his throat as though he needed time to think. ‘Various hospitals and universities around the country. I worked
in Canada for a while.’
The answer seemed rather evasive but Wesley decided it was time to get down to business. ‘James Dalcott’s death must have
been a great shock to everyone here.’
‘A terrible shock, yes. We were all devastated when we heard.’
Welman sounded sincere. Either that or he was a remarkably good actor.
‘What can you tell us about him?’ Wesley began.
Welman sat back in his chair and considered the
question for a moment. ‘I’m sure you’ll have heard from your sister that James was a pleasant man and a good doctor.’
Wesley nodded.
‘He was very well liked and I shouldn’t have thought he had an enemy in the world.’
‘What about his work here?’
‘He worked for us part-time. We employ a number of doctors on that basis. Dr Shallech whom you just met is retired but she
still does a couple of days a week for us.’
‘You seem to employ rather a lot of retired staff here.’
‘Nothing wrong with that, Inspector. We have a wealth of experience between us and Pharmitest appreciates that.’
‘Of course,’ Wesley said quickly. ‘Is there anything else you can tell us about Dr Dalcott?’
‘James did his work efficiently and he was very good with the volunteers. You need someone with a pleasant manner to reassure
them and put them at their ease, you understand.’ He paused. ‘The work he did here wasn’t very demanding in the clinical sense
– he was here to make sure the correct doses were administered and observe the volunteers’ reactions to the drugs they were
given.’
‘Have there been any times when his medical skills were needed urgently? I’m talking about any occasions when things have
gone wrong and he’s had to administer emergency treatment.’
Wesley watched Welman’s face and guessed that he’d hit a raw memory. ‘Oh dear. Yes. Er … There was one incident but …’ The
doctor was starting to look flustered.
‘What happened?’
Welman took a deep breath. ‘I have to consider patient confidentiality.’
‘I promise you that if the matter’s not relevant, nobody will know you’ve told us. And besides, we can always obtain a search
warrant.’ Wesley looked at the man expectantly. In his experience that particular threat usually worked a treat.
‘Very well.’ He arched his fingers, gathering his thoughts. ‘About a year ago we ran a routine trial but one of the volunteers
– a young man – experienced an adverse reaction to the drug. It was very rare, you understand. Quite unexpected.’
‘And how was James Dalcott involved?’
‘He was supervising the volunteers that evening. The young man lost consciousness and his skin began to blister.’
‘I take it he was admitted to hospital?’ It was Rachel who spoke.
Welman gave her a sad smile. ‘We have all the necessary facilities here and, besides, the personnel in A and E wouldn’t necessarily
know what they were dealing with. We rushed him to our emergency room here. He survived.’
‘But?’
‘He was left with a severe sensitivity to light. If he goes out in daylight his flesh blisters.’
Wesley pondered the implications of Welman’s revelation for a few moments. ‘Did he blame James Dalcott for what went wrong?’
Welman rose from his seat and walked over to the window. He stood looking out over the manicured gardens for a while before
answering.
‘It wasn’t James’s fault, you understand, but he was supervising. James’s was the face he knew so in his mind it was James
who was to blame. Of course James acted swiftly once he realised it was all going wrong. There was no delay in putting the
emergency procedures into operation. But even so …’
‘So there’s a young man out there who blames James Dalcott for his condition?’
Welman pressed his lips together. ‘I suppose you could put it like that.’
‘We’ll need his name,’ said Rachel, her pen poised over her notebook.
Welman walked over to the polished mahogany filing cabinet that stood in the corner of his spacious office. He opened the
middle drawer and took out a file which he examined for a few moments before handing it to Wesley.
‘His name’s Carl Utley. Aged twenty-six. Unemployed. Lives in Neston.’
‘Is he married? Partner?’
‘He was living with a woman he described as his fiancée when he came to us for the trial. He put her down as his next of kin.
But whether they’re still together …’
Wesley looked at the address. It was on a small council estate on the outskirts of Neston, not far from the railway station,
a few streets away from Adam Tey and Charleen Anstice. And not a million miles from Tradington where James Dalcott had met
his end. He took the file to the desk, read through it and made a few notes.
When he’d finished he looked up. ‘I believe a man called Ken Mold works here.’
Welman frowned, as though he had heard the name before but couldn’t quite place it. Then he remembered.
‘There’s a handyman called Ken. Is that him?’
‘Yes. He lives next door to two of James Dalcott’s patients. Their child died and they blame James.’
Welman looked genuinely surprised. ‘I didn’t know about that.’
Wesley smiled. ‘We might need to talk to you again, Dr Welman.’ He looked at Rachel and nodded. ‘I can see you’re busy so
we’ll see ourselves out.’ He flashed a smile at Welman who attempted one in return. But his eyes remained wary. In Wesley’s
experience, the eyes betrayed a lot.
‘So what do you think?’ Wesley asked Rachel as they walked to the car.
‘That Fiona Verdun was full of her own importance. But I think Welman was being fairly straight with us – after all, he didn’t
have to tell us about Carl Utley, did he?’ She nudged his arm. ‘I reckon you’re well in there with your family connections.
You might not have got as much out of them if they hadn’t known your dad was a famous surgeon.’
‘The medical profession have always stuck together. A bit like the police.’
As they got into the car, Wesley’s mobile phone rang and Rachel sat, hand poised over the ignition key until the short conversation
was finished.
Wesley put the phone back in his pocket and turned to face her. ‘That was the incident room. They’ve got an ID on the Trenchards.
There’s a match on the fingerprints in the house next door to Dalcott’s.’
‘Do we have names?
Wesley told her.
‘So we can make an arrest?’
‘If we can find them,’ he answered as she started the engine.
Neil’s team had just unearthed their fourth skeleton, precisely where the geophysics printout had told them it was going to
be. It was female this time. Probably young. And again there were no fillings, something Neil knew that Wesley would interpret
as a hopeful sign. The more Neil thought about it, the more the situation seemed to bear all the hallmarks of a historical
mystery rather than a sordid modern-day crime. But they still had to go through the motions.
However, the increasing likelihood that the skeletons were old didn’t mean he could relax. The Persimmons had made it quite
clear that all the skeletons had to be lifted. There was no way they wanted to think that every time they stepped out of their
front door they were entering a burial ground. Neil hadn’t had them down as the superstitious type but sometimes people can
surprise you.
He also had another problem. Somehow the local press had got hold of the story – Neil had no idea how – and that morning there
had been a reporter waiting in a car parked near the gate. When she’d seen Neil arrive, she’d sprung from the vehicle like
a gamekeeper on an unwary poacher, and barred his way, tape recorder at the ready.
After introducing herself as Nuala Johns of the
Morbay Argus
she’d asked him for a statement about the skeletons. Neil, taken aback and unsure what to say, made noncommittal noises about
the investigation being ongoing. It was a phrase he’d heard Wesley use and it sounded good.
‘But you can confirm human remains have been found?’
He knew she wasn’t going to let the matter drop so, as he’d never been a good liar, he said yes. They had found human bones
but all the indications were that they were old.
‘How many skeletons have you found?’
‘Four so far.’
‘There might be more?’ She could hardly keep the excitement out of her voice. This had all the hallmarks of a good story.
‘And the police have been called in?’ she persisted.
‘Yes. But that’s just routine.’
She continued her barrage of questions for a while and Neil felt himself becoming more defensive as he took a step backwards,
preparing for flight.
When she eventually gave up and went away he wondered how long it would be before the wolves descended. And when they did,
he knew he’d have to think up something more solid to give them; either that or he could answer their questions with a terse
‘no comment’. But that would probably make them all the keener.
There had been a small geophysics anomaly on the edge of what estate agents would have described in a brochure as a paddock,
well away from the burials they had discovered so far. Neil made the decision to investigate this himself, although he suspected
that it was probably some sort of rubbish pit, or maybe the burial of an animal; a well-loved pet dog, perhaps. But it was
best to get it dealt with and ticked off on his list of things to do as soon as possible.
Colin Bowman had just left and Neil thought he was showing remarkable patience in the circumstances. He’d agreed that all
the bones they found should be recorded properly and sent to the mortuary for examination and yet
as Neil began to dig again, he felt a small thrill of excitement. He needed to discover whether the skeletons were connected
with the strange room in the attic and those ancient medical instruments. And he needed to know what dramatic events in the
history of that prosperous Devon house had led to those bones ending up buried there in the cold, unconsecrated earth.
He felt frustrated that he hadn’t yet had time to research the history of Tailors Court and he knew it was time to delegate.
His relationship with Annabel who worked in the County Archives was good, if not romantically close, and he was convinced
that she would relish the challenge of Tailors Court. He resolved to call her later – when he had a moment.
‘Need some help?’ Neil looked up and saw Chris standing there expectantly, shifting from foot to foot in an effort to keep
warm.
Neil signalled him to come nearer. ‘I could do with a hand. Not that I’m expecting to find much here. It’s well away from
the burials and the geophysics anomaly’s smaller. Could be an animal burial. Or a midden. But we have to check it out,’ he
said as he began to scrape away at the soil.