Dr. Yes (36 page)

    'She
was his common-law wife, and she used his name, but they were not married. She
disclosed that when she provided her medical records prior to her treatment at
the clinic. So if you were searching the travel records for Arabella Wogan, you
were barking up the wrong tree. Her passport would have shown her under the
name of Arabella Shaw.'

    She
looked smug and self-satisfied.

    'See?
He doesn't know what the hell he's talking about!'

    It
was Dr Yes, pointing at me.

    They
were working together, circling, throwing out jabs. There might be a few chinks
in my armour of knowledge, but I knew more than they thought, and their
arrogance would come back to bite them.

    'Well,
Doctor,' I said, 'if you're convinced I don't know what the hell I'm talking
about, what's a busy man like you doing here at all? Why didn't you bring some
high-powered solicitor to slap a writ for slander on me if I say something you
don't like?'

    'I
did,' said Dr Yeschenkov. He indicated the rotund woman in the seat next to
him, the woman I had mistaken for a groupie.

    I am a
master of self-control. I merely nodded serenely and said, 'You will not gag
me. If I think you were responsible for the death of Arabella Wogan and the
subsequent cover-up, I
will
say it.'

    He
was on his feet again. His solicitor was beside him. They were both shouting.
They only desisted when DI Robinson strode through the audience and right up to
me and said, 'Word in your ear?'

    He
drew closer. He whispered: 'I don't mind your little games, but let's get it
moving, I can't keep these people here for ever.'

    He
was right. I didn't want Dr Yeschenkov storming out again if the detective
inspector wasn't going to stop him.

    DI
Robinson returned to his place by the door. Dr

    Yes
and his legal eagle grumbled as they retook their seats. I glanced at Alison;
she gave me the thumbs- up, but a hesitant smile.

    'DI
Robinson has asked me to get a move on,' I said. 'But I say to you, justice
cannot be hurried, and the truth cannot be dictated by time! The truth will
out, and it will out when it wants to come out!'

    I had
supposed it to be rousing. But they all looked at me like I was a halfwit, and
several glanced at their watches.

    I
cleared my throat and said, 'Dr Yeschenkov, I understand your concerns, but
whatever way you want to look at it, Arabella Wogan is missing. She
apparently
left her room at the Forum International Hotel, where she had been staying
while she underwent her procedures, and then she vanished without trace. Dr
Yeschenkov - did any problems arise during Arabella's treatment?'

    'No,
none, she was a model patient and I was very happy with her recovery. She was
extremely pleased with her new look.'

    'So
when did you last see her?'

    'On
the afternoon of February the twenty-fifth, when I supervised the final removal
of bandages.'

    'And
you discharged her then?'

    'I
signed off on her medical treatment, but I recommended, as I do with all of our
patients, that she spend a further twenty-four hours resting before leaving the
hotel. Unfortunately many patients choose not to follow my advice; they're so
happy with their new appearance, they just want to show it off. I can't stop
them. I believe Arabella discharged herself some time on the evening of the
twenty-fifth.'

    'And
you haven't seen her since?'

    'I
have not.'

    'So
would you care to explain . . . this!'

    As if
by magic, but actually by PowerPoint, knowledgeably operated by Jeff, the photo
of Dr Yeschenkov with Arabella taken by Liam Benson at the Xianth gallery in
Dublin appeared on the ceiling.

    Yes,
the ceiling. All of the other walls were covered in books and the ceiling was
the only uniformly flat surface. Everyone's head craned upwards. I would use
this device sparingly, or be sued for cricked necks.

    'Dr
Yeschenkov with Arabella Wogan at the opening of the Xianth gallery as it
appeared in the press. Were you not at this gallery?'

    'Yes,
I was.'

    'Did
you not insist on the freelance photographer Liam Benson accompanying you to
the event for publicity purposes.'

    'I
did not
insist.
He was working for me.'

    'Did
he take this photograph?'

    'Yes
. . . and no.'

    'Please
explain.'

    'It
is clearly me, I remember it being taken, but this is not the woman I was
standing next to. It must have been doctored.'

    'It
must have been doctored.'

    'Yes,
that's what I said. Did I not say it clearly?'

    'I
was repeating it for emphasis. If it was indeed doctored, the most likely
explanation is that it was doctored by the photographer who took it, Liam
Benson, who was employed by you. Now what other reason could there possibly be
for doctoring this photograph, other than to show that Arabella was alive and
well and in Dublin?'

    'I
don't know.'

    'I spoke
to Liam Benson shortly before he was murdered. He was a frightened man, Dr
Yeschenkov, and mostly he seemed to be frightened of you.'

    'That's
just ridiculous. We had a perfectly cordial, professional relationship.'

    'Is
it not true that you were furious when this photograph appeared in the press?'

    'I
was upset, yes.'

    'You're
a wealthy man, Dr Yeschenkov, perhaps a powerful man. If you were completely
certain that this photograph was doctored, why did you not find out how it came
to be doctored? Why did you not bring down the full weight of your legal
representative upon whoever was responsible?' I looked at his legal
representative. 'I don't mean your full weight . . . your weight is quite . . .
normal . . . The only reasonable explanation I can come up with, Dr Yeschenkov,
is that you were aware it was doctored, and you wanted it published so that you
could point to it and say, look, Arabella was alive and in Dublin, so how can
she have died as a result of one of my operations? I put it to you, sir, that
you knew that she was dead and you were doing nothing short of staging an
elaborate sleight of hand! In short, a cover- up!'

    His
legal representative was on her fat feet. She said, 'Sir, we are going to sue
you for every penny you have.'

    By
the look of her, every penny I had would not even begin to pay for Dr
Yeschenkov's solicitor's usual breakfast. If she'd been worth her salt, she
should probably have removed her client from No Alibis as soon as she issued
her threat. That she did not was entirely down to my brilliance in immediately changing
the subject through a simple nod in Jeff's direction. Another photograph
appeared on the ceiling.
Everyone
looked up. This time it was of a very
tall, very thin man, carrying a hatbox, and entering the Yeschenkov Clinic.

    'Do you
recognise him?' I asked.

    Dr
Yes's solicitor put a hand on his arm and shook her head. But he ignored her.
'No . . .' he said. 'What has he got to do with anything?'

    'His
name is Buddy Wailer. He's entering your clinic, but you don't recognise him?'

    'No .
. . I . . . it's a busy clinic, I can't account for all the comings and . . .
should I ...?’

    He
was intrigued. Or he was stalling. Or he was lying. I glanced at Pearl. She was
studying me intently.

    I
said, 'What he most certainly is is a murderer.'

    There
was a ripple, a murmur, a communal bleat from the audience. DI Robinson moved
up and down on the balls of his feet, a sure sign of his interest..

    'So
let me tell you, let me tell you all about Buddy Wailer, and how we came by him.'

    The
only way to do that was to describe how we had become involved in the case in
the first place. How the revered Augustine Wogan had come to my shop begging me
to help him, having narrowly escaped being shot just outside. How he suspected
Dr Yeschenkov of covering up his wife Arabella's death. I detailed my meeting
with Pearl and how she came to be the only person outside of Alison and Jeff
who knew where he was staying, and how there was something suspicious about his
suicide. I repeated my theory about the V-cut on the cigar found in Augustine's
mouth, which drew an eye-rolling
he's lost it now
reaction from Dr Yes
and nothing at all from Pearl. (Later Alison would say, 'How could you tell?
She's had so much Botox, she's half fucking Friesian.') They paid a little bit
more attention when I related the discovery of the V-cutter in Arabella's room
at the Forum Hotel, and this developed into at least a modicum of respect as I
described how we had traced the V-cutter to the Las Vegas cigar stall operated
by Manuel Gerardo Ramiro Alfonzo Aurelio Enrique Zapata Quetzalcoatl and the
fear that had come into his voice when he realised that it was Buddy Wailer who
had purchased the device. When I had recounted how Manuel Gerardo Ramiro
Alfonzo Aurelio Enrique Zapata Quetzalcoatl's friend had secretly entered
Buddy's room and looked inside the hatbox, and what he had found, my audience
looked suitably horrified.

    'In
the immortal words of Manuel Gerardo Ramiro Alfonzo Aurelio Enrique Zapata
Quetzalcoatl: Buddy Wailer, he whacks people, that's what he does.'

    Abruptly
Pearl laughed. Everyone looked at her. She bowed her head and shook it. She
wiped a tear away.

    I
said, 'Some people find this funny.' I gave it a Mexican twang.
'Buddy
Wailer he whacks people.
You've seen enough movies, maybe you've read
enough books to know what that means. Well, folks, we're private detectives; as
you can imagine, the idea that we might be up against a killer for hire got us
pretty excited, particularly when we spotted him entering the Yeschenkov
Clinic, particularly when we followed him back to the house he had rented,
particularly when we broke into that house and found Arabella's head in a
hatbox!'

    Dr
Yes's solicitor was on her feet. 'That is outrageous! You are making these
claims and you are not backing any of them up with evidence!' She swivelled in
a way that only a fat girl in a too tight suit can, that is, with difficulty,
and pointed a thick finger at

    DI
Robinson. 'If anyone ought to be arrested it's this man!' she shouted, pointing
back at me.

    'I
hear you,' Robinson said.

    His
eyes fixed on me. An eyebrow rose.

    'If
you just let me finish,' I said, 'then you will understand. I mean, you may be
a solicitor, but don't you want to
know?'

    She
glared at me. She started to say something. Dr Yes tugged at her jacket. She
sighed and sat down. 'Very well,' she snapped, 'but I'm warning you

    'Okay.
Where were we? Oh yes. Arabella's head was in a box - and the rest of her was
in a different room, lying on a bed,
that's what we found.
It was
horrific. But before we could report it to the proper authorities, Buddy
spirited them away.'

    'How
convenient!'

    'No,
not really. Madam, Mrs, whoever you are, what
we
always strive to be is
detached. We have to stand back and analyse the facts as we know them. And in
this case we just couldn't figure out why Buddy Wailer would
want
to
keep Arabella's head. If he was someone who liked to keep trophies from his
victims, then why did he only keep some and not others? Our theory had it that
this was a man hired in by Dr Yes to rid him of Augustine Wogan and anyone else
who knew about the cover-up. Yet if he killed Augustine and Liam Benson and
Rolo, why didn't he take
their
heads? Why take Arabella's
at all,
when our theory supposed that she wasn't murdered but died because of a medical
problem? And why would a professional hit man like

    Buddy
Wailer fail to bury his last victim properly, out in the woods? Rolo might
never have been found if the hole had been a few feet deep, rather than just a
couple of inches. And if he brought Arabella's body out to Tollymore to burn
it, why was there no evidence of her left in the ashes of the fire
at all?'