Swansong (23 page)

‘Where are you?’

‘On my way to see the driving instructor. Why?’

‘I needed you to see if we had Isobel’s contact lens prescription on file.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Are you on your own?’

‘No. Louise is here.’

‘Good. Let me know how you get on.’

‘Will do. You sound . . .’

Dixon had already rung off. It took him less than five minutes to get to Musgrove Park Hospital, stopping at the only set of traffic lights that had a camera installed on them. The others he ignored.

It was not quite 9 a.m. and the pathology lab was still closed, but he could see Roger Poland’s car in the car park, so he started banging on the window nearest his office. The laboratory
assistant
inside turned around and shouted through the window at Dixon.

‘What do you want?’

‘Where’s Roger Poland?’

‘In a meeting.’

‘Get him, will you? Tell him it’s Nick Dixon.’

He waited under the canopy by the front door and listened to the rain hammering on the roof. Then he heard the sound of the door being unlocked behind him.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Poland.

‘Isobel’s contact lens. Have you still got it?’

‘Yes. It’s in the store.’

‘Can I see it?’

‘Er, yes. Come in.’

Dixon followed Poland through to his office and sat down on a chair in front of his desk.

‘Give me a minute,’ said Poland.

He reappeared a few minutes later carrying a small vial of clear fluid. One side was covered by a label but Dixon could see a small blue tinted contact lens suspended in the liquid. He held it up to the light and flicked it, watching the lens turn over and over in front of him.

‘Makes you wonder what the last thing she saw through this was, doesn’t it?’

‘It does,’ replied Poland. ‘What’s your interest in the contact lens, then?’

‘I know where the other one is.’

‘The other one?’

‘I’ve seen it, or at least I think I have. Can I borrow this?’

‘What for?’

‘I need to get it identified by an optician and get some exactly the same.’

‘You’ll bring it back?’

‘In half an hour. Then we’ll see if I’m right.’

Dixon parked on the pavement outside Richard Firth Optometrists in East Reach, switched his hazard lights on and then ran in.

‘Is there an optician available, please?’ he asked, showing his warrant card to the receptionist. ‘It is rather urgent.’

‘I’ll just check.’

He watched her get up and walk through to the back of the shop, then he turned to look for traffic wardens out of the window.

‘Can I help?’

Dixon spun round to see a man in his early fifties with a pair of spectacles resting on top of his head and another pair hanging round his neck on a cord.

‘I’m Richard Firth.’

‘Thank you,’ replied Dixon. He took the vial out of his jacket pocket. ‘I need you to identify this lens for me, if you can.’

‘Can I take it out?’

‘No.’

‘Hmmm . . .’ Firth held the vial up to the light and began
turning
it. ‘It’s an Acuvue, I think. Possibly their Trueye daily
disposable
. No telling the strength, of course. Hang on a sec.’

He handed the vial back to Dixon and then disappeared to a room at the back of the shop before returning a minute or so later with another lens in a clear plastic pot. He held them up to the light side by side.

‘Yes. They look pretty much identical to me. Here, see what you think,’ he said, handing them to Dixon.

‘They’re both stamped “UV”. Does any other manufacturer
do that?’

‘No. Bausch & Lomb stamp theirs “B&L”, from memory.’

‘Have you got a sample I can take?’

‘Yes, of course.’

Dixon raced back to Musgrove Park Hospital with a strip of five contact lenses in his jacket pocket. He parked behind Poland’s car, blocking him in, and then ran into the pathology lab.

‘Dr Poland’s expec . . .’

Dixon was already through the swing doors before the receptionist had finished her sentence.

‘Any luck?’ asked Poland.

‘Yes. According to Richard Firth they’re Acuvue Trueye daily disposables,’ replied Dixon, handing Poland both vials. ‘See what you think.’

Poland walked into his office holding both vials up to the light. Dixon followed.

‘They certainly look the same.’

‘They do.’

‘Now what?’ asked Poland, sitting behind his desk.

Dixon shut the door behind him and then sat down opposite Poland. ‘The acid test,’ he said, taking off his left shoe.

He placed it on the desk in front of him and then took out the strip of new lenses. He tore the seal off one and took it out,
balancing
it on the end of his index finger. Then he gently placed it on the outside of the shoe, just above the heel.

‘Now we wait.’

‘Is there a coffee machine in this place?’ asked Dixon.

‘We’ve got a kettle and a jar of instant.’

‘That’d be lovely, thanks, Roger. No sugar in mine.’

Poland sighed loudly and then left the room. Dixon sat
watching
the contact lens on the side of his shoe.

‘So let me make sure I’ve got this right. You’re saying that
Isobel’s
other lens, the missing lens, is stuck to her killer’s shoe?’

Dixon turned round to see Poland standing behind him with a mug in each hand. He passed one to Dixon.

‘Yes.’

‘But it would have come off, surely?’

‘Not necessarily.’

‘Let’s hear it, then,’ said Roger.

‘No one heard a scream so we can assume she went willingly with her killer. She knew him and trusted him. Right?’

Poland nodded.

‘He would’ve been dressed as usual so as not to arouse her
suspicions
.’

‘He would.’

‘So, let’s assume you’ve drugged her and cut off her ring finger. Now you’ve got to dispose of her body. Or maybe before you cut off her finger, even? What’s the first thing you’re gonna do?’

‘Get changed,’ replied Poland.

‘Exactly. You take your shoes off. And it’s not likely to be until the following day that you put them on again, which is plenty of time for a soft contact lens to dry out.’

‘What happens when it does, I wonder?’

‘We’ll see, won’t we, but I’m guessing it’ll stick like glue.’

‘You’d see it, surely?’

‘Not if you were short sighted. And when was the last time you looked at the heel of your shoe?’

‘I’m not sure I ever have.’

‘Exactly.’

‘So, how did her lens come out?’

‘Maybe she fell heavily or just rubbed her eyes, something like that,’ said Dixon.

‘It doesn’t take much for them to come out, that’s for sure,’ replied Poland. ‘I’m always having to stop the clock so some twit can put a lens back in.’

‘I forgot you referee rugby matches.’

‘Keeps me fit.’

Dixon picked up his shoe and examined the contact lens. It was shrivelled at the edges but still only stuck to the shoe in the very centre of the lens.

‘That’s not it at all,’ said Dixon. ‘And you’d see that.’

‘Try another one the other way round,’ said Poland.

Dixon tore the seal off another contact lens and placed it on the side of his shoe, this time facing outwards. The edge of the lens formed a seal of sorts to the leather.

‘That’s more like it. It’ll stick flat to the side when it dries out, you watch.’

‘It’ll take a while,’ said Poland.

‘Time for another coffee?’

‘I’ve got to check on a post mortem. I’ll bring one back
with me.’

‘OK.’

Dixon picked up his shoe and watched the contact lens stuck to the side gradually drying out. He prodded it with his finger and it moved but not much. It hadn’t taken long for a seal to form around the rim of the lens and only a direct hit would shift it now.

By the time Poland returned with two more mugs of coffee the lens was stuck flat to the side of the shoe.

‘Forty-one minutes it took,’ said Dixon, holding the shoe out to Poland.

He took it and examined the lens.

‘That’s not coming off in a hurry. It looks almost vacuum sealed.’

‘You could even polish over it and wouldn’t come off.’

‘Then you’d never see it.’

‘Only I did see it,’ said Dixon. ‘Plain as day. And so close I could reach out and touch it.’

Dixon sat in his Land Rover and listened to the rain hammering on the roof. He looked at his watch: 11 a.m. He turned out of Musgrove Park Hospital and then drove north-west out of Taunton. It had been seventeen years since he had last been to St Dunstan’s and he had always sworn that he would never go back. Still, needs must, he thought.

He looked down at the school from the bridge over the railway line before turning right into the main entrance. It was a grand building, almost Gothic in its appearance and very much like Brunel, built of grey stone with a central tower over the front entrance.

Dixon parked across the front door and ran in. He knew exactly where he was going. He turned right along the main corridor and then left along the corridor leading to the assembly room. He was looking at the photographs on the walls either side as he ran. School teams going back in time the further along the corridor he went. Rugby, football, hockey, cricket and
tennis
. He slowed as he went further back and stopped at the team photographs from seventeen years ago. He stood in front of the girls’ tennis team looking at the picture of Fran. She was sitting in the middle of the front row of three, with three teammates standing behind her and the coach standing on the left. Mr Adrian
Saunders
, according to the names printed beneath the photograph.

Dixon shook his head. He could not remember an Adrian Saunders at all.

‘Dixon, isn’t it?’

He spun round and recognised his housemaster from all those years ago. A bit greyer, perhaps, but otherwise he had hardly changed a bit.

‘Mr Hopkins,’ said Dixon, holding out his hand.

They shook hands, as Mr Hopkins looked him up and down.

‘You look well. What’re you up to these days?’

Dixon took out his warrant card and handed it to him.