Trauma (25 page)

'But Murdoch isn't a virologist,' said Sarah.

'Maybe he made some kind of intellectual contribution,' suggested Duncan. 'Or maybe it's just a case of brotherly love. He wanted his brother to share in a great moment in medicine.'

'The research councils take a dim view of honorary authorship' said Sarah.

'The research councils take a dim view of a lot of things that no one else pays any attention to,' said Duncan.

Sarah smiled and said, 'I suppose you're right. Anyway the main thing is that we'll have the vaccine.'

'And your boss will be in a good mood,' added Duncan.

'I hadn't thought of that little bonus,' smiled Sarah.

'I think the hospital is planning some little celebration in the meantime. Who knows, we dogsbodies may even be invited to it.'

Sarah smiled and said, 'That would be nice. I've never met Cyril Tyndall.'

Duncan looked surprised. He said, 'I thought you would have, working for his brother and all.'

'Apparently he keeps himself very much to himself.'

'There might be something about the vaccine on the news shall we take a look?'

Sarah agreed and they went along to the common room where a dozen others had gathered for the same reason. The vaccine story was mentioned third in the headlines. There were loud cheers at the naming of the university and hospital although there were no pictures either of the Tyndall brothers or the hospital. Instead stock footage of the city was shown. 'I guess they didn't have time,' said Duncan.

The national news came to an end and was followed by local news. People began to drift away but Sarah heard Duncan say, 'God, what a mess,' as she was heading for the door. She turned round to see pictures of a burnt-out car surrounded by firemen still playing their hoses on it. Four young men had lost their lives when the car they were travelling in had apparently burst into flames. No other vehicle had been involved and police were still trying to establish the cause of the fire.

John Main was about to go to bed when the phone rang. He hesitated before picking it up, fearing that it might be his sister or mother in law. He had not returned any of their calls for the past two weeks. He waited until the answering machine had put out its message and the bleep had signalled the caller to speak.

'Hello Mr Main. This is Inspector Lenny at Lothians and Borders Police Headquarters. I'd like you to get in touch with us at your convenience, sir.'

Main snatched up the phone, 'This is John Main, Inspector. You have some news?''

'I think it might be better if I came round, sir.'

'Very well Inspector. As soon as you like.'

'I'll be there in about fifteen minutes.'

Main felt the excitement grow inside him. The police must have found the men. He was close to finding out what had happened to Simon. He put his clothes back on and made some coffee to fill in the time. He had just finished when the doorbell rang. It was Lenny.

'Sorry to bother you at this late hour sir but you did seem anxious to get any news at all about your son,' said the policeman.

'Absolutely Inspector. Have you found the men?'

The Inspector did not reply. Instead he opened his briefcase and took out a Manila Folder. The briefcase looked new; Main could smell the leather. Lenny flipped the file open. He selected a photograph from among the papers and asked, 'Do you recognise this man sir?'

Main took the photograph and looked at the smiling man standing on a beach with a glass in his hand. He was holding it up to the camera as if to wish the photographer good health. 'Yes Inspector, I do. This is one of the men from the pub the other night. One of the men I told you about.

Main took another photograph from the folder and exchanged it with Main for the one he had. 'And this man sir?'

Main looked at the snap shot. It was a different size from the first one and seemed much older; it was dog-eared at the corners. It showed a tall man with his arm wrapped around a plumpish girl wearing a low cut blouse. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and she had a flower in her hair although the background suggested that they were still in the UK, possibly at some seaside resort. 'Yes, him too,' said Main. 'He's the ring leader,' said Main.

The policeman exchanged photographs again with Main, this time for one of a young man in army uniform. He was standing at attention and Main thought his cap a little too large: it seemed to dwarf his face. The background suggested a military establishment. Possibly a passing out day photograph, he thought. The face was a deal younger but Main recognised him as another of the men from the pub. 'He was one too.'

'Perhaps you would like to describe the fourth man to me sir,' said Lenny, taking back the photograph.

Main thought for a moment then said, Let me see. Five ten, broad shouldered, red hair cropped very short, shaved round the ears. I think he wore a single gold earring. He was wearing a denim jacket and jeans when I saw him.'

Lenny nodded and said, 'That's the man sir.'

'Then you've caught them all?' asked Main.

'No sir,' said Lenny, 'I'm afraid not. I'm sorry to have to inform you that these four men all died in a car accident earlier today. We obtained the three photographs from their relatives. There was none available for the fourth man but your description fits the one we have.'

Main felt as if his world had just collapsed. 'What kind of accident for God's sake?'

'Their car went on fire sir. None of them got out. As far as we can tell no other vehicle was involved.'

Main shook his head as if doubting that fate could be so cruel. 'But they were my only chance of finding Simon's body,' he said in a despairing whisper. He got up and walked to the window as if seeking distraction from the truth. After a few moments staring silently out into the blackness he turned round to face Lenny. 'I don't understand,' he said. 'How could none of them get out? Cars don't just burst into flames like that. If there's an electrical fire, you smell burning, maybe see smoke. You stop the car and get out. You said yourself that there was no other car involved so it's not as if the petrol tank was ruptured by impact. They were young, fit men for God's sake, not paralysed cripples!'

'Our people are looking into that at the moment sir,' said Lenny

'Will you be talking to the relatives about the men's involvement in the disappearance of my son's body?' asked Main.

'Yes sir. Once they've had a chance to come to terms with the deaths.'

'How did you know these four were the men Inspector?' asked Main.

'I didn't sir. One of my colleagues from Traffic left the men's photographs on the desk for distribution to the press. It just struck me when I looked at them that they fitted the descriptions you gave me the other night.'

'That was quick of you Inspector. I'm grateful to you for telling me.'

'Not at all sir. I'll be in touch if there's any more news.'

Main showed Lenny out and closed the door behind him slowly and deliberately. He stood for a moment with his forehead resting against it and his fists clenched. His eyes were tightly closed. He tapped his head lightly and rhythmically off the door as he whispered, 'Damn them to hell.'

Around two in the morning the wind, which had been strengthening steadily for the past three hours, achieved true gale force status and drove rain horizontally against the windows of Lafferty's bedroom with unrelenting zeal. As it happened, he had been lying awake for some time so he couldn't accuse the weather of having woken him but the sound of a storm at that hour did nothing to ease his troubled mind. He was about to get up and make tea when the phone started ringing. It startled him and he stared at it for a few moments as if it were an unwelcome intruder. There was always something unnerving about a phone call in the wee small hours. It couldn't be a social call; it had to be bad news. The best he could hope for was a wrong number. He picked up the receiver. The one thing in his mind as he did so was the hope that he would not have to dress and go out into the rain.

'Have you heard?' asked the voice. 'They're all dead.'

The voice was male and sounded slurred as if its owner had been drinking. There was still a chance it was a wrong number. 'Who is this?' he asked.

There was a pause then the voice said, 'It's me, John Main.'

Lafferty felt embarrassed at not having recognised the voice. 'I'm sorry, John,' he said. 'This line's very bad. Who's dead?'

'All of them, all four.'

It suddenly dawned on Lafferty who Main as talking about and his throat tightened. He felt as if a steel band was slowly being applied around his chest. 'The men from the cemetery?' he croaked.

'Dead,' repeated Main as if he could not believe it himself.

'How?' asked Lafferty.

'A fire, their car went on fire and they all died.'

'I see,' said Lafferty.

'Well I bloody don't!' growled Main. 'How could it happen? To all of them at the same time? Sometimes I just don't believe my bloody luck!'

'Maybe luck had nothing to do with it,' said Lafferty thinking out loud and then regretting it. Main was obviously very drunk and he didn't want to discuss anything with him in this state.

'I don't understand; what do you mean?' slurred Main.

'Nothing,' said Lafferty flatly. 'I'll call you in the morning.' He put the phone down to avoid any further discussion, hoping it would not ring again in a few moments. It didn't. Lafferty was left with only the sound of the wind and the rain as it continued its unrelenting assault on the windows. Just what the hell was going on, he wondered. A knot of unease settled into his stomach. The only thing he could be sure about was that this - whatever 'this' was, was much bigger than he had ever feared. If Sarah Lasseter was right, John McKirrop had been murdered because of something he knew about what had happened in the cemetery that night and now the four other men who had been there were also dead. An accident? He found that hard to believe. But if these men had been murdered too, then surely it must mean that they were up against something much bigger than he ever could have imagined.

As to the identity of any of the people involved his only clue lay in the fact that Sarah Lasseter was convinced that McKirrop's killer was on the staff of the Head Trauma Unit. The connection between HTU and the four men from the cemetery was however, harder to see. A particularly vicious gust of wind hit the bedroom windows and rattled them in their frames. Lafferty shivered and went through to the kitchen to switch on the kettle.

John Main woke up with a splitting headache to add to the feeling of depression he had gone to bed with. He remembered calling up Lafferty but not too much of what had been said. Had he arranged to meet him? He had a vague recollection of something having been said along these lines. Maybe the best thing would be to call him when he felt a little better. The first step towards rehabilitation would be coffee, he decided but almost changed his mind when he sat up to get out of bed. The pain inside his head soared to new heights, paralysing him into immobility for a moment. Should he attempt to get up or just sink back down on the bed again? That was the decision to be made.

Against his better judgement, Main continued with his slow resurrection and made it to the bathroom before having to rest for a moment with his hands on the sides of the wash-basin. He looked at himself in the mirror and then closed his eyes. What a mess, he concluded. What would Mary have said about him looking like this he wondered? It wasn't hard to guess. He could almost hear her voice in his ear telling him to pull himself together. He sluiced cold water up into his face. It reminded him of the incident with the men in the pub. He still found it hard to believe they were all dead. Fate was seldom kind but to be this cruel was just too much to bear.

Thinking about the fickleness of fate triggered off a hint of a memory of something Lafferty had said on the phone last night. Something about it not being fate? He vaguely recalled the priest hanging up just after saying it. He couldn't blame the man. The thought of having phoned him while being stoned out of his skull made Main cringe inwardly as he filled the basin with hot water to shave.

Even his skin felt sore as he pulled the razor around the contours of his face. What had Lafferty meant? If the men's deaths hadn't been down to fate or bad luck what was he suggesting? That it had not been an accident? That they had been murdered? Main paused with the razor an inch from his face. Ye gods, is that what Lafferty had meant? He found the idea both alarming and exciting. The theory was much more attractive than bad luck or a quirk of fate. Main finished shaving and turned on the shower. His head still hurt but the air of hopelessness had left him. If these four had been murdered it wasn't the end of the affair at all. It was scarcely the beginning. It meant of course, that there were other people involved in the removal of his son's body. The thing he had to work out now was how to get at them.

Main stepped into the shower and let the water cascade on to his upturned face while he thought it through. There was no obvious way he could reach these anonymous people but that had been the case with the four who had just died until he had come up with a way of finding them. He adjusted the shower regulator to make the water a bit hotter. Maybe he could start with a little publicity. That should unsettle them at least.