Trauma (37 page)

'Should I call the police?' asked the receptionist. 'There have been a number of petty thefts recently. I know a woman up in pathology who . . .'

Sotillo gave a slight smile and interrupted her. He said to Main. 'Open your case.'

Main opened up his brief case to reveal a copy of the daily paper and a measuring tape. Nothing else.

'Now your pockets.'

Main emptied his pockets. Sotillo looked through his wallet for identification and found it. He put everything back and handed the wallet to Main. He said to everyone, 'He doesn't seem to have taken anything. I don't think we'll bother with the police. What's more important at the moment is, who let him in here in the first place?'

'I've already said something about that,' said Salman.

Sotillo looked at Main and said, 'Get out of here. You won't be so lucky again.'

Main needed no second invitation. Fresh air had never smelt sweeter as he left through the front door without looking back. His first thought was to call Lafferty. He had failed in his mission but he had found out where the Sigma lab was and the names of three people concerned with it. He’d found a quiet corner and was relaying his information when a gloved hand came over his mouth from behind and he felt a sharp pain in his right buttock as something was pushed into it. Everything started to become fuzzy, his legs became weak and the whole world started spinning in a whirl of colour.

When Main could think again, he decided through the hazy fog of semi consciousness that he must be dead. Everything was silent . . . he could see his son, Simon . . . but something was dreadfully wrong . . . this wasn't heaven ... it was hell.

Lafferty looked at the phone. The line had gone dead and he thought he knew why. Main had been caught. He closed his eyes and offered up a prayer for his safety but his conscious mind made him fear the worst. He replaced the receiver and saw it as an act of finality, the closing of a door, the severing of a link. He looked at the pad lying in front of him and read what he had written down during Main's call.

The Sigma lab was located in the basement of the Gelman Holland Research Institute. Martin Keegan's body was not in the medical school mortuary so it must still be there. Access to the Institute was by means of an electronic key card which members of staff carried with them. There were two other entrances to the building but both were kept locked. The two technicians responsible for the Sigma probes were named Mace and Pallister but a man called Dr Sotillo seemed to be in overall charge. It had been Sotillo who had allowed Main to leave the Institute.

Main had obviously been followed. Why hadn't they just kept him in the Institute when they had him? Lafferty wondered and then attempted to answer his own question. Because either Sotillo wasn't involved in Logan's scam or because he wanted other people in the Institute to see that he’d let Main go. The odds seemed to be on Mace and Pallister being the ones who had followed Main and taken him prisoner. As to whether Sotillo was involved was a moot point. It was conceivable that the two technicians had followed Main off their own bat. Lafferty pencilled in a question mark by Sotillo's name.

The big question facing Lafferty was what to do now? Should he call the police and tell them everything or would the opposition have anticipated that and hidden Main well out of the way by now. The police would turn up at the institute simply to be told that Main had certainly been there but had left. Lots of people saw him go. The truth was that Main could be being held anywhere. What he really had to do was assess the danger that he might be in. Was he right in assuming that they had taken him prisoner? Could something even worse have happened to him? Lafferty scribbled absent-mindedly in the bottom corner of his writing pad while he thought the whole thing through.

It seemed likely that the technicians would have figured out why Main had gone to the institute. The chances were that he had probably been carrying his wallet with him so even if he had given a false name, the opposition would have discovered who he really was. In fact, he recalled Main saying that he had been searched before Sotillo had let him go.

If they realised that Main was on to them and had been looking for Martin Keegan's body they would have to keep him out of the way until the evidence of the body snatch had been disposed of. Main had said that the coffin wasn't in the mortuary so the technicians had still to take it there for collection by the undertakers. Once the funeral was over it would be safe for them to let Main go, knowing that nothing could be proved against them.

Lafferty decided that the main priority was to get to Martin Keegan's coffin before the funeral took place. It was now Tuesday afternoon. They had until Thursday morning. He called Sarah.

'Is it safe to talk?' he asked when Sarah answered.

'Yes,' replied Sarah. 'I'm here alone. Logan has made a bolt for it. Professor Tyndall told me this morning.'

'Has he now?' said Lafferty softly, wondering where this action fitted in with the rest. 'I'm afraid they've got John,' he said.

'Oh my God,' said Sarah.

Lafferty noted that she was whispering despite having said that it was safe to talk. 'Are you sure you can talk?' he asked.

'Yes, it's just that Professor Tyndall may come back at any moment.'

Lafferty told her about Main's call and how he was suddenly cut off.

'What do you think they've done to him?' asked Sarah in a hoarse whisper.

'I'm hoping they are just keeping him out of the way until the Keegan funeral is over. After that there will be no evidence; they can afford to let him go.'

'I hope to God you're right,' said Sarah.

'But they shouldn't be allowed to get away with this Sarah,' said Lafferty.

'But what can we do?'

'Are you still going to call Cyril Tyndall today?'

'No,' said Sarah. 'Logan running off like this has left us short staffed. The Professor told me this morning that I couldn't be spared.'

'I hadn't considered that,' said Lafferty. 'You were our last chance of getting into that damned lab.'

'I'm sorry,' said Sarah.

'That just leaves the medical school mortuary on Thursday morning,' said Lafferty.'

'Do you think that's possible?' asked Sarah.

'It will be difficult,' said Lafferty. 'The technicians will obviously leave taking the coffin down there until the very last minute and even then they will be very much on their guard. We'd probably need an SAS squad to help us get near it.'

'So Logan and his friends are going to get away with it?' said Sarah.

'I hate to say it, but it looks very much like it.'

'Professor Tyndall will probably relieve me around four. Can I come over?'

'Please do,' said Lafferty.

Sarah arrived at St Xavier's at a quarter to five and got no answer to her first knock at Lafferty's door. After a second went unanswered she started to feel uneasy. Was it conceivable that they had got to Ryan as well as Main? She decided to look in the church.

The door closed behind her with a solid clunk that reverberated around the empty church. It was dark inside apart from the candles on the altar and on a long side table to her left near the front. There were some dim electric lights switched on above the side aisles but they seemed to serve only to create shadows. Sarah moved slowly down the centre aisle towards the altar. ‘Ryan?’ she said when she thought she heard movement somewhere but there was no answer. She looked at the confessional off the right hand aisle. It was dark and closed. Could Ryan be inside? she wondered but her feet refused to approach it. Her imagination was moving into overdrive. 'Ryan?' she repeated, a little louder this time.

She heard a movement behind her and spun round to see Lafferty emerge from the shadows. 'Sarah? I'm so sorry. I seem to have lost all track of time. I was in the chapel.'

Sarah let out her breath and shook her head with relief. 'I thought . . .' she began. 'I thought you . . .'

'What?'

'Nothing,' said Sarah.'

'Come on, let's go next door.'

'Just a minute,' said Sarah. 'I want to light a candle for John. Is that all right?'

'Of course,' said Lafferty softly. He walked with her to the side table and handed her a candle. Sarah lit it from one of the others already burning there and put it in its holder. She bowed her head for a moment and Lafferty put his hand on her shoulder. 'It'll soon be over,' he said gently. They went next door to the house.

'Have you eaten?' asked Sarah.

'No,' said Lafferty.

'Neither have I. What have you got in the house?'

'I'm not at all sure,' replied Lafferty cautiously. 'With Mrs Grogan being off I'm not sure if there's anything.' He looked sheepish.

'What did you have for lunch Ryan?' asked Sarah.

'I had something down at Riley's.'

'What?'

'A pie and a pint of Guinness.'

Sarah screwed up her face and then started looking through cupboards. After a fruitless search she said, 'All you seem to have in the house is half a packet of cornflakes, a loaf of stale bread and seven eggs.'

'I haven't had time to go shopping,' said Lafferty feebly.

'Pathetic!' said Sarah with a smile.

'I suppose it is,' agreed Lafferty, feeling a bit like a naughty schoolboy.

Sarah smiled at his hangdog expression and said, 'You are going to sit down there and I am going out to get us some food.'

Lafferty opened his mouth to argue but Sarah put her finger to her lips. 'No arguments,' she said. 'Heat up a couple of plates.'

Sarah was back within ten minutes with a plastic bag full of Chinese take-away food. She extracted the two plates Lafferty had put under the grill and piled up the food on them. Using a tea cloth to protect her hands from the hot plates, she brought them through from the kitchen to plank them down on the table. 'Eat!' she said. 'We'll talk afterwards.'

'I didn't realise I was so hungry,' said Lafferty with satisfaction when he'd finished eating. 'I really enjoyed that.'

'If you've been living on stale bread and eggs I'm not surprised,' smiled Sarah.

As they sipped coffee, Sarah said, 'From what you've told me it seems that what we really need is one of these electronic key cards. If we had one of these we could get into the building at night when no one was around and take a look at the Sigma lab for ourselves.'

'But we haven't,' said Lafferty. 'And what's more, we're not likely to get one either.'

'So what are we going to do?'

'I'll have to try getting to Martin Keegan's coffin in the mortuary before they take it away on Thursday,' said Lafferty.

Sarah's mouth fell open. 'But you said yourself they are going to be on their guard. You don't have a chance!' she protested.

Lafferty couldn't offer up a sound argument. He simply said, 'I've got to try, Sarah.'

Sarah looked at him and saw that he was determined. She continued to watch him when he diverted his eyes and was suddenly very afraid for his safety. 'There might be another way,' she said quietly.

'What other way? said Lafferty.

'I could still try to arrange a meeting with Cyril Tyndall.'

'But you said yourself that you will not be allowed to leave HTU while they are short-staffed.' said Lafferty.

'That's true,' agreed Sarah hesitantly, 'but I might still be able to arrange a meeting.'

Lafferty looked blank. 'I don't understand,' he said. 'Why? How?'

Sarah looked a little embarrassed. She said, 'I was foolish enough to believe that Cyril was interested in me professionally when I met him at a reception in the hospital. That may not have been entirely true . . .'

Lafferty still looked blank. He said, 'I'm sorry, I don't follow you.'

Sarah smiled indulgently and said, 'Ryan, he was more interested in me as a woman.'

'Oh I see,' said Lafferty. 'Well, that's very understandable. You're a very attractive one.'

Sarah felt taken aback and was suddenly unsure of herself. She said, 'Thank you, I didn't think you would notice.'

Lafferty held Sarah's gaze for a moment which seemed suddenly to last too long for both of them. Sarah continued, 'If I could arrange some kind of meeting with Cyril under . . . false pretences, perhaps I might get a chance to 'borrow' his electronic key.'

Lafferty's eyes opened wide. He said, 'That sounds like a very dangerous game to play Sarah. You shouldn't lead a man on like that.'

'Cyril is a pussy cat,' said Sarah. 'He's absolutely hopeless with women, a shy, academic introvert.'

'I still don't like it,' said Lafferty.

'Let's face it, Ryan. It's our only chance.'

Lafferty scratched his head in anguish. He saw that Sarah was right but still didn't like what she planned to do.'