Murder Club - Mark Pearson [102]
‘John equals Jack.’
‘Yep.’
‘What’s the verdict on Garland?’
‘They think he’ll live.’
‘Shame.’
‘Oh, yeah. But they also think he’s going to be severely brain damaged.’
Delaney didn’t look particularly displeased at the news.
‘How did you know he’d take her to the Scout hut, Jack?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Lucky guess?’
‘He’d been fixating on Stephanie Hewson. The rape. Newspaper accounts pinned to the wall. Pictures of her. Pictures of Kate. Same hair, same colouring.’
‘He was acting out his fantasies?’
‘Tried it before and it didn’t work. But he had seen me with the woman he was obsessed with and this fixation was escalating out of control. If he couldn’t have Stephanie Hewson, then Kate would do. Kill two birds with one stone. If he was re-enacting what happened to Stephanie last Christmas, then he’d take Kate to the hut.’
Diane put another cigarette between her lips. ‘That was a good call.’
‘Maybe I had some help.’
Diane looked at him curiously, but his face was impassive.
‘Are you going to give me one of those cigarettes?’ he said.
Kate walked up to Bible Steve’s bed, a bunch of grapes in her hand. Laura was sitting beside him. She looked a lot better. Fresher, less haunted. Kate dangled the grapes in front of Steve. ‘Bit of a cliché, I know. But …’ She placed the grapes on his bed. ‘I hear you saved a man’s life last night, Steve, by adjusting his oxygen levels.’
‘My name isn’t Steve.’
‘I know. It’s Stuart. Stuart Gregor.’
‘Yes.’
‘You remember now?’
‘His memory is coming back, parts of it anyway,’ said Laura.
‘Eight years ago there was a massive pile-up and an overturned coach on the motorway outside Reading,’ said the homeless man. ‘Seven people were killed. Thirteen people seriously injured. It was chaos at Reading General that night and a surgeon who had been drinking heavily was operating. It was me, operating without assistance, without theatre nurses, and a twenty-three-year-old blonde woman with the face of an angel and fractured ribs died because of it.’
‘Except you did have assistance, didn’t you, Mr Gregor? You had a young, newly qualified doctor on surgical rotation called Angela Laura Chilvers with you. After the woman died, there was a full enquiry. Only you had vanished. Nobody knew who you were. You didn’t even know who you were.’
‘It wasn’t his fault,’ said Laura. ‘None of this was his fault.’
‘Because you didn’t stop him from operating?’
‘The young woman who died that night had severe rib injuries, a haemothorax. The blood was draining into her chest area and literally suffocating her. She was in incredible pain and would have died. Stuart had to perform a chest drain. Only his hands were shaking so much he couldn’t place the tube correctly in her throat. So I did it.’
‘You performed the procedure?’
‘Yes, and let Stuart take the blame.’
‘I left her alone,’ said Stuart Gregor.
‘You went to find another surgeon. Only I didn’t think there was time. So I went ahead anyway. I positioned the tube incorrectly. I hit her heart. By the time Stuart came back to say help was on its way, she was already dead. He thought she had died from the crash injuries, and I didn’t tell him otherwise. He left there and then. I never got the chance to tell him the truth. Look what I did to him. I ruined his life.’
‘It’s okay. I was your supervisor, Laura.’
‘I used you. And ruined you, Stuart.’
‘I loved you, Laura.’
‘I know. And I slept with you and used you to further my career. A woman is dead, and you very nearly died because of it.’
‘Isaiah said, “Remember not the former things. Nor consider the things of old. Behold I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”’
‘Are you sure you didn’t lead a double life as a vicar?’ asked Kate with a wry smile.
‘I was educated for thirteen years at a Catholic school, Doctor. They used to beat these things into you.’
‘I’ve heard that.’
‘I might have forgotten