Dr. Yes (39 page)

    'You
helped remove Arabella's body from the Forum.'

    'Nope.
Not me.'

    'You
did it with your friend Rolo.'

    'Nope.
Not me.'

    'So
what are you doing here today?'

    He
shrugged. 'Just passin'.'

    'You
were Rolo's partner in crime; you came into this shop and roughed me up, you
were with him when he killed Augustine and Liam.'

    'I
duffed you up right enough, mostly because you're a spaz. But I don't know
anything about the other two. August who or what?'

    He
had probably sat in police stations a hundred times and pulled the same
innocent face.

    'You
haven't a clue what you're doing, have you?' It was Pearl. She looked
triumphant. 'You masquerade as a private detective, but it's all a big joke.
You fumble around thinking you know something because you've read all these
books, but actually it's all crap, it's all an act, it's all pretend. You've
brought us here to face some kind of kangaroo court, and now you're falling
flat on your face. You have no evidence, you have no credible witness, you're
making wild accusations about anyone who happens to come into your line of
sight. Why don't you admit it, say you're sorry and let us all get on with the
business of suing you? Because I'm telling you, by the end of the week we're
going to be knocking down that creepy old house of yours for apartments.'

    As
soon as she said it she knew it was a mistake.

    My
audience was confused. They were anxious to see my reaction to Pearl's tirade,
but a smile was definitely not what they expected.

    I had
her on the house, and now I would slam the advantage home. I had a surprise up
my sleeve. Two, in fact.

    I
said, 'You're right, of course. I mean, why would I put myself through this
unless I was absolutely sure of the outcome? Yes, I can see how Buddy might be
an unreliable witness. I can understand how a busy man like Dr Yes might not be
aware of every detail of his business. But you're wrong on one point. These
books, all around us, they're not crap, as you so crudely put it. They are
important in a way that you will never understand. They not only teach me how
to solve crimes, they show me how to do it in a dramatic fashion. For example,
right now, just when you are thinking you are on top, and this wonderful jury
might think that I've thrown the case away, these books tell me that it's
always important to hold something back, always vital to save some crucial
piece of evidence right for the very end, or perhaps some previously unheralded
witness or expert in a particular field who can blow the whole thing wide open.
Well, that's just exactly what I'm going to do, Pearl, and let's see how
confident you are after they're finished with you.'

    'Pathetic,'
said Pearl.

    'Alison,'
I said.

    She
looked towards the door, thinking I meant her to fetch in these surprise
witnesses.

    'Alison,
will you please take the stand.'

    Alison
climbed into the witness box. She whispered under her breath, 'I hope you know
what you're doing. I know nothing about anything.'

    I
smiled reassuringly. At least it was meant to be reassuring. She might have
thought I was grinning like an idiot. I knew what I was after, and it was very
simple. I nodded at Jeff. All heads craned upwards again as the photograph of
Arabella with Dr Yeschenkov at the Xianth gallery reappeared on the ceiling.

    I
said, 'We don't at this point know if this is actually Arabella with Dr
Yeschenkov, or her wax double. But if it is her wax double, then she is dressed
in Arabella's clothes, has hair like Arabella, earrings of Arabella . . . are
we all agreed?'

    I
looked at Dr Yes, who indicated neither yay nor nay, and Pearl, who nodded
slightly.

    'Alison,
will you tell the . . . shop . . . what you do for a living?'

    'I
work in a jeweller's.'

    'You
are a jeweller.'

    'I
work in a . . .'

    'You
are a jewellery expert.'

    'Well
I wouldn't

    'Compared
to everyone here, you are, without doubt, an expert in jewellery?'

    'If
you insist.'

    'Okay
then. I want you to study the photograph on the ceiling. And tell us what jewellery
you can see.'

    'There's
quite a lot on Dr Yeschenkov. High-end stuff from the look of it, even though
we don't see much in the way of high-end stuff in our little—

    'Just
Arabella, please.'

    'Okay.
Well, if she's wearing earrings, they're hidden by her hair, nothing on her
neck, and only one arm in shot. There's a watch; I can't really . . .'

    'Perhaps
if I enhance the picture?'

    Clearly
I already had this worked out. I clicked to the next one. The watch was now
much larger, big enough to make out the detail.

    'Yep,
that's more like it.'

    'So
what can you tell us about this watch?'

    'It's
a ladies' stainless-steel Citizen watch, uhm, expansion wristband, luminescent
hands and hour marks outlined in black. It would be water-resistant to a
hundred and fifty feet - I mean, it says that, but whoever goes to a hundred
and fifty feet? Retails for about a hundred and twenty quid, though seeing as I
know you I can probably do you a deal.'

    She
smiled. The audience tittered. I did not.

    'What
about the design on the face?'

    'The
snake?'

    'Yes,
the snake. Does it have any significance?'

    'Yes,
it does. We sell quite a lot of them. It's the signature of a company called
Medic Alert. It provides a life- saving identification system for people with
hidden medical conditions and allergies. The back of the watch would have been
engraved with whatever medical condition Arabella happened to be suffering
from.'

    'Thank
you, Alison, that will be all.'

    She
was clearly relieved to be out of the spotlight. I gave her the thumbs-up as
she passed and switched it instead to Dr Yeschenkov.

    I
said, 'Doctor, you are aware of this system?'

    'Yes,
of course.'

    'Are
you also aware that Arabella was allergic to penicillin?'

    'Yes,
I was aware. I wrote it into her notes.'

    'And
who has access to those notes?'

    'All
of my medical staff, everyone who was involved in her procedures, doctors and
nurses.'

    'And
if by some chance they failed to read the notes properly, they would be trained
enough to look for the Medic Alert watch or locket or bracelet?'

    'Yes,
always.'

    'And
what would happen to someone like Arabella if she was inadvertently given
penicillin?'

    'Many
people are allergic to it, but their reactions are relatively minor: a rash,
perhaps, swollen lips or itchy eyes. Arabella suffered from a more serious form
of allergy, and would have had an anaphylactic response, which would have been
life-threatening - most notably causing a contraction of the airways. Blood
pressure might also drop to a dangerous level. Either of these might render the
patient unconscious. Her speech would have been slurred, her lips and nail beds
would have turned blue. She would have thrown up. This, however, sir, is
irrelevant. I was well aware of Arabella's allergy, and she was most certainly
not given penicillin.'

    I
turned as quickly as my hips would allow and pointed.

    'Is
that right, Pearl?'

    Her
eyes were cold, her stare withering.

    But
before she could say anything, I pressed the button again and the next picture
appeared on the ceiling.

    Two
prescription notes, side by side.

    Both
for penicillin.

    Both
issued by the Yeschenkov Clinic.

    Both
signed by Dr Yeschenkov.

    But
the two signatures quite clearly different.

    'May
I now introduce my handwriting expert?'

    I
looked to the door. All eyes looked where I looked.

    He
stood there with his side-swept hair and porcine cheeks, in his tweed jacket, and
flannel trousers, and cream loafers, and with an unlit pipe in his mouth,
smiling around it.

    'May
I present Professor Lowenbrau?'

    He
came into the shop. He gave a short, clipped bow, and nodded around the
audience. In fact he wasn't a professor. In fact he wasn't called Lowenbrau. In
fact he knew damn all about handwriting. His real name was Brendan Coyle. He
was an, acclaimed author of literary fiction, a much-despised part-time crime
writer, an aesthete, an intellectual, a pain in the hole, and a friend of
sorts.

    Pearl
had a very salient point, and one that I was already aware of. No Alibis wasn't
a court of law, nobody was on trial or had taken an oath, so there was no responsibility
on my part to adhere to those aspects of court procedure that one might
normally take as sacrosanct. Everything I was doing was designed to wring a
confession from the guilty, and if I had to perform a sleight of hand to get
it, then I was quite happy too. The result was all-important. Others would have
to prove it later; for the moment, all I wanted was the murderer cornered.

    And
so Professor Lowenbrau stood there, a pompous windbag if ever there was one,
but he had the look of someone whose pomposity was based on the knowledge that
he was the leader in his field. I was expecting Brendan Coyle to rise to the
occasion, to perform, to bullshit mightily. He would point out the differences
in the signatures, and produce samples of Pearl's own signature I had unearthed
in the documents supplied by the clinic to Augustine's solicitor following
Arabella's disappearance, and show the similarities in style, and hint at the
fingerprint analysis that would shortly be carried out by one of his imaginary
colleagues that would prove that Pearl had become so powerful within the clinic
that she thought she knew enough to issue and sign prescriptions on Dr
Yeschenkov's behalf, that she had decided herself what was wrong with Arabella
and made the fatal mistake of not examining her medical records and failed to
recognise the importance of her wristwatch before administering the penicillin
that had killed her. These simple errors had precipitated everything that had
followed, right up to the murder of Rolo in Tollymore Forest.

    But
in the event, the good professor uttered not a single word.

    Pearl
let out a sigh, and as the air issued from her she seemed to collapse in on
herself. She came off her chair and on to her knees and bent over, and buried
her head in her hands. Her shoulders heaved. Everyone stared at her,
mesmerised. In the end it took a man of standing and authority to take hold of
her, to pull her hands away from her face and say, 'Why?'

    That,
obviously, wasn't me, for I was as gobsmacked by her sudden collapse as
everyone else.

    It
was Dr Yes peeling her hands away, revealing her make-up-run face, with one set
of false eyelashes hanging down.

    
'Why?'
she cried. 'I did it for you!'

    'But
that. . . doesn't make sense, Pearl. . . You wrote a prescription . . .'

    'I
wrote it for you! I was taking the weight off your shoulders!'

    'But
you can't do that

    'It
was a simple mistake! And I knew if you found out you wouldn't stand by me,
because the clinic and its reputation means more to you than I do, so I had to
cover it up, I had to. I couldn't tell you! What hope would there be for us
then? You would never leave her, never leave that fat frump after this . . .!'

    Pearl
looked daggers at the woman I, and everyone else, had presumed merely to be his
legal aid.

    Pearl
shook her head in despair. 'How could you, how could you choose her over me?'