Steven found Samantha Egan’s smile attractive and genuine. For some reason he had been harbouring a mental image of a slim dark woman wearing glasses, with a serious countenance and a permanently severe expression. Instead he found a tall, attractive brunette who seemed anything but severe.
‘ Oh my God,’ she said with mock alarm. ‘You haven’t come to tell me that I made even more mistakes in the lab than I thought?’
‘ Nothing like that,’ smiled Steven. ‘But am I right in thinking that you did work in the forensic lab when Dr Ronald Lee was the consultant there some years ago?’
‘ Briefly, but not much more than a few months. It was my first real job. Let’s see, I got my degree in ’91 and then I did voluntary service overseas for a year in Africa so I would have joined the lab towards the end of ’92 and then I left in the spring of ’93 to train as a nurse.
‘ Any regrets?’ asked Steven.
‘ None at all,’ replied Samantha without hesitation. ‘I did a science degree and I thought I’d be suited to lab work but my time in Africa changed all that — you know the sort of thing, sheltered middle-class girl experiences reality for the first time. There’s nothing like a bit of dirt and squalor for completing your education. Anyway, I decided that I needed involvement with people rather than test tubes and Bunsen burners. I needed the smiles, the tears. Labs are cold, sterile places.’
‘ But you did apply for a job in forensic science,’ said Steven.
‘ Yes, I did,’ agreed Samantha. ‘I thought maybe it was just me feeling a bit unsettled after my African trip and that I might feel differently after a few months so, as you say, I did apply for the job in Dr Lee’s lab.’
‘ Not a happy time?’ asked Steven.
‘ A strange time,’ replied Samantha with an infectious smile, as if she’d been looking for a suitable euphemism.
‘ Strange?’ Steven persisted.
‘ Dr Lee…’ Samantha hesitated before completing the sentence. ‘Well, let’s just say he had problems.’
‘ It’s all right,’ Steven assured her. ‘I’m well aware of Dr Lee’s “problems”.’
‘ Oh good,’ said Samantha. ‘Then it was one weird place, if you really want to know. The staff seemed to spend half their time covering up for the fact that their boss was pissed out of his skull!’
Steven smiled and agreed that it must have been odd. ‘You must remember Carol Bain?’
‘ Oh yes,’ said Samantha. ‘I actually bumped in to her last year when she came to visit one of the patients. A nice woman.’
Steven looked at her for a moment as if challenging her assessment.
‘ Oh, all right,’ laughed Carol. ‘She was a right cow who related more easily to dead bodies than she ever did to live ones. She seemed to resent me from the word go, so let’s say I never found her particularly helpful.’
‘ How about John Merton?’
‘ Clever chap, good at his job, taught me a lot but not enough to make me want to stay in lab work. From what I could see, he did most of the covering up for Dr Lee.’
‘ I understand you worked on the Julie Summers case?’
‘ I was on the team,’ agreed Samantha, ‘but I didn’t do much.’
‘ Would you remember who did what?’
Samantha thought for a moment before saying, ‘As I recall, it wasn’t a particularly difficult case in forensic terms because of the semen found on the dead girl and the perfect match they got with the man from the village. I think Carol did most of the DNA work on it although John did some as well. Dr Lee pottered around with fibres found on the dead girl’s clothes. I remember he got a match with fibres also found on the accused man’s clothes but then it turned out that they came from furniture in the accused man’s house and there was no dispute about the girl having been there — I think she had baby-sat for them in the past?’
Steven nodded.
‘ The pantomime really got under way when most of the samples taken at the scene of the crime got chucked out and everyone started running around like headless chickens. Luckily the semen match was so strong that it didn’t matter too much. Dr Lee wouldn’t admit it was him who discarded the samples but everyone seemed to know it was.’
‘ What did you personally work on?’
‘ I was put to work on the scrapings found under the dead girl’s nails,’ said Samantha.
Steven felt his throat tighten but he gave no outward sign of the surprise he felt at this unexpected revelation. ‘What did you do exactly?’ he asked.
‘ I was asked to type the blood that had been found there.’
Steven sensed a certain reluctance in Samantha to continue. ‘And?’ he prompted.
‘ I screwed up,’ said Samantha, casting her eyes downward and self-consciously rubbing her forehead as if still embarrassed at the memory.’
‘ In what way?’ asked Steven.
‘ I concluded that the blood was group “O” negative but it turned out I’d used distilled water instead of saline in the agglutination tests and got false negatives. The blood was actually “A” positive.’
‘ Someone checked your findings?
‘ I was very junior. Someone always checked my work.’
Steven nodded.
‘ John Merton was very kind about it and blamed the bottles being on the wrong shelves. Thank God it wasn’t Carol: she would have shouted my mistake from the rooftops. Anyway, it was that experience that made me decide that lab work wasn’t for me.’
‘ But the scrapings were definitely analysed before they were discarded?’ asked Steven, going for the key question with baited breath.
‘ Oh yes,’ said Samantha, lifting a weight from his shoulders without realising it. ‘Everything was done.’
Steven had to accept that his theory about the examinations not being done was wrong. Lee may not have carried out the work personally but the work had been done and that was the important thing.
‘ Did Dr Lee himself get involved in the analysis of the scrapings?’ he asked.
‘ I think he did,’ replied Samantha, destroying what was left of the Dunbar theory. ‘I don’t think he was very good at DNA work but he liked to go through the motions and John was always on hand to keep him right.’
‘ What was the final outcome?’
‘ The scrapings confirmed David Little as being the murderer.’
Steven smiled at Samantha and said, ‘You have been a tremendous help. In fact, you’ve just told me everything I needed to know.’
EIGHT
Steven had a lightness in his step as he left the hospital and walked back to the car. He no longer had the feeling of trying to run in soft sand. Samantha Styles had told him exactly what he needed to know; that the material found under Julie Summers’ fingernails had confirmed the case against David Little. He could return to London with an easy mind.
Steven checked out of the hotel and drove to Edinburgh airport where he returned the hire car to Hertz before booking himself on the next British Airways shuttle flight to Heathrow. He was standing in the lounge looking out at the rain sweeping across the main runway when his mobile rang.
‘ Yes?’
‘ Peter McClintock.’
‘ And just in time to say good-bye,’ said Steven. ‘I’m at the airport.’ He expected McClintock to be pleased and come back with some kind of a joke but there was a short pause before the policeman said, ‘I thought you should know that Ronnie Lee’s gone missing.’
‘ Missing,’ repeated Steven.
‘ And his wife’s blaming you.’
‘ How in God’s name could he go missing? He didn’t look as if he could stand up let alone go missing.’
