Dick Francis - Under Orders

Marina was on a roll. ‘I can use restriction enzymes like EcoR1 to cut the DNA strands in this sample into what we call polynucleotides. Then I’ll put them in an agarose gel matrix, a sort of jelly, for electrophoresis. The polynucleotides are charged so they’ll migrate, or move, in the electric field. The amount they migrate is dependent on the size and shape of each polynucleotide. Imagine that the gel acts as a sort of sieve, the bigger the polynucleotide the less distance it will migrate.’

Geoffrey was still nodding. I wasn’t.

‘So in the gel matrix you get separation of polynucleotides into different bands. Then you bake the matrix on to a sheet of nitrocellulose paper to give a permanent pattern of lines where the bands are.’

‘How does that help?’ I was out of my depth here, I thought. Give me a poor jumping novice chaser over Aintree fences any day.

‘Everyone has slightly different DNA so everyone has a different pattern. In criminal cases, they say that the odds of two different people having the same pattern is more than 60 million to one. Unless, of course, you have identical twins. They will have matching patterns because their DNA is exactly the same, that’s what makes them identical. However, what I’m doing wouldn’t be acceptable as evidence in court. The law requires much stricter systems for producing the profile to prevent cross-contamination. This one will be contaminated with my DNA for a start. I’ll have to do another pattern of just my DNA so I can subtract my lines to leave those of our friend alone.’

‘Our friend?’ asked Geoffrey.

‘The door,’ I said.

‘Door? What door?’ Poor Geoffrey was getting very confused.

‘The door Marina walked into, twice.’

‘Ah,’ the penny dropped. ‘Yes, the door, our friend. Good. Well done.’

I wasn’t sure if he understood or not but he seemed happy to wander around the lab as Marina worked away with the fingernails. She then scraped some cells from the inside of her cheek to do another profile of her own DNA alone.

‘It will take several hours now for the polynucleotides to migrate in the gel matrix. We’ll have the results next week.’

‘What will they give us?’ I asked.

‘Nothing on their own,’ she said, ‘but if we get more samples and one of them matches, then, bingo, we have our man.’

‘So all I have to do is go around asking everyone for a DNA sample.’

‘You don’t have to ask,’ said Marina. ‘Just pluck out an unsuspecting hair. As long as the root follicle is still attached, there will be enough cells present to get a profile.’

‘Is that legal?’ I asked.

‘No. Strictly speaking it’s not,’ she said. ‘The Human Tissue Act makes it illegal to hold a sample for the purpose of producing a DNA profile without the consent of the donor.’ She waved her hand at her work. ‘All this has technically been illegal but I’m not telling.’

‘Me neither,’ said Geoffrey flamboyantly. ‘Doctor/patient confidentiality, don’t you know.’

Marina and I went back to Ebury Street while Geoffrey returned home to Highgate.

‘See you next week to take the stitches out,’ he had said as he got into his Volvo. ‘Take care with that girl of yours. I’ll send you my bill.’

He hadn’t sent me a bill for years.

We arrived back home at about ten thirty, far too late to go out to eat, as I had planned.

‘Package for you, Mr Halley,’ said the night porter as we arrived. Derek had gone off duty.

The package was, in fact, a brown manila envelope about seven by ten inches. It had ‘SID HALLEY — BY HAND’ written in capital letters on the front.

‘When did this arrive?’ I asked the porter.

‘About five minutes ago,’ he said. ‘It came by taxi. The driver said he had been paid to deliver the package and that you were expecting it.’

‘Well, I wasn’t.’

I opened the flat envelope. There was a single sheet of paper inside. It was a newspaper cutting from Monday’s Pump . It was the picture of Marina and me walking down the road, hand in hand. This copy had some additions.

‘Listen to the message. Someone could get badly hurt’ was written across the bottom of the picture in thick red felt-tip.

And a big red ‘X’ had been drawn across Marina’s face.

When in trouble, seek sanctuary.

I decided we should go to Aynsford.

Marina had become very agitated on seeing the newspaper cutting. She was sure that we were being watched and I agreed with her. She packed a few clothes whilst I rang Charles.

‘What, now?’ he asked. Charles was old-fashioned in that his house telephone stood on a table in the hallway and I could imagine him glancing at his long-case grandfather clock. It would have told him that it was after ten thirty, almost his bedtime.

‘Yes, Charles. Now, please.’

‘Physical or mental problem?’ he asked. He knew me too well.

‘Bit of both,’ I said. ‘But it’s not me, it’s Marina.’

‘Marina?’

‘I told you about her last week,’ I said. ‘She’s Dutch and beautiful. Remember?’

‘Vaguely,’ he said.

Was he trying to make me cross?

‘I suppose it’s all right,’ he said without conviction.

‘Look, Charles, we won’t come. Sorry to have bothered you.’

‘No,’ he said, sounding a bit more determined. ‘Come. Does this Dutch beauty need her own room or are you two… together?’

‘Charles,’ I said, ‘you’re losing your marbles. I told you last week. We’re together.’

‘Right. So it’s one room then?’

‘Yes.’

Suddenly it didn’t seem to be a good idea any more. Charles was being very reticent and I certainly did not want to abuse his hospitality. Perhaps bringing a new girlfriend into the house of my ex-father-in-law was not, after all, very prudent.

‘Charles, perhaps it would be best if we didn’t come.’

‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘I’m expecting you now. Looking forward to it. How long will you be staying?’

‘Only for the weekend, I expect.’

‘Jenny and Anthony are coming on Sunday.’

Ah, now I understood. Jenny, my ex, had always put her father in a spin. In the Navy, he had been at the centre of command and control but he could be reduced to a gibbering wreck by the cutting tongue of his only daughter. Just the thought of her imminent arrival had sent him into a fluster.

‘What time on Sunday?’ I asked.

‘Oh, for dinner, I think. Mrs Cross has the details.’

Mrs Cross was his housekeeper.

‘We’ll be gone by then.’

It would save a scene that Jenny would have relished. Not my injuries this time but my girlfriend’s. How delicious, she would think. The former Mrs Halley, the current Lady Wingham, would have had a field day.

‘Oh, right. Good.’ Charles, too, could see that it was an encounter best avoided.

‘We’ll be there in an hour and a half,’ I said. ‘Leave the back door open and I’ll lock it when we get in. No need for you to stay up.’

‘Of course I’ll be up. Drive carefully.’

As if I wouldn’t. Just because someone says ‘drive carefully’, does it make people actually drive more carefully? I suspect not.

We left the lights on in the flat and went down through the building to the garage. Marina lay down on the back seat of the car as I drove out on to Ebury Street. Anyone watching would have thought I was on my own and assumed that Marina was alone upstairs.

I jumped two sets of red lights and went round Hyde Park Corner three times before I was satisfied that we weren’t being followed.

I drove, very carefully, along the M40 to Oxford and then cross-country to Aynsford, arriving there soon after midnight. Marina, having transferred to the front passenger seat, slept most of the way but was finally woken by the constant turning of the narrow lanes and the humpback bridge over the canal as we approached the village.