Ken McClure - Hypocrite's Isle

Dear Gavin,

Further to our telephone conversation, I and my colleagues have decided after much consideration to decline your request for further supplies of Valdevan. Although your research findings in recent months have proved interesting, we still feel that they do not comprise any sound basis for encouraging false hope in cancer sufferers, and certainly do not warrant any kind of therapeutic experimentation. We have conveyed our feelings to your university. They in turn have assured us that all relevant scientific journals have been warned that any material submitted by you will not carry university approval.

We feel sad that we cannot come to an understanding to work together for the common good of cancer patients. With this in mind, we are prepared to offer you sponsorship to continue your studies, with a view to designing a more acceptable form of treatment, based on your research findings and matters discussed in our recent telephone conversation. We understand that this would be acceptable to your university and such studies would count towards your PhD and, hopefully, to subsequent employment by us. We urge you to consider this offer, which we feel could lead to a happy outcome for all of us.

Yours sincerely,

‘Tossers,’ growled Gavin, scrunching up the letter and throwing it across the room. ‘Devious, fucking tossers.’ He got up and walked over to the window to stare out at the rain, while gripping the edge of the kitchen sink until his knuckles showed white. The implications of the letter came at him from all angles. Carrie’s mother would now die and, although the suggestion to treat her had been hers, Carrie would always see the extra dimension to her mother’s death as being down to him. Her father was already seeing it that way. The suggestion of ‘therapeutic experimentation’ had been made to the university, and it wouldn’t take Inspector Morse to figure out what had been going on, should they decide to call in the police. The bottom line was very clear as he continued to look at the rain through the tears that were running down his face. You either play the game our way or you don’t play at all...

When Gavin didn’t call about a new supply of Valdevan, Caroline called him, but failed to get an answer. He didn’t respond to either the flat phone or his mobile, and a call to the university revealed that he had not been seen in the department. This was to go on for three days before she became so anxious that she packed a bag and told her father she was going up to Edinburgh to find out what was wrong. Her first port of call was the flat in Dundas Street, where Tim Anderson told her that Gavin had not been home ‘for a couple of days’. He invited her in and offered her coffee when she told him who she was, and said, ‘I thought maybe he had gone south to your place. I understand your mother’s not well.’

‘No. I haven’t managed to contact him since Tuesday.’

‘He seems to have been a bit low lately,’ said Anderson.

‘Could I see his room?’ asked Caroline.

‘Sure, on you go.’

Caroline swallowed as she entered Gavin’s room. Maybe it was what Tim had said, but she was filled with foreboding. Something was dreadfully wrong. Gavin didn’t have much in the way of clothes but most of them seemed to be there, except perhaps for his beloved green jersey, and his denim jacket, which wasn’t hanging on the back of the door. He certainly hadn’t packed up all his belongings and gone off somewhere. His laptop was lying on the floor beside the bed, with what she saw when she picked them up were three copies of the Valdevan paper. She froze when she saw the white envelope that had been lying underneath. It had her name on it. She opened it with trembling fingers.

Dearest Carrie,

Grumman Schalk refused to play ball. No more Valdevan I’m afraid.

I’m so sorry for all the heartbreak I’ve brought into your life and the lives of others. I just hope that you will find it in your heart one day to forgive me and, if you should ever find yourself alone on the road to forever, you’ll find me waiting there.

All my love,

Caroline’s sobbing attracted Tim, who knocked gently on the half-open door. ‘I couldn’t help but hear...’

Caroline handed him the tear-stained letter. ‘Oh, God, what’s he done?’ she sobbed.

Tim accompanied Caroline to the police station, where they reported Gavin missing and showed the desk sergeant the letter so that they would be taken seriously.

‘And you are?’

‘His girlfriend.’

‘His flatmate.’

Caroline and Tim were invited to take a seat, and gazed unseeingly at the information posters on the walls while they waited. They were eventually asked into another room, where a plain-clothes officer invited them to sit in front of a table. Caroline could see by the expression on his face that he might have bad news to impart, although he began by taking what he called ‘a few details’.

‘Have you any idea what Gavin might have been wearing when he disappeared?’

Tim shrugged but Caroline said, ‘I think maybe his green jumper, probably jeans and a denim jacket.’

This seemed to be what the officer was looking for. He put down his pen and said, ‘I’m so sorry, but the body of a young man was taken from the sea at North Berwick this morning. His clothes match your description.’

Caroline shook her head, as if unable or unwilling to accept what she was hearing. Tim put a tentative arm round her shoulders.

‘I wonder... would you be willing to...?’

Tim nodded.

No one spoke on the rain-swept drive over to the City Mortuary, not even when they got inside. The officer disappeared for a few moments before coming back and gesturing for Caroline and Tim to follow him. They were shown into a room that both of them felt they had seen a million times before on TV and in films. One of the fridge doors was opened and a body tray slid out on to the rails of a waiting trolley. The sheet covering the body was pulled back and the attendant stepped back in practised fashion. The officer nodded to them.

Caroline approached the trolley first, and found herself looking down into Gavin’s cold, pallid face. His eyes were closed. She nodded for the benefit of the officer, and closed her eyes for a moment, as if summoning up strength before bending to kiss Gavin’s forehead. ‘Oh, Gav,’ she sobbed. ‘You stupid... stupid...’

Caroline returned to the flat in Dundas Street, but only to pick up Gavin’s laptop and the copies of the Valdevan paper. Tim suggested that she stay the night, saying that she shouldn’t be alone, but she declined, knowing that she couldn’t bear to be anywhere near the little room where she and Gavin had first made love. She took a taxi over to Pollock Halls, where two classmates helped her through a very long night.

The report of Gavin’s death made it to the papers next day.

Yesterday morning, the body of Gavin Donnelly, a postgraduate student at Edinburgh University Medical School, was taken from the sea at North Berwick in East Lothian. Police believe that he had taken his own life. He was the second student from the same department to have done so in recent months following a fire in which another student was badly injured. The head of the lab in which all three worked is currently believed to be on leave and was unavailable for comment. The head of department, Professor Graham Sutcliffe, described the loss as tragic, saying that Gavin had been a particularly brilliant student who would be sorely missed.

Caroline felt a deep anger inside her as she read the report over and over again. ‘Two-faced, mealy-mouthed bastard,’ she growled. Gradually, her attention moved from Sutcliffe to Frank Simmons, who was ‘on leave’. She turned to Moira, one of the girls who had supported her through the night. ‘I have a favour to ask,’ she said.