Chapter 44
350 Words
44
‘I still don’t get it,’ Culverhouse said, as the pair sat silently in the car outside John Lucas’s house. ‘Why the hell would Freddie Galloway come over to John Lucas’s house, pretending to be from the gas board?’
‘Well, I think we have to stick with our original theory: that our man came to the house on the pretence of reading the meters, but was actually there to plant the evidence we found when we came to speak to Lucas. Just because we now know that man was Freddie Galloway himself, that doesn’t change anything.’
‘But that makes no sense. You can’t frame someone else for your own murder.’
‘You can if it’s not murder,’ Wendy mumbled. She unlocked her mobile phone and called the incident room. After a few rings, DC Ryan Mackenzie answered the phone.
‘Ryan, it’s Wendy. Listen, can you do me a favour? We need immediate access to Freddie Galloway’s medical records. Not just the NHS ones, either. I imagine he’ll have had private healthcare. You’ll probably need to speak to the Patients’ Association and the British Medical Association. Get onto the major private healthcare providers, too. BUPA, Spire, the lot. Get everyone on the case. We need to fast-track them urgently. Alright?’
‘Sure, whatever you say.’
Wendy hung up the phone and looked at Culverhouse. They shared a look that said they both knew what the new theory was, and that the result of Ryan and the rest of the team’s calls would confirm it. In exceptional circumstances, healthcare providers could provide almost instantaneous access to reports if demanded by the police. Some were better than others, though, and Wendy hoped Freddie Galloway used one of the quicker ones.
It was just under an hour before Wendy’s phone rang, the familiar number on the screen letting her know it was Ryan Mackenzie calling.
‘Ryan. What have you got?’
‘Well, I don’t know how interesting or useful it’ll be to you, but it seems Freddie Galloway was seeing a private doctor. His latest records show he’d been living with liver cancer. The prognosis was that it was terminal. Looks like the poor bloke was going to be dead before long anyway. Does that help at all?’
For the first time in a few days, Wendy smiled. ‘Oh yes. More than you know.’
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