Dying to Know (7 page)

I suppose he interpreted this as impertinent, although it wasn't meant to be. Whatever the case, his face assumed a mean look and his voice became clipped to the point of staccato. ‘Not that it's any of your business, but I'm not unacquainted with Mr Lightoller, doctor. In fact I was in here only last week, and it wasn't like this. Far from it.'

I recalled what Dad had said about Masson supporting his theory that Lightoller was a bit shady, but said only, ‘Oh.'

‘So, when you found the body, what did you do?'

It was such an idiotic question, I took a moment to answer. ‘I called for help. I went next door to ring you.'

‘You're sure of that? You didn't touch anything?'

‘I touched the door handle, obviously.'

‘What about inside the office here?'

‘No.'

He was frowning. ‘You're a doctor; surely you tested for signs of life.'

‘What would have been the point? He'd been skewered to the chair by a sword. That's not something they see much in the minor injuries clinic.'

‘But even so . . .'

‘His eyes were glazed and he was cold to the touch—'

‘Ha! So you did touch something.' He was triumphant and cross at the same time, a difficult trick but he did it well.

‘Only the back of his hand.'

‘But you said you touched nothing.'

‘I touched nothing important.' I admit to a degree of exasperation at this point.

He sucked on the cigarette and I saw its end glow bright orange while the unburnt portion shortened noticeably.

There was a knock on the door and Smith popped his head in, shiner on prominent display. ‘They're here to pick up the body, sir.'

‘Tell them to wait.'

‘But—'

‘Tell them to wait, Smith.' His voice was not raised but was distinctly more commanding. Smith's head disappeared at once, whence it had come.

Masson stared at the spot for a while, as if convinced that Smith was liable to be insubordinate and reappear anytime soon. When he didn't, he turned to me and asked rather unpleasantly, ‘How do I know you didn't kill him?'

You will not be surprised to hear that I was slightly flummoxed by this question.

‘Me?'

‘Why not? You have means, motive and opportunity.' Almost to himself in nostalgic reverie, he added, ‘In the old days, people were hanged on less evidence.'

‘No I don't. I don't have any of them.' The proposition was preposterous but it had me jumping.

He suggested with grim enthusiasm, ‘Let's see, shall we? I think we can assume for the time being that the sword is one of Lightoller's stock items, so it would be easy to acquire the means. As far as opportunity is concerned, I'm sure you won't argue.'

‘I was only here five minutes . . .'

‘Quite long enough to stick a sword in someone.'

‘Why the bloody hell would I want to do that?'

He smiled. ‘You're moving on to motive, I see. Well, there is the little matter of your father's feud with the deceased.'

He had moved from preposterous into silly and come out the other side, heading for ludicrous. ‘You think I did away with Lightoller because he was bickering with Dad?'

‘Last night, your father deliberately tried to set fire to his house. That's more than “bickering” in my book.'

‘It was all an accident.'

He shook his head. ‘I have a signed statement from your father's companion of last night stating categorically that your father was trying to fire rockets into Oliver Lightoller's house. The only accident about it was that he hit the shed instead.'

Dad's confidence in the fidelity of Ada seemed to have been misplaced. I had to retreat and try a new tack. ‘Whatever happened last night, I don't see that it gives me a motive for murder. Why should I get involved?'

He shrugged. ‘You and your father are very close.'

‘Oh, yeah. We're so close, I act as his hired assassin. The milkman's next on the hit list because he overcharged Dad by ten pence last week.'

If this made Masson see the idiocy of the theory, it didn't show on his face. ‘And, of course, the means is easy. You pop inside the shop, walk to the back while picking up a sword on the way, burst into the office and pin him to his chair before he can get up.'

Even though this was now well beyond the ludicrous and entering the outskirts of insanity, I could feel slowly rising panic as I tried to find the flaws in this argument that I knew must be there. ‘He's been dead for some time . . .'

‘Professor Cavendish estimates death at between twelve noon and two.'

‘There you are then.'

‘So it would seem,' he admitted, paused and then continued maliciously, ‘but a clever murderer would perhaps confuse matters a little by killing Lightoller earlier in the day, say around lunchtime, with no one to see, then popping back three hours later, this time making sure he was seen; perhaps even discovering the body.'

He rendered me speechless for a few seconds, what with the audacity and sheer imagination he was displaying. ‘You're barmy! If I'd managed to kill him without being seen, why pop back and advertise my presence?'

If he saw how bizarre his theory was, he didn't show it. ‘Double, maybe even triple, bluff,' he suggested. ‘Put yourself in the frame and then, when we discount you, you're home and free.'

‘In the name of all that's holy, why would anyone do that? If they weren't seen at lunchtime, why draw attention to themselves unnecessarily?'

I thought that was unanswerable, but I underestimated the deviousness of the police mind. ‘Just in case we find a fingerprint or two. Then, you could say, for instance, “Oh, I forgot. You're quite right, I did accidentally touch the sword, or the chair.”' He nodded, pleased with his thinking, and even elaborated upon it. ‘Perhaps, as you were visiting your patient in Strathyre Avenue, it suddenly occurred to you that you left fingerprints on the handle of the door, and maybe one on his hand; you had to think quickly, and you decided to risk pointing suspicion at yourself by rushing back here and pretending to discover his dead body.'

There's a rule in psychiatry: never argue with a madman.

Unfortunately, I was in no position to follow that one.

I took a deep breath, partly to calm myself, partly to allow a little time to pass while these delusions settled, then drew attention to the basic flaw in his thinking. ‘All of which hinges on my being here at an earlier time, and a few enquiries will quickly assure you that I couldn't possibly have been. I've been seeing patients non-stop since just after eleven and before that I was in surgery. I've given a list of the home visits I made to Constable Smith, so it'll be easy enough to check.'

I could see that he was slightly shaken by my confidence but he was too much of a copper to let it defeat him completely. ‘Have you? Good. We'll start talking to them straight away.'

‘Can I go now? I've still got evening surgery to get through.'

‘Not quite yet. I want to see this brooch first.'

So I led him to it. He examined it closely without picking it up. ‘Did you touch
this
?'

‘No.'

‘It doesn't look very expensive.'

‘It was my mother's.'

He grunted, then straightened up. ‘We'll see. Do you recognize any of the rest of this stuff?'

‘No.'

His sudden shout of ‘Smith!' towards the back of the shop made me jump. Smith came hurrying and was told, ‘Get this into an evidence bag. Then I want you to check through Lightoller's paperwork; check to see if there's a receipt.'

While Smith was doing as commanded, Masson allowed me to leave, but not before pointing out that, whilst not formally charged, I was still under suspicion and I should make him aware if I were considering leaving my home address for any protracted period.

When I got home that evening, I was almost comatose with fatigue, feeling as if I were in a fugue, observing but not really controlling a body that was mine and yet not. Luckily, for all his faults, Dad was scrupulously neat and so I was not surprised to find that all the breakfast things had been tidied away, the crockery and cutlery washed and dried, and the kitchen left cleaner than it had been before. I restored a bit of normality to the universe by making a cheese omelette and leaving a mess in the kitchen. I made some coffee and tried the crossword in
The Times
for half an hour. As usual, I failed to finish it – in fact, as usual, I barely started it – and had to throw it to one side, telling myself that I would have more success if I were less tired. It was only nine thirty, but I went to bed anyway.

The phone rang in the deepest depths of the night, an intolerable din that took my brain and shook it violently. I came to at once because such things are a part of my life, but was already cursing because they were most definitely not supposed to be a part of my life when I wasn't on call.

‘Yes?'

‘Ah, Lance. How are you?'

‘Dad?' I couldn't believe it. Surely my father had more sense than to ring me at . . . I looked at the alarm clock to find, incredibly, that it was just after eleven.

‘Yes, of course it is. Who else would it be?'

Who, indeed? I sighed. ‘Actually, I was in bed.'

‘Were you?' He seemed distracted, just like he had the night before.

And a dreadful feeling of foreboding came down upon me.

With the kind of trepidation that only a condemned man on his way to the scaffold can know, I asked, ‘What's wrong, Dad?'

‘Spot of bother, again.'

A deep breath. ‘Where are you?'

He paused, then announced gravely, ‘The police station.'

I closed my eyes and mouthed an obscenity as I thought of what Masson had told me about Ada grassing on Dad. ‘Is it arson? Have they charged you with arson?'

He said at once, ‘Good grief, no!'

He sounded affronted and I breathed out relief. ‘What's going on, then?'

‘It's murder,' he said matter-of-factly. ‘They've arrested me on suspicion of murder.'

NINE

T
he rest of the night followed a pattern that was familiar from the night before, except that this time I was accompanied by a solicitor. Alexander Holversum was small, with blond hair that had a distinct coiffure and nails that were neat. He was, as my father was wont to say, ‘well-trousered', an expression that I suspect meant all things to all men. He was not what I would have chosen, had I had a hand in the matter, but I did not. He became mine – or rather, my father's solicitor – because his was the name on the duty roster for that night. I try to reassure myself with the thought that, if I could not attest to his legal abilities, I was certainly impressed by his teeth that seemed to me to be things of perfection. Whenever he smiled, I feared for my optic nerves.

I met him outside the police station and explained the situation. ‘Ah, yes. Mr Lightoller,' he sighed.

‘You knew him?'

‘I had the pleasure of working for him on the odd occasion.'

‘Well, first of all the police thought that I had done it, but now they seem to have got it into their tiny heads that my father is the guilty party.'

He considered this. His lips were barely elastic enough to stretch over his dentition and when they did the effect was a succulent pout. ‘Why would they think your father to be a murderer?' he enquired.

So I explained about the feud and the business with the fireworks.

He didn't laugh, didn't even smirk, which I regarded as a bit of a black mark against him but, as he was the only lawyer available to me, I filed it for future reference and said nothing.

We went inside and were greeted by the familiar corpulence of Desk Sergeant Percy Bailey; a variation on the theme was that on this occasion he was considerably graver and less inclined to proffer sympathy. In fact, if truth should be told, he was what can only be described as ‘icy'.

It did not start well. Mr Holversum announced himself in a manner that suggested that his name carried some weight. Percy was writing something in a big ledger; he looked up but only slowly and without great enthusiasm. He clearly knew Holversum and, I suspect, knew him well, but that did not mean he was going to fall on his knees in awe. ‘Good evening, Mr Holversum,' he said, his voice the kind of voice that people use when they think they're talking to a prat.

‘I believe you are holding an innocent man, sergeant.'

Percy either smiled or snarled – it could have been one, or the other; it could even have been both. ‘Not that I know of.'

Mr Holversum flashed his smile and I realized what it was. It was the Swiss army knife of expressions: it signalled pleasure, it warned and it staved off misfortune. ‘Now, now, sergeant. You know that I'm here about Dr Elliot.'

Percy returned to his paperwork; I saw that it was something about overtime. His voice was slightly muffled but quite clear as he said without looking up, ‘He's being interviewed by Inspector Masson.'

‘I wish to see him.'

Which made Percy look up again. ‘When the inspector's finished, you might be able to. Until then, I'm afraid that's not possible.'

‘But—'

‘Mr Holversum, you know the rules.'

And, of course, Mr Holversum
did
know the rules. He turned to me. ‘I'm afraid we will have to wait.'

We retreated and Mr Holversum gave me the benefit of his dental work. ‘This is par for the course,' he said. ‘They like to intimidate by pettiness. Do not worry. We will overcome.'