An Empty Death (9 page)
Authors: Laura Wilson
‘On the table, please,’ said Byrne, when they arrived at the mortuary. ‘I’ll attend to him immediately.’
Higgs rushed to fetch the instruments, leaving Byrne staring down at the shrouded form on the table. ‘Did you know Dr Reynolds well?’ asked Todd.
‘Well?’ Byrne sounded puzzled, as if the idea of having more than a passing acquaintance with somebody had never before occurred to him.
‘Higgs said you’d recognised him, so I thought . . . I’m sorry if I spoke out of turn. I didn’t meant to—’
‘No, no,’ Byrne interrupted. ‘We’d met on a couple of—’ He stopped, his lips moving silently, as if trying out words for suitability. ‘On a couple of occasions.’ He turned away and started to remove his jacket.
Todd uncovered Reynolds’s body and began, with difficulty since the outer garments were partially caked with wet plaster dust, to strip it. Occasions, he thought, as he tugged the trousers over the hips. The way Byrne had said it was significant. The most likely explanation was a post-mortem on one of Reynolds’s patients - if there was a suggestion of negligence, perhaps? And if it had happened more than once . . . ?
Higgs bustled in with the instruments and lent a hand with removing the rest of Reynolds’s clothes. ‘Better make a list of this lot,’ he said. ‘The police’ll need it.’ Todd stared down at the stripped corpse: merely the shell that once contained the man. The harsh overhead lamp gave the body a yellow tinge, so that it looked as if it were made of dirty wax.
Dr Byrne took up his position by the table, and his beanpole of an assistant, Miss Lynn (the Forces’ Sourpuss) drew up a chair several feet away and hunched, vulture-like, over her notebook. Dismissed by Byrne, Todd took himself out to the basement yard for a breath of fresh air and a smoke. A little curiosity, he thought, would hardly seem suspicious - after all, he’d been told about the blow to the head and the police search. He could ask Higgs later, while they were cleaning up the room. He ought to try and steal a look at Byrne’s notes, too - although that would have to wait until tomorrow, when they were typed up, because Miss Lynn’s shorthand was incomprehensible. Byrne’s office, which was down the corridor, was only locked at night, so it shouldn’t be too difficult.
The spectre of the policeman loomed once more in his mind. There’s nothing to connect you with Reynolds, he told himself, and no reason for the coppers to be interested in you. And if he was questioned, he’d be able to say, with perfect truth, that he had not known the man. He’d seen him, while he was testing out his doctor’s uniform upstairs, and made a point of discovering who he was - that was how he’d been able to recognise him, even in the near-darkness. Besides, he told himself, the burden of proof is always on the accuser, even if he is a policeman. That was the most important thing to remember. He was going to be a good doctor, he knew it. Better than Reynolds, if, as he suspected, the man had made some cock-ups . . . When Byrne went out he’d satisfy his curiosity about that by searching through the records to see if he was right. When post-mortems were on hospital patients, Byrne always noted the name of the doctor at the top, so it would be fairly simple.
He crushed his cigarette out and leant against the wall, eyes closed and face turned upwards to the meagre sunlight. ‘MB, ChB,’ he murmured to himself, remembering the moment when, in the safety of his room, he’d taken Dacre’s papers from his pockets and scattered them across the bed: birth certificate, school certificates, degree certificates - he’d been right about St Andrews. There were even some letters to his mother, written from university. Handy, those, since he’d never been anywhere near either St Andrews or Dundee, which was apparently the home of the medical school. They’d be useful for background colour, if he ever got into a conversation about it. There was nothing a university man liked more, he’d learned, than a good chinwag about the dear old college with another graduate. He’d been caught out that way once before, and he wasn’t going to make the same mistake again. He’d send off for a prospectus too, to be on the safe side.
He’d already made up a new ID card for Dacre. The next thing he needed to do was to open a bank account in Dacre’s name, and then there was the question of the medical discharge certificate. The hospital was bound to ask why he hadn’t been called up - which was ironic, considering that the real reason was because he was, officially, dead, and you couldn’t get more medically discharged than that. How to go about it? He heard a creaking noise and, opening his eyes, he saw, slouching through the door from the emergency operating rooms, the rotund form of a hospital orderly. ‘Sorry to disturb you, mate. Got a match?’
‘Here.’ As the orderly bent his head to light his cigarette, Todd realised that the answer had been provided. Had been there, in fact, all along, right under his nose.
‘Deep in thought, were you? Looked like you was concentrating on something.’
‘Nice to have a bit of peace, that’s all.’
‘Work in there, do you?’ The orderly jerked his head in the direction of the mortuary.
‘That’s right.’
‘Blimey. Wouldn’t fancy it myself. That what happened to your hand?’ He gestured at the pink scar that circled the base of Todd’s right thumb. ‘One of ’em sit up and have a go at you?’
Todd shook his head. ‘Dog bite. When I was a kid. It’s not so bad in there, you know. You get used to it soon enough.’
‘You’d have to. Not that it’s all fun and games where I am, mind. Been on my feet all morning . . .’ The orderly rattled off a litany of complaints and Todd nodded sympathetically, his mind racing. Something about the orderly’s face, with its meaty flesh and bulbous nose, put him immediately in mind of his landlady’s son, Jimmy, a thickset twenty-year-old layabout with - according to his mother - a weak heart that prevented him from fighting (or, as far as anyone knew, doing anything except ambling down to the pub on the corner). Jimmy must have a medical discharge certificate, if he could only get hold of it . . . He hadn’t needed one for Todd, as the Administrative Department had been happy to accept his explanation of call-up deferred on compassionate grounds (they’d been so pleased to have an applicant who wasn’t either a dribbling half-wit or as old as Methuselah that a vague explanation about a mentally-defective brother had sufficed, backed up by the promise of a confirming letter in the post, which, despite the fact they’d never received it, was never asked about again).
‘. . . so I told him,’ said the orderly, ‘it’s not my job to bugger about with nitrous oxide. Those young doctors think they know it all.’
‘Which doctor was it?’
‘Betterton. But they’re all as bad as each other.’
‘Are there many, then?’ asked Todd. ‘I’d have thought they’d have been in the army.’
‘Only three - Dr Unwin’s another, and Dr Wemyss - though, come to think of it, he’s all right, really. Got money, he has, but he doesn’t swank about it. Nurses flirting with him left, right and centre, though - he could have his pick. Look, mate, I’d better get back. Nice talking to you.’
‘Right you are. See you.’
Todd paused outside the door of the main room. He could hear the sound of people moving about, and Byrne’s voice dictating monotonously to Miss Lynn. After a minute straining his ears for details, he gave up and went through to the refrigeration room to clean up after Mrs Lubbock. Betterton, Unwin and Wemyss, eh? He’d be on the lookout for them. His first aim was to find out where they drank. Meantime - through the half-open door he eyed a group of nurses walking down the corridor towards their quarters, discreetly appraising, and rejecting, faces, breasts and legs - there was the matter of choosing the right girl.
Ten
S
tratton, at the station, stood in front of DCI Lamb’s desk while his superior, looking more like George Formby than ever, went through a series of facial contortions. Anyone would think, Stratton reflected wryly, that he’d asked the man to solve some impossible philosophical conundrum, not provide a few blokes for a search team.
tratton, at the station, stood in front of DCI Lamb’s desk while his superior, looking more like George Formby than ever, went through a series of facial contortions. Anyone would think, Stratton reflected wryly, that he’d asked the man to solve some impossible philosophical conundrum, not provide a few blokes for a search team.
‘This,’ Lamb jabbed his desk with a forefinger, ‘isn’t officially a murder enquiry, Stratton.’
‘No, sir.’
‘We’re very busy at the moment.’
Yes, sir,’ said Stratton, wearily.
‘There’s a lot’ (jab!) ‘to be attended to, and I don’t’ (jab!) ‘want’ (jab!) ‘anything overlooked.’
‘No, sir. But Dr Byrne seems to think it wasn’t an accident.’
‘Seems to think?’
Stratton thought he might as well opt for a bit of arse-covering. ‘He suggested the search, sir.’
‘What do you think?’
‘I’m not sure. Not until we have the results of the post-mortem.’
‘Yes, but what did it’ (jab!) ‘look like to you?’
‘It’s hard to say, sir, without some more information. Perhaps,’ he added, ‘you’d like to take a look yourself, sir. Give us the benefit of your opinion.’ This was definitely pushing it, and Lamb gazed at him warily for what felt like about five minutes. Stratton, straining every nerve in an effort not to shout ‘oh, fuck off’, forced himself to meet his superior’s eyes with what he fervently hoped was the guileless and sincere expression of one seeking assurance.
‘I hope we can trust your judgement,’ said Lamb. ‘I’m sure we can spare one or two chaps if you think it’s important.’ The implication that Stratton would be for the high jump if it turned out not to be important buzzed in the air between them like an angry wasp.
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Take Watkins and Piper’ - two reservists, fair enough - ‘oh, and,’ Lamb gave Stratton a look of pure malice, ‘Arliss should be about somewhere.’
Stratton’s heart sank. Arliss had such a knack for cocking things up that if there was anything there to find, he’d miss it, and Lamb bloody well knew it. ‘Thank you, sir. We’ll get started immediately.’
‘I take it you haven’t spoken to the family yet?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Better do it yourself, if you can. And be careful what you say - we don’t want to alarm them if it’s not necessary. Where are they?’
Damn, thought Stratton. ‘I’ll have to ask the hospital, sir.’
‘Do that. If they’re out of London, better get the local chaps to have a word. Otherwise . . .’ he waved a hand. ‘You know the drill. Use a car if necessary. I need you to sort this out - if there is anything to sort out - as soon as possible.’
‘Yes, sir. Thank you.’
Watkins and Piper set off smartly in the direction of the bomb-site, with Arliss trailing them at an unenthusiastic distance. Stratton accompanied them and gave instructions to search the area thoroughly for anything that looked suspicious. Like most people, he supposed, he hated hospitals. He could never enter one without remembering how, when he was six and his mother had died, his father had stood, humiliated, before the almoner, twisting his cap in his huge farmer’s hands as he tried to explain how they couldn’t afford to pay the bill.
Dismissing his memories with an effort, he went to find the Administrative Department, where he spoke to a woman with thick, round spectacles who kept repeating, ‘Dead? Dead?’ in outraged tones, as if dying were some particularly disgusting contravention of the Hippocratic oath.
She took Stratton to see the Senior Registrar, a man with a voice so upper class that it sounded as if he were being slowly strangled with piano wire, who had an empty sherry decanter and an antelope hoof with a hinged lid (Stratton thought it might have been a snuff-box) on his desk to denote his vertiginously high status. After explaining the situation four times in slightly different words, he managed to elicit the information that Dr Reynolds was married and lived in Finchley.
On the way back to the station, he paused for a quick word with Ballard at the bomb-site (nothing to report), and, returning to West End Central, asked the desk sergeant to organise a car. After a few minutes of fuss and harrumphing, a Railton saloon and a driver appeared, and Stratton was borne off to North London in the company of Policewoman Harris, chosen on the grounds of her kind face and sensible demeanour.
The late Dr Reynolds’s home was larger and handsomer than he’d expected, and Stratton wondered if he’d had a private income as well as his doctor’s salary. God, he hated this part of the job: that split second before you said the words when they guessed from your face why you were there, and you’d have given anything not to say it and they’d have given anything not to hear it, then the bewildered denial, the growing comprehension, the wait for the anguished spasm of the face, the tears . . . The worst thing about it was having to perform the roles of unwilling participant and professional witness at the same time, sympathising while probing at grief to check its authenticity. Christ.
Shuddering inwardly, he pressed the bell. As he stood waiting, Harris by his side, he made the necessary mental adjustments, tuning himself, like a wireless, to the right level of spontaneity and compassion. A quick look at Harris, who was staring fixedly at her shoes, told him that she was doing the same.
Mrs Reynolds was a large-boned, fair woman. Her pale blue eyes widened when she saw them, and, before Stratton had a chance to introduce himself, she gabbled, ‘It’s Duncan, isn’t it? He telephoned to say he’d be late - after ten, he said - but he didn’t come home. I’ve been frantic - I telephoned the hospital last night, but they didn’t know. What’s happened to him?’
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