Shelf Life

by Douglas Clark

  “Thank you. And now ma’am, if we’re to get you to the court on time . . .”

  Miss Foulger stood up. “I shall be ready in five minutes, Mr Masters.”

  *

  After they had deposited Miss Foulger, once more resplendent in her costume—despite the persistent heat—Betty Prior directed Reed, who was driving, to the chemist’s shop in Park Street which Sutcliffe had visited on Tuesday morning on his way home after the court hearing.

  “Stay with the car, you three. The D.C.I. will come with me. We don’t want to swamp the shop.”

  Green and Masters entered the shop in silence.

  “I would like to speak to the pharmacist, please. My name is Masters and I’m a police officer from Scotland Yard.”

  The woman behind the counter looked a little taken aback, but she answered straight away. “I’ll tell my husband you are here.”

  From the dispensary behind the counter came the clack of a typewriter being used inexpertly. It stopped a second or two after the woman had left the counter.

  “His name’s Morton,” said Green. “It’s on his notice. A. R. Morton, F.P.S.”

  A middle-aged, white-coated man appeared closely followed by the woman.

  “I am the pharmacist. My name is Morton.”

  “This is D.C.I. Green and my name is Masters.”

  “Ah! The chaps who are looking into the mysterious death at the police station. I’d heard you were here. What can I do for you?”

  “Give us the benefit of your advice and knowledge I hope, Mr Morton. Is there somewhere where we can speak privately?”

  “Will the dispensary do?”

  “Capital.”

  “Come round the counter, then. I must say it is a relief to hear you only want my advice and that you haven’t come to question me about something I’ve dispensed. I think most chemists would begin to feel a bit uneasy if they were told Masters of the Yard was in their shop asking for them.”

  By this time they were all in the dispensary where Morton had been making up scripts and typing the labels. “There’ll be a rush in a minute or two. People coming back to collect their medicines.”

  “Business slack, is it?” asked Green.

  “Not as brisk as it might be. The supermarkets sell so many of our lines these days. Chemists are going out of business every day. But you’re not here to discuss the state of my business, I take it?”

  “No,” admitted Masters, “and to be quite honest with you, I don’t know exactly what I am after. If I did, I probably wouldn’t be here.”

  Morton seemed to catch on. “The lad died in the cell, I believe?”

  “Yes.”

  “Violence on the part of the police?”

  “None.”

  “By anybody?”

  “No. The body was unmarked.”

  “Too young for a heart attack, one would suppose. So, if he was not previously suffering from some fatal disease, I must assume he was poisoned and that’s why you’re here. Something about some toxic substance, perhaps?”

  “You’ve guessed it, mate,” said Green.

  “But surely you have a pathologist who can tell you what killed him?”

  “Oh, yes. Professor Haywood.”

  “He’s a known man in the forensic field. I don’t think I could tell you anything he couldn’t.”

  Masters glanced round at the racks of dispensing containers, all varying in size and the amounts of their contents still remaining.

  “I think possibly you can, because you are a practical man.”

  “Ah! Haywood is academically and theoretically excellent, but . . . is that it?”

  “That is my feeling. You will know soon enough, Mr Morton, that young Boyce was killed by a massive dose of sodium aurothiomalate.”

  “Gold? Poisoned by gold?”

  “You didn’t know it could be dangerous stuff?”

  “Of course I knew. I handle it frequently. Not every day of course because it is now a comparatively rare treatment, but arthritis is still the biggest disease in the country, so even if only a small percentage use gold salts, it is still noticeable.”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that question. It sounded as though I doubted your professional knowledge.”

  “Nonsense. It was purely rhetorical. But to get back to the lad who died. You said he had a massive dose. How much? A hundred and fifty or two hundred milligrams?”

  “Two hundred?” said Green scornfully. “Two thousand.”

  “Two thousand! You’re joking.”

  “I assure you we’re not, Mr Morton. Professor Haywood has discovered exactly that amount in the body.”

  “By extrapolation or however it is these forensic boys do their calculations?”

  “Quite.”

  “Well I don’t think I’d try to argue with Haywood over his figures. But two thousand! At first, you see, I thought you were going to say the boy was sensitive to the stuff. In that case a couple of hundred milligrams would be very, very dangerous. But with two thousand—well you don’t have to be sensitive to it to keel over with that amount. Why, it’s forty times the current maximum dose.”

  “So,” said Masters, “where did it come from?”

  “Not from me, at any rate,” said Morton decisively. “I’ve never carried that amount. I buy ten ampoules at a time, simply because that is how the manufacturer puts them up. If he sold them in half-dozens, I’d buy them six at a time.”

  “You know what the next question is going to be, don’t you, Mr Morton?”

  “Yes. Who would carry such an amount? And the answer is, the manufacturer, a pharmaceutical wholesaler, or a central hospital pharmacy.”

  “Central pharmacy?”

  “Yes. Hospitals tend to buy drugs in administrative groupings these days to get better contract prices. The Group Chief Pharmacist then presides over a central dispensary to which is attached the group store—usually at the biggest general hospital in the area. A G.C.P. would have two thousand milligrams of sodium aurothiomalate alongside him because it is more widely used by hospital rheumatologists than by G.P.s.”

  “I see. Thank you. So you never have more than five hundred milligrams on the premises?”

  “Let me see, now. I don’t buy the fifty milligram ampoules.”

  “Never?”

  “No. I make the necessary amounts up by multiples of twenty milligram and ten milligram ampoules. I can dispense any amount by having six ampoules each of the one, five, ten and twenty strengths. That works out at a total of . . . six, plus thirty, plus . . . two hundred and sixteen milligrams, but as I re-order before I’m completely out of stock, call it three hundred as a maximum.”

  “I see. That is all very clear. Do all pharmacists shun the fifty milligram ampoules?”

  “Quite a lot do. But if you have only a couple of local patients on fifty a month each, it would be worthwhile stocking that strength.”

  “So your profession has not refused to stock the fifty milligram ampoules to the stage where the manufacturers have been obliged to stop making it?”

  “Lord, no. Not like the old two hundred milligram strength.”

  Masters said very slowly: “Please say that again.”

  Morton stared at him. “The two hundred milligram . . . No, no, Chief Superintendent. It won’t work. Those ampoules were stopped more than ten years ago.”

  “Tell us,” invited Green heavily.

  “Well,” said Morton, scratching one ear as an aid to thought, “when gold treatment first came in, it was tried on patients in whom all other previous treatments had failed, and it did the trick. Highly successful in a number of cases, in fact. And all the indications were that success was dose-related . . .”

  “Does that mean that the bigger the dose, the more relief could be expected?” asked Masters.

  “That’s it. And this was true, but like most treatments, though it gave more relief from arthritis, it began to create its own side-effects and these meant that limited d
oses only should be used. But before the side-effects became apparent—because, as I remember they were not immediate . . .”

  “Insidious?”

  “Not quite. As I remember it—and don’t forget I’m not a pharmacologist, so my memory may be faulty—in most cases the undesirable effects became apparent when total dosage reached a certain figure. What I mean is, and I’m trying to remember the cases, certain patients were given fifty milligrams at weekly and then monthly intervals and they got great relief until the total dosage reached eight hundred or a thousand or some such figure. Then, side-effects were detected. So they had to come off the treatment. But this sort of effect can only be detected after prolonged use. And until it was detected and the warnings went out, there was a two hundred milligram ampoule for seriously crippled patients.”

  “Who had all got side effects by the time it was stopped,” grunted Green.

  “Not at all. Gold has no ill-effects at all on some people. But because there are some who have or who develop a sensitivity to it, the medical profession has to go very cautiously with everybody, testing for side-effects at frequent intervals.”

  “I think we’ve understood that, Mr Morton. The big ampoules went off the market more than ten years ago, you say?”

  “At least that. But they weren’t bigger ampoules. They still held one mil, just as the present ones of all strengths do. The contents were just more highly concentrated.”

  Masters nodded to show he understood. “So nobody can now get hold of the two hundred strength?”

  “No. Certainly no pharmacist would have them, because like foodstuffs, medicines have a restricted shelf life. Three years is the overall average. We return out-of-date stocks to the manufacturers.”

  “Are you saying that after three years the gold salt would be useless?”

  “No. What I am saying is that it is illegal to use any drug, after the end of its registered shelf life, for dispensing to humans. For that reason, no pharmacist would keep such stocks.”

  Mrs Morton put her head round the door.

  “It’s Mrs Rhodes, Arthur. Is her medicine ready?”

  “Oh, dear. No . . .” He turned to Masters. “You will have to excuse me.”

  “Of course. We’ll go. Thank you very much for giving us so much of your time, Mr Morton.”

  “I hope I’ve helped you, but it seems I’ve probably complicated matters for you.”

  “Not at all. Goodbye and thank you once again.”

  As they left the shop, Green said: “There you are. I always said you were a jammy bastard, George.”

  Masters laughed. “Jammy? Because I felt it in my bones that Haywood’s report was not complete? Come on, Bill, you’re the one who has always told the rest of us not to rely solely on experts. I heard you saying as much to Wanda a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Giving her the benefit, was I?”

  “Benefit? You were slandering her butcher if I remember rightly.”

  “Putting the girlie in the picture,” said Green, who always gave the impression that Wanda Masters and her infant son, Michael William, were the reasons for the world’s creation and his own continued existence therein. “I pointed out to her that the expert butcher in whom she had every confidence was just the clever sort of artist who could con her. As he had done. She’d asked for a joint of topside for roasting. Next to the topside is the silverside and that’s not for roasting, it’s for pickling.”

  “Putting down in salt, you mean?”

  “Exactly. And Wanda’s expert butcher had cut across the dividing line and charged her top whack for a mish-mash of a joint that was neither one thing nor the other. He got away with it because Wanda knows he is a properly trained master-butcher. If it had been his shop boy who cut that joint for her she’d have noticed there was something wrong. Dammit, George, the grain of the meat changed direction in the middle. I’d like to bet when you carved that joint you wondered what the hell, because one moment you’d have been cutting properly, across the fibres, and the next you’d have been cutting with them and lobbing up slabs of string.”

  “I remember that. I did wonder about it.”

  “There you are then. And talking of meat . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “There’s the car and the other three. Shall we try and get a cup of coffee? It’s gone eleven o’clock, and I’m clammed.”

  “It’s all the talking you do.” Masters went to the car. “I take it you’ve improved the shining hour and had coffee?”

  “No, Chief.”

  “Come on, then. Betty, where’s the nearest place?”

  “It’s an oldy tea shoppy just round the corner, Chief.”

  “Lead on. The D.C.I. is wilting from thirst.”

  The little café stood a few feet back beyond a cobbled apron. It had a gaily striped awning to welcome customers, and a very large Alsatian to deter those who didn’t propose to behave. It rose and casually sniffed at Green as he entered.

  “Keep that thing at bay,” he said. “I know it’s as gentle as a lamb, but it still makes me nervous.”

  “Down, Chopper,” said the girl who came forward to indicate a table and to take their order.

  “Chopper?” said Green in dismay.

  “Short for helicopter,” said the girl. “We could hardly call him Helly, could we?”

  Green didn’t reply. He decided he’d have a home-made rock cake with his coffee and turned to Masters. “We were talking about beef.”

  “You mean it has some relevance—other than the tuition you gave to Wanda about buying her Sunday joint?”

  “I do,” said Green, missing the opportunity to point out that it was Masters who had brought up the subject in the first place. “In the army . . .”

  “Here we go,” said Reed. “The old and bold.”

  “In the army,” repeated Green, “all the cookhouses have reserve stocks of bully beef, though they normally feed the troops on fresh meat. But every six months word goes out from on high to turn the bully over. That means that for about a week every meal is bully beef—tinned equivalent, they call it. Then the shelves are restocked with more tins of the same.”

  “Go on,” said Masters.

  “A year or two ago,” said Green, “some chap discovered some tins of bully left over from the Boer War. They were literally eighty years old.”

  “And?”

  “They were opened and sampled. The meat was in perfect condition—after eighty years.”

  “I get the point,” said Masters.

  “I’ll be damned if I do,” said Reed.

  “You weren’t meant to, lad,” said Green. He took the rock cake from his plate, broke a piece off and held it down so that the dog could take it from his fingers. After it was gone, he said to the table at large. “This rock cake may be about eighty years old, too, but as the dog has eaten the sample, it should be safe for me to have the rest.”

  A moment or two later, Masters said: “Thanks, Bill. That’s clarified it for me.” He got to his feet. “Don’t hurry. I’ll meet you at the car.”

  Masters dropped a note on the table and walked out. Green got up to follow him. The others watched them go. As soon as they were out of the door, Betty Prior asked: “What was all that about?”

  Reed said quietly: “It means it’s all over.”

  “What is?”

  “He’s cracked it,” said Berger.

  “Cracked what?”

  “The case. He knows it all from A to Z and back again.”

  Betty Prior stared. “You mean he knows who killed Norman Boyce? Just like that?”

  “You’ve got it, love.”

  “But he’s done nothing except talk to a few people. He’s done no . . . no investigating.”

  “Which shows how mistaken you can be,” said Reed. “When the Chief says it’s been clarified, it’s bloody-well solved—by him. And he doesn’t make mistakes.”

  “But it’s so disappointing.”

  “How do you mean, love?”<
br />
  “The end of the only murder investigation I’ve been involved in. One run by Scotland Yard, and it ends in a whimper. ‘Thanks, Bill, that’s clarified it for me.’ That’s all. We don’t even know who he thinks has done it.”

  “Thinks? Knows, love.”

  “All right, knows.”

  “Come on,” said Berger. “we’d better be after them.”

  When Green joined him, Masters said: “I’ve been a bit slow, Bill.”

  “Seeing we haven’t been here forty-eight hours yet, that’s a load of rubbish, George, and you know it. But if you want to claim you’re a twit, tell me why, or are you including me, too?”

  “I am,” said Masters bluntly. “We’ve all been as blind as bats.”

  “Rubbish.”

  “Literally rubbish. Bonfires, in fact.”

  “Have you gone off your chump?”

  “Yesterday morning, Betty Prior and the sergeants dealt with a bonfire which had been lit too close to the highway.”

  “I can still remember that far back.”

  “What sort of rubbish was it?”

  “Cartons, boxes, that sort of thing.”

  “Domestic?”

  “No. Shop rubbish.”

  “Right. Young Berger tried to get in the gate, remember, but he couldn’t because it had been wedged at the bottom.”

  “The chap let him in eventually.”

  “That’s right. Do you remember what he said?”

  Green didn’t have to think. “Oh yes. He said he’d got the accumulated rubbish of thirty years there, and he’d had to wedge the gate to stop people coming in to pick it over.”

  “Anything else?”

  “He’d had one at lunchtime the Tuesday before.” Green stopped in his tracks. “Oh, lor! I suppose it was our old pal Joe Howlett. That bonfire was only about forty yards away from the back of the fish shop. After he’d left there he . . . a heap like that, all old tins and cartons, would draw an old tramp in to snoop round like honey draws bees. And to clinch it, it was lunchtime when Joe was about there.”

  “Quite right,” said Masters. “And it’s even money he had a few minutes in which to look over that heap before the owner discovered him. Plenty of time to pick up and pocket a carton as big as a box of cigarettes.”