A Dead Question

by Gerald Hammond

  Looking down the hill, her eye was drawn to where she had met the Doctor. What exactly had his attitude been when he spoke of Honey’s husband being in the police? Had there been a trace of guilt? She thought not. Recalling his apparent openness, the slight closure at the corners of his eyes and a lift at the corners of his mouth, she thought that he had been amused. But this was in retrospect. It would be easy to project any expression onto the remembered face. And if he had shown amusement had it been the amusement of the innocent man imagining the police pursuing the guilty and passing him by? Or was it the secret laughter of the guilty . . . the fox watching the hounds go past? She wished that she could live the moment over again.

  She was roused from her reverie by a snuffling close to her ear. Wilbur, a retired Clydesdale horse, was stretching over the trough to remind her of his presence. She produced the apple and was reminded again of the softness of a horse’s lips, mumbling against her palm. She already had a rough, flexible plan of action. She pushed herself up, gave Wilbur a pat on the neck and started back.

  Pippa returned to join her. At a range of twenty paces, it became obvious that she had once again rolled in something that smelled of rotting silage but this time with overtones of diesel oil and something long dead. There was no point being angry; dogs have little concept of cause-and-effect and the bitch would not understand her anger at what, to Pippa, was a natural action aimed at concealing her own scent from a predator or prey. She held the lead at arm’s length and set off for home.

  Kate had returned to her window and was making signals. Honey made signs to convey Soon. She also pointed at Pippa and held her nose. June was usually willing to bath Pippa, but not when Honey had behaved in a way that June deemed inappropriate, as for instance in going for walks when in an advanced state of pregnancy. But having to bend down and use both hands was just as unacceptable to Honey. She gave Pippa a spray with biological animal deodorant and hoped for the best. To improve the chances of avoiding domestic friction she shut Pippa in the back porch that served as her bedroom, leaving the window wide open. She washed her hands, changed her shoes and crossed the street.

  Kate Ingliston opened the door as she arrived and welcomed her into the clean-smelling hall. During the week, Kate might present an imperfect image to the world; but she was an excellent housekeeper. She had the help of a local woman for two mornings a week, but that degree of help was not enough to explain the immaculate cleanliness of her house and fabrics, the polish of her furniture and the cordon bleu preparations for her occasional dinner parties.

  When Honey was comfortably established in a chair high enough in the seat for comfort and easy entry and exit, Kate fetched coffee – of a perfection that neither Honey nor June had quite been able to achieve – and a plate of exquisite little cakes. While Kate was out of the room, Honey started the little tape recorder in her handbag. The small microphone could be mistaken for part of the fastening, if anyone bothered to look so closely. ‘You and June will have me as fat as a pig if you go on feeding me like this,’ Honey told her friend.

  ‘You’re eating for two and, anyway, you’re one of the lucky, naturally lean ones. You have the sort of figure that snaps back into shape while other women are still several sizes larger than they were before they forgot to take their pill. Help yourself.’

  Thus loudly encouraged, Honey treated herself to several of the delights. She was hungry. Despite Honey’s last words, June’s idea of the perfect pregnancy regime was healthy rather than filling and was based on the supposition that her mistress would rest on the sitting room couch when not actually abed. She made a show of looking out of the big sash-and-case window. ‘Sometimes I see a housekeeper sort of person at the Doctor’s house,’ she said. ‘Is she permanent or part-time? June may need some help when the baby comes and I’m back at work.’

  ‘She’s permanent,’ said Kate. ‘She lives in. I know because Mrs Deakin – the woman you’re talking about – used to come to me part time until her husband got run over by a boat.’

  ‘How—?’

  ‘It was on a trailer and he didn’t know that it was there and he went to cross over behind the car. Anyway, she’s a widow with no family so that a live-in post was perfect for her. She might be able to spare you a little time if the Doctor doesn’t mind.’

  ‘So now the Doctor knows all your little secrets without even having to take you on his panel?’

  ‘Oh no.’ Kate sounded quite shocked. She even lowered her voice. ‘She’s very discreet. When she came to me she’d been working for the Harrison-Hargreaves – you may remember their divorce, or was it before your time here? Anyway, it hit the headlines locally and although I suppose it was pretty tame stuff for the London papers it fairly set this town abuzz, you’d hardly believe the carry-on – transvestism and bondage and I don’t know what – and while the two main parties were hurling the details at each other in open court Mrs Deakin still wouldn’t say a word about it, just turned a bit pink and went around with a secret smile on her face.’

  Honey had been probing to discover whether Mrs Deakin was capable of discretion. She was not quite sure what sort of informant she was after – a close-mouthed one who would never divulge having been approached or a gossip who would spill everybody’s secrets. She supposed that she would have to take whichever she could get. ‘And there are no signs of a new lady in the Doctor’s life?’ she asked, ‘But, of course, if he’s lost his sex drive he may not be interested . . .’

  ‘That doesn’t follow at all,’ said Kate. ‘That he’s lost it, I mean.’ She pretended to look shocked. She lowered her voice to a level that was barely louder than Honey’s. ‘What we were saying earlier started me thinking and I could see that a man who had, let’s say, used himself up for the moment with what they call a “bit on the side” might pretend to his wife that he’d gone impotent in order to cover up for a sudden loss of interest in her.’

  ‘That’s a point.’ Honey said. She kept her tone light and frivolous, playing the gossiping housewife and very definitely not the investigating officer. ‘I’ll have to bear that in mind if Sandy ever fails to perform or pretends to have been smitten with impotence.’ Honey hesitated. Sandy had seemed rather less affectionate recently, but he was probably working too hard. She hurried on. ‘Have you seen any signs of a “bit on the side”? Visitors coming and going after dark? Or the Doctor slipping out at strange hours?’

  Kate shook her head regretfully. ‘I can’t say that I have but, on the other hand, if I did I wouldn’t know it. I mean, Dr McGordon has his surgery hours at the health centre and that includes evening surgeries. And he gives his services free, so I’m told, at another clinic in a very depressed part of the city; which is very good of him because it can’t be very pleasant ministering to people who may not be the most orderly citizens nor too careful about personal hygiene, let alone the service being unpaid, and they say that he’s very good about visiting his patients if they land in hospital, so he’s coming and going all the time and nothing to say where he’s been.’

  ‘They make him sound like a saint,’ said Honey. ‘Who is this “they” who passes on all these details?’

  ‘People.’ Kate shrugged, laughing. ‘Sometimes I meet a few old friends for coffee down at the Bridges, but three of them have gone off on a winter cruise just now, and Mary Higgins – do you know her? – she’s a patient of the Doctor’s and her husband plays golf with Phil, so we meet up for a meal or a drink or two now and again and she’s full of his praises, the Doctor’s I mean, too much so to be his “bit on the side” because – have you noticed? – a married woman with a lover never says anything good about the lover but pretends either to hate him or not to have noticed him at all, and anyway I’m afraid she’s a very long way from being a man trap, what with buck teeth and a squint, they say that her husband married her for her money, so you’re wrong there, she couldn’t be the Doctor’s new bit of stuff.’

  ‘I never suggested that she was,’ Honey said, la
ughing. ‘In fact I never suggested that the Doctor had a ladyfriend, I only asked if there were any signs of one. And I don’t even know Mary Higgins.’

  ‘Haven’t you met her? I’ll invite you to meet her next time she’s coming here; we were at school together, but I’ll give you a tip – never ask after her health or she’ll whip out her X-rays and you’ll never get away.’

  ‘I’ll remember,’ Honey said.

  *

  The evening rush hour starts early in Edinburgh. It was well established when Honey started for home, but she was lucky. The gaps in the traffic created by two sets of lights coincided and she made it safely across to her own side of the street. There was an unfamiliar motorcycle parked beside her Range Rover and she was pleasantly surprised to discover that PC Dodson had come to report and, unasked, had begun the process of cleansing Pippa again. Honey waited until the shower bath was finished and Pippa had given herself a good shake before revealing her return. The nearly dry bitch was shut in the back porch with a fan heater.

  Dodson, profiting from what had gone before, had managed to remain almost completely dry. Honey took this as a sign that he was capable of learning by experience. She took him into the study and played him the tape of her visit to Kate Ingliston.

  ‘That’s you brought up to date,’ she said. ‘Now tell me all.’

  Dodson nodded. He looked out of the window while he arranged his recollections. Dr McGordon’s house was dark except for one window on the ground floor, but further down the street lights were coming on in the shops and houses. The street lighting was already at work. Honey was pleased to see that Dodson had committed nothing to writing. A policeman can be ordered to produce his pocket-book. There would be time enough later for making notes, once they had decided what they were prepared to divulge.

  ‘For a start,’ he said, ‘if the Doctor had a hit-and-run, it seems it wasn’t in his own car. I looked in the Yellow Pages for the nearest car body repairer and it’s the one you said you used yourself, Lothian Coachwork, but they’d never had any plum-coloured Daimlers in for repair, not for years. So I phoned the Daimler agents and asked who they usually recommend and they referred me to Acheson Motors in Corstorphine. The young lady in the office was very discreet but I chatted her up and told her a joke or two and she loosened up. I said that we were looking for a Daimler that might have been in an accident and she told me about dents and scratches that couldn’t possibly have come from a hit-and-run. There was a car that was written off, Burgundy it was, but that was a vintage Daimler Century.’

  Honey decided that if Dodson had the knack of charming secretaries into unveiling records, it would be a talent worth exploiting at a later date. ‘Well, we can’t win ’em all,’ she said. ‘I’ll go on following up fraud. The best thing you can do is to get onto the Internet and print off a list of the death certificates the Doctor and his partners have written, going back five years for the moment. Can you manage that?’

  ‘Do they put death certificates on the Internet?’

  ‘They’re filed and accessible. The address of the website is in my addresses file. You’d be surprised how often death certificates need to be scrutinised.’

  Dodson thought about that. ‘I don’t know that I would,’ he said at last. ‘No problem, Inspector. But there’s one more thing.’ Dodson hesitated, showing embarrassment. Honey wondered what ghastly revelation was to come. Had he exposed their interest in the Doctor? Or been caught in flagrante delicto, doing the wrong sort of bodywork on top of the filing cabinet with the receptionist at Acheson Bodywork? But apparently not. ‘I have another line of enquiry, Inspector, but it would be . . . frowned on. Do you want to know?’

  Honey understood immediately. She had been caught in the same kind of quandary herself. ‘Dodson,’ she said seriously, ‘I very much want not to know, at least not yet. When the time comes that you have to tell me, so be it. Until then, I may as well be able to say that I don’t know what you’re up to. If you have a good line of enquiry, which might get you into trouble, it’s up to yourself whether you pursue it. Later, I may be able to obtain the same information again by legitimate means and get it into evidence. There’s no pressure on you and if it backfires I would try to help you, provided that it hasn’t entailed murder or more than a little blackmail, but how much help I could be I just don’t know. The way that these things usually turn out is that if it doesn’t work and you’re caught, your name is mud; but if it succeeds there’s a lot of nodding and winking and the whisper goes round that you’re a good lad and well worth watching. And this conversation never happened. You follow me?’

  ‘All the way, Mrs Laird.’ His tone gave no hint as to whether he was going ahead or would drop that line of enquiry like the hot potato that it almost certainly was.

  Chapter Six

  Sandy had been caught up in a developing case and did not get home until Honey was already in bed and had fallen into a deep sleep. He slipped very gently in beside her and placed a soft kiss on her neck. She might have turned cold but she was still the mother of his future child and he loved her dearly.

  They met at breakfast. Sandy had carried his plate and cup into the study where he was looking over his papers for the coming day in court. Honey was still in her pyjamas and a silk dressing gown that she had bought on her honeymoon. Sandy was smartly dressed and ready to go.

  Instead of a kiss he greeted her with, ‘June tells me that you’ve been going for walks.’

  Honey’s face fell. Instead of offering her lips she turned away. ‘Only a little way up the farm track. I’m perfectly fit for that.’ She raised her voice to carry to the kitchen. ‘And if June’s going to clype on me, I’m going to be a lot less accommodating about sudden afternoons off whenever her boyfriend phones.’

  Sandy laughed. ‘Fair’s fair. She always tells you if I’ve taken my golf clubs in the car.’

  Honey was ready with a heartfelt answer for that one. ‘Usually that means that you’re going for ten minutes of practice on the driving range. In fact, I wish you’d take a little more time off and relax. You’re not getting the fresh air and exercise that you need. And no more am I.’

  Sandy nodded. It was some comfort that she was still giving thought to his health and well-being. She had scored her point and should be left to enjoy it. ‘I hope you’re carrying your mobile. There may be a precedent for a baby boy to be born in a manger but I want my daughter to make her debut in hospital.’

  ‘So do I.’ Honey showed him her mobile and slipped it back into her pocket. ‘Did you manage to do what I asked you?’

  Sandy’s hand paused halfway to his mouth with toast and marmalade. ‘Some of it. Now that most of the old records have been computerised it’s become a lot easier, provided that they haven’t got lost in the process. I suggested Dr McGordon’s name to the computer and got several immediate reactions. He seems to have a short fuse and a short memory. As a student, he got into trouble over drinking sprees and one case of filling his old banger with fuel and driving away without paying. But that was a long time ago and that incident may have been the merest absentmindedness although the magistrate didn’t think so. As to the rest, we all know what medical students are. More recently, he got involved in a road rage punch-up. The Doctor’s a tougher character than he looks, and he looks a bit of a hard case. The other man came off decidedly worse and spent some time in hospital, but it was felt, on rather slender grounds and bearing in mind McGordon’s status as a doctor, that there had been elements of provocation and self-defence.’

  His voice faded. Honey looked at her husband sharply. ‘There’s something else, isn’t there? I can tell.’

  ‘Nothing hard or fast.’ Sandy hesitated. ‘I’ll mention this in absolute confidence. It’s very strictly need-to-know.’

  Honey wondered if he was angling to be coaxed and petted into disgorging the information. If so, he was going to be out of luck. ‘I can keep a secret. Get on with it,’ she said.

  ‘All right. But just
bear in mind that this is the sort of thing that’s never said aloud. We like people to believe that it never happens. I’d have preferred that you didn’t know, because you do sometimes claim the moral high ground.’

  There might be some truth in that allegation but Honey would have preferred it to join whatever else was not to be said aloud. ‘Get on with it,’ she said again.

  Sandy sighed. He had been hoping for a little gentle persuasion but it seemed that whatever had got up Honey’s nose was still lodged in that attractive organ. ‘All right. The Doctor does a great deal of good. He gives his services free in poor areas. He spends vacations in underdeveloped countries, helping out in free clinics. He has even been known to bring patients back to Britain at his own expense for special treatments not available elsewhere. For that reason, he’s allowed a little latitude.’ Sandy lowered his voice. ‘He has some powerful friends, but you already know that. There’s a suspicion that the Doctor drives occasionally while slightly under the influence, but his actual driving has never been at fault. General opinion is that even when he’s had a few drams he’s still a better driver than many another man stone-cold sober.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘There’s no instruction given. Traffic police have been allowed to understand – it’s no stronger than that – that unless he’s definitely overstepped the mark and seems to be a danger to the public, which has never happened yet, the turning of a blind eye now and again will be considered acceptable.’

  ‘Now that,’ Honey said, ‘is just dandy.’ She also dropped her voice. The walls were thick but sound sometimes penetrated through the hatch. ‘So I’m supposed to investigate a short-tempered drunk of questionable honesty, who’s so well thought of that he can flout the law, and all without letting him know that he’s under investigation.’

  ‘That’s about it,’ her husband agreed. ‘I know you find life boring if it gets too easy. And there’s one other snippet. I had a word with a lawyer – nobody you’d know – and he agrees that Dr McGordon does sometimes give evidence.’