A Dead Question

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘Anything else?’

  Dodson’s embarrassment increased. He took a plastic envelope from his pocket and extracted a floppy disk. ‘I’ll just let you have my conclusions, if you like,’ he said.

  ‘That comes later. Give me the disk.’

  ‘You may prefer not to see it.’

  ‘I can’t tell until I’ve seen it. Come on. Cough it up.’

  Silently and with evident embarrassment, Dodson parted with the disk. Honey removed the disk from the computer and replaced it with the new one. A few seconds of keying brought the images onto the screen. She was pained but not surprised to see that it was a printout of somebody’s bank statements, without any name or account number. They seemed to stretch back over several years. The guilt of a highly illegal infringement of the Data Protection and several other Acts was now shared. But some irrational instinct insisted that she would feel less guilty if she kept her questions short.

  ‘His?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You?’

  Dodson shook his head. ‘I’m not much of a hacker.’

  ‘Who, then?’

  ‘I have a friend. He’s good.’

  ‘Not a cop?’

  ‘No.’

  If the truth ever came out, at least the hacker was not one of the police. She would therefore be able to argue that the disk was not evidence, since it was clearly inadmissible, but information obtained quite legitimately from a miscreant. The argument might be valid, or at least she could hope that it would be accepted. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Now tell me your conclusions.’

  Dodson gave a sigh, apparently of relief. Honey guessed that he had half feared that she would blow her top at the very thought of obtaining evidence by unauthorised hacking. She thought that if he ever saw what sometimes went on he would probably have kittens. ‘I know that I mentioned conclusions, but I was jumping ahead. I don’t have any conclusions yet,’ he said. ‘But looking through the statements, I see a pattern. I’d see a lot more of it if I could get a look at his credit card accounts, but we haven’t figured out a way to get at them, not yet. He does most of his spending by credit card and he lives well. I know that because he pays his council tax, his electricity and oil bills by monthly banker’s order. Round about the turn of each month there’s a payment, usually between two and three thousand which would have to be his credit card account, covering, I suppose, the shopping and the fuel for his Daimler.’

  ‘And his housekeeper’s wages,’ Honey said.

  ‘Yes. And he withdraws a couple of hundred at a time in cash. There’s ample margin there for dining out at the best places, going to the theatre, perhaps a little gambling and so on. None of that seems significant.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘I was coming to but,’ Dodson said placidly. ‘But each year in January or February he draws a large sum.’

  ‘Skiing holiday, do you think?’

  Dodson shook his head. ‘I doubt it. Acheson Motors said that he leaves the Daimler there for a service at about that time each year and collects it after at least two weeks, sometimes a month or more.’

  ‘He may be taking a rather expensive ladyfriend with him,’ Honey pointed out. ‘On the other hand, he may take his nephew, the surgeon. I’ve heard that he gives his services for free in underdeveloped countries and sometimes he brings back a needy case for surgery here, at his own expense. All of which makes him sound just a little bit too good to be true. But that could account for it.’

  ‘I’d go along with that,’ Dodson said, ‘except that his expenses would be comparatively small, much smaller than the sums he takes out with him, even travelling First. And then, not long after the time when I’d expect him to be back, he makes a substantial payment into his account and most of it goes out again a few days later. Eight times in ten years, that amount was much larger than the original withdrawal.’

  ‘Ah!’ Honey said. ‘Now you begin to interest me. Are there any other large deposits that don’t fit the same pattern?’

  ‘Depends what you call large and how you interpret the pattern.’

  ‘I suppose that was too much to ask for. So, unless he was ministering to the medical needs of some oriental potentate, it sounds to me like smuggling and investment of the profit.’

  Dodson’s eyebrows went up. ‘Drugs?’ he suggested.

  ‘No, not drugs. Why does everybody’s mind fly to drugs when smuggling’s mentioned? Too dangerous to everyone concerned, especially the carrier, and too easily detected by sniffer dogs. I’m thinking more about bringing back a patient with diamonds implanted somewhere behind his navel. With a reputable doctor and a surgeon bringing in a patient on a stretcher, who’s going to ask a lot of nasty questions? Leave the disk with me. I’ll save it to my hard drive and you’ll get your disk back with something else saved over the top of it. Meanwhile, I’ll try to find out who he uses as his travel agent. And well done, Dodson. What’s your first name?’

  ‘Allan, Inspector.’

  ‘Well done, Allan.’

  ‘What’s next for me, Mrs Laird?’

  Honey had opened her mouth to tell him before she realised that she did not have an idea in her head. ‘Knock off now,’ she said. ‘We’ve broken enough rules for the moment. Phone me in the morning and I’ll brief you.’

  When she was alone, she tilted the chair back and went into another reverie. What would a doctor – two doctors – smuggle for maximum profit? And how would she find out if the market were being flooded with whatever it was? That, she realised, was just the kind of question to which Mr Potterton-Phipps could usually find the answer. She would pose it, next time that she saw him.

  Chapter Nine

  Dodson went on his way – whistling cheerfully, Honey supposed, at the prospect of a clear evening with one or other of his girlfriends. Honey saved the Doctor’s bank statements onto the computer, formatted the disk and overlaid it with a few of George Melly’s lyric sheets, put the disk into an envelope for Dodson and then made her own study of the figures. She decided that Dodson was absolutely right. Each withdrawal or deposit was capable of an explanation in its own light, but the pattern as a whole was only susceptible to an innocent explanation of the most far-fetched sort. Early in every year there would be a large withdrawal, followed several months later by a usually much larger deposit and then a withdrawal by cheque of the larger part of it. The implication was strong that a substantial profit came out of the initial expenditure and was subsequently invested. Other sums were deposited and withdrawn, at no particular interval.

  She sank deep into a brown study of the facts and theories. She would, she decided, have undergone any suitable ordeal in order to get a look at the Doctor’s tax returns – or anything else that would connect uninformative cheque numbers with identifiable payees. How, if at all, did he manage to keep the money out of the grasp of HM Inspector of Taxes? Perhaps he paid up, smiling, like a good little doctor, but she was prepared to bet against it. Perhaps he had found some useful escape route. If so, it was a road that she might like to take some day for herself.

  She returned to reality with a jump, to realise that June was standing patiently beside her. June waited for a few more seconds until she could be sure that her mistress was back with her in mind as well as in body. ‘Mr Sandy phoned,’ she said. It had been agreed that this form of address would be a satisfactory compromise between formality and excessive familiarity. ‘He’ll be late back and I’m to keep him something hot.’ (Honey quite understood although June’s former English teacher would have ground her dentures.) ‘And would you mind eating early, Ma’am, as the Doctor’s out and Mrs Deakin’s coming round for a cosy chat.’

  ‘Eat how early?’

  ‘Like now?’

  Honey decided that the mild ache in her mid-section was not after all the fault of the foetus but was a symptom of hunger. ‘No, I don’t mind at all. I’ll come now. Eat with me and I’ll give you a fuller briefing.’

  Honey was not often permitted the r
un of the kitchen. She had special fondness for the bright room with its jovially painted cupboard doors, shelves of jars and racks of equipment. The scents, even the echoes, reminded her of the kitchen of the big house in Perthshire where she had grown up. But June was entitled to her own province and considered the kitchen to be beneath the dignity of her employer and therefore her own. Only when June took her occasional holidays could Honey get free access to the kitchen and indulge her own passion for haute cuisine.

  On this occasion as so often in the past, her suggestion that they eat in the kitchen was firmly overruled and they ate in the more formal dining room. Despite cheerful decoration, which included carpet and curtains that were almost gaudy, the room remained severe. This was because it housed a number of Victorian paintings, including family portraits, of too much historical or sentimental value to be disposed of and which Mr Potterton-Phipps had passed to them on semi-permanent loan, preferring not to retain them in his own house because of the gloom of the treatments and the unsavoury appearance of some of the sitters.

  While waiting for the chicken and vegetable soup to cool and again between mouthfuls, Honey managed to give her briefing. ‘I want to know everything about the Doctor,’ she said. ‘What opinion do you have so far? Is Mrs Deakin the Doctor’s loyal retainer or does she resent him?’

  June paused to swallow. ‘I think – and it’s only a thought – that she doesn’t like him much.’

  Honey knew that June was observant. She was also intelligent. She usually came to the right judgement of people even if she had difficulty in verbalising her thoughts. ‘Why do you think that?’ Honey asked.

  June screwed up her face as she struggled to recall Mrs Deakin’s words and manner and then to express her own reasoning. ‘She speaks as if she doesn’t want to look disloyal,’ she said at last. ‘Like me, she was taught that if somebody pays you a living, you owe them loyalty. Her voice doesn’t change when she mentions the Doctor but it sounds careful and there’s a hardness comes over her face. Does that make sense?’

  ‘It makes a whole lot of sense. So it doesn’t seem likely that she’ll go running to the Doctor if she guesses that somebody’s asking questions about him. But until you’re absolutely sure of it, remember, she mustn’t be made suspicious.’ Honey took, savoured and swallowed a spoonful of soup while she called on her own years of experience in conducting enquiries. ‘Be innocently curious rather than nosy and let a promising opportunity go by rather than be too direct. But I know I needn’t tell you all this; your mother could always find out what she wanted to know without quite asking questions. All we want to know is why the Doctor seems to have a guilty conscience about something. What could be useful for that purpose would be the names of people who don’t like the Doctor much. They might speak out and say something useful.

  ‘She almost certainly knows that Sandy’s a detective inspector. The Doctor knew that much. She may not know that I’m tarred with the same brush, but it’s no secret. Don’t mention it unless the subject comes up.’

  ‘Got you,’ June said. She got up in order to serve delicate portions of lemon sole.

  ‘You could mention what a nuisance we are, always burning our confidential papers in the fireplaces. Yes,’ Honey added quickly as June began to protest, ‘I know that we don’t do that, we shred everything. But I want to know what happens to the Doctor’s finished-with papers. Especially his credit card slips and accounts. I would dearly love to get a look at them and if you bring up the subject of disposal of private papers she may let slip a hint. But what might prove most interesting of all is the story of the foreign trips that he makes, early each year. Does his nephew go with him? Where do they go? What do they do? Does he ever show her his holiday snaps?

  ‘And what about women? Do they ever visit? Has there ever been a whisper about him and a patient?’

  ‘And that’s all?’ June asked. Honey thought that she was probably being ironic.

  ‘I think so. I’ll jot down a few topics that might be specially interesting. Just keep her talking about her life in the Doctor’s house and it should come pouring out. If there’s anybody in the world who doesn’t enjoy talking about themselves, I never met them.’ Honey paused and then decided to be quite open. ‘I’m going to hide my tape-recorder somewhere handy. Then you won’t be distracted by having to memorise everything. You’ll be sitting in the fireside chairs?’

  June nodded. ‘It’s the best place.’

  ‘It’s the best for me too.’

  For most of the year the kitchen depended for warmth on the central heating. The Aga was cold. Later, with the tape recorder hidden in the oven section, the microphone went into a vase of dried flowers on the hotplate. As soon as she saw Mrs Deakin emerge from the Doctor’s side door, Honey started the recording and retreated into the study. She fired up the computer but there were no emails waiting.

  She was tired. Living for two seemed to make every task twice the effort. She decided that there were no useful steps to be taken except thinking and she could think as easily in her bed. She would hear Mrs Deakin leave and could go downstairs and listen to the tape. But she was asleep as soon as her ear met the pillow. Neither Mrs Deakin’s departure nor Sandy’s return home roused her.

  Sandy paused during his preparations for bed and looked down at his sleeping wife. Even pregnant, perhaps especially while pregnant, she looked desirable. What had gone wrong? Why did she not respond? If she would only say, he could do something, anything, to set matters right.

  *

  Honey awoke refreshed and full of energy but alone. Daylight had returned. She listened. She could tell from the small domestic noises that Sandy would soon be leaving the house, so she donned slippers and her quilted dressing gown and hurried downstairs without pausing to do more than run her fingers through her hair. She thought that she probably looked as though she was wearing a fright wig.

  Sandy was preparing to rise from the breakfast table. He caught one of her wrists and made as if to pull her down onto his knee. ‘You look very sexy like that,’ he said.

  The last thing that Honey felt was sexy-looking. She resisted his pull, but if this was another road back towards their old relationship she wanted to know about it. ‘How could I possibly?’ she asked.

  He looked at her and gave the question serious consideration. ‘You always look sexy,’ he said. He released her wrist. ‘But just at this moment the tousled look is definitely in. That and the robe and the general air of sleepiness combine to suggest a woman after love, which unfortunately you aren’t.’

  ‘No, I’m not, am I?’ Honey said. She glanced down at her bump which, while signifying the gateway to a whole new life, did seem to be a serious handicap in her present one. ‘Try to come home tonight before I’m asleep. Sandy, have you heard from your lawyer friend?’

  ‘About the Doctor’s appearances in the witness box? I’m seeing him today.’

  ‘I’ve heard about one case. He testified for a man who was given too heavy a load to lift. His evidence seems to have been accurate and impartial. What I’m looking for is any case in which his evidence may have been biased or even wrong.’

  ‘Where backhanders may have passed, in fact. I’ll see what I can do. Now, I must go. Take it easy. Not long now.’

  Honey climbed back up the stairs, wondering what Sandy had meant. Not long to what? To parenthood? Or to a resumption of sexual relations? On consideration she hoped very much that he was alluding to both.

  *

  Dodson had arrived and was waiting in the study when Honey came down the stairs again. This time she was respectably dressed and groomed. They settled down in the study to listen to the tape of June’s heart-to-heart with Mrs Deakin.

  The first few minutes were taken up with the usual courtesies. There were remarks about how strange that they had lived next door to each other and never made social contact. ‘I’ve thought of speaking to you a dozen times,’ June said, ‘but you always seemed quite happy on your own.’
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  Honey nodded. It was a good gambit.

  ‘I can manage alone,’ Mrs Deakin said. Her accent was Edinburgh, not one of the better areas but Honey soon decided that she was articulate and had been well schooled. ‘But it’s always better to have someone to talk with.’

  Honey noticed the talk with. Most women would have said talk to.

  ‘I know just what you mean,’ said June’s voice. ‘I like the Lairds well enough but you can’t really let your hair down with an employer, can you?’ Honey thought that June was beginning to show a talent for enquiries. She also thought that there was a trace of mischievous amusement in June’s voice. If the pair came to trading revelations, what secrets might June reveal?

  ‘You’re a gowk if you do,’ said the older woman. ‘But I could no more let my hair down with the Doctor than fly. I’m no more than a piece of furniture in that house with his “Do this” and “Do that”. And Mr Samson’s little better.’

  ‘Mr Samson? He’s the nephew, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes. The Surgeon. They’re a clever pair, I grant you, the Doctor and the Surgeon, very well thought of professionally but nobody could call them loveable. The Doctor acts very friendly with other men but there’s never any real friendship. He asks a few of them to dinner from time to time and I’ve come to know his ways. Sometimes I think it’s like a slice of toast with butter – smooth on the outside but hard and scratchy underneath. Mr Samson’s the same.’

  ‘There’ll be no woman trouble, then? My two, they’re still so lovey-dovey that nobody else could ever get a look in, always a kiss and a cuddle when they think my back’s turned.’ Things being as they were, Honey was not amused. She was sure that June was having to fight against the giggles, knowing perfectly well that the tape would be played and probably transcribed.