‘Perhaps. What if the doctor bumped her off? What if Catherine, tortured by a guilty conscience, was about to confess and the doctor poisoned her to keep her mouth shut?’
Leigh noticed Mac had a highly sceptical expression on his face as he asked, ‘Mrs. Carnet, I take it that you’re a lover of crime novels?’
‘God yes, especially Agatha, but how did you know? Oh, of course you’d know, you’re a detective, aren’t you?’ she said brightly.
‘Okay, I promise I’ll look into your brother’s death if you’ll answer my questions.’
‘A deal, fire away.’
‘I take it that you and Catherine didn’t get on. Why was that?’
‘I must admit I disliked her on sight. She definitely wasn’t good enough for my Richard. She couldn’t even have babies so Richard said, not a proper woman at all in my book. However Richard liked her so I tried not to meddle. Then Richard got ill and she and that doctor were always fluttering around him, scared that I might find out I’d guess.’
‘Find out what?’
‘That they were hurrying him along as it were.’
‘And why would they do that?’
‘To get him out of the way so they could get his money of course,’ she said.
‘How much was your brother worth?’
‘More than eight and a half million pounds in cash if I remember right, then there was the house and some other properties. He was always good at business. Toby and I got a million each and the rest went to Catherine’
‘What did he do?’
‘He was a stockbroker in the City, a partner in a very successful firm.’
‘And how was Catherine after your brother died?’
‘I wouldn’t know. I only saw her once after the funeral when I bumped into her one day on the High Street. We just said hello really.’
‘You’ve never been to Catherine’s house since the funeral?’ Mac asked.
‘No and I wouldn’t go there even if I had been invited.’
‘What about your other brother?’
‘Toby? He came back to see Richard just before he died and then again for the funeral but he hasn’t been back since as far as I know.’
Mac was silent for a moment.
‘Have you any ideas who might have wanted to kill Catherine, apart from the doctor that is?’
She shrugged her shoulders.
‘Half of that stupid Society she started up or so I’ve heard.’
‘And what about you?’ Mac asked pointedly.
‘Oh, if I was going to kill her no-one would know believe me. I know all the tricks of the trade from the books I’ve read but no I didn’t kill Catherine. However, if I’m honest, I’m far from sad she’s dead and more power to whoever did the dirty deed.’
Mac thought about this for a few moments then he asked, ‘Tell me Mrs. Carnet why are you wearing black, has someone died?’
‘Yes my husband Raymond, poor dear,’ Mrs. Carnet said with a very sad expression.
‘I’m sorry to hear it. I take it this happened recently?’
‘Yes, it will be twelve years ago next month, seems like yesterday though.’
Before he left he asked her for the name of the doctor’s surgery.
‘Thank you Mrs. Carnet. Please ring me at this number if you think of anything.’
Outside Mac and Leigh looked at each other.
‘She’s a bit strange!’ Leigh exclaimed.
‘You’re right there,’ Mac conceded.
‘Did you believe her when she said she didn’t do it?’ Leigh asked.
‘Well she made it clear she was more than happy that Catherine was dead and she did have a powerful motive but I don’t know. He brother died a couple of years ago, if it was her why wait that long? Come on, let’s see this Dr. Lucey. We should just have time before we have to get back to the station.’
‘Why the doctor?’ Leigh asked.
‘Firstly because I’m wondering if there might be a nugget of truth in what Mrs. Carnet told us.’
‘You think that this doctor and Catherine might really have killed her husband?’
Mac nodded.
‘And secondly?’ Leigh prompted.
‘And secondly because the surgery’s on the way back to the station anyway.’
Leigh showed her warrant card and asked for the doctor at reception. Luckily he was on duty and they got the message that he’d be free in ten minutes. Mac and Leigh sat down with the waiting patients. Just before the ten minutes were up Dr. Lucey appeared. He introduced himself and they followed him to his office. Mac noticed that they got a lot of sour looks as they went. Their fellow waiters obviously had strong suspicions that they were queue jumping.
‘So how can I help the police?’ the doctor asked brightly.
Mac looked him over. He was slim, late thirties, curly haired and probably what some women might call ‘cute’.
‘We’re investigating the death of Catherine Gascoigne and we’ve just had a very interesting conversation with her sister in law.’
‘I’ll bet you did,’ the doctor said with some feeling.
‘Who told you that Catherine was dead?’ Mac asked.
‘I got a phone call from Penny Bathurst yesterday and another one about an hour ago. She told me that Catherine had been murdered. I still find it hard to believe.’
Mac thought the doctor still looked quite shaken.
‘Did you treat Mrs. Gascoigne for a stomach problem?’
‘Yes she said it had been causing her problems for a while. I gave her something for it and it seemed to do the trick. Was the stomach problem something to do with her death? Penny got a bit upset during the call, she didn’t say exactly how Catherine died.’
‘It was thallium poisoning.’
‘Thallium? That’s bizarre!’ the doctor exclaimed.
‘In what way?’
‘In every way, I mean I remember something about thallium during my training but I’ve never come across it as a doctor. God, the bad stomach, that’s one of the symptoms, isn’t it? If only I’d thought, if only I’d done some tests…’
‘Don’t blame yourself doctor. I believe that one of the things that made thallium such a popular poison years ago was that it’s supposed to be very hard to diagnose and after all she only had a stomach upset.’
‘I suppose you’re right. I still wished I’d spotted it though.’
‘Is there anything you can tell us that might help?’ Mac asked.
‘I wish I could. I had a lot of respect for Catherine. She was very supportive at a very dark time for me. After Richard died we kind of drifted apart and, although we still saw each other from time to time, it was never quite the same.’
When he mentioned Richard Gascoigne’s death Mac could see from his expression that it had hit him hard and it still hurt. From what the doctor said it would seem that it was Richard Gascoigne who had been the more important to him in some way.
‘Tell me, what was your relationship with Richard Gascoigne?’ Mac asked.
‘Relationship, what do you mean?’ the doctor said too quickly.
Mac didn’t reply, he just sat there and looked keenly at the doctor’s face. The doctor stood up and paced up and down for a few seconds. From his expression Mac knew he’d come to some sort of a decision. He sat down again.
‘My relationship with Richard? It’s something I’ve been denying for years now, mostly at Richard’s request, but I’ve had enough of that. I’m not going to deny Richard again. Richard and I were lovers, I loved him with all my heart.’
‘Doctor, did you kill Richard Gascoigne?’
The doctor hesitated for a moment then he looked levelly at Mac.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I gave Richard a lethal dose of morphine, I killed him.’
Chapter Seven
‘Why did you kill him doctor?’
‘I killed him because I loved him. His prognosis was the worst it could be, a high probability that he might last for months with a
n even higher likelihood that the pain would get much worse. Poor Richard couldn’t bear it as it was and it was breaking all our hearts to see him like that.’
‘Whose hearts?’
‘Catherine’s, Toby’s and mine of course.’
‘So Catherine and Toby knew about this?’ Mac asked.
‘Yes, Catherine and I discussed it for weeks before we spoke about it to Toby over the phone. He’d always been close to Richard so we thought we should he should be consulted. He flew over straight away and we took him through every possibility we could think of. In the end he agreed that killing Richard was the only way.’
‘What about Richard himself?’
‘It was him begging us to end his misery that started us thinking about it in the first place. We’d never have done anything without him being a totally willing party.’
‘Why didn’t you involve his sister?’
The doctor laughed.
‘You’ve met her, would you?’
Mac had to admit that the doctor had a point.
‘Why you though? Why didn’t Catherine or Toby give him the lethal dose?’
‘It was Richard’s request, he said it would be better. He said that both of them would benefit from his will whereas I‘d get nothing. He joked that the real reason was that they’d probably break the needle or something.’
‘Did you mind not being mentioned in the will?’
The doctor shook his head.
‘No, I have money of my own and even at the end Richard didn’t want people to know about us. I could only respect his wishes.’
‘Were there any last words?’
‘Yes,’ the doctor said softly as tears started to fall down his cheeks. ‘Yes there were. As I injected him he whispered in my ear. He said the real reason why he wanted me to give him the injection was because he loved me the most.’
He gave Mac an intensely sad look then broke down and started sobbing uncontrollably. Leigh looked over at Mac as though she thought they should do something. Mac sat still and gave the situation some thought while he waited for the doctor to recover his composure.
‘Are you okay to carry on?’ Mac asked gently a few minutes later.
The doctor nodded.
‘How would you describe Catherine, I mean from a medical point of view?’
The doctor dried his eyes with a tissue.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Did she have Aspergers, was she on the autistic spectrum?’
‘I’m no expert but I did consult someone once about Catherine. I was at a conference a few years back and one of the seminars was about autism. Afterwards I spoke to one of the specialists and described her behaviours as truthfully as I could.’
‘And what was the outcome?’
‘Of course the specialist couldn’t be absolutely sure without actually seeing her but he was fairly certain she was somewhere on the autistic spectrum. The way she clung on to old friends, kept to a strict routine and hated any change were all signs. Then there was the fact that she clearly had problems reading other people’s reactions to what she said or did. However it was her obsession with colour that interested him most.’
‘Yes we saw that when we looked in her wardrobe.’
‘Yes she’d only ever wear blue. For some reason she was obsessed with the colour. That’s why Penny took over responsibility for the balls, apparently poor Catherine’s idea of colours for the decor of the first ball looked quite strange.’
‘Did this specialist say anything else?’
‘Only that, in his opinion, life for people like Catherine could be like living in a constant storm. Their life rafts, the familiar things they clinged to, their routines, were often the only things that stopped them from going under.’
Mac looked at his watch.
‘Thanks for that Doctor. Well, we best get going.’
Dr. Lucey stood up.
‘Yes, yes of course. I’ll ring through and cancel my appointments for the rest of the day.’
‘Why would you do that?’ Mac asked, looking genuinely puzzled.
‘I thought you’d want me to come to the station, after all I’ve just admitted that I killed someone.’
‘If we banged up every doctor who did what you’ve done the NHS queues would double overnight. I suffer from chronic pain myself, not as nearly bad as Richard’s was, thank God. Even so if the day ever comes that I can really no longer cope it’s my hope that I’ll find a doctor as sympathetic as you. Just carry on being the best doctor you can, that’s your sentence as far as I’m concerned.’
The doctor looked both relieved and grateful.
‘Thank you Mr. Maguire, I’ll try.’
‘Again I have to ask how you did you knew?’ Leigh asked as they walked out of the surgery.
‘Simply the look on his face when he talked about Richard. I’ve seen that same look many times before.’
‘Where?’
‘I see it most days when I look in the mirror. Losing someone you were really close to leaves a kind of imprint, a haunted look on the face. When I saw that look and coupled it with the fact that Richard died a lot sooner than predicted it was easy really. Obviously hearing about Catherine’s death has brought it all back to him.’
‘So Catherine really did kill her husband, her gay husband come to that. Do you think she and Richard were ever close?’
‘I think they were close alright, I think she loved Richard very much in her own way.’
‘How could you possibly know that?’
‘The bedroom, it was a shrine. Left exactly as it was when Richard was still alive yet still maintained and cleaned. If Richard’s sister or brother had ever visited the house then I might have reached the conclusion that it was just for show. However Catherine could have removed all trace of him from the house or just locked the room and forgot about it if she’d wanted to, but she didn’t. I think she loved him very much.’
Leigh sighed.
‘You’re right, people are complicated.’
‘You don’t need to have sex with people to love them. Catherine had created a fiction with Richard, a fiction which suited them both. I suppose they were a bit old fashioned really, keeping up appearances and all that. Anyway being married meant that Richard could have his gay liaisons and Catherine didn’t have to deal with the daily interactions of a real relationship, interactions she wouldn’t have been able to understand or cope with. She didn’t have to worry about that with Richard.’
‘Yes I suppose you can’t live with someone every day without becoming attached to them in some way.’
‘Have you ever been involved in a mercy killing case yourself?’ Mac asked.
Leigh shook her head.
‘I’ve been involved in quite a few cases and not one of them ever led to a jail sentence. Lots of upset caused and time wasted for nothing. By the way are you okay with what I said to the doctor back there?’
‘Yes, I think so,’ she replied with some hesitation.
Mac frowned.
‘I’m sorry, perhaps I should have asked you first before letting the doctor off the hook. When I was in the force I’d worked with my sergeant for so long that I never had to ask him anything. If you have any second thoughts about it let me know.’
Leigh promised that she would.
‘Come on let’s go back to the station and see what Andy’s turned up.’
Leigh gave Mac a look as they walked back to the car. She’d wondered at being lumbered with an old duffer with a crutch on her first day. It had crossed her mind that it might have been some sort of elaborate prank. She didn’t think that now. She decided she needed to find out more about this Mac Maguire.
Back at the station Mac started summarising everything they’d found out on a white board while they waited for Andy and Toni to turn up.
‘Not bad for less than a day’s work,’ Leigh commented as he wrote.
‘You’re right. We’ve found a fair bit about Catherine, loved by a few and disli
ked by many. I wonder how much her Asperger’s was really to blame for the latter. I suppose it’s quite possible for someone to have Asperger’s and still be bit of a cow at the same time.’
‘Sorry we’re a bit late,’ Andy said as he and Toni entered the room. ‘Traffic was awful.’
He took of his coat and read what was on the white board.
‘You’ve been busy then. By the way Toby Gascoigne got in contact with us from Canada. He was obviously upset at the news but he couldn’t really add anything to what we already know. However, as he’s executor of Catherine Gascoigne’s will, he did tell us who she left all her money to, all thirteen million pounds or so of it.’
Mac and Leigh leant forward expectantly.
‘It’s gone to charity unfortunately, every penny of it. So we can probably rule that out as a motive. Anyway take us through what you’ve found out so far.’
Mac handed over the evidence bags containing the stone, the key and the envelope and then walked Andy and Toni through each interview. He didn’t mention anything about Dr. Lucey or Richard Gascoigne’s death.
‘That kind of fits with what we found. We went to the university first and interviewed her line manager and some of her colleagues. She’d worked in the English department for over ten years. As part of her grade she’d normally have to do so many lectures a year and take on a set of students for one to one tuition. However, once they realised that, in her manager’s words, ‘her people skills were virtually zero’ she was allocated different work. They got her working on setting up the courses, auditing and also marking all the tests and exams. Her manager said she was by far the most consistent marker she’d ever come across and pretty much set the benchmark across all their English courses. ‘Invaluable’ was the word she used. However she didn’t interact with her colleagues very much. Most days she’d come into the office and just get on with her work, sometimes without saying a word to anyone all day.’
‘Probably her ideal job in a way,’ Mac commented.
‘However she certainly wasn’t disliked at the University as I far as I could see and I doubt anyone knew her well enough to want to kill her.’
Andy picked up the evidence bag and looked at the key.
‘Why do people make it so bloody easy to get into their houses? Same story I’m hearing time after time with these burglaries, doors left unlocked, keys hidden under mats and in plant pots, alarm codes like 1-2-3-4 then some of them think they’ve been clever just because they’ve changed it to 4-3-2-1.’
The Dead Squirrel (The Mac Maguire detective mysteries Book 2) Page 6
