Bitter Water

by Douglas Clark

  “Who is talking about getting hitched, as you put it?” demanded Tip.

  “You are, love. Otherwise you wouldn’t be worrying. For people you don’t want to marry, like me, you actually buy cigarettes. For Sergeant Berger you have nothing but a snarl on the subject.”

  Tip regarded him for a moment. “I must remember in future I’m consorting with great detectives.”

  “So you don’t deny it,” said Green with a grin at Tip.

  “I do,” said Berger.

  “You could have fooled me,” grated Green.

  “The Chief wouldn’t want a married couple in his team,” said Tip simply, “and we neither of us want to leave it, yet.”

  “Got it,” said Green with a grin. “The lad has to wait for his promotion board before anything happens. Like young Reed and his little missus.”

  “Exactly like that,” said Tip.

  Green shrugged and looked at his watch. “Time we were moving up there.”

  Masters took the sting from the meeting right at the outset by apologising to Berger and Tip for not keeping them fully abreast of the events of the previous evening. “The DCI and I knew nothing about the letter until after you had left us, and there was no opportunity to break for our usual brainstorming session this morning, because each of us had important jobs to do. However, we can now put matters to rights. The DCI has given me his report over lunch and Tip has very kindly got me some useful medical information from the RSM. Now, you must have some questions, so let us try to get those out of the way before we start trying to get something like a proper picture out of the bits and pieces we’ve got. Who first?”

  “We’ve heard all about the anonymous letter, Chief, and I was present at the interview with Mrs. Carlyle this morning.”

  “Yes?”

  “I was bewildered, Chief. I didn’t know whether we went there to discuss the letter or to talk about Carla Sanders. Sometimes I got the impression the two are linked, sometimes that they had nothing to do with each other. We spent most of the time talking about Scotsmen.”

  “What’s your question, Sergeant?”

  “Are the two linked?”

  “I think there could be a strong possibility that they are.”

  “But you are not sure?”

  “Not as yet. You’ve got all the information that the DCI and I have.”

  “Now.”

  “Admittedly, now. I’ve already apologised for keeping you in the dark this morning and explained the reasons for that.”

  “Blame his missus,” said Green quickly. “She didn’t produce the letter soon enough for you lot to know last night. So get on with what you’ve got to say, lad.”

  “How or why do you think a Scotsman is implicated, Chief?”

  Masters handed over a photocopy of the anonymous letter. “From that. Study it and see if you come to the same conclusion as I did or simply if you can determine why I came to that conclusion.”

  “Conclusion sounds pretty final, Chief,” said Tip as she moved to look over Berger’s shoulder.”

  “Then it is the wrong word,” said Masters. “I should have said that I picked up a hint from the letter by studying it. I won’t tell you what it is for the moment because I should prefer to see if you read it the same way as I did.”

  “And the DCI?” asked Tip. “Did he get it?”

  “I can’t read,” retorted Green.

  Tip looked across at him. “If an astute old dick like you can’t spot it you can’t expect the likes of us to do so.”

  “Ah!” grunted Green, “but you’ve had the advantage of the modern education. You know! The sort that frees the mind and allows it to soar to unknown heights, never mind if you can’t multiply two and two and have never heard of punctuation.” He took out his cigarette packet. “Have a bash at it, petal,” he said plaintively, “we haven’t got all day.”

  Tip stared at him for a moment and then smiled. “Punctuation,” she murmured quietly to Berger.

  “Punctuation? There isn’t any.”

  Tip studied the letter for many moments before finally saying. “You’re right. So the fact that there isn’t any must be important.”

  Masters, who was packing a pipe very carefully with Warlock Flake, said quietly, “The punctuation, or lack of it, is certainly important. But study the import of the letter a little more carefully. And the tone.”

  “The tone is abusive, Chief,” replied Berger. “Ruthless bastard and greedy sod may not be the worst of today’s epithets, but they are pretty strong. I mean they leave you in no doubt as to what the writer thinks of Carlyle.”

  “Quite right. Think on.”

  “The whole tone is abusive,” repeated Berger slowly to himself, “and yet … ” He looked across at Masters.

  “And yet?”

  “In the middle of it he calls Carlyle a washout which is the sort of mild thing I’d have called another lad when I was a little boy at school. Rotter, washout, that sort of thing.”

  Tip closed her eyes in an agony of thought. And then opened them again and said excitedly: “He didn’t call Carlyle a washout, did he, Chief?”

  “It’s here as plain as the nose on your face,” expostulated Berger.

  “No, no,” said Tip. “Look at the way he has split words at the ends of the lines and then continued on the next line without any hyphen or dash to connect the two pieces. Look at the top line. RUTH it ends with, and the second line starts with LESS. Line four ends with OTH and five starts with ER.”

  “I can see that,” admitted Berger. “But to get back to this washout business.”

  “Awash,” said Tip. “Not A WASH, with or without the out.”

  Berger stared at her for a moment. “Got it,” he breathed. “Out with. Awash outwith your criminal setup et cetera.”

  Tip patted him on the arm.

  “It took me a long time to spot it,” said Masters. “Nobody I’ve ever known except a Scot, and by that I mean a real Scot, not an Anglo-Scot, has used the word outwith, which means almost the same as without, but not quite. And don’t ask me what the real difference is, but there are distinct verbal shades in their usage.”

  “So you sussed that a Jock had written this letter, Chief?”

  “You’re quick this afternoon, lad,” grunted Green.

  Berger looked across at him. “It could be a ruse to put us off the scent.”

  “It could be,” agreed Masters, “but on the whole I think not. And in any case, I couldn’t afford to ignore it in case it was put in to mislead.”

  “Dead giveaway, I reckon,” said Green. “It has to be. It couldn’t be a ruse if the only bloke to suss it out was His Nibs. None of us others did, without prompting. What’s the use of a sign to lead your trackers astray if they can’t see the arrow pointing down the wrong way?”

  Berger nodded. “I get the point.”

  “So,” said Masters, “to get back to your original question, Sergeant, which was, I think, to ask if the Carla Sanders case and the anonymous letter to Mr. Carlyle are linked.”

  “That’s it, Chief.”

  “My answer cannot be categorical, but I’ve begun to think so and as there seemed to be no reason for not considering them in tandem, that is what I proposed to the DCI this morning. Hence his questioning of Mrs. Carlyle was not clear cut as you have obviously appreciated.”

  “But why a Scotsman, Chief?”

  “I don’t understand the question.”

  Berger sat back and stretched his long legs as he frowned despairingly, searching for the right form of words in which to express his thoughts. Then—

  “Chief, I understand why you believe a Scotsman to have written the anonymous note to Carlyle. What I can’t understand is why you think the same Scotsman had it in for Carla Sanders.”

  “He doesn’t think that,” grunted Green.

  Berger sat up, slowly. “I give up, Chief.”

  “Think, please,” said Masters.

  “You will pay for it sooner than you t
hink,” murmured Tip, quoting from the photocopy of the anonymous letter she was still holding. She said quietly to Berger: “There could be something there.”

  Berger stared at her for a moment. “That letter reached the Carlyle home shortly before the party, did you say, Chief?”

  “Yes.”

  “So any attack on Carlyle could have been made at the party. It being ‘soon’ after the letter was written.”

  “Go on.”

  “But the attack on Carlyle failed and somehow, Carla Sanders was caught in the crossfire.”

  “And died from her wounds,” said Green. “Go on, lad, you’re playing a blinder.”

  “That’s it,” said Tip. “The same person was responsible for both Carla Sanders’ death and the anonymous note to Mr. Carlyle.”

  “At last,” groaned Green.

  Berger turned to him. “And I suppose you worked all that out for yourself, with no help from the Chief?”

  “I was having the weekend off,” said Green airily. “Once I’d started work again this morning I’d have got it soon enough, but His Nibs had been doing a bit of overtime last night so he was a bit ahead of me at reaching the conclusion.”

  “You’re an awful old fibber,” said Tip, giving Green a smile and shaking her head at the same time.

  “To be fair to the DCI,” said Masters, “he mentioned to me some time ago something you two should always bear in mind, in every case. And that is that the victim of any killing may not have been the intended victim. He told me that he had a strong feeling that Hugh Carlyle had been the target for attack on the night of his party and that somehow Carla Sanders had taken the flak.”

  “So snubs to you, young Berger, and you, too, Tip,” said Green, all but putting his tongue out at them.

  “And that was before the anonymous letter came to light, Chief?”

  “Oh, yes. The DCI and I were thinking along the same lines, but we had no proof that there had been an attempt on Carlyle’s life, so it was going to be very difficult to prove that Carla Sanders had been killed in any way other than accidentally or naturally. Furthermore, we had no clue as to who might be the perpetrator of the act of revenge against Carlyle. As you know, we were asking questions, constructively, I like to think, in the hope that we should be lucky enough to get a hint that proof of what we believed would be forthcoming. That hint came last night in the shape of the letter Tip has in her hand.”

  “Clear enough now, Chief,” said Berger. “And you’ve concluded a Scotsman is implicated. So what do we do now? Find a Scot and ask him what he did to Carlyle that misfired?”

  “There is such a thing as continuation of evidence, Sergeant. We work it all out before we find the Scot. Then we tell him what he did and why we are about to arrest him.”

  “Sorry, Chief, but have we a clue what he did? I mean the lights went out round the pool. Was that to give him a chance to do something unseen?”

  “Answer your own question, please.”

  Berger glanced at Tip. “The lights went out at the party. That could be suspicious as it could have given somebody the chance to do something surreptitiously.”

  “Quite right, lad. How was it worked?”

  Berger gave an account of his earlier conversation with Tip and then went on to ask: “The point is, was Sanders already there or wasn’t she? If she wasn’t and the attack on Carlyle went in at that time we know that the attempt was not a momentary effort like, say, a shot with a silenced revolver would be, otherwise it couldn’t have harmed a latecomer.”

  “Right, lad. What if she was there at the time?”

  “Then we may have to suppose that it was a quick, short attempt that went wrong.”

  “There was no shooting there, son. Somebody would have heard or seen something if there had been.”

  “Would they?”

  “Explain, please,” said Masters.

  “He didn’t use a revolver, Chief, but he could have used a pistol. A water pistol. Loaded with liquid containing the leptospirae bugs. All he had to do was create a bit of a diversion by fusing the lights, thereby giving himself a bit more darkness to work in, but not so much that he couldn’t see what he was doing. He’d expect Carlyle to wheel his chair over to the ramp into the house to supervise the repair. So he’d know exactly where to find him.”

  “And there would be shadows on each side of the French window,” said Tip. “He could hide there and fire into a target in the overspill of light from the room.”

  “Thanks,” said Berger, looking up at her. “I hadn’t thought of that, but it makes things easier to envisage.” He turned back to Masters. “He’d fire from the hip, Chief, so as not to be seen pointing the weapon. But water pistols aren’t all that accurate, are they! He took a shot at Carlyle who jinked his chair at the same moment. So the spray of liquid missed him and hit Sanders who, as far as I can make out, spent the whole of the party just close by the ramp. So the bugs meant to kill Carlyle killed the girl instead.”

  There was silence for a moment or two and then Masters said: “It is a most ingenious theory, Sergeant. And could well be right in its broad outline. I suspect the details would need a little revising, perhaps, but the basic idea could be a sound one.”

  Berger blushed with pleasure and accepted the cigarette Green was offering him. “What’s this? A fag from you? It must be my birthday.”

  “It’s a prize for invention,” grunted Green. “Like His Nibs, I’m not saying you are right, but it’s as good a theory as I’ve heard to illustrate that point you were making about the attack being a momentary one.” He struck a match. “Have a light, too, lad. On me.”

  Berger looked at him suspiciously. “You’re not pulling my leg?”

  “Would I offer you one of my fags if I were pulling your old whatsisname?”

  Berger accepted the light.

  Tip said to Masters: “Do you think that is how it was done, Chief?”

  “Without detracting from Sergeant Berger’s excellent basic theory, I don’t think it was. My reason for saying that is because Hookham—he’s Mrs. H.’s husband—wasn’t present at the party, though I understand he turned up later, after the pubs had closed.”

  “Hookham? Where does he come into this, Chief? Is he the Scotsman we’ve been hearing so much about?”

  “He did odd jobs about the Carlyle house,” reminded Tip.

  “And so couldn’t have been within range of the water pistol,” went on Masters, ignoring the question about his nationality.

  “You still haven’t said whether Hookham is a Scot, Chief.”

  “As far as I know he isn’t.”

  “Then what does it matter whether he was at the party or not?”

  “He did odd jobs, as Tip said.”

  “So?”

  “One of his jobs was the emptying and filling of the swimming pool. Remember?”

  Tip said excitedly, “He was ill after he’d emptied it that Sunday. Caught flu.” Then her voice fell. “But not very badly, Chief. He was just a bit off-colour for a day or two.”

  “Right, love,” said Green. “And that’s the clue to the whole business. Remember what the books say about this leptospirosis lark. The infection can vary in intensity from a mild influenza-like illness to a fatal form of jaundice due to severe liver disease. Old Hookham caught the flu, Sanders caught the fatal dose. Or so we believe. Now go on from there.”

  “Now we know that, it must mean that the pool was the danger spot,” said Berger. “It’s the only thing that links Sanders and Hookham. She went right in and got the fatal dose, he just pulled the plug, waited for most of the water to drain away and then went in—probably in his wellies—to scrub down and remove the broken glass and food scraps.”

  “Using a longhandled brush, most likely,” added Tip.

  “Very good, so far,” said Green. “Anything else to add?”

  Berger grimaced. “It seems obvious somebody—presumably the Chief’s Scotsman—emptied a bottle full of the bugs into the wat
er.”

  “To kill Carlyle,” said Tip. “How horrible! To try to murder a crippled man with a filthy infection like that.”

  “Don’t get emotional, Tip,” counselled Masters.

  “But, Chief … ”

  “Save it, petal,” warned Green. “You two haven’t yet finished the story.”

  “Oh, you mean about putting the lights out so that he could put the microorganisms in the water without being seen?”

  “There’s that,” agreed Masters, “though at this moment I suspect that point is relatively unimportant. The method will, of course, have to be looked into, sooner or later, as will opportunity and various other little items such as where the bugs came from in the first place.”

  Tip asked innocently: “Have you any ideas about the source, Chief?”

  “Not firm ones. Like Sergeant Berger with his water pistol, I am trying to shape my theories to fit the possibilities.” He looked at his wristwatch. “I think it’s time we called it a day. But before we go, I’d like you to remember one thing we seem to have learned today, and that is that leptospirae will live in clean water and so, we presume, the infection can be acquired from bathing in clean but infected water. In this connection remember another thing. Because of the danger of infection from chemicals Carlyle was likely to suffer on account of his condition, his swimming pool was always filled with fresh water from the mains, and none of the usual agents for keeping it bug-free, like chlorine, was ever used.”

  “Good point that,” murmured Green. “It means that whoever was out to get him knew enough about the life habits of those little jiggers to realise they would live and move and multiply by the million in Carlyle’s pool.” He looked across at Masters. “Are we looking for a microbiologist or some such?”

  “A Scottish microbiologist who has had dealings in recent years with Carlyle,” said Berger. “That should be a fairly easy spec, shouldn’t it, Chief?”

  “On the face of it, perhaps. Anyhow, think it through.” Masters got to his feet.