A Good Death

by Chris Collett

  But somehow neither of them wanted to believe that a young girl’s life could have been ended in such a way.

  ‘Let’s knock it on the head,’ said Mariner, rubbing a hand over his face. ‘None of our possible suspects is going anywhere.’

  ‘These weren’t much use either,’ said Jesson, picking up the folder Mustafa Shah had given her.

  Mariner held out a hand for it. ‘I’ve got a thing at Lloyd House tomorrow morning. I’ll drop it back afterwards.’

  On his way home that evening, Mariner phoned Suzy to check that she was all right. He found her working late. ‘Don’t start that,’ he warned. ‘It can get to be a habit.’

  ‘You can talk,’ she said. He could tell she was smiling. ‘Don’t worry, I don’t plan on letting that happen. Just some things to finish off. The police have been in touch,’ she told him. ‘Gideon died from a lethal dose of morphine, almost twice what he should have been administered, so there’s going to be a second post-mortem.’

  ‘They’ll bring in a Home Office pathologist,’ said Mariner. ‘That wouldn’t be done lightly.’ He knew that the additional cost was substantial – more than two thousand pounds the last time he’d looked. ‘It means there will be a full investigation into the events of that evening.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Suzy. ‘The police have asked me to provide a statement, so I’m planning to go to the station in Warwick when I leave here. They’ll want to talk to you too, I expect.’

  ‘I’m sure they will,’ said Mariner. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine. I should have taken your advice. I’m sorry.’

  ‘There’s nothing to apologise for. We were both overwrought. It was a tough night.’

  ‘Yes, it was.’

  ‘And don’t worry, we have nothing to hide. Just tell them exactly what happened. They just need to get a sense of how the events unfolded. Let me know how it goes.’ He rang off.

  When Mariner got home, he found a message on his answer machine from Warwickshire police, just as Suzy had predicted. He rang through, knowing that it might be acceptable for him to email them his written statement after getting it witnessed by someone at Granville Lane.

  ‘You think it might have been the doctor?’ he asked, once he’d been put through to a detective.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said the detective. ‘His records of what he was carrying that evening are entirely consistent with the surgery records, and we don’t have any kind of motive. I don’t think we’re looking at another Harold Shipman.’

  ‘So what then?’ asked Mariner, already fairly sure of where this was going.

  ‘Is there anything Mrs Wiley said to you, that might make you think she was planning to help her husband on his way?’

  ‘I hardly know her,’ said Mariner truthfully. ‘If she’s confided anything, it would be to my partner. But from what little I saw, she was devoted to her husband.’

  ‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ said the detective.

  Having ended her call to Mariner, Suzy sat staring at the computer screen in front of her. Rosalind’s computer. Sweet that Mariner thought she was worried about the police interview, and she wouldn’t disabuse him just yet. It had been quite a day. From first thing this morning (was it really, only this morning?) when out of nowhere, life had thrown her a curve ball, that had the potential for further upheaval, before she’d even settled into the new job. She’d hardly known what to think at the time, and it had played on her mind all day; the temptation of something she’d wanted now for a long time, versus the safer option of letting life continue as it was. Timing is everything, she thought wryly. She should perhaps have shared it with Tom; he was as much a part of this as she was. But she wanted to make up her own mind about it first.

  And now this. She’d been less than honest with Tom. There wasn’t really any urgent work to finish. Suzy had stayed late to make sure none of her colleagues would be around this time when she logged on to Rosalind’s PC. It had taken her a little while to track back to the alert she had seen, just a little more than a week ago, and she had hoped above hope that she had been mistaken. But what was in front of her now was as plain as it could be: the information page of Journey’s End, an organisation offering support to those considering assisted dying, for themselves or their loved one. Perhaps she should have told Mariner, but it might mean nothing at all. Looking at a website was no proof of anything. And she wanted to give Rosalind the opportunity to tell her that herself.

  It was as she was driving home that Suzy realised that she had the perfect pretext for going round to Rosalind’s. Developments earlier today had presented her with a weighty dilemma. And while she was reasonably confident of making a decision on her own, an objective opinion from someone outside the situation could only be helpful. And that might provide an opportunity to dispel the doubts Suzy had about her friend. But when she got to the Forge, Suzy found Rosalind wholly preoccupied. ‘There’s to be a second post-mortem on Gideon,’ she said, before Suzy had even stepped across the threshold. ‘The police don’t think he died of natural causes.’

  Suzy followed Rosalind into the kitchen, where they remained standing. She almost flinched at the intensity of Rosalind’s gaze, but said nothing; it had to come from her. The air grew thicker with each second that passed, and Suzy was acutely aware of the ticking of the clock on the wall, the radio burbling in another room.

  ‘I had to do it,’ Rosalind blurted out at last. ‘Please believe me.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ Suzy hardly dared breathe.

  ‘I helped Gideon to die,’ said Rosalind. ‘But I was only doing what he wanted. He begged me to do it.’

  ‘How …?’ Suzy faltered.

  ‘I waited until the doctor had delivered his evening injection, then I delivered another, as soon as the doctor had gone,’ said Rosalind, examining her hands. ‘There has often been a little left over from Gideon’s prescribed amount, so I’ve been storing it up.’

  ‘But surely suicide runs contrary to Gideon’s beliefs?’ Despite her suspicions, Suzy still didn’t want to believe it.

  ‘Since he has been ill and particularly during the last few months, Gideon has struggled with his faith,’ said Rosalind. ‘It has been one of the few things we’ve ever disagreed on. I hadn’t told anyone that, but it’s true.’

  ‘I will have to tell the police,’ said Suzy.

  ‘I know.’ And without another word, Rosalind handed her the phone.

  After the police car came, and Rosalind was cautioned and taken to the police station, Suzy went back to Y Worry and called Mariner. ‘Rosalind has been charged with Gideon’s murder,’ she said, still reeling from it.

  Mariner exhaled. So it was more than conjecture. ‘What do you think?’ he asked Suzy.

  ‘I know,’ said Suzy. ‘She did it; she told me. Gideon pleaded with her to do it. So now she’s been arrested.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Mariner reassured her. ‘They’re following standard procedures. In practice, although they must follow due process, courts almost always take a lenient view. It’s likely that Rosalind will get off with a suspended sentence at most. Anyway. Try not to worry, I’m sure it will be fine. Do you want me to come over?’

  ‘No, I’ll be fine,’ said Suzy. ‘It’s just so awful for poor Rosalind.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The following morning Mariner attended his meeting at Lloyd House, and on his way back to Granville Lane, called in at the Yemeni Advice Centre to return the files given to Jesson by Mustafa Shah. They hadn’t been much help and Mariner couldn’t shake off the feeling that they were missing something; the fire had been about something personal. He wanted to ascertain the extent of Shah’s friendship with Kaspa Rani. The nearest parking space he could find was on a side street some distance along the Ladypool Road, but he enjoyed the walk through this energetic neighbourhood, past a halal butcher, a draper, a sweet shop. Like most urban streets, it had its share of litter, and sidestepping a pushchair, Mariner’s
foot made contact with a plastic pop bottle that went scooting into the gutter. The sensation triggered a brief and inexplicable surge of adrenalin, which he was trying to fathom when he almost collided with a small child darting across the pavement. The mother, in colourful al-masoon was reading a printed notice pinned to the door of a shop whose window had been sprayed with graffiti. Mariner had come across the word shaitan before, in other contexts. He couldn’t remember the exact translation but he knew that it wasn’t flattering. What attracted his attention now was the name more formally stencilled across the glass underneath: Soltan Ahmed.

  Mariner waited while the mother finished reading, and when she had stepped aside, he took a look at it. In both Arabic and English, it said that, due to unforeseen circumstances, the business was closed. The flyer had been posted just six weeks ago. A brass plate beside the door bore some Arabic script, and below that: tabib at al ’asnan. The woman and her child had remained nearby. ‘Excuse me,’ Mariner said. ‘What does this mean?’

  She smiled shyly and shook her head. She didn’t speak English. But then, after thinking for a moment, she opened her mouth wide, exposing her teeth and miming a pulling motion. ‘Thank you,’ said Mariner. ‘And this?’ He indicated the graffiti, but this time she simply shook her head, moving her child away.

  ‘Your father-in-law was a dentist?’ Mariner said to Mustafa Shah, when he got to the advice centre.

  ‘He was,’ said Shah, who was completing some kind of application form.

  ‘But the graffiti on the window; that word shaitan. What does it mean?’

  Shah stopped what he was doing and let his pen drop onto the desk. ‘Loosely translated it means “evil one”.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Mariner. ‘I thought your father-in-law was a respected member of the community?’

  ‘He was,’ Shah told him. ‘But one of his patients, a teenage girl, developed hepatitis. Her parents got it into their heads that somehow it was Soltan’s fault, related to the dental treatment she’d had. We didn’t take it seriously. There are other ways in which the girl could have contracted the disease. The family didn’t have clear evidence to sue for malpractice, but they were going to take their story to the press. And as your English expression has it: mud sticks. I had to persuade the family to think again.’

  ‘You paid them off,’ said Mariner. ‘The ten thousand pounds you drew from your account was to buy their silence.’

  ‘They were satisfied with that,’ Shah insisted. ‘Because there was no case to answer.’

  ‘But your father-in-law closed his practice, nonetheless.’

  ‘He had been thinking of retiring anyway,’ said Shah, with a shrug.

  ‘Is that when you took all his papers to Wellington Road?’

  ‘The patient records had to be stored somewhere.’

  ‘I will need details of this family,’ said Mariner. ‘And did your father-in-law have an assistant, a dental nurse?’

  Shah was reluctant, but said eventually: ‘It was Aisha, who helps me out here now. When Soltan’s practice closed, we felt bad about making her redundant, so I offered her a few hours.’

  ‘To guarantee her loyalty?’ Mariner speculated.

  ‘To help her out,’ said Shah, evenly. ‘I’ll fetch her for you.’

  Mustafa Shah had the grace to allow Mariner to speak to Aisha alone. ‘The posters on the waiting room walls need to be updated,’ he decided.

  Aisha seemed nervous as she sat down across from Mariner.

  ‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ he assured her. ‘I just want to ask you about Mr Ahmed, particularly in the time leading up to his retirement.’

  Her eyes flicked towards the waiting room.

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Mariner. ‘Mr Shah knows why I’m talking to you.’

  ‘It was before that girl got sick,’ Aisha said. ‘I began to notice how forgetful he was becoming. Normally he was so careful about hygiene, but I began having to remind him to sterilise the instruments. A couple of times I came into the treatment room and found him about to use soiled ones. He mistakenly drilled a child’s healthy tooth once too, though I don’t think the mother realised. Mr Ahmed was a lovely man, and he used to get very cross with himself if he forgot anything, so I just tried to be vigilant and prompt him.’ She shrugged. ‘He was an old man. I mean, everyone gets forgetful as they get older, don’t they?’

  ‘I will need the name and address of the girl’s family,’ Mariner said, and before leaving he phoned through to Vicky Jesson to tell her what he had learned. ‘I’m going there now,’ he said. ‘But ask Bingley to make some background checks on them, see if there’s any history.’

  Although she was recovering, the girl’s parents were understandably emotional about what had happened to their daughter, but they seemed more than satisfied with the compensation they had received. To lay the matter to rest, when he was back in his car, Mariner contacted the family’s GP, Dr Jill Wakefield.

  ‘It would be impossible to prove a direct link with her dental treatment,’ she told Mariner. ‘The disease could have been contracted and lain dormant for years. In my view they were lucky that Mr Shah was so understanding.’

  Bingley was undeniably efficient, thought Mariner. By the time he returned to Granville Lane at the end of the afternoon, the constable had already executed the search. ‘Squeaky clean,’ he said. ‘Not a mark on the family or anyone at that address. Am I allowed to know who they are?’

  ‘They were Soltan Ahmed’s patients,’ said Mariner. ‘Up until six weeks ago, he was a practising dentist.’

  ‘Ooh.’ Bingley pulled a face. ‘That wouldn’t have been good.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Jesson. She was getting her things together, preparing to leave for the day.

  ‘He was on Perantamine; that stuff you found in the medicine cabinet,’ said Bingley. ‘My dad was prescribed it for a while, before he really started to go downhill. It’s a new and aggressive drug to treat early-onset Alzheimer’s. According to those labels, Soltan Ahmed had been on it for ages.’

  ‘But the family doctor believes that there can be no proven link between the girl’s treatment and her illness,’ said Mariner. ‘So I think we can safely rule them out.’

  ‘I’m off then, if that’s OK?’ said Jesson.

  Mariner nodded. ‘We’ll start again in the morning.’

  As she walked out, Jesson lobbed her empty water bottle towards the recycling bin, but missed it by a margin and it bounced off the floor.

  ‘Go,’ said Mariner, seeing her sigh. ‘I’ll get it.’ He reached down to pick up the bottle, but as he dangled it over the bin, a thought occurred. ‘You should get yourself off home, too,’ he said to Bingley.

  On the way down to his car, Mariner called the Yemeni Advice Centre, hoping that they hadn’t closed for the day. He asked to speak to Aisha. ‘Did you tell anyone else about Mr Ahmed’s forgetfulness?’

  ‘Only Mrs Shah,’ said Aisha. ‘She used to bring the children in for their check-ups. She asked me about how things were, how her father was. You know, it was just a chat.’

  ‘How did she take it?’ asked Mariner.

  ‘Actually I made her cry. I didn’t mean to. I told her I was keeping an eye on him, so everything was fine. Then that family made the complaint, and that was it. Mr Ahmed retired and closed the practice.’

  It was the validation he had hoped for, and instead of driving home, Mariner took a detour via Wellington Road. Fire Investigation were still on site, but before talking to Docherty, Mariner went round to the back garden and clambered back on to the flat roof, revisiting the events of over two weeks ago. The window of the children’s bedroom was still ajar, and climbing in, he was about to cross the room when there it was, in an instant flashback: the sound that toy had made as he kicked it across the floor. He felt sure it was the exact same sound he’d heard this afternoon, when his foot had struck that plastic bottle. Getting down on all fours he hunted under the children’s beds, and there, righ
t under Yousef’s, he found it: a one-litre mineral water bottle. Putting on gloves, he reached under the bed and retrieved it, and when he opened the cap the smell hit him straight away. Petrol. He ran down the stairs to where Gerry Docherty was just finishing up. ‘Yousef told us there was a funny smell that night, like the car,’ said Mariner. ‘I thought he was confusing the smoke with exhaust fumes, but he meant when they filled up with petrol. Have you done any forensics work in the children’s room?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Docherty. ‘It hasn’t been a priority.’

  ‘Could you make it one, please?’ said Mariner. ‘As a matter of urgency.’

  Gerry Docherty did as requested. By the following morning, with the aid of Dougal, he was able to confirm to Mariner the presence of accelerant on the stairs, and on the children’s bedroom carpet. Fingerprint results would take longer, but Mariner didn’t see any sense in waiting. ‘I want to bring in Salwa Shah for formal questioning,’ he said to Jesson. They were preparing to do just that when a call came through to Mariner from the desk sergeant. ‘There’s a Mrs Shah down here, with her solicitor. She wants to talk to you.’

  This time Salwa Shah was interviewed under caution. She seemed calm and in control, as if this was something she had been expecting all along. Mariner thought she probably had. Vicky placed a glass of water on the table in front of her, but before they could even start with the questioning, Salwa produced a letter. ‘Mrs Shah asks that you read this letter, and then she will give you her statement,’ said her solicitor.

  Once opened, Mariner held out the letter so that both he and Jesson could read it. Signed by Soltan Ahmed, the letter explained briefly but cogently, that, at his request and in accordance with his own wishes, his daughter had taken steps to end his life, and that she should not to be held to account after the event.

  Mariner had seen this coming since yesterday evening, but it was stark nonetheless to see it set out so plainly. He wondered if Gideon Wiley had made the same provision. ‘So why don’t you tell us, from the beginning, what happened?’ he said.