Some Die Eloquent

by Catherine Aird

  Miss Collins considered this. ‘Just the one.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘More of a passion than a hobby.’

  ‘People get like that,’ said Sloan. Other people, of course. Growing roses well was just a relaxation as far as he was concerned, naturally.

  ‘Everyone has to have something.’

  ‘The dog?’ he offered tentatively.

  The biologist shook her head. ‘No, no. Not Isolde. No, Beatrice was looking for something.’

  Sloan waited.

  ‘Everyone has their Holy Grail,’ she said.

  ‘We’re all seekers after something,’ he advanced in his turn. He was old enough now to know that. With some it was the Truth: but not with everyone. ‘What was Miss Wansdyke looking for, Miss Collins?’

  ‘A way of using the nitrogen that’s present in the air,’ said Hilda Collins unexpectedly. ‘She felt that it ought to be possible to convert it.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Sloan blankly.

  Miss Collins took pity on him. ‘It would be a sort of latter-day turning of stone into gold. They tried that a lot in the Middle Ages.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Poor Beatrice,’ said Hilda Collins. ‘She never did find it.’

  ‘Where did she look?’ he asked. ‘Or rather, where did she do the looking?’ Air, after all, was free.

  The biologist smiled. ‘She used to use the laboratories down at Wansdyke and Darnley. At weekends. They didn’t mind. She’d done more than her bit for the family.’

  ‘So I am told.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ added Miss Collins abruptly, ‘her nephew will come to his senses now.’

  ‘Nicholas Petforth?’

  ‘Not a bad boy,’ pronounced the schoolteacher judiciously.

  The phrase had long ago lost its meaning to anyone who had spent any time at all in a Juvenile Court.

  ‘His trouble, Inspector, is that he spends all his time being afraid that he’s taking after his father.’

  ‘It does happen,’ advanced Sloan cautiously. He had every intention of his son – if the baby should be a boy – taking after him. Or else.

  ‘Nature, not nurture?’ murmured the biologist quizzically.

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Or nurture, not nature?’

  ‘A bit of both,’ comprised Sloan. He was going to see that that child of his – theirs – when it came was going to be brought up properly too.

  ‘But then you’re a policeman, aren’t you?’ She shot him an intelligent look.

  ‘As the twig is bent,’ Sloan came back.

  ‘It works with the right handed thread clockwise honeysuckle,’ conceded the biologist with a glint of humour, ‘and the left-handed thread anti-clockwise bindweed.’

  ‘If you start it in the right way,’ said the policeman who was also a gardener.

  ‘Homo sapiens doesn’t keep all the rules,’ observed Hilda Collins with profundity.

  ‘There are those,’ proffered Sloan, ‘who say, “Give me a boy until he’s seven …”’

  ‘And,’ responded Miss Collins, ‘those who say that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the sons.’

  ‘Even unto the third and fourth generation,’ finished Sloan. His mother had been most particular about his Biblical education.

  Miss Collins suddenly looked through the office window. ‘Turn the scalpel the other way, Veronica,’ she called out. ‘You’ll never dissect anything with the blunt side. Go on, child! Cut! It won’t bite you, you know. It’s quite dead.’ She turned back to Sloan. ‘Where was I?’

  ‘Heredity, I think, miss.’

  ‘Fathers,’ said Hilda Collins, looking Sloan up and down, ‘only amount to half the genetic programme.’

  Sloan had never considered paternity in quite that light before and said so.

  ‘Though,’ remarked Miss Collins academically, ‘in some ways the Rhesus monkey’s father is of relatively little importance.’

  Detective-Inspector Sloan said nothing. He had always in any case been on the side of the angels anyway. Apes were less appealing.

  ‘The little woman,’ said the biologist, following a completely different line of thought, ‘does her share, too.’

  ‘Er – quite so,’ said Sloan, making up his mind there and then that Margaret, his wife, was not going to hear about this interview at all. Some aspects of police work were not for home consumption.

  ‘There was nothing wrong with Nicholas Petforth’s mother, I can assure you.’ Miss Collins plunged her hands deeply into the pockets of her white coat. ‘Young Briony’s her living image.’

  ‘Nature, not nurture,’ said Sloan neatly.

  She acknowledged this with a quick jerk of her head. ‘And there’ll be nothing wrong with the boy when he stops running away from himself.’

  ‘It would help,’ observed Sloan mildly, ‘if he stopped running away from us.’

  ‘Like that, is it?’ She raised ungroomed eyebrows heavenwards: and then turned away from him again. ‘Deeper, Veronica! Cut deeper …’

  For his money, thought Sloan, Miss Hilda Collins could have slit the throats of a whole pack of dogs.

  CHAPTER IX

  My eyes are bleared with work on preparations,

  That’s all the good you get from transmutations.

  ‘Just a few enquiries, Doctor,’ began Detective-Inspector Sloan. The general practitioner’s consulting room was a much less intimidating place than the hospital. There were no white coats about and precious few instruments visible. The chairs and the desk were more homely, too. Detective-Constable Crosby was sitting in the chair that was slightly behind and to one side of the doctor’s direct line of vision and was presumably the one intended for the patient’s friend or relative. Sloan himself was occupying the patient’s chair facing the doctor.

  Dr John Paston regarded him straightly across the desk. ‘About what, Inspector?’

  ‘The late Miss Beatrice Wansdyke.’

  ‘Ah yes. Of course, Inspector.’ The general practitioner relaxed almost imperceptibly: but Sloan noticed. Few people realized to what extent body signs gave them away. And that those signs were the more revealing just because they were usually completely uncontrived. Even a professional straight-face like Dr Paston was not able to conceal them completely. And the professional watcher of people across the desk from him duly took note.

  ‘She was one of your patients, I believe,’ said Detective-Inspector Sloan, realizing, when he came to think about it, that this matter of understanding and portraying body language was one of the main ingredients of really first-class stage acting.

  ‘Indeed, yes.’ The doctor pushed a stethoscope to one side. ‘For many years.’

  ‘We understand that she suffered from diabetes.’

  ‘That is so.’

  Sloan was as quick to notice the quality of the response as he had been to notice the body signs. Never to advance more information than was requested was the hall-mark of the skilled interviewee. The doctor was the sort of witness who would stand up well to cross-examination in court. There was no spilling over of extraneous detail here: nothing to give an interrogator a handle.

  ‘Long-standing?’ said Sloan.

  ‘Very.’

  ‘How did she cope?’

  This at least elicited a slightly more expanded reply from the general practitioner.

  ‘Very well, really. She was sensible – that’s what matters most in caring for that condition.’

  Sloan nodded. ‘She didn’t kick over the traces?’ It was nice to know that there were other professions which also had to deal with kickers over traces. But if nobody in society ever did step out of line … His wife had read extracts from Brave New World to him once. He didn’t like the idea of programmed obedience either. He preferred the middle way. One way and another you usually came back to that.

  ‘Let us say,’ said Dr Paston, building a steeple with his fingers, ‘that she was an intelligent woman who understood her condition very well and acted acco
rdingly.’

  ‘Not careless?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘And not given to eating what was bad for her?’

  ‘I would have thought, never.’ He frowned. ‘She would understand the consequences too well.’

  ‘Or missing out her insulin?’

  ‘Out of the question.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘She was most punctilious about that. In any case …’ He paused.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘In any case,’ the doctor said more slowly, ‘if she did forget she would begin to feel ill and that would remind her.’

  The doctor rearranged a prescription pad and a book of certificates on his desk top while Sloan said quietly, ‘That’s what we thought.’

  ‘Besides,’ continued the general practitioner, ‘as it happens, I had actually advised her to step up her dose the week before she died, not once but twice, so she would scarcely have forgotten. Quite the reverse, I should have said.’

  ‘Would it surprise you, Dr Paston, to know that the pathologist could find no trace whatsoever of insulin at post mortem?’

  ‘Very much,’ said the practitioner vigorously. ‘In fact, I would find it exceedingly difficult to credit.’

  ‘Moreover,’ continued Sloan, ‘he also found a number of signs that indicated quite positively that she had not had any insulin for some days before her death.’

  ‘I can tell you,’ countered the doctor immediately, ‘exactly when she had her last prescription.’ He flipped a switch and asked a secretary for Beatrice Wansdyke’s medical case-notes.

  ‘She also had some symptoms indicative of shortage of insulin,’ went on Sloan firmly. ‘We have a witness to her being unusually thirsty, for instance, on Thursday.’

  The doctor’s head came up most alertly at that but he did not speak, and there was a sort of silence while they waited for the notes to arrive. Detective-Constable Crosby used it to turn over the pages of his notebook slowly and deliberately in such a manner as to emphasize that he was taking notes. Detective-Inspector Sloan spent the time studying the general practitioner. He was grey-haired, sparely-built, and not – at a guess – very far short of retirement. He gave every appearance at the moment of a puzzled man – but not a frightened one. Dr Paston himself was clearly using the lead time for thinking hard.

  When the patient’s notes arrived the situation took a completely new turn.

  ‘As I say,’ began the doctor, scanning them rapidly, ‘Miss Wansdyke consulted me at Thursday evening’s surgery last week and I advised extra units of insulin morning and evening. She had ample supplies. Her last prescription was …’ His face changed. He looked suddenly older. ‘As it happens,’ he said carefully, ‘I didn’t write her last prescription. It was given to her in September while I was on holiday.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘My partner wrote it out for her as I was away.’

  ‘Dr McCavity?’ said Sloan.

  ‘Dr Peter McCavity?’ said Detective-Constable Crosby from the patient’s friend’s chair in a manner which betokened prior acquaintance with the name.

  ‘Perhaps, Dr Paston,’ suggested Sloan, ‘if we might just check with him?’ It would be interesting in any case to see the knocker-down of so many items of what the town planners called ‘street furniture’.

  ‘By all means, Inspector,’ said the doctor without enthusiasm. ‘I’ll ask him to step through.’

  There was an altogether different cut of jib about the man who came along in response to Dr Paston’s message. He was a much younger man but already his features had taken on the blur of self-indulgence. He positioned himself against the examination couch at the side of the room, a hand resting rather too heavily against it for normal support purposes.

  ‘Police?’ he said uncertainly. ‘If it’s about that bollard in the Eastgate yesterday …’

  ‘Our Inspector Harpe is dealing with that, Doctor.’

  ‘I meant to report it. No time, you know. Urgent medical work.’

  ‘You’ll be hearing from him in due course,’ said Sloan formally.

  ‘Oh … oh yes. Thank you.’ Dr McCavity managed an acknowledging nod. ‘Some fool cut in on me …’

  There was the accumulation of years of skill and experience in the totally expressionless way in which Sloan contrived to cast doubt on the driver’s statement while doing and saying nothing provocative that an astute defence counsel could use in evidence.

  ‘While we’re talking about cars, Doctor …’ began Sloan.

  ‘Go on.’ Peter McCavity brought his gaze to bear upon the detective-inspector but seemed to have some little difficulty in keeping it there.

  ‘Can you tell me where your car was parked on Friday afternoon?’

  ‘Friday?’ Now he merely looked bewildered. ‘Last Friday?’

  ‘Last Friday,’ said Sloan patiently. For the young doctor last Friday was clearly light years away from this Wednesday morning.

  An expression of genuine puzzlement came over his prematurely blunted features. ‘Friday? I should have to think about that. When on Friday?’

  ‘Afternoon turning to evening.’

  ‘Friday was a long time ago.’

  ‘I dare say.’

  ‘With the weekend in between.’ He made the weekend sound as solid as the house but for which you could see to Hackney Marshes (“wiv a ladder and some glasses”.)

  ‘It’s easy to lose a weekend,’ agreed Sloan temperately. In fact ‘lost’ weekends were quite a feature of a certain condition.

  ‘My weekend off,’ said McCavity.

  ‘I see, sir.’

  ‘Not on duty.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Very tired.’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘I didn’t feel very well on Friday.’

  ‘I see, sir.’

  He looked round unsurely. ‘I may have had a little sleep in my car.’

  ‘Can you remember whereabouts, sir?’

  The doctor roused himself to a modicum of belligerence. ‘Nothing wrong with that, is there, Inspector?’

  ‘No, sir. Not in itself.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Would you have been anywhere near Ridley Road?’

  His aggression collapsed as speedily as a pricked balloon. His face changed pathetically. ‘Oh my God, Inspector!’ He clutched Sloan’s sleeve in an alarmed manner. ‘I didn’t … don’t tell me that I …’ His whole frame shuddered. ‘I haven’t knocked anyone down, have I?’

  His senior partner, Dr John Paston, stirred at last behind his desk and said brusquely, ‘Oughtn’t you to be cautioning him, Inspector?’

  ‘I don’t think so, Doctor,’ replied Sloan evenly. He knew his Judge’s Rules as well as the next policeman and he didn’t need any spectator – or even the referee, come to that – telling him he was off-side.

  ‘What is all this anyway?’ demanded Dr McCavity. ‘This isn’t a police state yet, you know.’

  ‘Just a few questions, sir, that’s all.’

  ‘More like the third degree,’ complained the young doctor bitterly. His words would have carried more conviction without the fine tremor of his hands that shouldn’t have been present in one so young.

  ‘It’s a wise man that knows his own movements,’ said Sloan prosaically. ‘Were you near Ridley Road on Friday afternoon?’

  He hesitated. ‘I may have been.’

  Sloan turned back to Dr Paston. ‘Perhaps we might ask Dr McCavity instead if he can remember writing Miss Wansdyke’s prescription for insulin while you were away.’

  The young doctor answered for himself. ‘That’ll be down in black and white, Inspector. You’ll be able to see that for yourself.’ He turned scornfully to a stony-faced Dr Paston. ‘Wansdyke? That’s the old bird who’s left you some money, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well,’ demanded Superintendent Leeyes, ‘where are we now?’

  Detective-Inspector Sloan had reported to his superior’s office as soon as he got back to the police
station. If it hadn’t been for the feminine overtones of the simile, he thought privately, you could have likened the Superintendent to a Queen Bee placed firmly in the centre of her hive. What with worker bees reporting back all day honey-laden, other bees dancing attendance upon the Queen Bee (there was no shortage of lady clerical workers servicing the Superintendent’s out-basket and telephone line), and sentry bees on guard duty at the mouth of the hive, the organization of the police station at Berebury could have changed places with a beehive any day.

  ‘How far have you got, Sloan?’

  Except, of course, that there were no drones in the Calleshire Force.

  ‘Sloan, are you listening?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he said, pulling himself together quickly. Ants were known to be well organized, too. ‘We haven’t made a lot of headway so far.’

  ‘You’ve had all morning.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ There was no doubt either, thought Sloan confusedly to himself, about who was Top Dog in their hive, so to speak.

  ‘Found the nephew yet?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Got a general call out for him?’

  ‘A whisper,’ replied Sloan, ‘has gone around the nebulae.’

  ‘What’s that, Sloan?’

  ‘Nothing, sir. Sorry, sir.’ He brought his mind back smartly to the here and now by getting out his notebook and opening it in front of him. ‘We’re looking for Nicholas Petforth now.’

  Leeyes grunted. ‘You saw the pathologist …’

  ‘He’s quite certain, sir, that the deceased didn’t have her insulin.’

  ‘And her general practitioner?’

  ‘He’s quite certain, sir, that she did.’ There was some elusive quotation hovering about in his mind about when doctors differ but he couldn’t pin it down. ‘Or rather …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He’s quite sure that she wouldn’t have stopped taking it.’

  Leeyes grunted again. ‘So?’

  ‘So there remains the alternative that she thought she was taking it.’

  ‘You mean that when she gave herself an injection it wasn’t insulin?’

  ‘It figures,’ said Sloan cautiously.

  ‘It didn’t do her any good,’ agreed Leeyes grimly, ‘did it, whatever it was she had instead?’