‘Everybody dies of heart failure. It just means dying. If you mean heart disease or a heart attack,’ the sergeant said severely, ‘then say so. But there were no signs of that nature. To the uninitiated – that means me – he seems to have dropped dead for no particular reason, but no doubt the pathologists will find something to explain it. You knew him in life and you saw his body. Did you notice a change in his colour?’
‘The light is feeble in that little piece of passage and it has one of those new bulbs that only light up very slowly. I saw enough to recognize him. He looked pale and I thought his lips were blue, which is what made me think of a heart attack. He looked a bit puffy, too.’
The sergeant looked at him. ‘But you did recognize him? Clearly enough to be sure that it wasn’t another brother?’
‘Definitely. Anyway, they had told me that there were only two brothers, no other siblings, and I knew that George was with me, so that doesn’t leave much room for doubt.’
‘No, I don’t think that it does.’ The sergeant seemed disappointed. At least a serious discrepancy would have made a starting point. ‘When did you see him last? Alive,’ he added.
It was Douglas’s belief that questions should be answered literally. ‘I saw him yesterday morning, but that was only through a window and he was fetching something from his van. Or maybe that was George – they were rather similar in appearance although their characters seemed very different. Apart from that possible glimpse I hadn’t seen him for several days before that.’
‘And Miss Jamieson?’
Tash stiffened as attention switched to her. She was shy but positive. ‘I met him in the garden the day before yesterday. And it really was Stan, not George. There’s a large greenhouse hidden from here behind the big clump of rhododendrons and he was coming back from that direction carrying a trug of early vegetables and a small fork. We stopped and spoke. We agreed that winter seemed to be over and we might get a decent summer for a change, if that’s of any interest.’
‘I see.’ The sergeant looked from one to the other. ‘And neither of you noticed anything out of the ordinary about him or his manner?’
‘Nothing at all,’ said Douglas.
Tash agreed and nodded. ‘Nothing.’
‘How about Mr George Eastwick?’ the sergeant asked suddenly. ‘Was his manner and behaviour just what you would expect?’
The tense silence lasted for as long as it took a group of Tash’s younger siblings to race across the grass below the window and vanish into the trees.
‘I’ve been wondering about that,’ Douglas said. ‘I think I’d made up my mind to tell you although I’m sure you could see the point for yourself. It struck me at the time as strange that he should be so determined to have a witness along when he was going to look for his brother. It can’t have been the first time that he’d searched for him but he’s never needed company before.’
‘From which you concluded …?’
‘The possible inferences are obvious but I didn’t draw any conclusions. That’s your job. It just struck me as odd.’
‘And you, Miss Jamieson?’
‘I didn’t want to be the first to tell you; but yes, it seemed strange to me.’
Sounds of a vehicle came up from the driveway below. The sergeant rose and looked down through the window. He spoke over his shoulder. ‘Please say as little as possible outside this room. Your news flash, plus the information that there’s no obvious cause of death, seems to say all that needs saying so please leave it at that. Your neighbours can be counted on to draw their own conclusions from our presence about the place. I’ll be back, probably tomorrow.’
‘What about the dog?’ Douglas asked. ‘Will George be staying there to look after her? Or will you take her away? Or what?’
The sergeant turned round to face the room. ‘I was wondering about that,’ he said. He had obviously forgotten altogether about Winnie. He paused at the door. ‘The flat will be sealed up until the forensic investigators have finished with it. Mr George Eastwick will have to move out. Would anybody here be prepared to offer him a bed?’
‘I think that’s highly unlikely,’ Douglas said. Frankness seemed to be called for. ‘It’s not that people don’t have the space. We just can’t stand the man at any price. He seems to be in a state of permanent disgruntlement.’
‘It’s not just the loss of his brother, then?’ The sergeant looked towards the heavens. ‘Arrangements will be made,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think that Mrs Laird will want a bulldog in the dog unit. Could I ask you to keep her for a day or two?’
‘I can manage that,’ Douglas said. ‘Two dogs are not much more bother than one and she’s a friendly old thing.’
The soundproofing of the building was good. When the door was closed, Douglas had to listen hard to be sure that the sergeant had gone downstairs and was not eavesdropping. ‘The good sergeant might just as well have his thoughts written in magic marker in a balloon over his head.’
Tash nodded sombrely. ‘You’d have to be dim not to suspect that Mr Eastwick knew that his brother was dead and wanted a witness to be with him when he found him. The person who finds a body is always a suspect, at least in the stories.’
Douglas was recovering from the shock of finding Stan’s body. Treating the death as an episode in a detective story seemed to help. ‘I think it’s the same in real life. A killer won’t fancy waiting for somebody else to make the discovery while wondering what they’ll find that he hasn’t thought of. He would have to fight against the temptation to return, as they say, to the scene of the crime to make certain. I expect that a higher percentage of killers than is statistically probable try to be present when the body’s found, in order to offer innocent explanations for anomalies. But bodies must often be found by people who are quite innocent of any crime and Stan may have choked on a biscuit crumb, so I suggest that we don’t jump to any conclusions. Stan may be found to have dropped dead of his own accord and George found him and preferred not to figure as the solo finder.’
‘It’s all very sad,’ said Tash. ‘Shall I go and put notes through letterboxes?’
TEN
It was not to be expected that the other householders would accept the death of Stan Eastwick as a simple fact unworthy of comment. Uninformed discussion buzzed in the communal areas. Tash and Douglas were battered with a thousand questions but they were able to say with almost perfect truth that they knew no more than had been in the circulated note.
The activity of the half-dozen or so police officers who infested Stan’s flat was evident, but to the interested observer, which comprised everyone whose age ran into double figures, it was the sort of activity to be expected when everybody knows that there is a problem but nobody is quite sure what it is. Searches were made for nothing in particular and endless statements were taken that seemed to be heading nowhere.
Just as vague and pointless was the gathering of occupiers on the evening of the following day. George Eastwick was not present and it was understood that, because the police still had desultory possession of the basement part of the property, he had returned temporarily to the flat that he still owned in Falkirk where the sale had not yet been completed. This was the one sale that had not been entrusted to Douglas and it gave him some quiet amusement to see the confusion that was causing delays.
There was still no news as to how and why Stan Eastwick had died, nor was it known whether he had ever made a will. The only decision possible was that meantime the upkeep of the gardens would have to be shared between the owners or entrusted to a contractor and the cost similarly shared. It was soon clear that the other occupiers shared Douglas’s pleasure in having access to a garden along with a rooted dislike of working in it. It was a time of year when gardens need attention. It was agreed that a man would be hired from the garden centre for two days a week, to work under Douglas’s direction and the cost shared.
Almost exactly forty-eight hours after the discovery of the body, the suspense wa
s relieved. A Detective Chief Inspector Laird arrived from Edinburgh. DCI Alexander Laird as he introduced himself, so Douglas surmised there was another DCI Laird somewhere in the Lothian and Borders Constabulary.
The surviving male occupiers had gone to their daily work and none of the women or children had known Stan Eastwick as more than a shadow sometimes seen preparing his flat or tidying the garden. Douglas was out, surveying a block of shops and flats in Morningside with Tash accompanying him to hold the tape and make notes. They returned to Underwood House to find that the chief inspector, lacking any other witnesses to question, was fuming at their absence and yet too busy studying the scene and finding fault with the earlier work to give them his immediate attention. Tash and Douglas had taken a snack lunch and then drafted an outline report on the property and were doing some calculations based on the survey measurements when Sergeant Dodson begged admission over the entry phone, was buzzed in but still knocked politely before entering.
‘DCI Laird wants to see you shortly,’ he said. ‘No hurry,’ he added as Douglas prepared to rise. ‘He’s still reading reports. He just wants you to stand by and not go out again. And between you and me you’d better watch what you say. Give him the facts and that’s all. He’s not in the best of moods. His top is ready to blow.’
‘Thank you for the warning,’ Douglas said.
‘Who rattled his cage?’ Tash asked. ‘Was it you?’
‘No, thank God! But that won’t save me if I put a foot wrong.’ The sergeant seated himself. ‘We’ll wait. He will soon be heading in this direction. He was too fed up to eat any lunch so if you want to get into his good books make him a pot of tea and a sandwich.’
‘I’ll do it,’ Tash said. She jumped up. ‘But after warning us to be careful what we say the least you can do is to tell us what subjects to avoid. We won’t let on that you told us.’
The sergeant thought about it and then nodded. ‘I think you should avoid the subjects of promotion. And matrimony. I’ll make myself scarce, for the moment,’ DS Dodson said. He slipped outside.
‘A proper respect for seniority, do you think?’ Douglas said. ‘Or does the sergeant have something on his conscience?’
‘The former, I hope,’ Tash said.
The entryphone announced that Chief Inspector Laird had arrived and was on the way upstairs. For Douglas, the penny suddenly dropped. So there had been two DCI Lairds. It came back to him that he had read in one of the local tabloids that the Lairds were a married couple – most unusual in the police and not often permitted unless each is extremely well thought of. The paper had reported, with cruel relish, that Mrs Laird had been promoted to equal rank with her husband. It had hinted that trouble might be expected in the marital nest. That had been some little time ago. There had been a photograph of Mrs Laird: beautiful and very well turned out, as indeed she should be with two good salaries in the family and, according to the press, an extremely well-heeled daddy. She had been born Honoria Potterton-Phipps, so that the nickname Honeypot had been inevitable. The sergeant’s well intentioned but incautious remark now made sense. It did not require any great feat of deduction to realize that Mrs Laird had come to outrank her husband.
Detective Chief Inspector Alexander Laird turned out to be a well built man of around forty with pale, gingery hair and an off-the-peg suit that fitted him adequately. If he had been in a bad mood he had risen above it, because his bland face showed little expression. His eyes flickered over the tray that Tash had provided, and when the four were seated around Douglas’s desk he accepted tea and a sandwich with what was almost a cheerful smile. The sergeant had correctly guessed that Mr Laird would bear his apparent humiliation more easily away from the company of his colleagues.
‘I had rather hoped to start with Professor Cullins,’ he said.
‘If there was a large, red, Japanese four-by-four at the door when you came in, he’s back,’ said Douglas. ‘If not, not.’
‘Ah. I rather wanted a little technical help and he does have a – um – partner who is a technician in biological sciences, so I’m told.’
‘They usually travel together,’ Tash explained.
While helping himself to another sandwich the DCI nodded. He had learned the habit of taking small bites so that he could take in food without suspending his enquiries. ‘I’ll come to the point. The post-mortem examination of Mr Eastwick’s body will take some time. There’s no obvious physical evidence. We’ll have to wait for the results of analysis. All we know meantime is that there are very few signs of a cause of death. He seems to have died from some sort of suffocation but there are no signs of violence as would be the case with strangulation.’
Douglas at one time had done a great deal of commuting by train and had consumed innumerable murder stories to pass the journeys. In so doing, he had picked up some knowledge of forensic science. ‘The hyoid bone was intact?’ he asked before he could stop himself. ‘Were there petechiae?’
‘Yes.’ The DCI looked at him in some surprise. ‘You know about strangulation?’
‘Only what I’ve read in murder mysteries. There was a time when I commuted by train for an hour each way. I read hundreds of them.’ Douglas wondered whether to say something wise about Tardieu spots but decided that enough was enough.
DCI Laird looked at him hopefully. ‘I didn’t have the advantage of your upbringing and my medical colleagues enjoy mystifying me. Can you tell me what hypercapnia is?’
‘I have heard the word,’ Douglas said. He paused and thought back. ‘It was in connection with an elderly uncle of mine whose heart was giving out. When he wasn’t on oxygen he gasped for breath and he was said to be hypercapnic.’
‘Thank you.’ The DCI looked disappointed, but whether this was at the information or because he had finished the last sandwich Douglas was unsure. Tash was making shorthand symbols in her secretarial book.
Chief Inspector Laird asked her, ‘Are you making notes?’
Tash put down her pen hurriedly. ‘I didn’t think you’d mind.’
For the first time a smile broke through the DCI’s features. ‘I don’t mind. While my sergeant’s otherwise engaged and he is monopolizing the wire recorder I have to make my own record, and I have a great dislike of trying to remember what everybody said almost as much as I hate making notes at the time and taking down my own words as I’m saying them. If you can make a record or even just a précis of our discussion I’ll be in your debt.’
Returning his smile, Tash picked up her pen again.
‘And there were no signs of his face having been covered?’ Douglas asked helpfully.
‘They’ll be looking for signs now but I’m not very hopeful. Unless somebody’s very sick or feeble or doped, signs of violence are usually very evident. My – um – wife had just such a case recently.’ The DCI took a second to remove the faintly pained expression that had accompanied the word ‘wife’. ‘A preliminary comment by the pathologist suggests that the carbon dioxide level in his blood was slightly raised. Of course, the body was found in a very confined space but not nearly small enough for his own breathing to account for it and there were no signs that he had been indulging in much physical activity.’
‘There are drugs that paralyse the breathing,’ Douglas said.
The DCI seemed to be relaxing. It would be unusual for an officer to discuss technical details of a case with a lay witness, but if he was sensitive about his wife’s promotion he might well be in need of another knowledgeable person off whom to bounce ideas. ‘So the pathologist said. No doubt he’s testing for them while we speak, but that can be a lengthy process. So we’ll find out all we can by less technical means. I have the general background – a large old house subdivided into luxury apartments, with what may ultimately turn into a granny flat in the semi-basement being sold to the deceased against an undertaking to maintain the garden. I fear that you may have made a bad bargain there.’
‘So do I,’ Douglas said. ‘The only redeeming feature is that
it gave all the occupiers a motive to keep him alive, which may simplify your enquiries a little.’
‘Possibly true,’ said the DCI. ‘So we’ll just have to hope that no motive for his death, even stronger than any desire to protect your investment, raises its head.’
Douglas tried to smile but the DCI did not seem to have been joking. ‘We don’t know if he made a will,’ Douglas said, ‘nor what it says if he did; but I suppose it’s too much to hope that he left his apartment to a keen gardener on condition that he takes over responsibility for the gardens.’
The chief inspector chuckled without showing a sign of genuine amusement. ‘You should be so lucky,’ he said. ‘What can you tell me about the deceased?’
‘Not a lot.’ When he came to think about it, Douglas was surprised to realize how little he had known about the late Stan Eastwick. ‘He was introduced by the professor, who knew that Stan had been second in command of gardening at the university. From my own university days, I know that that’s quite a responsible job. Universities have acres of gardens and greenhouses and some of those are used for research or teaching projects in biological sciences. Three or four of us interviewed him and he satisfied us that he knew his stuff and wanted to make use of it in his retirement. I checked to make sure that he owned his own flat and so could afford our price for this one, and that he was not averse to physical work. Beyond that point he seemed to be inoffensive. He liked dogs,’ Douglas added, ‘and dogs liked him.’
The chief inspector brightened. Rowan had already settled against his leg and was snuffling with pleasure at having his ears pulled. ‘That’s your criterion, is it?’
Douglas laughed. ‘Not the only one. Dogs can take to a person who smells of dog biscuits or other dogs. But sometimes their first impression is more reliable than mine. What else can I tell you? He was a very handy person – not just in the garden, although he could arrange picked flowers to look better and last longer than anyone else could. But if anyone wanted his help with anything electrical or mechanical he could usually manage it. He’ll be missed.’
With My Little Eye Page 5