The Dreaming Detective

by H. R. F. Keating

  Coming to a halt finally on the wide gravel forecourt of the lab, she marched in, flicked her warrant card in front of the receptionist in the entrance hall and demanded to see ‘your Dr Passmore’. The girl almost grabbed for her telephone.

  Two minutes later Harriet was at the door of the biology room. Glancing round the big, neon-lit laboratory, where in a far comer only one scientist — stained white coat, mass of blonde hair — was working at a steel-topped bench, she saw Dr Passmore smiling a welcome from the opposite end of the room. He was, she realized, rather older than the inexperienced man she had hoped to find, someone to be browbeaten into admitting he had not been as scrupulous as he ought to have been. Dr Passmore, however, might well be approaching his fifties. The short hair bristling on his head was touched with grey, the cheeks of his long, lean face had been rubbed by time into shininess, the eyes behind his large rimless spectacles were calmly quizzical.

  ‘Detective Superintendent Martens? We spoke, of course, earlier this week when you passed on to me a rather odd request from your Chief Constable.’

  Rather odd? So there hadn’t been any misunderstanding about my adroitly worded message. Better go carefully after all.

  ‘Yes, we did indeed talk. So, may I say, after what you told me about your priorities, that I was rather surprised to find on my desk this morning your full report.’

  Dr Passmore laughed.

  ‘I’m sure you were,’ he said. ‘But what you didn’t know was that the Boy Preacher murder has always been something of a — what do they call it? — King Charles’s head with me. You see, when I was still in my last term at school, the Boy Preacher murder was what first made me think I wanted to be a forensic scientist. I mean, I had a strong scientific bent, of course, and was all set to go to university and get my B.Sc. But I had no idea what particular branch of science I wanted to take up. And then one day I read about the murder. It made a great splash, you know.’

  ‘I read about it at school too,’ Harriet intervened. ‘We all did. The big sensation of the day, and the Boy being scarcely older than some of us.’

  ‘So you’ll understand why the case intrigued me, and perhaps why I’ve been working privately on the evidence out of hours. Far into the night, in fact, far into every night. But perhaps, not being a scientist yourself, you won’t see how a lad in his last year at school might have instantly thought how investigating the clothes worn by those seven suspects ought to solve the mystery within days.’

  ‘But.’

  ‘Yes. But, indeed. The science just wasn’t there in those days. All right, the great Crick and Watson had laid down the basic theory of the double helix in — when was it? — 1953. But that, of course, was only the first step. However, there was young Passmore with the notion in his head that the science ought to be there and that one day it would be. More, I’m sorry to tell you, big-headed as that lad was, he decided he was going to be the one who discovered it.’

  ‘And did — ’

  Dr Passmore laughed again, with more ease.

  ‘No, of course I didn’t. I haven’t got a good enough mind to produce anything totally new. I’m more, if you like, the sure-but-steady type. All right, I’ve made one or two little advances in my time, but only by working and working away till I’d eliminated all the other possibilities and then was able to carry out enough experiments to obtain consistent results. No, nowadays my work is no longer experimental. I sit here merely making use of techniques others have discovered.’

  Harriet, looking at the faintly rueful expression on his face, could not help asking whether she was herself sure but steady as a detective. Or am I, as John said only a few days ago, a lateral thinker hitting from time to time on something really new?

  The thought, she found, meant so much to her that she felt she must put it to Dr Passmore, on behalf of them both.

  ‘But; she said, ‘aren’t you actually knocking your own abilities? I mean, those one or two little advances, as you called them, were they in fact the result of something other than steady plodding? Weren’t they, if you were to tell the immodest truth, the sort of sudden revelations that can come to a first-class scientist?’

  Dr Passmore smiled.

  ‘I know just what you want me to say,’ he replied. ‘You want me to say I’ve had the sort of heaven-sent revelation that came to a physicist called Leo Szilard some time in the 1930s. It’s a well-known story. He was waiting to cross the road one day — the exact spot is even recorded, Southampton Row, in London — when, zip-zip-zip-zip, into his head came the idea of the nuclear chain reaction, something entirely new, one of the great discoveries of our times.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I suppose I was thinking of something like that, if not on quite such a scale.’

  ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, but, no, my discoveries were really achieved by no means other than steady plodding, as you kindly put it.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean ... ’

  ‘I think actually you did. But I’m not offended. I think it’s probably not unfair to say that the actual discovery which, as a head-in-the-clouds schoolboy, I thought of making myself one day was arrived at more by hard work than sudden inspiration. Not easy to say. But it was Alec Jeffreys, working away at Leicester University, who, extrapolating from the recent discovery of the polymerase chain reaction, finally did the trick in 1985. He produced then what’s been called genetic fingerprinting, and got his Sir for it.’

  ‘But surely — ’

  ‘Yes, even his work wouldn’t have provided the means for giving me the result I sent to you yesterday.’

  ‘Ah, yes, that.’

  Harriet felt a cloud descend. This was not going to be as easy as she had thought, racing into Lincolnshire. Dr Passmore was certainly not the tyro scientist she had envisioned, someone who could be knocked off a doubtful perch with a couple of penetrating questions.

  She braced herself.

  ‘Look,’ she said, ‘it’s that conclusion you reached in your report that I want to talk to you about. I mean ... Look, is it possible ... No, let me say this straight out. When I read the name of Harish Nair as being the wearer of a shirt impregnated with Krishna Kumaramangalam’s death-throes spittle I just couldn’t believe it.’

  A sharp frown appeared on Dr Passmore’s hitherto friendly face.

  ‘You didn’t believe it?’ he said. ‘But the evidence was there. I detailed the steps that were taken. How could you not believe the conclusion?’

  A sweeping sense of shame invaded Harriet.

  Oh, my God, I never read the whole of that bulky sheaf. I was stupid. I was so shocked at seeing Harish Nair named I just — Christ, I simply rushed straight off for Lincolnshire. Impulse. I rushed off on a stupid — But, no. No, I may have been a fool not to have gone painstakingly back through the report and traced how that conclusion was reached, but it would have done no good if I had. Of course, the work of a scientist like this man is going to be impeccable. I’d never have found a flaw there. No, that first thought of mine still stands. I cannot believe Harish Nair murdered Krishna Kumaramangalam. Okay, okay, it’s what will derisively be called a hunch. But it’s what I believe is the truth, the actual truth.

  She drew in a deep breath.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to question the accuracy of your work. I’ve no doubt, from what you’ve been saying to me just now, if from nothing else, that your conclusion was arrived at on absolutely valid scientific grounds. It’s — It’s only that, on quite different grounds, though grounds which I feel perfectly happy about, I do not think that you can possibly have given me the right answer.’

  ‘I have. How can you say otherwise? Are you one of those cranks who go about saying that science hasn’t got all the answers, and then go on to imply we don’t have any of them?’

  ‘No, no. No, I’m a detective. I have to work on scientific lines too, although — ’

  ‘Then, Superintendent, I must tell you this: if you think you are working on scien
tific lines in saying that the evidence against this Harish Nair is flawed, then you are just not doing what you think you are.’

  Harriet scoured her mind for an answer.

  ‘No, look,’ she said. ‘Let’s get this quite straight. I do not in any way doubt the science that has led you to state in your conclusion that the shirt worn by Harish Nair on that evening thirty years ago was impregnated with spittle that came from Krishna Kumaramangalam’s mouth. But what I am saying is that, in a way I don’t at all pretend to account for, there has been some error somewhere. And, yes, I base that belief on something as ridiculously insubstantial as my conviction that Nair — you know he’s been dead for some years now — was not capable of committing that murder.’

  Dr Passmore sighed. As much as to say I’ll be patient, at least for a few minutes more.

  ‘All right, shall we go through my report step by step?’

  ‘Very well.’

  Should I confess now that I haven’t yet done so? No, he doesn’t have to know how impulsive I’ve been. And I suppose, though I can’t believe it will happen, that when he does go through it I will see that he’s right after all. That I’m wrong.

  Dr Passmore opened a drawer and pulled out a copy of the report. He laid it on the lab bench beside him and drew up a stool for Harriet. Then, painfully, page by page, he went through the whole process he had worked on or supervised. The checking of the garments against the specifications on the labels of the evidence bags, the examination of each particular one under ultraviolet light, the descriptions of the stains and smears revealed, the techniques that had eliminated anything other than saliva stains, and finally the sophisticated tests that had identified the traces of the Boy’s DNA among the fibres of that green shirt with the daisy pattern.

  Hardly once was Harriet suspicious of a logical gap in the process.

  ‘You state here,’ she said, ‘there was a trace on one other blouse. But if there is, doesn’t it mean ... ’ But by now she had taken in Dr Passmore’s mildly pained smile. ‘Oh. You’re going to explain that it doesn’t at all mean what I — What I’d hoped?’

  ‘I am. You’ll remember from when I was pointing out how we could eliminate any stain that had been caused by something other than saliva that I had said this rather garish garment showed clear signs of having, thirty-plus years ago, had tea with milk splashed on it. Well, there might also have been minute traces of what might have been saliva in that tea-splashed area. But, even with the sophisticated tests we have now, there would never be go-to-court evidence of that. Those scarcely measurable traces could, after all, have come from a teacup that the Boy had drunk from earlier. It was much the same case, too, with the old-fashioned collarless shirt.’

  ‘Barney Trapnell’s,’ Harriet said.

  ‘Yes, Trapnell was the name on the evidence bag. Well, there were traces of saliva there as well. But the DNA we found in the saliva corresponded with DNA from the shirt’s armpit stains. I imagine the traces were from dribble, or something of the sort. So the DNA there was, of course, Trapnell’s own. And, yes, there may have been traces of DNA from another source, but they were altogether too minuscule for even our advanced techniques to make anything of them. Then, of course, when I found such evident saliva traces on the Nair shirt, and ones that clearly corresponded with the Boy’s DNA, there was no longer any doubt.’

  And, of course, there was no hint of any other flaw in the whole process. Nor was there, as far as Harriet could see, the possibility that there had been one.

  She sat there on the high stool for a moment thinking it all over.

  But, she found, there was still in her mind a solid conviction that dead Harish Nair could not have killed that exceptional human being, his young cousin and fellow preacher.

  She made some sort of apology to Dr Passmore.

  ‘Let me say again, I realize there’s nothing wrong anywhere in what you’ve demonstrated to me. I’m sorry I’ve put you to so much trouble.’

  ‘Not at all. It’s always a pleasure to show anybody how a scientific procedure is carried out. So, may I ask, are you now happy that you have learnt the truth at last about what happened on that night of May the twenty-second, 1969, a night that’s been vivid in both our minds probably for the past thirty-something years?’

  She sought for an answer. And found one.

  ‘Well, not exactly happy, but ... ’

  *

  Out in the forecourt she had only just, wearily, seated herself in the car and pushed in the ignition key when her phone rang.

  Oh God, what’s this?

  It was worse even than she had somehow feared.

  ‘Miss Martens, Mr Newcomen here.’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir. Yes?’

  ‘Where are you, Miss Martens? I’ve been down to your office, twice, and on neither occasion were you there.’

  What to say? That I’m in Lincolnshire and have been trying to persuade a senior scientific officer at the Cherry Fettleham lab that his work was entirely wrong?

  ‘I’ve been out on inquiries, sir.’

  ‘I see. Well, what I want to know is whether the report from that place Cherry-whatsit has come yet? You did pass my message on to them, didn’t you? I mean, it’s perfectly plain that this is a matter that should have their most immediate attention.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Yes, I emphasized your view when I telephoned.’

  And what to say now? The truth?

  ‘But I think we must allow them a little more time, sir. The DNA process, as I understand it, is fairly lengthy. And they have quite a large quantity of material to investigate.’

  ‘I suppose so. I suppose so. Well, keep on their tail, keep on their tail. We want a result here as soon as possible.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  And the call concluded.

  Harriet sat there, slumped.

  God knows what trouble I’ve stored up for myself now. Even if I’m lucky, there’ll be a great deal of dodging and weaving to keep from Newbroom’s prying eyes the fact that the report was delivered today. Must square Pip Steadman, for one thing, and probably the Headquarters post room too. Oh, God.

  With a sigh that was more like a groan she reached for the ignition key and turned it.

  Nothing happened.

  Chapter Sixteen

  As if I haven’t got enough misery, Harriet had said repeatedly to herself while she tried everything she could think of to get the car started. At last she had to admit defeat and ring for assistance. And then she had to wait. For one hour. For another. And eventually for ten minutes more. The final blow was discovering, when she looked in her briefcase for something to read, that all she had was the copy of Who Killed the Preacher? which she had meant to hand back to Pansy Balfour. In the end she was reduced to reading it once more, from cover to cover, seeing it as a way of expiating whatever sin it was that fate was punishing her for.

  ‘Right you are, then,’ the cheerful uniformed mechanic said at last. And, word of advice, don’t give your engine such a caning on your way back.’

  Final rebuke, Harriet registered.

  It was only when she reached the motorway where she had taken too much out of the engine, tearing down to tell some trainee technician how wrong they had been, that she felt able to give the situation any serious consideration. But, maddeningly, she found she could not stop her thoughts repeating endlessly and ridiculously the lushest passages she had just reread from Who Killed the Preacher?

  ... that group of Sunday-night young men ... over-eager disciples of the god Bacchus ...

  ... may have driven a twisted mind to commit the act that can never be taken back ...

  ... emerged from that deluxe ballroom having carried out their vindictive purpose ...

  ... where in deep meditation sat alone the young preacher so soon to be brutally done to death ...

  Only, she thought jerking out of her trance with an abrupt laugh, the Boy had not been sitting. He had been — DCI Kenworthy’s notes were clear — lying there
flat on the dais in that fantastically ornate ballroom. I even saw the photograph of the carpet where the marks left by the body were clear. Left by the body as the Boy had lain there in meditation, or, as dear old down-to-earth Kenworthy had put it somewhere, ‘sound asleep, since he seems to have been a great one for nodding off.

  Then another echo, a quite different one, came into her head. A phrase, not from the purple pages of Who Killed the Preacher?, but from what John had remarked about his much-enjoyed Edward Lear. He had admitted he had never realized Lear was subject to epileptic fits and, talking about such attacks, he had said the short coma that ended each episode was followed by ‘a brief sleep’.

  So we have the Boy, ‘a great one for nodding off’, and Lear falling into post-attack periods of sleep. Is there ... ? And, yes, old Mrs Nair told me that on the evening of the murder Harish had had to go with the Boy on the bus in case another of his funny turns was coming. And didn’t she say, too, something about him smelling sweet smells in the air when there was nothing whatsoever there for him to smell? Yes, I can hear her now. And I have a faint memory — must check with John — that such a symptom is not, as I thought at the time, an indication of the Boy’s wafty mystic nature, but one that occurs in epilepsy.

  In epilepsy. Epilepsy.

  Krishna Kumaramangalam had been an epileptic. He was subject to epileptic fits. And in such fits wouldn’t he spew out saliva? Spew out saliva all over anyone attending to him?

  And, yes, Mrs Nair said something more about those funny turns. She told me that, when the meeting was postponed to the Monday, her husband had worn again the shirt he had put on for Sunday. So, yes, yes, yes, this is almost certainly what must have happened, could have happened. The Boy had had an epileptic fit, had, as they say, foamed at the mouth on the Sunday before the meeting, and Harish, in attending to him, had got his green daisy-decorated shirt spattered with the Boy’s saliva.