A Dead Liberty

by Catherine Aird

  “The brides,” said Porteous solemnly, “didn’t know what to do, with mattocks being two a penny after that.”

  “Very upsetting,” agreed Sloan.

  “Ken didn’t know what to do either,” said Marshall, “with the local economy all haywire. It upset all his calculations.”

  Sloan nodded his sympathy. Politics, religion and economics were an even more heady trio to mix. Bride-prices, though, reminded him of something else. He said “Lucy Durmast …”

  There was a perceptible stiffening all round.

  “Nothing in it on Ken’s side,” affirmed Porteous.

  “All right,” conceded Marshall, “he took her out once or twice. And he went there quite a lot. His boss liked working at home and they did a lot of eating at the Old Rectory after work.”

  “Just good friends?” suggested Crosby from the sidelines.

  “Girls get funny ideas,” said the trainee accountant seriously. “You’ve got to be careful.”

  “Perhaps Carline wasn’t careful enough,” hazarded Sloan, wondering if accountancy and caution always went hand in hand.

  “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” said Colin Jervis sagely.

  “Did she come here?” asked Sloan.

  Three young men shook their heads in unison.

  “Never?”

  “Never,” said Gerry Porteous.

  “The landlady doesn’t allow girls over the threshold,” explained Jervis.

  That explained the male ménage. “Old-fashioned?” said Sloan.

  “She’s got two daughters she can’t marry off,” said Marshall bitterly.

  “And no wonder,” said Jervis.

  “Did Carline have any visitors at all?” asked Sloan routinely.

  There was a reaction to this of a different kind: it was more difficult to define, but the policeman was immediately aware of it.

  “Occasionally,” said Gerry Porteous with noticeable wariness.

  “Anyone in particular?” asked Sloan casually.

  “A chap called Aturu came a few times,” said Porteous equally casually.

  “Not an Englishman,” remarked Sloan.

  “That’s true,” agreed Porteous as if the thought were a new one.

  “A fellow Ken was at college with,” explained Jervis.

  “I see,” said Sloan evenly. “An old friend, you might say?”

  “Sort of …” Jervis cleared his throat.

  “This Mr. Aturu …” began Sloan.

  “Actually, Inspector,” Porteous interrupted him awkwardly, “he’s not Mr. Aturu.”

  “Oh?”

  It was Colin Jervis who plunged into the conversational lacuna that had been created. “He’s Prince Aturu.”

  “Is he?” said Sloan softly. “And who’s he when he’s at home?”

  “One of the sons of King Thabile III of Dlasa,” said Jervis unhappily.

  “I don’t like it, Sloan,” declared Superintendent Leeyes predictably.

  “No, sir.”

  “One of the King’s sons, you said.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But not—ah—one of the King’s men?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Getting involved with a junior member of the construction firm that’s building a palace for his father.”

  “Capital city …”

  “Same thing.”

  Detective Inspector Sloan knew better than to argue. “They were at college together,” he said instead. “Kenneth Carline and Prince Aturu.”

  “Perhaps that’s how Durmast’s got the contract,” suggested Leeyes, who was always deeply suspicious of the old school tie.

  “No, sir, I don’t think so.” Sloan took a deep breath. “You see, Prince Aturu is against the building of the new capital city at Mgongwala.”

  “Sons,” pronounced Leeyes sagely, “have always opposed fathers.”

  “Actively against …”

  “Since Adam and Cain and Abel,” continued Leeyes. “It’s in the nature of things.”

  “Prince Aturu,” remarked Sloan with apparent inconsequence, “is in this country doing a post-graduate degree in economics.”

  Superintendent Leeyes glared at him and said that that didn’t alter the father-and-son relationship, or did it?

  “The Prince,” observed Sloan neutrally, “feels that a new city is going to be bad for Dlasa.”

  “Very probably,” said Leeyes.

  “Very bad,” said Sloan.

  “But good for William Durmast, Civil Engineers.”

  “The Prince’s argument,” reported Sloan, who had abstracted it from Gerry Porteous, who had heard it from Kenneth Carline, “was that conspicuous expenditure didn’t do anything for the French royal family.”

  “They had a revolution,” said Leeyes succinctly.

  “Quite so,” said Sloan.

  “A lot of avoir la tête tranchée,” said Leeyes in atrocious French. He had once attended an evening class course in French conversation: the lecturer had been heard to declare that he would have preferred to have had Winston Churchill in it: his accent had been better. “À la lanterne and all that, Sloan.”

  Detective Inspector Sloan did not know if there were “To the barricades” touches in modern Dlasa. Or, if there were, if it was anything to do with the Calleshire Police Force.

  “I don’t like it,” repeated Leeyes.

  “No, sir.”

  “What,” he enquired, “did Inspector Porritt have to say about this dissident son?”

  Sloan tightened his lips. “I’m afraid he wasn’t told very much, sir. Only that an old college friend of the deceased had been trying to get in touch. That’s all.”

  “Not that he was Dlasian?”

  “No, sir. Carline’s flatmates didn’t think it was important.”

  “That’s for us to judge,” said Leeyes magisterially.

  Sloan nodded. Doctors took the same view about symptoms. Patients weren’t the best judges of those. What mattered to the patient and what mattered to the doctor were two different things. Theirs to do and die … no, that was something else.

  “When?” The superintendent’s voice broke into this reverie.

  “When what, sir?” Sloan asked, startled.

  “When did this Prince Aturu try to get in touch?” snapped Leeyes impatiently. “In relation to the death.”

  “He telephoned the flat the following Monday after Carline died. A week later, that is. Apparently he’d had a date with Carline at the weekend and, of course, the deceased had not appeared …” On second thought he could perhaps have put that more felicitously.

  Leeyes grunted.

  “According to Gerry Porteous—that’s the man there he spoke to—Prince Aturu hadn’t heard about the death …”

  “Murder,” said Leeyes flatly.

  “Murder,” amended Sloan, “and was very surprised and upset about it when Porteous told him.”

  Leeyes sniffed. “He was, was he?”

  “The deceased’s friends,” said Sloan carefully, “were of the opinion that Kenneth was—er—having to dance pretty with the Prince.”

  “Divided loyalties come difficult,” pronounced Leeyes.

  “I should have thought,” said Detective Inspector Sloan, family man and mortgagee, “that he ought to have known which side his bread was buttered on.”

  “Perhaps he did,” said Leeyes chillingly.

  “Gerry Porteous knew,” said Detective Inspector Sloan. “He told me that he warned Carline to be careful about what he said to the Prince.” Economics might be a new science but accountancy was an old, old one. Even trainee accountants could add.

  Leeyes frowned. “Did his employers know of his connection with the King of Dlasa’s son?”

  Sloan was guarded. “His flatmates thought not but they weren’t sure.”

  “You’d better find out, Sloan, to be on the safe side.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And see the Marby mob.”

  “Yes, si
r.” The superintendent could never bring himself to use their full title of the Marby juxta Mare Atomic Waste Disposal Plant Action Group.

  “You’ll have to talk to Melissa Wainwright, Sloan, you realise that, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Sloan without enthusiasm. Melissa Wainwright was the leading light of all the nuclear protests in Calleshire. She was a skilled campaigner, veteran of many a confrontation with the law, and no lover of the police force. The feeling, as far as Sloan was concerned, was reciprocal.

  “Sergeant Watkinson,” remarked Leeyes, “is out of hospital now.”

  “Good,” said Sloan. The demonstration at the opening ceremony of the Palshaw Tunnel hadn’t been peaceful.

  “But still limping.”

  Sloan cleared his throat. “The deceased’s friends say that Carline had never talked to them about nuclear disarmament or anything like that.”

  “But the protesters’ leaflets were in his car?”

  “Oh yes, sir.”

  Leeyes grunted. “Funny, that. Better look into it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And, Sloan …”

  “Sir?”

  “When you see the pathologist over at Calleford—what did you say his name was?”

  “Dr. Bressingham …”

  “You’d better ask him if he checked for blowpipe dart marks.”

  “Sir?”

  “You can’t be too careful in this game,” said Leeyes trenchantly.

  EIGHT

  Injectiones—Injections

  “Dart marks?” echoed Dr. Bressingham a little while later. He was sitting in the office attached to his mortuary at Calleford District General Hospital. Detective Inspector Sloan and Detective Constable Crosby were sitting opposite him.

  “Blowpipe dart marks,” expanded Detective Constable Crosby, to whom this aspect of the investigation had instantly appealed. “Were there any on the murdered man?”

  “None that I observed,” replied Dr. Bressingham stiffly. He was young and rather concerned with his public image.

  “Or arrow ones?”

  “Arrows?” The pathologist stared at him.

  “The arrows that aren’t darts,” amplified Crosby.

  This confounded the doctor completely.

  Nor did Crosby’s attempt at explanation clarify anything as far as Dr. Bressingham was concerned. “Not ‘the Rose and Crown’ sort of darts that are called arrows, Doctor,” he said, “but …”

  “Inspector …” protested the pathologist.

  “But the arrows that are bows and arrows,” finished Crosby triumphantly.

  “There were no marks on the body of the deceased from arrows either,” said Dr. Bressingham coldly. He had a short beard which curiously served to make him look younger than his years. He added, “Arrows of any variety, that is.”

  “What about poisoned spears?” enquired Crosby with genuine interest. These had been a feature of many a comic paper of his childhood.

  “I don’t think,” said Detective Inspector Sloan repressively, “that we need worry too much about poisoned spears.” He explained the nature of their errand to the pathologist. “It’s a purely routine follow-up, Doctor, because of the unfortunate accident to the officer originally involved in the enquiries into the death of Kenneth Carline.”

  “I performed the usual superficial examination before proceeding to the internal one,” nodded Dr. Bressingham, unsmiling, “and found nothing to suggest the use of blowpipe darts, arrows or poisoned spears.”

  “Thank you, Doctor, that is most useful to know,” said Sloan warmly, perjuring his immortal soul in a good cause.

  “Furthermore,” added the pathologist, “nor did I find any injection sites.”

  It was Sloan’s turn to nod. There were fashions in plagues. At least Kenneth Carline hadn’t been into drugs.

  “You must appreciate, Inspector,” went on Dr. Bressingham, “that in the case of the deceased there were signs of three distinct sources of injury to the body—using the word injury in its exact meaning, of course.”

  “Three?” said Sloan, who could see that encouragement was still needed.

  “Those inflicted—perhaps I should say acquired—during a game of Rugby on the Saturday afternoon previous to death.” Dr. Bressingham didn’t look a sporting type himself. He was pale and rather precisely dressed. “These injuries did not, of course, contribute to death but accounted for some of the contusions and abrasions on the body. There was a plaster dressing on one behind his left ear …”

  “Play up! play up! and play the game!” murmured Sloan under his breath, making a note withal.

  “There were also,” continued the pathologist, “those injuries resulting from the deceased’s car going off the road.”

  Sloan nodded. “We heard all about that.”

  “This was almost certainly as a consequence of his either having had diplopia …”

  “Diplopia?” said Sloan. Crosby wouldn’t be able to spell that.

  “Double vision,” translated the doctor.

  “Ah.”

  “Either diplopia,” repeated Dr. Bressingham, who was clearly not a man to make concessions to the demotic, “or of having gone to sleep at the wheel of his car from drug-induced drowsiness. Hyoscine relaxes smooth muscle.”

  Sloan did not know about smooth muscle and said so.

  “Muscle not under voluntary control,” said Dr. Bressingham. “That’s why this particular drug is one of the main constituents of pre-medication.” He waved a hand. “Given to patients before operations, that is …”

  “Quite so,” said Sloan somewhat shortly. He knew what pre-medication was. If there was one thing worse than being blinded by medical science it was being spoken to like a two-year-old.

  “Too much leads to unconsciousness.”

  Sloan said that all the reports of the Calleshire County Constabulary Traffic Division on the inspection of Kenneth Carline’s car confirmed the probability of this. “There were no exchange marks of any other vehicle having been in collision with the deceased’s car. And no sign on the road surface of any involvement with one.”

  “No skid marks either,” contributed Crosby, who took an interest in this melancholy aspect of fast driving.

  “How serious were the road traffic accident injuries?” asked Sloan, automatically lapsing into police vernacular.

  The pathologist gave a thin, humourless smile. “That, Inspector, depends entirely on which way you look at it.”

  Sloan pulled his head up sharply.

  “The road traffic accident injuries weren’t serious in themselves,” said the doctor. “A fractured clavicle and some ankle lacerations …” he paused and then added significantly, “but …”

  “But?” invited Sloan.

  “But the consequences of those injuries were very serious indeed.”

  “How was that?” asked Sloan, allowing a slight edge to enter his voice. The games that people played were all very well but he had better things to do than engage in word ones with a strange pathologist.

  “The House Surgeon in the Accident and Emergency Department,” said Dr. Bressingham, “made the mistake of thinking that the deceased’s drowsiness on admission was a consequence of concussion from a head injury sustained in the car accident.”

  “Very understandable,” nodded Sloan.

  “In the practice of medicine,” said Dr. Bressingham loftily, “the excusable is not good enough.”

  “The art is long,” Sloan heard himself saying aloud. Now that had come straight out of a memory of his own childhood. He’d had a mysterious rash on his hands when young and his mother had taken him to the surgery to ask the doctor what it was. And their general practitioner hadn’t known and, being an honest man, had said so. By way of exculpation the doctor had added then, “The art is long …”

  “And life is short. I know that.” Dr. Bressingham completed the quotation brusquely. “But it’s not good enough when human life is at stake.”

&n
bsp; Detective Inspector Sloan concluded without difficulty that young Dr. Bressingham was not likely to be the most popular of men with his colleagues. Perhaps hospital pathologists never were, having, as they always did, both plenty of time for their examinations as well as the last word.

  “Of course,” admitted the pathologist grudgingly, “the pupils of the eye are dilated in both cases.”

  “Which doesn’t help,” agreed Sloan. It sounded as if the house surgeon’s lot—like the policeman’s—was not a happy one.

  “He did note on the admission record that the patient had an erythematous rash,” said the doctor, “but did not appreciate its significance in poisoning by atropine, belladonna and hyoscine.”

  “I see,” said Sloan, beginning to feel quite some sympathy for an unknown House Surgeon.

  “In my opinion,” said the pathologist, “arterial blood gases should be analysed in every case of deep coma.”

  “That would have helped, would it?” asked Sloan.

  He should have known better. Nothing in medicine was as simple as that …

  “It is impossible to say with any degree of certainty,” said the pathologist in a hortatory manner, “whether the delay in first treating the patient for concussion and not poisoning was fatal or not.”

  Sloan nodded. It was the sort of theoretical positing in which the profession of law rejoiced and he was not naïve enough to believe that this interesting little legal point would have escaped Lucy Durmast’s defence counsel … He pulled himself up with a jerk. Only Lucy Durmast didn’t have a defence counsel, did she?

  “However,” continued Dr. Bressingham, “there is no doubt about the actual cause of death, which is what really matters.”

  “And that was hyoscine poisoning,” said Sloan, tapping a wallet file. “I’ve got your report here, Doctor.”

  “What about the third set of injuries?” asked Detective Constable Crosby. “You said there were three.”