A Dead Question

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘She spent a lot of time in the garden. You probably used to see her from that little room you have that looks sideways, but she did more harm than good because, frankly, the green on her fingers was arsenic, I mean she couldn’t tell a weed from an alpine and when she pruned a shrub you could count on her to take off all the shoots that would have flowered the next year. The azaleas are doing much better now and, honestly, I think she did the garden more good in her going than if she had stayed.’

  Honey tried to hide a slight shiver. She hoped that Mrs McGordon was not doing her garden good by being buried in it. ‘Tell me about her,’ she suggested. ‘Why did she leave? Do you know?’

  Kate nodded and smiled. The light of the born gossip shone in her eyes. ‘I probably know as much as anybody, which isn’t a lot because I got a different story from each of them and I don’t suppose anybody else got any more out of those stories than I did. I was in the Border Bookshop one day, looking for a present for Phil – I got him a book about antiquities, you know how he goes potty about archaeological digs and so on – and when I went upstairs for a coffee I saw the Doctor sitting all on his own, and most of the chairs were taken so of course I joined him.’

  ‘Of course,’ Honey said.

  Even that momentary break had given Kate time to draw breath. ‘I thought perhaps he was waiting for Dulcie so I asked after her and he seemed rather evasive so in the end I asked him point blank if anything was wrong, because she’d been looking a bit peaky and I wondered whether her diverticulitis had flared up again. And he drew himself up, very hoity-toity, not at all in his usual hail-fellow-well-met style that most people find so overpowering, and said that it depended what you meant by wrong and did I know that his wife had a lover, and if I did he’d be very much obliged if I told him who it was.’

  ‘And who was it?’ Honey asked before she could stop herself.

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ Kate admitted reluctantly, ‘but if it was true that she had a lover it was nobody I know, I’m quite sure of that, not unless it was another woman, because no man can ever resist dropping very subtle little hints, especially to a woman, the sort of hints that you have to be alert to see and read, all sort of saying, “Somebody finds me irresistible so you may as well join the club,” you know what I mean?’ (Honey knew exactly what she meant but she shook her head.) ‘So I began to tick off all the people I could be sure it wasn’t and he seemed to be getting more and more annoyed until in the end he gulped down what was left of his coffee and went down to look through the DVDs, which was probably a bluff because they didn’t have a DVD player at that time although he bought one a few months later.

  ‘I went straight home and I must have beaten him to it because his car wasn’t there, but who should come knocking on my door a few minutes later but Dulcie McGordon, saying that she was leaving Duncan and wanting to know if I would store some of her things until she sent for them? I said that of course I would and was there anything else I could do, and she must really have been wanting a shoulder to cry on because she came in for a vodka and tonic and poured out her side of the story. She swore blind that she didn’t have a lover and never had but that nobody could have blamed her because Duncan had gone impotent for no physical reason and he wouldn’t go to a therapist, not for anything, he was trying Viagra and it wasn’t doing a bit of good and so he’d started blaming her which she said was horribly unfair because she’d tried everything the books and magazines suggested without the least effect, and I couldn’t help agreeing with her – that it was unfair, I mean, because she told me some of the things she’d tried in order to give him a kick start and she didn’t seem to have missed anything out – and she said that she was going to her sister in Canada.’

  Honey framed her next question carefully. Kate was incapable of answering a question with a yes or no. ‘From what you say, she must have given you her address in Canada. Do you still have it?’ she asked. ‘I have her on my Christmas card list because she sent me one last year. I’ve written the card but now I don’t know where to send it.’

  Kate was nodding cheerfully. ‘I know I still have it because I was looking for another address this morning – my cousin Elsie, did you meet her when she was over here in the spring to settle her daughter in at Strathclyde University, doing engineering of all things? – and I came across it, so I’ll let you have it.’

  ‘I’ll be very grateful. There’s a son, isn’t there?’

  ‘Two sons, but Ian left home before you moved in here, he’s working in accountancy down in the Borders somewhere but George is still nominally at home with his father, at least that’s the address he uses for letters. He did Scots Law in Edinburgh and he’s working for the Council, but I’m not surprised you don’t know him because you hardly ever see him here, what with a very dishy girlfriend with a flat in the Old Town and playing a lot of golf, very successfully, plays off a two handicap I’m told, whatever that means.’

  Honey had no intention of trying to explain a two handicap. ‘Does he drive a green sports car?’ She asked.

  ‘That’s right. You must have seen him some time that his girlfriend had gone off him.’ Kate paused and looked at her watch and compared it with the carriage clock on Honey’s mantel. ‘Heavens above, is that the time? The children will have gone to their granny but Phil said he’d be home about now and he’s carrying me off to some dinner thing in Glasgow in aid of lifeboats or Africa or something so I’ll have to go and put my face on.’

  Honey was suffering a surfeit of information that she wanted to digest before proceeding, and her ears were beginning to ring, but there was one more area that she wanted to explore. ‘Before you go,’ she said, ‘tell me this. You said something about Dr McGordon’s manner putting people off.’

  Kate settled down again. This was too good a topic to neglect. ‘Oh, it does, it does. He’s usually the backslapping extrovert, or if he doesn’t slap you on the back he’ll shake your hand and crush it at the same time, and people can only take so much of excessive goodwill. Hasn’t he slapped your back a time or two?’

  ‘I’ve only passed him dog walking,’ Honey said, ‘and nodded to him from a distance. If he puts people off like that, how does he come to have such a distinguished list of private patients.’

  ‘I don’t know that of my own knowledge,’ Kate admitted, ‘I never needed a doctor except when I was pregnant and I wouldn’t let that sort of hearty man get as close to me as that. But according to Phil he’s a brilliant diagnostician, his reputation is that you can go to him with two separate but associated disorders and the symptoms confused by medication and he’ll want to know every single symptom that you’ve had in the past year and he’ll puzzle it out straight away and either prescribe the right medication or refer you to the right consultant, one way or the other he’ll drag you through it and have you singing and dancing. And now I must fly. We’ll do it again some time.’

  ‘We certainly will,’ Honey said.

  She pushed herself upright and escorted her guest to the front door. Constable Dodson was just approaching, being dragged along by Pippa. Pippa was in her seventh heaven. She had been rolling or swimming in something absolutely appalling. The smell, Honey decided, was mostly of cattle dung along with well-rotted silage and just a hint of fox droppings. It made her eyes water.

  Dodson was close to tears. ‘I couldn’t help it, Mrs Laird. She jerked the lead out of my hand and made off.’

  ‘My fault,’ Honey said. She waved to the amused but departing Kate, who would doubtless put the story all round the Central Belt by way of the evening’s charity dinner. ‘I should have warned you,’ she told Dodson, ‘that she loves a good roll and the smellier the better as far as she’s concerned. Well, that settles it. Your next job is to take her round to the back of the house. The blessing of being the end house is that there is a path from front to back without taking a foul dog through the house and leaving a trail of perfume that will hang around for weeks. I’ll pass you out the end of
the shower spray and the shampoo. After that, you can come in and listen to the tape of the progress I’ve made.’

  While Dodson showered and dried Pippa over the drain behind the house, Honey put her hand out to pick up the phone, but it rang before she could complete the move. Kate was on the line with the address of Dr McGordon’s sister-in-law in Canada. Kate was unusually curt, but Honey could hear Phil, Kate’s husband, making hurry-up noises in the background. ‘I must just do this or I’ll forget it,’ Kate answered him – over her shoulder, to judge from the reduced volume. Honey thanked her quickly and rang off. While it was in her mind, she added ‘Defrauding the NHS’ to the list.

  Dodson came in with Pippa. ‘You are a damp scamp,’ Honey told Pippa severely. ‘A wet pet. A soggy doggy. Be ashamed, be very ashamed.’ Pippa lay down and thumped her tail, still pleased with herself. Dodson was now wetter than the dog but at least neither of them smelt too bad. Honey made sure that the dog towels were hung over the boiler. She gave Dodson a large carrier bag to open out and sit on. They listened to the tape together. Dodson proved modestly knowledgeable about computers and managed to transfer the contents of the tape to the computer before Honey set the recorder to tape some music and thus expunge the conversation.

  ‘That lady doesn’t half bend your ear,’ Dodson said, ‘but she’ll be a useful source all the same.’

  ‘There’s a lot more to be got out of her,’ Honey agreed. ‘The pity is that I have to listen to ten minutes of irrelevance for ten seconds of gold dust. You’d better pop off home and get some dry clothes on. I’m going to phone Canada in the hope of tracking down Mrs McGordon. I’ll keep a telephone record for you to listen to. Here’s what I want you to make a start on tomorrow . . .’

  *

  DCI Sandy Laird parked his nearly new Vectra and gave his wife’s car his usual baleful look. He was pleased with his own car and would have been proud of it. He polished it regularly and with a little encouragement might even have licked it clean. But Honey’s father made a point of bestowing his Range Rovers on his daughter, recovering each for trading-in against the next. Because of representations from his senior managers and directors, who felt inhibited from indulging their more extravagant fancies in transport if the big boss was driving around in a humdrum tin box, Mr Potterton-Phipps only bought from the absolute top of the range. He then changed them, his son-in-law thought sourly, whenever the ashtrays were full of cigar butts. The contrast did not show his Vectra to best effect. Sandy had married for love and was horrified that anyone might think that he had married his wife because of her father’s money. He was always careful to stand on his own feet, so to speak, but he did sometimes feel that he might bend his rule a little if Mr Potterton-Phipps would, just once, not reclaim Honey’s car to trade in against an even newer acquisition but would allow her to pass it on to him. Honey would certainly have had no objection and her father would probably never have noticed, but pride prevented him from making the suggestion.

  His wife was on the phone. He stooped to offer her a kiss but she turned her cheek instead of offering her lips, as she would previously have done without thinking about it. He tried not to show hurt and settled into his usual chair. Perhaps the days of wine and roses were over and he was going to have to take a back seat, play second fiddle, whatever the most apt metaphor might happen to be. Fathers, he had heard, were often relegated to the position of provider and occasional entertainer. Or nappy-changer. Well, if that was what the future held, so be it.

  If a beautiful woman can be said to look furtive that is how Honey looked, but she proceeded with her call anyway. ‘Is that really you, Rodge? Seems like I’ve been chasing you all over Montreal.’ Her voice had adopted a trace of a transatlantic accent and discarded its usual unexceptionable grammar. She had a knack of matching her voice to the other’s expectation. ‘Yes, it’s me, Honeypot, but they don’t call me that any more, not if they want to live. I’m Mrs Laird now and a detective inspector, how does that grab you . . .? Yes, I thought it might. I’m looking for a favour. Do you have a pal in or around Vancouver? He’d be RCMP, I suppose . . . You do? Well I hope he’s a good pal, because I want you to get him to help me out. I need to know if a Mrs Dulcie McGordon, divorced or separated wife of Dr Duncan McGordon, is still living with her sister, a Mrs Hopgood, at one-six-four-three Braintree Avenue. Treat it as urgent. And listen, Rodge, this is vital. Information to me, please, personally, I’ll give you my number and email address in a minute, and he’s not to make any waves. Not a single word to anyone but me. Yeah, it’s one of those. The man I’m looking at has some big-wheel friends and there remains the possibility that he may not even have put a foot wrong . . .’

  Sandy waited until the call had finished. ‘Who is Rodge?’ he asked.

  ‘Just a Canadian I met on a security course, before I ever met you,’ Honey said. Her tone was cool; Sandy could have put a little more effort into a proper kiss. Had pregnancy made her repugnant? She was careful not to sound defensive but she had known Rodge Hampton rather well. Since marrying Sandy Laird she had been as pure as the driven snow, but Sandy had a suspicion that her earlier life might have been rather less whiter than white. She was a remarkably attractive woman, her attractiveness enhanced by her seeming to be unaware of it, but in addition to being attractive she had, until pregnancy had brought about a change, been very appreciative of the joys of sex. In common with most men, Sandy preferred to know as little as possible about any earlier amours that his wife might have enjoyed and he still struggled to believe that she had arrived at the married state still unsullied.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Sandy asked.

  Honey chose to interpret his words as referring to the phone call. She had no secrets from Sandy. Well, very few. ‘I’ll tell you,’ she said. ‘You may even be able to help. What do you know about Dr McGordon next door?’

  ‘Not a lot.’

  ‘Come on, Sandy. You’re a trained detective. What do you know?’

  ‘Not to say know. He seems well heeled, but doctors in private practice don’t exactly starve. He has a good reputation as a doctor. If you’ve got it, he’ll find it and cure it. There’s never been a whisper about him messing with his women patients. I met him at the golf club once; he was somebody’s guest but his host had to leave him alone because of a suddenly urgent committee meeting and we had time for a chat.’

  ‘What did you think of him?’

  ‘I couldn’t thole the bastard. Why?’

  Honey began the story of her day. Sandy relaxed. At least a minor investigation conducted from home should keep her out of mischief for a while. Her threshold of boredom was very low; and when Honey was bored there was no saying where her craving for interest might lead her. He still recalled with nausea the occasion when a lull in her professional workload had led her to take up arms against a senior detective who, in her opinion, was not treating his wife with the consideration that, again in Honey’s opinion, she deserved.

  Chapter Four

  Honey awoke next morning in a mood of mixed indignation at being saddled by Detective Superintendent Blackhouse with a task that no reasonable person would have considered either possible or permissible; and a contrary relief at a break to the monotony of her gestation, even a distraction from the discomforts of bosom, belly and bladder. She struggled conscientiously through a set of gentle exercises designed to leave her in reasonable trim when the great event was past. To her surprise, she felt a stirring of a sensation that she thought was gone, perhaps forever – her old energy. Passivity had run its course.

  Four brothers had preceded Honoria, so becoming a grandfather was not a new experience for Mr Potterton-Phipps. But Honey, as the only daughter, had a special place in his heart and he was stirred enough by the imminent addition to his dynasty (even if that branch of it would bear another name) to issue orders, whenever any member of his entourage was going in the direction of shops, for the purchase of suitable items of maternity wear and other gifts. In addition, her
sisters-in-law were only too happy to clear space in their respective houses by passing on the gifts with which they had been inundated. Honey was thus in a position to furnish an orphanage with playthings, and determined to do so as soon as the new arrival’s preferences were established. She was so well equipped with prams and pushchairs that the second spare bedroom was unusable. More to the immediate point, she had an ample selection of clothes to fit all occasions, all stages of pregnancy and all weathers. After breakfast, she had no difficulty in kitting herself out for a short walk; although she did spare a sigh for the beautiful clothes being left behind in her wardrobe to become outdated by changing fashions.

  June was horrified when Honey made clear her intention. Her round face dropped and her always-unruly hair took on a new life. ‘You ken fine the Doctor said you were to stay inside!’

  ‘He said nothing of the sort, so don’t you go putting words into his mouth. He only said I wasn’t to get chilled,’ Honey retorted.

  ‘He said no exertion!’

  ‘He said no undue exertion. But I’m overdue for a little exercise. If you and Sandy had your way,’ Honey said hotly, ‘you would turn me into a sort of queen termite, lying helpless in bed, being fed by slaves and producing babies by the dozen.’ She paused to consider what she was saying. But no. Even a life of constant sex must eventually pall. ‘Well, I’m not going to put up with it. I’m well wrapped up and I’m going out for a very short walk with Pippa, not to climb Everest.’

  ‘Pippa will pull. And suppose your waters break while you’re out!’

  ‘I’m not due yet. And if they do, I’ll phone you.’ Honey waved the mobile phone.

  ‘You’re getting very close. And your ankles will swell.’

  It was a telling threat. Honey held her peace but made up her mind not to go far and to put her feet up on her return.