A Dead Question

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘Nothing like that.’ Mrs Deakin sounded quite shocked. ‘There’s not been a woman over the threshold since Mrs McGordon left, not in that sort of way. Even when she was here, they did little more than share the house. And I’d have known if he had a fancy woman somewhere. A woman can be hidden but the laundry aye gives away any such carryings-on.’

  The conversation was interrupted while June made tea and put out biscuits. Honey had time to consider what she was hearing. Mrs Deakin seemed remarkably perceptive and articulate, considering her background. Her observations on the Harrison-Hargreaves divorce would be worth hearing.

  ‘Whatever did become of Mrs McGordon?’ June asked. ‘Do you ever hear from her?’

  Mrs Deakin’s derisive grunt came clearly from the tape. ‘Not a word. The Doctor’s had some letters from Canada but the envelopes were typed and he’s not the sort to read out bits of news to the servants.’

  Despite June’s best efforts, the conversation drifted away into domestic matters. Shopping predominated and Mrs Deakin was indignant at being left to bring home by bus whatever she could not have delivered.

  ‘The Lairds are quite good in that sort of way,’ June said. ‘There’s always one of them will bring a car to pick up the week’s shopping at a weekend. Or, if not, I’m allowed to borrow her car.’

  ‘The Doctor would never think of such a thing. Terribly fussy about his car, he is. Almost in tears when he got a wee dent in his front wing.’

  Both Dodson and Honey sat up suddenly. The possibility of a hit-and-run was alive again. June was alive to the chance. ‘Who did the repair?’ she asked. ‘Mrs Laird was far from pleased with the service she got after she put a dent in the Range Rover.’

  ‘I did nothing of the sort,’ Honey said aloud.

  ‘Mr Samson took it to a man he knows in Aberdeen. Well, why not? It was Mr Samson himself that put the dent in the wing against the Doctor’s gatepost. If the Doctor’s had a dram too many he’ll sometimes phone Mr Samson to come out by taxi and drive him home, but that time he was wishing he’d chanced it and driven himself.’

  A few more minutes were wasted in discussion of the Doctor’s drinking habits without revealing anything new. It seemed that the Doctor liked his dram but remained a gentleman and knew when to stop; but it was not unknown for him to chance the breathalyser when his nephew was not available.

  ‘They must be really close if Mr Samson’s prepared to turn out late in an evening to go and drive his uncle home,’ June remarked. ‘And I believe they go on holiday together?’

  ‘Never,’ Mrs Deakin said. Honey and Dodson had time to raise eyebrows at each other. ‘The Doctor sometimes takes a week at a golfing hotel and Mr Samson goes off on his own with some tart.’ Mrs Deakin’s disapproving sniff came clearly off the tape.

  ‘Somebody said that they went abroad together.’

  ‘That’s different.’ Mrs Deakin sounded amused. ‘That’s work. Give their services for nothing, that’s what they do. In Bosnia and such-like places. Well, I suppose they can afford it. A different place each time and usually they bring a patient back at their own expense, sometimes two, would you believe?’

  ‘Yes, I think I would,’ June said. ‘There’s a lot of doctors do that. Give their services free, I mean. I think it helps them with their taxes. I don’t know how – it’s all Greek to me. Do they book through a travel agent? Mrs Laird was looking for a good one. She was fizzing, last time they went abroad. Their hotel reservation hadn’t been confirmed, the town was full and when she phoned her travel agent they said they couldn’t do anything about it.’

  ‘My two always book through Hunter-Gourdon World Travel and they’ve never had any trouble.’ (Honey and Dodson exchanged nods.) ‘The time there was a strike and it looked like they’d get stuck in Athens, they cabled Hunter-Gourdon who soon sorted out another way home for them. They took the train into Switzerland and flew from there, but their patient had to wait and follow along later.’

  The unreliability of service companies, and the fact that a firm is only as good as the person dealing with your order, took over the conversation despite brave efforts on June’s part to drag in such topics as filing and shredding. When the tape ran out, June was called in from the kitchen and she was able to assure them that nothing else of value was said but that the two housekeepers had parted on the best of terms with promises to meet again soon.

  ‘You did very well,’ Honey assured her, ‘and if anything comes out of it you’ll get your holiday.’ She waited until June had returned to the kitchen. ‘As for you, Allan, you’d better go and use your charm on somebody at the travel agents. We want the dates and places of their foreign trips, to compare with the Doctor’s bank statements. I don’t know what that will tell us but it will surely tell us something. Then get yourself round to Meadowbank House. We want to know who, if anybody, has left the Doctor or his nephew money recently.’

  Dodson began to look as though the world was going out of focus for him. ‘How—?’

  ‘How do you extract that sort of information? I don’t know,’ Honey said. ‘Do something clever.’ She was beginning to have faith in Dodson as an investigator. Perhaps she should marry him off to June. They could raise a whole new generation of detectives – possibly, she thought, in a house called Sherlock Home.

  ‘What’s the joke?’ Dodson asked anxiously, wondering if he had done something silly.

  Honey erased her smile in a hurry. If Dodson was so tuned to her nuances of expression, she would have to be careful about thinking such silly jokes. ‘No joke,’ she said. ‘No joke at all.’

  Chapter Ten

  She was already late for her coffee with Felicia Aston and Marjory Allen. In her youth, Honey had more than once landed in a pickle by missing a bus or train. That lesson learned the hard way, she had become a compulsively early arrival, sometimes being on the station platform half an hour before the train could possibly pull in. She had now achieved a sense of proportion and took a pride in turning up on precisely the due moment. She still hated above all things to be late for anything. It was now well known among the lower ranks that any meeting that Honey was to chair would begin on time and anyone arriving late would be amazed to read in the minutes what tasks they had volunteered for.

  She looked around for June, who was not to be seen. So much for good resolutions. She tried to hurry out to her car but June erupted out of the toilet under the stairs. ‘I’m not having you drive around in your condition,’ she said. ‘That’s asking for trouble.’

  Honey might well have objected to being ordered around by her housekeeper, but it was a good time for giving in gracefully. She filed the words away for later retaliation. ‘The last thing I want to do is to drive,’ Honey said. ‘Sitting in a folded position brings my knees up and they get in the way of the bump and I end up getting indigestion. You drive me.’ June began to turn away. Honey grabbed her arm. ‘Like now. I have my car key.’

  ‘I haven’t got any knickers on.’ They had the house to themselves but June whispered anyway.

  ‘Nobody will know. Come quickly.’ June was about to double back into the toilet but Honey had a grip on her wrist and pulled. Nothing infuriated Honey so much as being kept waiting while somebody else pottered about doing something that could well have waited, but her compulsion to be on time for appointments, itself an annoying habit when taken to extremes, was usually a redeeming virtue. June found herself, knickerless, in the driving seat of the Range Rover. She kept pulling her skirt down as she drove.

  It was a gloomy afternoon, made gloomier by the approach of dusk. June had used the journey-time for a homily on being careful with her sacred burden. In Honey’s view she was already according her sacred burden at least as much care as was reasonable and it was not the job of a housekeeper, even one who seemed destined to end her days as a faithful old retainer, to read her employer lectures on the subject. As they arrived at the door of the Starbucks, Honey was beginning to seethe.

  ‘When t
he baby’s born,’ she said, ‘I’ll look to you to keep her safe, but while she’s still weighing me down she’s my responsibility.’ Honey straightened up on the kerb, with some effort, and added loudly, ‘Go home. Put your knickers on and keep them on this time. I’ll get a taxi back.’ She turned away quickly. Nobody had paid the least attention but June, who had been reared with great propriety, was very red about the ears and cheeks. Honey, on the other hand, felt better.

  Inside the half-empty Starbucks, she was met by warmth and humidity. Felicia Aston was sitting with a lumpish, round-faced woman who was wearing one of the very long skirts so fashionable with the young and also welcomed by ladies with unlovely legs. Her hair was unnaturally dark. She could have passed for forty but her neck and hands betrayed a substantially greater age. Honey took the vacant chair and was introduced to Marjory Allen. She asked the waitress for a glass of milk.

  They chatted for a minute or two about the weather and Honey’s pregnancy. Miss Allen, in keeping with her former employment, proved knowledgeable but rather old-fashioned.

  ‘Honey Laird lives next door to Dr McGordon,’ Felicia said suddenly. ‘Miss Allen was his receptionist and almost everything else for years.’

  ‘Ah yes. The Doctor,’ Miss Allen said. A smile illuminated her pudding face. ‘Such a gentleman!’ Felicia Aston managed not to flinch.

  It was obvious that Marjory Allen remained a hopeless worshipper at the Doctor’s shrine. Honey took less than a second to make a total revision of her carefully planned approach. From the several accents that she had learned during a youth partly spent among aristocracy, she slid gently into the one that she considered to be the most likely to impress. ‘I’m sure that you can keep a secret.’ Miss Allen nodded, wide-eyed. ‘As his neighbour, I was approached by the Palace. Dr McGordon’s services to medicine, especially in the underdeveloped world, have been noticed. He has been recommended for an OBE, which might even lead on to higher things, perhaps even a K, and I’ve been asked to comment and make a recommendation. It looks as though it may go through on my nod, but if word leaks out it could put it back for years.’

  ‘I won’t say a word,’ Miss Allen breathed. Her eyes were alight.

  ‘That’s good. And I must have the absolute truth. The other thing that could spoil his chances would be if it’s discovered that somebody has been . . . let’s say, exaggerating.’

  ‘Oh, but I understand. And I’d have no need to exaggerate,’ Miss Allen said earnestly. ‘Nobody ever deserved an honour more. The Doctor’s such a good man. Not in a churchy sort of way but from within. You know what I mean?’

  ‘I know exactly what you mean,’ Honey said, although her interpretation might not have tallied with that of the older lady. ‘But a question is bound to be asked about why his wife left him. Has there been a divorce?’

  Miss Allen bridled. There may now be a generation that divorces as easily as it married, but the old prejudice against divorce still lives on among the elders. ‘Certainly not, although the Doctor had grounds enough, her running off to Canada like that, and no doubt sex was at the back of it.’ Miss Allen sniffed. ‘She was always a flighty piece, making eyes at all the men. But the Doctor was aye the gentleman, keeping himself to himself. He should never have married that one. It was a relationship bound to end in tears.’

  ‘Have you heard from Mrs McGordon since she left?’

  ‘No. Well, I wouldn’t expect to. She knew what I thought of her. A trollop.’ Miss Allen rolled the word around her tongue with relish.

  ‘And never any suspicion of a scandal concerning the Doctor?’

  Miss Allen drew in her breath with a hiss. That the question was asked at all had shocked her. ‘Nothing like that at all. After all, he’s still a married man, however she may be behaving, and he never forgets it. When he examined a woman patient there was always a nurse present, or very often myself, and I can assure you that his manner was very professional. I still keep in touch with my old friends on the nursing staff and they say that he hasn’t changed. After all, it’s only been a few months since I . . .’ Her voice tailed away. Evidently she had retired with reluctance. Also, to retire was to admit to ageing. That word had not survived in her vocabulary.

  In the face of so much devotion there would be no point in following up that line of country. Honey was beginning to suspect that the Doctor could have committed an indecent assault under Miss Allen’s nose and it would have been written off as a display of playful affection. ‘He seems to be very well thought of as a doctor,’ Honey said.

  ‘Oh, he is. Other doctors even refer patients to him if the diagnosis is difficult, and most patients trust him absolutely. Ladies sometimes dislike his bluff manner but the men swear by him as a doctor.’

  Honey kept her tone light. ‘None of the ladies ever developed a crush on him?’

  ‘You might expect it, but no. Never!’

  Felicia Aston had been sitting back in silence, seeming very much amused by the interplay. ‘Oh, come on,’ she said suddenly. ‘You know that they either love him or hate him. Some of them drool over him. They probably have pictures of him pinned up over their beds.’

  Miss Allen managed to combine expressions of pride and disapproval. ‘If they do, the Doctor would never know about it, or approve if he did.’

  ‘But none of them was ever grateful or devoted enough to leave him a little something in their wills?’ Honey still kept her tone light, as if joking.

  ‘I never heard of any such thing, but I certainly wouldn’t be surprised. Most probably the person’s still alive, in which case the Doctor himself wouldn’t have heard about it either. He did so much good to so many people that some of them are bound to remember him, however ungrateful most turn out to be. Anyway, the people who had most cause to be grateful to him would never have had any money to leave. It’s all very well that this country may give him an honour, but really if any country should give him an honour it would be somewhere like Brazil or Kosovo,’ Miss Allen said indignantly. ‘Flying around and taking Mr Samson with him and bringing patients back to this country, all at his own expense, treating the poor people for nothing. And doing the same in Edinburgh, only of course he doesn’t have to fly anywhere.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  Having struck the equivalent of a gusher, Honey was reluctant to turn the tap off; but although Marjory Allen could undoubtedly have talked for hours on that subject she was offering few hard facts and only favourable opinions of the Doctor. It was time to divert the subject from mere eulogy and probe for something pointing in the direction of fact. ‘Tell me about his opinions. Does he favour abortions?’

  ‘Certainly not.’ Miss Allen looked and sounded shocked. ‘I’ve heard him say that a doctor’s duty is to save life, not to terminate it. The only time that I ever heard him raise his voice in the consulting room was when some woman asked about an abortion for her teenage daughter. He feels the same about euthanasia. He lectured one of his partners in my hearing once. He said that allowing a terminally ill patient to slip away was one thing but to help them on their way was against the laws of man and morality.’

  The Doctor’s views, as quoted by Miss Allen, were gall and wormwood. If the reporting of them was inaccurate, Honey could see no way of proving it. She struggled to keep the mildly pleased expression on her face, reminding herself that proving the Doctor to be the very picture of innocence was still within her remit. ‘That sounds very satisfactory,’ she said. ‘In your time, did he have any drug addicts among his patients?’

  ‘Oh yes. They need doctors as much as anybody else or perhaps more.’

  ‘He treated their addiction?’

  ‘Yes. But strictly by the book. Decreasing doses of methadone and so on and so forth, plus the services of the therapist. I was responsible for keeping the keys of the drug store and the records of drugs purchased and used. I would have known immediately if the rules had been broken.’

  Hope, which had begun to gleam in the darkness, flickered
and died. Miss Allen’s control of the drugs supply might seem conclusive except perhaps in the matter of euthanasia. Too many common or easily synthesised products were available for use, with little or no risk of detection, by any doctor prepared to sign the death certificate. Ten further minutes of carefully slanted questions took Honey no further. Miss Allen’s devotion to the Doctor was so blind that in her view he could do no wrong. Honey could sense signs of malicious amusement emanating from Felicia Aston. She decided on one desperate last resort.

  ‘This all sounds very satisfactory,’ she said. ‘But there have been one or two whispers reaching us that I’ll have to track down and confirm or deny.’

  Miss Allen froze like a startled rabbit. ‘What sort of whispers?’ she asked at last.

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly tell you that,’ Honey said. ‘But can you suggest anyone who might be malicious enough to invent stories about him?’

  She was prepared for a reply on the lines of ‘everybody loves the Doctor’, but to her surprise Miss Allen nodded. ‘There have been one or two over the years,’ she said sadly. ‘Mostly people for whom the Doctor refused to do a favour. Addicts wanting an extra fix; somebody wanting a medical certificate that wasn’t due them; others (mostly women, I’m sorry to say) who’ve convinced themselves that they have something serious and fashionable wrong with them and the Doctor wouldn’t agree or help them to jump the queue for the scanner or for treatment. But I wouldn’t know where any of them are now and anyway they’ve probably forgotten all about it.’

  Felicia Aston stirred again. ‘Wasn’t there some sort of a quarrel between the Doctor and a male nurse?’ she suggested.

  ‘You mean Harry Kristmeier? There was certainly friction there,’ Miss Allen said reluctantly. ‘He headed the small nursing team but he also acted as practice manager. I believe he had some sort of degree in business management, or else he was still studying for it, something like that. A gipsyish sort of man. You could just imagine him having the morals of an alley cat, so of course he and the Doctor never got on. After he left, the duties were shared around. He was just the malicious sort who would bear a grudge.’