A Dead Question

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘What sort of a grudge?’ Honey asked quickly.

  ‘I wouldn’t know anything about that. I wasn’t privy to their squabbles.’

  ‘Did he leave Edinburgh?’

  ‘That’s something else I wouldn’t know,’ said Miss Allen. ‘But I saw somebody in Jenner’s last week who looked very like him.’

  Honey dragged the conversation back to the overseas journeys but Miss Allen clearly knew no more than that such trips had taken place. In the end, Honey gave up. She thanked both ladies and was promised any further help that Miss Allen could possibly provide. She escaped into the dry cold of the street. She already had her mobile phone in her hand but a taxi was setting down a fare a few yards away. She just managed to get to it in front of a fat woman with two children.

  As soon as the taxi had moved off, she wrote down the name. Harry Kristmeier.

  Chapter Eleven

  When the taxi deposited Honey at her door, the motorcycle was parked outside and PC Dodson, already stripped of his leathers and enjoying a mug of tea with a clearly furious June, was lying in wait for her. He followed her into the study. Honey had no intention of being kept on her overloaded feet and dropped into the desk chair but Dodson seemed too upset to consider bodily comfort, and not only by having born the brunt of June’s indignation. From his puzzlement, Honey gathered that June had been too coy to reveal the exact nature of the offence.

  She had hoped that Dodson’s presence would signify another forward step, but apparently this was too much to hope for. ‘I went to Meadowbank House,’ he said. ‘But what you want would take a year, minimum. There’s no sort of index and no kind of computerised record. If you know whose will you want to see, you can ask for it. Otherwise, put it out of your mind. There are researchers you can employ to do a search, but they cost the earth and take for ever, and I don’t see the Super authorising that sort of expenditure or waiting that long, do you?’

  ‘No, I don’t. Now park yourself,’ Honey said. ‘Do sit down and stop looming over me, this room’s too small for that. I’m sorry if I stuck you with an impossible task. I’ve suffered the same fate, so it’s only fair that I get to spread the irritation. Here’s the next one – or, to be honest, it’s the same one but made a little bit easier by what I’ve just been finding out, so never say that I’m not good to you.’

  Dodson took the other chair. ‘I’d never say that about anyone who lets me wash their dog,’ he said gloomily.

  Honey was delighted to see that he had retained at least a vestige of his sense of humour, but she refrained from acknowledging the joke. ‘Be my guest, any time. We know which travel agent the Doctor uses – the Hunter-Gourdon World Travel. See them and find out, discreetly, the dates of his trips to poorer countries. I’m sure you can sweet-talk some poor girl into looking through the files for you. Compare that with the bank statements. Cross off large sums deposited shortly after returning from one of those trips, we’re assuming that they’re something else altogether. Look for any other large deposits. Then go through the death certificates. Look up the wills of any patients who died before the date of that deposit.’

  ‘How long before?’

  ‘That’s the puzzler, isn’t it?’ Honey brooded for some seconds. She had had little experience of executry, except in cases in which the proving of the will was seriously delayed by some suspicion as to the cause of death. ‘The bigger the estate, the longer it takes. If lawyers are involved, my guess would be six months to a year. Anyway, fish around a bit and see what you can turn up. If you can find any large deposits following after a death certificate signed by the Doctor, and not associated with one of his foreign trips, look up the will.’

  ‘I used to think that I’d fancy CID,’ Dodson said. ‘Now I don’t think that I’d like it at all.’

  ‘I can quite see that you might prefer to spend the rest of your police career breathalysing motorists, mopping up the blood after fatal accidents or breaking the bad news to the doting mothers of bikers. Personally,’ Honey said, ‘I prefer a vocation that lets me use my brain and doesn’t put me in danger of physical assault quite so often. I was thinking of putting you forward for a transfer, but if you prefer it in Traffic, I shan’t bother.’

  ‘I’ll let you know when we’ve solved this one,’ Dodson said. But he was looking distinctly happier as he left.

  Honey reached for the telephone directory. There was only one Kristmeier listed and the initial was H. That made it a virtual certainty that this was the Harry Kristmeier who had worked for, and fallen out with, Dr McGordon. Honey tried the number but got an ‘unobtainable’ signal. She tried again and received an ‘engaged’ tone. ‘Third time lucky’, she told herself and tried once more. This time she was told by a disinterested, recorded voice of a female Dalek that the number she had dialled had not been recognised.

  Remaining determined that she would not call down a pox upon the heads and other parts of those who had buggered up the telephone service by streamlining it, she decided to try again later. Meantime she glanced at her watch and decided that she had time to look at any emails before her lunch would be due. There might even be something of interest. She set the computer to booting up, keyed in her service provider and told the computer to sign on. While it went through the motions she decided to check through Dodson’s neatly word-processed reports.

  A voice informed her that she had email. From the corner of her eye she saw the screen flicker. The panel had only one highlighted entry. Without allowing it to distract her, she clicked on ‘Read’ while continuing to do just that to Dodson’s reporting, which was as neat and economical as the presentation of it.

  The computer seemed to have taken a long time over accepting the email. She looked up, frowning. The message, from Canada, was short.

  The house at that address is occupied by two women. They are understood to be sisters. Neighbours advise that occupancy has not changed in at least the past year, possibly more. See attached photograph.

  A photograph would certainly explain the time taken for transmission of the email. She called up the attachment and looked again at Dodson’s reports. He had been thorough. He would be an asset to CID; he did not have to like it although she could tell, despite his grumbles, that in fact he was enjoying himself – he just hadn’t realised it yet. One success and he would be hooked.

  The photograph was nearing completion. It was a good photograph, clear and sharp although it appeared to have been taken through the windscreen of a car. It showed two women walking along a tree-lined street. The trees were maples, the few leaves still hanging on were brilliantly scarlet. There was what could be a family resemblance between the two women, but neither of them resembled Mrs McGordon as Honey remembered her. She sent a message of grateful acknowledgement and set the printer to reproducing an enlarged copy while she tried the Kristmeier number again without any increased success.

  She closed her eyes and put her head back while she considered the ramifications of what she had found out. An unsubstantiated accusation would provoke exactly the reaction that Superintendent Blackhouse was most anxious to avoid. Despite the mental turmoil, she began to doze. She snapped awake as June came in to say that her lunch was ready. Honey hurried to dab her face with cold water.

  A single place was laid, as usual, in the dining room. June put a dish of thin but savoury-smelling soup in front of her and said sullenly, ‘That was a terrible thing to tell the whole street.’

  Honey, once the initial temptation to laugh had passed, was now overcome by compunction. She was beginning to regret the impulse that had tempted her into taking June down a peg or two. ‘It was a simple tit-for-tat,’ she retorted. ‘You told Mrs Deakin that Mr Sandy and I were always kissing and cuddling when we thought your back was turned.’

  A foretaste of a smile struggled with the sulks on June’s round face. ‘Well, it was true.’

  ‘And it was just as true and just as misleading to say that you didn’t have any knickers on. So there!’ Hon
ey said triumphantly. ‘After lunch, I may want you to do an errand for me. I’ll try the phone number again and if I still don’t get an answer I want you to go to Leith Walk. See if you can get an answer from Mr Harry Kristmeier. If you catch him, ask him to contact me very urgently about a matter that he may find very interesting. In case you can’t find him but he still lives there, I’ll give you a letter to leave for him.’

  ‘I’ll go while you have your rest,’ June said. Her tone made it clear that she was making a major concession and thereby heaping coals of fire. She removed the soup bowl and put down a plate of cold meat and salad. Honey would have preferred something hot and greasy with curry.

  Lunch finished, she tried the number again and then ran off a letter to H Kristmeier. With the letter dispatched in the care of June, she composed herself on the couch for her afternoon rest. Suppose, she thought, that the Doctor had indeed disposed of his wife. In the statistics of known murderers, doctors had a significant place; but a doctor was so advantageously placed for successful and unrecognised murder that many times that number might be guilty. But how would a doctor dispose of a body? The preferred answer would be to let it be a body that had apparently died of natural causes. Why had Dr McGordon not chosen this route? Perhaps the fact that he had been known to have quarrelled with her had, in his opinion, made that method unsafe. What then?

  Honey had been looking at the problem through the Doctor’s eyes. Looking at it instead with the eyes of the undertaker she realised that, if invited to deal with a body that came complete with a proper death certificate, the undertaker would not enquire whether the house from which he was hired to transport the body was rented or the identity of the deceased real. If the other formalities, such as the funeral service and the grave, had been properly completed he would go ahead. Even the grave would be unnecessary in the event of a cremation, the ashes being delivered into the hands of the suitably downcast Doctor who had then no doubt allowed them to blow into the Forth. Dulcie McGordon might well be resting under a fictitious headstone in some large and impersonal graveyard on the further side of Edinburgh – Leith and Musselburgh sprang immediately to mind – or polluting the beaches around the Neuk of Fife.

  Having thus drowsily resolved the entire mystery, Honey fell asleep. She seemed to fall asleep now at the drop of almost anything. She was doing everything else for two, why not sleeping? The sound of the front door, closing on June’s return, woke her. She called out and June put her head round the door. ‘He still lives there but the lady next door told me that he was at his work,’ she said. ‘There must be something about him, because I could almost see her knees shaking when she said his name. Anyway, I left the letter.’

  ‘Thank you, June.’

  ‘And you have an appointment with Dr Gillespie at two-thirty. I’ll drive you.’

  ‘Ring up and cancel it.’

  ‘That,’ June said defiantly, ‘I won’t do. You’re near your time and you’d be mad not to have your gynie check-up. My cousin didn’t bother and she ended up having a breech birth behind the English goal at a rugby match at Murrayfield. So just you be ready in ten minutes or I’ll phone Mr Sandy to come and deal with you.’

  One glance at the other’s face assured Honey that this was not the usual half-joking clash of wills. June meant it. What was worse was that June was right for once. She fetched her coat.

  *

  ‘Everything seems to be in order,’ said the Doctor. ‘There was nothing untoward in your last scan. She has all her fingers and toes and nothing that shouldn’t be there. All the signs are for an easy birth and a perfect baby.’

  ‘How long now?’

  ‘You’d have to ask God or Mother Nature that one. Your baby’s in position but the head isn’t engaged. Not today and not more than a week. Two at the most. When the tummy-aches start I’ll give you a closer estimate.’ Dr Gillespie rather fancied herself as a down-to-earth, motherly, old-fashioned doctor jollying her patients along. Honey disliked the attitude but Dr Gillespie was a very good obstetrician so she stayed with her.

  Honey had had to wait while the Doctor returned from attending a lady who had decided to begin a difficult birth considerably ahead of her time. Whether a birth should properly take precedence over a murder was, in Honey’s mind, a moot point. Death, after all, was a fait accompli whereas it was still possible to do something about a birth. June brought her home in darkness and during the evening rush hour, to find PC Dodson waiting astride his motorbike and a message on the answerphone to say that Sandy would be late again and would eat out.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ Honey told Dodson, ‘and I expect you’re the same. Unless you have other plans, you may as well stay and eat with me and we’ll bring each other up to date.’

  Dodson only had time to nod before June said, ‘Dinner in thirty minutes,’ and vanished in the direction of the kitchen.

  ‘I don’t know how she does it,’ Honey said, ‘but if we don’t sit down within thirty minutes, the food will be cold. I feel grubby. I’m going to have a shower and change. Enjoy the hospitality of the downstairs toilet and then watch the telly or something.’

  When she came downstairs again, much refreshed, he was watching a Forensic File on Sky TV. They sat down within the thirty minutes. Honey noted with appreciation that June had done chops under the grill, small boiled potatoes, mixed vegetables from the freezer, and while the chops grilled and the potatoes boiled she had laid a perfect table. For that kind of service, Honey decided, she would put up with some impertinence.

  ‘You still have to ride your motorbike,’ she told Dodson, ‘so I won’t offer you spirits. I’m going to have a small glass of wine well watered, which is all that I’m allowed until the baby’s weaned. In fact, I’m not even supposed to have that, but when I made it clear that I was not going to take dinner without at least a taste of a decent claret, I got that much of a concession. June measures it out and waters it. I could probably get more of a buzz out of a pot of jam that’s gone past its sell-by date, but it wouldn’t have the flavour. You can have the same or a can of a mild beer.’

  Dodson chose beer. Honey sipped her diluted wine. She had rather gone off the taste of wine but had no intention of sacrificing it under pressure. When the first hunger pangs were satisfied she said, ‘You may as well go first. How did you get on today?’

  ‘Abysmally. If there’s any kind of correlation between death certificates and deposits, I can’t find it. Of course, it’s possible that he’s managed to confuse the issue, for instance by holding back a cheque for months before paying it in. Or he might have avoided cash altogether by recognising something valuable and saying, “If you really want to thank me, you could always leave me your Ming chamberpot,” and then selling the gesunder for cash. Or he might have another account under a different name. But I can see all sorts of complications. He’d probably find it easier to cook up some really good explanations for the taxman. He couldn’t really be worried that somebody might be looking for a connection, could he?’

  Honey had finished her chop while he spoke. ‘Probably not,’ she said. ‘Let the legacy question stick to the wall for now. If he’s knocking off his patients, he may be doing it for the feeling of God-like power or out of a misguided belief in mercy killing. But we’ve no evidence of any such thing and I don’t see any way to get such evidence without causing a ruckus.’

  ‘If we come by one scrap of evidence . . .’ Dodson began.

  ‘That would be different. A whole new ball game, as the gentlemen across the pond insist on saying. In that unlikely eventuality, I’ll ask Mr Blackhouse to come out of the closet and insist on one or more exhumations. I’m sure he won’t do it, but I’ll ask anyway, in writing, just to put myself in the clear. What we do have is an email that came in today, from Canada, including a photograph of the two women who have been occupying the sister’s house for at least a year. They’re said to be sisters, which would fit. But neither of the women in the photograph bears much resemblance to the Mrs
McGordon that I remember.’

  ‘Wow!’ Dodson was silent while June removed their plates, replacing them with dishes of hot apple tart and ice cream. When they were private again he said, ‘Surely that’s the evidence that you were wanting.’

  ‘You think so? Think some more about it. We have an email from somebody I don’t know enclosing a photograph of two unidentified women and suggesting that they’ve been the occupants of a certain house. We don’t know for sure that Mrs McGordon ever went there, or she may have gone for a very short visit and moved on. It really needs somebody to go out to Canada, and I don’t see a hope in hell, if you’ll pardon my French, of that being authorised.’

  ‘Then how do we check it out?’

  Honey explained the reasoning that had been running through her mind that afternoon. ‘I think that that’s the direction in which a doctor’s mind would work. Our first step is to go over the list of death certificates from the date when Dulcie McGordon left here. Then you check out the burials for those few months.’

  Dodson produced a tatty and dog-eared printout from an inner pocket. ‘There could be rather a lot,’ he said doubtfully.

  ‘Not as many as that,’ said Honey. ‘Cross off all the male ones – the undertaker would surely have noticed a sudden change of sex. And a death certificate records the age of the deceased, so you can cross off anybody outside the bracket thirty-five to sixty. And he wouldn’t want a hearse calling next door just after telling everybody that his wife had run off. He could put her in a box or roll her in a carpet and move her himself. But he couldn’t keep her around for longer than it would take to find a house or flat to rent and move the body. Start from the date of her departure and work forward for a few weeks. Look for anything unusual but, as I said, he couldn’t have a funeral cortege leave from next door. Look at the addresses in the death certificates for houses or flats that were to rent furnished at the time. And no,’ she added in answer to Dodson’s look of bafflement, ‘I don’t know how. I can’t think of any short cuts. You’re the one with disreputable friends and a knack of wheedling information out of impressionable young women. Meanwhile, I’ll see who I can find who really knew Mrs McGordon. More coffee?’