The Chemistry of Death

by Simon Beckett

  The police inspector was a squat, pugnacious man called Mackenzie. Perhaps a year or two older than me, the first thing I noticed about him were his abnormally large shoulders. The lower part of his body seemed out of proportion in comparison; short legs tapered to absurdly dainty feet. It would have given him the appearance of a cartoon bodybuilder if not for the blurring line of his gut, and a threatening aura of impatience that made it impossible to take him anything less than seriously.

  I’d waited by the car while Mackenzie and a plain-clothed sergeant had gone to look at the dog. They’d seemed unhurried, almost unconcerned as they strolled over. But the fact that a chief inspector from the Major Investigation Team was here instead of uniformed officers was a sign this was being taken seriously.

  He’d come back over to me while the sergeant had gone inside the house to check the rooms. ‘So tell me again why you came.’

  He smelled of aftershave and sweat, and, faintly, of mint. His sunburned scalp flamed through his thinning red hair, but if he felt any discomfort at standing out in the sun he didn’t show it.

  ‘I was nearby. I thought I’d call round.’

  ‘Social call, was it?’

  ‘I just wanted to make sure she was all right.’

  I wasn’t going to bring Linda Yates into it unless I had to. As her doctor I had to suppose she’d told me what she had in confidence, and I didn’t think a policeman would put much stock in a dream anyway. I should have known better myself. Except that, irrational or not, Sally wasn’t here.

  ‘When was the last time you saw Miss Palmer?’ Mackenzie asked.

  I thought back. ‘Not for a couple of weeks.’

  ‘Can you narrow it down more than that?’

  ‘I remember seeing her in the pub for the summer barbecue about two weeks ago. She was there then.’

  ‘With you?’

  ‘No. But we spoke.’ Briefly. Hi, how are you? Fine, see you later. Hardly meaningful, as last words go. If that’s what they were, I reminded myself. But I no longer had any doubt.

  ‘And after not seeing her since then you suddenly decided to come round today.’

  ‘I’d just heard a body had been found. I wanted to check that she was all right.’

  ‘What makes you so sure the body is a woman’s?’

  ‘I’m not. But I didn’t think it would hurt to make sure Sally was OK.’

  ‘What’s your relationship?’

  ‘Friends, I suppose.’

  ‘Close?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘You sleeping with her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Been sleeping with her?’

  I wanted to tell him to mind his own business. But that’s what he was doing. Privacy didn’t count for much in these situations, I knew that well enough.

  ‘No.’

  He stared at me without saying anything. I looked back at him. After a moment he took a packet of mints from his pocket. As he unhurriedly put one in his mouth I noticed the odd-shaped mole on his neck.

  He put the mints back without offering me one. ‘So you weren’t in a relationship with her? Just good friends, is that it?’

  ‘We knew each other, that’s all.’

  ‘But you still felt compelled to come out to see if she was all right. No-one else.’

  ‘She lives out here by herself. It’s pretty isolated even by our standards.’

  ‘Why didn’t you phone her?’

  That stopped me. ‘It didn’t occur to me.’

  ‘Does she have a mobile?’ I told him she did. ‘Do you have her number?’

  It was in my phone memory. I scrolled to it, knowing what he was going to ask and feeling stupid for not having thought of it myself.

  ‘Shall I ring it?’ I offered, before he could say anything.

  ‘Why don’t you?’

  I could feel him watching me as I waited for the connection to be made. I wondered what I would say if she answered. But I didn’t really think she would.

  The bedroom window opened in the house. The police sergeant leaned out.

  ‘Sir, there’s a phone ringing in a handbag.’

  We could hear it faintly from behind him, a tinkling electronic tune. I rang off. In the house the notes stopped. Mackenzie nodded to him. ‘All right, it was just us. Carry on.’

  The sergeant disappeared. Mackenzie rubbed his chin. ‘Doesn’t prove anything,’ he said.

  I didn’t answer.

  He sighed. ‘Christ, this bloody heat.’ It was the first sign he’d given that it bothered him. ‘Come on, let’s get out of the sun.’

  We went to stand in the shadow of the house.

  ‘Do you know of any family?’ he asked. ‘Anyone who might know where Miss Palmer is?’

  ‘Not really. She inherited this place, but as far as I know she doesn’t have any more family in the area.’

  ‘How about friends? Apart from yourself.’

  There might have been a barb there, but it was difficult to tell. ‘She knew people in the village. But I don’t know of anyone in particular.’

  ‘Boyfriends?’ he asked, watching for my reaction.

  ‘I wouldn’t know. Sorry.’

  He grunted, looking at his watch.

  ‘So what happens next?’ I asked. ‘Will you check if the DNA from the body matches a sample from the house?’

  He regarded me. ‘You seem to know a lot about it.’

  I could feel my face reddening. ‘Not really.’

  I was glad when he didn’t pursue it. ‘We don’t know this is a crime scene yet anyway. We’ve got a woman who may or may not be missing, that’s all. There’s nothing to link her to the body that’s been found.’

  ‘What about the dog?’

  ‘Could have been killed by another animal.’

  ‘From what I could see the wound in its throat looks like a cut, not a tear. It was made by a sharp edge.’

  Again he gave me that appraising look, and I kicked myself for saying too much. I was a doctor now. Nothing else. ‘I’ll see what the forensic boys say,’ he told me. ‘But even if it was, she could have killed it herself.’

  ‘You don’t really think that.’

  He seemed about to retort, then thought better of it. ‘No. No, I don’t. But I’m not going to jump to conclusions, either.’

  The house door opened. The sergeant emerged, giving a shake of his head. ‘Nothing. But the lights had been left on in the hallway and lounge.’

  Mackenzie nodded, as if that were what he’d expected. He turned to me. ‘We’ll not keep you any longer, Dr Hunter. Someone’ll be around to get your statement. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t talk about this to anyone.’

  ‘Of course not.’ I tried not to feel annoyed that he’d even asked. He was turning away, speaking with the sergeant. I started to go, then hesitated.

  ‘Just one thing,’ I said. He glanced at me, irritably. ‘That mole on your neck. It’s probably nothing, but it might not hurt to get it checked out.’

  I left them staring after me as I went back to the car.

  I drove back to the village feeling numbed. The road cut past Manham Water, the shallow lake or ‘broad’ that each year lost a little more of itself to the encroaching reedbeds. Its surface was mirror still, fragmented only by a flight of geese that descended onto it. Neither the lake nor the choked creeks and dykes that cut through the marshes to it were navigable, and with no river close to the village Manham was bypassed by the boat and tourist traffic that descended on the rest of the Broads during summer. Although only a few miles separated it from its neighbours, it seemed to belong to a different part of Norfolk, older and less hospitable. Surrounded by woodland, boglike fens and poorly drained marshland, it was a literal as well as figurative backwater. Apart from the occasional birdwatcher the village was left to itself, sinking further into its isolation like an antisocial old man.

  Perversely, this evening Manham looked almost cheery in the sunshine. The flowerbeds in the church and vil
lage green were like punches of colour, so bright they hurt. They were one of Manham’s few sources of pride, scrupulously maintained by old George Mason and his grandson Tom, the two gardeners I’d met when I’d first arrived. On the edge of the green, even the Martyr’s Stone had been garlanded with flowers by the local schoolchildren. It was an annual event, decorating the old millstone where in the sixteenth century a woman had supposedly been stoned to death by her neighbours. The story went that she’d cured an infant of some palsy, only to be accused of witchcraft. Henry joked that only Manham could martyr someone for doing a good turn, and claimed there was a lesson there for both of us.

  I didn’t feel like going home, so I headed for the surgery. I often went there, even when I didn’t have to. At times my cottage could feel lonely, whereas at the big house there was always at least the illusion of work, if nothing else. I let myself into the back door that led into the self-contained clinic. An old conservatory, dense and humid with plants that Janice lovingly tended, served as a reception and waiting room. Part of the ground floor had been converted into Henry’s private living quarters. But that was at the other end of the house, which was more than big enough to accommodate all of us. I’d taken over his old consulting room, and as I closed the door behind me the scent of old wood and beeswax was calming. Even though I’d been using it almost every day since I’d arrived it was still more a distillation of Henry’s personality than mine, with its old hunting oil, roll-top desk and leather-seated captain’s chair. The bookshelves were filled with his old medical books and journals, as well as less obvious subjects for a village GP. There were texts by Kant and Nietzsche, and an entire shelf given over to psychology—one of Henry’s hobby-horses. My only contribution to the room was the computer monitor that hummed quietly on the desk, an innovation Henry had disgruntledly acquiesced to after months of persuasion.

  He never had recovered enough to return to work full-time. Like his wheelchair, my temporary contract had developed into something more permanent. It had been first extended, then changed into a partnership when it became apparent that he would no longer be able to run the practice solo. Even the old Land Rover Defender I now drove had once been his. It was a battered old automatic, bought after the car crash that had left him a paraplegic and killed his wife Diana. Buying it had been a statement of intent, when he still clung to the hope of being able to drive—and walk—again. But he never had. Or ever would, the doctors had assured him.

  ‘Idiots. Put someone in a white coat and they think they’re God,’ he’d scoffed.

  Eventually, though, even Henry had to accept that they were right. And so I’d inherited not just the Land Rover, but bit by bit most of the practice as well. We’d split the workload more or less equally to begin with, but increasingly more and more of it had been left to me. That didn’t stop him remaining ‘the proper doctor’ in most people’s eyes, but I’d given up minding long ago. I was still a newcomer as far as Manham was concerned, and probably always would be.

  Now, in the late-afternoon heat, I tried visiting a few medical websites, but my heart wasn’t in it. I stood up and went to open the French windows. The fan on my desk whirred, noisily stirring the turgid air without cooling it. Even with the windows open, the difference was purely psychological. I stared out across the neatly tended garden. Like everything else it was parched; shrubs and grass almost visibly withering in the heat. The lake ran right up to the garden’s border, with only a low embankment as protection from the inevitable winter flooding. Moored to a small jetty was Henry’s old dinghy. It was little more than a glorified rowing boat, but Manham Water wasn’t deep enough for anything else. It was hardly the Solent, and there were still areas that were too shallow or clogged with reeds to venture into, but both of us enjoyed going out on it even so.

  There was no chance of raising a sail today, though. The lake was so still there was no movement at all. From this angle there was only a scribble of distant reeds separating it from the sky. All was flatness and water, an emptiness that, depending on your mood, could be either restful or desolate.

  I didn’t find it restful now.

  ‘Thought I heard you.’

  I turned as Henry wheeled himself into the room. ‘Just sorting out a few things,’ I said, pulling my thoughts back from where they’d wandered.

  ‘Like a bloody oven in here,’ he muttered, stopping in front of the fan. Except for the non-use of his legs he looked the picture of health; creamy-white hair over a tanned face and keen dark eyes.

  ‘So what’s this about the Yates boys finding a body? Janice was full of it when she brought my lunch.’

  Most Sundays Janice would deliver a covered plate with whatever she’d cooked for herself. Henry insisted he was capable of cooking Sunday lunch himself, but I noticed he rarely put up much of a struggle. Janice was a good cook, and I suspected her feelings for Henry went beyond those of housekeeper. Unmarried herself, I guessed her disapproval of his late wife stemmed mainly from jealousy, although she’d hinted more than once at some old scandal. I’d made it clear I didn’t want to know. Even if Henry’s marriage hadn’t been the idyllic affair he now seemed to recall, I’d no interest in raking over the bones of gossip.

  But I wasn’t surprised that Janice knew about the body. Half the village would be buzzing with the news by now.

  ‘Over by Farnham Wood,’ I told him.

  ‘Some birdwatcher, probably. Yomping around with a backpack in this heat.’

  ‘Probably.’

  His dark eyebrows went up at my tone. ‘What, then? Don’t tell me we might have a murder? That’d liven things up a bit!’ His smile faded when I didn’t join in. ‘Something tells me I shouldn’t joke about it.’

  I told him about my visit to Sally Palmer’s house, hoping talking about it might make it seem less of a possibility. It didn’t.

  ‘Good Christ,’ Henry said heavily, when I’d finished. ‘And the police think it might be her?’

  ‘They didn’t say one way or the other. I don’t suppose they can, yet.’

  ‘God, what a bloody thing to happen.’

  ‘It might not be her.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ he agreed. But I could see he didn’t believe it any more than I did. ‘Well, I don’t know about you, but I could do with a drink.’

  ‘Thanks, but I’ll give it a miss.’

  ‘Saving yourself for the Lamb later?’

  The Black Lamb was the village’s only pub. I often went there, but I knew that this evening the main topic of conversation wouldn’t be one I wanted to join in.

  ‘No, I think I’ll just stay at home tonight,’ I told him.

  My house was an old stone cottage on the outskirts of the village. I’d bought it when it became obvious I’d be staying longer than six months after all. Henry had told me I was welcome to stay with him, and God knows Bank House was certainly big enough. Its wine cellar alone could have swallowed my cottage. But I’d been ready to move in to my own place, to feel I was putting down permanent roots rather than continue as a lodger. And as much as I enjoyed my new work, I didn’t want to live with it. There were times when it was still good to be able to close the door and walk away, and hope the phone didn’t ring for a few hours at least.

  This was one of them. A few people were drifting up the churchyard path for the evening service as I drove by on my way home. Scarsdale, the vicar, was in the church doorway. He was an elderly, dour man I couldn’t pretend to like very much. But he’d been here for years and had a loyal, if small, congregation. I raised my hand to acknowledge Judith Sutton, a widow who lived with her adult son Rupert, an overweight hulk who always trudged along two paces behind his overbearing mother. She was talking to Lee and Marjory Goodchild, a prim couple of hypochondriacs who were regulars at the surgery. They regarded me as on-call twenty-four hours a day, and I hoped I wouldn’t be flagged down now for an impromptu consultation.

  But this evening neither they nor anyone else stopped me. I parked on the ba
ked earth at the side of the cottage and let myself in. It was stuffy inside. I opened the windows as wide as they’d go and helped myself to a beer from the fridge. I might not have wanted to go to the Lamb, but I still needed a drink. In fact, realizing just how badly I needed one, I put the beer back and poured myself a gin and tonic instead.

  I broke some ice into the glass, added a wedge of lemon and drank it at the small wooden table in the back garden. It looked out across a field on to woods, but if the view wasn’t as spectacular as from the surgery, neither was it quite such a daunting landscape. I took my time over the gin, then cooked myself an omelette and ate it outside. The heat was finally ebbing from the day. I sat at the table as the sky slowly deepened and the stars began making their first hesitant appearance. I thought about what was going on a few miles away. The activity there would now be around the once peaceful stretch of country where the Yates boys had made their discovery. I tried to visualize Sally Palmer safe and laughing somewhere, as if thinking about it would make it so. But for some reason I couldn’t hold a picture of her in my mind.

  Putting off the moment when I would have to go to bed and face sleep, I stayed there until the sky had darkened to velvet indigo, pierced by the brilliant flickering of stars, a random semaphore of long-dead flecks of light.

  I jerked awake, sweat-drenched and gasping. I stared around, with no idea where I was. Then awareness draped itself on me again. I was naked, standing by the open bedroom window, its lower edge pressing into my thighs as I leaned out into space. I backed away, unsteadily, and sat on the bed. Its crumpled white sheets were almost luminous in the moonlight. The tears dried slowly on my face as I waited for my heart to slow back to normal.

  I’d had the dream again.

  It had been a bad one. As always, it had been so vivid that waking seemed like the illusion, my dream the reality. That was the cruellest part. Because in the dreams Kara and Alice, my wife and six-year-old daughter, were still alive. I could still see them, speak to them. Touch them. In the dreams I could believe we still had a future, not just a past.