Amendment of Life

by Catherine Aird

  ‘She did afterwards,’ said Dr Chomel. ‘That was part of the trouble—’

  ‘Trouble?’ queried Detective Inspector Sloan, his head coming up like that of a bloodhound sniffing a scent.

  ‘There was a whole load of guilt washing about in the family,’ said the young doctor moderately. ‘Knowing that the child had inherited the disease from either herself or her husband. Inevitable, I suppose.’ She hesitated. ‘I can tell you that it worried Mrs Collins a lot – watching James suffer from something that one of them had given him.’

  ‘Not easy,’ agreed Sloan. ‘Even though there was obviously no intention of inflicting harm.’ The ‘guilty mind’ was the acid test in police work. Someone who was killed by another, who had not intended to do so, had not been murdered – and that went for the victims of crimes committed by those not responsible for their actions. They were still dead, of course, but that was something different.

  ‘It was one of the things we talked about yesterday,’ she said awkwardly. ‘I tried to explain that as the disease wasn’t something that either of them had intended to pass on – or could even have known about – they shouldn’t try to shoulder the blame for James having it, but I don’t think she really listened.’

  Something in this caught Detective Constable Crosby’s wayward attention. He suddenly launched into Latin. ‘Not a case of mens rea, then,’ he said brightly.

  ‘Mens rea?’ she echoed uncertainly.

  ‘That’s what the lawyers call that, don’t they?’ the Constable said. ‘An evil intention behind the action. They didn’t have that, the parents.’

  ‘Mens rea means having a guilty mind,’ explained Sloan to the doctor, ‘or a knowledge of the wrongfulness of the act. It’s important in some legal cases.’

  ‘Not breaking the speed limit,’ put in Detective Constable Crosby, whose great ambition it was to be transferred to Traffic Division. ‘It doesn’t help that you didn’t mean to do it then. If you’ve been speeding, it’s open and shut.’

  ‘The parents couldn’t have known,’ the doctor said seriously, sticking to what she knew and understood, ‘not unless it had been present in either family before.’

  ‘I suppose, then, that it therefore follows’, said Detective Inspector Sloan ineluctably, ‘that in due course James could pass on those genes, too.’

  ‘There would be a risk, of course,’ she said uneasily. ‘And that was another of the things which was upsetting poor Mrs Collins yesterday.’

  ‘I should say so,’ burst out Crosby.

  Yesterday was what had been in Detective Inspector Sloan’s mind all along, but he did not say so.

  ‘But it would be a quantifiable risk,’ insisted the doctor.

  ‘So’s the Lottery,’ remarked Crosby.

  ‘As presumably would be the chances of the Collinses having another child with the same condition,’ said Sloan, anxious to get the matter clear in his own mind, at the same time as hoping that Superintendent Leeyes would not want it explained in too much detail.

  ‘Shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, if you ask me,’ muttered Detective Crosby under his breath.

  The doctor nodded. ‘There is always a small risk, but as you may imagine genetic counselling is notoriously difficult in this field,’ she said. ‘And you need highly sophisticated DNA analysis to do it properly.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ said Sloan warmly.

  ‘That may have been done, of course,’ said the girl. ‘I wouldn’t necessarily have been informed about that. It would have been between Mr Collins and his own doctor.’

  Crosby had lost interest altogether after the mention of DNA.

  ‘Both parents were given genetic counselling as soon as James’s condition was diagnosed, though it isn’t easy.’ She hesitated. ‘I don’t think I am in a position to say more than that…’ She looked round as a banshee wail came from a small girl who had spotted the approach of a hypodermic needle. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me,’ she said.

  ‘We can go too now, sir, can’t we?’ said Detective Constable Crosby anxiously.

  ‘I did suggest Mrs Collins saw her own doctor,’ called Dr Chomel over her shoulder as she hurried away, ‘about getting some sleeping tablets.’

  Chapter Ten

  ‘We had to let the husband go earlier,’ explained Superintendent Leeyes regretfully when Sloan got back to the police station in Berebury.

  ‘He was only reporting Margaret Collins missing, sir,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan fairly. ‘Nothing more.’

  ‘That’s as may be,’ said Leeyes.

  ‘Quite so, sir,’ said Sloan. He forbore to remind the Superintendent that merely reporting anything was not yet a chargeable offence in anyone’s eyes but his. Not in England, anyway. He couldn’t answer for some police states.

  ‘You’d better take this,’ said Leeyes, waving a piece of paper in front of him. ‘You’ll need it.’

  Sloan read over the written report of what David Collins had told the police about his wife’s disappearance.

  Leeyes sniffed. ‘The man said he was going back to work and that they’d know where to find him if we wanted him.’

  ‘They did know,’ said Sloan. ‘We wanted him to take a look at the body of this woman who’s been found in the maze at Aumerle Court.’

  ‘No grounds to detain him on, of course,’ carried on the Superintendent, for whom it was axiomatic that all husbands were guilty of killing their deceased wives unless it could be demonstrated otherwise. ‘Not at this stage anyway.’

  ‘We had every reason, though, to suppose that the body found in the maze is that of his wife,’ said Sloan, ‘in that she answers to his description of her.’ He had taken a conscious decision to bide his time before he conducted an indepth interview with Captain Prosser. One military aphorism that he was sure about was that time spent in reconnaissance was seldom wasted. ‘But we needed a positive identification as soon as possible, sir, and we got it from the husband. Dr Dabbe is on his way back to the hospital now to do the post-mortem.’

  Leeyes grunted. ‘And what does our friendly neighbourhood pathologist have to say so far?’

  ‘Dr Dabbe isn’t willing, sir, to be dogmatic about the time of death until after he’s performed the postmortem.’

  Superintendent Leeyes puffed out his cheeks. ‘You won’t ever catch him being helpful, Sloan.’ The Superintendent suspected the opinions of all specialists on principle.

  ‘But he’s prepared to narrow it down to after the victim was last seen alive.’ He didn’t know yet whether the woman was a victim of someone else or herself – or just of intolerable pressure.

  ‘And to just before she was found dead, I suppose, as usual?’ interrupted Leeyes sardonically.

  ‘And to over twelve hours ago,’ finished Sloan patiently. It meant that the woman had been dead before ten o’clock that night before, which it was helpful, in police terms, to know.

  ‘That means we’re talking about yesterday, Sloan.’

  ‘Sunday,’ agreed Sloan, not sure where this was leading.

  ‘Bad day for family relationships, Sunday,’ opined the Superintendent. His own Sundays were invariably spent on the golf course. ‘If the woman was driven over the edge, that is.’

  ‘We can’t say about that yet, sir.’

  ‘How did Dr Dabbe get in and out of the maze without being airborne?’

  ‘Dyson and Williams solved that one for us, sir.’ The two men were the police photographers. ‘They had a tall ladder with them. Apparently they never travel without it. We could all see where we were going a treat after that.’ He had already realized both that there must have been tall ladders around at Aumerle Court when the yew was cut and, more importantly, that Captain Prosser had not seen fit to mention the fact to the police.

  Nor, come to that, had the two workmen, who presumably did the cutting. It was something else to think about and he made a mental note of the fact.

  ‘By the way, Sloan,’ said Leeyes,
‘you can stand Crosby down. That goat that was stolen out Staple St James way,’ he looked down at his desk, ‘name of Aries … funny name for a goat—’

  ‘Someone’s pet, then,’ deduced Sloan without difficulty. ‘And a ram.’

  ‘Really? I don’t know how you can tell. Well, it’s been found safe and sound – but a bit hungry – over at the Minster in Calleford. Tethered in the garden of one of the houses in the Close.’

  ‘Someone’s idea of a joke, I suppose,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan wearily. Jokes never went down well with policemen busy on weightier matters such as death and detection.

  ‘What we have to be grateful for, Sloan,’ said Police Superintendent Leeyes with deep feeling, ‘is that the animal rights’ activists do not appear to have been involved.’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ said Sloan, deciding not to mention those who took against anthropomorphology and thus the naming of animals. He had too much on his mind just now to worry about either a goat called Aries or people who thought attributing human characteristics and names to pet animals demeaned the creature. Besides, down in the cells they had some prisoners whose behaviour wouldn’t have been countenanced by any right-thinking goat. ‘I’ll tell Crosby that, sir. We’re going over to the post-mortem now.’

  * * *

  ‘Do come along in, gentlemen,’ said Dr Dabbe, the consultant pathologist to the Berebury and District General Hospital, welcoming Sloan and Crosby to the mortuary there, ‘and we’ll see what we can tell you about the deceased, won’t we, Burns?’

  Burns merely nodded. The taciturnity of the pathologist’s laboratory assistant was legendary.

  Detective Constable Crosby, who did not enjoy attending post-mortem examinations, positioned himself as far away as he could from the figure on the metal slab. Detective Inspector Sloan took up a stance at what he regarded as a decent distance and studied the dead woman carefully from there.

  ‘Everything’s ready for you now, Doctor,’ murmured Burns, mercifully unspecific as to detail.

  ‘We have here’, Dr Dabbe began speaking into a microphone suspended above the examination table, ‘the body of a young woman aged…’ The pathologist looked across at the Detective Inspector. ‘Do we know how old she was, Sloan? No sense in guessing if we know.’

  ‘The husband says she was twenty-five,’ replied Sloan carefully. The Superintendent would never accept an unsupported statement from Sloan or anyone else. As far as he was concerned, it was always hearsay until proved otherwise.

  ‘Twenty-five … and the body has, I am informed,’ said Dr Dabbe, resuming his reporting mode of speech into the microphone, ‘been identified by the said husband as that of Mrs Margaret Collins.’

  ‘Turned a nasty shade of grey when he said it was her, David Collins did,’ put in Detective Constable Crosby gratuitously from the sidelines. ‘He went nearly as pale as she is now when we showed her to him.’

  ‘I thought he was going to flop on us,’ admitted Detective Inspector Sloan. ‘People do, of course.’ That was when the police had to watch very carefully. There were those who thought that a genuine faint could easily be copied by the conscious, but it couldn’t always.

  ‘He was sweating, too,’ added Crosby. It was one of the things he’d been taught to watch out for especially in anyone he was interviewing. ‘They say you can’t fake sweat.’

  ‘Very true, but each to his own,’ said Dr Dabbe, himself a man almost devoid of human reactions. ‘The husband’s your province, Constable, not mine.’ The pathologist gave a wolfish grin. ‘Remember, I only deal with the dead.’

  ‘Quite so, Doctor,’ put in Sloan. He often wished the same could be said of the police. The dead never attacked them.

  ‘And I am advised that the deceased is thought to have been missing from half-past four yesterday afternoon,’ continued Dr Dabbe, resuming his address to the microphone. He winked at his assistant. ‘We like having a terminus ab quo and a terminus ad quem, don’t we, Burns?’

  ‘It helps, Doctor.’

  ‘Gives us all something to go on,’ agreed Detective Inspector Sloan. He had learned to be thankful for small police mercies …

  ‘Saves a lot of work, too, if she was reported missing early on,’ said Dr Dabbe.

  ‘Not all that early on, Doctor,’ said Sloan. ‘Not until the middle of this morning, actually. By the husband, though.’ If, thought Sloan irreverently to himself, the pathologist had been about to perform the legendary magician’s act of sawing a woman in half on stage, he could hardly have set the scene better, even to the microphone suspended above the post-mortem table into which he was speaking now.

  ‘Slightly built, well groomed and somewhat underweight for her height.’ Dr Dabbe grinned and turned away from the microphone in an aside. ‘We don’t get many underweight women here, Inspector, unless they’re anorexics or addicts – on the contrary, in fact. That right, Burns?’

  ‘Yes, Doctor,’ responded Burns dutifully.

  ‘For heavyweight you can often read deadweight,’ said the doctor pithily.

  ‘Make a good slogan for slimming food, that would,’ said Crosby from the sidelines, grateful for any diversion.

  ‘Adequately nourished, though, all the same,’ pronounced the pathologist, carrying on considering the dead woman’s contours with the calculating eye of a sculptor. ‘Rather a shapely figure, I should say. Good ankles and all that.’ He jerked his head towards the microphone in an aside to an unknown secretary. ‘Don’t put that in the report, Beryl.’

  Sloan registered this and nodded, his mind wandering away again. He was actually wondering how accurately he could have described his own wife had it been she who had been missing. For one thing, he would have to state from the first that she, too, was well nourished. Mrs Sloan, there was no denying it, favoured Chaucer’s Prioress in being ‘by no means undergrown’.

  ‘No signs of recent dieting visible on the skin,’ Dr Dabbe was noting into the microphone again. ‘And no macroscopic evidence of gross injury.’

  ‘We know the deceased had been very anxious and worried lately about her son, who had had to have a serious operation,’ offered Sloan. ‘Comfortable’ would have been how he would have had to describe his own wife’s figure, although she wouldn’t have wanted him to say anything about love handles, for sure: would have been very cross if he had … but not if she was dead and they needed to know why. It might be important then. Death changed things. This woman – Margaret Collins – wouldn’t – couldn’t – possibly mind how she was described. Not now …

  The pathologist was looking carefully at the deceased’s fingernails. ‘Manicured and not broken,’ he said, taking samples of scrapings from under the nails. He stepped back and scrutinized the whole body. ‘In fact, no external signs of injury at all except to the face—’

  ‘Ah, the face,’ said Sloan. He’d noticed the blood on the woman’s face himself while she was still in the maze.

  ‘A bruised nose and some post-mortem bleeding,’ said Dabbe. ‘See how the blood hasn’t travelled far?’ He bent forward. ‘Distribution consistent with the deceased having fallen forward face downwards on a hard surface after death—’

  ‘Stone,’ supplied Crosby.

  ‘On which, as you saw, she was spreadeagled somewhat artistically,’ Sloan reminded the pathologist.

  ‘In front of the Minotaur himself,’ said Dr Dabbe. ‘Saw please, Burns.’

  Crosby shut his eyes.

  ‘Thank you.’ The pathologist took the surgical saw and started to work away at the deceased’s cranium. ‘There’s a divinity, Sloan, that shapes our ends, roughhew them how we will.’

  ‘Yes, Doctor,’ said Sloan, agreeing with the general principle, even if some magistrates weren’t so sure. They still believed that defendants had been masters of their own fates since birth.

  ‘Some suicidal women take a lot of care about how they’re going to look when they’re found, you know.’

  ‘Yes, Doctor.’ That was something Sloan was a
ware of. The doctrine of free will was less certain. It was all very well for the courts to assign all the responsibility to the individual, but it wasn’t like that in real life.

  ‘Do anything for effect, if they have a mind to it, the ladies,’ went on Dr Dabbe mordantly. ‘If they’ve taken an overdose, that is, of course.’

  ‘Pride is sometimes one of the last of the seven deadly sins to go,’ observed Detective Inspector Sloan, trying to remember something in a moralistic play which his church-going mother had made him read when young. Pride hadn’t featured at all at Everyman’s end, though, now he came to think of it. Everyman, poor fellow, on his way to the tomb had gradually lost all that made life worthwhile – Good Fellowship had gone early and his Five Wits, too. Only his Good Deeds had stayed with him to the last. He said this to Dr Dabbe, while Detective Constable Crosby opened his eyes and then averted them.

  ‘Dante, you know, didn’t even list Pride in his Circles of Hell,’ remarked Dabbe. ‘Though lust and gluttony were there.’

  ‘More harmful than pride, perhaps,’ said Sloan moderately. Gluttony didn’t give them a lot of grief down at the police station, but the same certainly couldn’t always be said for lust …

  ‘Dante did have a Circle of Hell for those who were violent against the self,’ remarked Dabbe as he continued his examination, ‘if that’s what’s in your minds today, gentlemen.’

  ‘We have nothing in our minds at the moment, Doctor,’ promised Sloan. ‘Not until you put it there.’

  ‘You’re as bad as the surgeons,’ grinned Dabbe. ‘They don’t know what they’re dealing with either until we’ve told ’em. That right, Burns?’

  ‘Yes, Doctor,’ said Burns.

  The pathologist turned his attention from the skull to the alimentary canal. ‘Surely you’ve heard the one about the physician, the psychiatrist, the surgeon and the pathologist, Inspector?’