A Going Concern Read online

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Were there any other instructions that we don’t know about?’ He paused and added, ‘And should?’

  James Puckle said carefully: ‘One, perhaps.’

  Detective Inspector Sloan said nothing at all rather loudly.

  Almost as if he were talking to himself the solicitor murmured, ‘I see no harm in mentioning – perhaps I should anyway – that there was an instruction that the executrix …’

  ‘Amelia Kennerley.’

  ‘Was to be given the key to the Grange at Great Primer before anyone else at all went in there …’

  FIVE

  Bury him kindly, up in the corner;

  The key, neatly labelled, was the first thing that Amelia Kennerley set eyes on when she entered her own home after arriving back from France on the Saturday morning. It was lying on the hall table, with a letter addressed to her beside it. From beyond, further through the house, she could hear a coffee percolator thumping away and, if the sound of piano music was anything to go by, a lady doctor at play.

  ‘If you want a bath first, I’ll turn the coffee off,’ called out the musician.

  ‘Coffee, coffee, my kingdom for a cup of coffee.’ Amelia went straight through the hall to the kitchen. ‘I never did think that Richard III had his priorities right.’

  A tousled iron-grey head appeared round the kitchen door. ‘There’s grapefruit in the larder if you want it.’

  ‘What I want,’ said Amelia firmly, ‘is to be told what’s going on.’

  ‘Can’t help you much there, I’m afraid.’ Phoebe Plantin ran her broad, capable fingers through her untidy hair, rumpling it still further. ‘And your father’s in South America. Not that he would be able to help all that much either. He never mentioned the Garamonds to me that I remember.’

  ‘Or me,’ said Amelia regretfully. ‘Where in South America? Did he say?’

  ‘Somewhere in the Matto Grosso,’ replied Dr Plantin, ‘with a tribe called the Pegola.’

  ‘Up-country?’

  ‘You know your father. With him it’s always up-country.’

  ‘True.’ Amelia used to describe her father as absent-minded until Phoebe Plantin had explained that he wasn’t absentminded at all, but single-minded, which was quite different but had the same effect.

  ‘Not only, you will be pleased to hear,’ said Dr Plantin, ‘do the Pegola South American Indians have a very unusual and interesting class structure untouched by the outside world but they are also said to have what is thought to be a unique method of communicating with each other without speech round the mountains.’

  ‘Irresistible,’ agreed Amelia.

  ‘I don’t think he actually tried to resist it,’ said Professor Kennerley’s second wife without rancour. ‘He went as soon as he could.’

  Amelia grinned. She had only been ten years old when her own mother had died and it had been ages afterwards before the significance of something that she had heard her mother, Helena, say when she was very ill had dawned on Amelia. Helena Kennerley, who had been a great friend of Phoebe Plantin’s as well as her patient, had known full well that she was going to die.

  One day Amelia had overheard her mother say to Phoebe: ‘You’ll look after both my pretty chickens, won’t you, love?’

  Even now Amelia had not forgotten Phoebe’s speechless, deeply moved, nod, but it had been much, much later before she realized that her mother had been quoting the bereaved Macduff in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and even later still before it dawned on her that Helena Kennerley had been meaning to say that in some ways her husband was more child than man.

  ‘One of Puckles’ clerks came round earlier with the key of the Grange for you,’ Phoebe informed her, ‘and an appointment with the firm first thing Monday morning as they thought you’d need it.’

  Amelia scanned the letter from the solicitors and then said: ‘Phoebe, is this your weekend off duty by any chance?’

  ‘It is, praise be. Not another spotty child or running nose until Monday morning.’

  ‘Then please could you take me over to Great Primer later on? When I’ve had a chance to have a bath and grabbed something to eat?’

  ‘Surely.’ One of Dr Phoebe Plantin’s great virtues as a stepmother was that she not only never made helpful suggestions but always fell in with those of other people when she could. ‘The Grange shouldn’t be too difficult to find. Oh, and by the way, Tod Morton, the undertaker, called as well. He wants you to give him a ring when you can, even though it’s out of hours …’

  Another place which did not keep office hours was the mortuary.

  It was the middle of one of the sunniest Saturday afternoons of the year when Dr Dabbe welcomed Detective Inspector Sloan and Detective Constable Crosby to the post-mortem laboratory. Burns, Dr Dabbe’s perennially silent post-mortem room technician, jerked his head in their direction by way of greeting.

  ‘Come along into the Temple of Truth, gentlemen,’ said the pathologist, ‘where all shall be revealed and I’ll tell you which of the three causes of death it was that actually killed … Octavia Garamond, did you say her name was?’

  ‘Three?’ queried Detective Inspector Sloan rather sharply. In his book there had always been four causes of death: natural causes, accident, suicide, and homicide. ‘Only three, Doctor?’

  ‘Only three, Sloan.’ The doctor held up a bony finger. ‘Firstly, disease … what William Shakespeare described in his splendid statement on genetics as “the thousand ills the flesh is heir to”. Burns, my gown …’

  ‘Naturally. I can see that.’

  ‘Secondly, there’s medical treatment.’

  ‘Medical treatment?’ echoed Detective Constable Crosby naïvely.

  ‘Otherwise known as iatrogenic disease,’ said the pathologist. ‘Or diseases caused by doctors. There’s a lot of it about.’ He turned round while Burns tied his gown.

  ‘Comes from keeping on taking the tablets, I suppose,’ said Sloan drily, ‘prescribed for the aforementioned diseases.’

  ‘Or even,’ went on the pathologist with deep cynicism, ‘for the wrong disease. Burns, my gloves.’

  ‘And thirdly?’ asked Sloan. He thought that the medical profession had a famous precept about first doing no harm but he didn’t like to say so at this point.

  ‘Thirdly’s diagnosis,’ finished Dr Dabbe laconically. He held out his hands for the rubber surgical gloves.

  Detective Constable Crosby, prepared to postpone the post-mortem for as long as he could, said: ‘How can you die of a diagnosis then, doctor?’

  ‘Happens all the time,’ said Dabbe, waving one gloved hand. The other hand he held out in front of him. ‘Now, this one, Burns.’

  ‘How come?’ said Crosby.

  Colloquial English, decided Detective Inspector Sloan, was all very well for the police station canteen but he was in two minds about apologizing to the doctor for Crosby’s use of it here and to him when Dr Dabbe responded directly to the constable.

  ‘First, Crosby, your doctor tells you that you’ve got the dreaded lurgies.’

  ‘So?’ responded Crosby.

  ‘So,’ said the pathologist, in no whit put out, ‘you get hold of an out-of-date medical dictionary and read up all about the lurgies.’

  ‘And?’ said Crosby, even more informally.

  Detective Inspector Sloan winced: young constables got brasher and brasher.

  ‘And you learn from the old dictionary,’ carried on Dr Dabbe, ‘that patients who have the dreaded lurgies don’t get better.’

  ‘Like the people whose innards are in those glass things you’ve got?’ said Crosby.

  ‘Exactly,’ concluded the pathologist cheerfully, ‘so you go home and turn up your toes, too.’

  Crosby knitted his brows. ‘Sort of witch-doctors but the other way round?’

  ‘I think,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan austerely, ‘we can take it that Mrs Garamond did not die of her diagnosis. We’re ready when you are, doctor.’

&nbs
p; Gowned and gloved, the pathologist advanced purposefully towards the body of an anonymous-looking old woman, a handwritten ticket tied to her right big toe the only visible sign of her having had an identity at all. ‘If I could have a motto over the door here it would be Mortui Vivos Docenti,’ Dabbe said.

  ‘We’re got a blue lamp over ours,’ remarked Crosby, who did not enjoy attending post-mortems.

  Sloan, who said nothing, found his mind had wandered from the mortuary to a certain spot in Calleford Minster. The body of old Octavia Garamond reminded him of nothing so much as one of those ancient tombs in the Minster where a long-dead prelate was shown in effigy on a table tomb at eye level in all his mitred glory, while lying underneath he was depicted as bare cadaver, the moral drawn in alabaster for all to see. There was no mitred glory about the late Mrs Garamond now.

  Dr Dabbe stood immobile beside the post-mortem table and said: ‘You should treat the dead patient just like the living, Sloan. Did you know that?’

  ‘No, doctor.’

  ‘Use your eyes first, your hands next, and your tongue last. If at all.’

  ‘Yes, doctor.’

  Dabbe peered over the deceased’s face – and broke his own rule. ‘Something a bit odd here, Sloan …’

  ‘Where, doctor?’

  ‘Round her nose and mouth. Look for yourself.’ The pathologist pointed to a thin ring of pressure marks which were only just visible.

  ‘She’d been having oxygen,’ said Sloan.

  ‘Which might account for it,’ agreed Dabbe, continuing with his visual examination. ‘No other signs of abnormality on head or neck. Make a note of that, will you, Burns?’ The pathologist took a step or two to the right. ‘And nothing on the chest. There are two scars on the abdomen – signs of old surgical assaults …’

  It was interesting, thought Sloan, to learn that the medical profession as well as the patient considered surgery as an assault.

  ‘Cholecystectomy, I should say – do you know, Sloan, that they do it with mirrors these days – I know, tell me it reflects them great credit – and down here, at a guess, a very old appendectomy … more of a laparotomy, really. The surgeon can’t have known what he was looking for when he went in there. The really fancy surgeons don’t take the appendix out nowadays – comes in handy for spare parts later, you see …’

  ‘Really, doctor?’ The detective inspector leaned forward politely and took a look. John Bunyan had been right when he had caused Mr Standfast to say at the end of Pilgrim’s Progress: ‘My scars I take with me to the other side.’ Perhaps – who could say? – that was all anyone ever took with them into Kingdom Come …

  ‘Big enough for him to have got both his hands in up to the elbows, I would have thought,’ said Dr Dabbe straightening up. ‘Tell me, is there anything you think I should be particularly looking out for in the case of’ – the pathologist squinted down at the parcel label attached to an elderly digitus maximus and read aloud – ‘Octavia Louise Augustina Garamond?’

  ‘The death certificate says …’ began Sloan and left the sentence unfinished. The pathologist’s expression showed exactly what he thought about death certificates.

  ‘I’ve seen it,’ Dabbe said, giving his rubber gloves an extra onward tug and reaching for a scalpel. ‘Do you know that three quarters of all necroscopies disclose previously unknown and clinically important findings? Now, then …’

  It was a full hour before he pulled his gloves off again.

  When he spoke it was to Burns, his technician. ‘What have you got down so far?’

  ‘Oedema of the brain and lungs, doctor, dilation of the heart with fatty degeneration of the myocardium …’

  ‘Aldus got that bit right anyway,’ said Dabbe. ‘Go on …’

  ‘Yes, doctor.’ Burns read out: ‘Fatty infiltration of the liver and congestion of the spleen and kidneys. Samples of all organs taken.’

  The pathologist nodded and started to take his gown off. ‘I’ll be showing this case at our next Mortality Meeting, Sloan, as one of great clinical interest.’

  ‘Oh, yes, doctor?’ said Sloan, adding, with a caution born over the years, ‘And in what way is it interesting?’

  ‘The cause of death …’

  ‘Yes, doctor?’ Sloan had his pen ready now. ‘What was it?’

  For the very first time ever, in his memory, Dr Dabbe said to Sloan: ‘Not ascertained.’

  ‘“Not ascertained”?’ echoed Sloan. Even the phlegmatic Burns paused in his duties and looked up. Crosby was still looking at his shoes.

  ‘Perhaps when the reports on some of the sections I’ve taken come back,’ said the pathologist, tossing his gown into the bin, ‘I may be in a position to tell you more. In the mean time …’

  ‘Yes?’ said Sloan.

  ‘I fear I can’t help you any further, and I shall tell the Coroner so.’

  ‘Not ascertained?’ echoed the superintendent indignantly down the telephone line. He, at least, had gone home for the weekend. ‘What does he mean, Sloan? That he doesn’t know?’

  ‘That he can’t find out,’ said Sloan.

  ‘I thought they were using post-mortems for quality control these days,’ said Leeyes unhelpfully.

  ‘He’s put on his report,’ said Sloan reading carefully, ‘that he’s now going to await the outcome of some diagnostic paraffin-section histopathology.’

  ‘Nice work, if you can get it, I suppose,’ grumbled Leeyes. ‘All the pathologist can tell us, then, is that it isn’t all that obvious what knocked the old party off?’

  ‘He doesn’t usually say he doesn’t know,’ pointed out Sloan.

  ‘Makes a nice change, does that,’ said Leeyes. ‘And what are you going to do now? Got an appointment with a rose, have you, Sloan?’

  ‘No, sir. I was hoping for a quiet weekend, though …’

  In which hope he could not have been more disappointed.

  ‘Just wanted a quick word, miss,’ said Tod Morton over the telephone. ‘I thought I might catch you before you went out to Great Primer. I wanted to let you know that I’ve had the rector on the blo – line.’

  Amelia frowned. ‘A Mr Fournier, wasn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right, miss. Seems as if he went round to the Grange yesterday afternoon to leave you a note asking whether you would want an organist and the church choir and so forth at the funeral …’

  ‘Probably,’ said Amelia.

  ‘And he met a young woman walking away from the Grange as he arrived. She had some flowers and said she’d come to try to see Mrs Garamond.’

  Amelia murmured under her breath, ‘“Too Late the Phalarope”, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I didn’t quite catch that, miss,’ said Tod. ‘Anyway, the rector told her to get in touch with me seeing as he didn’t know anything about you, does he?’

  ‘No …’ said Amelia, catching his drift.

  ‘Anyway, this woman asked when the funeral was going to be, and I told her. Very upset she was, too, miss. She asked about any other relatives being alive and I could only tell her about you.’

  ‘I’m not a blood relative,’ said Amelia.

  ‘That’s just what the woman said, but I took the name down just in case. It’s Baskerville, miss, Jane Baskerville. That name ring a bell at all with you, miss?’

  ‘Never heard of her,’ said Amelia cheerfully, ‘but I dare say I shall. Mr Morton, I’m going over to Great Primer presently with my stepmother and I’ll be in touch with you later …’

  ‘Right you are, miss. Keep left by the church and you’re practically there but I don’t think you and Dr Phoebe will have any difficulty finding the Grange.’

  They didn’t.

  Amelia was aware of a strange sensation of unease, though, as they walked up to the old house. Dismissing it as a compound of curiosity and sudden responsibility she set the key of the Grange into the big old-fashioned lock of the front door.

  That barely identified feeling was swiftly succeeded by a very much more definite and
devastating one as the two women stepped over the threshold.

  The house had been ransacked.

  SIX

  Bird, beast, and goldfish are sepulchred there.

  ‘Looks to me, sir,’ said Detective Constable Crosby profoundly, after he had set eyes on the interior of the Grange, ‘like a game of Hunt the Thimble turned nasty. Very nasty.’

  He had just delivered his superior officer to the village of Great Primer at a speed that in any other circumstances would have rightly been deemed deplorable.

  Detective Inspector Sloan was still getting his breath back and listening to Amelia Kennerley at the same time.

  ‘I don’t know who did it or what they were looking for, Inspector,’ she said steadily, ‘but they certainly made a good job of it.’

  ‘Seems that they could have had all the time in the world anyway,’ murmured Dr Phoebe Plantin, ‘if Mortons’ removed the body yesterday morning.’

  Amelia immediately protested: ‘But Phoebe, that would mean that whoever did all this knew straightaway that Great-Aunt Octavia had died when she did …’ Her voice fell away and she looked uncertainly at Sloan. ‘Doesn’t it?’

  ‘It looks as if someone knew, all right, miss,’ said Sloan, regarding the havoc of books and paper strewn everywhere, ‘although we can’t say exactly when they knew. Or even if they did know, come to that. Not yet, we can’t.’

  ‘And it also looks as if they knew what they were looking for, too,’ remarked Dr Plantin gruffly. ‘See over there. Inspector, on that sideboard …’

  Sloan switched his gaze to follow her pointing finger.

  ‘They didn’t touch those Dresden shepherd-girls and you can take it from me that they’re worth a bomb.’

  ‘It rather seems,’ observed Detective Inspector Sloan cautiously, ‘as if they might have been in search of the written word.’

  ‘It must have been a very comprehensive search,’ murmured Amelia, finding just the right adjective for what she was looking at with difficulty. ‘Come through here, Inspector …’

  The chaos in what was obviously a combined library and study was indescribable.