Stiff News (21 page)

‘Unless she saw that the dirk had been taken from the library and took fright about that instead,' said Detective Constable Crosby.

‘A possibility, of course,' said MacIver.

‘And so for the second time,' said Sloan in a steely voice, ‘one of your brother officers – Walter Bryant – had to save you from yourself. He noticed that the dirk had gone missing and guessed you'd gone hunting Mrs McBeath in case she'd found out about your dereliction of duty.' Sloan paused, a steelier note coming into his voice. ‘I think Mrs Carruthers had her fears, too.'

Hamish MacIver raised his head at this.

‘She knew about Wadi el Gebra – as did the wives of all the officers serving there. And she wondered – like Gertie – if you were intent on making away with everyone who had known about your defection under the guise of euthanasia.'

His head sunk slowly downwards between his hands. ‘I knew she knew and she knew I did…'

‘That's why she couldn't understand about Mrs McBeath being in danger.'

‘McBeath was the Staff,' said the Brigadier thickly. ‘Never saw action.'

‘But Gertie's husband at the time wasn't. He was there and she knew, too.' In Sloan's considered view ‘the bubble reputation' had a lot to answer for. ‘But Mrs Chalmers-Hyde didn't. Her natural death fooled Dr Browne and allayed his suspicions.'

MacIver didn't seem to be listening any more.

That didn't stop Sloan from going on. ‘When Walter Bryant saw you, he got Lionel Powell to speed him downhill towards you to stop you doing anything misguided with that dirk…'

The Brigadier seemed to be beyond speech.

‘Lionel didn't know what it was all about and being a good civil servant simply removed himself from the scene of the action with all possible speed.' Detective Inspector Sloan, investigating officer, didn't go on. There was no need now. There was only a broken man to talk to.

*   *   *

‘What did you say describes the situation best, Sloan?' snapped Superintendent Leeyes down the telephone. ‘Never heard of it.'

‘A double helix,' said Detective Inspector Sloan, forbearing to remind the superintendent about the instruction on DNA testing that they'd all had in the Force.

Leeyes grunted.

‘But,' hastened on Detective Inspector Sloan, back in Matron's sitting room now, ‘I think that the real trouble was that the Brigadier imagined it was something quite different that the Judge was keeping hidden and he acted accordingly.'

‘Wheels within wheels is what you call that,' said Leeyes. ‘Not all that fancy stuff about DNA.'

‘He must have thought instead that the Judge had written down for posterity a full account of the action at Wadi el Gebra.'

Sloan took an instant policy decision against saying anything about ‘the cannon's mouth'. He doubted if his superior officer was sufficiently familiar with Shakespeare's ‘Seven Ages of Man'.

‘About which you say there was this schoolboy conspiracy of silence,' barked Leeyes.

‘Moreover, sir,' went on Sloan steadily, ‘he also feared that the deceased – Gertie Powell…'

‘I thought we were losing sight of her in all this, Sloan.'

‘… might have had something about his desertion in her letters so he took those from her room after she'd died. Her first husband had been at the action there, too, you see.'

Leeyes grunted.

‘I understand, sir, that Mrs Powell, even though she was very ill, had made it abundantly clear that she hadn't wanted any part in their Escape Committee's Pragmatic Sanction.'

‘And did that save any of 'em from being done away with?' Superintendent Leeyes arrived unerringly at the kernel of the argument with his customary precision.

‘I don't know how we can possibly tell at this stage, sir.' He cleared his throat and said, ‘It isn't so much a case of time being of the essence as timing. They were all dying anyway.'

Leeyes grunted again. ‘Surmise, most of it, Sloan.'

‘Yes, sir,' admitted Sloan. ‘We don't actually have much in the way of evidence.'

‘Is that good or bad?'

Detective Inspector Sloan, police officer, said, ‘That is not for me to say, sir.'

‘The law,' said one of its professional upholders, ‘is an ass.'

‘Yes, sir,' said Christopher Dennis Sloan, man.

It was a little later when the telephone in Matron's sitting room rang again. Detective Inspector Sloan reached over to pick up the receiver. It was Dr Angus Browne.

‘That you, Inspector? Good. I'm ringing from Larking. I've got one of my patients at the Manor here in my consulting rooms. She says she's run away from there. A Mrs Morag McBeath. What's that you say? No, she's not injured but she's a bit tired and shaky and she's babbling about being in danger from someone unspecified.'

‘Not any more she isn't, doctor,' said Sloan vigorously. ‘You can tell her from me that she's got nothing to worry about any more. Nothing. She can come back now. The Manor's quite safe again now.'

A
LSO BY
C
ATHERINE
A
IRD

The Religious Body

A Most Contagious Game

Henrietta Who?

The Complete Steel

A Late Phoenix

His Burial Too

Slight Mourning

Parting Breath

Some Die Eloquent

Passing Strange

Last Respects

Harm's Way

A Dead Liberty

The Body Politic

A Going Concern

After Effects

Injury Time
(short stories)

STIFF NEWS
. Copyright © 1998 by Catherine Aird. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].

First published in Great Britain by Macmillan Publishers Ltd

First U.S. Edition: January 1999

eISBN 9781466873544

First eBook edition: May 2014