A Dead Question (Honey Laird Book 2) Page 4

  It was a telling threat. Honey held her peace but made up her mind not to go far and to put her feet up on her return.

  ‘I’ll tell Mr Laird.’

  ‘You do that thing.’ With honour satisfied, Honey left the house, only to realise that in her vexation she had forgotten Pippa. She made a humiliating return. She gave Pippa a shake by the scruff of the neck. ‘If you pull, you go for cat-meat,’ she promised. The threat was greeted with a wave of the tail but it sometimes had the desired effect.

  Outside again with Pippa on the extending lead, she found that the day was less attractive than it had looked from the comfort of the house. The sunshine, which had looked warm and tempting, was thin and ephemeral and there was a chill to the stiff breeze that penetrated even a thick, tweed coat. Carrying the extra weight took a lot of the joy out of walking – it was, she thought, rather like carrying a heavy haversack on the front instead of the back – but they turned downhill past the front of the Doctor’s house. Kate was at the window of her sitting room. Honey gave her a wave and Kate responded with an unintelligible signal in which drinking from a cup figured. Honey nodded violently but walked on. The Doctor’s garden, seen from the road, held a viburnum in full flower and a fine display of berries on a variegated holly. What, she asked herself, was the good of a garden that showed flowers for only half the year, if that? Her baby was going to see flowers all year round. But there were flowers in plenty in neighbouring gardens. She would get on the Internet and find out what plants could be counted on to flower during the Scottish winter.

  Beyond the Doctor’s garden they turned into a narrow lane that ran between the garden wall and the gable of a block of shops and flats. They emerged into a rougher lane that ran along behind the houses. Honey turned again to pass the back wall of Dr McGordon’s garden. She noticed for the first time that there was a gate in the wall but that a line of weeds grew thick below it and the bolt, latch and hinges were thick with rust. So if anything incriminating had been carried from the garden to the farmland it must have gone round by the road. But why would the Doctor bury a body in farmland behind his house when he had available one large garden as well as his car, the whole of Scotland and probably one or more medical incinerators?

  She walked on slowly, slightly uphill, past her own back gate. It needed paint. She had been brought up in the country. It was good to walk in farmland again, even in midwinter when wildlife was at its scarcest. Pippa began to pull hard towards a midden but Honey stopped her, sat her and reminded her that pulling was the slowest way to get to any destination. Of course, she mused, the Doctor’s conscience-stricken gaffe need not relate to murder; she had been involved in too many homicides and her mind was beginning to see murder when there was none. She ran her mind over the list of temptations now lingering as magnetic images in the computer. How to get that sort of information without whistling up a storm? Her father’s industrial network had sources, of course . . .

  She was suddenly back in the here and now. She wondered why. And then she saw a fellow dog-walker descending the track towards her with a pair of German shorthaired pointers at heel. It was the Doctor. To turn back would only attract attention. She walked on, not making eye contact. Perhaps a neighbourly nod would be enough . . .

  It wasn’t. As they met, the Doctor slowed. He was a large man, made apparently larger by his high colour, red hair and tweed suit in very loud checks. His clothes had been expensive and she noticed that his boots were of top quality and were polished almost to a mirror finish. The hair on his head was neatly trimmed, he was well shaved, but his eyebrows were overgrown and curly red hairs escaping from his ears and nostrils glowed in the backlight of a stray sunbeam. ‘Hullo,’ he said. ‘I think you’re my next door neighbour. It seems strange that we’ve never met. You’ve had that house for what? Two years now?’ His voice was loud, his accent educated.

  ‘Almost that,’ Honey admitted. ‘It seems that our hours of coming and going never coincide. I’m Honoria Laird.’

  ‘Duncan McGordon.’ They shook hands. It would have been easy to read far too much into his grip. She tried to detect undercurrents passing from hand to hand but there was only the dry brush of skin. He was smiling sociably but she wondered whether his smile was quite sincere. ‘You’re married to a policeman, I believe.’

  Honey decided that the statement was correct. She was indeed married to a policeman. It seemed unnecessary to mention that she too was of the police. Agreement would not be committing her to a lie that might rebound. She said, ‘Yes.’

  Pippa was becoming impatient. She gave a pull on the lead, wanting to socialise with the two pointers that were waiting correctly a few yards away. Honey saw the Doctor’s eyes go down. Immediately, she felt defensive on Pippa’s behalf. ‘She’s taken to rolling in the most horrible things she can find, so she spends a lot of time on the lead. She’s very obedient and a very good retriever, but rolling is the one habit I can’t break. And if there’s one thing I loathe it’s bathing a dog – especially while I’m in my present state.’

  ‘I do understand.’ He smiled again. Honey tried to categorise the smile. Was it the smile of the tiger, of a crocodile, of the Cheshire cat, or could it be the smile of a cuddly toy? No, not that. But it was only a slight shift of the facial muscles around the mouth and eyes, too fleeting to judge. Whether it was sincere and sympathetic she was left with no idea.

  They talked about dogs for an innocuous minute. The Doctor was evidently a well-informed dog-lover. Honey, who usually found a shared love of the canine species to be a first step towards lasting friendship, began to wonder whether he could have done anything so very terrible after all; but then she recalled that many psychopaths were sentimentally attached to pets and family. She limited herself to a few words of wisdom gleaned from her own experience and from many hours spent with her father’s gamekeepers.

  The breeze was getting up and she allowed the Doctor to see her shiver. He took the hint, looked at his watch and said that he was due to hold a surgery shortly. He added that now that they’d met they must stay in touch. He shook her hand again and walked on, leaving her wondering. Had his manner been in the least suggestive? When one person attempted to judge another’s character from facial movements of less than a hair’s breadth, it was her experience that they often got it wrong. Had the eye that he cast over her figure been salacious or merely a professional assessment of her pregnancy? Now that she had met him, what was she prepared to believe of him? She reminded herself that whether she liked or disliked the Doctor – and she had no immediate idea which was the case – was irrelevant. She had known and liked several criminals in the past and conceived a hearty dislike for a number of suspects who had later proved perfectly innocent at least of the crime in question. A person, after all, may be aggressive or patronising, a bully or a coward or even have smelly feet without contravening any laws. She had no intention of becoming his patient – as Kate had suggested, his manner did not suggest a lack of libido. Did he make a habit of referring his women patients early to a gynaecologist? Perhaps he would accept Constable Dodson as a National Health patient. But there were two snags to that idea. One, Dodson was in perfect health and, two, he was male. Honey recalled seeing a not unattractive WPC around with one arm in a sling. Perhaps she should ask Mr Blackhouse for her secondment.

  She realised suddenly that she had walked further than she had intended. The pleasure of being out and about had become a burden. She dragged Pippa away from a cowpat and turned for home.

  Mr Potterton-Phipps was being at his most elusive. After an hour spent in trying to contact her father by phone, twice just missing him as he left one office for another, Honey decided to settle for an email. Her father, she knew, had everything available to ensure the security of his personal electronic mail. She wrote:

  Dad,

  Many thanks for the last parcel but no more please until further notice. I now have enough maternity wear to see me through my next hundred and twenty pregnancies a
nd more toys than any reasonable child could play with by the time he or she can vote. I am properly grateful but enough is rather more than enough.

  If however, you still want to do me favours, I could use a little help. I have been set the problem of finding out why an outwardly respectable doctor seems to have a guilty conscience about something unspecified. He is Dr Duncan McGordon, of Deansfoot House, my next door neighbour in fact. The problem is that nobody must know that he is being investigated. Your various commercial interests have sometimes managed to produce sensitive information in the past and without making waves. Can they do it again? I’d be most interested in his financial standing and creditworthiness and also any unusual transactions in which he is involved.

  Foetus and I are doing well together but looking forward to the day when she will pop her head out into the air, blinking at the sudden flood of light. You will certainly be among the first twenty or thirty to be notified. Do you have any strong views about names? There is hardly a female name in the thesaurus that one or the other of us has not had an unfortunate clash with a bearer of it.

  With that dispatched, she felt free to spend some time surfing the Internet. She accumulated a useful list of winter flowering garden plants and printed it out for the garden centre, but if there was any concise list of what doctors are forbidden by law to do, as opposed to naughtiness within the ambit of the General Medical Council, she failed to find it. Something along the lines of the Ten Commandments would have been useful. Criminal law covered all the temptations on her list.

  She burrowed into the Telephone Directory, then called Directory Enquiries and after a struggle she tracked down the Audit Department of the National Health Service. She found herself speaking to a contralto voice that identified itself as Prue Bishop, Area Supervisor.

  Honey, in turn, revealed her standing as a detective inspector. ‘I’m just doing a statistical update,’ she said. ‘Do you have many ongoing cases of GPs suspected of overcharging the NHS?’

  ‘Quite a few,’ Ms Bishop replied. ‘Do you want dentists as well as doctors?’

  Honey made a face in the mirror. Such a gaffe might start Ms Bishop doubting her story. ‘Just GPs for the moment,’ she said. ‘I’ll get back to you on dentists when we get around to that statistical area.’

  ‘That sounds harmless. I can get that information for you now. Hold on a moment while I look. Yes. We have one prosecution in hand and eight under investigation.’

  ‘So many?’

  ‘It sounds a lot, but most will probably prove perfectly innocent. It often turns out to be sloppy bookkeeping by office staff. When doctors take on staff, sometimes they engage somebody capable of keeping accounts but just as often they only want a receptionist or a typist. Sometimes they offer the job on the basis of the best figure or the most tempting smile and they only introduce the subject of the bookkeeping system as an afterthought.’

  ‘Of course. Doctors are human too, although they prefer one to imagine them walking on water. Just for the record, could I have the names?’

  A perturbed sound came down the wire. ‘I couldn’t possibly give out that sort of information over the phone, not without some sort of identification. Give me your extension number and I’ll call you back.’

  ‘That’s very helpful of you,’ Honey said, ‘but there’s a snag. I’m at a rather advanced state of pregnancy so I’m filling in time, working from home.’

  Ms Bishop’s voice became much more animated. ‘Are you really? So am I. Seven months gone and counting. When are you due?’

  ‘Within two weeks,’ Honey said. ‘She’s turned over but the head isn’t engaged yet.’

  ‘Well, lucky you! I can hardly wait for it all to be over. I was thinking of going out to my cousin in South Africa. I had a vague idea that it was already September there, but my partner pointed out that it may be late summer there but that that doesn’t change the body clock. After the baby’s born, of course, the difficult part is still only beginning.’

  ‘They tell me that the first thirty years are the worst,’ Honey said agreeably.

  Ms Bishop gave a trill of laughter. She was a cheery woman with a sense of humour to match Honey’s. They spent several minutes discussing the joys of pregnancy. Honey rather hoped that the other’s reservations were being forgotten, but when the subject of maternity was considered exhausted for the moment Ms Bishop said, ‘Well, when will you be in the office again? I could call you there?’

  Honey gave in to force majeure. ‘I’ll try to get into the office tomorrow. I’ll call you and you can call me back. Or even better, I may have my husband call you and save me the trip. He’s an officer too. Will that do?’

  ‘That will do very well. I’ll give him a talking-to about letting his wife work so long into a pregnancy. Good luck!’

  ‘While you’re about it,’ Honey said, ‘you could bring up the subject of snoring.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me about snoring,’ Prue Bishop said. ‘Being kicked from the inside and deafened from the outside, I don’t know when I last had a good night’s sleep . . .’

  The problem of sleep deprivation took up several more minutes before getting onto the subject of food fancies. They agreed to meet at some future date to share a curried rhubarb tart. ‘But it’s now that I want it,’ Ms Bishop said sadly. ‘In a year’s time I may not fancy it at all.’

  ‘I know exactly what you mean,’ Honey replied. ‘The only compensation for being stretched and overloaded and thoroughly upset is having enormous cravings and making everybody run around in circles to satisfy them; and feeling guilty but happy about it all.’

  ‘And then saying that perhaps you don’t fancy it after all,’ said Ms Bishop.

  Chapter Five

  Honey lunched alone. Sandy, even when not pursuing the interests of justice in the furthest-flung corners of Lothian and Borders, was usually too busy to get home for lunch. June’s mother, who was Mr Potterton-Phipps’s housekeeper, had drilled into her daughter a due respect for her employers, a respect that June was inclined to honour when it suited her. Thus June, though feeling free to argue the point whenever she disagreed with Honey (she stood too much in awe of Sandy ever to gainsay him), never joined them at table except when invited on special occasions such as Christmas or her own birthday. This enforced solitude, though unsettling for one of Honey’s sociable disposition, did at least allow her to read while she ate. She carried her quiche and salad through into the study and looked again at the theories so far accumulated. She was unimpressed. There was no category of crime on the list which she could envisage Dr McGordon committing, but for lack of anything more credible she felt obliged to soldier on.

  The obligatory postprandial rest over, Honey decided to walk again. She had been fitter even than most men before pregnancy struck. There had followed the period when her ability to hold on had been in doubt and she had been ordered to spend long periods abed. That threat now lifted, she was determined to get her legs working again. Despite the added weight, she had returned at last to a state wherein she felt both energetic and in need of exercise. June protested in vain. The day was cooler but the breeze had dropped and the sunshine was almost warm. She put a small apple in her pocket and set off.

  Kate was at her window again, signalling with a mixture of a drinking mime and a beckoning motion for Honey to come in for tea or coffee. Honey signalled back with what she hoped would be taken for later, I’ll call in after my walk. The Doctor’s car, a handsome Daimler, was either away or safely locked in the three-car garage at the further gable. A round female figure with a white apron came out of a side door, took something down off a washing line partly concealed by a hedge and retreated again. They followed their previous route but Honey persisted and, puffing slightly, climbed higher up the slight hill to where she could look over half the city, catching a glimpse of the Firth of Forth and the coast of Fife beyond.

  When they were well past the midden, she let Pippa off the lead. During Honey’s long period of
rest, Pippa had not had the exercise that a Labrador is entitled to expect. Sandy had been busy and June considered a hundred leisurely paces on grass to be as much exercise as any living being could possibly need. Pippa stretched out in a good gallop over the pasture while her mistress, who often thought best in the open air with a distant prospect in view, took a seat on the rim of a cattle-trough and mentally sorted through the lines of enquiry open to her. Her legs were slightly shaky from the unaccustomed exercise. Pippa put up a hare and set off in pursuit. Honey, busy with her thoughts, ignored the breach of discipline. She could see no easy way, for the moment, of discovering whether the Doctor was in the habit of interfering with his female patients. It was not the kind of subject that either party would openly discuss, and she had a feeling that the dividing line between examination and interference might be a rather hazy one. She was in need of an outspoken lady who had fallen out with the Doctor.

  It would not be difficult to find out what testimony he had given in recent court cases. But this, she could see, was merely continuing the hit-or-miss method which might have a one in a hundred chance of connecting within the next ten years. She began again to seethe at having been set an impossible task. Instead of a known crime, she had been offered a known culprit with the whole gamut of criminal law available to provide possible explanations for his conduct. This upside-down approach to criminal investigation would demand more than the usual resources, but even those inadequate resources were simply unavailable. Failing a lucky break or a stroke of genius, she was doomed to failure. Having seen Mr Blackhouse at work, she was aware that in the event of any complaint or criticism her period in favour might evaporate like morning dew, leaving her exposed and vulnerable; she must therefore keep a clear record in secret but available, and be able to show that she had done everything possible in impossible circumstances. Her only comfort was that Mr Blackhouse, after handing her a task that he had been told to forget about, could hardly bring disciplinary proceedings against her if she ignored his commands.