Nor All Your Tears (19 page)

I put my arm around his shoulders. ‘I'm sure they're very busy, what with preparing for the start of a new school year and everything.' He neither did nor said anything, just continued to stare. I went on, ‘And you said that David hasn't been at school. That must have had an effect. I expect things just drifted, without anyone being around all the time.'

At last he reacted, taking a deep breath and nodding. ‘Yes, you're right. This wouldn't have happened if David had been around . . .' His voice subsided then, ‘I wonder why Ada didn't tell me.'

‘She presumably didn't get over here to look at it. Too busy, I expect.'

‘But she said she had.'

Which was a tricky one to counter. ‘Maybe only from a distance?'

He looked at me for a brief moment before agreeing. ‘Yes, I expect that's it.' There was something in his voice that suggested to me that he was still puzzled.

About fifty per cent of the lettuces had gone to seed and their leaves were bordered in brown. The tomatoes, too, looked distinctly thirsty; Dad commented, ‘They'll be thick-skinned now,' and was clearly completely oblivious of the irony. The radishes – once such a prize exhibit – were severely affected, with not many destined to survive; the potatoes formed a flat, flaccid mat of foliage. Dad announced manfully, ‘I reckon we'll be able to salvage a lot of things.' His voice was that of a Napoleon following his Waterloo.

I had a sudden panic that by his use of the plural pronoun he had been referring not to the pupils, but to his one and only son.

‘Dad, I haven't got the time.'

‘What?' He was contemplating the distressing state of his spring onions and didn't take in what I had said immediately. ‘Don't be an imbecile, Lance. I know that. I'll have a word with Mr Silsby and get some of the children to help out, the lazy little beggars.' This, I noted, seemed to denote a subtle change in his attitude to the pupils of Bensham Manor School.

I made my goodbyes and left him. As I walked around to front entrance of the school, I noted with some relief that the way was clear for me to escape. I hurried to my car past the main front doors, got in and was making my way out when I caught sight of Mr Silsby; he was visible through one of the windows, presumably sitting at his desk in his office. He had his head in his hands, a picture of despair.

‘I'm really sorry, Dr Elliot, but there's nothing I can do.' As we were conversing by phone I couldn't judge by anything more than the sound of her voice but Sergeant Abelson sounded genuinely sorry.

‘You know what he's doing, don't you?'

She hesitated. ‘As a policewoman, all I know is that Tristan Charlton had a drink in a public bar; as it was within licensing hours, he wasn't drunk, he paid for his drink and he didn't breach the peace, there's nothing of interest to me. As a civilian and, I hope you won't mind me saying your friend, yes, I know exactly what he's doing.'

‘Well, then . . .'

‘Dr Elliot – Lance – I can't do anything. Until he commits a crime, we can't touch him.'

‘Don't you have a commitment to prevent crime? Haven't I heard something along those lines somewhere?'

‘And how much of its time does the medical profession spend preventing illness? Doesn't it usually just attempt to treat it . . . especially if the patient goes private?'

Ouch.
I thought it would be unproductive to enter into a political argument about means of medical provision. ‘But surely there's something you can do,' I pleaded. ‘You do believe me about Tristan, don't you?'

‘Of course I do. I've looked at his file. I read the medical report on your injuries.' She sounded genuinely shocked. ‘He's clearly done horrible things.'

‘Well, then . . .?'

‘Do I really have to give you a lecture on jurisprudence?' she enquired, her tone leavened. She was right. Justice was blind; in the past Tristan could have slaughtered and tortured a million and it would have made no difference. The police needed evidence of what he was up to
now
.

‘No,' I admitted.

‘The Inspector's already made it plain that he thinks your allegations about Tristan Charlton are irrelevant and, to quote him, “hysterical”; he wants me to concentrate on the murders of the teachers.'

‘He's wrong. He's underestimating what Tristan is capable of.'

‘According to his doctors, he's no longer a threat.'

‘They're wrong, too.'

There was a pause before she said in no more than a soft whisper, as if she was afraid of being overheard, ‘I'll do what I can.'

TWENTY-SEVEN

T
hat night, things were not easy. We stayed in and Max cooked a lasagne and did her best, I have no doubt. I was still tired from my night on call and I was also intensely anxious about Tristan, and the threat he represented to Max; yet I felt that I could not tell her about it. I was irritable and Max, understandably, did not really appreciate why. We didn't row but, in a way, things were the worse for that. I have made many mistakes in my professional life, many of which have endangered patients yet none, as far as I know, has ever resulted in a death. I could only now hope that I would be able to say the same of my personal life . . .

That next day I was the on-call police surgeon; were this not sufficient to make the day wondrous beyond comprehension, it was also the monthly urology clinic. This was an innovation for the practice, and one I could have done without; it was the result of yet another campaign that had just about reached our suburban ears (albeit gasping and about to expire) from the disturbing, unknowable edifice that is the Department of Health and Social Security, and I had clearly not been at the meeting when we had decided who should be responsible. The rationale was that we were taking part in a blitz on venereal disease, but I found that anyone with a todger-related problem turned up; there seemed, moreover, to be a distressingly large number of male patients on our lists who felt the need (and who had the time) to come into my surgery, drop their kecks and cup their genitalia proudly in their (usually right) hand. Often it was just poor hygiene, sometimes it was warts, occasionally it was phimosis or a similar anatomical problem. There was a regular trickle of gonorrhoea and syphilis (if you'll excuse the image); once an extremely shy member of the clergy had come in (inhabiting mufti), explaining that he was slightly worried about something. It had taken twenty minutes to persuade him finally to allow me to examine his problem; he had a cancer on the end of his not inconsiderable member, and one that was well advanced. He had been separated from his Percy within the week and I think even a man of God found that a hard thing to bear.

All in all, it was never for me an afternoon of fun.

Luckily, there was little to do during the evening and I was able to go to bed at just after midnight. I was allowed by the fates to sleep until the call came through at about seven in the morning, which is never a particularly good time for me. As I made my way down to the hall to answer the metallic, robotic ringing, I debated not for the first time whether it was better when on call to fall asleep and then get woken, or to stay awake the whole night. I continually swung between these opinions on the subject. On this occasion, it wasn't helped by the dull ache in my mandible and the impression that my lower lip was little more than a fat juicy blood-bag.

‘Hello?' I said.

‘Dr Elliot?' I knew at once who it was and the realization brought no comfort.

‘Inspector.' I didn't bother responding to his question since I knew he wasn't interested in any answer I might have given. ‘Is this a social call?'

He laughed, much as Prometheus probably had a good chuckle every morning when he saw what the day held for him, bird of prey-wise. ‘Not this time. I wonder if you could oblige me with your presence on the Thornton Heath allotments. I have need of your expertise.'

His pronunciation of the last word was laden with quotation marks. ‘A body?' I asked.

He sighed and I could see the disgust in it. ‘It's not because I want you to judge the biggest parsnip in show, Doctor.' The telephone line, although never actually alive, went dead, and did so suddenly.

I have had occasion to talk before of Thornton Heath Allotments, where my father spends much of his time and not a little of his energy. It is a rural oasis in what is otherwise a somewhat ‘over-urbanized' town, one where the sounds, if not the smells, of the traffic are not prominent, and where nature retains a delicate, ever-threatened foothold. During daylight hours it is rare, even in the coldest part of drear winter, for the allotments to be completely deserted but, even allowing for that, when I arrived about half an hour later there was an unusually large number of people and vehicles. The centre of attention was on the north side, not far from the fences that marked the ends of the rear gardens of the houses in Mayfield Road. Several police cars and about a dozen police were clustered around what at first I thought was a shed. The inevitable lay audience was there; in the front stalls were a motley assembly of adults standing at the ends of their gardens, peering over the fences, while in the upper circle were their children, faces framed by the opened back bedroom windows.

Sergeant Abelson greeted me wearing a very nice light brown trouser suit. ‘Thanks for coming.' Since I was being paid for attending, it struck me that this was nice but unnecessary. Her expression turned to one of concern. Before she could ask any questions, I explained, ‘Toothache.' She winced and it was at once plain to see that she did a very good sympathetic wince. I moved on briskly. ‘What have we got?'

‘It looks as though someone's drowned.'

Her face was serious, but there was an unmistakeable tone of irony in her voice; when I stopped short, she turned and looked back at me, her eyebrows raised, her lips framed by laughter lines. Despite the early time, she was turned out, as far as I could see, immaculately. ‘Are you joking?' I enquired. She didn't reply but just turned away from me and began walking into the melee of police officers; one on the periphery was trying, rather unsuccessfully I thought, to control a small brown-and-white Jack Russell. It was on the end of a choke collar but that wasn't particularly useful to the ginger-haired constable who had to keep dancing in the high-stepping Irish manner to avoid the dog's ankle fixation. I followed the good Sergeant, and when I got to the centre of activity, I saw that she hadn't been joking at all.

Dotted around the allotments, at about two-hundred-yard intervals, were galvanized steel water tanks, each about four feet square and two feet high; they were supplied by a network of underground pipes, the flow controlled by ballcocks. Two legs, bent at the knees over the edge, protruded from the one that was the epicentre of interest; as I approached it, I began to feel slightly unnerved, for the legs were clothed in light blue trousers which, unless I missed my guess, were of an indeterminate material.

Masson was standing by the water tank staring down into its depths and not, I surmised, because he had an abiding interest in freshwater flora and fauna. Sergeant Abelson and I joined him, one on either side. My suspicions were proved correct, for I found myself staring down at the corpulent entity who had been possessed, so recently, of feisty life. His arms floated freely at his sides, as if he was resting, or perhaps free-floating in the Apollo capsule. This isn't much of a metaphor, since he had stirred up the sediment a bit and there was a light covering of it on his pale bloated features; add to that the fact that the water tanks were home at the best of times to a bewildering variety of cold-water life – water fleas, water boatmen, worms, water beetles and many more I could not name – and his features were difficult to discern. Despite this, there was no doubt that I had been right in my initial identification; it was the irascible man Dad and I had seen accosting Mr Silsby and then, in turn, being accosted by Albert Stewart. Masson had his hands in his trouser pockets and, I was slightly distressed to discover, was smoking. I know little of forensics, but was fairly sure that this was not best practice.

He said not directly to anyone but to the company in general, ‘They've just declared a drought, too.'

Photographs taken, the body had been removed from the tank and lay on a tarpaulin; a tent had been erected to provide some privacy, although the audience seemed disinclined to disperse. I performed a preliminary examination with Masson and Sergeant Abelson in attendance, the former exuding angry impatience, the latter interested detachment. There were signs of a struggle, but no more than I would have expected in the circumstances of someone holding someone else under the water until that final inhalation that must be so horrible. I have not seen many drowning victims but had read enough to expect extreme pallor, not a little pong and bloating of the flesh, but there was none of this. As there wasn't anything much bigger than an inch in size in the water tank, the lack of predation was no surprise, however.

‘Well?'

I need not tell you that this came from the good Inspector. I told him my findings, not expecting congratulations and therefore not being disappointed. He took everything I had then enquired testily, as if I had missed the point, ‘How long's he been in there?'

‘Not long.'

He didn't snarl, but came close. ‘What the bloody hell does that mean?'

I did the thing that years of medical training followed by even more years of medical practice have taught me. I talked bullshit. ‘Less than six hours. Maybe only one or two.'

He was very good at staring was Inspector Masson; I know that because he seemed to do a lot of it at me. There was a stand-off between us until Sergeant Abelson said, ‘That would fit with the time on the deceased's wristwatch, sir – five thirty-three.'

He continued doing his alpha-male thing for a few seconds more, then subsided with a grunted, ‘Yes, I know.'