The Body Politic (20 page)

“Die,” said Sheard tersely. “Oh, I got the message all right. Somebody out there means me to keel over and turn my toes up, though don't ask me why.”

“And you've never had any death threats before?”

“Not anonymously through the post, Inspector.”

There was something in the way that Ted Sheard spoke which made Sloan look up sharply.

The Member grinned and said impishly, “I've been getting them regularly for years from someone else.”

“Sir?”

“My doctor.”

“Ah.”

“He threatens me with death every time he sees me.”

“Oh?”

“Makes me stand on the oldest biofeedback machine of them all and then starts wringing his hands.”

“What's that machine then, sir?” asked Sloan, suspecting a catch.

“The weighing scales. And,” Sheard went on genially, “then he says I must give up eating, drinking, smoking and working.”

“Or else?” said Sloan, entering into the spirit of the exchange.

“Or else a by-election, Inspector. And since the first duty of a politician is to be re-elected that wouldn't do at all. He thinks I should take more exercise, too, but then he's not in politics.” He frowned. “Well, only medical politics.”

“And you have no idea why anyone should be gunning for you and Mr. Corbishley?” asked Sloan. At least neither Member showed any sign of persecution mania: which was a help to a hard-pressed police force. Paranoia was difficult for anyone to deal with.

“I daresay we've both got enemies, Inspector,” said Sheard philosophically. “All God's parliamentary chillen got enemies.”

“Except, sir, that it would seem to be a plague on both your houses, so to speak.” You couldn't beat the Bard for aptness.

“
Rouge et noir,
Inspector, you might say,” agreed Sheard slyly, “rather than
Rogue ou noir.
”

“Sir?”

“Do you play roulette, Inspector?”

“No, sir. I find I get enough excitement in my daily work, thank you.”

“I didn't mean Russian roulette, Inspector.”

“Neither did I, sir.”

“
Rouge et noir
would be backing both sides of the table. Red or black is the usual way of playing.”

“I take your point, sir,” said Sloan, suppressing a strong desire to quote W. S. Gilbert's couplet about every child born alive being either a little Liberal or a little Conservative. Instead he said, “Have you ever heard of the Sheikhdom of Lasserta, sir?”

A remarkably discerning look overtook the Parliamentarian's professional geniality. He said quietly, “I've heard of queremitte, Inspector, if that's what you want to know.”

“Yes, sir.”

“A very valuable product indeed,” advanced the Member.

“So I understand, sir.”

“It's ore has been of great interest to various Parliamentary Select Committees,” mused Ted Sheard. “I serve on one of them myself as it happens.” He looked up quickly and said in quite a different tone of voice, “But you already knew that, Inspector, didn't you?”

Sloan coughed. “Yes, sir. As it happens, I did.”

“You'll have done your homework before you came to see me.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Quite so, sir.”

Sheard twisted his lips. “To go back to roulette, Inspector.”

“Sir?”

“I should say for a start that anything to do with queremitte would up the stakes in any game you care to mention.”

“So would I, sir,” agreed Sloan softly.

“An altogether different ball game from live scorpions, gentlemen, in spite of the Parliamentary overtones.”

“I don't think I know about those, sir.”

“The Old Testament, Inspector.” The Member stretched his arms outwards and upwards. “Don't look so surprised. I used to be a lay preacher before I went in to politics and scorpions rang a Biblical bell.” In a fine declamatory style and in a rich intonation designed to carry, Ted Sheard delivered the words “My Father has chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions. First Book of Kings, Chapter Twelve.”

Crosby stirred. “I don't see what——”

“We have Whips, Constable,” he explained gently, “in the Houses of Parliament. To see that we vote.”

“And what we have to remember about the Old Testament, Crosby,” said Detective Inspector Sloan as he settled himself back into the passenger seat of the police car, “is that Exodus follows Genesis a long way before you get to the First Book of Kings.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sloan hunched his shoulders forward. “And all this case is doing at the moment is getting more complicated.” He pulled his notebook out. “Remind me to ask Peter Corbishley if they've asked him to speak at Almstone College too.”

“Yes, sir.” Detective Constable Crosby changed the gears of the engine upwards as if rehearsing for the Mille Miglia. “How come that character we've just met knows about both roulette and the Bible? That's not natural.”

“I expect he's what they call a polymath. And his name, Crosby, let me remind you is Edward Montague Hopperton Sheard, although I think he likes to be called Ted.”

“If you ask me,” said Crosby, taking a corner as if a race depended on it, “I think he likes to be called to dinner.”

FIFTEEN

And Power Must Fail

Dr. Dabbe, the consultant pathologist, was hard at work when Detective Inspector Sloan and Detective Constable Crosby were shown into the mortuary. He gave the two policemen a friendly wave of greeting and called out, “Won't keep you a moment, gentlemen. Just tying a few loose ends, you might say.”

Crosby averted his eyes.

“So are we, Doctor,” said Sloan evenly. “If we can.”

“At the moment,” contributed Crosby with a wholly artificial jauntiness, “we seem to have as many as a packet of spaghetti.”

The pathologist busied himself for another few minutes over something dreadfully inert on an operating table, and then he straightened his back and spoke to his assistant. “There we are, Burns, all done. He's fit for an identity parade now. Even his worst enemy would know him.”

The perennially silent Burns nodded.

Dr. Dabbe turned his back on his assistant, motioning him to undo the strings of his gown. He spoke, though, to Sloan. “I'm very sorry to have to tell you, Inspector, that this is going to be one of those times when the old rubric about pathologists doesn't run true.”

“What's that, Doctor?” asked Sloan, mystified.

“As you may know, Inspector, the physician knows everything and does nothing.” He turned his head. “Thank you, Burns, that will do nicely.”

Sloan didn't know a lot about physicians and their laissez-faire attitude to life. And death.

“And the surgeon,” quoted Dabbe, “knows nothing and does everything. Burns, my gloves.”

Sloan had always been afraid of that. Activists, that was what surgeons were.

Dabbe grinned. “You don't need me to tell you anything about psychiatrists, do you now, Sloan?”

“No, Doctor.”

“They know nothing and do nothing,” he said briefly. “My cap, Burns. Catch.”

Sloan agreed with this statement with a ready fervour while Dr. Dabbe moved towards the washhand basin in the corner.

“As for the pathologists …” Dr. Dabbe paused.

Detective Constable Crosby leaned forward curiously. “What about the pathologists then?”

Dr. Dabbe halted in the act of scrubbing his hands. “Ah, usually the pathologist knows everything but too late to do anything. Burns, a clean towel, please.”

“Not in this case?” Sloan had got the message all right.

“'Fraid not, Inspector. This pathologist only knows that the ashes you brought here are of
homo sapiens.
”

“Human,” said Crosby intelligently.

“Not something played for by opposing cricket teams,” agreed Dabbe gravely.

“Or someone's favourite pet,” said Sloan. Luston's Motorway Man—the trick perpetrated on his opposite number at Luston—had bitten deep.

“Pure Sam McGee,” Dabbe assured him.

“Pardon, Doctor?”

“Shame on you, Sloan,” chided the pathologist. “I'm sure you've heard of ‘The Shooting of Dan McGrew.'”

“Yes, Doctor,” said Sloan evenly.

“Dangerous Dan McGrew?” said Crosby.

“None other,” said Dabbe. “Well, ‘The Cremation of Sam McGhee' comes from the same stable. Don't you remember:

There are strange things done in the midnight sun

By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

That would make your blood run cold.

“No, Doctor,” said Sloan truthfully.

“Ah, well,” said Dabbe generously, “you can't know everything.” He brightened. “I can tell you—Geiger counters being what they are—that the person to whom these ashes belonged hadn't been subject to irradiation.” He looked at Sloan. “I don't suppose, though, that's a lot of help.”

“Not at this stage,” said Sloan politely.

Dabbe ushered the two policemen through into his office and motioned them into the chairs there. “I got your call about Bertram Rauly's broken tooth and I'm afraid I can't even help you there.”

“We couldn't afford to overlook any possibility, Doctor.” That, after all, was what police work was all about.

“I can't tell you if what broke it was a queremitte pellet and, which is worse, I can't tell you either if the queremitte pellet that did get into the deceased had been ingested or introduced into his body through the skin.”

Sloan wasn't surprised. “After all, nobody knows for sure whereabouts in his body it was, do they? Not now.”

“Nor do we know,” the pathologist reminded him, “whether or not the queremitte pellet had anything to do with his death.”

“No …”

“Or, if it did, whether or not the aforementioned pellet did contain a noxious substance.”

“No, Doctor …” Sloan had to admit that what they did not know would fill a policeman's notebook. He made a mental note to remind himself to check if the combatants of the Camulos Society had partaken of the spirituous equivalent of the stirrup-cup before the battle—or did they have lemon slices at half-time?

“And if it did,” continued Dabbe, “whether or not it was taken by the deceased deliberately.”

“Suicide?” exclaimed Sloan involuntarily. “I hadn't considered that.”

“We can't afford to overlook any possibility, Inspector.” Dabbe frowned. “I must say if I had to choose between that and death by a thousand cuts in Lasserta I might opt for
felo de se
myself.”

“But Ottershaw didn't have to go back,” said Sloan before he realised that this was another aspect of the case he hadn't really thought through properly. That telephone call to the Anglo-Lassertan offices was very nearly as mysterious as the pellet in the ashes.

“Your pigeon, Sloan, not mine.” Restored to his everyday clothing, the pathologist looked almost human. “I take it you've looked into the availability of queremitte?”

“Not a lot of help to be had there, Doctor. We've established that the pellet in the ashes had been made out of the small samples of the stuff that the firm itself distributes to schools and universities and so forth for teaching and experimental research purposes. And to potential customers.”

“Our Army,” said Dabbe cheerfully, “and I sincerely hope to nobody else's.”

Sloan ignored this tempting by-way. “These samples are spool-shaped and hollow. They even look a bit like shot. All anyone would have to do would be to cut one in half and seal off the open end with something soluble after they'd put something in it.”

“I thought it was a hard metal and that was why the Army liked it,” remarked Dabbe.

“They put it with something else—they don't want to tell us what—for what they call its enhancing effect.” Even the Services had Public Relations Officers these days.

“Synergism,” said the doctor.

“If you say so, Doctor,” said Sloan. “Anyway, that's where the great hardness comes in.”

“Makes a change from a platinum-iridium alloy, in any case,” said the pathologist. “Fired by an umbrella-gun,” he added as Sloan's expression remained uncomprehending. “With a fatal dose of ricin in it.”

“Ah, yes, of course, Doctor.” A precedent would make its mark in every discipline. “I'd forgotten that …”

There was a moment of quietness in the pathologist's room and then Dr. Dabbe spoke again, this time more diffidently. “There is, of course, another approach to the problem raised by the death of Ottershaw.”

“Yes, Doctor?” Sloan was all in favour of lateral thinking.

“Starting, Sloan, with what is known about the deceased's last illness.”

“A heart attack,” said Crosby.

“Exactly.” Dr. Dabbe turned towards the Detective Constable. “We already know, for example, don't we, that the deceased wasn't done to death with ox-bones like poor St. Alphege.”

“Yes …” agreed Crosby with caution.

Sloan said nothing. Lateral thinking could obviously go a long way round to get to wherever it was going.

“After all,” continued the pathologist, “two duly authorised registered medical practitioners certified that Alan John Ottershaw had died from a heart attack.”

Sloan's expression became even more cautious than Crosby's. He could metaphorically hear the sound of deep calling to deep as professional solidarity raised its ugly head. Doctors always hung together so that they weren't sued separately.

“While it is, of course, theoretically possible,” carried on Dr. Dabbe, “that two serious errors of medical judgement were made, it is, you must agree, somewhat unlikely.”

“What about collusion?” asked Crosby, much perkier now that he was out of the mortuary.