Another One Goes Tonight

9

In Bath CID there was plenty to moan about since their Manvers Street base had been sold and they’d been moved to this temporary home in the Custody and Crime Investigation Centre in Keynsham. The large white block was surrounded by industrial buildings instead of the homely pubs and coffee shops of Bath. It was open plan, meaning there was no place to hide. And it was home to the custody team, who resented having to make room for visitors. But from time to time someone served up a happy pill, a piece of information that linked unexpectedly with another and opened a whole new line of enquiry.

Diamond had got his new information, but happy he was not.

The more he probed the conduct of Ivor Pellegrini, the more disturbing it appeared. Dark, alien elements kept bobbing to the surface, demanding attention. In a routine investigation Diamond would have given them an airing, examined them for what they were and formed an opinion, but this wasn’t routine. He had a personal stake in Pellegrini’s well-being. He’d invested so much of himself in the rescue that he couldn’t be neutral. They were roped together like climbers and nothing would allow him to sever the rope and move upwards. Detachment wasn’t an option.

But the policeman in him knew this was morally wrong. The truth needed to come out. If he couldn’t be neutral himself, someone else must take on the job.

He ought to go straight to the incident room and brief his small team. Difficult, with no incident room.

Today he’d offered them a temporary escape from Keynsham: lunch in the city at the Grapes in Westgate Street. Chips, a sandwich and a beer. No expense spared. The building was said (on a beam above the bar) to date from as early as 1302. But to anyone who didn’t glance upwards or know the history already, the Grapes was no different inside from any other comfortable, unpretentious boozer.

“Two and a half million to a railway museum?” Halliwell said. “What will they spend it on?”

“Overhauling steam trains.”

Ingeborg said, “I can think of more deserving causes.”

“You’re missing the point,” Diamond said.

“We’re not, guv,” Ingeborg said. “We get it-Pellegrini and Filiput, both train enthusiasts.”

“Let’s move on, then. We can now make an informed guess how Pellegrini acquired the Fortuny gowns.”

Halliwell spelt it out. “The two became friends. They visited each other’s houses. Filiput stupidly showed Pellegrini the Fortuny gowns and Pellegrini nicked them, meaning to sell them when he could find a buyer.”

Ingeborg turned on him in disbelief. “Are you asking us to believe Filiput was so doddery he wouldn’t miss them?”

“He’d turned ninety,” Halliwell said.

“And still looked after himself. He wasn’t in a care home.”

“We don’t know the state of his mind.”

Trying to be just, Diamond said in Halliwell’s support, “A rich old man living alone is easy prey.”

Ingeborg said, “We’ll have to take your word for that, won’t we?”

Diamond gave her a sharp look, but didn’t follow it up.

She went on, “Do you think he helped himself to other objects, as well as the gowns?”

“More things could have been removed. I was told the jewellery didn’t amount to much after the old man died. Just silver. Nothing gold.”

“Can’t we get a warrant and search Pellegrini’s house?” Halliwell said.

“No chance,” Ingeborg said.

Diamond agreed. “The only evidence I have that he’s up to no good was obtained by deception. I was out of order. No magistrate would issue a warrant.”

Ingeborg added, “And even if you got inside you’d have no way of telling which items were stolen-if any.”

“You found out who the gowns belonged to,” Halliwell said.

“I was fortunate there,” Diamond said. “I had expert help.”

“How can we nail this guy, then?”

The force of the question pained Diamond. He was torn apart by professional duty and the strength of his bond to the man he’d rescued from the brink of death.

“I’m not over-worried about more stolen items.”

Ingeborg nodded. “Well said, guv. With the owners both dead, anything you recover will only benefit the railway museum.”

“So what are you worried about?” Halliwell pressed him.

They both looked at Diamond.

“The deaths of all these elderly people.”

If he’d thrown his beer in their faces they wouldn’t have been more shocked.

His tortured thoughts had progressed from puzzlement to fact-checking to suspicion of theft and now suspicion of murder, and it was still based more on hunch than solid evidence. He hated bringing it up but the possibility needed airing.

“You’re thinking their deaths weren’t natural?” Halliwell said after some seconds.

The printouts of the online forum on methods of murder were still in Diamond’s pocket. He divided the pages and passed them across the table.

“Found in the desk drawer in Pellegrini’s workshop.”

His two colleagues didn’t take long to read what was there.

Halliwell was the first to comment and seemed to speak for both of them. “There’s enough here to get him a life stretch.”

“That’s over-egging it. This stuff doesn’t make him a killer, but you have to wonder.”

“What’s yours about?” Ingeborg asked Halliwell. “These are from a forum on the perfect murder.”

“Much the same. Methods used in crime stories.”

“Let me see.” She caught her breath several times as she glanced through the text. “What do you make of it, guv?”

“I keep seeing those cremation urns lined up on a shelf in his workshop… like trophies.”

“With three names on,” Ingeborg said, eyes widening with the horror of what had been suggested. “And Filiput makes four. We may be dealing with a serial killer here.”

Diamond had kept his suspicions bottled up for too long. He was relieved to share them with the team at last. They understood how slender the evidence was, but they also trusted him and he could rely on them. He had a suspicion the old man in intensive care could be a murderer and that was enough for Halliwell and Ingeborg. They’d work their socks off for a result. What was more, they would be discreet. The rest of CID wouldn’t hear a word before it became necessary.

“I’m getting angry,” Ingeborg said. “This is hideous.”

“Hideously clever,” Halliwell said, “knocking off old people who aren’t expected to live much longer anyway.”

“Why would he do it?” Ingeborg said. “What’s his motive?”

“Greed,” Halliwell said. “He gets to know other anoraks like himself, rich ones, and starts nicking their stuff. They’re old guys, mostly. When they find out what’s going on, he totals them.”

“How do you know that? You’re guessing.”

“None of us are sure of anything yet, except he’s a thief.”

“And we’re not a hundred percent sure of that,” Diamond said.

“I’m putting up a theory, that’s all,” Halliwell said.

“Go on, then. What does he steal from the others?” Ingeborg asked.

“Railway memorabilia, mainly. You have to understand what serious collectors are like. It’s a mania. There’s a massive trade in bits of old trains, name-plates, steam whistles, uniforms, flags, signals, badges, firemen’s shovels.”

“Oh, come on. Shovels?”

“I mean it, Inge. You won’t get a rusty old shovel for under sixty quid. A name-plate will cost you twenty grand at auction.”

“Are you into this stuff yourself, Keith?” Diamond asked in some surprise.

He reddened. “I’ve got a brother who drives his wife round the bend with it. You should see their house.”

“All this is rather persuasive,” Ingeborg said. “I’ll give you that. But it doesn’t explain the really weird part, keeping those urns on a shelf in his workshop.”

“That’s a power thing,” Halliwell said, unstoppable now he’d started. “He’s proud of his killing. Some psychopaths like to keep souvenirs of their victims and gloat over them. Possessions, items of clothing, even body hair in one case I read about. He can sit in his workshop and look at those urns and remind himself three men he knew are reduced to ashes because of him.”

“I thought we’d agreed he scatters the ashes on the railway track.”

“He does. There’s no conflict. A group of saddos agree among themselves that after they die they want to become a part of the railway they idolise. Whoever survives will perform this last service for his old friends. Of course, they don’t realise Pellegrini isn’t just scattering the ashes. He’s created a production line.”

“And he keeps the urns as mementos,” Ingeborg said, grimacing.

“Like I said, he enjoys being in control. But if anyone sees them and asks what they’re doing in his workshop, he can say it’s his way of remembering old buddies.”

She turned to Diamond. “Are we helping, guv?”

“I think there’s more.”

“More victims?”

“Let’s hope not.”

She looked as if she was trying to whistle. “His wife, Trixie?”

“It crossed my mind, I have to say. Order a copy of her death certificate just in case, would you, Inge.” He took a long sip of his beer, wanting to keep the talk from getting over-heated. “We haven’t even discussed the method he might have used. He’s a clever man, a trained engineer. It will be methodical and well worked-out.”

“He’s done his research, we know that,” Halliwell said.

“Poison?” Ingeborg said.

“Hard to say,” Diamond said.

“Impossible to say after the victims have been cremated,” Halliwell said.

“Trixie wasn’t,” Ingeborg said. “She’s buried somewhere local.”

“We can’t even get a search warrant, so we’re not going to get an exhumation order,” Halliwell said.

“I may be mistaken over Trixie,” Diamond said. “She doesn’t fit the pattern for several reasons. The way forward is to find out all we can about these railway enthusiasts, the ones who ended up in the urns I saw. Then there’s Filiput. And, of course, Pellegrini himself.”

“We know where he is and we know he’s not going anywhere,” Ingeborg said. “Is there any chance he’ll recover?”

“The medics won’t say.”

“Won’t-or can’t?”

“To me, he looks a lost cause, but I’m no doctor.”

“Shall I dig into his past?” Ingeborg said.

“You’re volunteering?”

“I’m fascinated to know how it happened, a guy with a good, analytical brain, successful career, long marriage, who appears to have no empathy whatsoever. He can form friendships and think nothing of killing his so-called friends.”

“That’s a psychopath for you,” Halliwell said.

“Come off it, Keith. That’s a meaningless word,” she said with scorn. “Any psychologist will tell you it doesn’t describe a condition. It may sound scientific but it’s no more than a label that says, in effect, these are cold-blooded killers we don’t understand.”

Halliwell looked blitzed. “I only chipped in to back up what you were saying.”

Ingeborg eased up on him. “Sorry. I blew a fuse. Over-excitement. But I intend to find out more about this one.”

“And you must,” Diamond said. Such commitment had to be encouraged.

She raised a thumb.

“While you’re at it,” he added, “see if you can make sense of what Pellegrini was saying about the rabbits. I doubt if he has a sense of humour or even much of an imagination. There may be something we’ve missed.”

“Remind me, then,” she said. “They were hopping a mile a night and heading towards Bath, right?”

“And he knew where to find them because he could hear them digging their holes. Sounds like fantasy but I’m not certain it was.”

“What can I do?” Halliwell asked.

The rivalry between these two was paying dividends. Both wanted a piece of the action.

Encouraged, Diamond asked Halliwell to find out everything he could on the three men named on the urns.

“And what will you be doing, guv?” Ingeborg asked.

“Looking for a railway enthusiast who isn’t dead or in a coma.”

Not so simple as it sounded.

He discovered that the electronic revolution had transformed the model-train business. All the local shops had closed or gone over to computer games. There was one in Corsham still trading but only through the Internet. Yet the newsagents’ shelves were stacked with titles like Rail Express, Steam News, The Railway Magazine, Heritage Railway, Steam Railway and Old Glory.

Where do you look for a railway enthusiast?

The railway.

Bath Spa station is at the bottom of Manvers Street. Another engineer, the renowned Isambard Kingdom Brunel, sited it there in 1840 at the edge of the city rather than cutting through the centre. His grand design based on a twenty-arch castellated viaduct in the Tudor style made a strong impression, but the interior was plain. The modern revamped ticket hall retains Brunel’s supporting structure in a twenty-first-century context with open areas where partitions had been when Diamond first came to Bath. He liked it.

“I’m not here for a ticket,” he explained at one of the desks.

“You want to know about trains,” the booking clerk said in a voice that had handled the same enquiry a thousand times before.

“People, actually.”

“Sorry, my friend. I’m doing a job here. I don’t have time to gossip.”

“Police,” Diamond said, showing his card. “Is there anything like a railway appreciation society in Bath?”

“Never heard of one.”

“Railway enthusiasts, then.”

“Are there any? You tell me. All I get is railway bellyachers. It’s the electrification causing cancellations. They don’t understand their journey to London’s going to take twenty minutes less when it goes ahead next year. A little bit of hardship now is all they care about.”

“This isn’t what I want to know,” Diamond said.

“There you go, then. You’re no different from the rest of them, slagging me off. You’d better try tourist information, under the subway on the other side.”

Wondering if this had been such a good idea, Diamond took the short walk to the office on the other side. Would tourist information be any better?

The young woman he approached was clearly dedicated to helping every enquirer, but when she heard what it was about, a trapped expression spread over her features. Personally, she said, she hadn’t come across any train enthusiasts, but she would ask her colleague Trudy.

Trudy, rather more senior, looked Diamond up and down as if he might be a sex pest. “What exactly is it you want, sir?”

He went through it again and identified himself as a police officer.

She consulted her computer and turned the screen for him to see.

“Is this what you mean?”

And there it was-the Bath Railway Society, founded in 1957 and clearly still active, with a colour photo of some forty members. Towards the back was a familiar face: definitely Ivor Pellegrini.

His pulse raced as if he’d won the lottery.

“Does it say where they meet?”

She used the mouse and showed him another page. “St. Mary’s church hall in Darlington Street.”

“Bottom of Bathwick Hill,” he said. “I know that.” Only a short walk from Pellegrini’s house in Henrietta Road.

“Once a month, on the first Thursday.”

“Is there someone I can contact-a secretary?”

Trudy clicked and found a name and a number and made a note for him.

“And one more thing: would you print me a copy of the team picture?”

“It won’t be as sharp as it is on the screen,” she said as she went through the process. Across the room, a printer hummed.

She handed him a sheet of paper. He could still pick out Pellegrini with ease.

“Trudy, you’ve made my day,” he said. “I could hug you.”

She gave him that look again.

He called on a Captain Jarrow in North Parade Road, said it was about the railway society and explained that he wasn’t a potential member, but a police officer.

He wasn’t invited in. This would be a doorstep interview.

“Before you say another word, police officer, I’ll make four pertinent points,” Captain Jarrow said with the voice of a man well used to addressing inferiors. “One, we’re a properly constituted, law-abiding society; two, we keep proper minutes and accounts; three, we pay in advance for the hire of the hall; and four, we always leave it as tidy as when we arrived.” Whether this gentleman was an army captain or from the navy, he had the military mind-set.

“And before you say another word yourself,” Diamond said, “I have no interest whatsoever in the way you run your club. I need only to know about somebody who I believe is one of your members. He happens to have a keen interest in trains. Ivor Pellegrini.”

“Say that again.”

“Pellegrini.”

“Foreigner, is he?”

“Originally, maybe. He lives in Henrietta Road, not far from where you meet, and he’s a retired engineer. He’s a bit eccentric. Wears a deerstalker and rides a tricycle.”

“A railway buff?”

“Definitely. He has a collection of items from the steam-train days.”

“And his name is Pellegrini? Not one of ours.”

He couldn’t have put it more clearly, and his words carried conviction.

Diamond took the group photo from his pocket to satisfy himself he wasn’t mistaken. “He’s on your website.”

Captain Jarrow gave it a glance. “At least two years out of date. I’m not responsible. I don’t do the computer jiggery-pokery. People seem to regard everything they see on a small screen as gospel, but it isn’t, and there’s the proof. If the police are getting their intelligence from the Internet these days, God help us all.”

“So is he a former member? This gentleman here, second row from the back. Don’t you have any memory of him?”

His mouth tightened in defiance. “There are certain individuals I’ve erased from my memory. I’m mortified to discover anyone should assume they belong to our society.”

“Was there a falling-out, then?”

“I’d rather not discuss it, if you don’t mind.”

“But I do mind. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important. And I don’t believe you’d want to be accused of withholding information.”

Captain Jarrow’s curiosity undermined him. “Is Pellegrini up to no good, then? I’ve long suspected he had mafia connections.”

In Bath? This was one scenario that hadn’t occurred to Diamond. “He was critically injured in a road accident.”

The only sound for some time was the traffic in North Parade Road.

The captain seemed to decide he’d overstepped the mark. “I wish you’d told me earlier. When you gave his name and said you wanted information on him, I thought straight away he was wanted for some crime or other. Yes, I knew the man. He and certain of his friends were critical of the way we run the society. It was too all-embracing for them. They wanted to specialise. When it became clear that most of us were happy with the way we do things, they decided to defect.”

“When you say specialise…”

“Limiting their interest to the GWR.”

He didn’t press for more information. He didn’t want to get into the debate that had caused the schism.

“Let me try some other names on you. Were any of these people in the breakaway group as well? Edmund Seaton, Roger Carnforth or Jeremy Marshall-Tomkin?”

Captain Jarrow nodded. He’d lost some of his assertiveness. “All three.”

“Did you know they’re all dead?”

“I read somewhere that Seaton and Carnforth had passed over. Marshall-Tomkin went as well, did he? Is this what you’re investigating? Is someone targeting railway enthusiasts? I’d better warn my members to watch out.”

“I’ve no knowledge how they died. They’re simply names that came up.”

“Not in our society, they don’t. Not any more.”

“So they formed their own society, did they?”

“Absolutely not. No properly constituted society, anyway, with rules and a committee. I believe they meet in each other’s homes. Not the same thing at all.”

“One other name I’d like to try on you is Massimo Filiput.”

“I don’t recollect him. Bit of a mouthful. Sounds like another of the Cosa Nostra. Was he involved in the accident?”

“No, and he’s dead, like the others I mentioned. He was over ninety when he went. Lived in Cavendish Crescent.”

There was a pause for thought.

“I’m sure somebody from Cavendish Crescent came to some of the meetings a couple of years ago, but I thought he introduced himself as Max, not the name you said. He was getting on in years, as you indicated. We’re none of us spring chickens, but I’d put Max at ninety, easily. Good brain, even so.”

“He wasn’t a member for long?”

“Two or three meetings. That was the extent of it. I’m trying to remember him. He wore a suit, a rather beautiful grey pinstripe, and a fine silk tie. It made him stand out from the rest of us because we come more casually dressed.”

“That’s obvious from the group photo.”

“You’ll understand what I’m saying, then. Yes, if appearance counts for anything, Max had done rather well for himself.”

“He left two and a half million to the National Railway Museum,” Diamond said.

“Really? What an extravagant gesture.”

“It was his entire estate.”

“Admirable. Shows commitment to the railway cause.”

“Yes, for someone as keen as that, I’d have thought your society would be a natural home. I wonder why he stopped coming.”

“I can tell you, if we’re talking about the same man. His wife died.”

“That checks,” Diamond said.

“He had all kinds of family matters to attend to after that. Couldn’t find the time to attend meetings. He let us know. Max was a decent sort. I hope you’re not about to tell me he went over to Pellegrini’s lot.”

“It’s possible. I’ve reason to think they visited each other’s houses.”

“That’s too bad. I must say I had my suspicions he had more than a passing interest in the GWR.”

“Excuse me. GWR? You mentioned it before.” Diamond was hopeless with initials.

“God’s Wonderful Railway.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“The Great Western, in fact, but it had several affectionate names. The Great Way Round was another. It served the whole of the West Country and ran right through here until the whole kit and caboodle was nationalised by the socialists in 1948. Anyway, I know Max was interested, but I wasn’t sure how far it had gone.”

“And you weren’t involved?”

“I’m more catholic in my interests. Don’t confine myself to a single company. And I wasn’t going in with that lot. But then I don’t live in a grand house in Cavendish Crescent, or a villa in Henrietta Road, come to that.”

“You think only rich men joined their club?”

“Like-minded is a better way of putting it. Definitely isn’t open to all, like the BRS.”

“BRS?”

“Bath Railway Society. Keep up, officer.”

Diamond had got about as much as he was likely to get from Captain Jarrow. In railway parlance, he’d hit the buffers.

The physician who had signed Massimo Filiput’s death certificate was still in practice in St. James’s Square. She was a crucial witness who had to be visited in person.

Dr. Mukherjee, small in stature but substantial in personality, was in no way fazed by a senior policeman calling. “He died in his sleep,” she told Diamond. “I was called in about eight-thirty in the morning by his cleaner-” she consulted her notes on the computer-“a Mrs. Stratford. And I confirmed that life was extinct.”

“On the certificate you wrote cardiac failure and-” he stumbled over the words-“coronary atheroma.”

“Narrowing of the arteries. His cholesterol level was being monitored. He’d been prescribed statins for some years.”

“A routine death, then?”

“A not unusual death at that age.”

“No postmortem?”

“There was no call for one. He died from natural causes. He was aware of his condition and so was I.”

“The cleaner found him dead in bed?”

“That is correct. She has a key and let herself into the house. Normally he was downstairs when she arrived. On this occasion he was not and the house was silent, so she went upstairs to check. She called me at once.” She put her head round the computer. “Why are you interested? Is there a problem over Mr. Filiput’s death?”

“Not that I know of, doctor. I wanted to check the circumstances with you, that’s all. How long had he been your patient?”

She consulted her screen again. “Since 2009, when I started the practice.”

“You saw him on a regular basis?”

“I’m not one of a panel of doctors. Being in private practice, I can limit the number of patients I take on and I make sure I know them personally. I knew Mr. Filiput better than most. He insisted on telling me about his anxieties.”

“And was he mentally sound?”

“His brain was working well for a man of his age, if that’s what you mean. He suffered some depression after the death of his wife.”

“I can sympathise. Did you discuss his worries with him?”

“I did.”

“What did they amount to, if that’s not breaking a confidence?”

“He felt he was losing his grip, he told me. There were valuable objects in the house and some of them seemed to have gone missing.”

“Really?” Diamond sat forward. “Did he name anything?”

“This was the difficulty. There were numerous items belonging to his late wife, so many he felt he couldn’t keep track of them all. She had a collection of valuable jewellery and antiques.”

“Yet he knew certain things were gone?”

“He believed they were gone. It isn’t quite the same thing.”

“You suspect otherwise?”

“People adjusting to some big event in their lives such as the loss of a spouse are liable to feel they can’t cope. It’s part of the process of bereavement.”

“Did he suspect someone in particular of stealing them?”

“He didn’t put it as strongly as that. Stealing was never mentioned. He spoke of the matter as if he’d put them somewhere and forgotten where.”

“Yet you said his brain was sound. Was the short-term memory going?”

“Hardly at all. For a man of his age he was sharp enough. His concentration was the problem, I believe.”

“Absent-minded?”

“I wouldn’t put it like that. There were areas of his life that he put to the back of his mind. He believed his late wife’s possessions were secure in the house, so he didn’t pay much attention to them.”

“Did it occur to you that they might really have gone missing?”

“Taken by some dishonest person? It crossed my mind, certainly.”

“Did you discuss the possibility with him?”

She sighed. “It wasn’t easy. I didn’t want to add to his anxieties. I suggested putting them into storage, but he said if he locked them away and never saw them again it would be like a betrayal of his wife.”

“I can understand that,” Diamond said. “My own wife died a few years ago and I’ve kept some of her things simply because I know how much she valued them. Forgive me for pressing you on this, but it could be significant. Had anything gone missing that he was able to describe?”

“No. On reflection I suspect the stealing was all in his imagination.”

Big mistake, Diamond thought, but he didn’t want to speak of what he’d found in Pellegrini’s workshop. “Did he ever mention visitors?”

“He had a retired friend called Cyril who came to the house about once a week and played some board game with him. They used to work together at a college in Salisbury.”

Cyril? This was new to Diamond. “Did he tell you Cyril’s surname?”

“No. I only remember because Cyril is not a name I’ve come across.”

“So they were both former teachers?”

“He preferred the term lecturer.”

“What was Cyril’s subject?”

“I couldn’t tell you. I’m not even sure what my own patient taught. They used the same staff room but they may have specialised in different things.”

“This was a long-term friendship, was it? Did Cyril’s visits continue after Mrs. Filiput died?”

“I’m sure they did. He looked forward to them.”

“I expect they helped to ease the depression.”

“Certainly they would have, if only briefly.”

“And how about Mrs. Stratford, the cleaner?” Diamond said. “Obviously you met her on the day she found him dead. Did you know her already?”

“We’d met two or three times at the house. In case you’re wondering about her honesty, I formed a good opinion of her. She was cheerful and a good worker. The house always looked immaculate. She sometimes went to the shops and collected prescriptions I gave him. I doubt very much whether she took advantage of him.”

“I wonder if anyone else did. He was interested in railways.”

“How does that come into it?”

“I’m thinking of visitors to the house, people who shared the interest.”

Dr. Mukherjee nodded. “That’s possible. I did notice various pieces of railway equipment in one of the rooms downstairs, signals and station signs and so on. Surely those are the things any railway friends would have stolen if they were so inclined. I don’t think he was worried about them disappearing.”

“He would have known exactly what was taken,” Diamond said.

“I’m sure you’re right.” She leaned back in her chair. “And now if we’ve covered everything, I do have patients to see.”

He hadn’t finished yet. “Were you also the doctor to Mrs. Filiput?”

She glanced down at her watch. “I was.”

“She died in November, 2013, six months before his death?”

“Indeed.”

“Of natural causes?”

“Not directly.”

He waited, intrigued, for her to explain.

“She had a fall,” Dr. Mukherjee said. “Balance becomes a problem as one gets older, so in a sense it was a natural cause, but a fall is a violent event, so I can’t describe it as natural. She was frail and she was taken to hospital, and she died there the same day. In her case, I didn’t sign the certificate.”

“Who called the ambulance?”

“Mr. Filiput, I believe. I only heard what had happened afterwards, so I’m not the best person to ask.”

“When you say ‘she had a fall,’ was it at home?”

“I believe so. I was told she fell downstairs and sustained a fractured skull.”

“How sad and what a shock for Mr. Filiput.”

“Yes, he came to me for tranquillisers. For a man over ninety there was a lot to cope with.”

“No family to help?”

“No children. And the old couple outlived any siblings they had. I believe after Mr. Filiput died his entire estate went to a railway museum.”

“So I heard. Do you notify social services in a case like this?”

“He didn’t want them. Most old people like to be as independent as they can. He had Mrs. Stratford to clean and do shopping and there were friends who kept an eye on him and brought in cooked meals.”

“He had it sorted, by the sound of things. I’m obliged to you, doctor,” he said, rising and preparing to leave.

“Incidentally…” Dr. Mukherjee said, and then paused as if she was having second thoughts.

“Yes?”

His hopes soared. He’d always envied the TV detective who got as far as the door on the point of leaving an interview and then thought of one more thing that brought the breakthrough revelation. In this case it wasn’t the detective who had thought of one more thing.

Dr. Mukherjee said, “Have you had a blood-pressure check lately?”

“Why?”

“I don’t wish to be personal but your skin colour isn’t too healthy and you’re carrying rather more weight than you should.”

He thought of his chips and beer lunch. “You’re perfectly right, doctor. I’ve been told before. Not enough rabbit food.”