Gallery Whispers

89

'What have you got there?' asked Olive.

Neil, hunched over the dining table, looked over his shoulder at her. 'Work. I shouldn't have brought it home. Sorry.'

'What is it?'

'Och, it's just the files on an investigation that the boss has asked me to take a look at. It's stalled, and he wants a different perspective on it.'

'Let me see,' she said, pushing herself slowly from her chair and coming over to him. He watched her as she walked. She was pale, and her movements betrayed her weakness, but there was a vitality in her eyes which seemed unquenchable.

'No,' he answered, closing the folder. 'You don't let me look at your school stuff.'

'No, because you're not qualified, and because children's futures might be affected if I allowed myself to be swayed by something you said.'

'Same here,' he countered, rising from the table, turning her… how much more easily he could do that now… and taking her back to the comfortable chairs in front of the television. 'This is a murder investigation — three actually — and someone could go to the slammer for life if I let you see those files, then was influenced by your halfarsed analysis.'

'Thank you very much. Since you've been the DCC's exec, you're getting too big for your trainers, Mcllhenney.' But not as big as he used to be. He must have lost over ten pounds since this thing started, she thought. 'I'll tell you what, let's just discuss it hypothetically, no names involved; you just describe the situation and I'll tell you what I think.'

'Okay, Miss Marple; anything for a quiet life. As long as you go to bed afterwards. You look tired.'

'Must be these platelets that Suzanne's been going on about. She says that they're going to put some more into me tomorrow, once I've had my scan. You still all right to drop me off?'

'Of course. And pick you up afterwards.'

'Good. Now tell me about your problem.'

He sighed. 'Wouldn't you rather watch TaggartT 'What? That rubbish. No way; the real stuff's much more interesting. Go on.'

'Okay; hypothetical though. Three deaths, the first three years ago, never investigated at the time, the second and third fairly recent.

There's one thread that ties them all together: an individual, who's a strong suspect for the second, and who lives in the vicinity of the third.'

'What about the first?'

'That's a fairly tenuous link. That death may well have been straightforward misadventure, with no one else involved. That's how it was treated at the time.'

'Misadventure? What do you mean by that?'

'I mean suicide.'

'Well don't mislead me. Now why is this person such a strong suspect for the second murder?'

'Because he had a physical relationship with the victim, was at the scene, on the night, and he kept quiet about the fact when he was interviewed by Pringle and Mackie.'

'Two superintendents,' Olive murmured. 'Serious stuff this. What about the third case? What's the connection there?'

'The guy lived near the victim.'

'So did thousands of other people, I assume. There has to be more than that. What is the link between all three cases? Was the man related to all three victims?'

'No.'

'Then what is it? Were they all Masons, or something?'

'No. The link was professional.'

'He was their lawyer?'

'No.'

'Doctor?'

Neil felt the water growing deeper by the minute. 'Yes. He treated all three people.'

She seemed to withdraw from him for a few moments, as she thought. It was a trait he knew well. 'Did he benefit from the deaths?' she asked him.

'No. They did, in fact.'

'These people were dying, Neil, weren't they.'

'Yes. Look, can we stop the Twenty Questions now.'

'Like hell. They all had cancer, hadn't they.'

'Okay, Yes they had. They were all terminally ill, and they all appeared to commit suicide, but in at least two of the cases the second and third, we know they had help. Someone else was there, and played a part.'

Olive fixed her husband with that Look. 'There's nothing hypothetical about this, Neil. You're not describing a stalled investigation.

You're talking about one that's bloody well solved, aren't you. You're not casting a fresh eye over this, you're looking for an alternative.'

'Don't be daft. I'm a bloody DS: it's not for me to walk all over an investigation that's been signed off by two superintendents.'

'Exactly,' she snapped, 'so why are you looking over these papers, and why are you quite clearly, so bloody anxious about it? This doctor: it's someone we know, isn't it.'

He leaned back, beaten, and gazed at her. He should have known better than to give her the opening, than to let that mind others loose on the problem. 'Aye,' he said. 'It's Deacey Simmers. The guys want to lift him, and I've got a week to show them why they shouldn't.

'Oh Christ, love; I wish I'd never brought those papers home.'

'Suppose you hadn't; I'd still have known that something was bothering you, and I'd have had it out of you.' She paused. 'Listen, understand this, and maybe it'll help. One thing I've learned from that man: in fighting this thing, the most important people to me are me, you, Lauren and Spencer. Deacey's a doctor, Neil, not a faith healer.

He's shown me the road to remission and started me on it, but he isn't leading me. I'm finding my own way, with long life, you and the kids waiting for me at the end.

'That said, I don't believe he's a Doctor Goodnight any more than you do. He didn't help these people to die: so who did? Could it be an organisation?'

He shook his head. 'No. There aren't any of those; not any more.

This is an individual, and it's someone that Gay Weston and Anthony Murray knew and trusted. The problem is that everyone else has been eliminated: we're only left with Deacey, and he's done nothing to help himself.

'They've placed him at the Weston house on the night, and they've found a book at Murray's place, signed "Best wishes, Deacey", a book which was only in the shops in the two weeks before he died. He doesn't know any of this yet; it'll all be put to him next Monday, when he's re-interviewed.

'He can say what he likes, but unless he can prove categorically that he was somewhere else at the moment of Mrs Weston's death, he's done for that one. Murray, maybe not; but what's in that file will convince any jury that he helped his girlfriend on her way.

'The only thing that will help him is me finding the person who did.'

'Is there another link between Weston and Murray?'

'There was, but not any more. That's been eliminated.'

'Then what about the third case, the one three years ago?'

'No. there's nothing else connecting all three. I've been through the Fiscal's report on Nicola Marston; there's sod all in it.'

'Okay, but suppose there was something else linking her to either one of the other two people. Would that help?'

He gazed at the fireplace, pondering her question. 'Maybe yes, maybe no: it'd be a place to start, though, I'll give you that. But where will I find it? There's no evidence other than that suicide report over there, and it takes me nowhere.'

'What about her case notes?'

'What d'you mean?'

'If she was a patient at the Western General as you say, then there must be a fair chance that they'll still have a file on her.'

Neil smiled. 'Maybe you should come to work for us once you leave teaching,' he said. 'I'll see what I can find. I don't hold out much hope, mind, but at least it's somewhere else to look.

'Now, climb your weary way to bed. Big day tomorrow, for us both … and who knows, maybe for Deacey too.'