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  Puppet for a Corpse

  An Inspector Thanet Mystery

  Dorothy Simpson

  For my mother

  The regimen I adopt shall be for the benefit of my patients according to my ability and judgement, and not for their hurt or for any wrong. I will give no deadly drug to any, though it be asked of me, nor will I counsel such, and especially I will not aid a woman to procure abortion. Whatsoever house I enter, there will I go for the benefit of the sick, refraining from all wrongdoing or corruption, and especially from any act of seduction, of male or female, of bond or free. Whatsoever things I see or hear concerning the life of men, in my attendance on the sick or even apart therefrom, which ought not to be noised abroad, I will keep silence thereon, counting such things to be as sacred secrets.

  Extract from the Hippocratic Oath

  1

  The smell of burning toast drifted upstairs to the bathroom, where Detective Inspector Luke Thanet was shaving. He grimaced at his foam-bedecked reflection, laid his razor down on the wash-basin and went out on to the landing.

  The smell was stronger here and a faint bluish haze was issuing from the half-open door of the kitchen, like ectoplasm. The sound of a one-octave major scale, haltingly played, indicated that Bridget was dutifully doing her early-morning piano practice. Thanet was loath to disturb her.

  “Ben!” he bellowed. “Toast!”

  A small figure clutching a comic shot out of the sitting room and into the kitchen and Thanet heard the clunk as the defective release mechanism on the toaster was operated.

  “Put some more in, will you, Ben?” he called. “And watch it, this time.”

  He went back into the bathroom, took up his razor, frowning slightly. Joan was presumably next door again, administering an early-morning dose of comfort to their neighbour, Mrs Markham. It was about time he put his foot down. This had gone on long enough.

  Joan had been working for eighteen months now as an Assistant Probation Officer, prior to launching into her formal training. She loved the job but it was very demanding and, although Thanet tried to help as much as he could, Bridget and Ben still needed a good deal of attention. And at the moment they weren’t getting it, he reflected grimly as he rinsed and dried his face. There was a limit to what one woman could do. It was unreasonable of Mrs Markham still to be making such powerful bids for Joan’s time and attention. Mr Markham had been dead for a year and, although Thanet had initially been full of sympathy for his widow, it annoyed him that she was now exacting from Joan the same degree of attention and service that she had expected from her husband.

  When Thanet had dressed he went downstairs firmly resolved to speak to Joan about it. It was disconcerting to find that she still wasn’t back.

  “I can’t find my leotard, Daddy,” Bridget said, the moment he entered the kitchen.

  She and Ben were munching their way through plates of Rice Crispies.

  “I don’t suppose it’s far away.” Thanet poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down. “When did you have it last?”

  “Mummy was going to mend it for me. Daddy, I must have it for today. It’s dance club and they’re doing auditions for the Christmas pantomime.” Bridget’s grey eyes were beginning to glisten like pearls.

  “Don’t worry, Sprig.” Thanet gave a reassuring smile, reached across to pat her hand. “I’ll just eat this piece of toast and we’ll go and look for it. Ben, how many times have I told you not to read your comic at the table! Anyone know if Mummy’s had any breakfast yet?”

  That was another thing, he thought grimly as they shook their heads. More often than not Joan was going off to work without even a cup of coffee these days.

  Fifteen minutes later his decision to have it out with her had become full-blown determination. An exhaustive search had failed to turn up Bridget’s leotard.

  “Where can it be?” The tears were beginning to flow freely now.

  He squatted to put his arms around her. “Hush, sweetheart, don’t cry. It’s bound to be here somewhere. Ben, run next door quickly and ask Mummy where she’s put Sprig’s leotard. Say she has to have it to take to school today. We really must go soon, or we’ll be late.” He hated to see the children go off to school distressed. His head was full of all the angry things he’d say to Joan when he had the opportunity. He had no intention of making a fuss in front of the children this morning though. He didn’t want to upset Sprig further by having her witness an angry scene between her parents.

  Joan came in with a rush, followed by Ben. “Sorry, darling,” she said. “I just couldn’t get away.”

  She avoided looking at him, he noticed.

  “Don’t worry, Sprig,” she went on. “I know exactly where your leotard is. I’ve just got to put a stitch in it and …”

  “You mean, you’ve still got to repair it?” Thanet could feel the anger building, fuelled by Bridget’s distress and by the knowledge that they were already late, would now be delayed even further.

  “It won’t take a second,” Joan said, disappearing into the sitting room. “I’ll have it ready by the time you drive the car out of the garage,” she called.

  “Right, come on then, kids,” said Thanet. Just as well it was his turn to take the children this morning. “Coats and scarves on, quickly now. We’re late already.”

  True to her word Joan came running out with the leotard as Thanet was backing out of the garage. Thanet wound down his window to take it from her, handed it to Bridget.

  Joan leant in to give him a quick peck on the cheek, blew kisses to the children. “’Bye darlings,” she said. “See you this afternoon.” One of Joan’s friends earned pin-money by collecting Bridget and Ben from school with her own children. She would give them tea and keep them until Joan was free to pick them up.

  Joan waved until the car was out of sight. Thanet watched her diminishing figure in the car mirror until he turned the corner. At the school he waited until Bridget and Ben were safely inside the playground and under the eye of a teacher before driving off.

  “Beautiful day!” called another father, similarly engaged.

  And it was, Thanet realised, noticing it properly for the first time, a perfect autumn day: unclouded sky and a sun whose strength was already dissipating that early-morning crispness which is a foretaste of frosts to come. His spirits began to rise, his mind to move forward to meet the day ahead. His undischarged anger was still there, underneath; but now, by some strange process, it was becoming translated into energy. By the time he reached the office he was brimming over with it and he began to hope that something really challenging would come in today. One of the things he liked about being a policeman was never knowing what would come along next.

  It was a disappointment to find that his In tray held nothing of interest and after a cursory inspection he rose and crossed to the window. Down below in the street people and cars hurried by, intent on their destinations, seemingly imbued with a powerful sense of purpose. Thanet shifted restlessly from one foot to the other, envying them. He ached to be out there doing something.

  Unfortunately, he told himself as he settled down at his desk, life is not in the habit of producing just what we want when we want it and for every exciting, challenging task there are usually a hundred dull ones to
be tackled. He opened the first of the files awaiting his attention.

  At once, as though Fate were giving him a pat on the head for Cultivating Correct Attitudes, the phone rang.

  “Thanet here.”

  “DS Lineham, sir.” Thanet grinned. Trust Mike already to be out on the job. “I’m at the house of a suicide, reported this morning. A Doctor Pettifer.”

  “It’s Dr Pettifer himself who’s committed suicide?” Thanet’s tone betrayed something of the sense of shock, betrayal almost, which he experienced whenever he heard of a member of the medical profession killing himself.

  “Yes, sir.”

  There was, Thanet thought, something almost obscene about the suicide of any man who had taken the Hippocratic Oath and dedicated himself to the saving of life. Unfortunately, the stress experienced these days by overworked, over-burdened doctors took a heavy toll; the suicide rate in the profession, like alcoholism, was high.

  “Apparently,” added Lineham.

  “What d’you mean, apparently?”

  “Well, it all looks straightforward enough—an overdose helped on by alcohol, by the look of it. There’s even a suicide note. But his wife’s away and his housekeeper, well, she’s hysterical, been with him since the year dot and swears he had no reason to do it …”

  “That’s what they all say,” said Thanet. He knew only too well that the disbelief initially experienced by those closest to a suicide frequently equals and sometimes even exceeds their grief.

  “Anyway, I thought I’d better give you a ring.”

  “I’ll come along. I was just hoping for an excuse to get out of the office. It’s that big Victorian house at the end of Brompton Lane, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right. Pine Lodge. The one with the entrance pillars painted white.”

  “I’ll be with you in ten minutes. Have you called a doctor?”

  “The housekeeper says she doesn’t know who his personal doctor was.”

  “Even though she’s been with him for years?”

  “I know it sounds odd, sir, but that’s what she said. He was very healthy, apparently and I suppose doctors tend to treat themselves for minor ailments … Anyway, I didn’t feel it would be right to ring one of his partners. I thought we might give Doc Mallard a ring.” Mallard was the local police surgeon.

  “It’s not usual, with a suicide,” said Thanet. “But in the circumstances, yes, it’s the best thing to do. I’ll see if I can get hold of him. If not, I’ll arrange something else from this end. See you shortly.”

  Mallard was soon contacted and Thanet arranged to meet him at Pine Lodge. Brompton Lane was in the prime residential area on the far side of Sturrenden, which was a thriving market town in the heart of Kent. Thanet had been born and brought up here, so naturally he knew most of the prominent people by sight. In the car he tried to recall what he knew of Pettifer, who was—had been—a striking figure: tall, thin, with a beaky nose and jutting chin, a distinctive, bony face. He hadn’t looked an approachable man and had had the reputation of being a first-rate doctor whose patients were for that reason prepared to overlook his lack of a bedside manner.

  And of course, Thanet thought, with a spurt of interest—he had been married to the actress, Gemma Shade! She was his second wife and much younger than he. Their marriage had been the talk of Sturrenden last year—or was it the year before? Thanet wasn’t sure. Miss Shade’s reputation as a serious actress was high and everyone had been astounded when she had chosen to marry a country GP. It had not fitted her somewhat exotic public image. Thanet wondered where she was this morning.

  He was now nearing Brompton Lane and was aware of the growing knot of tension in his stomach; aware, too, that he was deliberately making his mind work in order to prevent himself thinking of the ordeal ahead. Not one of Thanet’s colleagues knew how he dreaded the first sight of a corpse. There was something about that initial glimpse of the recently dead which moved him unbearably, especially when the death had been unnatural. Perhaps it was regret at the waste, perhaps a sense of being closer at this time than at any other to that central mystery of life, the moment when a living being loses his individuality, his identity, and becomes no more than a collection of discarded bones and flesh. At one time Thanet had been ashamed of such feelings, seeing them as unmanly, inappropriate to his calling; but slowly he had come to recognise that, paradoxically, they were one of his strengths, acting as a spur to his subsequent efforts. Acknowledging the value of what had been destroyed, he replenished his own sense of purpose.

  There were the gateposts which Lineham had mentioned, painted white no doubt to act as landmarks for a tired GP trying to find his driveway in the dark after a night call.

  Well, there would be no more night calls for Pettifer, Thanet reflected as he swung into the drive of neatly-raked gravel and parked beside Lineham’s Renault 5.

  Pettifer’s sleep would never be disturbed again.

  2

  The Pettifer house was typical of so many Victorian family homes built towards the end of the nineteenth century. Constructed of rather ugly red brick it boasted large, square bay windows on either side of a shallow entrance porch and radiated an air of solidity and respectability. The figure of the uniformed constable planted outside the front door struck an incongruous note.

  “Morning, Andrews,” said Thanet. “DS Lineham inside?”

  “In the kitchen I believe, sir, with the housekeeper.” He stood aside for Thanet to pass.

  Thanet nodded and stepped into the house, closing the door behind him. The hall was wide, with doors to right and left and a broad staircase straight ahead rising to a half-landing illuminated by a stained-glass window similar to the panels on either side of the front door. A corridor alongside the staircase led presumably to the kitchen. The floor was patterned in black and white ceramic tiles and adorned by a truly magnificent Persian rug whose reds and blues gleamed in the dim light like semi-precious stones. On a carved antique oak blanket chest against the right-hand wall stood a deep pink bowl filled with Michaelmas daisies of all hues from pink to dark red, pale blue to indigo, echoing the rich colours of the carpet. The walls were hung with oil paintings, each with its own individual spotlight.

  Thanet stood quite still, absorbing the atmosphere of the house. The place was well-ordered, no doubt about that, and there was both taste and money. Whose taste and whose money, he wondered. GPs didn’t exactly starve, but neither did their incomes run to furnishings of this quality. And although Mrs Pettifer was well known, Thanet wouldn’t have thought she was enough of a show-biz personality to be earning huge sums.

  A door at the back of the house opened and closed and Detective Sergeant Lineham appeared, advancing along the narrow corridor beside the staircase.

  “Ah, there you are, Mike,” said Thanet. “Where is he?”

  “In his bedroom. Are you ready to go up?” Lineham had worked with Thanet for several years now and was accustomed to Thanet’s slow initial approach to a case, had even come to agree that those vital first impressions could be lost for ever if there was too much haste.

  “Lead the way,” said Thanet, standing back to allow Lineham to precede him.

  As he climbed the stairs he was aware of that knot in his stomach again, of the dryness in his mouth, his quickened breathing. He braced himself.

  Lineham led the way not into one of the principal bedrooms but into a small room above the front door. It was simply furnished, spartan even, with a single bed, a bedside table and one small upright chair over the back of which Pettifer’s dressing gown was neatly folded. There were no ornaments, no pictures, no concessions to luxury apart from one meagre bedside rug on the polished floorboards. Later, Thanet was to realise that this had originally been a dressing room for one of the principal bedrooms; one wall consisted entirely of built-in cupboards and there was a communicating door. For the moment, however, his attention was entirely focused on the occupant of the bed.

  Doctor Pettifer had died peacefully—
indeed it was difficult to believe that he was not simply asleep. He lay comfortably curled on his right side, chin resting on right hand, only his stillness and the unnatural pallor of his skin betraying his true condition.

  “No doubt that he’s dead?” Thanet murmured.

  “None, sir. He’s been gone for some hours. He’s cooling fast.”

  Thanet laid his hand against Pettifer’s cheek and found that is was cold, clammy to the touch. Lineham was right. Some time last night, then. He stepped back, clasping his hands behind his back. Better to be safe than sorry, touch nothing, just in case. Though he had to admit, everything looked innocuous enough, if suicide can ever be so described. Already his own tension was beginning to ease and he noted the empty pill container on the bedside table, the stained tumbler, the half-empty wine bottle. He stooped to peer at the label: Taylor’s 1908 Vintage Port.

  “Looks as though he went out in style,” he said. “There was a note, you said?”

  Lineham reached into his breast pocket, passed Thanet an envelope, handling it with care. “Addressed to his wife. Seems clear enough.”

  On the envelope was one word, Gemma. The letter was brief and to the point.

  Darling,

  Forgive me for letting you down like this. Please, try and make it up to Andy for me, will you?

  Ever yours,

  Arnold

  Thanet stared at the piece of paper. It seemed so … inadequate a message. But then no letter, no matter how long and tender, could possibly console a wife for being left in this way. The act of suicide was in itself explicit enough, the message inescapable: You don’t matter enough to me to make my life worth living.

  “Who’s Andy?”

  “Doctor Pettifer’s son by his first marriage. He’s away at boarding school.”

  Thanet frowned. “Poor kid. He’ll have to be told, of course. Where is Mrs Pettifer?”

  “In London, apparently. She’s due back any minute, according to the housekeeper. Went up last evening, to have dinner with her agent and discuss a new play. She’s Gemma Shade, the actress.”