Puppet for a Corpse Read online

  “Good morning, Inspector,” she said. “Good morning, Sergeant. Do sit down. Mrs Price, what I have to say concerns Dr Pettifer’s death and you have been with him so long … do stay, if you wish.” She sat down in one of the wing chairs beside the fireplace.

  Thanet chose the matching armchair on the other side of the hearth. Mrs Price sat down stiffly on the small upright chair in front of the little writing desk and Lineham perched on the edge of the settee. He took out his notebook.

  “This came this morning.” Gemma handed the envelope to Thanet.

  Anticipation fizzed through his veins as he took it, extracted the single sheet of paper. He glanced at the signature. Benedict Randall? Thanet had never heard of him. Quickly, he skimmed the brief note.

  Dear Mrs Pettifer,

  I did not return from holiday until yesterday and have only just learned of your husband’s death. He was a fine doctor and a friend of many years standing and it is a tragedy that he was unable to come to terms with what was happening to him. Inevitably, I cannot help feeling a measure of guilt in not having recognised the depth and degree of his distress.

  If there is, at any time, any way in which I may be of service to you, please do not hesitate to call on me.

  My most sincere condolences,

  Benedict Randall

  Thanet’s mind raced as he read. Whatever could the man be referring to? There could be only one possible explanation. But in that case, why hadn’t …?

  “He assumes, as you see, that I would know what he was talking about,” Gemma said. Like Lineham and Mrs Price, she had been watching Thanet eagerly.

  “And what was he talking about? May I?” Thanet waited for her nod before handing the letter to Lineham.

  “Well, I’d no idea, of course, so I rang him up. We’d met briefly, once or twice. He’s a consultant neurologist at Sturrenden General. He’s very well known in his field, has a practice in Harley Street.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That my husband was suffering from disseminated sclerosis—multiple sclerosis, it’s often called.”

  Mrs Price drew in her breath sharply, with a slight hissing sound.

  “Yes,” Gemma said, glancing at her. “You’d well be able to understand what that would mean to him, Mrs Price.” She turned back to Thanet. “Apparently my husband asked Mr Randall never to mention this diagnosis to anyone, not even to me if by any chance we should meet. Mr Randall assumed that Arnold wanted to tell me in his own good time and also assumed that Arnold’s death had released him from that promise. He was pretty shattered to find that I still didn’t know anything about it.” She shook her head. “My husband couldn’t have borne it, Inspector. He was so proud, so fiercely independent … the prospect would have been truly intolerable to him.” She shivered and, so fleetingly that Thanet could almost have thought that he had imagined it, there was a flicker of repulsion in her eyes. Thanet remembered what Deborah Chivers had told him of Gemma’s loathing of illness.

  “I’ve heard of it of course,” Thanet said, “but I know very little about it.”

  “Mr Randall explained it to me. And I’ve just been looking it up in a medical dictionary.” She opened the book on her lap at a marked place and handed it to Thanet.

  “‘A disease in which nerve linings around scattered small areas of the brain and spinal cord are attacked by some unknown agent,’” Thanet read aloud. “‘In severe cases tissue may be destroyed and nerves cease to function.’”

  “By an unknown agent,” Lineham said. “That’s pretty terrifying.”

  “I know.” Gemma’s eyes were dark with imagined horror. “Mr Randall said that the cause of it is not known. It doesn’t run in families—thank God,” and she folded her arms protectively across her body. “And it’s not contagious. It’s a disease, apparently, of temperate climates, like ours, and my husband was rather older than people normally are when it first attacks. It says in there,” and she nodded at the dictionary, “that the typical victim is a young adult.”

  “What are the symptoms?” Lineham was staring at Gemma with a kind of fascinated dread.

  “‘Weakness, pins and needles,’” Thanet read aloud, “‘double vision or impaired eyesight, difficulty in walking or in intricate movements such as threading a needle.’ Apparently they last a few days, then they may disappear. But they will recur after widely varying intervals of weeks, months, even years. The pattern is of a series of attacks with these periods of recovery in between. It says here that this is why the disease is frequently not diagnosed in its early stages. Presumably the symptoms disappear, the victim shrugs it off and forgets about it until the next time.”

  “That’s right,” Gemma said. “Mr Randall said that this can happen a number of times over a period of years before the patient finally does something about it.”

  “So your husband suspected that he might have fallen victim to it and consulted Mr Randall.”

  “That’s right. Being a doctor, of course, he was able to refer himself direct to a consultant. People normally have to go through their GPs. And also, he naturally became suspicious far earlier than most people would have.”

  “Which is why his condition had not yet become obvious and none of the people about him suspected the truth.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I remember Dr Lowrie mentioning to me that your husband thought at one time that he might have to have reading glasses, but that it turned out to be unnecessary. That may well have been one of the earlier attacks.”

  “That’s what Mr Randall said. Apparently my husband had his eyes tested, but by then the symptoms had vanished and his eyesight appeared perfect. Then there was the time he pulled a muscle in his leg. Apparently it’s very common for people to trip over nothing …”

  “I remember that,” Mrs Price intervened. “Oh, sorry, Mrs Pettifer, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “That’s all right, Mrs Price. Do go on.”

  “I saw it happen, that’s all. I was looking out of the kitchen window. Dr Pettifer was walking down the garden path and he stumbled, tripped and fell over suddenly, just like that. I ran out, but he was already getting up again. But I couldn’t understand it at all. There was just nothing he could have tripped over, I looked.”

  “And how long ago was that, did you say?” asked Thanet.

  “About eighteen months ago.”

  “Just a few months after we were married,” Gemma said. “So you see …” She shivered and there, once again, was that flicker of repulsion.

  Oh yes, Thanet saw all right. Here then at last was a believable reason for Pettifer to have committed suicide, Pettifer the “exercise fanatic” as Lowrie had called him … To endure not only increasing immobility, paralysis and dependence but the disgust of the wife he adored … Tragedy indeed. Learning of her unfaithfulness must have been the last straw.

  “But the post mortem,” Lineham was saying, and Thanet looked at him with approval. It was a point he had been about to raise himself. “Why didn’t anything show up in the post mortem?”

  “I asked Mr Randall about that,” Gemma said. “Apparently it wouldn’t show up in a routine post mortem, especially in the early stages of the disease. Even a really good pathologist could miss it. Are you all right, Mrs Price?”

  The housekeeper had taken out a handkerchief and was wiping her eyes. Now she shook her head, her face crumpled with grief. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “To think that the doctor …” She shook her head again, stood up blindly. “If you’d excuse me,” she said.

  Gemma crossed to put an arm around the housekeeper’s shoulders as she blundered to the door. “Why don’t you go and lie down for a while? Take the day off, if you like. I can manage perfectly well, I’m sure.”

  Mrs Price blew her nose, straightened her shoulders. “I’m better off doing things,” she said. “But thank you.”

  It looked as though the two women were beginning to come to terms with each other at last, Thanet thought,
watching them.

  When the housekeeper had left the room, Gemma came back and stood in front of the fireplace, facing Thanet. “So there we are, Inspector. I must say that, although I feel very sad on my husband’s behalf,” and her eyes glistened with unshed tears which she blinked away, “it’s a great relief to me to know that there was a reason …”

  Thanet was aware that Lineham had made a tiny, restless movement.

  “… and so glad, for the baby’s sake, that the mystery has been cleared up.” She laid a protective hand on the mound of her stomach. “It’ll be bad enough as it is, knowing that his father committed suicide, but never to have known why …”

  Thanet stood up. “Yes. There is just one last question I’d like to ask you, though. Whose suggestion was it that you go to London that night—as opposed to any other night, I mean. Yours or your husband’s?”

  She considered, head on one side. “His, I think. Yes, it was. I’d been reading a script, considering a part and, as I think I told you before, I simply couldn’t make up my mind whether to take it or not, and Arnold said, why didn’t I go up to see my agent, discuss it with him.”

  “When was this?”

  “Oh, let me see … Some time early last week.”

  “And which of you suggested you go on Monday?”

  “Arnold did. I remember because I knew that Mrs Price was going to be away for the night and I suggested I go some other time instead. Arnold said no, that it would give him a chance to get on with something he’d been planning for some time. It was he who suggested I stay the night in London. He said it would be less tiring for me …” Her face was beginning to disintegrate. “I’d forgotten that. I suppose he wanted us both out of the house. He probably didn’t want to risk one of us finding him before … before …” She shook her head as the tears brimmed over and began to roll down her cheeks.

  Lineham was looking at Thanet with outraged expectancy. Clearly he was waiting for Thanet to disillusion her.

  “What I can’t bear,” she said, “is the thought that he changed his mind at the last minute, that he called me for help and I … just went away, left him to die. If only I’d forced my way in, somehow …”

  “I shouldn’t dwell too much on that if I were you. Knowing your husband, what sort of a life do you think it would have been for him, as time went on?”

  She compressed her lips, shook her head. “I suppose you’re right,” she said doubtfully.

  Thanet stood up. “Anyway, it does seem as though the mystery is explained at last. I shouldn’t think we’ll need to trouble you again.”

  She blew her nose, made an effort to smile, followed them out into the hall. “You know …” she said.

  With the front door half open Thanet and Lineham paused, turned politely.

  “Those cruise tickets,” she said. “I’m beginning to think of them as Arnold’s last message to me. I think he was saying, Go on living. And enjoy it.”

  The briefest of glances at Lineham’s face was enough. With a hasty goodbye to Gemma Pettifer, Thanet hustled him out to the car. He propelled the sergeant into the passenger seat. Safer, this time, if he took the wheel himself.

  “Go on living and enjoy it, indeed!” Lineham exploded as they fastened their seat belts. “Incredible, isn’t it? Really incredible!”

  “What is, exactly?” Lineham needed to get it off his chest.

  “And all that stuff about the baby. Who is she trying to fool?”

  “Herself, perhaps?” Thanet said softly. “Or perhaps she really does believe it. After all, Mike, you must remember that as far as she’s concerned, her husband could well be the father. She has no idea he was sterile, we can be sure of that.”

  “But it’s all wrong!”

  “What is?”

  “To let her go on thinking … all those things she is thinking. That he killed himself solely because of his illness, for a start. That he didn’t know she was being unfaithful to him … That he thought the baby was his … And all that rubbish about the cruise being a gift for the future and him wanting her to be happy, when we know that he tried to set her up on a murder charge, for God’s sake!”

  “You’re convinced now, then?”

  “Oh yes. No doubt about it. You were right—as usual;” he added with a wry grin. “But surely, sir, you’re not just going to leave it like that?”

  “You mean, you think it’s my duty to explain all this to her?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Well …”

  “To punish her for her sins, is that it?”

  Lineham had the grace to look abashed.

  “No, Mike. My brief is finished and that’s that. Our job was to get at the truth of the matter and that we’ve done. And besides, she may not realise it at the moment, but she’s going to pay all right, in her own way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Wait until we get back to the office and I’ll tell you. Though that demonstration you gave earlier shows that you’re perfectly capable of working it out for yourself.”

  Lineham did not reply and a glance at his face told Thanet that the challenge had been taken up, the sergeant’s righteous indignation diverted.

  Thanet swerved to avoid a cyclist who had suddenly wobbled out in front of the car. They were approaching the centre of the town now and the mid-morning traffic was building up.

  He settled down to concentrate on his driving.

  23

  With the Pettifer case closed, Thanet felt free to take Sunday off. Any residual paperwork could be done on Monday. But Joan had promised to drive Mrs Markham to Bexhill …

  “Why don’t I drive you down?” he suggested. “It’s a glorious day. We could take a picnic, to the beach.”

  “Lovely idea, darling.” Joan hugged him. “I’ll wear my new sweater, to celebrate.”

  “Smashing, Dad!” (Ben)

  “A whole day off, Daddy!” (Bridget)

  “Yes, poppet. A whole day.” Thanet suppressed a twinge of guilt that this should seem so unusual an occurrence.

  The sun shone, the roads were empty, they were all in a holiday mood and the journey was soon over. They delivered Mrs Markham into the arms of her suitably appreciative daughter-in-law, then went down to the beach. They hadn’t been here before and were delighted to find that it was sandy.

  “I’m glad I packed the buckets and spades,” murmured Joan as they settled down.

  Bridget and Ben immediately began to discuss and sketch out on the sand ambitious plans for a moated castle complete with drawbridge. Joan and Thanet watched them for a while and then agreed to take it in turns to keep an eye on them while the other relaxed.

  Thanet loved the sun and a day as warm as this so late in the year was a bonus indeed. He lay revelling in its mellow warmth, conscious of it soaking into his skin, his flesh, his very bones, it seemed. The plaintive mewing of the gulls, the rhythmic sigh of the sea and the distant cries of children playing receded into a distant music that soothed the spirit. Wonderful to relax like this, he thought. Wonderful not to have to think about work. Glad the Pettifer case is finished …

  His own voice echoed in his mind. “You see, Mike, a good detective also needs one other quality: intuition.” Well, Mike had shown him just how essential intuition was.

  “What’s the matter?” Joan said.

  “Nothing. Why?”

  “You groaned.”

  “Did I?”

  “Well, sort of. A little groan.”

  Thanet rolled over, sat up. “I was just thinking what a conceited, condescending, patronising idiot I am.”

  “Wow! Is that all?”

  “That’s all.”

  They grinned at each other.

  “And what, exactly, put that ego-boosting thought into your head?”

  “I was thinking about Mike.” And he told her about Lineham’s bitter disappointment that he hadn’t beaten Thanet to it, of his own sense of Lineham’s need to achieve at that parti
cular moment, of his stratagem to help him do it.

  “And did it work?”

  “Yes, Only too well.”

  “So, what are you worrying about?”

  “The way I lectured him first. Pontificated. Babbled on about intuition, subterranean connections …”

  “Subterranean connections?”

  Thanet explained. “… It makes my toes curl to think about it.”

  “But why? You did get there before him, after all.”

  “I know, but … It was the way Mike did it. Oh, I know I had to push him a little, to keep him going. If he has a fault in this respect, it’s to give up too soon. But he did get there. And by logic.”

  “So?”

  “Well, it shook me. There I was, thinking I had something special, the policeman’s nose, some people call it …”

  “Well, it is something special. Maybe Mike was able to get there by logic, deduction, whatever you like to call it, this time—but another time it might simply not work.”

  “That’s true, I suppose.”

  “Anyway, if you didn’t get there by logic, how did you get there?”

  Thanet had of course told Joan about the outcome of the case, but until now there had been no opportunity to talk at leisure.

  Thanet considered. “Well, I suppose the turning point for me was the discovery that Pettifer was sterile.”

  “Why was that so important?”

  “Because it destroyed his credibility. It showed that he’d been acting out a lie to everyone, including his wife, in pretending that there was nothing wrong with their marriage. It made me question everything I had until then accepted. I simply couldn’t believe, from what I’d heard about him, that he could just have shrugged his shoulders and ignored his wife’s infidelity. And yet he obviously wanted everyone to believe he was unaware of it. So I had to ask myself, why?”