Aftermath (5 page)

Webster's face broadened into a smile.

‘You find that funny?' March's smile faded rapidly.

‘Frankly, yes, I do, but not in a spiteful way, I assure you. What I mean is . . . what I find amusing is the term because what does “respiratory failure” mean but “stopped breathing”?'

March chuckled. ‘I see . . . yes, quite true, but so many relatives of elderly patients need something more than “stopped breathing” and as doctors we can't put “stopped breathing” on a death certificate, if we do then our credibility is out of the window. The term “respiratory failure” gives relatives a reason for death or a cause of same . . . but as you say, all it means is that the person in question just stopped breathing. It's only used in the case of elderly people who are closely monitored up to the end . . . never on a younger, healthier person who dies suddenly. For that we have the diagnosis of Sudden Death Syndrome and in infants it is Sudden Infant Death Syndrome . . . but for geriatrics who have run their race and who die in their sleep, then “respiratory failure” it is. Mr Housecarl did contract a mild chest infection at the time of his death, but that might be because his immune system was shutting down and so allowed infection in. In the end, it was just the case that Mr Housecarl was one of those persons whose life had run its course and that was it. So “respiratory failure”, though I knew he was about to die because he had had a visit . . . his brother.'

‘A visit?'

‘Yes, people who work in terminal care often know when one of their patients is about to expire because they will report that a predeceased relative has visited them. You'll hear it often in geriatric care, a nurse will approach her colleagues and say “Mrs Smith's just had her visit . . . she won't be long now”, and sure enough, within three or four days said Mrs Smith will die quietly, often in her sleep. In just that manner, when I last visited Mr Housecarl he told me that “Tommy” had visited him. Upon enquiring who “Tommy” was I learned that Thomas Housecarl had died in New Zealand some twenty years earlier. “Tommy” had appeared to Mr Housecarl and two days later he was deceased. And patients that receive such visits are lucid, not suffering from dementia.'

‘That's very interesting.' Webster sat back in the upright chair which was beside the doctor's desk and faced the doctor who sat at the desk. It was clearly the patient's chair in Dr March's surgery and was, thought Webster, a preferable arrangement to that chosen by his own doctor who kept a large desk, barrier-like, between himself and his patient.

‘It is, isn't it?' Dr March, Webster found, was a doctor with a warm and cheery manner. His surgery looked out on to a brick wall, probably within reaching distance, and yet enjoyed a plentiful supply of natural light. It could not be overlooked from the outside and as such, was the only surgery that Webster had been in which did not have net curtains or some other means of preventing anyone outside from looking in on a consultation. ‘Unsettling also. So what can I tell you about Mr Housecarl?'

‘We need to establish the pattern of his life for some years prior to his death and also need to find his ex-employees.'

‘May I ask why?'

‘Yes, I can tell you, there is going to be a press release issued later today because we will need public assistance. There has been a discovery on his land; in the kitchen garden of Bromyards . . . though Mr Housecarl is not under suspicion.'

‘A discovery? A dead body?' March asked with a slight smile.

‘Yes, in fact. You sound like you know something, sir?'

‘No, I can't help you . . . it was just a logical deduction that it would take that sort of discovery to prompt a police officer to press me for my time in a very busy day and accept being squeezed in between morning surgery and “rounds”. So is that what it is . . . a dead body?'

‘Yes, five in fact.'

‘Five!'

‘And we are still searching the garden, it's badly overgrown and so there may be more corpses to be found. It's a big case . . .'

‘Oh my,' March sat forward and held his head in his hands, ‘I am astounded. Years, you say?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘But Mr Housecarl only died recently. You mean that all the while myself and the nurse . . . and the Meals on Wheels folk . . . all the while that we were visiting there were bodies in the kitchen garden . . . the enclosed garden beside the house?'

‘Yes, sir.' Webster paused. ‘The last body was probably deposited there only a few months ago. The Home Office Pathologist won't be drawn on the time of death.'

‘I bet he won't.'

‘She, actually, sir.'

‘She then. I tell you, the luxury of time of death being able to be determined is for TV programmes. It's very hard to determine the time of death in actuality. You know, from the time that the person was last seen alive to the time the body was found is a near as science can get to determining the actual time of death.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘And corpses don't always cool either. In the tropics a body will heat up after death and will then begin to cool. That can throw a real spanner in the works.'

‘Yes, sir . . . as you say. But the other victims were practically all skeletons . . . though some final victims still showed traces of internal organs.'

‘I see . . . yes, I see your need to establish Mr Housecarl's life pattern.'

‘We understand that in his final months he lived in just one room?'

‘Yes,' Dr March pursed his lips and nodded briefly, ‘yes, that was the case, and for years, not months. The last three or four years of his life he spent living in that little room, leaving only to use the bathroom opposite it. He kept himself alive by eating out of tins and on the meals the visiting catering service brought for him a few times each week.'

‘He wouldn't move to a smaller house?'

‘Wouldn't consider it, that was totally out of the question for him. He was fully
compos mentis
 . . . remember he had a “visit” from his brother Tommy . . .'

‘Yes,' Webster tapped his pen on his notepad, ‘as we agreed, very interesting.'

‘But the point is . . . is that he was
compos mentis
 . . . couldn't enforce his relocation under the mental health legislation. He explained to me once that if he abandoned Bromyards he would feel that he was letting down his ancestry. As you may know, the house has been in the Housecarl family for nearly three hundred years.'

‘Yes.'

‘The original house looked different, it was smaller, a much more modest building. It was expanded during the Victorian era when the family really came into very serious money . . . but it was the same family who owned it. He felt sad that he was going to be the last of the Housecarls but he accepted that the end of each dynasty has to come some time.'

‘Yes.'

‘And so the least he could do, he said, was to ensure that when he does leave Bromyards, he is carried out feet first. He felt he owed that to his forebears . . . and he had everything upstairs.' March tapped the side of his head. ‘In here he was as bright as a button, his body was failing but his mind was sharp and as a consequence of that, he had the right to self-determination . . . and said right we have to respect.'

‘Of course,' Webster spoke softly; he felt the reverence owed to the consulting room. ‘He was no harm to himself or others and Bromyards wasn't standing in the way of a proposed motorway development.'

‘No . . . listed building anyway. It might fall down because of neglect but it is protected under the terms of the National Monuments Act and can't be demolished.'

‘So, to confirm our belief and fully remove all suspicion, he could not, in your medically qualified opinion, be party to anything untoward which was going on outside the house?'

‘No . . . not physically part of it and I can't see him giving permission for anything like that. He was a gentleman of the old school . . . a man of principle.' Dr March pursed his lips. ‘No, he wouldn't have known anything about it.' March paused. ‘He was a hermit for many years. He had a carer . . . an assistant . . . I met her once . . . jolly lady. Now what was her name? What on earth was it? It was a name which I thought seemed to fit her personality. Charles Dickens could have named her . . . you know how Dickens suggested the personality of his character by the names he chose for them?'

‘I didn't know that.'

‘Oh, yes . . . like Mr Gradgrind the schoolmaster . . . and the boy pickpocket called the Artful Dodger . . . his characters have well-suited names and this lady had a name that Dickens would have pounced on . . . what was it? Mrs Mirth . . . no . . . M something . . . she came into a room like a ray of sunshine and she was introduced and I thought how apt . . . Merryweather!' March smiled and looked pleased with himself. ‘That was it, Mrs Penelope “Penny” Merryweather, and a jolly soul was she, salt of the earth . . . milk of human kindness sort of individual . . . lovely lady. She was the last of the staff at Bromyards, the last to be laid off . . . and I had the impression that she was the sort of employee who did more than her job. She seemed to have a devotion to Nicholas Housecarl. She'll be the lady to ask . . . hers will be the brains to pick about the matter of the old boy's retreat, but I think he abandoned the grounds about twenty years ago. I recall visiting about twenty years ago, when he was still living in the downstairs rooms and sleeping in an upstairs bedroom, and as I drove away I recall remarking that the hedge on the approach road . . .'

‘Too long to call a drive,' Webster smiled.

‘Yes, “drive” just does not convey the road from the public highway to the house, “approach road” is more apt . . . but to continue . . . as I was driving down the approach road I noticed that the privet was overdue for a trim, which it never got, and in hindsight that was the beginning of the retreat. He was letting the garden go. It was beginning then to slide into its present unkempt state. He had a few gardeners . . . head gardener and his under gardeners and the “boy”, but one by one they were laid off. Then the house staff went, until only the ray-of-sunshine Mrs Penny Merryweather remained . . . and then even she too was laid off.'

‘We'll have to trace her.' Webster glanced at a wallchart that showed the muscles of the human body.

‘She will be a good person to talk to, I'm sure, and she should still be with us. She'll be in her sixties now, but today that's no age at all.'

‘Do you know if Mr Housecarl had any visitors?'

‘The meal delivery service . . . the district nurse . . . myself. There was an arrangement whereby the rear door was kept open to allow us access . . . by open I mean unlocked.'

‘Risky.'

‘Not without its risks, I concede, but it was not as though it was an unsecured door on a “sink estate” or on a house in a fashionable suburb. A felon wouldn't stumble across Bromyards; he'd have to know it was there.'

Webster smiled warmly, ‘That's a good point, sir, very pertinent indeed. I'll pass that up to my boss.' He stood, ‘Well, thank you, this has indeed been useful. So we can rule out Mr Housecarl as being a part of this.'

‘Yes, I think you can. And it means that I can go to his funeral. I don't attend the funerals of all my patients but I want to attend this, although there won't be many there.'

‘Where is it and when?'

‘I don't know, I'll have to find that out. The funeral director is Canverrie and Son of York.'

Webster scribbled the name on his notepad.

It was Thursday, 12.17 p.m.

George Hennessey relaxed in his chair and read, and then re-read, the report which had been faxed to him from Dr D'Acre for his urgent attention. He read that, as Dr D'Acre had anticipated, she had not, she regretted, been able to establish the cause of death in any of the five corpses which had been found in the kitchen garden at Bromyards. Though she hoped her findings could help in identifying the victims. Each, she was able to confirm, was female. Each was an adult, although the age at death appeared to be varied, all had some degree of dental work, and all said dental work appeared to be British in nature. They were not foreign women. All were northern European in respect of their ethnicity. No personal artefacts were found on the skeletons, no rings or watches or bracelets, nor were there any evidence of clothing found, no zip fasteners or plastic buttons, for example. The latest victim had in life been a tall, young woman (her skull had not properly knitted together, thus placing her age at less than twenty-five years) probably standing about five foot eleven, or even six foot, in life. By contrast, the other four skeletons were all significantly shorter, none taller than five feet five inches when alive. Dr D'Acre's report concluded with an apology for not being more helpful.

‘Still very helpful though,' he murmured as he placed the report in the thickening folder, as yet marked only as ‘Bromyards – 10/6' and then glanced up in response to a gentle tap on the door frame of his office. Carmen Pharoah stood in the doorway, looking pleased with herself, Hennessey observed. He also saw that she held a manila folder in her right hand.

‘DC Pharoah,' Hennessey greeted her warmly, ‘do come in and take a pew.'

Carmen Pharoah walked silently on rubber-soled shoes into Hennessey's office and sat with a natural grace of movement on one of the upright chairs in front of Hennessey's desk. She glanced hurriedly out of the small window of Hennessey's office at the medieval walls of York, then bathed in sunshine and crowded with brightly dressed tourists. She turned to Hennessey. ‘We might have a match to the deceased, sir. Well, one of them, I should say.'

‘Oh? I am impressed.'