The Silent Sleep of the Dying (Eisenmenger-Flemming Forensic Mysteries) (20 page)

*

Eisenmenger didn't feel that he wanted to wait. He had questions and Hartmann was the one with the answers. He called into his office early the next morning; Hartmann, though, was late and Eisenmenger found the office empty. He decided to remain and spent the time looking around Hartmann's office. He didn't exactly snoop, but there was enough disorganization with papers, slides, journals and personal effects all scattered around on various surfaces, for him to feel that he was just idly flicking through things that were clearly not private.

Which was how he found the bank receipt. Thirty thousand pounds paid in two weeks before.

"What the bloody hell … ?"

Eisenmenger's first impression was that Hartmann looked tired, but then he realized that wasn't the half of it. Hartmann looked moribund, completely emptied of life. He looked as if he had spent the night awake, as if something terrible were stalking him from the darkness of his closing eyes, as if hell beckoned him from a future that was already decided.

"What are you doing in my office?"

"Waiting for you." Eisenmenger didn't want to believe Hartmann had knowingly changed the post-mortem findings, but the chance discovery of the paying-in receipt removed the only major question — why.

Eisenmenger viewed pathologists as the long stops, forming the last line of defence against negligence, malpractice and even murder. They were the ones who told the clinicians if they got it wrong, where they got it wrong and possibly how not to get it wrong again. They helped to spot the trends in death and disease, so that the nursing home down the road, where just a few too many grannies were ending up with broken hips or badly bruised arms, was looked at by the authorities with increased interest. They set off the alarm when the man found dead in his flat turned out on closer examination to have an unexplained skull fracture.

If Hartmann had deliberately covered something up about Millicent Sweet's death, Eisenmenger knew that the ramifications would be deep and wide. He wasn't inclined to allow Hartmann to indulge in spurious indignation.

"Have you been snooping around my office?"

He had considered having a nice friendly chat with Hartmann, letting him explain the findings — if he could — one by one. Hartmann's tone, though, decided matters differently.

"You falsified the findings of Millicent Sweet's autopsy," he said simply.

Hartmann opened his mouth but it was his eyes that spoke. They widened slightly and Eisenmenger saw that they were slightly bloodshot, and very, very frightened. A brief but eloquent pause, then, "No, I didn't. Rubbish."

One denial would have been enough; the second merely diluted the first.

"The slides and blocks that you claim are from Millicent Sweet's autopsy have been taken from another post-mortem."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Hartmann had taken to shaking his head. He had come into the heart of the room and taken a defensive position behind his desk, his briefcase in front of him, a look of indignation plastering his face like a mudpack.

"She didn't die of Burkitt's lymphoma. She died of multiple cancers."

"Prove it." It occurred to Eisenmenger that with that remark Hartmann might just as well have confessed all. He stood up. Debating whether to bring up the thirty thousand pounds, he said, "What I can't figure out is why you did it. Why cover up the cause of death?" He frowned and his voice dropped, as if he had forgotten Hartmann and he was ruminating alone. "It's not as if she died an unnatural death. Multiple cancers are unusual, but they're not a reason to bury the truth. Exactly the opposite, really … "

He looked up as Hartmann, who was still trying to look furious, tried again. "This is preposterous. She died of Burkitt's … "

He was like a man constantly repeating his order at the bar, constantly ignored. Eisenmenger suddenly seemed to come back to what Hartmann was saying. He said in what was almost a bored tone, "It's perfectly obvious she didn't. The blocks have been tampered with. And then there's Belinda. She saw the autopsy, don't forget."

"But she's only a registrar!" protested Hartmann. "What does she know?"

Eisenmenger sighed. "She's a better pathologist now than you'll ever be," he pointed out succinctly.

For perhaps half a second, perhaps only a quarter of that, Hartmann looked as if he were going to detonate. His face flinched into a sort of spasm that was gone from view at once, like a summer night's shooting star seen from the corner of the eve. He breathed out, his frame almost collapsing and, instead of conflagration, there came only repetition. "Prove it," he repeated weakly.

Eisenmenger shrugged. "Very well," he said. He was turning, perhaps slightly more slowly than he needed, when Hartmann asked, "What do you mean?" The panic was unmissable.

Still moving away from Hartmann, Eisenmenger said over his shoulder, "I'll prove it. I'll do DNA analysis on the blocks from the Burkitt's lymphoma and on the fresh tissue taken at post-mortem. I'll compare them and show that they're not the same."

He was at the door by the time Hartmann said, "But those samples were destroyed!"

At last Eisenmenger turned. His eyebrows were raised as, with a small, negating shake of his head, he said quietly, "Not all of them, Mark."

They stared at each other for a short time that could have been forever. Then, quite abruptly, Hartmann began to sob.

*

The next time that Helena met Alasdair he gave her a bracelet. It was exceedingly fine and clearly very expensive, and Helena loved it at once. She went through the ritual of attempting to refuse it but they both knew that she was going to accept it and they both knew that its acceptance was the first step in a process. The offer and the acknowledgement of gratitude were signs as clearly signalled as the courtship displays of the lower animals.

And yet …

It was going fast and Helena didn't like to be hurried. The loss of control scared her, the possible consequences made her mind dart from anxiety to fear. She sat there and found a degree of captivation that she had barely known before, that she suspected she yearned for, but still it raised faint spectres of concern. How was this happening?

Like a member of the audience at a magic show she saw the trick and she was enthralled, but she looked at the same time for the clue as to how the illusion was created. Alasdair was relaxed, charming, never seeming to push her, yet she felt a force impel her, felt a desire to deepen the relationship, while knowing that it would be for the best to take things slowly.

Was this really love?

Even asking the question in her mind embarrassed her. It was ridiculous that she should not know, that she ask the question at all, especially at such an early stage, so soon after their first, fortuitous meeting.

"So, is the law as boring as I think it is?" he asked over the dinner. His eyes were slightly creased at the corners, the voice betraying a teasing tone.

"Mostly," she admitted.

They were in a small, exclusive dining room that she had before only ever heard about. It was the type of place that defined the customers as inferior because they had to pay to eat there.

"All probate and divorce? Lawyers congregating around the disasters in life?"

When he ate, he chewed his food more methodically and with more elegance than any other man she had ever seen. Perhaps his mother had taught him to chew twenty times before swallowing; certainly she seemed to have taught him the most impeccable table manners, for Helena had noticed that he never put his elbows on the table, never drank or spoke with food in his mouth, and never started a course until she did.

"Mostly."

"So why do you do it? It would bore me rigid. Can't you find something more interesting to do with a law degree?"

She shrugged. "It's not all wills and arguments over custody of the Afghan hound."

They were drinking an expensive Rioja Gran Reserva and the bottle was already nearly empty. Alasdair put down his knife and fork, one on either side of the plate, perfectly symmetrical in their placement. "What would you say if I were to suggest another possibility?"

Helena raised her eyebrows warily. "Such as?"

"Our legal department is always on the look out for new blood. I'm sure that any application you made would be greeted with great interest."

Especially as he was Head of Human Resources.

"I'm not up on contract law."

He smiled and took her hand. "It wouldn't take you long to get back into it."

It would be more interesting than the usual high street fare, but Helena found again her normal reluctance to commit, several reasons coalescing at once in her eagerness. "Maybe," she replied. He smiled, as if he knew that she was snared, and continued eating.

The conversation meandered as the second bottle of wine decanted.

"What exactly does your company do?" she asked over handmade mints. She had heard of Cronkhite-Canada, but the name had never become associated in her mind with anything specific.

"We diversify, if you have to put a single word to it. Construction, electronics, information systems, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, defence. Anything and everything."

"Defence?"

"Nothing heavy," he reassured her. "Mostly things like passive detection systems, encryption, stuff like that."

"And would Cronkhite-Canada really have a need for someone like me?"

He smiled. "Of course they would. Anyone with legal training and a proven track record is of interest."

She considered. "How about something to finish off with?" he asked. "They have some superb Armagnac here."

When it had been poured he said, "Why don't I make a few preliminary enquiries? Smooth the way."

She shook her head. "I won't say I'm not tempted," she admitted. "But it's too soon. Anyway there's something on at the moment that I've got to finish before I could consider anything like changing jobs."

"Fair enough." Then, "Something interesting, is it?"

She smiled as she replied, "Well, it's a little more interesting than conveyancing."

He laughed. "So there is excitement in the life of a high street solicitor!" he exclaimed in a tone of mock astonishment. Helena found herself relaxing even more. Perhaps, she began to wonder, there really was nothing to worry about with Alasdair.

*

Hartmann had finished telling his tale, but if the confession had relieved his soul of a burden, it did not tell on his face, nor in his whole demeanour. He looked pale, almost ready to weep again, and his hands were shaking.

Eisenmenger sat and stared at the table between them, almost as if ignoring Hartmann. There was a look of deep contemplation on his face. He held between his hands a teaspoon, which he occasionally would turn about its long axis, and occasionally would use to strike one of the knuckles on his left hand.

They sat in the outpatients' teashop, surrounded by health promotion posters and advertisements for various fund-raising activities organized by the League of Friends. Because today was the Diabetes Clinic, those around them were pretty well all obese, elderly and walking badly.

"Why?" demanded Eisenmenger. His question was abrupt, as was the action of his head coming up to stare at Hartmann. "Why go to all that trouble for a natural death?"

Hartmann's reply was almost drowned in anguish. "I don't know. Don't you think I've asked that question? Rosenthal wouldn't say."

"And both he and the girl worked for Wiskott-Aldrich?"

"That's right."

"I've never heard of them. Have you?"

Hartmann shook his head. Eisenmenger took out a small notebook and wrote down the name.

"And Belinda was right? There were multiple tumour types?"

"It was unreal. I counted seventeen in the end. There might have been more."

Eisenmenger was silent after that. His hands were around the teacup but he didn't attempt to pick it up, just stared at the trembling reflection of the lights on its surface.

"What will you do?" Hartmann's voice was small and very, very fearful, but Eisenmenger wasn't in a position to be too reassuring; Hartmann's confession had basically left no alternative course of action. Not only were there the ethical implications of falsifying the medical record, but there was also the illegality of making a false report to the Coroner, added to which there was the immorality of what he had done to his marriage.

"Try to find out what's going on. That's what I was brought in to do."

On the other side of the counter the doughty members of the Women's Royal Voluntary Service pulled the levers of their machines and thereby made loud sibilant noises as they dispensed weak tea and lump-laden cocoa.

"But what about me?"

Eisenmenger wondered what Hartmann was expecting — exoneration because of confession? Good enough for God but not, he suspected, mortal man. He didn't feel that he could offer either support or comfort.

"I don't know, Mark."

"But does my name have to be included? Can't it be left out?"

Eisenmenger found that he couldn't look at him as he shook his head and said, "I doubt it, Mark." When at last he did glance at Hartmann, he saw a look of total, horrified despair there.