David Dickinson - Death and the Jubilee

‘I don’t think bankers drink a lot of the local beer, Johnny, even if it is fruity. They’re sober, respectable sort of people,’ said Powerscourt, kicking a couple of pine cones out of their path.

‘American bankers are very different from English ones. They’re more open, more hospitable sort of characters. Anyway, I said I had been to London on banking business and then to Germany. I said I was looking for Old Mr Harrison who had taught me all I knew about banking twenty years ago when they had their offices in Bishopsgate. I checked out their old address with William, you see.’

‘And what did the regulars at the King’s Arms have to say about the old gentleman?’ asked Powerscourt.

‘Not a lot, most of them. The House of Harrison is a couple of miles away, at least, quite close to the river. Very respectable family, very hard-working, very good people to work for. They said I might get more news of him at the Blackwater Arms, a sort of family pub, like Mr Burke’s family church, on the edge of the estate. It makes much more sense to have a pub rather than a church, don’t you think, Francis?’

‘I’m sure – no, I’m certain,’ said Powerscourt, ‘that you’re better qualified to be a landlord than a vicar, Johnny.’

‘They all said,’ Fitzgerald went on, ‘the natives in those parts, that Old Mr Harrison wasn’t at home, that he hadn’t been seen for a while. I was just about to go to bed when a very wizened old man called me into a corner. He fished about in his pockets and then he pulled out a piece of newspaper. It was an account of the discovery of the headless man by London Bridge. “See you here, young man,” he croaked at me, waving his piece of paper, “see you here. This dead body, floating in the Thames down there in London, that be Old Mr Harrison. Mark my words. It’s Old Mr Harrison.” Then he folded the paper as if it was a ten pound note and returned it to his pocket. “What on earth makes you think that, sir?” I said to the old scarecrow. “Jeremiah Cokestone sees things. Jeremiah Cokestone hears things. In the night or at first light before the sun has risen.” He spoke as if he was the Delphic oracle itself, I tell you. Then he downed his beer, almost a full glass, Francis, in a single pull, and he shuffled off into the night.’

They had reached the edge of the river now. On the far side a few boats were setting out for a Sunday trip along the Thames. Behind them a stiff breeze was rustling through the trees.

‘The next day,’ Johnny Fitzgerald tried skimming a couple of stones across the water, ‘I went to see the vicar. And there I had one of the most uplifting experiences of my life. I shall always remember it.’

‘You were converted.’ Powerscourt looked suitably grave. ‘You saw the light. You repented of the error of your ways.’

‘I did not. But the vicar’s wife gave me some of her elderberry wine. ’95 she said it was, one of her better years. God knows what the bad years must taste like, Francis.’ Fitzgerald grimaced at the memory. ‘I cannot describe the taste. It was horrible, so sweet it made you feel sick. Christ.’

A successful skim of about ten hops began to restore his spirits.

‘The vicar knew the family, of course. He hadn’t seen anything of Old Mr Harrison for a while. But he recommended me to another elderly citizen, one Samuel Parker, chief man for the horses at the Harrison house. I could just see Mrs Vicar about to pour me some more of that elderberry tincture, so I got out as fast as I could.’

‘We’d better be getting back to the house, Johnny.’ Powerscourt remembered the family proprieties. ‘We mustn’t be late for Sunday lunch with a Bishop to carve the joint. What happened with Mr Parker?’

Fitzgerald sent a final stone skimming into the middle of the Thames, nearly hitting a pleasure boat on its way downstream. Then he turned to stare intently at a bird that had just fled from a clump of trees on their left.

‘Mother of God, Francis, was that a kestrel? Damn, I can’t see it any more. Mr Parker took me down to the lake, a fabulous place, full of temples and statues of gods and a waterfall and stuff. He said he was desperately worried, that he didn’t know what to do. When I told him I’d been in Germany and that Old Mr Harrison wasn’t there he got even more worried. He went very pale when I told him that, white as a sheet in fact. “He’s not in London. He’s not in Germany. He’s not here. So where is he?” he said quietly. Then it transpired that he too had seen the newspaper cutting about the body in the river. He hadn’t wanted to tell his wife, so he’d bottled it all up.

‘“There’s only one thing you can do,” I said to him. “You must report it to the police.”He said he’d been thinking about that, but hadn’t liked to. Surely it was the job of the other members of the family to do that. “Maybe they don’t know,” I said to him. “Anyway they’re down in London. The policeman is only up the road.”’

‘So that very afternoon I drove him over to the police station where he reported that Old Mr Harrison was missing. Then I drove him back to his wife. Did I do wrong in getting him to the police station, Francis?’

Powerscourt paused. The elegant facade of the Burke house was just coming into view through the trees.

‘I think you were right, Johnny. The police have been inundated with people claiming the body. We just have to alert them to take this one seriously. Maybe the family doctor or one of the members of the family could identify him without the head. He certainly fits the doctors’ description of the corpse being a rich old man.’

‘Do you think the corpse is Old Mr Harrison?’

‘I do, actually, or I think I do,’ said Powerscourt. ‘But I’m very worried about why the rest of the family have done nothing.’

‘Maybe the entire Harrison family killed him off and don’t want to be found out.’

‘Maybe they know he’s dead but they want to keep it secret.’

‘Bet you whatever you like,’ said Fitzgerald, quickening his pace as they approached the front door, ‘that the body in the Thames was Old Mr Harrison. Now then, do you suppose William has laid on anything good to drink with the Bishop here and all? I need something to cleanse my palate after that elderberry wine. Christ, Francis, I can still taste it now. A bottle of Gevrey-Chambertin perhaps, a touch of Pomerol?’

Five men shuffled uneasily into a small office at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. On ordinary days senior doctors used it to pass on bad news to the relatives of their patients, news of the ones who had passed away, the ones who were doomed to pass away quite soon, the ones who would never recover. Long melancholy usage had given the room an aura of sorrow all its own. On one wall hung a portrait of Queen Victoria at her first Jubilee, a small but defiant representative of monarchical continuity, on the other an iconic painting of Florence Nightingale, looking like a saint rather than a nurse. Even her skills would not be enough to save the lives of those whose fate was discussed in here.

This morning the room had been taken over by the Metropolitan Police. Two of its representatives stood uneasily at one end of the long table in the middle of the room. Inspector Burroughs felt that one part of his mission had been accomplished; he picked uneasily at his tie, hoping it had not detached itself from its collar to roam freely around the top of his shirt. Sergeant Cork stood rigidly to attention, looking, Burroughs thought sourly, like a recruitment poster for the force he served. Dr James Compton had come up to town for the day from Oxfordshire. He had attended on Old Mr Harrison for many years. Mr Frederick Harrison, eldest son of Old Mr Harrison, had abandoned his counting house for the more disturbing quarters of the hospital and its morgue. Dr Peter Mclvor, the custodian of the body for St Bart’s, the man responsible for preserving it in some sort of order until it could be identified, made up the final member of the party.