Michael Dibdin - The Dying of the Light

Jarvis got to his feet and tried to concentrate on the matter in hand. It was just a question of going through the motions with this Travis woman and he’d be out of here. Not like Anderson, poor sod. No wonder he was a bit rum, stuck out here in the middle of bloody nowhere with a bunch of oldies well past their sell-by dates, judging by what Tomkins had said. Seriously whiffy. Kids were bad enough, but at least with them it got better. What it must be like having to deal with this lot, knowing that however bad it was today it was going to be worse tomorrow, just plain buggered the imagination.

Still, that was no skin off his dick, was it? Reports were what it was all about. Been there, seen this, done that, and here’s a file to prove it. Besides, the case was open and shut. There was no question that she’d poisoned herself. The PM had turned up a cocktail comprising the morphine syrup she had been prescribed for pain control, a massive overdose of sleeping tablets she’d nicked from her friend and a few glasses of spirits thrown in for good measure. The why wasn’t a problem either. She’d just heard that her cancer was terminal and inoperable, and she had never made any secret of the fact that she did not want to die in hospital. Open and shut, wasn’t it?

Even this Rosemary Travis spannering up the works with allegations of murder most foul wouldn’t have counted for anything if it hadn’t been for the forensic report on the samples taken from the scene. Consistency was the name of the game, as Jarvis liked to tell the new recruits. It didn’t matter what story you came up with as long as it all hung together, but if what you said on page 42 clashed with something you’d said on page 24 then you were in dead lumber.

In the present case, fortunately, there was no substantive discrepancy. SDs were the bane of every policeman’s life. Unless spotted in the early stages, they could turn the most promising case into an embarrassing write-off. This, though, was just a minor anomaly. All the ingredients which the pathologist had named as causes of death also figured in the samples of cocoa and medicine which Tomkins had found by the bed. The only problem was that the alcohol-some sort of proprietary liqueur-had been mixed into the morphine syrup, and the sleeping tablets crushed up and dissolved in the cocoa.

There was nothing to say that the deceased hadn’t done this herself, of course, but it was unusual. Normally a suicide wouldn’t bother mixing the stuff together, they’d just scoff it down and let their stomach do the churning. An MA, then, but no more than that. All Jarvis needed to do was tie up the loose ends, take a statement and then piss off-in time for the other half on the way back with any luck.

‘Good afternoon, Inspector.’

The voice was low and pleasant. Jarvis turned round as an elderly woman emerged from the shadows of the hallway. At first he made her about sixty, an estimate which he revised progressively upwards as she moved forward into the light. Well-preserved, though. Good bones, and the worst over for the skin and hair. Look much the same in a thousand years, he thought, like that bloke they dug up from the peat bog.

‘Well I never!’

The woman stopped in the centre of the room, staring at Jarvis with an expression of disbelief.

This is really quite extraordinary! I do hope you won’t think I’m being familiar, Inspector, but you bear the most astonishing resemblance to one of my nephews. Rather a feckless lad, young Stuart, although he can charm the birds out of the trees when he wants. He lives in Canada and I haven’t seen him for donkey’s years. Well, now! I don’t know, I really don’t!’

Anderson came in, accompanied by a burly woman in her thirties wearing a pair of shapeless blue overalls. He gave Jarvis an ingratiating smile.

‘May I introduce my sister Letitia, Inspector?’

The woman in overalls nodded at Jarvis, who raised his eyebrows and inclined his head politely. Anderson took the elderly woman by the arm and led her to the chair.

‘And this,’ he said, ‘is Miss Rosemary Travis.’

‘Miss Travis, the officers who responded to the 999 call last week reported that you made a number of allegations concerning Mrs Davenport’s tragic death. Now under the circumstances it would be perfectly natural if you had said things which you perhaps didn’t really mean. If that’s the case, just say so and this need go no further.’

They stood in a ring, Jarvis, Anderson and his sister, looking down at the elderly lady sitting bolt upright on the edge of the armchair. To mitigate the effect of an interrogation, Jarvis seated himself on the wooden stool which stood in front of the writing-desk.

‘It must have been a terrible shock for you,’ he suggested in a kindly tone.

Rosemary Travis looked him in the eye.

‘Murder is always unpleasant, Inspector. So much the more so when the victim was one’s best friend.’

‘Chuck it, Travis!’ growled the woman in overalls.

She grinned coquettishly at Jarvis.

‘Brains in their bums,’ she said.

Anderson put his arm around his sister’s shoulders.

‘I think perhaps you should go and see how lunch is coming along, Letty,’ he muttered.

The woman flinched.

‘There’s no need for that, William.’ The arm encircling her tightened a fraction. ‘I believe there is.’

‘It’s spam sandwiches with cold baked beans. What can go wrong?’ Anderson smiled thinly. ‘Nevertheless, I feel quite strongly that you should g0.’

‘But I don’t want to.’

They stared at each other. After some time the woman’s breathing became loud and laboured, and her left cheek began to twitch uncontrollably. Anderson smiled and withdrew his restraining arm. His sister turned and ran out of the room, slamming the door loudly behind her.

Anderson sighed and shook his head.

‘Poor Letitia!’

He looked at Jarvis.

‘Our father was exceptionally intelligent, our mother strikingly beautiful. In an ideal world, each child would have received a portion of these gifts. As it was, I inherited Papa’s brains and Mamma’s looks, while Letitia got the latter’s muddle-through-somehow mind installed in a superficially feminised version of Pater’s burly bod. It is an unenviable not to say frankly repellent combination, and one which perhaps goes some way towards explaining her often startlingly abrupt manners. My apologies for the interruption, Inspector.’

He drifted over to the writing-desk and refilled his tumbler. Jarvis turned to the elderly lady perched on the edge of the armchair. Her expression was full of mild determination, but held no clue as to her feelings about the scene which they had just witnessed.

Jarvis got out his notebook, turned to a blank page and licked the lead of his pencil.

‘Right, let’s have it.’

Rosemary Travis frowned politely.

‘I beg your pardon, Inspector?’

‘What makes you think Mrs Davenport was murdered?’ Jarvis demanded.

‘I don’t think so,’ Rosemary replied.

Jarvis narrowed his eyes.

‘You don’t?’

‘Certainly not. I know she was murdered. And so you jolly well should too. The evidence is clear enough, for heaven’s sake.’

Anderson gave Jarvis a look which said ‘Now do you see what I mean?’ Perhaps he has a point at that, thought Jarvis with a sudden flash of irritation. He’d been willing to give the old biddy the benefit of the doubt, but enough was enough.

‘What evidence?’ he snapped.

‘Why, the morphine syrup and the cocoa, of course! I managed-with some difficulty, I might say-to persuade one of your officers to take them away with him. Frank, I believe his name was. The near-sighted one from the Isle of Wight. I assumed they would have been analysed by now, and the results communicated to whoever’s in charge.’