Bernard Knight - Dead in the Dog

‘Where is she?’ demanded Steven Blackwell, always hesitant to barge into what might turn out to be a crime scene. Back in Manchester, he had dealt with several cases where a husband had hanged himself after killing his wife.

‘Between the beds, lying on the floor,’ supplied Les Arnold, more subdued now in the presence of a dead woman.

‘Tom, have a quick look first, will you,’ directed Blackwell. ‘I don’t want us all trampling over everything until we know what’s what.’

The pathologist trod delicately over to the foot of the nearest bed and peered into the space between them. Rosa Mackay was lying sprawled on the planked wooden floor, face up, arms and legs splayed out. She wore thin cotton pyjamas, the jacket stained with vomit, which was also smeared over the floor, as if she had been thrashing about. Her face was contorted and a pinkish froth was issuing from one corner of her mouth.

Tom went nearer and crouched alongside the body. As with her husband a few moments earlier, he touched the skin and tested the rigidity of both an arm and her jaw.

‘Still a bit of warmth there,’ he reported. ‘And she’s just starting to get stiff. I reckon she died quite a bit later than her husband, probably not more than a few hours ago.’

‘But died of what, Tom?’ asked the policeman, in a sepulchral voice.

‘I suppose poisoning is the most likely cause, given the circumstances. But I don’t know what poison!’

Les Arnold surprised them by giving them the answer.

‘Reckon I know what it was. Can’t you smell it?’

He gave some exaggerated sniffs as his eyes roamed around the room.

Tom bent nearer the body and followed his example.

‘Smells like paraffin — and the vomit’s a bit greenish.’

‘There you are, then! Got to be paraquat, ain’t it?’

Steven Blackwell cut back into the dialogue. ‘Paraquat? That’s that herbicide, isn’t it?’

The Australian nodded. ‘Yep, used by the gallon around the estates these days. A couple of years ago, one of my tappers, a young girl, topped herself with it after some broken love affair. That’s how I remember the smell, she sicked up this stinking stuff as well. The chemical is dissolved in kerosene for spraying.’

Blackwell was looking around the room and walked over to a chest of drawers on which was what appeared to be an empty Coca-Cola bottle. Without touching it, he looked closely at it and then cautiously sniffed the open top.

‘This smells strongly of paraffin. There’s still some oily green liquid in the bottom.’

His eyes strayed to the top of the piece of furniture and he gave an exclamation. ‘Hah! Is this a suicide note she’s left?

Picking up a single sheet of airmail paper by a corner, he quickly scanned the message. It was a suicide note, but not Rosa’s. Tom suppressed his natural curiosity, but Arnold had no such inhibitions.

‘What’s it say, Steve?’

The superintendent had humoured the planter so far, but now began to put on the brakes. ‘Look, Les. This is police investigation — might even turn out to be another murder. I have to play it by the book from now on, but I can tell you that this appears to be a suicide note written by Douglas Mackay. I can’t say more, I’m afraid.’

Rather surprisingly, Arnold accepted the mild rebuff.

‘Sure thing, Steve. I’ll leave you and the doc to it. I suppose you’ll want some sort of statement from me?’

Blackwell nodded. ‘I’ll send Inspector Tan up to Batu Merah to see you. Thanks for all your help.’

Just before he left the room, the rangy Australian took a last look at the body lying pathetically between the beds.

‘Poor Rosa, she was a nice woman,’ he said with rare compassion. ‘Reckon she couldn’t carry on when she heard that she’d lost Douglas. It’s a tough old world, mate!’

When he had vanished, Steven turned to Howden.

‘He doesn’t know the half of it, Tom! Mackay confesses in this letter to killing Jimmy Robertson — and shooting up the bungalows a few weeks back!’

The pathologist, still crouching alongside Rosa’s corpse, looked up in astonishment at the police officer. ‘That’s extraordinary, Steve! But as you said to Les — should you be telling me this?’

Blackwell turned up his palms in almost Gallic gesture.

‘You’re part of the team now, Tom, whether you like it or not. You’re our expert medical witness, though hopefully this will end at a coroner’s inquest, not the High Court.’

His ‘expert’ felt rather proud at being so valued, but a little overwhelmed at all that had happened to him professionally in the last week or two.

‘What are we going to do with the bodies?’ he asked. ‘Our colonel will go spare if we try to dump a couple more civilians in the BMH mortuary!’

Blackwell’s own grapevine had told him that moves were afoot to deal with the commandant of the hospital, but this was no time to stir up more aggravation there.

‘I’ll check with Alf Morris, but if there’s any hassle, I’ll get our police van to take them down to Ipoh General Hospital.’

Tom nodded and looked down again at the body of Rosa Mackay.

‘There’s nothing more I can do here. There needs to be either a post-mortem or at least an analysis of the vomit and blood for paraquat, just to confirm things. I’d better have a quick look at her back, just to make sure she hasn’t been shot or stabbed — it would be damned embarrassing to miss them!’

He pulled on one shoulder and the small body of the Eurasian lady lifted easily on its side so that he could see the back. There were no injuries there, but something else was immediately obvious.

‘Look at this! Another note, by the looks of it.’

He picked up a pale blue sheet of flimsy Basildon Bond notepaper, similar to the one that Blackwell held in his hand.

‘You’d better have this, Steven. It’s none of my business.’

Letting the corpse subside to the floor again, he handed the paper up to the policeman. Once again, the superintendent rapidly scanned it to get the general sense of the message. Though not normally given to blasphemy, this was too much for his usually restrained vocabulary

‘Jesus H. Christ! Come back all I said just now!’

An hour later, Tom was again sitting in the Admin Office at the front of the hospital. As before, the police superintendent was with them, as he had come to regularize the situation between the civil and military authorities.

‘There’s two sides to this, Alf,’ he began. ‘First, we don’t have a government pathologist nearer than KL and it would take me a day to get him up from there. So having Tom here on the spot is a godsend, as long as we can use his expertise without your CO blowing his top.’

‘He’s still down at Kinrara,’ replied Morris. ‘So you picked a good day for your two deaths.’

‘The other aspect is putting your mind at rest about any suspicion hanging over anyone at BMH,’ continued Steven seriously, putting his swagger stick on the corner of the desk. ‘Let’s not beat about the bush, Alf. For a time, several of your officers were in the frame as suspects for Jimmy Robertson’s murder. That’s why I feel it right to tell you in confidence what we know.’

The RAMC major brushed up his bristly moustache with a slightly nervous gesture. ‘If you think it’s OK, Steve. I don’t want to drop you in the mire for breaching some legal protocol.’

The police officer shook his head. ‘I’ve been on the phone to the coroner and explained the situation. As far as he’s concerned, as long as there’s no likelihood of anyone being charged with murder, he’s prepared to run a combined inquest on all three victims. He’s also happy for me to disclose enough information to clear up any lingering suspicions that involve this hospital.’