Chapter Seventeen #2
Jack looks up. “I might not be Dr. Gray, but even I know that you won’t still be clutching flowers after you die.”
“Creative license.”
She snorts. “A great deal of it. So what do you want to know?”
“I’m trying to track down the poet. The schoolmaster intended to do that, but after the girl who found the poem died, he had no appetite for it.
That’s a copy he wrote out from the original, which had been torn and was missing the title and author.
Where would I go to find out who wrote it? A library.”
“No one wrote this,” she says. “Well, yes, obviously someone did, but you won’t find it in any library. It has…” She squints. “Three spelling mistakes.”
I frown and walk over. She points them out. I had presumed those were just me misreading the handwriting.
“You say the schoolmaster copied it?” she continues.
“If he made the mistakes, he needs a new job. But given the rest—the poor attempt at rhyme, the ghastly grammar—I’m going to say there’s a reason your girl found it in the attic.
Because someone in her family wrote it. Either that or they bought it—there are always bits of doggerel you can pick up at the market for a few pence. ”
She has a point. MacNiven said it was poorly written, and I’d agreed, but I’d brushed off the grammar and over-sentimentality as artifacts of its age. On closer thought, it reads like an amateur’s work.
“You said the girl who found it died?” Jack says.
“Drowned. Apparently emulating the poem.”
“That is the problem with making death seem romantic. Young minds—”
The rear door opens downstairs, and voices float up. I catch Isla’s first, and then McCreadie’s. Gray’s rumbling murmur follows.
“Everyone’s back,” I say as I head for the door.
“You know you do not need to hurry to them,” Jack calls after me. “They will come and find you. At least, Dr. Gray will. Running to your door…”
I resist the urge to flash her the finger. Gray actually is the first one up to this level, but only because Isla and McCreadie seem to be still talking below.
“There you are,” he says.
“Was I supposed to be somewhere else?”
He ignores that, and when I see his expression, I know he’s in no mood for jokes.
He waves me back to the library. Seeing Jack there, he pauses, but she says, “I’m going, I’m going. Just be sure to tell Mrs. Wallace it is not my fault if the library isn’t finished.”
Once Jack’s gone, Gray shuts the door. “We have a problem. Hugh and Isla were coming back to explain, and they picked me up on the way.” He lowers his voice. “Hugh has lost the case.”
“Detective Crichton took it? But I thought he didn’t want it?”
“No, I misspoke. Hugh did not lose it in the sense it was taken from him. The problem is…” He falls into a seat with a long exhale. “I will admit I was flattered when I was allowed to conduct the autopsy. Yes, it was free labor, but I still hoped it meant they trusted my skill.”
“And that’s not why they agreed?”
“They agreed in the same way my professors would agree to let me examine a body after they were done with it. They were humoring me.”
“I don’t understand,” I say. “The procurator fiscal was humoring you by letting you conduct the autopsy?”
He pauses, and it’s obvious he’s trying to rein in his emotions, anger and humiliation crackling just below the surface. “Yes, and I failed them.”
“You … what?”
“They let me conduct the autopsy because they support my work, and what harm could it do if Dr. Addington had already ruled on the cause of death?”
I sink into a chair. “They thought you’d come back and say he was right. Accidental drowning. Or suicide.”
“Yes, and now that I have not, they are…” He forces out the words. “Disappointed in me.”
I leap to my feet. “What the hell?”
“They tossed me a bone, and I made a hash of it. Could not even conduct a proper autopsy. Oh, but they do not completely blame me. I am young, after all.”
“You’re older than Addington.”
“I am also not actually a doctor.”
“Bullshit. The only thing you don’t have is the license to practice.
You have the education and the title, and if you say it was murder, it was murder.
You’re ten times the coroner Addington is, and if they don’t see that…
” I peer at him. “Is it a conspiracy? Do they have some vested interest in declaring it wasn’t murder? ”
He doesn’t seem to hear the question. He just watches me, the smallest smile playing on his lips.
“Duncan? Are you all right? I know this is a shock—”
He barks a laugh. “Shock? No, it is what I should have expected. My apologies. You asked a question, but I was too busy watching you.” He hurries on. “Watching your impassioned defense of me.” His lips twitch again. “It was magnificent.”
“It was deserved, and I have more where that came from.”
He leans back in his chair. “Do not let me stop you. My bruised ego is lapping it up.”
“As it should. You know this is bullshit. Hugh knows it, too. You wouldn’t blithely claim it was murder.
There is evidence. Overwhelming evidence.
Hugh…” I trail off. “Hugh expected this. He warned us, in his way, when he asked how certain you were. And it’s why he didn’t tell MacNiven that Nellie was murdered. ”
“No one said anything when they gave me permission, but Hugh did not like their speed and nonchalance. He wanted to think it was proof they trusted me, and yet he was afraid, well, of this.”
“That the autopsy was a reward for your past contributions with the expectation that your findings would support Dr. Addington’s, thus proving that their police surgeon is so good he doesn’t even need to cut into a body to determine cause and method of death.”
“Perhaps not the last part.”
I give him a hard look.
“All right,” he says. “That, too. Instead, I contradicted the police surgeon’s findings.”
“No, you did not. The police surgeon didn’t see the body. Your evidence disproved his opinion. Also, you have contradicted his findings before. Often.”
“Not in this way,” Gray murmurs. “Usually I speak to Addington, and he amends his report before anyone sees it.”
“You do his damn work for him, and he passes it off as his own. Now that his bosses know he screwed up, they should be subjecting him to a performance review, not insulting you.”
Gray makes a “go on” motion, encouraging me to vent on his behalf. I do for a bit, before I collapse into a chair. He rises and takes a whisky bottle from the shelf, pouring me a glass.
“I should be offering you that,” I say.
“No, you are, as usual, helping me. I am in need of a drink but loath to admit it, as I already had some this morning, but now I can offer you some and take a glass myself. Politely drinking with you. Not drinking because I need it.”
He downs his glass in one gulp and drops back into his chair, knees splayed, one hand gripping the empty glass, the other taking off his cravat and popping open his top shirt stud. I hit pause on my furious indignation for a few seconds, to enjoy the sight, and then thump down my glass.
“So what does this mean?” I say. “For the case.”
“It means there is no case.”
I stare as I process this and circle back to what he said at first, that McCreadie had lost the case. This is what he meant.
“So they’re ruling it…?” I prod.
“Suicide. The second tragedy to strike this small village.”
“Which means they’ll now deploy support personnel to the school to talk to the students, as well as dealing with the economic infrastructure that could lead to young people in a small community taking their own lives.”
“You realize I know what none of that means. But if you are suggesting they will take some action to prevent more deaths, certainly not. The case is closed.”
I let out a stream of curses. Then I look at Gray. “Is that the official decision?”
“It is.”
“Is there any … unofficial decision?”
“If you mean will the superintendent allow Hugh to quietly investigate, no. It is firmly closed. As a police investigation.”
“So you and I can keep investigating, prove it was murder, and shove that in the procurator’s face?”
“I would not advise shoving it in his face.”
“Oh, I would. But we can investigate, right? If the police have closed the case, they can’t complain that you and I are interfering with police business. We’re private investigators.” I pause. “Could that hurt Hugh?”
“He would need to be able to disavow all knowledge, which means he cannot share anything he already uncovered in the course of his investigation.”
“Which is what?” I say. “Where the body was found? He already shared that with us. We can’t un-hear it. I was there for the early interviews and…” I stop. “That’s why I was there. Because he was afraid of this.”
“He was.”
“Clever, clever Hugh.”
“I would expect no less.” Gray stretches his legs. “He cannot help us, but I believe he has done enough already. We are free to investigate independently.”
“And make the procurator fiscal eat his words.” I catch Gray’s expression. “Fine, we are doing it to get justice for Nellie. And then we’ll make the procurator fiscal eat his words.”