Free Death of an Expert Witness by P. D. James

probably be happy again if something could be done about Lorrimer.
    He thought that the time had perhaps come to do something about Lorrimer. And he had, after all, his own private reason for taking on the job. It was a small personal obligation,and to date it hadn’t particularly fretted what he supposed other people called conscience. But Susan Bradley’s call had reminded him. He listened. The footsteps were familiar. Well, it was a coincidence, but better now than later. Moving to the door he called at the retreating back: “Lorrimer. I want a word with you.”
    Lorrimer came and stood inside the door, tall, unsmiling in his carefully buttoned white coat, and regarded Middlemass with his dark, wary eyes. Middlemass made himself look into them, and then turned his glance away. The irises had seemed to dilate into black pools of despair. It was not an emotion he felt competent to deal with, and he felt discomforted. What on earth was eating the poor devil?
    He said, carefully casual: “Look, Lorrimer, lay off Bradley will you? I know he’s not exactly God’s gift to forensic science, but he’s a conscientious plodder and you’re not going to stimulate either his brain or his speed by bullying the poor little beast. So cut it out.”
    “Are you telling me how to manage my staff?” Lorrimer’s voice was perfectly controlled, but the pulse at the side of his temple had begun to beat visibly. Middlemass found it difficult not to fix his eyes on it.
    “That’s right, mate. This member of your staff anyway. I know damn well what you’re up to and I don’t like it. So stow it.”
    “Is this meant to be some kind of a threat?”
    “More friendly warning, reasonably friendly anyway. I don’t pretend to like you, and I wouldn’t have served under you if the Home Office had been daft enough to appoint you Director of this Lab. But I admit that what you do in your own department isn’t normally my business, only this happens to be an exception. I know what’s going on, I don’t like it, and I’m making it my business to see that it stops.”
    “I didn’t realize that you had this tender regard for Bradley. But of course, Susan Bradley must have phoned you. He wouldn’t have the guts to speak for himself. Did she telephone you, Middlemass?”
    Middlemass ignored the question. He said: “I haven’t any particular regard for Bradley. But I did have a certain regard for Peter Ennalls, if you can remember him.”
    “Ennalls drowned himself because his fiancée threw him over and he’d had a mental breakdown. He left a note explaining his action and it was read out at the inquest. Both things happened months after he’d left the Southern Laboratory; neither had anything to do with me.”
    “What happened while he was at the Lab had a hell of a lot to do with you. He was a pleasant, rather ordinary lad with two good ‘A’ levels and an unaccountable wish to become a forensic biologist when he had the bad luck to begin to work under you. As it happens, he was my wife’s cousin. I was the one who recommended him to try for the job. So I have a certain interest, you could say a certain responsibility.”
    Lorrimer said: “He never said that he was related to your wife. But I can’t see what difference it makes. He was totally unsuited for the job. A forensic biologist who can’t work accurately under pressure is no use to me or the Service and he’d better get out. We’ve no room for passengers. That’s what I propose to tell Bradley.”
    “Then you’d better have second thoughts.”
    “And how are you going to make me?”
    It was extraordinary that lips so tight could produce any sound, that Lorrimer’s voice, high and distorted, could have forced itself through the vocal cords without splitting them.
    “I shall make it plain to Howarth that you and I can’t serve in the same Lab. He won’t exactly welcome that. Troublebetween senior staff is the last complication he wants just now. So he’ll