Free The Strange Attractor by Desmond Cory Page B

thinking, for a woman. Though that was probably old-fashioned prejudice. Pathologists are pathologists, whatever their sex. He looked round as Pontin came in.
    “Well?” Pontin said. “Have we reached a verdict?” Kate was now gently lifting one of the victim’s knees, apparently testing its degree of rigidity. “Yes. I’ll do the autopsy tomorrow morning but there shouldn’t be any surprises. Fractured skull is the cause of death. Recently inflicted. A single blow, no other injuries.”
    “All right. You can ship her out and we’ll get a formal ID at the morgue, soon as we’ve located the husband. Not much point in asking him to do it.” Pontin nodded significantly towards the door. “Screw loose an’ all, if you ask me.”
    Jackson adjusted his glasses. “Are we taking him in, sir?”
    “No hurry,” Pontin said. “No hurry. We should all get our pictures in the paper if we play this right. Got to give the media time to get on the scene, though, see what I mean? It’s all public relations nowadays. But we’ll finger the bastard in due course, don’t you worry.”
    “Might be a good idea to let the doctor here take a look at him, don’t you think?”
    Kate was scrutinising the victim’s toes. “I ought to make it clear,” she said, straightening up, “that I know Mr Dobie. Personally.”
    “Ah,” Pontin said. “He’s a patient of yours already? Can’t say I’m surprised.”
    “No, I met him… He was at an inquest.”
    “Ow Gawd, don’t you start. Just go and feel his pulse or something, soon as you’re finished up in here. Now what is it?”
    This last remark was addressed to Sergeant Evans, who had made a diffident entrance a moment before. “Just something I thought you’d want to know, sir. We’re picking up the deader’s prints all over the place – hundreds of them. Along of the owner’s, of course.”
    “What, here in the bedroom as well?”
    “Everywhere,” Evans said. “And not just new prints neither.”
    “Ho ho. So she’s been here before tonight?”
    “I’d say she’s been coming here for weeks .”
    “What about the murder weapon?”
    “Yessir.”
    “What d’you mean, yessir?”
    “That too, sir. All over the keys. Some of Mr Dobie’s on the case and bodywork. No one else’s. Just a smudge or two.”
    Pontin looked at Jackson. Jackson looked at Pontin. “We got the bugger bang to rights, then.”
    “No, sir.”
    “What d’you mean, no sir?”
    “There’s a snag, sir,” Jackson said. “According to the doctor’s evidence, he couldn’t have done it.”
    “I don’t believe this,” Pontin said.
    “He was with me and Detective-Sergeant Box, sir, until half-past nine this evening. Dr Coyle puts the time of death at between nine o’clock and nine thirty. All that time he was ten miles away from here, sir, he was hardly ever out of our sight. Got it all down in my notebook.”
    “Jackson?”
    “Sir?”
    “He’s pulled the wool over your eyes somehow. Take my word for it. That ’s what he’s done. About as tricky a witness as I ever encountered. But he did it all right. I can see it in his eyes. That shifty expression of his. You must have noticed it yourself.”
    “He certainly seems to be in a state of shock. Hardly in a condition, I’d have thought, to tell us anything useful.”
    “Hopes to be found unfit to plead, I’ve no doubt. I’m not falling for that one. No, we’ll give him time to consider the error of his ways. Better pack him off home.”
    “This is his home, sir.”
    “Oh yes, well… A hotel, then. Or a loony bin. Or something. We can’t have him poking around here on the scene of the crime.”
    “We haven’t a car to spare, sir, not right now.”
    “Got his own car, hasn’t he?”
    “Evans’ll need to check it over, sir. And anyway he shouldn’t drive, not in his present condition.”
    Kate was standing back from the bed now and taking off her surgical gloves. “I’m going into Cardiff, Mike, when I’m