Free Past Tense by Catherine Aird Page B

even he could see that.
    â€˜Sounds like just since last night.’
    â€˜That figures, sir.’ He reached for his notebook.
    â€˜Girl of twenty-four, a nurse at Berebury Hospital, didn’t turn up for work this morning when she was meant to be on duty.’ Leeyes grunted. ‘Apparently someone from the hospital went round to her house and tried to knock her up. She didn’t answer the door but the lights are still on and the curtains are drawn. Name of Lucy Lansdown. No description available yet.’
    Detective Inspector Sloan dutifully conveyed this information to Dr Dabbe.
    â€˜Any note?’ asked the pathologist.
    â€˜None that’s been found so far, Doctor.’
    â€˜Tell them to have a good look when you do get into the house,’ said Dr Dabbe. ‘A suicide note can help. And if she’s been reading Goethe, it might explain her going in the river.’
    â€˜Who’s he?’ asked Crosby, not yet out of earshot.
    â€˜A German poet who said “Know myself? If I knew myself I’d run away.” Girls get funny ideas sometimes, you know.’ The pathologist waved a hand. ‘Not that I’m jumping to any foregone conclusions, Sloan. You know me too well for that.’
    â€˜I do, Doctor.’ Getting a really firm opinion out of the pathologist until after the post-mortem was always difficult.
    â€˜No handbag round her shoulder, I see,’ said Dr Dabbe. ‘Handbags are as important to women of this age, you know, as they were to Lady Bracknell.’
    â€˜I know that and we’ll be examining the house of the missing woman as soon as we can, Doctor, for that or a note. And we’ll be looking at the bridge area in Berebury and any other spots where she might have gone into the river, too.’
    â€˜Sometimes they take their handbags with them when they jump…’ The pathologist peered at the body’s fingertips and changed his tone suddenly. ‘That is, if they do jump, Sloan. It rather looks as if this woman tried to grab something as she went into the water. These hands have been scratched by something. I’ll need a closer look later.’
    Detective Inspector Sloan cast an eye in the direction of the hands of the body on the riverbank. Giving the deceased a name somehow made the death more poignant. A pretty girl, he thought. ‘She might have been called Lucy Lansdown. That’s the name of the only girl notified as missing in our manor last night.’
    The pathologist was not interested in names. ‘Superficial grazes on the right forearm, too,’ Dr Dabbe was already dictating to Burns, his taciturn assistant. ‘I’ll get you some samples of the grit in the abrasions as soon as I can.’
    Sloan made a mental note to get some samples of the grit from the bridge in Berebury, too.
    Dr Dabbe peered at the supine figure. ‘I can’t see from here if there are any bruises round the neck or anywhere else, but I’ll be examining the subject more carefully later.’ Then he raised his head and called across to the fishermen. ‘There’s a weir upstream from here, isn’t there?’
    â€˜At Lower Malcombe,’ answered one of them.
    The pathologist nodded. ‘She might have got bumped about going over that – that’s if she went in higher up. I can’t tell you any more yet, Sloan. Not until I’ve had a better look all round back at the mortuary.’

Chapter Seven
    Simon Puckle depressed a switch on his office desk and asked if Miss Fennel would come in, please. It was a measure of the length of time that Florence Fennel had been with the firm of Puckle, Puckle & Nunnery that Simon Puckle, now a partner, still always addressed her as Miss Fennel. Although he wasn’t frightened of her any more – as he had been when he was a small boy playing under his grandfather’s big partner’s desk – he hadn’t yet ventured to call her Flo