To Die but Once (Maisie Dobbs #14)(25)

“Caldwell said you were held in high regard by his department, Miss Dobbs,” said Murphy, opening a folder presented to him by the driver who had brought Maisie to Basingstoke.

“He did?” said Maisie, her brow furrowed, though she smiled—after all, she and Caldwell were not what Lady Rowan would have called “pally.”

Murphy grinned in return. “Mind you, he also said not to tell you—but I thought I would. Not a nice business, this—helps to have something positive in your back pocket to fall back on if your day includes identification of the dead.”

“May I see the postmortem report first?” asked Maisie.

Murphy had placed a pair of half-moon glasses on his nose to review the contents of the folder he had just opened, and now studied her over the rims. “You can because Inspector Caldwell obviously trusts you. But do you understand medical notes?”

“I was a nurse, in the last war, and I’ve studied legal medicine—in Edinburgh.”

Murphy looked down at his notes. “Oh yes—and you were once assistant to Dr. Maurice Blanche. I remember now.” He closed the folder and put it to one side, picking up another that was already on his desk. He looked up at Maisie. “Met the man a couple of times when I was at the Yard, before I came down here for a quieter life. Impressive. Very impressive.” He held out the folder to Maisie, and consulted his watch. “Here, have a quick gander at that—it’ll prepare you.”

Maisie opened the folder and began to read. “I don’t think this type of injury is sustained falling off a wall, do you?”

Murphy turned away from his desk to look out of the window. Expanding his view, thought Maisie. It had always interested her, that physically gazing out at a landscape, even if that landscape offered a cluster of town buildings, could provide a broader view of the possibilities inspired by a question. She did the same thing herself, when something troubled her.

“On the face of it—yes. He fell straight down onto a railway line—fortunately, it was not a main line, but an old shunting line, not used in donkey’s years. If it had been on another line, the skull would have been smashed beyond all recognition by a loco. So you can see, where his noddle hit the cast iron, he sustained a very, very nasty wound.”

“There’s something you’re not happy about, Inspector.”

Murphy sighed, but remained silent against sunlight emerging from behind a cloud, the beam slanting through the window.

Maisie continued. “I think you might be in two minds. On the one hand, yes, it seems from this report the victim—on account of his own stupidity or a crime—fell from a high wall and straight down onto the line, however . . . however, at the same time we could speculate that he was running from someone and stumbled from the wall in a panic. Or he could have been pushed. Or—”

“Or someone could have clobbered him on the head with a very—very—heavy object, and then the body was moved from somewhere else.” Murphy turned as he finished the sentence for her and moved away from the window.

“Have you had soil particles tested? Was there any residue of decomposed vegetation on his clothing?” Maisie ran her finger down the report.

“It’s right there.” Murphy stood beside her and pointed to a paragraph near the foot of the fourth page. “The railway line had to some extent returned to nature—there were weeds growing between the sleepers and among the rocks underneath—and apart from some gravel in the wound, there wasn’t anything to prove movement of the body, such as mineral or plant matter from another location. I think that’s what you’re getting at, isn’t it?” He consulted his watch. “I won’t rule it out though, but there are those who would. Come on, better get going.”



Maisie could bear the smell of a pathologist’s domain far better than most. She had known grown men—policemen with broad shoulders and a constitution that allowed them to face criminals armed with deadly weapons—fall to the ground upon entering a laboratory where postmortems were conducted. Seeing a murder victim in the place where the body was found was one thing—they could steel themselves for the discovery. But there was something about the vulnerable nakedness of a corpse having endured the attentions of a man with a scalpel, a doctor who had used sharp instruments to cut into flesh, bone and sinew, that could take that same policeman down in seconds. For Maisie there was something else that kept her standing—the fact that this moment, this very personal procedure of discovery, afforded her a chance to show compassion for the dead. Maurice had taught her that in the laboratory it was all too easy to forget respect, when there was nothing but the shell of a human being before you. “Think of a dead body as if you are viewing a set of clothing, Maisie—but consider it as the attire the soul has worn for many a year. And it is clothing that has something to teach us about the man or woman under the knife.”

Without doubt, she was looking at the body of Joe Coombes. Murphy stood to one side, as an assistant informed them that “Dr. Clark” would be with them shortly.

“It’s Joe,” said Maisie, looking down at the body.

She glanced only briefly at the incisions where the pathologist had cut the flesh, and brought her full attention to the deep open wound on the skull—so invasive, it had allowed Dr. Clark to remove tissue from the brain. She looked closer, and frowned.