To Die but Once (Maisie Dobbs #14)(70)
“I’ve been studying Joe’s brain matter. By the way, I hope you don’t mind me calling him ‘Joe.’ The police don’t always like it—they want to remain detached, claiming it makes them lose focus or some such thing. But Dr. Blanche taught us that we should speak to the dead by name—it helps us to remember respect, and to keep our questions coming. I’m sure you know that. Anyway, I’ve always done it—I find it’s led me up some very fruitful alleys of inquiry, and reminds me I’m dealing with a human being who was alive and in the world until fate stepped in to stamp the time card.” She paused, and Maisie heard a leaf of paper turn. “Right, anyway, as I said, I was studying Joe’s brain matter, and as you know it bothered me, this discoloration. So I spoke to a neurologist friend of mine because I know he’s interested in diseases of the brain and how they affect behavior. He came down to the lab here to have a look, and we’ve come to the conclusion that it’s likely that Joe was suffering from more than the physical sensation of headache, but also dizziness and swings in mood. He might also have been sensitive to sound.”
“Traffic, and such like.”
“Yes.”
“That explains one thing—he didn’t want to go back to London. He wanted to leave his job and stay in the country, working on a farm.”
“Hmmm, psychology is more your bailiwick, but I would say the physical trauma to the brain from whatever toxins he had been exposed to would have led people to say things such as ‘Joe isn’t himself these days.’”
“Yes, that’s why his parents came to me. But what about the injury that killed him.”
“To be fair, it could just as well have happened as a result of a fall as a blunt instrument.” Clark sighed, and Maisie thought she sounded exasperated. “There were tiny specks of cast iron in the hair and brain, but the railway line is iron, so that doesn’t help. And the behavior I’ve indicated might have led him to jump—my colleague has pointed that out.”
Maisie picked up a pencil and tapped it on the desk, mindful of Clarissa Clark’s position. “I applaud you for keeping an open mind, Dr. Clark—but I have a feeling you believe he was killed elsewhere. Since we spoke, have you encountered any evidence to suggest his death might have happened at another location?”
“That railway siding is a dirty, filthy place. People have thrown fish and chip wrappings over the wall as they passed on the road above, cigarette stubs, and even urinated onto the railway. There’s over a century of accumulated debris down there, and it was last cleaned decades ago because it’s not even used much for shunting engines back and forth these days. The station master likes everything to look shipshape where people can see the platform, but this part of the station is out of the way.”
“So, the rubbish on the line made it difficult to reach a final conclusion.”
“Not quite,” said Clark. “In fact, I was a little surprised because, having been to the location where the body was found, I would have expected to see more evidence of debris from the site in the actual bone matter and hair, and on the clothing. But I didn’t. He either had a clean fall, or he was laid there after the point of death. The police are quite within their rights to have asked for a declaration of death by misadventure. What I am telling you is just speculation.”
“Your word counts for something, Dr. Clark.”
“Which is why I have to leave the door open for the possibility that Joe jumped from the wall above, perhaps while in an unstable frame of mind.”
“I think you want to add more,” said Maisie.
Clarissa Clark cleared her throat. “Miss Dobbs, you are engaged in a search for the truth, are you not?” Clark did not wait for a response from Maisie. “Then you should follow the injury sustained by Joe before the wounds that took his life. Look at what happened to his brain before his skull was cracked open. That’s what killed Joe—whether he jumped, or not. In my humble opinion, of course.”
“It’s a web, though.”
“I deal with them every day. Dr. Blanche gave us sage advice in order to untangle them. Patience, and one thread at a time.”
Maisie smiled. “I’ve been thinking the same thing lately. Your conclusion confirms I’m going in the right direction. Thank you.”
“Of course. Now then, I have to get to work. Joe’s remains will be released to his family for burial soon, but I assure you I have kept copious notes, and also brought in a medical artist. It’s something I do at times, if I feel it necessary.”
“As evidence.”
“Yes. Indeed. Now, I must go. Good day, Miss Dobbs.”
“Thank you for telephoning, Dr. Clark.”
Maisie replaced the receiver. Much of the pathologist’s report was already known to Maisie. But she appreciated having her suspicions substantiated by Clark. She also rather liked speaking to a woman known for never having had a humble opinion in her life.
Maisie crossed the room to the window and looked down at the explosion of color now gracing Walter Miles’ postage-stamp yard below. Her own walled garden in Holland Park was much larger, and laid to lawn with shrubs around the perimeter, and various vines clinging onto the bricks—wisteria, clematis, climbing roses. A gardener came in once a fortnight, and though she kept it tidy enough in the interim, she would never have considered herself proficient in the realm of horticulture—indeed, the flowering vines in Miles’ yard were much further along than her own, and her garden received more direct sunlight, so it should have been equally abundant. Miles clearly had more than a green thumb—he was a gifted gardener. A book had been left on the small table, half read and upside down to keep the place. There was a cardigan over the back of one chair, and a notebook, as if he had only just left his seat. She wondered whether he worked, and if so what his profession might be. She was curious about Walter Miles.