With My Little Eye (6 page)

He may be intestate. If anybody knows of a will please tell me or the police. But even if he left a will the most likely legatee will be his brother George.

The deeds do not prevent an owner leaving the property to a relative. Consideration was given to the possibility of allowing the other occupiers first option on buying back the property but it was not felt that this would stand up in Scots law but was likely to lead to further expensive litigation. It therefore seems probable that George will inherit the basement flat. Stan was given preferential terms in return for undertaking to care for the gardens. It was assumed that we would have some years before we had to concern ourselves with the gardens and the occupancy of the basement flat, by which time many things might have changed. Urgent consideration is suggested. Please try to keep tomorrow evening available for discussion and let me know whether you could be free at, say, 8 p.m. I will try to know more by then.

E
very task that Douglas's clients put his way culminated in a written report, so that the speed and accuracy of Tash's typing had been improving with steady practice. She was already running off copies on the printer when there came the sound of footfalls and not a little puffing from the stairwell. The sergeant, it seemed, had grown unaccustomed to climbing stairs. The doors were standing open. He uttered a wordless but admiring sound when he arrived in the palatial room.

Douglas introduced Tash as his secretary. ‘Do you want me to come down again?' he asked. ‘You could have phoned.'

The sergeant picked out one of the visitors' chairs, raised his eyebrows politely for permission to sit and finally lowered himself onto one of the mahogany and leather dining chairs that Douglas had claimed and stored after his father died and his mother went into sheltered housing.

‘Your presence won't be necessary just now. My colleague is taking down the basic facts as told by the brother of the deceased. We'll have more privacy here. The police surgeon has been and gone.'

Now that he had leisure to notice it, Douglas realized that the sergeant had a lilt that stemmed from the West Highlands.

‘Did he say how Stan Eastwick came to die?'

‘Nothing so helpful. It's not his job to determine the cause of death,' the sergeant explained. ‘If he notices anything relevant he should report it and he should make a record of the body's location, position and condition. But his real
raison d'être
is to certify that the corpse is indeed dead and that we are not sending a still breathing victim to the morgue, which is exactly what he did certify. He also stated that he could see no reason for the sudden death so we will have to have a post-mortem examination. I tell you all this so that you can add it to your – um – news flash if you wish.' With his forefinger the sergeant stirred the copy of Douglas's note that lay on the table almost under his nose. He seemed to have the unusual knack of reading a document upside down while speaking quite lucidly on a different subject. ‘We're waiting for the pathologist and it seemed a good opportunity to get your account into the record.'

‘We don't have much chance of getting anything else done,' Douglas agreed. ‘May Miss Jamieson stay with us?'

‘I see no reason why not.' The sergeant produced a large notebook and several ballpoint pens. ‘She may even have something to contribute. My colleague has the use of the wire recorder and my shorthand is not great, so we'll take it slowly.'

It was necessary for Douglas to go back and tell briefly the story of the development at Underwood House so that the sergeant could understand the arrival of Stan Eastwick, his unique status among the occupants and also the presence of George.

‘Had you had any cause to doubt his state of health?' asked the sergeant.

‘None at all. He seemed to be the healthiest man of his age that I ever met. He didn't just die of heart failure then?'

‘Everybody dies of heart failure. It just means dying. If you mean heart disease or a heart attack,' the sergeant said severely, ‘then say so. But there were no signs of that nature. To the uninitiated – that means me – he seems to have dropped dead for no particular reason, but no doubt the pathologists will find something to explain it. You knew him in life and you saw his body. Did you notice a change in his colour?'

‘The light is feeble in that little piece of passage and it has one of those new bulbs that only light up very slowly. I saw enough to recognize him. He looked pale and I thought his lips were blue, which is what made me think of a heart attack. He looked a bit puffy, too.'

The sergeant looked at him. ‘But you did recognize him? Clearly enough to be sure that it wasn't another brother?'

‘Definitely. Anyway, they had told me that there were only two brothers, no other siblings, and I knew that George was with me, so that doesn't leave much room for doubt.'

‘No, I don't think that it does.' The sergeant seemed disappointed. At least a serious discrepancy would have made a starting point. ‘When did you see him last? Alive,' he added.

It was Douglas's belief that questions should be answered literally. ‘I saw him yesterday morning, but that was only through a window and he was fetching something from his van. Or maybe that was George – they were rather similar in appearance although their characters seemed very different. Apart from that possible glimpse I hadn't seen him for several days before that.'

‘And Miss Jamieson?'

Tash stiffened as attention switched to her. She was shy but positive. ‘I met him in the garden the day before yesterday. And it really was Stan, not George. There's a large greenhouse hidden from here behind the big clump of rhododendrons and he was coming back from that direction carrying a trug of early vegetables and a small fork. We stopped and spoke. We agreed that winter seemed to be over and we might get a decent summer for a change, if that's of any interest.'

‘I see.' The sergeant looked from one to the other. ‘And neither of you noticed anything out of the ordinary about him or his manner?'

‘Nothing at all,' said Douglas.

Tash agreed and nodded. ‘Nothing.'

‘How about Mr George Eastwick?' the sergeant asked suddenly. ‘Was his manner and behaviour just what you would expect?'

The tense silence lasted for as long as it took a group of Tash's younger siblings to race across the grass below the window and vanish into the trees.

‘I've been wondering about that,' Douglas said. ‘I think I'd made up my mind to tell you although I'm sure you could see the point for yourself. It struck me at the time as strange that he should be so determined to have a witness along when he was going to look for his brother. It can't have been the first time that he'd searched for him but he's never needed company before.'

‘From which you concluded …?'

‘The possible inferences are obvious but I didn't draw any conclusions. That's your job. It just struck me as odd.'

‘And you, Miss Jamieson?'

‘I didn't want to be the first to tell you; but yes, it seemed strange to me.'

Sounds of a vehicle came up from the driveway below. The sergeant rose and looked down through the window. He spoke over his shoulder. ‘Please say as little as possible outside this room. Your news flash, plus the information that there's no obvious cause of death, seems to say all that needs saying so please leave it at that. Your neighbours can be counted on to draw their own conclusions from our presence about the place. I'll be back, probably tomorrow.'

‘What about the dog?' Douglas asked. ‘Will George be staying there to look after her? Or will you take her away? Or what?'

The sergeant turned round to face the room. ‘I was wondering about that,' he said. He had obviously forgotten altogether about Winnie. He paused at the door. ‘The flat will be sealed up until the forensic investigators have finished with it. Mr George Eastwick will have to move out. Would anybody here be prepared to offer him a bed?'

‘I think that's highly unlikely,' Douglas said. Frankness seemed to be called for. ‘It's not that people don't have the space. We just can't stand the man at any price. He seems to be in a state of permanent disgruntlement.'

‘It's not just the loss of his brother, then?' The sergeant looked towards the heavens. ‘Arrangements will be made,' he said. ‘But I don't think that Mrs Laird will want a bulldog in the dog unit. Could I ask you to keep her for a day or two?'

‘I can manage that,' Douglas said. ‘Two dogs are not much more bother than one and she's a friendly old thing.'

The soundproofing of the building was good. When the door was closed, Douglas had to listen hard to be sure that the sergeant had gone downstairs and was not eavesdropping. ‘The good sergeant might just as well have his thoughts written in magic marker in a balloon over his head.'

Tash nodded sombrely. ‘You'd have to be dim not to suspect that Mr Eastwick knew that his brother was dead and wanted a witness to be with him when he found him. The person who finds a body is always a suspect, at least in the stories.'

Douglas was recovering from the shock of finding Stan's body. Treating the death as an episode in a detective story seemed to help. ‘I think it's the same in real life. A killer won't fancy waiting for somebody else to make the discovery while wondering what they'll find that he hasn't thought of. He would have to fight against the temptation to return, as they say, to the scene of the crime to make certain. I expect that a higher percentage of killers than is statistically probable try to be present when the body's found, in order to offer innocent explanations for anomalies. But bodies must often be found by people who are quite innocent of any crime and Stan may have choked on a biscuit crumb, so I suggest that we don't jump to any conclusions. Stan may be found to have dropped dead of his own accord and George found him and preferred not to figure as the solo finder.'

‘It's all very sad,' said Tash. ‘Shall I go and put notes through letterboxes?'

I
t was not to be expected that the other householders would accept the death of Stan Eastwick as a simple fact unworthy of comment. Uninformed discussion buzzed in the communal areas. Tash and Douglas were battered with a thousand questions but they were able to say with almost perfect truth that they knew no more than had been in the circulated note.

The activity of the half-dozen or so police officers who infested Stan's flat was evident, but to the interested observer, which comprised everyone whose age ran into double figures, it was the sort of activity to be expected when everybody knows that there is a problem but nobody is quite sure what it is. Searches were made for nothing in particular and endless statements were taken that seemed to be heading nowhere.

Just as vague and pointless was the gathering of occupiers on the evening of the following day. George Eastwick was not present and it was understood that, because the police still had desultory possession of the basement part of the property, he had returned temporarily to the flat that he still owned in Falkirk where the sale had not yet been completed. This was the one sale that had not been entrusted to Douglas and it gave him some quiet amusement to see the confusion that was causing delays.

There was still no news as to how and why Stan Eastwick had died, nor was it known whether he had ever made a will. The only decision possible was that meantime the upkeep of the gardens would have to be shared between the owners or entrusted to a contractor and the cost similarly shared. It was soon clear that the other occupiers shared Douglas's pleasure in having access to a garden along with a rooted dislike of working in it. It was a time of year when gardens need attention. It was agreed that a man would be hired from the garden centre for two days a week, to work under Douglas's direction and the cost shared.

Almost exactly forty-eight hours after the discovery of the body, the suspense was relieved. A Detective Chief Inspector Laird arrived from Edinburgh. DCI
Alexander
Laird as he introduced himself, so Douglas surmised there was another DCI Laird somewhere in the Lothian and Borders Constabulary.

The surviving male occupiers had gone to their daily work and none of the women or children had known Stan Eastwick as more than a shadow sometimes seen preparing his flat or tidying the garden. Douglas was out, surveying a block of shops and flats in Morningside with Tash accompanying him to hold the tape and make notes. They returned to Underwood House to find that the chief inspector, lacking any other witnesses to question, was fuming at their absence and yet too busy studying the scene and finding fault with the earlier work to give them his immediate attention. Tash and Douglas had taken a snack lunch and then drafted an outline report on the property and were doing some calculations based on the survey measurements when Sergeant Dodson begged admission over the entry phone, was buzzed in but still knocked politely before entering.

‘DCI Laird wants to see you shortly,' he said. ‘No hurry,' he added as Douglas prepared to rise. ‘He's still reading reports. He just wants you to stand by and not go out again. And between you and me you'd better watch what you say. Give him the facts and that's all. He's not in the best of moods. His top is ready to blow.'

‘Thank you for the warning,' Douglas said.

‘Who rattled his cage?' Tash asked. ‘Was it you?'

‘No, thank God! But that won't save me if I put a foot wrong.' The sergeant seated himself. ‘We'll wait. He will soon be heading in this direction. He was too fed up to eat any lunch so if you want to get into his good books make him a pot of tea and a sandwich.'

‘I'll do it,' Tash said. She jumped up. ‘But after warning us to be careful what we say the least you can do is to tell us what subjects to avoid. We won't let on that you told us.'