Archive of Our Own

1937

Faith walked into the Larkrise hall and was assailed by the smell. She was used to the ordinary mishaps of Gremlin-wrangling; experimental clothes dying, spontaneous purchases of whole pigs from the butcher, that time Sophy had thought it wise to create her own perfume from orange peel and mummified frog legs…This was nothing like that.

There was a distinct copper tang to the air, almost like blood, and something else, something Faith hadn't smelled since the war. Death, she thought with a shiver, unravelling the silk of her scarf and hooking it haphazardly on a peg. Oh please God let it be a mouse that crawled under a chair and died.

No luck. Coat shucked, gloves shed and shoes peeled blissfully off, Faith walked bare-shod to the doorway and stared agape at the tableau father, daughter and a leaping God Tuesday made around their dining table.

'Jem,' began Faith as calmly as she could muster in the face of corpse, dachshund, child, and the smell of organs, 'is that a body?'

'No,' said Jem.

'Jem, I can see it,' said Faith and gestured at the spectacular tableau. Tuesday whined, signalling his deep wish for fresh liver. Everyone ignored him.

A disembodied voice said from the depths of the lionback chair Jem normally favoured, 'I did wonder if letting Helen help…'

The voice, Faith realised, belonged to Benwick. She hadn't registered him in the chair because he wasn't usually present when the Investigateers called meetings. Mind, neither, usually were corpses.

'Helen's enjoying it,' said Kitty, visiting and on leave from Toronto. 'Look at her.'

In point of fact, Helen had assisted on her first autopsy when she was little more than a babe in arms. Looking at her now, elbow deep in spleen, Faith wondered if there were naff Christmas ornaments for Child's First Autopsy to pair with Baby's First Christmas and Daughter's First Birthday, and if so, where one purchased them. Then Faith realised she was still standing in the doorway. She leaned back ill-advisedly and felt the teeth of the door jamb sink into her spine.

'Not to go all dull and conventional on you,' said Faith, rubbing at the spot the jamb had struck, 'but why is there a corpse on our table?'

'Felix Elgin,' said Jem. 'Elgin, my wife. Faith, the late Felix Elgin. He's telling us how he died.'

'Yes,' said Faith, with what she felt was tremendous patience, 'but why here?'

'My morgue is full,' Jem said. He shrugged. 'It's already got two corpses in it. Terrible, you know. Old Edgar Adams, who died of a fire, and…'

'And you couldn't have sent this poor chap to Halifax?' asked Faith.

'They wouldn't take him,' said Jem. 'I'd already sent them two bodies, see. And I fobbed one off on the police surgery in Elie. Not sure who was more surprised to be told there was an Elie surgery, honestly, me, Geordie, or the police surgeon in Elie.'

Faith rubbed at her temples. 'Probably the poor corpse you sent Elie-ward, I shouldn't wonder.' Then, as she did the arithmetic, 'You're telling me there are six bodies?'

'Don't think they're related though,' said Jem.

'Tell me again how they died?'

'One by fire, two by asphyxia, one poor sod – '

'Gremlins, Doc!' This from Benwick.

' – Was shot in the head,' said Jem, oblivious. Faith could about see Jem's point, what with the middle Gremlin now poking about in Felix Elgin's intestines. 'Another one was shot in the throat. Horrible. And this one,' said Jem in summary, 'is as yet undecided. We were thinking of having dinner out.'

'Mm,' said Faith, joining her family over the corpse. 'That new Italian on the high street?'

'Looks promising,' said Jem. 'Helen and I were thinking poison.'

'Any petechia?' said Faith, and leaned closer for a better look. She opened Eglin's mouth and ran thumb and forefinger along the gums. Nothing. She closed the mouth and seized a hand.

'Hm..Discolouration under the nail beds…We could catch that travelling fair after, if we time it right. Ellie Blake says it's quite good value for money.'

'After dinner?'

'Yes,' said Faith. 'Say about 8?'

Jem nodded. 'Might be nice. What say, Helen? Fancy trying to win a cake? Interesting fact; even though they were killed differently, Geordie thinks it was the same killer.'

'Oh? How so?' said Faith.

From the lionback chair a distinctly perplexed Benwick was heard to ask, 'Do they always do that? Switch back and forth like murder's the evening news?'

'Well,' said Kitty, 'sometimes it is the evening news. And no, only when they think no one's paying attention.'

Faith could not see Benwick, but she sensed his squirming discomfort in the same way she sensed that Tuesday was more desperate than ever to sample the exposed liver of the unfortunate Felix Elgin. She hid a smile and wondered, as Kitty segued into some completely other conversational avenue if Benwick realised the tacking and turning was far from being unique to Larkrise. Tuesday thrust his long, greying nose in the air and began to howl the sad howl of a neglected dachshund.

'Someone,' said Faith, 'for God's sake take that dog outside. Get Christopher to run him, or something. But get him away from the poor Mr. Elgin. Helen's input is one thing, but really…'

Christopher, hearing his name, materialised from whither he had been and moved dutifully towards the garden door. Tuesday, sensing the possibility of squirrels, moved with him. Faith sat down on the sofa, and surveyed the remnants of Kitty's slapdash efforts of tea; Two mugs, no coasters, said mugs splotched with spilt tea. Mug for Kitty, mug for Benwick, nothing for the duo carrying out the autopsy, then. Probably just as well. Independent Toronto living had clearly done nothing for Kitty's housekeeping. But never mind, Faith thought, with a surreptitious glance at Kitty. It wasn't a stone Faith could cast, and Kitty looked well-fed, and healthy, and Benwick didn't look like the chaotic culinary arrangement fazed him.

'I could get you a mug,' said Kitty. Faith was about to agree when a voice from the door said,

'No time, I'm afraid.'

Faith closed her eyes. 'Geordie,' she said, 'I don't work for you. And even if I did, I've spent a hellish afternoon telling the Pipers their mother had a stroke cleaning the oven.'

Geordie grimaced. Benwick, because he was touchingly oblivious this way, said, 'Didn't she?'

'No,' Faith said. 'You could still smell the gas in her hair. Mr.Piper knew I was lying, too. It was awful. Now what can we do you for, Geordie?'

'We've got a lead,' said Geordie.

'Well,' said Teddy, who Faith now saw was lurking behind his superior, 'the Superintendent thinks he's got a lead. Sir.' With a nod to Geordie, only superintendent ever to muck in with the rank and file. Or so Faith surmised from surrounding gossip. Hassle hadn't, anyway. Just caused all that nuisance over the tea and where people could brew it.

Kitty rose and seized the teapot. Teddy intercepted her though and said with all the proprietary concern of someone who could brew tea worth drinking, 'Better let me do it, Kitten. You'll want to hear this.'

Geordie groaned. Faith watched him sink into the wingback chair. His wingback chair really, seeing as no one else made use of it. Geordie scrubbed at his eyes and said from behind his hands, 'Faith, Jem, you both remember the Mansel case, don't you?'

'No,' said Faith.

'Sorry,' said Jem.

'Told you so!' said Teddy over the clatter of kettle and tap water bubbling and spluttering.

Geordie groaned again. He said, 'God, you're young. Sometimes I almost forget and then…big case, the Mansel boy. Done for murder in…you're telling me none of you remember?'

'Can't,' said Helen. 'I wasn't born. Least, I assume I wasn't if Mama and Dad are supposed to be old enough to remember it.' She sliced carefully into a kidney.

'Cheeky,' grumbled Geordie but good-naturedly because Helen was easy to love. Geordie muttered further about should gremlins be involved in active investigations but no one, least of all the relevant gremlin, took any notice.

'To be fair, Sir,' said Benwick, now singing an entirely different tune, 'it's not the first time, and the case isn't all that active. Just six bodies the Doc can't connect.'

'Well it's about to be active,' said Geordie. 'Because you, Constable, are going through every file we've got on the Mansel-Taggart vendetta and finding the good doctor the connection he needs.'

'Now, hang on,' said Jem. 'Even if this old case is related, and we don't know it is, it's a far cry from there to six differently dead bodies.'

'I know,' said Geordie and scrubbed his eyes again. 'I know. But old Edgar Adams burning up like that got me thinking. I could swear he was on the jury that convicted Mansel.'

'You're thinking revenge?' said Teddy, appearing, mercifully, with tea.

'Well, not Mansel's, anyway,' said Benwick, 'if we really did string him up in the dinosaur days.'

'I dunno,' said Jem. 'I always fancied if I ever met the person or thing that did for Walter I could cheerfully have retaliated. Has your Mansel got brothers, Geordie?'

Geordie hummed affirmation.

'I'll try the paper,' said Kitty. 'If we covered it, there's bound to be copy somewhere. There should be a list of names. What year am I looking, at Geordie?'

'Somewhere early 1900s,' said Geordie. 'Before the '10s, though, because we weren't married yet.'

'And you think we followed it?' asked Jem, indignant. He waved his scalpel for emphasis. 'How old do you think I was back then?'

'Old enough to be reading, anyway,' said Geordie.

'Not the legal stuff, I wasn't,' said Jem.

'Your parents must have, though. It was big news. Judith and I used to chat about it.'

'Judith,' said Faith, 'followed you to a murder investigation by way of a romantic ensign. Of course you bloody talked about it. What I can't see is how Kitty is planning to get into the archive of a paper she no longer works for.'

'Sheer bloody cheek, I shouldn't wonder,' said Geordie. Reflectively he added, 'Probably where your daughter learned it from.'

'She'll charm the devil's own way into heaven, I'm sure,' said Jem. Benwick grinned. Kitty smiled the smile of the Holy Innocents.

She said, 'Oh ye of little faith. I'll tell them I'm breaking a story with a possible extra-provincial link that I need to verify by going through the archives, won't I?'

'I don't want to know,' said Geordie.

Instead, he, Judith and what remained of the Carlisle gremlins joined with Faith and family for dinner out and an evening at the travelling fair. Kitty would have gone too, but the archives waited for no woman, apparently, and Benwick said as long as he was stuck manning the phones at the station house he might as well get stuck into the files on the police end. He and Kitty would collate them later if anything matched up.

They did not go to the new Italian on the high street. They went to The King's Arms because Geordie was working an angle and the place was run by one Rob Mansel, brother of the deceased. He was a surly, ruddy-faced character, and Faith was grateful to slip into a booth with the gremlins and let Teddy, Jem and Geordie bend his ear. The eatery wasn't dreadful though; under the varnish she could smell a lemon juice rub, and vinegar too.

She said to Judith, 'You really remember this investigation?'

Judith laughed and said of course she did, it was what everyone used for small talk back when the case was ongoing.

'Well,' Judith said, 'they did right up until Colin Mansel swore on oath that he'd been fixed up for the shooting of Dick Taggart. Then they used that for small talk.'

Faith grimaced. 'Awful if it were true.'

'Mm,' said Judith, noncomitally. 'Why Geordie wants it re-opened, I think. Or why he's so determined to make Jem's half dozen bodies Mansel-Taggart related. Detective Lawson – '

'Was a damn good detective,' said Geordie, rejoining them with food. 'But fallible. And there was talk about – well never mind. No one ever took very seriously the rumours about him rehearsing witnesses. The important thing was getting Colin Mansel behind bars. On the other hand…'

Geordie shrugged, and for a second Faith saw in him the pull between justice, truth and some other, unnameable third that she saw in Jem. Stubbornness was part of it, and maybe vengeance was another, but on the other hand, autopsies made for easier parsing, and that was Faith's considered opinion as someone who treated the living. Faith let it go.

'But if Colin really was innocent,' she ventured, and Teddy interjected. 'Then,' he said, 'we have one hefty motive for him over there.' He jerked his thumb in the direction of Rob Mansel. Faith was hard pressed to disagree.

At the fair Teddy won Sophy an exotic doll in carnival get-up that was promptly christened Poliomyelitis, Polly for short. This, Faith thought, would probably have raised more eyebrows if Helen hadn't set a precedent for medically-inspired doll names. Over the years they'd had Spanish Influenza, the flamenco dancer, Baron Typhus and his wife Cholera, sisters Varicella and Rubella, regal and porcelain Lady Scarletina in red and her twin in blue, Countess Cyanotica Cruris. Sometimes Faith wondered if Larkrise shouldn't have branched out into fields of study less medical, and that had been before little Diptheria had put the cap on Helen's doll collection.

Now Faith leaned against the wooden slats of the improvised Crown and Anchor table, put a penny on a black diamond and listened to Geordie detail the ongoing Taggart-Mansel feud while up ahead a wheel spun round, and round, card suits flashing by in quick succession, the needle on the wheel clacking as it went. The air smelled of crowds and confectionary, and was full of the shouts of exuberant children. A dizzying backdrop for murder talk, but hardly the strangest they'd had.

'I remember it,' said Geordie, 'because it was early in my career and every copper going was desperate to stop it. They must have had half the city bent between them, the Mansels and Taggarts. More probably. Which would have been fine, but they'd got one of the bent lot to keep them in police-issue weapons. Caused all kinds of chaos, as you'd expect. The time we had...'

'Right,' said Jem. His Heart suit came up trumps and he diligently dived the money between the gremlins to use as they would. Helen went for the cake stall, Sophy and doll Polly for the fish pond, but Christopher hovered at parental elbows, betting on spades and to all appearances listening keenly.

'And the Mansels and Taggarts ran what, exactly? A black market enterprise?'

'A monopoly on fishing,' said Geordie. 'Oh, you can laugh,' he said, because Faith was trying hard not to, 'but the amount of trouble that caused – who had control of what dock…'

'And it wasn't just fish that came in,' said Judith.

'Well, quite, my sweet,' said Geordie, and smiled. Yes, Faith could see how this case had been instrumental in shaping the unit that was Geordie and Judith Carlisle.

'Of course,' said Geordie, 'we could never prove it. So naturally when Colin Mansel shot Dick Taggart – '

'Purportedly,' said Teddy.

'When Colin Mansel shot Dick Taggart,' said Geordie again, with emphasis, 'we jumped at the chance to bring him in. But he never coughed to any of it, not even the murder.'

'And no one ever thought,' said Teddy, 'that maybe that meant he was innocent?'

If Geordie Carlisle, Superintendent of the Kingsport Station House, did not exactly glower, he came close. 'The evidence,' he said, 'was incontrovertible. He had blood on his hands, and prints on the gun. You'd have done exactly what we did, Inspector.'

Teddy forbore to comment.

'You were right,' said Kitty, by way of unusual greeting, running to meet the returned revelers. The Carlisles, about to turn for home, abruptly stopped.

Faith ushered them Larkrise-ward as Kitty clucked and fussed over Sophy's carnival prizes. That lasted only until they were inside, whereat she brandished a clutch of notes and newspaper pages in their general direction.

Murderous Mansel Sentenced blazed the foremost headline, and beneath it, Curtain Closes on Cunning Colin's Last Caper. Further down the page, in blurry print, was a distorted photograph of the jurors. Under that, in still blurrier, smaller print, were their names.

'Better read them out, Kitten,' said Teddy. 'The Super's eyes aren't what they were.'

Geordie snorted. Faith hid a smile in the coats she was hanging up and gestured everyone out of the too-narrow hall and into the sitting room. There was still a corpse on the table and it was getting hard to ignore. Mercifully, someone had had the thought to shut Tuesday in Faith's surgery and drape a sheet over the body. Nothing, probably, would salvage the sheet, but at least Felix Elgin as had been had had a bit of dignity while they'd been at dinner. Still, Faith underlined a mental note to have Benwick arrange for Elgin's release to his family, if there were any. No need for the unsuspecting corpse to sit on the dining room table longer than necessary.

Geordie collapsed gratefully into his wingback chair. Jem took the lionshead chair, now Benwick was gone, and Teddy went to put the kettle on. Really, they should have something stronger, Faith thought, joining Judith on the sofa, but tea would do in a pinch. Jem, reading her mind, hauled himself out of the chair, crossed to the sideboard and shunted about in the cabinets until he'd surfaced the obligatory bottle of medicinal brandy for anyone wanting to top up their tea. Beaver Tea, they'd called that in Faith's salad days, though God alone knew why. Geordie looked grateful. Kitty, unfazed as any Larkrise gremlin by the proximity of a corpse, took a dining room chair, and read by the light of a gas lamp.

'Edgar Adams,' she read, 'leads fellow jurors Felix Elgin, Simon Halliwick, Gregory Alnwick, Nick Hannaford…stop me, someone, if any of these sound familiar.'

Jem raised a hand. 'Too familiar,' he said. 'I've autopsied over half of them already. What's your murder doing, Geordie? Going for them proportionate to culpability?'

Nattie Carlisle, half-drunk on sleeplessness and carnival throes surfaced from the jumble of gremlins on the floor and said, 'Like in And Then There Were None, Uncle Jem? You know, the Agatha Christie?'

Geordie only said, to the horror of a teapot-bearing Teddy Lovall, 'Hell if I know. Kitty, give me the rest of that paper.'

Kitty parted with it. Geordie took it, rattled it until it was spread out before him before duly skimming it, growling, and finally saying, 'And there,' with a jab, 'there,' another jab, 'and there,' a final, furious jab, 'are your other three corpses, Doc.'

'So it is like And Then There Were None,' said Helen, halfway between thoughtful and excited. 'Does that mean something?'

'It means, lamby,' said Teddy, 'that someone's doing their level best to prove Colin Mansel's original verdict unsafe after the fact. And I'm guessing it's not Dick Taggart's family.'

'Can they do that?' asked Kitty. 'And if they can, what does that mean for the people who made the conviction?'

'Don't bloody go there,' said Geordie.

There was nothing for it, in the morning, but to go and call on the man who had hung Colin Mansel over 30 years ago. The passing of time meant he had long since retired out of the job, which went some way to explaining Jem's atypical presence at the interview. Ernest Shawcross, former hangman of the Kingsport men's prison had the withered, papery look of the old and the battered, wasted look of the cancerous. Or so Jem thought as he accepted the overstuffed armchair offered him by Mrs Shawcross. The air smelled of sickness anyway, and that was a fact. Lavender too.

'We're sorry to bring this up,' said Geordie, accepting a chair in his turn, and Jem could see that he meant it. Anyone could. Crowded like a badly folded accordion into his chair, Geordie looked at least as haggard as the man he'd come to interview. Vaguely Jem wondered about suggesting he hand the case over to Teddy, but he knew on some gut level that Geordie would drop dead of apoplexy before that happened. If this were any other case…but it wasn't.

So Jem sat with his friend and colleague in a room that smelled of sickness and lavender, and listened to the thin, reedy voice of Ernest Shawcross recount the dismal death of Colin Mansel. How Shawcross had always tried to make it quick, and how he liked to think he'd got good at telling the guilty from the innocent.

'The priest,' Shawcross said, 'had this way of letting you know if the…if they wanted to say something.'

'He did that for Colin Mansel?' asked Geordie.

Shawcross nodded. 'So,' he said, 'I held back with the hood, just for a second, mind. And that boy - Colin - leans forward, all shivering and trembling like an aspen-tree in a windstorm, and he says…'

There was a pause as Shawcross reached for and sipped at a glass of water. The lavender and sickness smell intensified. Jem waited for Geordie to prompt his subject, but he didn't. Shawcross leaned back, and sipped, and breathed deeply, and all the while Jem was acutely aware firstly, that his chair was too soft for comfort, secondly that the argyle pattern of the rug did not match the floral curtains, and thirdly, of the interminable ticking of a carriage clock. Fourthly he realised that he was choking on the lavender and sickness smell and crossed to a window. Finally, mercifully, Shawcross resumed.

'The boy, Mansel, he leans forward and says – but just for me, mind – I swear before God and all present I never murdered anyone.'

The carriage clock was merciless. Jem listened to it, half an eye on the wasted, decaying former hangman, and made it his mental assessment the man was fit for further interview.

'I always felt the police were on my side,' said Shawcross. 'We were a team, like. But the look on that poor boy's face changed that.'

Abruptly Geordie heaved himself up out of the depths of his overstuffed chair. Jim, following, detached himself from his place at the window.

He was halfway out of the room when Shawcross clutched at him with pale and boney fingeres, and said, 'They don't hang the convicts, these days. Maybe that's best.'

Jem hummed the hum of a man who had witnessed his share of hangings, then gently disengaged his fingers and caught up with Geordie. They thanked Shawcross at the door, Geordie lingering to apologise again for the nature of the call. It was a dismal morning.

'Now what?' said Teddy Lovall, back at the station house. This, mercifully, smelled only of dry air, paper and badly brewed tea. It was a relief. Geordie sipped a cup of tepid tea and declined comment. Jem, case file in hand said, 'I take it someone took Mansel's blood, back in the dinosaur days?'

'Probably,' said Geordie. 'And the stuff on his hands, I shouldn't wonder. Tea, Doc?'

'Good,' said Jem. 'Get Benwick to send for the old evidence, can you? We've come on a bit since then. I might be able to match some of this stuff up. No promises, though. And while Benwick's doing that, Teddy's going to take me round the crime scenes we've got now. Thanks.' He accepted the cup of tea Geordie proffered, sipped at it and said, meditative, 'No sugar?'

'Benwick forgot to buy it,' said Teddy.

'How could he possibly...'Jem began but then shook his head. He set the mug down and said instead, 'Crime scene, Teddy. With me, now. You're going to show me where our gunshot victims were.'

'I am?' said a baffled Teddy.

'Yes,' Jem said, 'because I want to see if any blood there– if there is any – matches any of the blood in Benwick's boxes.'

'You can do that?' asked Geordie.

Jem beamed. He waved a canister hitherto stationary on his desk and said, 'Luminol. Bloody useful stuff, pun unintended.' Then, as an afterthought, 'And while Benwick's about it, get him in touch with the Halifax people and have him make sure they take prints from our asphyxiated jurors. If there are any prints to take, obviously.'

So Jem and Teddy set out for the home of Simon Halliwick, who had had the misfortune to meet his demise courtesy of a bullet to the left temple. He'd lived a neat, tidy, even unobtrusive existence from what Jem could see. No stacks of post, sparse surfaces, not so much as a chipped mug out of place. Only the grandfather clock was eerily silent, with no one alive to wind it any more.

None of this did anything to hide the blood the luminol threw up. Teddy watched in awe as the hardwood floor flared to blue, livid life in the place of Halliwick's last moments. It wasn't gory, not exactly, not when Jem thought back over some of their previous collaborations, but it was still no way for a man to die. Not in his own home, like this, with the chairs at perfect right angles to one another and the floor varnished to mirror-smoothness. Jem could just smell lemon zest over the stale air of the house and couldn't decide if this was because the murderer had been thorough in his scrubbing of the floor or because Halliwick had liked to use it to mitigate the smell of floor polish.

Teddy stood gaping at the blue splotches of luminol.

'How are you doing that?' he said, so Jem explained. But really he felt he owed Halliwick an apology for sullying his floors.

'Definitely killed here,' he said. 'God, it was messy. Too messy for just one shot. Either our murderer was no marksman, which he was, because I saw the corpse, or some of this is his blood.'

'And…what?' said Teddy, 'he stuck around afterwards to straighten the room up?'

'Well,' said Jem, 'he scrubbed the floor, didn't he?' He began to chip regretfully at said floor to extract what he could. It wasn't ideal, the residual blood, but it was going to have to do.

Teddy said, 'Or someone else did.'

Jem raised an eyebrow. 'You reckon we should be looking for a Mrs Halliwick?'

'No,' said Teddy. 'I just mean…Look, you remember that god-awful Sergeant that harangued Kitty all those years ago at the Christmas Party?'

'Sure,' said Jem, but only vaguely because he was even now dusting floor and skirtingboard to lift what other evidence he could.

'You broke his nose.'

'I gave him a nosebleed,' said Teddy. 'Not the same thing. But the point is, if Kitty had murdered him over the horsderves and found me to confess to afterwards, I wouldn't have arrested her, I'd have said where's the body, what have you done with it and how can I help.'

'Ah,' said Jem. He sat back on his heels. 'So you think we have conspiring Taggarts, trying to make sure they make good on what the jurors couldn't? Kill the man that really killed Dick Taggart?'

'Or murderous Mansels conspiring to off the people that did for Colin,' said Teddy. 'Take your pick. Incidentally, d'you reckon the Super should be on this case?'

'No,' said Jem. 'But if his old Inspector did put the fix on Mansel – well, it's a point of honour, isn't it?'

Teddy groaned. 'I suppose,' he said. 'Guess I was hoping you'd say something else, Doc.'

'All I know,' said Jem, rising and surveying the scene, 'is if Geordie's superior did dob Mansel in, and your Murderous Mansel theory holds, then someone had better stick a watch on the former Inspector Lawson. Because our Mansel murderer will be after him sooner rather than later, I expect.'

Benwick had boxes of evidence waiting for them back at the station house and had partially sorted it according to who he felt should be handling what. This involved a large quantity of what he dubbed 'The Messy Stuff,' and pawned off on Jem. Poking and prodding revealed the gun Colin Mansel had reportedly fired, a handkerchief with the dead Taggart's blood on it, also property of Colin Mansel, deceased, and an assortment of flattened, battered bullets.

It smelled musty, of confined space and years of festering storeroom shelves. Jem made an oblique note to harangue the person in charge of storing evidence and explain about how stuff degraded with time, but he didn't think anyone would listen, not really. They were all plodding on as best they could.

Body number seven was found floating in the duck pond. Tuesday found it, and this should have surprised no one, because body seven, formerly juror Gregory Alnwick, was in pieces. Specifically he'd had his tongue and hands severed.

'This is vindictive,' said Benwick, needlessly. 'Even by the standards of our murderer.'

'Our murderer,' said Geordie ruefully, 'knows his Cicero.'

'Sir?' said Teddy and Benwick as one.

'How he died,' said Jem. 'The Romans cut off his tongue and his hands to make a point.'

'The point being...?' asked Teddy, rubbing at his forehead.

'They didn't think much of his speeches,' said Jem. 'Neither did I, personally, but…'he shrugged.

Geordie made an effort not to laugh. Benwick snapped his fingers and said, 'That fits!'

Several heads swivelled Benwick-wards. Benwick nodded enthusiasm. 'Yes, it does, see, because one of those articles Kitty pulled from the archives said how Alnwick was instrumental in swaying the jury. It was almost hung, but then Alnwick said something that persuaded the people who were swithering.'

'Christ,' said Geordie.

'We have got,' said Teddy, 'to crack on with this. Benwick, where are those things the Doc wanted from Halifax?'

'Coming,' said Benwick. 'Honest. There's a lot of clear blue water between here and Halifax, you know. These things take time.'

'That's my line,' said Jem and patted the constable reassuringly on the back. 'And normally,' said Jem as an afterthought, 'this is where I'd poke about under Alnwick's nails in case of a struggle but we've hit a logistical snag in the lack of hands, so unless Tuesday finds them…'

Body eight was a dead Taggart, and he was stabbed on the dock of the Kingsport harbour late that evening, in the shadow of a skeletal davit, while Jem was on the phone to Halifax haranguing them about the fingerprints he didn't have. The davit looked eerily like a scaffold and the Taggart eerily like one of the many Taggarts arrested in the subsequent riots that stemmed from Colin Mansel's murder of the hapless Dick.

Jem heard about it over breakfast from an exasperated Teddy.

'Helen, love,' he said, buttering toast, 'what was that rhyme you said it was like? In the Christie book?'

Helen thought a minute then began,

Ten little soldiers went out to dine,
One choked his little self and then there were nine –

She stopped abruptly as Teddy cleared his throat. Jem supposed the smell of scrambled eggs could be said to pair badly with poetry about the systematic demise of soldiers.

'Anyway,' said Faith, 'no one's choked.'

'Unless you're counting asphyxia,' said Jem. 'Which I think I am. Can you remember the rest of the murders without the pneumonic, lamby?'

'Well,' said Helen, 'soldier nine oversleeps, which might fit with your poisoned corpse, but then number eight thinks he'll stay in Devon, so…' She shrugged. Jem picked up a forkful of scrambled eggs, and had to admit he couldn't see that mapping either. Inwardly he groaned; Cherry picking theories was a bit like having one's cake and eating it. In the long run it never worked.

Christopher said, 'Seven chops himself in half, though,' apparently oblivious to Teddy's discomfort. 'And that does work. And you were saying someone was burned?'

'No need to sound so enthused,' said Teddy. 'Horrible way to go, if you ask me. The smell is like…never mind. Don't tell me that fits, too?'

All three gremlins chorused zealously,

Two little soldiers, sitting in the sun,
One fizzled up and then there was one.

Jem shook his head. 'It's too haphazard about what bits of the poem are in use and what parts aren't.'

'Sides,' Teddy said, 'It hasn't got anyone being stabbed.'

But then several things seemed to happen at once. The fingerprints from Halifax came through, delivered by a courier who looked overworked, and who Jem suspected of being underpaid. He slipped the man a further note for his trouble and began matching them to the evidence he'd amassed. And what they threw up was a link to the dead Taggart, 'Which surprised me,' said Jem, 'because there's no match for Dick Taggart. If it wasn't Colin Mansel that killed him, it wasn't this person, either. And, while I normally would have said this thing with Taggart was just standard Taggart V Mansel stuff, sort of one in the eye for anyone who thought the hatchet was buried when Colin Mansel hung..' Jim shrugged.

'You don't think this is?' said Geordie.

'Too early to say,' said Jem. 'But it seems a bit much too suppose it's a coincidence that the same man who killed our dead Taggart has also been running around offing former jurors. So, yes, gun to my head, I think these things are connected.'

Geordie hummed. He said, 'When you summoned me here you said there was another thing. Something that didn't fit.'

Jem hummed in his turn and fussed over his instruments. 'You aren't going to like this,' he said.

'Tell me anyway,' said Geordie.

'Right,' said Jem, 'well, the stuff I got off Colin Mansel's gun – and you have to understand this isn't exactly an art form – but from what I can tell, Colin Mansel never held the gun that shot Dick Taggart.'

Geordie groaned. Teddy said, 'But Doc, if that's right, why's the original murderer running around murdering the people who let him off scot free?'

'He never said it was the same person, Inspector,' said Geordie. He looked and sounded exhausted. To Jem he said, 'They aren't the same, are they? In fact, they can't be, or the evidence you'd just been rabbiting on about would match. Is that right? Whoever fired that gun at Dick Taggart is not the man who strangled, poisoned and otherwise butchered those jurors.'

'No,' said Jem.

'But they want to make it look like it was,' said Geordie.

Teddy raised both eyebrows. 'How d'you make that out?' he said.

It was a good question. But then Geordie said, 'Because Inspector Lawson did for Colin Mansel, and Inspector Lawson was an established devotee of Cicero.'

They went back to the safety of the café they had discovered in the days of the Great Tea Controversy. Safely ensconced at a polished wooden table, and with a platter of sticky-sweet buns and a pot of tea between them, Teddy said, 'You don't really think your old Inspector did for Taggart, do you Gov?'

'I think someone was gunning for him,' said Geordie, 'and Lawson had had about as much of the Mansel-Taggart nonsense as he could stomach. Christ, we all had.'

'Yes,' said Teddy, 'but it doesn't necessarily follow that – '

'He quoted that bloody Roman at Colin Mansel, Teddy. I heard him, didn't I? I sat in that stuffy interview room and listened to Lawson quote Cicero one minute and shout blue bloody murder at Mansel the next.'

'Still,' said Teddy, 'it's a far cry from that to…' He shrugged, helpless but undeterred.

Benwick nodded urgently. Geordie said, 'Anyone else remember that story of Ken Ford's that got Kitty Forster in such a state all those years ago?'

Jem munched a bun. Dustings of cinnamon and icing clung stickily to his fingers and he dabbed at them with a napkin, nodding all the while.

'Sure,' said Teddy around a mouthful of tea. 'Police corruption. But that was Toronto.'

'Yeah, well,' said Geordie, 'they haven't got the monopoly on bent coppers, and when you're up against the kind of mess the Mansels and Taggarts were generating day after day, sometimes a bit of rule-bending feels justified.'

'But you don't really think,' said Teddy again.

'I think,' said Geordie, 'I'm waiting on the evidence. Doc?'

Jem inhaled deeply. The little café smelled of fresh baking and aromatic tea. It was no place to talk fit-ups and murder.

'I'll tell you as we go,' said Jem and scraped his chair backwards. The others followed.

It was easier like this, Jem thought as they picked their way through the city, the workaday press of people knocking against them as they went. Like this he didn't have to look Geordie in the eye when he explained about the gun and how there was nothing on it to connect it to Colin Mansel, except Taggart's blood, and that only proved the shooter had had enough conscience to check Taggart's pulse, maybe staunch some of the bleeding after the fact. Easier to say, so of course Jem didn't say it.

He waited until they were inside the King's Arms and squinting at the dark interior before catching Geordie's eye and telling him all these things. Geordie nodded. Benwick went in search of Rob Mansel for further inquiry. Teddy, Geordie and Jem waited, still in the doorway, still squinting, breathing in the smell of the place, all fermented wheat, fried bread and lemon juice.

It was nothing. Lemon juice was a great all-purpose thing. Jem knew this. Had watched Faith use it variously to polish floors, season chicken and help Sophy invent invisible ink. He clicked his fingers anyway, and signalling Benwick that they were off, motioned the others out of the door.

'You're thinking again, Doc,' said Teddy as they picked their way back to Larkrise, squinting now in the sunlight. Jem did not answer. He was still thinking it out. Geordie let him do it. Back at Larkrise Jem sat, limbs akimbo on the floor and scrabbled for the nearest useful aide. Because the chess set was closed and the dollhouse long-since relocated to Sophy's room upstairs, this happened to be doll Poliomyelitis of the carnival. Not really looking, Jem gathered up the other dolls too, Baron Typhus, Baroness Cholera, Lady Scarletina and the Countess Cyanotica, the whole doll collection in its medically-minded entirety.

'Right,' said Jem, assembling his props. 'We know we're looking at two different crimes here.'

'But they're linked,' said Teddy.

'Sort of,' said Jem. 'Look,' and he held up Diphtheria. 'This, whatever my daughters tell you, is Dick Taggart. And this,' he waved Baron Typhus by one porcelain arm, 'is the man that shot Taggart. This,' picking up the red Lady Scarletina, 'Is Colin Mansel, because the colour of her dress seems apt for bloodshed. Now,' Jem gestured at Geordie, 'you, Superintendent, are going to show me what happened, because I wasn't around when all this was going on and you witnessed it. Where was Taggart, where was Mansel, where were you and your Inspector?'

Gingerly, and with much audible grumbling, Geordie got down on his knees so that he too was sat amidst the confusion of dolls. For good measure he heaved a cushion after him and set it behind his impeccably upright back.

'If we're being really technical,' he said, 'I was a green constable at the time. And have you any idea the last time I attended a doll's tea party?'

'Sophy can soon fix that,' said Jem. 'Nattie will help, I'm sure. Now, Mansel. Taggart. Who was where, when?'

'Well,' said Geordie, 'I was here, just behind…Never mind. Doesn't matter because it wasn't just me. There were loads of us. Half of us were behind the Stella Maria and the other half behind the Stella Luna. I was in the latter half with Inspector Lawson, so saw the whole thing in excruciating, chaotic detail. This was a big thing, bringing in the Mansels and Taggarts. Lawson, though, he was right in the thick of it. Not all inspectors did that sort of thing, but he did.'

'Not like anyone we know then,' muttered Teddy. Geordie ignored him. He positioned Typhus-as-Lawson a little ahead of his knees and said, 'For the purpose of the exercise I'm playing my past self. Taggart was…here…' and Geordie thoughtfully placed Dipheria-Taggart against a nearby coffee table, 'and Mansel was here.'

Almost automatically he set Scarletina-Mansel between the two dolls. For a long time afterwards, no one said anything. Only Tuesday, lazing in a sunspot, punctuated the silence with an occasional, nasal snore. It was all too apparent what misadventure had spelled the downfall of Colin Mansel.

'They weren't alone, either,' said Geordie. 'Colin and Dick. I mean, this wasn't pistols-at-dawn. There were lots of them. Rob Mansel, now, he would have been Colin's right arm, so over...here.' He reached for doll Polly and set her next to Scarletina-Colin.

'Right,' said Jem. 'That's what I thought. Now, Mansel,' waving at Lady Scarletina in her red, 'shoots Taggart. Except that's not what happens, because none of the evidence bears it out. But if we suppose your Lawson was a bloody good shot…'

'Doc!' said Teddy, and for once there were no gremlins around to be horrified.

'He was ace,' said Geordie. 'To put it your way. You're thinking he shot Taggart over Mansel's shoulder and in the ensuing chaos no one clocked it. Or wanted to.'

'But the gun,' said Teddy.

'Was standard police issue,' said Jem. 'Remember what Geordie was saying about the Mansels and Taggarts having a finger in that pie? No one would have thought twice about it because obviously Colin Mansel had got his gun from a corrupt plod and used it to off Taggart.'

'And it was pandemonium,' said Geordie. 'After that shot rang out…People were crawling everywhere. There was screaming, and swarming and – well, you've seen your share of mobs, Inspector. You'll know what I mean. An easy thing for Lawson to do a brief triage of Dick Taggart's dying, pick up the gun, and land it on Mansel as he arrested him.'

'Accounting,' said Jem, 'for the fingerprints I don't have on file but that are on Colin Mansel's gun. Supposed gun.'

Teddy looked faintly green, but Jem thought Geordie looked worse, all hollowed out and haggard where he leaned against the wingback chair.

'And Rob Mansel saw,' said Geordie. He tapped dazedly at Poliomyelitus-Mansel. 'Christ.' He said it with no real heat to it, and somehow that was worse than if there had been. 'I should have known. Seen something.'

'You couldn't have seen it,' said Jem. 'Chaos, like you said. And even if you had, who'd have listened?'

But that wasn't the point, not really. The loss of ideals always hurt, idols too. Jem knew, because once he'd gone to war and lost his share. And once, before all that awfulness, he had looked up at the rose window of Knox Presbyterian, great theological jewel of the Glen, and found it empty. That had been worst of all because he had sat there, alone and empty in a pew surrounded by family he knew did not feel the same vacancy. They were all saying their prayers with a sincerity that left Jem inwardly shouting at the void presented by the rose window, Where have you gone? Why me, why only me? And then, aggrieved, Well, you needn't come rushing back, then. I'll manage fine. And he thought maybe Judith Carlisle, after years estranged from family and doctrine, knew some of that, too. Thought that was part of what each saw in the other's friendship.

Jem smiled a watery, imperfect smile at his friend of these many long years and said again, 'You couldn't have done anything, Geordie. You said it yourself, you were a constable. It would have been impossible.'

Geordie nodded. Tuesday hefted himself out of his sunspot and gambolled sideways-fashion over to their triad, nosing the now-deceased Taggart-Diphtheria doll as he went before settling on Geordie's knees, little white socks on the man's broad besuited chest.

'Tuesday,' said Jem warningly but Geordie only scratched the dog's ears and said, 'It's quite all right, isn't it, old chap? You know I don't mind.'

Tuesday stuck one paw up, exposing his belly and inviting the world's most awkward tummy rub. Geordie complied. Teddy said clumsily, 'Right, well…What the deuce is happening to those jurors, then, Doc? Because I can't make that fit.'

'What's happening,' said Jem, 'is that Rob Mansel saw what happened. And now he wants his vengeance.'

'Which is awkward,' said Geordie, as he reached around Tuesday for Poliomyelitis, still playing Rob Mansel, 'because now the clever so-and-so is taking it out on the people that got his brother hung for murder. Which means…'

Teddy was already up and marching purposefully towards the phone.

'Someone,' he grumbled, 'had better warn your old boss. And Benwick. And possibly that old hangman you two were so thick with.'

There was a whirring and clicking as Teddy punched purposefully at the phone and requested the connection for The Kings Arms. There followed a pregnant pause as they all awaited the connection.

Then Teddy's urgent 'Benwick? Constable Benwick? Inspector Lovall. Look, I need you to make sure Rob Mansel doesn't – he's what?! What do you mean he's not there? Went round – why would you – no, never mind, Benwick. Just find him. Go to – oh Christ. Inspector – Superintend- Sir, where does Lawson live now? It's important.'

Geordie rattled off the address. Teddy relayed it. 'Get there, Benwick, get there now.

But now Geordie was on his feet and moving with all the grace of a tiger after an antelope. Without seeming to do it had got the phone. He sad very coolly, very collected, 'Benwick? You still there. Good. Ignore Teddy. You're going to go direct to the waterfront, you understand? Yes I know Teddy said…No, forget that. You want the Waterfront and you want the dock with the Stella Luna. Yes, I'm sure. Trust me. Go now.' Still coolly, still collectedly, he rang off. Then, as if it was nothing he rang the Station House and requisitioned back-up.

'What was that about?' asked Teddy. 'We could have got him.'

'We'll still get him,' said Jem. 'Only not at the house. Your Super reckons if Mansel Mark II is going to try anything it won't be at the house, it will be where it all happened the first time.'

So saying Jem levered himself off the floor, picked his way through the confusion of Sophy's dolls and headed for the door.

They were too late. They took the car, screeching and careening down the roads, turning hard into the harbour wynds and closes, and still they were too late.

It was awful. Jem never knew which of them saw it first, the breathless Benwick, arriving on their coat tails, Geordie where he sat in the passenger seat, or Teddy, craning to look out the rolled-down window. Jem knew he saw but didn't really process until it happened. There was Rob Mansel, who swore by lemon juice and ran The King's Arms, leaning casually against a nearby davit. He'd got a length of rope in his hand and it lay there, supine and lazy.

Not thinking to, Jem tracked it from where it coiled on the ground up, up, to where the body of the surely unsuspecting Lawson – it had to be Lawson, Jem thought idly – stood, his feet on a crate, the coil of the rope, still lazy, still supine, around his neck.

There was a moment where Jem thought they had time. Benwick, bracing after his run must have thought it too. Back-up were coming. Benwick cried out, something sharp and indeterminate as Geordie sprang from the car.

Rob Mansel shouted over the wind and the salt of the sea, 'You watching, Bill? Watch what should've happened, eh?'

'That's not justice,' said Geordie.

'Yeah, well,' said Rob Mansel, fingering the rope in his hands, 'nor was what happened to Colin.'

Jem ran. They all ran, because the davit wasn't far and Rob Mansel wasn't going anywhere, but they were too late anyway. The rope went taut, Rob Mansel dealt the crate a vicious kick, and that was that. From somewhere on Jem's left came a retching noise that he took for Benwick being sick. Jem heard it and dimly registered that in all these years the constable had never witnessed a hanging, and but for this, probably never would have done, content as he was to man phones and check files and broker for headlines and press with Kitty over haphazard tea. And as Shawcross had said, Nova Scotia didn't hang its convicted these days. Maybe that's a good thing, Shwacross had said.

Jem looked from the retching Benwick, hands on his knees, to the swinging body of the late Lawson. There was no maybe about it.

It was only a moment. It passed. Geordie got to Rob Mansel first and disentangled him from the rope. Jem left him to it, because already Benwick and Teddy were coming to help. So, it was Jem that lifted Lawson down, and got the rope off that awful, ancient, broken neck, and took a pulse anyway, because that was what one did. And then he accepted the offer of a sail some nearby and hapless bystander was offering him, because that was what one did, too. He gave dignity to the dead, and Geordie saw to justice, and maybe between them it worked out all right.