A Going Concern by Catherine Aird Read Free Book Online

tied his gown.
    â€˜Comes from keeping on taking the tablets, I suppose,’ said Sloan drily, ‘prescribed for the aforementioned diseases.’
    â€˜Or even,’ went on the pathologist with deep cynicism, ‘for the wrong disease. Burns, my gloves.’
    â€˜And thirdly?’ asked Sloan. He thought that the medical profession had a famous precept about first doing no harm but he didn’t like to say so at this point.
    â€˜Thirdly’s diagnosis,’ finished Dr Dabbe laconically. He held out his hands for the rubber surgical gloves.
    Detective Constable Crosby, prepared to postpone the post-mortem for as long as he could, said: ‘How can you die of a diagnosis then, doctor?’
    â€˜Happens all the time,’ said Dabbe, waving one gloved hand. The other hand he held out in front of him. ‘Now, this one, Burns.’
    â€˜How come?’ said Crosby.
    Colloquial English, decided Detective Inspector Sloan, was all very well for the police station canteen but he was in two minds about apologizing to the doctor for Crosby’s use of it here and to him when Dr Dabbe responded directly to the constable.
    â€˜First, Crosby, your doctor tells you that you’ve got the dreaded lurgies.’
    â€˜So?’ responded Crosby.
    â€˜So,’ said the pathologist, in no whit put out, ‘you get hold of an out-of-date medical dictionary and read up all about the lurgies.’
    â€˜And?’ said Crosby, even more informally.
    Detective Inspector Sloan winced: young constables got brasher and brasher.
    â€˜And you learn from the old dictionary,’ carried on Dr Dabbe, ‘that patients who have the dreaded lurgies don’t get better.’
    â€˜Like the people whose innards are in those glass things you’ve got?’ said Crosby.
    â€˜Exactly,’ concluded the pathologist cheerfully, ‘so you go home and turn up your toes, too.’
    Crosby knitted his brows. ‘Sort of witch-doctors but the other way round?’
    â€˜I think,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan austerely, ‘we can take it that Mrs Garamond did not die of her diagnosis. We’re ready when you are, doctor.’
    Gowned and gloved, the pathologist advanced purposefully towards the body of an anonymous-looking old woman, a handwritten ticket tied to her right big toe the only visible sign of her having had an identity at all. ‘If I could have a motto over the door here it would be Mortui Vivos Docenti ,’ Dabbe said.
    â€˜We’re got a blue lamp over ours,’ remarked Crosby, who did not enjoy attending post-mortems.
    Sloan, who said nothing, found his mind had wandered from the mortuary to a certain spot in Calleford Minster. The body of old Octavia Garamond reminded him of nothing so much as one of those ancient tombs in the Minster where a long-dead prelate was shown in effigy on a table tomb at eye level in all his mitred glory, while lying underneath he was depicted as bare cadaver, the moral drawn in alabaster for all to see. There was no mitred glory about the late Mrs Garamond now.
    Dr Dabbe stood immobile beside the post-mortem table and said: ‘You should treat the dead patient just like the living, Sloan. Did you know that?’
    â€˜No, doctor.’
    â€˜Use your eyes first, your hands next, and your tongue last. If at all.’
    â€˜Yes, doctor.’
    Dabbe peered over the deceased’s face – and broke his own rule. ‘Something a bit odd here, Sloan …’
    â€˜Where, doctor?’
    â€˜Round her nose and mouth. Look for yourself.’ The pathologist pointed to a thin ring of pressure marks which were only just visible.
    â€˜She’d been having oxygen,’ said Sloan.
    â€˜Which might account for it,’ agreed Dabbe, continuing with his visual examination. ‘No other signs of abnormality on head or neck. Make a note of that, will you, Burns?’ The pathologist took a step or two to