Hole in One by Catherine Aird Read Free Book Online Page B

jovially.
    â€˜No, doctor,’ said his assistant dutifully.
    â€˜We need to know why a body has been put here, too,’ said
Sloan, thinking aloud. He looked round at the deserted golf course. ‘Here of all places.’
    â€˜If there is a body,’ said Crosby.
    â€˜He’s as bad as Mr Dick, isn’t he?’ said the pathologist pointing at the Constable.
    â€˜Mr Dick?’ asked Sloan, his mind on the job. Why the body had been put there was his problem, of course, not the pathologist’s. Dr Dabbe, of all people, took bodies as and where he found them.
    â€˜â€œKing Charles’ head” was always very much on the mind of David Copperfield’s friend, Mr Dick,’ said Dabbe.
    â€˜Really?’ said Sloan politely. At least there was nothing mysterious about the way in which King Charles had lost his head, which as far as he was concerned gave it the edge – so far - on the one in the bunker.
    The pathologist wasn’t listening any more. He was peering as far over the edge of the green as he could without toppling over. ‘I can advise you from here, gentlemen, that the injury said to have been inflicted by your lady golfer – what might be called a traumatic enucleation – was performed post mortem, although I daresay you didn’t need me to tell you that.’
    â€˜No,’ agreed Sloan, who really wanted to be told something he didn’t know or hadn’t guessed. ‘So we’ve got to wait, have we, doctor, for any more definite information about the deceased?’
    â€˜Don’t rush me, man,’ the pathologist, thus challenged, wriggled forward and peered down. ‘I think I can see …yes …I can. The supra-orbital ridges, or rather, what’s left of ’em, are just visible.’
    Detective Inspector Sloan reached for his notebook and waited.
    â€˜They’re more pronounced in the male than in the female,’ said the pathologist.
    â€˜So?’ said Detective Constable Crosby, in whom his
superiors had so far failed to instil the correct police protocol for interaction with their professional colleagues.
    â€˜I should say that your body is male,’ said Dr Dabbe, in no way put out by this informality.
    Sloan was obscurely relieved to hear this. He’d seen altogether too many bodies of young girls for his liking who had come to grief in remote spots in the countryside. They’d often had shallow graves, too.
    â€˜Male?’ muttered Detective Constable Crosby under his breath. ‘That’s a great help, that is. Might as well talk about fifty-fifty.’
    Detective Inspector Sloan decided he hadn’t heard that.
    â€˜Male,’ repeated the pathologist. ‘It has to be either rouge or noir on the roulette table, of course, but I agree matters are not always as clear-cut as once they were, transsexuals being what they are.’
    Detective Inspector Sloan decided that he hadn’t heard that either.
    â€˜Or had been,’ said Dr Dabbe.
    Or that.
    It was easier.

Chapter Six
    Loss of Stroke and Distance
    It being an exceedingly ill wind that blows no one any good, the bar of the Berebury Golf Club was doing a brisk trade. Golfers deprived of a game had only three places to turn. Since two of these were the practice hole and the putting green, the other – the bar – was busy.
    â€˜Two halves, please, Molly,’ said Brian Southon to the woman behind the bar, ‘and have something for yourself.’
    Molly, a calm, statuesque woman built on generous lines, acknowledged this with a quick smile of thanks, and busied herself at a beer engine, at the same time as skilfully catching the eye of the next person waiting for her attention.
    â€˜What are you doing here on a weekday morning, Brian?’ a man nearby asked. ‘I thought you worked for a living.’
    â€˜Client meeting.’ Brian Southon, a short, stocky man, grinned and pointed to his