The Discourtesy of Death (Father Anselm Novels) by William Brodrick Read Free Book Online Page A

board; the close family bound by fidelity and tragedy.
    ‘And this is the case you want to solve?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘But there’s no crime. It’s just a really sad story.’
    ‘That’s what everyone thinks,’ agreed Anselm. ‘But then, thanks to you, someone wrote a letter on Jennifer’s behalf, marked for my attention. Gives her side of the story. Changes your understanding of why a man might throw a brick through a window.’

7
    The Spinning Mule had once been the comfortable residence of a wool merchant. He’d run a smallish operation transporting rolled fleeces to chosen weavers along the Lark. Hence the landing stage at the end of his garden. Following the decline of textile manufacturing, the house had passed through several hands until a couple with vision and a passion for real ale had stumped up a deposit to buy the place. They’d sold the rights over the river to Mitch, along with the mooring and an access route, providing their neighbour with a glorious location to dock his floating home. The small talk over, Mitch read the letter sent to Larkwood’s Prior.
    ‘You take this seriously?’ he said, on finishing.
    ‘I do.’
    In the absence of mischief and malice, Anselm didn’t think an allegation of murder could be easily ignored.
    ‘Peter Henderson will be released next week. Between now and then I hope to find out if the accusation is anything more than fanciful.’
    Mitch folded up the letter, listening carefully while Anselm continued his exposition. The view of the media and the courts was that Peter Henderson enjoyed the unqualified support of his dead wife’s family. Not one of them had ever raised a word against him. When he fell to be sentenced, no friend or neighbour seized the opportunity to yell from the gallery or feed a line to the press. But someone had now broken rank.
    ‘They belong to the inner circle,’ said Anselm. ‘They have the confidence to speak in Jennifer’s name. They knew her well enough to say that she had no appreciation of the danger to which she was exposed. They know sufficient, with hindsight, to recognise that the risk to her life was plain to be seen. And now they’re telling themselves that they should have seen it coming; that they should have done something to protect her. The implication is that Peter Henderson murdered his wife.’
    They were seated at a small table in a quiet nook far from any windows. Warm light flickered on the flagstones. The walls carried prints of paintings, evocations of rural life when windmills ground local wheat into flour. Horseshoes and black implements from a farrier’s yard had been fixed to the beams and stonework. Anselm pursued his point:
    ‘You can’t kill someone without the dead body answering back. There are signs left as clues for the trained eye. Sometimes they’re minuscule. But they can’t be removed. It’s a real problem.’
    ‘So what are you saying?’
    ‘Someone very powerful in our society helped Peter Henderson.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘A doctor.’
    Mitch arched a brow. ‘You mean that Peter Henderson came to a chummy arrangement with a GP to finish off his wife?’
    ‘Just look at the implications of what we know already,’ rejoined Anselm, patiently. ‘Jennifer Henderson is dead. Someone says she was murdered. If that is true, then a doctor must have written out a false death certificate attributing cancer as the sole cause. Any expression of doubt would have generated an investigation by the coroner, which would have opened the door to the police. For all I know the doctor was blackmailed, threatened or tortured according to a new morality – I really don’t know. The fact is – accepting the allegation in this letter – Jennifer Henderson was buried, along with the true cause of her death. Only a doctor has that kind of power. And it saved Peter’s skin. As the author of the letter says, without evidence, there’s no crime; without a crime, there’s no suspect.’
    Mitch savoured his beer