A Dead Question (Honey Laird Book 2) by Gerald Hammond

Author:Gerald Hammond [Hammond, Gerald]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2019-03-27T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

When the taxi deposited Honey at her door, the motorcycle was parked outside and PC Dodson, already stripped of his leathers and enjoying a mug of tea with a clearly furious June, was lying in wait for her. He followed her into the study. Honey had no intention of being kept on her overloaded feet and dropped into the desk chair but Dodson seemed too upset to consider bodily comfort, and not only by having born the brunt of June’s indignation. From his puzzlement, Honey gathered that June had been too coy to reveal the exact nature of the offence.

She had hoped that Dodson’s presence would signify another forward step, but apparently this was too much to hope for. ‘I went to Meadowbank House,’ he said. ‘But what you want would take a year, minimum. There’s no sort of index and no kind of computerised record. If you know whose will you want to see, you can ask for it. Otherwise, put it out of your mind. There are researchers you can employ to do a search, but they cost the earth and take for ever, and I don’t see the Super authorising that sort of expenditure or waiting that long, do you?’

‘No, I don’t. Now park yourself,’ Honey said. ‘Do sit down and stop looming over me, this room’s too small for that. I’m sorry if I stuck you with an impossible task. I’ve suffered the same fate, so it’s only fair that I get to spread the irritation. Here’s the next one – or, to be honest, it’s the same one but made a little bit easier by what I’ve just been finding out, so never say that I’m not good to you.’

Dodson took the other chair. ‘I’d never say that about anyone who lets me wash their dog,’ he said gloomily.

Honey was delighted to see that he had retained at least a vestige of his sense of humour, but she refrained from acknowledging the joke. ‘Be my guest, any time. We know which travel agent the Doctor uses – the Hunter-Gourdon World Travel. See them and find out, discreetly, the dates of his trips to poorer countries. I’m sure you can sweet-talk some poor girl into looking through the files for you. Compare that with the bank statements. Cross off large sums deposited shortly after returning from one of those trips, we’re assuming that they’re something else altogether. Look for any other large deposits. Then go through the death certificates. Look up the wills of any patients who died before the date of that deposit.’

‘How long before?’

‘That’s the puzzler, isn’t it?’ Honey brooded for some seconds. She had had little experience of executry, except in cases in which the proving of the will was seriously delayed by some suspicion as to the cause of death. ‘The bigger the estate, the longer it takes. If lawyers are involved, my guess would be six months to a year. Anyway, fish around a bit and see what you can turn up.

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