Read Online Poison At The Pueblo by Tim Heald - Free Book Online Page B

any of us deliver our own lines, as a matter of fact. And the worst self-delusion is believing that you do. Yet another of God’s jokes.’
    Bognor was irrationally irritated by this sally, not least because both he and Monica had always been determinedly agnostic. Both of them agreed that in the unlikely event that the Almighty did exist, he was a nasty piece of work with a warped sense of humour.
    â€˜Whoever’s writing the stuff has given me a gong, a great salary, a fantastic index-linked pension and,’ here he smiled at her not entirely convincingly, ‘you, my little cauliflower.’
    â€˜Don’t you “cauliflower” me,’ she said. ‘I’m being serious. When you started out on your journey through adult life the world was a more gentle, civilized place.’
    Simon thought about this for a moment.
    â€˜I don’t know,’ he said. ‘There was a veneer of civilization, a gloss of gentility, but it was skin-deep. There were a lot of knives around. Life was a pretty cut-throat business. It was just that chaps felt the need to apologize before placing the stiletto between your ribs. There was a premium on politeness.’
    â€˜When did you last sit in on an autopsy?’
    Bognor bridled once more.
    â€˜I have never in my life attended an autopsy,’ he said, ‘you know that perfectly well.’
    â€˜You wouldn’t know one end of a cadaver from another,’ she said, ‘whereas all the smart young things in your department spend hours in the morgue watching stiffs being dissected. Even Harvey Contractor.’
    â€˜Yes,’ said Bognor, ‘well.’
    What his wife said was perfectly true. He would have to think about it. The girl with the pink-streaked hair came and asked them in perfect, though huskily accented, English if they were ready to order yet. Bognor asked for another five minutes and the girl dimpled at him. Monica looked mildly put out.
    â€˜You don’t have to hang around dead bodies to find out what made them dead,’ he said, sounding pompous and not entirely sure whether or not he believed what he was saying.
    â€˜You’ve built an entire career round death,’ she said, ‘but ultimately you’re pathetically squeamish. You don’t do blood and guts.’
    â€˜I should think bloody well not,’ he said, ‘blood and guts are for forensics. I’m about cause and effect, not body parts on slabs.’
    â€˜Your very first death,’ she said, ‘that poor colleague of yours who was garrotted with his crucifix in the potato patch at Beaubridge Friary. Did you ever check the body?’
    â€˜Of course not,’ he said. ‘Not my department. We employ people to do that sort of thing: boffins, scientists, doctors, pathologists. Chaps with white coats and rubber gloves. They present their reports and we decide what to do next. That’s the way it is.’
    â€˜ Was ,’ she said, loudly. ‘ Was. It isn’t like that any longer. Or hadn’t you noticed?’
    â€˜I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ He did, but he was not in the mood to admit it. Deep down, he acknowledged that everything had suddenly become different. Even Harvey Contractor did autopsies. He had become the last of a breed. A deskbound dinosaur without realizing it.
    â€˜You know perfectly well what I’m talking about. If that wretched colleague of yours had been strangled now, the equivalent of you would have been in the morgue or the dissecting room with a white coat, plastic gloves and a surgical mask making a first-hand note of every contusion and weal on the body.’
    â€˜Wouldn’t have made a blind bit of difference,’ he said. ‘I’d have got in the way and I wouldn’t have known what on earth was going on. Much better to wait for the pathologist’s report and then apply one’s particular skill to that. I have no skills