Death of an Expert Witness Read Online Free Page B

an answer, he walked over to his car. Doyle looked after him in a kind of angry bewilderment.
    “Bloody hell! His Lab! What’s wrong with him? Lately, he’s been as touchy as a bitch in heat. He’ll find himself on a brain shrinker’s couch or in the bin if he doesn’t get a hold of himself.”
    Howarth said coldly: “He’s right, of course. Any inquiry about the work should be made to him, not to a member of his staff. And it’s usual to ask permission before walking into a laboratory.”
    The rebuke stung. Doyle frowned. His face hardened. Howarth had a disconcerting glimpse of the barely controlled aggression beneath the mask of casual good humour. Doyle said: “Old Dr. Mac used to welcome the police in his Lab.He had this odd idea, you see, that helping the police was what it was all about. But if we’re not wanted, you’d better talk to the Chief. No doubt he’ll issue his instructions.” He turned on his heel and made off towards his car without waiting for a reply.
    Howarth thought: “Damn Lorrimer! Everything he touches goes wrong for me.” He felt a spasm of hatred so intense, so physical that it made him retch. If only Lorrimer’s body were sprawled at the bottom of the clunch pit. If only it were Lorrimer’s cadaver which would be cradled in porcelain on the post-mortem table next day, laid out for ritual evisceration. He knew what was wrong with him. The diagnosis was as simple as it was humiliating: that self-infecting fever of the blood which could lie deceptively dormant, then flare now into torment. Jealousy, he thought, was as physical as fear; the same dryness of the mouth, the thudding heart, the restlessness which destroyed appetite and peace. And he knew now that, this time, the sickness was incurable. It made no difference that the affair was over, that Lorrimer, too, was suffering. Reason couldn’t cure it, nor, he suspected, could distance, nor time. It could be ended only by death; Lorrimer’s or his own.

4
    At half past six, in the front bedroom of 2 Acacia Close, Chevisham, Susan Bradley, wife of the Higher Scientific Officer in the Biology Department of Hoggatt’s Laboratory, was welcomed by the faint, plaintive wail of her two-month-old baby, hungry for her first feed of the day. Susan switched on the bedside lamp, a pink glow under its frilled shade, and reaching for her dressing gown, shuffled sleepily to the bathroom next door, and then to the nursery. It was a small room at the back of the house, little more than a box, but when she pressed down the switch of the low-voltage nursery light she felt again a glow of maternal, proprietorial pride. Even in her sleepy morning daze the first sight of the nursery lifted her heart: the nursing chair with its back decorated with rabbits; the matching changing table fitted with drawers for the baby’s things; the wicker cot in its stand which she had lined with a pink, blue and white flowered cotton to match the curtains; the bright fringe of nursery-rhyme characters which Clifford had pasted round the wall.
    With the sound of her footsteps the cries became stronger. She picked up the warm, milky-smelling cocoon and croonedreassurance. Immediately the cries ceased and Debbie’s moist mouth, opening and shutting like a fish, sought her breast, the small wrinkled fists freed from the blanket, unfurled to clutch against her crumpled nightdress. The books said to change baby first, but she could never bear to make Debbie wait. And there was another reason. The walls of the modern house were thin, and she didn’t want the sound of crying to wake Cliff.
    But suddenly he was at the door, swaying slightly, his pyjama jacket gaping open. Her heart sank. She made her voice sound bright, matter-of-fact.
    “I hoped she hadn’t woken you, darling. But it’s after half past six. She slept over seven hours. Getting better.”
    “I was awake already.”
    “Go back to bed, Cliff. You can get in another hour’s sleep.”
    “I can’t