To the hilt [en]

'Please tell us,' I said to the Chief Inspector, 'where exactly you found Mr Quorn.'

Instead of directly answering he explained that the still quietly weeping woman was Norman Quorn's sister. My mother had taken over from the policewoman the role of comforter although, true to form, she looked as if she would prefer saying 'Pull yourself together' to "There, there.'

'Mr Quorn,' the Chief Inspector told us conversationally, 'was found by council workers who went to clear away a decaying rubbish dump left behind on a farmer's land when a band of travellers moved on. We made lengthy enquiries among the travellers at their next place, but drew a total blank. We spent a great deal of time on it. The travellers pointed out that they were all much younger - we had told them the unknown body was elderly-'

'Sixty-five,' the sister sobbed.

'On the other hand, these travellers were accustomed to cook on home-made barbecues of brick supports with metal rods across, and there were signs that perhaps Mr Quorn had overbalanced backwards onto something like that. None of their current barbecues matched Mr Quorn's burns, but it was all inconclusive. There are absolutely no indications at all of foul play. So now we have your identifications, we can close the case. I'm sorry, but it isn't always possible to determine how things happened, and unless any other facts turn up…'

He left the sentence unfinished. Neither Ivan nor my mother told him that the brewery's funds had vanished with the Finance Director, and nor did I. Ivan would have to think it through, and decide.

Because of Wilfred's presence we were silent on the way back to London but spent the evening discussing nothing else.

Ivan was inclined to be glad that Norman Quorn hadn't after all run off with the money.

'We misjudged him,' he said sorrowfully. 'My dear old friend…'

'Your dear old friend,' I corrected regretfully, 'certainly did transfer the money out of the brewery. I've seen copies of about six huge withdrawals that he made just before he left. He did indeed, I'm afraid, send all the funds on their way to destinations still unknown.'

'But he didn't go!'

'No. He died. He didn't die on the rubbish tip. Someone put him there. Wherever he died, someone didn't report it to anyone, but just dumped him.'

Ivan's beliefs and intentions swung widely to and fro, but his chief instinct, as before, was not to make public the brewery's loss. Norman Quorn dead, Norman Quorn living under palm trees… it made no difference. The theft existed and either way would be covered up.

I said, 'But don't you care who dumped him? Don't you want to know where he died?'

'What does it really matter? And as Norman was homosexual-' Ivan saw my surprise. 'Didn't you know? No, I suppose you didn't, he was always discreet… but, you see, suppose he died where it was awkward for someone… do you see what I mean?'

I saw.

'And it wouldn't do Norman or the brewery any good to disclose his sexual preference or, oh dear, his theft.'

It was astounding, I thought, to find my starchy stepfather so tolerant of homosexuality, but my mother, who after all knew him better, took it for granted. 'Quite a lot of Ivan's friends,' she told me later, 'were "that way". Delightful friends,' she added. 'Good company always.'

Ivan asked me, 'If we tell the police that Norman stole the funds and was homosexual, would it affect the creditors' arrangements?'

'Well, I don't know. The creditors do know he stole the funds. They signed the agreements knowing that.'

'Well, then?'

'But they believe he skipped the country. They believe he's alive. They believe the money is with him… and it isn't.'

'So?'

'So where is it?'

A long silence.

By ten in the evening Ivan was saying we needed someone else's advice.

'OK,' I agreed, 'whose?'

'Perhaps… Oliver's?'

I said mildly, 'Oliver would ask you what I, Alexander, suggested, and then give you an opposite opinion.'

'But he knows the law!'

I had been careful always not to belittle Patsy to her father. Oliver was Patsy's man. So was Desmond Finch.

I asked, 'What did Patsy think of Norman Quorn?'

'She didn't like him. Always a sadness. Why do you want to know?'

'What would she expect you to do?'

Ivan dithered.

By midnight he had decided, in his law-abiding Jockey Club persona, that I should ask Margaret Morden whether Norman Quorn's death made any difference to the creditors, and that I, not Ivan, should tell Detective Chief Inspector Reynolds that the now-identified corpse had been probably an embezzler about to leave the country.

'Probably?' I echoed with scepticism.

'We don't know for sure.'

I thought he would have changed his mind again by morning, but it seemed my sensible mother had fortified his decision, as she agreed with it; so at nine o'clock Ivan, again in dressing-gown and slippers, instructed me to phone Leicestershire.

Slight snag. The policeman's phone number was written on the tissue-box. The tissue-box was still in the car. I trailed off to retrieve it and finally reached the necessary ear.

'Tell me on the phone,' he commanded when I suggested meeting.

'Better face to face.'

'I'm off duty at noon.'

'I'll get there. Where?'

'Do you remember the way to the mortuary? There then. It's on my way home.'

I refrained - just - from observing that the mortuary was on everyone's way home, and managed to trace Margaret Morden to hers.

'It's Saturday,' she said tartly.

'I do know.'

'Then it had better be important.'

'The King Alfred Brewery's Finance Director has turned up, still in England - but dead.'

'I agree,' she said slowly, 'that that is Saturday news. How did he die?'

'Stroke or heart attack, the pathologist thinks.'

'When?'

'About the time he disappeared.'

She thought briefly and said, 'Phone me in the office on Monday. And tell Tobias. But if what's bothering you most is the status of the creditors' agreements, my first impression is that they will stand.'

'You're a doll.'

'No, I'm definitely not.'

I put down the receiver with a smile and drove to Leicester.

The chief inspector's reaction was as expected. 'Why didn't you tell me this yesterday?'

'The brewery has hushed up the theft.'

'The body,' he said reflectively, 'was dressed in suit, shirt, tie, underpants, socks and shoes, all unremarkable. There was nothing in his pockets.'

'How did you identify him in the end?'

'One of our clever young constables took another look at the clothes. The shoes were new - on the sole of one was the name of a shop and the price. The shop was in Wantage, and they remembered the sale… Mr Quorn was a regular customer. He was away from home, but a neighbour had the sister's address.'

'Neat.'

'But what he was doing in Leicestershire…?' He shrugged. 'It's possible he died out of doors, in a garden. There were a few blades of mown grass in his clothes. That would gel with him falling back onto a barbecue of some sort.'

'Hardly the right clothes for a barbecue.'

He looked me up and down in amusement. 'While you, sir, if I may say so, look more like a traveller.'

I acknowledged it in good humour.

'I'll complete my case notes with what you've told me,' the policeman said. 'It isn't by any means unknown for people to get rid of bodies when they've died inconveniently. I appreciate your help. Give my regards to Sir Ivan. He looks so ill himself.'

It was by then three and a half weeks since Ivan's heart attack (and four weeks and a day since Quorn had skipped with the cash) and what Ivan badly still needed and wasn't getting was complete untroubled rest. I drove back to London and for the remainder of that day and all of the next kept the house tranquil with the telephone switched into an answering machine and with simple meals, cooked by me, that needed no decisions. I gave Wilfred the rest of the weekend off and did his jobs: it was all peaceful and curative and its own reward.