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  ‘How’s work?’ her father asked and she was pleased that he was in- terested in her career again. He’d become totally uninterested in any- thing after he retired and Jo suspected he had been depressed.

  ‘Much the same as ever; two cases for the Coroner, an accidental and a suicide.’ She felt strangely reluctant to go into details of Giles Townsend’s little ‘accident’ with her father. Masturbation was hardly a suitable dinner party topic.

  ‘Ah, yes. There’s been quite a bit in the papers about those. Did you take the blood from the crown prosecution lady found over the limit as well?’

  ‘No, she was picked up closer to Eastbourne so they took her there.’ ‘That’s a strange case, isn’t it?’

  ‘Very, I just can’t understand why people take risks like that.’

  The door bell rang and they both headed into the spacious hall to greet the new arrivals as Diana opened the door to them.

  ‘Rita! George! Come in, come in. How lovely to see you, and this must be Teddy. Gosh, it’s been years since we last saw you, Teddy. You haven’t changed a bit!’

  Jo was surprised how her mother could lie so fluently because Ted- dy had changed considerably since the last time she had seen him. He had filled out. A lot. In fact, he had filled out and overflowed, but under all the fat, the scowl was still the same. Jo had the feeling that Teddy wasn’t there of his own volition. Like her, he’d rather have been almost anywhere else.

  ‘He prefers to be called Edward these days,’ Rita corrected Diana. ‘Of course, Edward, such a lovely name. You remember my daughter, Jocasta?’ Jo cringed.

  ‘Hello, actually-’ A glare from Diana stopped Jo from adding that she preferred to be called Jo these days. She could tell from the twinkle in her father’s eye that he knew exactly what she had been about to say.

  After pre-dinner drinks in the living room, with Edward, or Teddy as he would always be to Jo regardless of his preferences, managing only monosyllabic responses to all his mother’s efforts to draw him into conversation, they moved into the dining room. Jo was firmly placed between Teddy and Charles. She would happily have spent the entire meal talking to her father, but dinner party rules, for which her moth- er was a stickler, meant that she had to alternately converse with her father and Teddy. His terse replies in the living room had informed her that he now worked for British Telecom and his mother had ex- panded on this to make out that he practically ran the company.

  ‘Do you like working for British Telecom?’ she asked him. A pretty boring start, but hopefully safe, Jo thought.

  ‘Not really,’ Teddy didn’t even look up from his plate of home- made chicken liver pate and red onion marmalade.

  ‘Are you staying with your parents long?’ she tried again. ‘Don’t know.’

  It was going to be a long dinner, Jo thought as she passed him the bread basket, again.

  With perseverance, Jo managed to discover that Teddy had been living with a girlfriend but they had split up recently and she had kept the flat. That was why he had to move in with his parents. Apparently, he had initiated the split, but Jo was pretty sure he was lying, despite his mother chipping in that she had never thought his ex-girlfriend was good enough for him. She also found out, in snippets whilst they ate rack of lamb and later, pot au chocolat, that he didn’t run BT, he was just head of a small bit of the IT department and that he felt the job was beneath him. Discussions about motor bikes with her father came as a surprisingly welcome relief.

  The more general dinner party conversation drifted round to the sensational arrest of the head of the CPS and from there to the death of Giles Townsend, with Jo studiously avoiding saying anything that could be a breach of confidence.

  ‘Never liked the man,’ George said, with a mouthful of roast pota- to. It was easy to see where his son got his manners, but Jo was inter- ested to know that he was acquainted with Giles Townsend. She had forgotten, if she ever knew, that George was a lawyer of some sort.

  ‘Oh, really? Why’s that?’ Charles asked him.

  ‘Always something a bit unpleasant about him. The way he treated the women who worked for him. When he was with a firm I knew in Tunbridge Wells staff turnover was always way too high.’

  ‘You think he might have-’ Jo searched for words that would con- vey her meaning without being too coarse for the dinner table, ‘over- stepped the mark with them?’

  ‘Exactly. A bit hands on, if you know what I mean. Used to like the office girlies to deliver his briefs to his flat and would open the door with nothing on, that sort of thing.’

  With difficulty, Jo ignored his offensive reference to the adminis- tration clerks and legal secretaries as office girlies.

  ‘I’m amazed there weren’t complaints.’

  ‘I think there were. At least one, I heard, but they managed to hush it up. Think they were glad when he decided to relocate to Hastings.’George stuffed a large lump of lamb in his mouth. ‘Or was it after he moved down here that he got reported to the regulatory author- ity?’ he asked himself, somehow managing not to spray anyone with semi-masticated meat.

  Jo thought back to the day she had gone to Giles Townsend’s flat to pronounce death. The person who had found his body had been a young woman who had been sent round from his practice so perhaps he was still doing the same thing. She suppressed a shudder of disgust. No person should ever have to put up with that sort of behaviour from his or her employer, or anyone else for that matter.

  It was much to Jo’s relief that Teddy insisted, soon after she had helped her mother serve coffee, that he had to go and finish some work. His parents said that they would stay and walk back when they were ready and Jo realised that Teddy had driven them there, despite only living a few hundred yards away. No wonder he was overweight. Rita and George didn’t stay that much later and Diana retired to bed with a headache once they had gone, leaving Jo and her father to tackle the clearing up, as they had always done after Diana’s dinner parties.

  ‘I don’t think I need to ask what you think of Teddy, do I?’ Charles asked as he handed her a dish to dry.

  ‘No. I don’t think you do.’ Jo answered with a smile. ‘I think even Ma realises that it’s not going to be a match made in heaven, or any- where else for that matter. I’m just hoping she’ll give the whole hus- band search a rest for a while now.’

  ‘No guarantee of that you know. It is your mother’s mission in life, after all.’

  And she knew he was right.

  On Sunday mornings, Jo’s routine was to clean her flat and then go for brunch and a read of the Sunday papers at a café in the High Street, The Land of Green Ginger. Sometimes Kate joined her, particularly if either of them had had a date the night before, which neither had in this case, because Jo certainly wasn’t counting Teddy as a date, but she knew Kate would want to hear all about the dinner party, so she wasn’t surprised to see her friend waiting for her.

  ‘How was the dinner party from hell?’ was the first thing Kate asked.

  ‘Just your average degree of awfulness.’ ‘Teddy not a dream boat then?’

  ‘That would be a definite no.’

  ‘Did he insist you all eat in silence to aid your digestion or bore you to death by holding forth on his pet subject? Come on, I want all the gory details. Your mother has the unerring ability to pick the world’s most unsuitable men for you.’

  ‘He was just plain boring. Nothing interesting about him at all.

  Isn’t that a terrible thing to say about anybody?’ ‘Gosh, yes. Not even really fit then?’

  ‘No,’ Jo laughed. ‘No. I don’t wish to be unkind, but he was obese. And not that firm, still fit, fatness, but the flabby, saggy, wobbly sort.’ She thought back to the night before. ‘And a bit clammy, you know? ‘

  Kate pulled a face.

  ‘Are we talking sweaty?’ ‘A little bit, yes.’

  ‘At least you always get a decent meal at your mother’s.’

  ‘I am grateful for small mercies.’ Jo smiled. �
��And the conversation, other than with Teddy, was interesting.’

  ‘Oh, yes! I knew there’d be something. Tell me all.’ Kate perked up. ‘You’ll be able to answer this. If there was a complaint to the regu- latory authority, or whatever it is called for solicitors,’ she looked ques-

  tioningly at Kate.

  ‘Solicitors Regulatory Authority, or SRA,’ Kate replied. ‘What sort of complaint?’

  ‘Say about someone sexually harassing his office staff, would there be a record of it? A record that I might be able to get hold of?’

  ‘That would depend on whether it went anywhere,’ Kate admit- ted. ‘The great and the good in law are pretty experienced at covering things up when one of their own transgresses. Why?’ Her eyes were twinkling; there was nothing Kate enjoyed more than a gossip about one of her colleagues, ‘And more importantly, who are we talking about? Teddy? Your dinner party is beginning to sound more interesting.’

  ‘No, no, just something I heard about Giles Townsend.’

  ‘Oh, him. I wouldn’t put anything past that toad. What’s he sup- posed to have done to get reported?’

  ‘Persuaded the young female staff to deliver his papers to his home and then opened the door in the buff I think.’

  Kate pulled a face.

  ‘God! Just thinking about it is enough to put you off your break- fast.’ Kate took a hefty bite of her toast, so it presumably hadn’t real- ly affected her appetite. ‘Men like that should be publically shamed. They had the right idea in the middle ages, with stocks and pillories.’ Jo wasn’t overly keen on medieval punishments but tying a sexual pred- ator like Giles Townsend to a pillory and pelting him with rotten to- matoes didn’t sound like a bad idea. ‘Well, if one of them complained and it was upheld,’ Kate continued, ‘There should be a record of the hearing and any punishment, but if the case was dropped before it ac- tually got to a hearing, which I suspect was the case, it would be much harder to get hold of anything.’

  ‘Why do you think it was dropped?’

  ‘Because we would probably all know about it. He might even have been struck off, or suspended for a while. Anyway, I’ll have a trawl on the internet and see if I can find anything for you.’

  ‘Thank you. Don’t go to too much trouble, it won’t make any dif- ference to the Coroner’s case, but it just gives me a more complete picture.’ Jo didn’t look as if she really wanted a more complete picture. ‘Not at all, I’m more than a little interested to know the answer, now that you’ve brought it up. And on a more serious note, if he did do it and the bigwigs of the SRA let him get away with it, not that I’m saying they did, I’d very much like to shake things up a bit. Make them

  worry.’

  ‘Wouldn’t that be bad for your career?’ Jo knew her friend some- times acted recklessly in this way.

  ‘Possibly, but sometimes us professional women need to give the establishment something to worry over, don’t you think?’

  Jo wasn’t sure that she agreed.

  ‘Now what else have you been up to?’ Kate continued. ‘Any more salacious gossip?’ and Jo told her about the probable suicide out at Compton Cazely.

  ‘Wow! That’s quite a way to get your own back.’

  ‘I know. Vindictive. The poor man will never be able to use his pool without feeling guilty about the colleague he drove to suicide.’

  ‘He probably deserves the guilt.’ Kate was always less forgiving than Jo. They both thought for a moment and sipped their drinks. Kate closed her eyes and soaked up the late morning sun streaming through the café windows. ‘Did they find his car?’

  ‘Yes, it was parked in the entrance to a field a short distance away, keys in the ignition, but there were no clothes inside.’

  ‘He drove there buck naked?’ Kate laughed. ‘Imagine if he’d been stopped by the police on the way.’

  ‘I know.’ Jo felt bad for smiling. After all, if he had been stopped by the police, he might still be alive.

  Chapter 8

  On Wednesday morning, Jo finally got to see the autopsy report on Giles Townsend, which came in the same postal delivery as Adrian Cole’s. Clearly the pathologist was sending out her reports in batches. Perhaps Mike had given her a dressing-down, or better still, the Cor- oner. Despite having received both the reports in the morning, she wasn’t able to look at them until lunchtime, and it was a late lunch, because morning surgery had overrun. It was a rare occasion when Jo was able to help out her colleagues by taking some of their patients; in fact it was more often the other way round, so she really couldn’t complain when Hugh Grantham, the senior partner, rang in sick and his patients had to be divided between the remaining doctors.

  ‘I hope he really is sick,’ Gauri Sinha muttered as she finally ap- peared in the office at the end of what had obviously been a fraught surgery. ‘I was only running slightly late until Richard interrupted be- cause he was worried about a patient and when I went in to see how I could help, it was that stupid Mr Herring. He spent so long complain- ing about the fact that it was five minutes past his appointment time when Richard called him through, that I never got the chance to sort out what was really wrong with him and I was still forty minutes late with the next patient.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘I told Richard not to worry me with patients like Mr Herring again.’ Gauri stomped off to the kitchen to make herself some coffee.

  Jo gave Linda, the practice manager, a guilty look, because when she had checked the list of her extras she had spotted Mr Herring’s name and agreed to take more than her fair share of the others provid- ed she didn’t get him. It seemed that it had been a good call.

  ‘Poor Richard.’

  ‘I’d better take him down some coffee and try and rebuild his frag- ile ego.’ Linda said with a sigh.

  Jo picked up the autopsy reports to take down to her consulting room, on the grounds that she was less likely to be disturbed there, but she was stopped by Linda before she had even left the office.

  ‘Don’t forget that Hugh’s visits have to be covered as well,’ she said as she handed Jo a list of names and addresses.

  ‘Right.’ Jo took the list and looked at it with dismay.

  ‘I know it’s one of your half days, but the others have to get back for evening surgery, so count this as one of the days you pay back all the times you have been called out by the police and they have had to do your visits for you.’

  Jo really couldn’t argue about it. It was true that Gauri Sinha in particular had done an awful lot of visits for her, so she took the list without further complaint and went down to her room with it as well as both post mortem reports. She wouldn’t have too much time to look at them if she was going to manage to do all the visits before midnight. For once, Jo was pleased that the reports were perfunctory and there was nothing unexpected in either of them.

  Giles Townsend had died of asphyxiation as a result of having been hung by the neck. He had small amounts of cocaine, sildenefil and amyl nitrate in his system along with quite a lot of alcohol. What a mix, Jo thought. Poppers, coke and Viagra. He had slight atherosclero- sis and left ventricular hypertrophy suggesting that his blood pressure needed better control and that he was a candidate for some kind of cardiovascular event in the not to distant future, if he hadn’t cut short his life by other means already.

  Adrian Cole had died of drowning, no question about that, and the pathologist was understandably vague about time of death, some- where between midnight and four a.m. was as close as she was pre- pared to call it. Time of death is never that easy to pinpoint, particu- larly when the body has been submerged in water and the victim has taken drugs. According to the tox screen, which had come back nice and quick, Cole had enough alcohol, cocaine and Ketamine in his sys- tem to knock him out, but not to kill him. Cause of death had been drowning and the injuries, the cuts and scrapes that Jo had seen on his back, had all occurred post mortem and were likely caused by hauling him out of the pool. Samples of dirt taken from them, as we
ll as of the water found in his lungs, had been sent to the lab to match against those taken at the scene. It was not the pathologist’s place to rule on whether either death was accidental, suicide or even homicide; that would be down to the Coroner once all the facts were in and an in- quest was held. The pathologist simply reported on the physical cause of death. In Townsend’s case it was asphyxiation and in Cole’s, it was drowning.

  There was something about the post mortem report on Adrian Cole that was bothering her, but she couldn’t put her finger on it and it niggled as she ploughed her way through the seemingly unending list of home visits. A frail old lady with dizzy spells, a diabetic with ne- crotic toes, a couple of infected leg ulcers and an impacted bowel; the list went on and on. Were all the residents of Hastings either the sick elderly or weirdos? Perhaps she should ask her patients if they thought auto-erotic asphyxiation was normal practice, or just getting drugged up and swimming naked in your employers’ pool, but then again, she thought as she smiled reassuringly at the wizened face of a ninety-year old man recovering from a minor stroke, perhaps not. She certainly wouldn’t want to provoke another one.

  When she finally had a moment to stop and think about it proper- ly, she realised what it was that felt wrong; it was the amount of drugs that Cole had taken. Not enough to kill, but certainly enough to impair both his judgement and, more importantly, his ability. How on earth had he driven to Compton Cazely, or even managed to find it given the state he must have been in? And having got there, what exactly was he planning to do? Why go to the trouble of having a skinny dip in your ex-boss’s pool? A prank? A dare? A tit-for-tat sack me and I’ll urinate in your pool sort of thing? Had he planned to do just that and then disappear home before Wendlesham had his early morning swim? With just Cole knowing what he had done to get his own back? It all seemed somehow petty and to Jo’s mind would have made much more sense if Cole did actually mean to kill himself, but then, to be sure of success, he should have taken a bigger dose of drugs. Having voiced her concerns to herself, she decided she ought to let someone know. It was the Coroner who would have the final word on the cause of death – accident or suicide – but she could anticipate that he would need more information if he was going to get to the bottom of this case with any degree of certainty. Of course, no one can ever really know what was going through someone’s mind just before they killed themselves, or did something like this. It could have been a rather strange cry for help or a prank gone wrong, and the Coroner would likely rule it as accidental rather than suicide if there was any doubt about mo- tive, but she felt she and Mike Parton ought to do as much digging as possible to help him make the correct decision.