Interrogating the Dying

Following their interview with Mallory, it was back to the 'old-fashioned, boring police work' for Hathaway. Boring, long, and utterly fruitless as far as this case was unfolding. Thankfully, Lewis arrived with those very important case reports on the Mallory and Hayward children containing that small, life-saving quote. Case reports that indicated there was nothing untoward in either of the families. The kids were, as Lewis summed it up, 'just loved around the clock'. And, yet, the inspector sensed something less savoury between their lines.

"Can you smell that…smell?" he asked, sniffing unhappily. Hathaway couldn't, but he trusted Lewis' nose…there was something about this case that just wasn't right.

Lewis took one last bite from the sandwich he'd grabbed from the plate full of them sitting there, put the crust back amongst the other untouched ones still on the plate, and they headed off to wake up Le Plassiter.

Le Plassiter was busy dying and was no more interested in answering Lewis' questions about Jane Templeton than the dead ever were in answering him.

It seemed that Lewis had far less patience with the dying than with the already dead. Or maybe it was just to Le Plassiter himself that Lewis objected. "Professor, unless you talk to me, I shall stay right here, asking you questions, while you are trying to die elegantly," he told him.

Hathaway suspected Lewis was as surprised as anyone when that prompted the answers for which they had come. The sad, disturbing tale of Allison Bright and that of Templeton and the man watchers…they learned it all—or almost all. Le Plassiter faded away before they'd learned everything they would have liked, but it was one more chink in the armour.

With what Le Plassitor had given them, they reviewed 'the known inhabitants of Rachelworld' and where did that get them? Hugh Mallory had loved her and seemed to have nothing to hide. It was very likely he hadn't known about Rachel's beginnings as Allison Bright.

Lewis smelled something stinky about David Hayward, but he wasn't sure that made him their murderer. "He was married to the woman," he said. Hathaway wondered how after all the spousal murders he'd seen in his long career Lewis thought that made any difference whatsoever, but he let it pass.

Louise Hayward, the woman David now claimed as his wife? "Not her," Lewis stated without reason or evidence. His sergeant who disliked the woman's flaunting of David and his fine collection of modern money noted his inspector's view without necessarily agreeing with it.

And then there was the woman whose presence in the case concerned Hathaway the most. He threw in her name cautiously, half-expecting to get an ear's full about putting her name in the pot. But, maybe he really was reading too much into the whole Banbury Road thing, because Lewis didn't blink an eye at her name joining the other suspect characters in their list. "Well…opportunity, yeah," Lewis said. "Home all day, movements only corroborated by her son."

"Motive?" Hathaway asked.

"Jealousy of a happy marriage?" Lewis suggested with a shrug. "It's possible." Obviously, Lewis didn't think it was all that likely, and Hathaway had to concur with his assessment on that one. Moving on then to Le Plassiter.

Lewis laughed and said, "Wouldn't that be good? How would that work?"

"On the phone, moving his pawns about," Hathaway offered.

It was Lewis who named Stoker. "Not a pawn," Hathaway said with as much certainty as Lewis had dismissed Louise; more even. With as much certainty as Lewis had pronounced Rachel Mallory's death murder.

"No," Lewis agreed. "But he's a lost soul." That was Hugh Mallory's description of those who had been in need of a friend or advocate and found their way into Rachel's life. At the time, Hathaway assumed Lewis was using the statement to define Stoker. Later, after they'd learned from Le Plassiter that there was a possibility that Rachel and Stoker had actually met, Hathaway would wonder if Lewis hadn't actually been suggesting that perhaps Stoker was one of Rachel's lost souls.

It was possible Lewis had been about to make that leap—that very important leap to come to a place which like the case files would go a long way towards saving the lives of those two little girls. If so, he was derailed by a ringing mobile. Lewis at first mistook it as Hathaway's, but it was his own.

"Ahh…Innocent's got herself into a proper snit," Lewis reported after the call. He needn't have; Hathaway had heard her angry, brittle voice coming through loud and clear. "Back to the station, then. I'll see what Her Majesty's all het up about, and you can make yourself useful solving this case…I'm fed up to here with it!"

There was plenty of busywork for Hathaway to occupy himself with while waiting for Innocent's rant to run its course so he could find out from Lewis what it was all about. It wasn't the first time the inspector had gotten a proper dressing-down from the chief superintendent, and it was unlikely to be the last. Hathaway was curious and just the least bit concerned over what had 'Her Majesty' so up in arms.

He got the gist of it on the ride back to the college for what Lewis called 'one last dance' with Le Plassiter. After hearing Lewis' account of his interview with Innocent, Hathaway wasn't sure if that 'last' was indicative of how close Le Plassiter was to meeting his Maker or how close Lewis was to bringing the crumbling remains of his career down on his own head.

"It was the right thing to do," Lewis reasserted. "Couldn't pass up such an opportunity, now could I?" Hathaway thought it best to keep his opinion of that to himself. He was vaguely aware that there was something about that cocktail party that Lewis wasn't sharing with him, and he had uneasy feeling it had something to do with the kids' case reports that Lewis had somehow managed to get his hands on regardless of that little thing called 'patient confidentiality'.

As far as his sergeant had ever known, Lewis always played things straight. If he'd stepped over a line or even just skirted one, Hathaway didn't want to know about. And, Lewis was unlikely to tell him anyway.

Almost as unlikely as Le Plassiter was to tell them anything more. He looked dangerously close to checking out before their last dance. Hathaway thought the old man was far too gone to give them anything else, but Inspector Lewis was nothing if not determined.

"Here I am, Sir, as promised. Ruining the moment," he said into the man's ear. "And don't pretend to be dead…it's bad manners and it won't work."

Le Plassiter took a deathbed rattle of a deep breath and gasped out, "You are a frightful little man. Why should I tell you anything?" The frightful little man let the insult pass without comment, and he let his sergeant take control of the interview.

Hathaway, who'd had more than a little training at deathbed confessions if not experience, took it easily. "You can't go to your death unshriven. Your soul must be clean."

Le Plassiter dredged up the energy to laugh weakly and asked, "Do I detect the whiff of Papism at my bedside? How delightful."

Hathaway pressed on, "You must tell us what we need to know to catch this killer. That is your true act of contrition." Le Plassiter may have laughed, but Hathaway had not read him wrong; the man wanted to tell what he knew before he died.

Against all the rules, he and Rachel Mallory had spoken several times. He'd told her of the evil he'd rained on Stoker, and by her example, she'd caused the professor to know he needed to seek forgiveness for it. Most importantly, Le Plassiter informed them that he believed Rachel had found and spoken to Stoker—and then the professor had begun his last dance with death.

Hathaway would have let the old man go, but Lewis motioned for the sergeant to continue. "You're about to stand before your God," Hathaway warned the old man though it was obvious Le Plassiter was already well aware of that fact.

"The head shrink," the dying man gasped out, and that was the last thing he said except to plead with them to leave him to die alone. There was nothing else for them to do but leave him to it. Lewis headed off to clear up a few things with Dr. Croft, and Hathaway was left to his own devices.