of coffee?” He covered the mouthpiece and asked Banks how he liked his. “One black no sugar, and the usual for me. Yes, three sugars, that’s right. What diet? And don’t bring that vile muck they drink at reception. What? Yes. I know you’d run out yesterday, but that’s no excuse. I haven’t paid my coffee money for three weeks? What is this, woman, the bloody Inquisition?” He hung up roughly, ran a hand through his white hair and sighed.
“Good help is hard to find these days. Now, Mr Banks, let’s see what we have here.” He riffled through the stack of papers on his desk.
He probably knew it all off by heart, Banks thought, but needed the security of his files and sheets of paper in front of him just as Richmond always liked to read from his notebook what he knew perfectly well in the first place.
“Seth Cotton, aye, poor chappie.” Glendenning took a pair of half-moon reading glasses from his top pocket and held the report at arm’s length as he peered down his nose at it. Having done with that, he put it aside, took off his glasses and sat back in his chair with his large but delicate hands folded on his lap. The coffee arrived, and Molly, giving her boss a disapproving glance on the way, departed.
266
“Last meal about three hours before death,” Glendenning said. “And a good one, too, if I may say so. Roast beef, Yorkshire pudding. What better meal could a condemned man wish for?”
“Haggis?”
Glendenning wagged his finger. “Dinna extract the urine, Mr Banks.”
Banks sipped some coffee. It was piping hot and tasted good. Clearly it wasn’t the “vile muck” from reception.
“No evidence of poisoning, or indeed of any other wounds bar the external. Mr Cotton was in perfectly good health until the blood drained out of his body.”
“Was that the cause of death?”
“Aye. Loss of about five pints of blood usually does cause death.”
“What about the blow to the head? Was it delivered before or after the cuts to the ankles?”
Glendenning scratched his head. “That I can’t tell you. The vital reaction was quite consistent with a wound caused before death. As you saw for yourself, there was plenty of blood. And the leucocyte count was high-that’s white blood cells to you, the body’s little repairmen. Had the blow to the head occurred some time after death, then of course there would have been clear evidence to that effect, but the two wounds happened so closely together that it’s impossible to say which came first. Cotton was certainly alive when he hit his head-or when someone hit it for him. But how long he survived after the blow, I can’t tell. Of course, the head wound may have caused loss of consciousness, and it’s very difficult to slash your ankles when you’re unconscious, as I’m sure you’re aware.”
“Could he have hit his head while bending down to make the cuts?”
Glendenning pursed his lips. “I wouldn’t say so, no. You saw the blood on the bench. None of it had trickled onto the floor. I’d say by the angle of the wound and the sharp edges of the vice that his head was resting exactly where it landed after the blow.”
267
“Could someone have come up behind him and pushed his head down onto the vice?”
“Now you’re asking me to speculate, Mr Banks. All I can tell you is that I found no signs of scratching or bruising at the back of the neck or the head.”
“Does that mean no?”
“Not necessarily. If you come up behind someone and give his head a quick push before he has time to react, then I doubt it would show.”
“So that means it must have been someone he knew. He’d have noticed anyone else creeping up on him. Whoever did it must have been in the workshop already, someone he didn’t mind having around while he carried on working.”
“Theories, theories,” Glendenning said. “I don’t know why you’re not satisfied with suicide. There’s absolutely no evidence to the contrary.”
“No medical evidence, perhaps.”
“I’m sorry,” said Glendenning. “I’d like to be able to help you more, but those are the facts. While the blow to the head may well have caused complications had Mr Cotton lived, it was in no way responsible for his death.”
“Complications? What complications?”
Glendenning frowned and reached for another cigarette from the box on his desk.
It looked antique, and Banks noticed some words engraved in ornate italics on the top: “To Dr C.W.S. Glendenning, on Successful Completion of…” He couldn’t read the rest. He assumed it was some kind of graduation present.
“All kinds,” Glendenning answered. “We don’t know a great deal about the human brain, Mr Banks. A lot more than we used to, of course, but still not enough.
Certain head wounds can result in effects far beyond the power of the blow and the extent of the apparent damage. Bone chips can lodge in the tissue, and even bruising can cause problems.”
“What problems?”
“Almost anything. Memory loss-temporary or permanent-hearing and vision problems, vertigo, personality change, temporary lapses of consciousness. Need I go on?”
268
Banks shook his head.
