Chapter Twelve
The phone rang while I was driving back to the station. It was Raymond. I knew what he was going to tell me. “It’ll be in the report, of course, Barbara, but I thought you’d appreciate advance warning: Adrian Mansfield was dead before he was stabbed. Toxic poisoning. Rather fashionably, a cocktail of drugs and drink? He died in the boat.”
“So he wasn’t murdered?”
“Well, no – not if we assume he wasn’t forced to ingest the alcohol and drugs. You can’t murder a corpse, though it’s fairly obvious that whoever stabbed him intended to kill him.”
“Oh, dear. Have I over-stepped the mark? I think I’m trying to say that the person who stabbed him thought they were killing him. Are you telling me I’m wrong?”
I said, “Maybe they were trying to make a suicide look like a murder.”
“Yes, of course,” he said immediately. “Sorry, Barbara, enlighten me – why would anyone want to do such a thing?”
“Yes, all right, Barbara. I’ll take your word for it. You do sound quite appallingly sure of yourself.”
“Do we know when he died?” I asked. “Roughly.”
“Around five in the in the morning, I would say, Barbara. Perhaps he wanted to go out to the sound of the dawn chorus.”
He said, “You are, as always, very welcome, Barbara.”