The Body Politic Read Online Free PDF Page A

as all that—was in the process of taking over the bulk of the work of the firm from his father in the best way possible for a son to step into his father’s shoes. Unobtrusively.
    Morton senior was still very much in evidence at all important funerals. Wearing his frock-coat complete with its velvet collar and carrying a black top hat and gloves, he continued to lead the way out of the church for the last journeys of the more distinguished citizens of the town. Nobody could deny that he had a certain gravitas which went well with ceremonial. Young Tod hadn’t quite acquired that yet, although he was trying hard.
    â€œSit down.” Sloan pointed to a chair. “How’s trade?”
    â€œMustn’t grumble.”
    â€œNo …” Sloan knew farmers who had stopped grumbling about the weather because everyone expected them to complain, but he wasn’t sure what worried undertakers. Miracle surgery, perhaps. He did know, though, that young Tod had just bought a new car that wasn’t Berlin black in colour, so business couldn’t be too bad.
    â€œAs long as folk don’t take to sky burial,” said Tod, “I reckon Morton and Sons’ll be all right for a bit.”
    â€œSky burial?” queried Sloan.
    â€œThe Chinese go in for it,” said Tod.
    â€œBit of a contradiction in terms, isn’t it?” hazarded Sloan curiously. “Sky burial.”
    â€œWe’re not really worried.” Tod Morton grinned. “I don’t think it’ll ever really catch on in Calleshire. Besides, you need vultures.”
    â€œI get you. One dies, one lives.” Even while he was speaking, Detective Inspector Sloan was casting his mind back over last week’s sudden deaths in his patch. He couldn’t remember any coming to police notice that might have caused Morton and Sons any difficulty. There hadn’t even been a sticky inquest. “What can I do for you, Tod?” he asked with genuine interest.
    â€œIt’s probably not important.”
    â€œAll the better in my job,” said Sloan, “if it isn’t important.”
    He was a policeman, not a doctor. He actively preferred to be consulted about the trivial rather than the really significant. In his work the important usually meant that there was serious mischief to or by someone in the offing. He paused. Now that he came to think of it, so it did in the doctor’s surgery too. He put the thought to the back of his mind for further consideration at some mythical period in the future when he had more time for philosophising and looked encouragingly in Tod Morton’s direction.
    â€œAnd it may be nothing,” said that young sprig of the firm.
    â€œYou wouldn’t have come to see me about nothing, Tod,” said Sloan with inexorable logic.
    Tod twisted his lips. “It’s such a small thing …”
    â€œGreat oaks from little acorns grow,” responded Sloan prosaically. Watergate had started with the tiniest leak: fingerprints weren’t exactly large items either, and they had hanged many a murderer.
    â€œSo small,” said Tod, “that it nearly got missed.”
    â€œAh,” said Sloan. So Tod had meant “small” literally.
    The mortician put a hand in his pocket and brought out a matchbox which he laid with care on Sloan’s desk without opening. “It’s like this, Inspector.”
    â€œI’m all ears,” said Sloan.
    â€œBy the time someone gets to be cremated——”
    â€œA customer?”
    â€œWe prefer to call them ‘clients.’”
    â€œClient, then,” said Sloan peaceably.
    â€œThese days,” said the undertaker, “by the time he gets to be cremated, a client tends to have accumulated a fair bit of metal under his skin.”
    â€œForeign bodies?”
    â€œWe do those, too, Inspector.” Tod Morton very nearly pulled out a business card. “Had an Italian chap