The Body Politic Read Online Free PDF

only the other day—his family wanted the full treatment.”
    â€œNot that sort of foreign body, Tod.”
    â€œThey really understand about funerals in Italy,” Tod said on a wistful note.
    â€œThey have a lot of them in the family,” said Sloan drily. “Now, what is it that you want to show me?”
    Tod leaned forward. “Like I was saying, Inspector, by the time a client gets to us, the hospital has often stuck a fair bit of metal into him one way and another.”
    Sloan nodded. It was a wonder that it wasn’t known as “medical hardware.”
    â€œTo say nothing of Kaiser Bill and old Adolf.”
    â€œWhat have they got to do with it?”
    â€œShrapnel,” said Morton. “There’s still a lot of it about from one war or another.”
    â€œGo on.”
    â€œWell, the relatives don’t want what hasn’t melted given back to them with the ashes, do they? Not unless it’s precious metal and they don’t get that back anyway.”
    â€œI suppose not.” It was an aspect of cremation which hadn’t occurred to Detective Inspector Sloan.
    â€œNot very nice, some of the things the hospitals leave inside you.” Tod Morton waved a hand. “Hips, knees——”
    â€œUseful enough in life, though,” pointed out Sloan.
    â€œVery,” agreed Tod swiftly. “Clever chaps, some of them up at the hospital. Not all of them, though,” he added thoughtfully.
    â€œThese foreign bodies …”
    â€œThe cremation people have to remove them before the ashes go back to the relatives. Right?”
    â€œI can see that they would have to.”
    â€œBelieve you me,” said Tod, “a hip joint is as big as a window catch.”
    â€œI believe you, Tod,” said Sloan patiently.
    â€œLooks a bit like one, too, come to that.”
    The sight of a replacement hip joint was something Sloan had been spared so far. But then he hadn’t reached the age of spare-part surgery yet.
    â€œAnd there’s only the one way of collecting metal easily that I know,” said Tod.
    â€œA magnet.”
    â€œThat’s right, Inspector.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œSo even when the magnet gets to work on this client’s ashes——”
    â€œWhich client, Tod?” prompted Sloan gently.
    â€œOh, didn’t I say? Sorry. A man, name of Ottershaw. Alan John Ottershaw from Mellamby.”
    Sloan wrote that down. “Well?”
    â€œThis comes up.” Tod Morton pointed to the matchbox but still made no move to open it.
    â€œSo?”
    â€œIt was in with the ashes when they gave me the urn at the crematorium.” He flushed. “I sort of spilled them by mistake on my desk.”
    â€œAnd when they say they’re Alan John Ottershaw’s ashes, Tod, they mean it?”
    â€œâ€™Course they do,” said the young undertaker earnestly. “The cremator only does one at a time anyway so they couldn’t be anyone else’s. You can go and watch if you’re an executor and feel strongly about that sort of thing. Have to, if you belong to some religions.”
    â€œAll right then. So you collect the ashes of the late A. J. Ottershaw and what comes up?”
    Tod shook his head. “Ah, there you have me, Inspector. I don’t know what it is.”
    â€œAll you know is that it isn’t made of ferrous metal.”
    â€œDo I? Oh, yes, I’ve just said that the magnet goes over the ashes first, haven’t I?”
    â€œYou have.”
    â€œThen it isn’t easily crushable either,” said Tod, “because the remains are reduced by crushing after that.”
    â€œWhat isn’t?” prompted Sloan.
    Tod became diffident again. “It may be nothing at all, of course.”
    â€œIt can’t be nothing,” said Sloan logically.
    â€œWell, an Oriental dental filling or something fancy like that. They said he’d been working