The Chester Walls Excerpt   Home

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Lynch was busy buttoning up his coat and practically pushed his old friend out of the doors in his haste to get outside. “Lets get out of here. We can walk around the walls as we talk.” Power assented, but he really had no choice. He followed the elegant figure of the tall police officer as he crossed the road and they began walking the Roman walls, past the stumpy remains of Chester castle and the nearby Law Courts. On the right hand side the river flowed down below the walls. Power had a fantasy of stopping off at a pub, but Lynch would never drink on duty.

“Perhaps we can stop somewhere for a coffee?” Power suggested.

“Maybe,” said Lynch as he strode ahead. “I don’t want to late for Evensong at the Cathedral though. Lynch was a man of habit and it was already 4 O’clock. Choral evensong was at 5.30pm. “It’s good to see you though. The wife was asking after you the other day. Are you sleeping any better?”

“That’s my question for patients, usually,” said Power, thinking back to the nightmare he kept having.

“Physician health thyself, Luke 4:23,” said Lynch as they came to Bridgegate on the South wall.

Power grunted and decided to avoid the subject. “There’s a good coffee bar on Lower Bridge Street.”

“After we’ve had our walk maybe…somewhere down by the Cathedral. Now how can I help you Carl?”

‘I was wondering if you could look into something?” And Power told Lynch about the Inquest into Dr McAdams. How Dr McAdams had been found dead washed up on the shore; about the abandoned boat found drifting; about the post-mortem and the overdose; about the lack of any history of depression or alcohol misuse in Dr McAdams’ notes and about the strange Inquest where Power, and to a certain extent the Coroner, had been put under such pressure to judge the death a suicide.

“And,” said Lynch, as they started climbing the Wishing steps, “your intuition is that this is no suicide.”

“I agree that it has been made to look like a suicide, and it is difficult to argue that its not, but I do, as you say, have a strong intuition that Dr McAdams was not ill. Stressed maybe. But not ill enough to take his own life.”

Lynch stopped on the Wall between Barnaby's Tower and Newgate and briefly looked out over the remains of a Roman courtyard and gardens. He could have reeled off several reasons why Carl Power should treat his own intuition with a healthy dose of scepticism, and why for various logistical reasons Superintendent Lynch was not the right person to approach, but Carl was his friend, and he knew Power’s intuitions of old, and he had never known Carl be wrong. And so Lynch did not tell Power to swallow down his suspicions and forget it all.

“How can I help you, Carl?” He asked.

“I am going to talk to Dr McAdams’ sister,” said Power. The Coroner got the company to admit that McAdams worked with a team, and that the team no longer worked together. I would like to talk to the other members of the team…I want to see from his sister what kind of a man Dr McAdams was. If you can find me the other members of his team…I will talk to them about how he was.”

“What was McAdams working on?”

Power shrugged, “I don’t know. They never said.” They began walking again towards Newgate and on to Thimbleby’s Tower. “Can you find out about the team?”

“If you think it’s important, I will,” said Lynch.

“And the boat,” said Power as they crossed Eastgate and on to the Kaleyard Gate. “The boat would be important too. Where is it moored? Can we search it?” Lynch nodded. He paused to make two notes in a pocket book.

“I will find it,” Lynch said confidently. And now they were at Northgate. A flight of steps led down to the road to the Cathedral. Lynch looked at his watch. Various cafes beckoned them. “Just in time for tea,” said Lynch. “I’m buying.”

Together the friends clambered down the steps and into Northgate Street.”