‘They’ll probably get me to do that,’ said the doctor, pushing her glasses up her nose a bit and tapping her keyboard to bring the screen to life. ‘He’ll go to the Deception Bay Hospital mortuary. Unless it’s a big case—where they’ll do it in the city—they like to keep it local.’ She typed Merv’s name into her directory and scanned the screen of information that came up. She murmured, nodded to herself, then turned to us. ‘Aside from the epilepsy I told you about before—which he controlled with medication—there’s really nothing here to indicate a possible medical reason for his death aside from the usual. Heart attack. Stroke. Aneurysm.’

‘He was a big drinker,’ said Wozza.

She nodded. ‘It didn’t do him any favours; might have been a contributing factor.’

‘Any other medications he might have been taking?’ I asked.

Dr Caldicott checked her screen again. ‘Tegretol for the epilepsy. An anti-inflammatory for arthritis.’

‘I don’t want to pre-empt the post-mortem,’ I said, ‘but we’ve had a spate of drug-facilitated sexual assaults where the perpetrator has used chloral hydrate. We’ve just heard from some of Merv’s drinking buddies that he seemed more intoxicated than usual the other night at the pub. We’re wondering if he might have accidentally picked up a spiked beer.’

Doc Caldicott flicked through a thick book which looked from where I was sitting like a pharmaceutical almanac. She ran her finger down a column of text, then another. ‘Here it is. Hmm.’ She murmured to herself as she read, then looked up at us. ‘Chloral hydrate would not play nicely with Tegretol. Even a therapeutic dose might prove fatal. Seems there’ve been cases of this before.’

I made a note of this in my notebook.

‘How often did Merv come in?’ Wozza asked.

The doctor looked at the dates. ‘Not often. Typical of blokes like him. Only came when it was absolutely necessary, like for prescription updates. He only consented to a check-up when I bullied him into it.’

I liked Doc Caldicott. She was no-nonsense and called it like it was. I tried not to picture Merv and men like him grumbling their way through their prostate checks.

She stood up. ‘If there’s anything else you need, don’t hesitate to call or drop by. Gail can always squeeze you in.’

Seconds later, we were ejected into the corridor and Gail was leading in the crusty-eyed child and its mother.

Wozza blurted out, ‘It reminds me of that book, Eggshell Skull!’