Lachlan Ackland

Lachlan Ackland is 41 and the best-known doctor in the beach district. Born into a well-off family, he studied medicine in the state capital and served as a medical lieutenant in the North during the war. He returned in 1946, married the daughter of a state legislator and inherited the practice from his father-in-law. Patients say he has the steadiest hand in town.

He lives in a stone house with a porch and a well-trimmed garden, near the office, and his routine never changes: consultations in the morning, house calls in the afternoon, golf on Sundays. He has a well-polished sedan, which he parks wherever he likes without anyone complaining. He calls everyone my dear fellow, from baker to judge, and gives the impression of knowing the name of every child.

He is tall, broad-shouldered and of military bearing, with a square, clean-shaven face, dark brown hair with an impeccable parting and a short mustache. He wears well-cut light suits and lets the stethoscope show in his jacket pocket. He speaks softly, slowly, in the tone of someone giving a diagnosis, and smiles with his mouth before smiling with his eyes.

He says he has been at the practice since 1946, when his father-in-law moved from the stethoscope to the law. About the war, he says he was a medical lieutenant in Darwin, in 1943, and that he has a medal he doesn't like to show, because war is something to forget. About the death of the man on the beach, he has little to add, and recalls that the pharmacist handed the police a book of verses that turned up inside the man's car.

Lachlan knows a doctor always inspires more trust than doubt. It could be the serenity of a man used to delivering bad news. It could be the same serenity used to the advantage of whoever displays it. The detective will have to decide which.