A Mind to Murder (6 page)

“Can you remember the exact conversation?”

“More or less. She said: ‘Can I have an appointment to see you as soon as possible? I think there may be something going on here that you ought to know about. I should like your advice. Something that started well before my time here.’ I said that I couldn’t see her this afternoon as I would be in the Finance and General Purposes Committee from two-thirty onwards and had a Joint Consultative Committee immediately afterwards. I asked whether she could give me any idea what it was all about and whether it couldn’t wait until Monday. She hesitated, so, before she could reply, I said I’d drop in on my way home this evening. I knew they had a late clinic on Fridays. She said that she would arrange to be alone in her office from six-thirty onwards, thanked me, and rang off. The J.C.C. laster longer than I expected—that Committee always does—and I got here just before seven-thirty. But you know that. I was still in Committee at the time they found the body, as no doubt you’ll be checking in due course.”

“Did you take Miss Bolam’s message seriously? Was she the sort of woman who ran to you with trifles or would a request to see you really mean that something serious was wrong?”

The group secretary thought for a moment before replying: “I took it seriously. That’s why I came round tonight.”

“And you have no idea at all what it might be?”

“None, I’m afraid. It must have been something that she learned about since Wednesday. I saw Miss Bolam then at the House Committee meeting in the late afternoon and she told me afterwards that things were pretty quiet here at present. That is the last time I saw her incidentally. She was looking rather well I thought. Better than for some time.”

Dalgliesh asked the group secretary what, if anything, he knew of Miss Bolam’s private life.

“Very little. I believe she has no near relations and lives alone in a flat in Kensington. Nurse Bolam will be able to tell you more about her. They’re cousins, and Nurse Bolam is probably the nearest living relative. I’ve got an idea that she had private means. All the official information about her career will be on her dossier. Knowing Miss Bolam, I expect her file will be as meticulously kept as any other staff dossier. It’ll be here no doubt.”

Without moving from his chair he leaned sideways, jerked open the top drawer of the filing cabinet and inserted a chubby hand between the manflla folders.

“Here we are. Bolam, Enid Constance. I see she came to us in October 1949 as a shorthand typist. She spent eighteen months in Group Headquarters, was transferred to one of our chest clinics on 19th April 1951 on Grade B and applied for the vacant post of administrative officer here on 14th May 1957. The post was then Grade D and she was lucky to get it. We hadn’t a very strong field, I remember. All administrative and clerical jobs were regraded in 1958 following the Noel Hall report and, after some argument with the Regional Board we managed to get this one graded as general administrative. It’s all down here. Date of birth, 12th December 1922. Address, 37a Ballantyne Mansions, S.W.8. Then come details about her tax code, national insurance number and incremental date. She’s only had one week off sick since she came here and that was in 1959 when she had ’flu. There isn’t much more here. Her original application form and letters of appointment will be on her main dossier at Group Headquarters.”

He handed the file to Dalgliesh who looked through it and then said:

“This states that her previous employers were the Botley Research Establishment, Isn’t that Sir Mark Etherege’s show? They dabble in Aeronautical research. He’s Dr. Etherege’s brother, isn’t he?”

“I think Miss Bolam did mention to me when she was appointed to this post that she knew Dr. Etherege’s brother slightly. Mind you now, it can’t have been more than that. She was only a shorthand typist at Botley. It’s a bit of a coincidence, I suppose, but then she had to come from somewhere. I seem to remember it was Sir Mark who gave her a reference when she applied to us. That will be on her Group dossier, of course.”

“Would you mind telling me, Mr. Lauder, what arrangements you propose making here now that she’s dead?”

The group secretary replaced the file in the cabinet.

“I don’t see why not. I shall have to consult my Committee, of course, as the circumstances are unusual, but I shall recommend that the senior medical stenographer here, Mrs. Bostock, takes over in an acting capacity. If she can do the job—and I think she can—she’ll be a strong candidate for the vacancy, but the post will be advertised in the usual way.”

Dalgliesh did not comment but he was interested. Such a quick decision on Miss Bolam’s successor could only mean that Lauder had earlier given some thought to it. The approaches of the medical staff may have been unofficial, but they had probably been more effective than the group secretary cared to admit. Dalgliesh returned to the telephone call which had brought Mr. Lauder to the clinic. He said:

“The words Miss Bolam used strike me as significant. She said that there may be something very serious going on here which you ought to know about and that it started before her time. That suggests, firstly that she wasn’t yet certain but only suspicious, and secondly that she wasn’t worried about a particular incident but about something of long standing. A systematic policy of thieving, for example, as opposed to one isolated theft.”

“Well now, Superintendent, its odd you should mention theft. We have had a theft recently, but it was an isolated incident, the first we’ve had here for years, and I can’t see how it could be connected with murder. It was just over a week ago last Tuesday if I remember rightly. Cully and Nagle were the last to leave the clinic as usual and Cully asked Nagle to have a drink with him at the ‘Queen’s Head’. You know it, I expect. It’s the pub on the far corner of Beefsteak Street. There are one or two odd things about this story and one of the strangest is that Cully should invite Nagle for a drink. They’ve never struck me as buddies. Anyway, Nagle accepted and they were in the ‘Queen’s Head’ together from about seven. At about half-past, a pal of Cully’s came in and said he was surprised to see Cully there as he had just passed the clinic and there was a faint light in one of the windows—as if someone was moving around with a torch, he said. Nagle and Cully went off to investigate and found one of the back basement windows broken, or rather, cut out. Quite a clever job it was. Cully didn’t feel inclined to investigate further without reinforcements and I’m not sure that I blame him. He’s sixty-five, remember, and not strong. After some whispering together, Nagle said that he’d go in and Cully had better telephone the police from the kiosk on the corner. Your people came pretty smartly but they didn’t get the intruder. He gave Nagle the slip inside the building, and when Cully got back from telephoning he was just in time to see the man slip out of the mews.”

“I’ll check how far our people have got with the investigation,” said Dalgliesh. “But I agree that a connection between the crimes seems unlikely on the face of it. Was much taken?”

“Fifteen pounds from a drawer in the psychiatric social worker’s office. The door was locked but he wrenched it open. The money was in an envelope addressed in green ink to the administrative secretary of the clinic and had been received a week earlier. There was no letter with it, only a note to say that the money was from a grateful patient. The other contents of the drawer were torn and scattered but nothing else was stolen. Some attempt had been made to force open the cabinets of records in the general office and Miss Bolam’s desk drawers had been forced but nothing taken.”

Dalgliesh asked whether the fifteen pounds should have been placed in the wall safe.

“Well now, Superintendent, you’re right, of course. It should have been. But there was a little difficulty about using the money. Miss Bolam phoned me about its arrival and said that she thought it should be paid immediately into the clinic’s free money account to be used in due course on the authority of the House Committee. That was a very proper course of action, and so I told her. Shortly afterwards the medical director phoned me to ask if he could have authority to spend the money on some new flower vases for the patients’ waiting-room. The vases were certainly needed and it seemed a correct use for non-Exchequer funds, so I rang the chairman of the House Committee and got his approval. Apparently Dr. Etherege wanted Miss Kettle to choose the vases and asked Miss Bolam to hand over the cash. I had already notified Miss Bolam of the decision so she did so, expecting that the vases would be bought at once. Something happened to change Miss Kettle’s plans and, instead of returning the cash to the A.O. for safe custody, she locked it in her drawer.”

“Do you know how many of the staff knew that it was there?”

“That’s what the police asked. I suppose most people knew that the vases hadn’t been bought or Miss Kettle would have shown them around. They probably guessed that, having been handed the cash, she wouldn’t be likely to return it even temporarily. I don’t know. The arrival of that fifteen pounds was mysterious. It caused nothing but trouble and its disappearance was equally mysterious. Anyway, Superintendent, no one here stole it. Cully only saw the thief for a second but he was certain that he didn’t know the man. He did say, though, that he thought the chap looked like a gentleman. Don’t ask me how he knew or what his criteria are. But that’s what he said.”

Dalgliesh thought that the whole incident was odd and would bear further investigation but he could see no apparent connection between the two crimes. It was not even certain that Miss Bolam’s call to the group secretary for advice was related to her death, but here the presumption was much stronger. It was very important to discover, if possible, what she had suspected. He asked Mr. Lauder once more whether he could help.

“I told you, Superintendent, I haven’t an idea what she meant. If I suspected that anything was wrong I shouldn’t wait for Miss Bolam to phone me. We’re not quite so remote from the units at group offices as some people think and I usually get to know anything I ought to know. If the murder is connected with that phone message something pretty serious must be happening here. After all, you don’t kill just to prevent the group secretary knowing that you’ve fiddled your travelling claim or overspent your annual leave. Not that anyone has as far as I know.”

“Exactly,” said Dalgliesh. He watched the group secretary’s face very closely and said, without emphasis:

“It suggests something that might ruin a man professionally. A sexual relationship with a patient perhaps— something as serious as that.” Mr. Lauder’s face did not change.

“I imagine every doctor knows the seriousness of that, particularly psychiatrists. They must have to be pretty careful with some of the neurotic women they treat. Frankly, I don’t believe it. All the doctors here are eminent men, some of them with world-wide reputations. You don’t get that sort of reputation if you’re a fool and men of that eminence don’t commit murder.”

“And what about the rest of the staff? They may not be eminent, but presumably you consider them honest?”

Unruffled, the group secretary replied:

“Sister Ambrose has been here for nearly twenty years and Nurse Bolam for five. I would trust them both absolutely. All the clerical staff came with good references and so did the two porters, Cully and Nagle.” He added wryly: “Admittedly I didn’t check that they hadn’t committed murder but none of them strike me as homicidal maniacs. Cully drinks a bit and is a pathetic old fool with only another four months’ service to complete. I doubt whether he could kill a mouse without making a hash of it. Nagle is a cut above the usual hospital porter. I understand he’s an art student and works here for pocket money. He’s only been with us a couple of years so he wasn’t here before Miss Bolam’s time. Even if he’s been seducing all the female staff, which seems unlikely, the worst that could happen to him would be the sack and that wouldn’t worry him as things are today. Admittedly she was killed with his chisel but anyone could have got their hands on that.”

“I’m afraid this was an inside job, you know,” said Dalgliesh gently. “The murderer knew where Tippett’s fetish and Nagle’s chisel were kept, knew which key opened the old record-room, knew where that key was hung on the board in the porters’ duty-room, probably wore one of the rubber aprons from the art therapy room as a protection, certainly had medical knowledge. Above all, of course, the murderer couldn’t have left the clinic after the crime. The basement door was bolted and so was the ground floor back door. Cully was watching the front door.”

“Cully had a belly-ache. He could have missed someone.”

“Do you really believe that’s possible?” asked Dalgliesh. And the group secretary did not reply.

At first sight Marion Bolam could be thought beautiful. She had the fair, classical good looks which, enhanced by her nurse’s uniform, gave an immediate impression of serene loveliness. Her blonde hair, parted above a broad forehead and twisted into a high roll at the back of her head, was bound by the simple white cap. It was only at second glance that the illusion faded and beauty gave way to prettiness. The features, individually analysed, were unremarkable, the nose a little too long, the hips a little too thin. In ordinary clothes, hurrying home perhaps at the end of the day, she would be undistinguished. It was the combination of the starched formal linen with that fair skin and yellow hair which dazzled the eye. Only in the broad forehead and the sharpness of the nose could Dalgliesh detect any likeness to her dead cousin. But there was nothing ordinary about the large grey eyes which met his fully for a brief second before she lowered her glance and gazed fixedly at the clasped hands in her lap.

“I understand that you are Miss Bolam’s next of kin. This must be a terrible shock for you.”

“Yes. Oh, yes, it is! Enid was my cousin.”

“You have the same name. Your fathers were brothers?”

“Yes, they were. Our mothers were sisters, too. Two brothers married two sisters so that we were doubly related.”

“Had she no other relations living?”