Fruitful Bodies (32 page)

She looked intently at Andrew and her large brown eyes grew steely. ‘I think the quicker the police find whoever it was and take themselves off again the better because it’s upsetting us all very badly, you know. Dr Golightly’s trying to run a clinic here. Now we’ve been told to be extra vigilant about security. How do you think that goes down in a place designed to reduce stress? Dr Golightly’s frantic, deep down, though you couldn’t tell if you didn’t know him.’

Andrew nodded understandingly, and did not point out that in fact he had been impressed at how discreetly the police were conducting themselves. The remote possibility that the Sulis was being targeted by a madman was the main reason for the continuing presence of a uniformed officer down at the entrance lodge, who was taking a note of cars entering and leaving. The forensic work had been carried out immediately and completed within hours of the discovery of Warwick’s body. The uneasy atmosphere had more to do with the event of the murder itself than with its investigation which—and nor did Andrew point this out—had barely got under way.

‘Because you see, as well as James,’ Yvonne went on, turning to Sara, ‘there’s Mrs Valentine not well. And Mrs Fernandez. Well, after yesterday, it’s not surprising, is it? If you ask me it’s all down to stress. You know, the shock of the whole business. And of course with them all in bed
there are no art or music sessions so Joyce and Hilary have practically nothing to do while the kitchen staff and me—well, we’re run off our feet taking trays up and down. Still, I prefer being busy and Dr Golightly relies on me.’

Taking the neat cue to push off and let her get on, Sara and Andrew found themselves back in the hall. Feeling unwanted, they shuffled off into the garden.

‘Well, would you rather be her friend or her enemy?’ Andrew asked. ‘She’s quite a little powerhouse, our Yvonne. D’you think she
is
having it away with the doctor?’

Sara considered. ‘Oh, definitely. I think she gets what she wants, on the whole, and she obviously thinks he’s a god, and she’s very attractive. And I should think Dr Golightly goes for that dynamic type.’

‘Especially if it comes knocking on his door. Lucky old sod.’

‘Let’s go and look at the pool,’ Sara said. ‘James says it’s amazing.’ As they crossed the garden her eyes took in the sloping lawn with the terraced shrubbery above and the gazebo at the very top, where James had been lying the first day. There was nobody there now.

Andrew pulled back the sliding door behind the row of columns at the pool entrance, and they stepped into the thick, steaming air. Not a breath disturbed the water. Sara saw as if through glass the Greek key pattern picked out on the pool floor in black and turquoise mosaic tiles. The leaves of tropical plants hung transfixed in glossy health. Empty loungers stood in rows across on the far side of the pool.

With a rustle of leaves and the sound of someone heaving themselves upright, a voice from behind some kind of
potted palm said, ‘Urghmm … urmm. Oh, gosh, sorry! Have I given you a fright? I’m
say
sorry!’

A woman with a smile too large for her face appeared round the plant. ‘Hellay! I’m here to see my mother but she’s gone off to sleep. Mrs Fernandez. She had a terrible fright yesterday. Did you hear? Hasn’t woken all day! I was told to come and wait.’

‘So were we,’ Sara said. ‘Our friend’s asleep, too.’

‘Oh. I mean … what I mean is, I’m waiting for that woman—you know—the old stick who does the music. I want her to play something for Mummy, I think it might bring her round.’

‘Oh? Does she like music?’

‘Well, you know, the classics. Actually, I think mainly she likes to be a little difficult. When I visit. You know, suddenly decides she needs a sleep or she’s ill or something. But if
your
friend’s asleep, well, perhaps they’ve given all the old dears a nap. Don’t you think? Rather sweet! Like children.’

‘Our friend’s not an old dear.’

‘Oh. It does bring people round though, sometimes, hearing music, doesn’t it? Hugh thinks I’m silly but I’m sure it can. Well, anyway, I’m Petronella, by the way.’

Sara smiled, not with any warmth at the introduction, but with genuine sympathy. Anyone quite as stupid as this and so unguarded as to be willing to expose the fact to strangers really had to be pitied.

‘Actually,’ Petronella was saying now, in mock-confessional tones, ‘you gave
me
a fright, if anything. I’d nodded off, when you came in. I do get awfully tired, it’s because I’m pregnant, actually. Number three. It’s
say
hot in here.’

‘It is,’ Andrew said. ‘Actually, we were just taking a look at the pool. There are dozens of benches in the garden,’ he now told Sara. ‘Shall we go and sit outside?’

‘Oh, good idea!’ cried Petronella. ‘I’m on my own today, and it is a bore waiting on one’s own. Hugh—that’s my other half—usually comes too. We were here practically all day yesterday. He’s marvellous with Mummy. I’m too close, you see. One often is, isn’t one, and really one needs to be detached. Hugh’s terribly good at standing back.’

They reached a bench on the edge of the broad grass walk that led from the house down to the pool. Behind them, a wall of thick shrubbery shielded them from the sun. Petronella looked at her watch. ‘If Hugh was here he’d get something done about that old bird who does the music. She was quite rude. I only wanted Mummy to hear her favourite tune, you’d think she’d be pleased to be asked, wouldn’t you? Especially after yesterday. Hugh thinks it’s
ridiculous
. We might complain.’

‘What is her favourite tune?’ Andrew asked, not giving a damn.

‘I only asked if the woman could play it, and you’d think I’d insulted her. “The Dying Swan”, is it? She just said no because she had to go out. Quite abruptly.’

‘ “The Swan”,’ Sara said.

‘I mean I just asked. She said she wasn’t here to give concerts. Quite rude.’

Petronella looked wanly into the trees on the other side of the walk. Sara said, to fill the silence, ‘She likes “The Swan”, does she, your mother?’

‘Oh,
loves
it, yes. I do, too. She took me to
Swan Lake
once, when I was quite little. I can still remember that bit where the swan dies. Well, you do, don’t you, at that age.’

Sara and Andrew exchanged a look of amusement. Neither was about to oust Petronella’s cherished memory of hearing a piece of Saint-Saëns’
Carnival of the Animals
in the middle of Tchaikovsky’s
Swan Lake
.

‘Haven’t you got it on a CD? Couldn’t you play it to her on a CD?’

Before Petronella could get her head round that one Andrew said, ‘Sara plays that piece. You’d play it for Petronella’s mother, wouldn’t you?’ Sara gave him a dig with her elbow that nearly sent him off the bench. But he was squeezing her arm in order to draw her attention, and one look at him told her that his mind was working faster than hers. Sara sighed, trapped. Andrew, not being part of the enquiry, could not engineer a meeting with Bunny Fernandez. But Sara, if she were to answer the summons to play Saint-Saëns for the spoilt old trout, might be able to find out something about Bunny’s experience yesterday. At the very least she could make an assessment of Bunny’s condition and report back.

‘Sara’s a cellist,’ Andrew told Petronella. ‘In fact she’s off to Salzburg tomorrow, to the festival.’

‘Gosh! Salzburg! You are lucky!’ Petronella exclaimed. ‘How lovely, if you like that sort of thing.’

‘Yes, isn’t she! But I’m sure she’d play “The Swan” for your mother, wouldn’t you, darling?’ He was already on his feet. ‘Come along. Joyce’s cello will be in the music studio, won’t it?’

‘Gosh, really? Oh I say, you wouldn’t, would you? I
know
it would help her pick up.’

‘I don’t think I should just use Joyce’s instrument without asking …’

‘Oh please! If you saw Mummy …’

‘I’m sure Joyce wouldn’t mind. It’s not as if you don’t know how to play it properly, is it, darling?’ Andrew said smoothly. Sara’s glare at him over Petronella’s head told Andrew that her revenge was going to be unpredictable, as well as unspeakable and prolonged.

Sister Yvonne was coming out of Bunny’s room on the top floor, quietly closing the door behind her, just as Petronella and Sara, carrying Joyce’s cello, reached the top of the main stairs. Andrew had decided to wait in the hall, perhaps guessing that up here there would be police officers: two of them were sitting on hard chairs on the landing, a discreet distance from the door. Their embarrassment at having to hover there on the off-chance of interviewing, perhaps cautioning and arresting a sick old lady, was palpable. Yvonne mouthed a few words in their direction with a single movement of the head. They did not rise.

‘Hellay! Is Mummy awake yet?’ Petronella’s voice boomed. If Mummy were capable of waking, that would surely do it, Sara thought.

Yvonne shook her head. She took a breath, looked uncertainly at Petronella’s eager face and hesitated. ‘I was just coming to find you. She’s very peaceful,’ she almost whispered. ‘I’ve plumped her pillows up, and she’s quite peaceful.’ She did not suggest that they might disturb her by going in, but shook her head again in sympathy and said, ‘Call me if you need me, won’t you.’

‘Mummy, it’s me!’ Petronella entered the room and walked swiftly over to the bed. She bent to kiss her mother, then straightened up and turned to where Sara hovered, a little distance off. The silly eyes were filling with tears.

‘Oh, she
is
sleepy!’ she said desperately, waving an arm towards the still figure under the covers. Sara steered Petronella, who seemed in danger of falling, to a chair at the bedside.

‘Would you like to be alone with her? Shall I go?’

Petronella still had hold of her arm. ‘No, stay! Oh please, if you don’t mind.’ Tears now ran down her cheeks. ‘I’m no good at this kind of thing. Please stay and play her tune. Please. You never know’—she glanced at her mother—‘you never know, it might bring her round … mightn’t it? She just had a little turn. It might wake her up.’

Sara nodded quietly, fetched a chair to sit on and placed it a few feet from the end of the bed. She took the cello case to the side of the room and brought the instrument out. As she tuned it she glanced towards the bed, finding that she was shaking slightly, wondering why she was agreeing to this. Just before she drew her bow for the first notes of ‘The Swan’ she looked up and stared at Bunny, as if she had to impress upon herself the full—what? obscenity, pointlessness, pathos, hilarity?—of what she was about to do.

Bunny was not having a little afternoon nap, being less in the Land of Nod than in a deep coma. The skin of her face was already tightening to reveal the bones beneath the flesh and her hands, like blue roots, lay still on the bedspread. Her barely perceptible breathing was silent, yet before Sara reached the end of the piece, which she played as softly as she could and with more tenderness than she had believed she possessed, she sensed that it had stopped altogether. And, resting the bow gently across her knee as she looked with pity at the weeping Petronella, she felt also a slight sting of bitterness towards Andrew, for whose curiosity’s sake she had just serenaded a cadaver.

T
HAT NIGHT
A
NDREW
slept badly, rising at around four and taking himself up to the hut at the top of the garden, the place where he could think best. Lying on the chaise longue, staring out across the valley but hardly seeing it, he ran over in his mind the few facts about the Warwick Jones case that were coming to light. There had been no widow to break the news to, in fact no family at all except for two nephews, both rather priggishly preoccupied with being good husbands and daddies in the Midlands, who had not seen their uncle since their own father had died. Several things about their uncle had been a mystery to them, chiefly the source of his largely unearned income and the phoney military accent. For it was their father, they confirmed, who had been the regular soldier and the prisoner of war for four years, not the older Warwick who they thought had been doing something in a factory near Birmingham during the war. Not that these small mysteries in themselves constituted a reason why he had been killed, for if every elderly gent who assumed a more honourable persona for the purpose of impressing old women were to be murdered for it, Bath would be all but empty of elderly gents.

Setting aside the why, Andrew turned fretfully to the how of the case. It was certain that the short-sighted and slightly confused Bunny had tottered into the studio at the usual time, for two or three people had seen her on her way there from her bedroom shortly before three o’clock. It was possible, then, that she had noticed that Warwick was in his usual place but not the state he was in, perhaps the same trick of light beguiling her as it had James, and had got herself into her chair before a proper look at him had induced the first of the series of strokes. Warwick himself had had lunch in his room, a slightly chaotic affair that day because of the Open Day visitors, but his empty tray had been among those cleared and washed before the catering assistant Donna had gone off sink duty at two. Ivan had taken his tray up, Hilary had gone up with his dessert and Yvonne had brought his tray down. All members of staff had been helping with the service, except for Dr Golightly, who had been hosting the table of guests, and Joyce, who was considered too unreliable with trays. Everyone else had been busy either in the kitchen, the dining room or up and down stairs, going to and from bedrooms. Any one of them could have been absent for as long as it took quietly to throttle Warwick in his chair. And of course, a complete stranger could have wandered on to the premises at any time that day and done the same thing. The main question in Andrew’s mind was the uncomfortable one that he and Sara had been discussing last night over supper (his very successful bouillabaisse, he recalled, swallowing a garlicky belch).
There’s got to be a connection, hasn’t there? Two stranglings in Bath, days apart? You can’t think they’ve been done by two different people
, she had said. There was the obvious connection, of course, the B&B in
Limpley Stoke and the Sulis Clinic, but Andrew was not at all sure that this was not a red herring.