Shroud for a Nightingale (29 page)

When, and with whom, he wondered, did she find her consolation? In her job; in the power which that job undoubtedly gave her? In astronomy, tracing through long nights the paths of the movable stars? With Brumfett? Surely to God not with Brumfett!

She said: “If you’re thinking that Stephen Courtney-Briggs might have killed to protect his reputation, well, I don’t believe it. I got to know about the affair. So did half the hospital, I’ve no doubt. Courtney-Briggs isn’t particularly discreet. Besides, such a motive would only apply to a man vulnerable to public opinion.”

“Every man is vulnerable in some way to public opinion.” She gave him a sudden keen glance from those extraordinary exophthalmic eyes.

“Of course. No doubt Stephen Courtney-Briggs is as capable of killing to prevent personal disaster or public disgrace as any of us. But not, I think, to prevent people knowing that a young and attractive woman was willing to go to bed with him; or that middle-aged as he may be, he is still able to take his sexual pleasure where he finds it.”

Was there a trace of contempt, of resentment almost, in her voice? For a moment he caught an echo of Sister Rolfe.

“And Hilda Rolfe’s friendship with Julia Pardoe? You knew about that?”

She smiled a little bitterly. “Friendship? Yes, I know, and I think that I understand. But I’m not sure that you do. The orthodox reaction, if the affair became known, would be that Rolfe is corrupting Pardoe. But if that young woman has been
corrupted, I suspect that it happened before she came to the John Carpendar. I don’t propose to interfere. The affair will settle itself. Julia Pardoe should qualify as a State Registered Nurse in a few months’ time. I happen to know that she has plans for her future and they certainly don’t include staying on here. I’m afraid there is a great deal of unhappiness ahead for Sister Rolfe. But we must meet that when it comes.”

Her voice told him that she knew, that she was watching, that she had the situation under control. And that it was not a matter for further discussion.

He finished his coffee in silence, then rose to go. There was nothing else he needed to ask at present and he found himself disagreeably sensitive to every nuance in her voice, every silence which might imply that his presence was irksome. It could hardly be welcome, he knew that. He was used to being the harbinger, at best of ill news, at worst of disaster. But at least he could avoid forcing his company on her a minute more than was necessary.

As she rose to accompany him to the door he made a casual reference to the architecture of the house and asked how long it had been in the possession of the hospital. She said: “It’s a tragic and rather horrible story. The place was built in 1880 by a Thomas Nightingale, a local string and rope manufacturer who had come up in the world and wanted a house to dignify his new position. The name is fortuitously appropriate; it has nothing to do with Florence or with the bird. Nightingale lived here with his wife, they had no children, until 1886. In the January of that year the body of one of the maidservants, a nineteen-year-old girl called Nancy Gorringe, who had been taken by Mrs. Nightingale from an orphanage, was found hanging from one of the trees in the grounds. When the body was cut down it was apparent that she had been systematically
ill-treated, beaten, tortured even, over a period of months. It had been calculated sadism. One of the most horrible features of the case was that the other members of the staff must have had some idea of what was going on, but did nothing. They were apparently well treated; they paid touching tribute at the trial to Nightingale as a just and considerate master. It must have been similar to some of these modern cases of child cruelty where only one member of the family is singled out for violence and neglect and the others acquiesce in the ill treatment. A taste for vicarious sadism, I suppose, or just the desperate hope of preserving their own safety. And yet it’s odd. Not one of them turned against Nightingale, not even when local feeling was at its height in the weeks following the trial. He and his wife were both convicted and spent many years in prison. I have an idea that they died there. Anyway, they never returned to Nightingale House. It was sold to a retired boot manufacturer who lived here for only two years before deciding that he didn’t like it. He sold it to one of the governors of the hospital, who spent the last twelve years of his life here and bequeathed it to the John Carpendar. It has always been something of an embarrassment to the hospital; no one has been quite sure what to do with it. It’s not really suitable as a nurse training school, but it’s difficult to see what exactly it would be suitable for. There’s a story that Nancy Gorringe’s ghost can be heard weeping in the grounds after dark at this time of year. I’ve never heard her and it’s a tale we try to keep from the students. But it’s never been a happy house.”

And it was less happy than ever now, thought Dalgliesh, as he made his way back to the office. Now there were two murders to add to the history of the violence and hate.

He told Masterson that he could go off duty, then settled down for a last solitary study of the papers. Hardly had the
Sergeant left when the outside telephone rang. It was the director of the forensic science laboratory to say that the tests were complete. Josephine Fallon had died of nicotine poisoning and the nicotine had come from the tin of rose spray.

It was two hours before he finally locked the side door of Nightingale House behind him and set out to walk back to the Falconer’s Arms.

The path was lit by the old-fashioned type of street lamp, but the lamps were widely spaced and dim so that for most of the time he walked in darkness. He met no one and could well believe that this lonely path was unpopular with the students once night had fallen. The rain had stopped but the wind was rising, shaking down the last drops from the interlocking branches of the elms. He could feel them spitting against his face and seeping under the collar of his coat, and felt a momentary regret that he had decided that morning not to use his car. The trees grew very close to the path, separated from it by a narrow verge of sodden turf. It was a warm night despite the rising wind, and a light mist moved among the trees and coiled around the lamps. The pathway was about ten feet wide. It must have been once a main drive to Nightingale House, but it wound inconsequently among the clumps of elms and birch as if the original owner of the house
had hoped to increase his self-importance by the length of his drive.

As he walked he thought about Christine Dakers. He had seen the girl at three forty-five p.m. The private ward had been very quiet at that time and, if Sister Brumfett were about, she had taken care to keep out of his way. The Staff Nurse had received him and had shown him into Nurse Dakers’s room. The girl had been sitting up against the pillows looking as flushed and triumphant as a newly delivered mother and had welcomed him as if she expected congratulations and an offering of flowers. Someone had already supplied her with a vase of daffodils and there were two pots of chrysanthemums beside the tea tray on the overbed table, and a spatter of magazines strewn over the bedcover.

She had tried to appear unconcerned and contrite as she told her story but the acting had been unconvincing. In truth she had been radiant with happiness and relief. And why not? The Matron had visited her. She had confessed and had been forgiven. She was filled now with the sweet euphoria of absolution. More to the point, he thought, the two girls who might have menaced her had gone for good. Diane Harper had left the hospital. And Heather Pearce was dead.

And to what exactly had Nurse Dakers confessed? Why this extraordinary liberation of spirit? He wished he knew. But he had come out of her room little wiser than when he went in. But at least, he thought, she had confirmed Madeleine Goodale’s evidence of their study time together in the library. Unless there was collusion, which seemed unlikely, they had given each other an alibi for the time before breakfast. And, after breakfast, she had taken her final cup of coffee into the conservatory where she had sat reading the Nursing Mirror until it was time to join the demonstration.
Nurse Pardoe and Nurse Harper had been with her. The three girls had left the conservatory at the same time, had paid a brief visit to the bathroom and lavatories on the second floor, and then had made their way straight to the demonstration room. It was very difficult to see how Christine Dakers could have poisoned the feed.

Dalgliesh had covered about fifty yards when he stopped in mid-stride, frozen into immobility by what, for one unbelievable second, he thought was the sound of a woman crying. He stood still, straining to distinguish that desperate alien voice. For a moment all was silent, even the wind seemed to have dropped. Then he heard it again, this time unmistakably. This wasn’t the night cry of an animal or the figment of a tired but over-stimulated brain. Somewhere in the cluster of trees to his left a woman was howling in misery.

He was not superstitious, but he had the imaginative man’s sensitivity to atmosphere. Standing alone in the darkness and hearing that human voice wailing in descant to the rising wind he felt a frisson of awe. The terror and helplessness of that nineteenth-century maidservant touched him briefly as if with her own cold finger. He entered for one appalling second into her misery and hopelessness. The past fused with the present. The terror was eternal. The last desperate act was here and now. Then the moment passed. This was a real voice, a living woman. Pressing on his torch, he turned from the path into the utter darkness of the trees.

About twenty yards from the edge of the turf he could see a wooden hut about twelve feet square, its one dimly lit window casting a square of light on the bark of the nearest elm. He strode over to it, his feet soundless on the sodden earth, and pushed open the door. The warm, rich smell of wood and of paraffin wafted out to meet him. And there was something
else. The smell of human life. Sitting huddled in a broken wicker chair, with a storm lantern on the upturned box beside her, was a woman.

The impression of an animal trapped in its lair was immediate and inevitable. They gazed at each other soundlessly. Despite her wild crying, cut off instantaneously at his entrance as if it had been simulated, the eyes which peered keenly into his were unclouded and bright with menace. This animal might be in distress but it was on its own ground and all its senses were alert. When she spoke she sounded gloomily belligerent but with no trace of curiosity or fear.

“Who are yer?”

“My name’s Adam Dalgliesh. What’s yours?”

“Morag Smith.”

“I’ve heard about you, Morag. You must have got back to the hospital this evening.”

“That’s right. And told by Miss Collins to report to the resident staff hostel if yer please. I asked to go back to the medical officers’ quarters if I couldn’t stay in Nightingale House. But oh no! No bloody fear! Got on too well with the doctors I did. So it’s off to the ’ostel. They bugger you about properly in this place, they do. I asked to see Matron but Sister Brumfett said she wasn’t to be worried.”

She paused in her recital of woes to fiddle with the wick of the lantern. The light increased. She screwed up her eyes at him.

“Adam Dalgliesh. Funny name. You’re new around ’ere, aren’t yer?”

“I only arrived this morning. I expect they’ve told you about Nurse Fallon. I’m a detective. I’m here to find out how she and Nurse Pearce died.”

At first he thought that the news was going to precipitate
another bout of wailing. She opened her mouth wide but then, thinking better of it, gave a little gasp and closed it sharply again. She said gruffly: “I never killed ’er.”

“Nurse Pearce? Of course not. Why should you?”

“That’s not what the other one thought.”

“What other one?”

“That Inspector, Inspector bloody Bill Bailey. I could see what ’e was thinking. Asking all them questions, and his eyes fixed on yer all the bleeding time. What were yer doing from the moment you got up? What the ’ell did he think I was doing? Working! That’s what I was doing. Did you like Nurse Pearce? Was she ever unkind to you? I’d ’ave liked to see ’er try. Anyway, I never even knew ’er. Well, I ’adn’t been over to Nightingale ’ouse for more than a week. But I could see what ’e was after. It’s always the same. Blame the poor bloody maid.”

Dalgliesh moved into the hut and seated himself on a bench against the wall. He would have to question Morag Smith and this seemed as good a time as any. He said: “I think you’re wrong, you know. Inspector Bailey didn’t suspect you. He told me so.”

She gave a derisive snort. “Yer don’t want to believe everything the police tell yer. Blimey, didn’t yer Dad tell yer that? ’e suspected me all right. Bloody Bugger Bailey. My God, my Dad could tell you some things about the police.”

No doubt the police could tell a lot about Dad, thought Dalgliesh, but rejected that line of conversation as unlikely to be profitable. The Inspector’s name lent itself to alliterative abuse and Morag was in the mood to relish it. Dalgliesh hastened to defend his colleague.

“Inspector Bailey was only doing his job. He didn’t mean to upset you. I’m a policeman too, and I shall have to ask questions. We all do. I shan’t get anywhere unless you help. If
Nurse Pearce and Nurse Fallon were killed, then I’m going to find out who did it. They were young, you know. Nurse Pearce was about your age. I don’t suppose they wanted to die.”

He was not sure how Morag would react to this nicely judged appeal to justice and sentiment but he could see the sharp little eyes probing through the semi-darkness.

“’elp yer!” Her voice was full of scorn. “Don’t kid me. Your sort don’t need ’elp. Yer know ’ow the milk got into the coconut all right.”

Dalgliesh considered this startling metaphor and decided, in the absence of contrary evidence, that it was intended as a compliment. He balanced his torch upright on the bench so that it threw one bright pool of light on the roof, wriggled his thighs more firmly against the wall, and cushioned his head on a thick bundle of raffia which hung from a nail above him. He was surprisingly comfortable. He asked conversationally: “Do you come here often?”