The Private Patient (12 page)

4

It was one-thirty, six hours after the finding of the body, but for Dean and Kimberley Bostock, waiting in the kitchen until someone arrived to tell them what to do, the morning seemed unending. This was their domain, the place where they were at home, in control, never harassed, knowing that they were valued even if the words weren't often spoken, confident in their professional skills and, above all, together. But now they drifted from table to stove like disorganised amateurs abandoned in an unfamiliar and intimidating environment. Like automata they had slipped the cords of their cooks' aprons over their heads and put on their white caps, but little work had been done. At half past nine, at Miss Cressett's request, Dean had taken croissants, jam and marmalade and a large jug of coffee into the library, but, removing the plates later, found that little had been eaten, although the coffee jug was empty and the demand for it seemed unending. Sister Holland regularly appeared to bear off another thermos. Dean was beginning to feel that he was imprisoned in his own kitchen.

They could sense that the house was locked in an eerie silence. Even the wind had dropped, its dying gusts like despairing sighs. Kim was ashamed of her faint. Mr. Chandler-Powell had been very kind to her and had said that she wasn't to return to work until she felt ready, but she was glad to be back where she belonged, with Dean in the kitchen. Mr. Chandler-Powell had been grey-faced and looked much older and somehow different. He reminded Kim of how her dad had looked when he came home after his operation, as if strength and something more vital than strength, something that made him uniquely her dad, had drained out of him. Everyone had been kind to her, but she felt that the sympathy had been carefully voiced, as if any words could be dangerous. If a murder had happened at home in her village, how different it would have been. The cries of outrage and horror, the comforting arms round her, the whole street pouring into the house to see, hear and lament, a jumble of voices questioning and speculating. The people at the Manor weren't like that. Mr. Chandler-Powell, Mr. Westhall and his sister and Miss Cressett didn't show their feelings, at least not in public. They must have feelings; everyone did. Kim knew she cried too easily, but surely they cried sometimes, although it seemed an indecent assumption even to imagine it. Sister Holland's eyes had been red and swollen. Perhaps she had cried. Was it because she had lost a patient? But didn't nurses get used to that? She wished she knew what was happening outside the kitchen, which, despite its size, had become claustrophobic.

Dean had told her that Mr. Chandler-Powell had spoken to everyone in the library. He had said that the patients' wing and the lift were out of bounds but that people should carry on normally as far as possible. The police would want to question everyone, and in the meantime he stressed that they should avoid talking among themselves about Miss Gradwyn's death. Kim knew that they would be discussing it, not in groups but in pairs: the Westhalls, who had returned to Stone Cottage; Miss Cressett with Mrs. Frensham; and surely Mr. Chandler-Powell with Sister. Mog would probably keep silent—he could if it paid him—and she couldn't imagine anyone discussing Miss Gradwyn with Sharon. She and Dean certainly wouldn't if she came into the kitchen. But she and Dean had talked—quietly, as if that could somehow make their words innocuous. And now Kim couldn't resist again going over the same ground.

“Suppose the police ask me exactly what happened when I took up Mrs. Skeffington's tea, every single detail, must I tell them?”

Dean was trying to be patient. She heard it in his voice. “Kim, we've settled that. Yes, you tell them. If they ask a direct question, we have to answer and tell the truth, otherwise we're in trouble. But what happened isn't important. You didn't see anyone or talk to anyone. It can't have anything to do with Miss Gradwyn's death. You could make mischief and for no good reason. Keep quiet until they ask.”

“And you're sure about the door?”

“I'm sure. But if the police start badgering me about it, I'll probably end up being sure of nothing.”

Kim said, “It's very quiet, isn't it? I thought someone would be here by now. Ought we to be here by ourselves?”

Dean said, “We were told to get on with our work. The kitchen is where we work. And this is where you belong, here with me.”

He came over soundlessly and took her into his arms. They stood immobile for a minute, unspeaking, and she was comforted. Releasing her, he said, “Anyway, we ought to think about lunch. It's already half past one. So far all anyone has been able to face is coffee and biscuits. They'll want something hot sooner or later, and they won't fancy the casserole.”

The beef casserole had been made the previous day and was ready to reheat in the bottom oven of the Aga. Enough had been made for the whole household, and for Mog when he came in from working in the garden. But now even the rich smell of it would make her sick.

Dean said, “No, they won't want anything heavy. I could make pea soup. We've got that stock from the hambone, and then perhaps sandwiches, eggs, cheese. . . .” His voice faded.

Kim said, “But I don't think Mog has gone for the fresh bread. Mr. Chandler-Powell said that we ought to stay here.”

“We could make some soda bread, that's always popular.”

“What about the police—will we have to feed them? You said you didn't feed Chief Inspector Whetstone when he arrived, except for coffee, but this new lot are coming from London. They'll have had a long drive.”

“I don't know. I'll have to ask Mr. Chandler-Powell.”

And then Kim remembered. How odd, she thought, that she had forgotten. She said, “It was today we were going to tell him about the baby, after Mrs. Skeffington's operation. Now they know, and they don't seem worried. Miss Cressett says there's plenty of room in the Manor for a baby.”

Kim thought she detected a small note of impatience, even of subdued satisfaction, in Dean's voice. He said, “It's no good deciding whether we want to stay on here with the baby when we don't even know if the clinic can continue. Who'd want to come here now? Would you want to sleep in that room?”

Glancing at him, Kim saw his features momentarily harden as if in resolution. And then the door opened, and they turned to face Mr. Chandler-Powell.

5

Glancing at his watch, Chandler-Powell saw that it was one-forty. Perhaps he should now have a word with the Bostocks, who were closeted in the kitchen. He needed to check again that Kimberley had fully recovered and that they were giving thought to food. No one had yet eaten. The six hours since the murder was discovered had seemed an eternity in which small unrelated events were recalled with clarity in a waste of unrecorded time. Sealing the murder room as Chief Inspector Whetstone had instructed; finding the widest roll of Sellotape in the recesses of his desk; forgetting to seal the end, so that it sprang back and the roll became unusable; Helena taking it from him and coping; at her suggestion, initialling the tape to ensure that it wasn't tampered with. He had no awareness of the growing of the light, of utter darkness becoming a grey winter morning, of the occasional gusts of the dying wind like erratic gunfire. Despite the blips of memory, the confusion of time, he was confident that he had done what was expected of him—coping with Mrs. Skeffington's hysteria, examining Kimberley Bostock and giving directions for her care, trying to keep everyone calm, waiting interminably until the local police arrived.

The smell of hot coffee pervaded the house, seeming to intensify. Why had he ever found it comforting? He wondered if he would ever again smell it without a pang of remembered failure. Familiar faces had become those of strangers, carved faces like those of patients enduring unexpected pain, funereal faces seeming as unnaturally solemn as mourners composing themselves appropriately for the obsequies of someone little known, unregretted, but taking on in death a terrifying power. Flavia's bloated face, the swollen eyelids, eyes dulled by tears. Yet he hadn't actually seen her cry, and the only words he could remember her speaking had struck him as irritatingly irrelevant.

“You did a beautiful job. Now she'll never see it, and she'd waited so long. All that time and skill wasted, just wasted.”

They had both lost a patient, the only death which had occurred in his clinic at the Manor. Were her tears the tears of frustration or failure? They could hardly, surely, be of grief.

And now he would have to deal with the Bostocks. He must face their demands for reassurance, comfort, decisions on matters which would seem irrelevant but which wouldn't be irrelevant to them. He had said all that was necessary at that meeting at eight-fifteen in the library. There at least he had taken responsibility. He had set out to be brief and he had been brief. His voice had been calm, authoritative. They would all have learnt by now of the tragedy that would touch their lives. Miss Rhoda Gradwyn had been found dead in her room at seven-thirty this morning. There was some evidence that the death had been unnatural.
Well,
he thought,
that was one way of putting it.
The police had been phoned, and a chief inspector from the local constabulary was on his way. Naturally they would all co-operate with police enquiries. In the meantime, they should stay calm, refrain from gossip or speculation and get on with their work. What work exactly? he wondered. Mrs. Skeffington's operation had been cancelled. The anaesthetist and theatre staff had been telephoned; Flavia and Helena between them had coped with that. And after this brief speech, avoiding questions, he had left the library. But hadn't that exit, all eyes on him, been a histrionic gesture, a deliberate avoidance of responsibility? He remembered standing for a moment outside the door, like a stranger in the house, wondering where to go.

And now, seated at the kitchen table with Dean and Kimberley, he was expected to concern himself with pea soup and soda bread. From the moment of entering a room which he seldom had need to visit, he felt as inept as an intruder. What reassurance, what comfort were they expecting from him? The two faces confronting his were those of frightened children, seeking the answer to a question that had nothing to do with bread or soup.

Controlling his irritation at their obvious need for firm instructions, he was about to say, “Just do what you think best,” when he heard Helena's footsteps. She had come up quietly behind him. And now he heard her voice.

“Pea soup is an excellent idea, hot, nourishing and comforting. As you've got the stock, it could be quickly made. Let's keep the food simple, shall we? We don't want it to look like a parish harvest festival. Serve the soda bread warm and with plenty of butter. A cheese board would be a good addition to the cold meats—people should have some protein—but don't overdo it. Make it look appetising, as you always do. No one will be hungry, but they'll need to eat. And it would be a good idea to put out Kimberley's excellent home-made lemon curd and apricot jam with the bread. People in shock often crave something sweet. And keep the coffee coming, plenty of coffee.”

Kimberley said, “Will we need to feed the police, Miss Cressett?”

“I shouldn't think so. No doubt we'll learn that in time. As you know, Chief Inspector Whetstone won't be undertaking this investigation now. They're sending a special squad from the Metropolitan Police. I imagine they'll have fed on the road. You're being splendid, both of you, as you always are. Life is likely to be disturbed for all of us for some time, but I know you'll cope. If you have any questions, come to me.”

Reassured, the Bostocks murmured their thanks. Chandler-Powell and Helena moved out together. He said, trying but without success to inject his voice with warmth, “Thank you. I should have left the Bostocks to you. And what on earth is soda bread?”

“Made with wholemeal flour and without yeast. You've eaten it here often enough. You like it.”

“At least we've sorted out the next meal. I seem to have spent the morning on trivialities. I wish to God this Commander Dalgliesh and his squad would arrive and get on with the investigation. We've got a distinguished forensic pathologist lounging around until Dalgliesh deigns to arrive. Why can't she get on with her job? And Whetstone's got something better to do than kicking his heels here.”

Helena said, “And why the Met? The Dorset police are perfectly competent, so why can't Chief Inspector Whetstone take on the investigation? It makes me wonder whether there might not be something secret and important about Rhoda Gradwyn, something we don't know.”

“There's always been something we don't know about Rhoda Gradwyn.”

They had passed into the front hall. There was the firm closing of car doors, the sound of voices.

Helena said, “You best get to the front door. It sounds as if the squad from the Met has arrived.”

6

It was a good day for a drive into the country, a day on which Dalgliesh would usually take his time exploring byways and parking from time to time to enjoy gazing at the thrusting trunks of the great trees stripped for winter, the rising boughs and the dark intricacies of the high twigs patterned against a cloudless sky. Autumn had been prolonged but now he drove under the dazzling white ball of a winter sun, its frayed rim smudging a blue as clear as on a summer day. Its light would soon fade, but now, under its strong brightness, the fields, low hills and clusters of trees were sharp-edged and shadowless.

Once free of the traffic of London, they made good time, and two and a half hours later they were in East Dorset. Driving into a lay-by, they stopped briefly to eat their picnic lunch, and Dalgliesh consulted his map. Fifteen minutes later they came to a crossroads directing them to Stoke Cheverell, and about a mile past the village a signpost pointing to Cheverell Manor. They drew up in front of two wrought-iron gates and saw beyond them an avenue of beech trees. Inside the gates an elderly man wrapped in a long overcoat was sitting in what looked like a kitchen chair reading a newspaper. He folded it carefully, taking his time, then advanced to open the high gates. Dalgliesh wondered whether to get out to help him, but the gates swung open easily enough, and he drove through, Kate and Benton following. The old man closed the gates behind them, then came up to the car.

He said, “Miss Cressett don't like cars littering the drive. You'll 'ave to go round the back of the east wing.”

Dalgliesh said, “We'll do that, but it can wait.”

The three of them pulled their murder bags out of the cars. Even the urgency of the moment, the knowledge that a group of people was awaiting him in various stages of anxiety or apprehension, didn't deter Dalgliesh from pausing for a few seconds to look at the house. He knew that it was regarded as one of the loveliest Tudor manor houses in England, and now it was before him in its perfection of form, its confident reconciliation of grace and strength: a house built for certainties, for birth, death and rites of passage, by men who knew what they believed and what they were doing. A house grounded in history, enduring. There was no grass or garden and no statuary in front of the Manor. It presented itself unadorned, its dignity needing no embellishment. He was seeing it at its best. The white morning glare of wintry sunlight had softened, burnishing the trunks of the beech trees and bathing the stones of the manor in a silvery glow, so that for a moment in the stillness it seemed to quiver and become as insubstantial as a vision. The daylight would soon fade; it was the month of the winter solstice. Dusk would soon fall, and night would follow quickly. He and the team would be investigating a deed of darkness in the blackness of midwinter. For someone who loved the light, this imposed a disadvantage which was as much psychological as practical.

As he and the team moved forward, the door of the great porch opened and a man came out to them. He seemed for a moment uncertain whether to salute, then held out his hand and said, “Chief Inspector Keith Whetstone. You've made good time, sir. The Chief said you'd be wanting SOCOs. We've only got a couple available at present, but they should be here within forty minutes. The photographer's on his way.”

There could, thought Dalgliesh, be no doubt that Whetstone was a policeman, either that or a soldier. He was heavily built but held himself upright. He had a plain but agreeable face, ruddy-cheeked, his eyes steady and watchful under hair the colour of old straw, cut
en brosse
and neatly shaped round overlarge ears. He was dressed in country tweeds and wearing a greatcoat.

The introductions made, he said, “Have you any knowledge why the Met are taking the case, sir?”

“None, I'm afraid. I take it you were surprised when the AC phoned.”

“I know the Chief Constable thought it a bit odd, but we're not looking for work. You'll have heard about those arrests on the coast. We've got the Customs and Excise boys crawling all over us. The Yard said you could do with a DC. I'm leaving Malcolm Warren. He's a bit on the quiet side but bright enough, and he knows when to keep his mouth shut.”

Dalgliesh said, “Quiet, reliable and discreet. I've no quarrel with that. Where is he now?”

“Outside the bedroom, guarding the body. The household—well, the six most important members, I suppose—are waiting in the great hall. That's Mr. George Chandler-Powell, who owns the place; his assistant, Mr. Marcus Westhall—he's a surgeon, so they call him Mr.—his sister, Miss Candace Westhall; Flavia Holland, the sister in charge; Miss Helena Cressett, who's a kind of housekeeper, secretary and general administrator, as far as I can make out; and Mrs. Letitia Frensham, who does the accounts.”

“An impressive feat of memory, Chief Inspector.”

“Not really, sir. Mr. Chandler-Powell's a newcomer, but most people hereabouts know who's at the Manor.”

“Has Dr. Glenister arrived?”

“An hour ago, sir. She's had tea and done a tour of the garden, had a word with Mog—he's by way of being the gardener—to tell him he's over-pruned the viburnum. And now she's in the hall, unless she's gone for another walk. A lady very fond of outdoor exercise, I'd say. Well, it makes a change from the smell of corpses.”

Dalgliesh asked, “When did you get here?”

“Twenty minutes after receiving the phone call from Mr. Chandler-Powell. I was getting set to act as chief investigating officer when the Chief Constable rang to tell me that the Yard were taking over.”

“Any thoughts, Inspector?”

Dalgliesh's question was partly prompted by courtesy. This wasn't his patch. Time might or might not disclose why the Home Office had taken a hand, but Whetstone's apparent acceptance of the department's involvement didn't mean that he liked it.

“I'd say it's an inside job, sir. If it is, you've got a limited number of suspects, which in my experience doesn't make the case any easier to crack. Not if they've all got their wits about them, which I reckon most of these will have.”

They were approaching the porch. The door opened as if someone had been watching to time exactly the moment of arrival. There could be no doubt about the identity of the man who moved to one side as they entered. He was grave-faced and with the strained pallor of a man in shock, but had lost none of his authority. This was his house, and he was in control both of it and of himself. Without holding out a hand or gazing at Dalgliesh's subordinates, he said, “George Chandler-Powell. The rest of the party are in the great hall.”

They followed him through the porch and to a door to the left of the square entrance hall. Surprisingly, the heavy oak door was shut, and Chandler-Powell opened it. Dalgliesh wondered whether he had intended this first sight of the hall to be so dramatic. He experienced an extraordinary moment in which architecture, colours, shape and sounds, the soaring roof, the great tapestry on the right-hand wall, the vase of winter foliage on an oak table to the left of the door, the row of portraits in their gilt frames, some objects clearly seen even in a first glance, others perhaps dredged from some childish memory or fantasy, seemed to fuse into a living picture which immediately impregnated his mind.

The five people who were seated on either side of the fire, their faces turned towards him, looked like a tableau, cunningly arranged to give the room its identity and humanity. There was a minute, oddly embarrassing because it seemed an inappropriate formality, in which Dalgliesh and Chandler-Powell quickly made their introductions.

Chandler-Powell's were hardly necessary. The only other male had to be Marcus Westhall, the pale-faced woman with the distinctive features Helena Cressett, the shorter dark woman and the only one whose face bore signs of possible tears, Sister Flavia Holland. The tall, elderly woman standing on the fringe of the group seemed to have been overlooked by Chandler-Powell. Now she came quietly forward, shook Dalgliesh's hand and said, “Letitia Frensham. I do the accounts.”

Chandler-Powell said, “I understand you already know Dr. Glenister.”

Dalgliesh went over to her chair and they shook hands. She was the only person still seated, and it was apparent from the tea service on a table beside her that she had been served tea. She wore the same clothes as he remembered from their last meeting, trousers tucked into leather boots and a tweed jacket which looked too heavy for her diminutive frame. A wide-brimmed hat, which she invariably wore at a rakish angle, now rested on the arm of the chair. Without it, her head, the scalp half visible through the short white hair, looked as vulnerable as a child's. Her features were delicate, and her skin was so pale that occasionally she looked like a woman gravely ill. But she was extraordinarily tough, and her eyes, so dark they were almost black, were the eyes of a much younger woman. Dalgliesh would have preferred, as he always did, his long-standing colleague Dr. Kynaston, but he was glad enough to see someone he liked and respected and with whom he had worked before. Dr. Glenister was one of the most highly regarded forensic pathologists in Europe, an author of distinguished textbooks on the subject and a formidable expert witness in court. But her presence was an unwelcome reminder of Number Ten's interest. The distinguished Dr. Glenister tended to be called in when the government was involved.

Getting to her feet with the ease of a young woman, she said, “Commander Dalgliesh and I are old colleagues. Well, shall we get started? Mr. Chandler-Powell, I'd like you to come up, if Commander Dalgliesh has no objections.”

Dalgliesh said, “None.”

He was probably the only police officer whom Dr. Glenister would invite to concur in any decision of hers. He recognised the problem. There were medical details which only Chandler-Powell could provide, but there were things she and Dalgliesh might want to say which it would be unwise to discuss over the body with Chandler-Powell present. Chandler-Powell had to be a suspect; Dr. Glenister knew it—and so, no doubt, did Chandler-Powell.

They crossed the square entrance hall and climbed the staircase, Chandler-Powell and Dr. Glenister leading. Their feet sounded unnaturally loud on the uncarpeted wood. The stairs led to a landing. The door to the right was open, and Dalgliesh could glimpse a long, low room with an intricate ceiling. Chandler-Powell said, “The long gallery. Sir Walter Raleigh danced there when he visited the Manor. Apart from the furnishings it's still as it was then.”

No one commented. A second and shorter flight of stairs led to a door which opened onto a carpeted passage with rooms facing west and east.

Chandler-Powell said, “The patients' accommodation is on this corridor. Suites with sitting room, bedroom and shower. Immediately underneath, the long gallery has been furnished as a joint sitting room. Most patients prefer to stay in their suite or, occasionally, to use the library on the ground floor. Sister Holland's rooms are the first facing west, opposite the lift.”

There was no need to point out which room Rhoda Gradwyn had occupied. A uniformed police officer seated at the door sprang up smartly as they appeared and saluted.

Dalgliesh said, “You're Detective Constable Warren?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How long have you been on guard?”

“Since Inspector Whetstone and I arrived, sir. That was at five past eight. The tape was already in place.”

Chandler-Powell said, “I was instructed to seal the door by Inspector Whetstone.”

Dalgliesh peeled the adhesive tape away and entered the sitting room, with Kate and Benton following. There was a strong smell of vomit, strangely at odds with the formality of the room. The door to the bedroom was to the left. It was closed, and Chandler-Powell pushed it gently open against the impediment of a fallen tray, the cups broken and the teapot, its lid detached, lying on its side. The bedroom was in darkness, lit only by the daylight streaming in from the sitting room. The dark stain of tea splattered the carpet.

Chandler-Powell said, “I left things exactly as I found them. No one has entered this room since Sister and I left it. I suppose this mess can be cleared up once the body has been moved.”

Dalgliesh said, “Not until the scene has been searched.”

The room was not unduly small, but with five people it suddenly seemed crowded. It was a little smaller than the sitting room but furnished with an elegance which intensified the dark horror of what lay on the bed. With Kate and Benton at the rear, they approached the body. Dalgliesh switched on the light at the door and then turned to the bedside lamp. He saw that the bulb was missing and that the cord with its red call button had been looped high above the bed. They stood by the body in silence, Chandler-Powell keeping a little distant, aware that he might be there under sufferance.

The bed faced the window, which was closed with the curtains drawn across. Rhoda Gradwyn was lying on her back; her two arms, the hands clenched, were raised awkwardly above her head, as if in a gesture of theatrical surprise; the dark hair was splayed over the pillow. The left side of her face was covered by a taped surgical dressing, but what flesh could be seen was a bright cherry red. The right eye, filmed in death, was fully open; the left, partly obscured by the thick dressing, was half closed, giving the body a bizarre and unnerving look of a corpse peering balefully from an eye not yet dead. The sheet covered her body up to the shoulders as if her killer were deliberately exposing his handiwork framed by the two narrow straps of her white linen nightdress. The cause of death was evident. She had been throttled by a human hand.

Dalgliesh knew that speculative gazes fixed on a corpse—his own among them—were different from the gazes fixed on living flesh. Even for a professional inured to the sight of violent death there would always be a vestige of pity, anger or horror. The best pathologists and police officers, standing where they stood now, never lost respect for the dead, a respect born of shared emotions, however temporary, the unspoken recognition of a common humanity, a common end. But all humanity, all personality was extinguished with the last breath. The body, already subject to the inexorable process of decay, had been demoted to an exhibit, to be treated with a serious professional concern, a focus for emotions it could no longer share, no more be troubled by. Now the only physical communication was with gloved exploring hands, probes, thermometers, scalpels, wielded on a body laid open like the carcase of an animal. This was not the most horrific corpse he had seen in his years as a detective, but now it seemed to hold a career's accumulation of pity, anger and impotence. He thought,
Perhaps
I've had enough of murder.