The Private Patient (34 page)

Benton said, “It takes courage to kill yourself with a lie on your lips, but perhaps that's my religious education intruding. It tends to at inconvenient times.”

Dalgliesh said, “I have this appointment tomorrow with Philip Kershaw. Officially, with the suicide tape, the investigation is over. You should be able to get away by tomorrow afternoon.”

He didn't add,
And perhaps by tomorrow afternoon the investigation will
be over for me.
This one might well be his last. He could have wished that it had ended differently, but at least it still had a hope of ending with as much of the truth as anyone other than Candace Westhall could hope to know.

7

By midday on Friday, Benton and Kate had made their farewells. George Chandler-Powell had gathered the household together in the library, and all had shaken hands and either muttered their farewells or spoken them clearly with, Kate felt, varying degrees of sincerity. She knew without resentment that the air of the Manor would feel newly cleansed once they had departed. Perhaps this group goodbye had been arranged by Mr. Chandler-Powell to get a necessary politeness over with a minimum of fuss. They had had a warmer farewell from Wisteria House, where they were treated by the Shepherds as if they had been regular and welcome guests. In any investigation there were places or people which remained happily in memory and for Kate the Shepherds and Wisteria House would be one.

Dalgliesh, she knew, would be tied up for part of the morning with his interview with the coroner's officer, and saying his goodbyes to the Chief Constable and expressing his gratitude for the help and cooperation his force had provided, particularly DC Warren. Then he planned to drive to Bournemouth for his interview with Philip Kershaw. He had already made his formal goodbyes to Mr. Chandler-Powell and the small group at the Manor, but he would be returning to the Old Police Cottage to collect his baggage. Now Kate asked Benton to stop there and wait in the car so that she could check that the Dorset police had removed all their equipment. She knew that the kitchen would need no checking to ensure that it was clean, and, going upstairs, she saw that the bed had been stripped and the bedclothes neatly folded. During the years she and Dalgliesh had worked together, she had always experienced this slight twinge of nostalgic regret when a case was over and the place in which they had met, sat and talked at the end of the day, however short their stay, was finally left vacant.

Dalgliesh's grip was downstairs, ready packed, and she knew that his murder bag would be with him in the car. The only equipment remaining to be moved was the computer, and on impulse she typed in her own password. A single e-mail came up on the screen.

Dearest Kate. An e-mail is an inappropriate way in which to convey something important but I have to be sure that this reaches you and, if you reject it, it will be less permanent than a letter. I have been living like a monk for the last six months to prove something to myself and I know now that you were right. Life is too precious and too short to waste time on people we don't care for, and much too precious to give up on love. There are two things I want to say which I didn't say when you said goodbye because they would have sounded like excuses. I suppose that's what they are, but I need you to know. The girl you saw me with was the first and last since we became lovers. You know I never lie to you.

The beds in a monastery are very hard and lonely and the food is terrible.

My love, Piers.

She sat for a moment in silence, which must have lasted longer than she thought, because it was broken by the hooting of Benton's car. But now she didn't need to pause for more than a second. Smiling, she tapped in her reply.

Your message received and understood. The case here is finished, although not happily, and I shall be back in Wapping by seven. Why not say goodbye to the Abbot and come home? Kate.

8

Huntingdon Lodge, standing on a high cliff some three miles west of Bournemouth, was approached by a short drive which curved between cedar trees and rhododendron bushes to an impressively pillared front door. Its otherwise agreeable proportions were spoilt by a modern extension and a large parking lot to the left. Care had been taken not to distress visitors by displaying any notice bearing the words “retirement,” “elderly,” “nursing” or “home.” A bronze plaque, highly polished and discreetly placed on the wall beside the iron gates, merely bore the name of the house. The doorbell was answered quickly by a manservant in a short white jacket who directed Dalgliesh to a reception desk at the end of the hall. Here a grey-haired woman, impeccably coiffed and wearing a twinset and pearls, checked his name in the book of expected visitors and smilingly told him that Mr. Kershaw was expecting him and would be found in Seaview, the front room on the first floor. Would Mr. Dalgliesh prefer the stairs or the lift? Charles would take him up.

Opting for the stairs, Dalgliesh followed the young man who had opened the door up the wide mahogany stairs. The walls of the staircase and corridor above were hung with watercolours, prints and one or two lithographs, and on small tables placed against the wall were vases of flowers and carefully arranged china ornaments, most of a cloying sentimentality. Everything about Huntingdon Lodge in its shiny cleanliness was impersonal and, to Dalgliesh, depressing. For him any institution which segregated people from one another, however necessary or benign, evoked an unease which he could trace back to his prep-school days.

His escort had no need to knock at the door of Seaview. It was already open, with Philip Kershaw, balanced on a crutch, awaiting him. Charles made a discreet exit. Kershaw shook hands and, standing aside, said, “Please come in. You're here, of course, to talk about Candace Westhall's death. I haven't been shown her confession but Marcus telephoned our office in Poole and my brother rang me. It was good of you to telephone in advance. With the approach of death one loses the taste for surprise. I usually sit in this armchair beside the fireplace. If you care to draw up a second easy chair, I think you'll find it comfortable.”

They seated themselves and Dalgliesh placed his briefcase on the table between them. It seemed to Dalgliesh that Philip Kershaw was prematurely aged by his illness. The sparse hair was carefully combed over a skull marked with scars, perhaps the evidence of old falls. His yellow skin was stretched across the sharp bones of his face, which might once have been handsome but was now mottled and crisscrossed as if with the hieroglyphics of age. He was as carefully dressed as an elderly bridegroom, but the shrivelled neck rose from a pristine white collar which was at least a size too large. He looked both vulnerable and pitiable, but his handshake, although cold, had been firm and when he spoke, his voice was low but the sentences formed without apparent strain.

Neither the size of the room nor the quality and variety of the discordant pieces of furniture could disguise the fact that this was a sickroom. There was a single bed set against the wall to the right of the windows and a screen which, seen from the door, didn't completely conceal the oxygen cylinder and drugs cabinet. Close to the bed was a door which, Dalgliesh surmised, must lead to the bathroom. There was only one top window open, but the air was odourless, without even the faint tinge of a sickroom, a sterility which Dalgliesh found more discomforting than the smell of disinfectant would have been. There was no fire in the grate, not surprising in the sickroom of an unsteady patient, but the room was warm, uncomfortably so. The central heating must be on full-blast. But the empty grate was cheerless; the mantelshelf bore only the porcelain figure of a crinolined and bonneted woman incongruously holding a garden hoe, an ornament which Dalgliesh doubted was Kershaw's choice. But there were worse rooms in which to endure house arrest, or something like it. The only item of furniture which Dalgliesh thought Kershaw had brought with him was a long oak bookcase, the volumes so tightly packed that they looked glued together.

Glancing at the window, Dalgliesh said, “You have an impressive view.”

“Indeed yes. As I am frequently reminded, I'm regarded as fortunate to have this room; fortunate, too, in being able to afford this place. Unlike some other nursing homes, they graciously condescend to care for one, if necessary, until death. Perhaps you'd like to take a closer look at the view.”

It was an unusual suggestion, but Dalgliesh followed Kershaw's painful steps to the bay window with two smaller windows flanking it, which gave a panorama of the English Channel. The morning was grey with rare and fitful sunlight, the horizon a poorly discerned line between the sea and sky. Under the windows was a stone patio with three wooden benches regularly placed. Beneath them the ground fell away some seventy feet to the sea in a tumble of entwined trees and bushes, thick with the strong glossy leaves of evergreens. Only where the bushes thinned could Dalgliesh glimpse the occasional strollers on the promenade, walking like passing shadows on silent feet.

Kershaw said, “I can only see the view if I stand and that is now something of an effort. I've become too familiar with the seasonal changes, the sky, the sea, the trees, some of the bushes. Human life is below me, out of reach. Since I have no wish to concern myself with these almost invisible figures, why do I feel deprived of companionship which I do nothing to invite and would strongly dislike? My fellow guests—we do not refer to ‘patients' in Huntingdon Lodge—have long exhausted the few subjects which they have any interest in discussing: the food, the weather, the staff, last night's television and each other's irritating foibles. It's a mistake to live until you greet each morning's light, not with relief and certainly not with joy, but with disappointment and a regret that's sometimes close to despair. I have not quite reached that stage, but it's coming. As, of course, is the final darkness. I mention death, not to introduce a morbid note into our conversation or, God forbid, to invite pity. But it's as well before we talk to know where we stand. Inevitably you and I, Mr. Dalgliesh, will see things differently. But you're not here to discuss the view. Perhaps we should get down to business.”

Dalgliesh opened his briefcase and placed on the table Robin Boyton's copy of Peregrine Westhall's will. He said, “It's good of you to see me. Please say if I tire you.”

“I think it unlikely, Commander, that you will either tire or bore me beyond endurance.”

It was the first time he had used Dalgliesh's rank. Dalgliesh said, “My understanding is that you acted for the Westhall family in the matter of both the grandfather's and father's wills.”

“Not I, the family firm. Since my admission here eleven months ago, the routine work has been done by my younger brother in the office in Poole. He did, however, keep me informed.”

“So you weren't present when this will was drawn up or signed.”

“No member of the firm was. A copy wasn't sent to us at the time it was made, and neither we nor the family were aware of its existence until three days after Peregrine Westhall died, when Candace found it in a locked drawer in a cabinet in the bedroom where the old man kept confidential papers. As you may have been told, Peregrine Westhall was given to drawing up wills when he was in the same nursing home as his late father. Most were codicils in his own hand and witnessed by the nurses. He seems to have taken as much pleasure in destroying them as he did in writing them. I imagine the activity was designed to impress upon his family that he had power at any time to change his mind.”

“So the will wasn't hidden?”

“Apparently not. Candace said there was a sealed envelope in a drawer in the bedroom cabinet to which he kept the key under his pillow.”

Dalgliesh said, “At the time it was signed, was her father still able to get out of bed unaided to put it there?”

“He must have been, unless one of the servants or a visitor placed it there at his request. No one in the family or household admits to knowledge of it. Of course, we have no idea when it was actually placed in the drawer. It could have been shortly after it was drawn up, when Peregrine Westhall was certainly capable of walking unaided.”

“To whom was the envelope addressed?”

“No envelope was produced. Candace said she'd thrown it away.”

“But you were sent a copy of the will?”

“Yes, by my brother. He knew that I would be interested in anything concerning my old clients. Perhaps he wanted to make me feel I was still involved. This is getting close to a cross-examination, Commander. Please don't think I'm objecting. It's some time since I was required to use my wits.”

“And when you saw the will, you had no doubt about its validity?”

“None. And I have none now. Why should I? As I expect you know, a holograph will is as valid as any other, provided it's signed, dated and witnessed, and no one familiar with Peregrine Westhall's hand could possibly doubt that he wrote this will. The provisions are precisely those made in a previous will—not the one immediately preceding this, but one which was typed in my office in
1995
, taken by me to the house in which he was then living and witnessed by two of my staff who came with me for that purpose. The provisions were eminently reasonable. With the exception of his library, which was left to his school if they wanted it, but otherwise was to be sold, all that he possessed was left in equal shares to Marcus, his son, and his daughter, Candace. So in this he was just to the despised sex. I had some influence on him while I was in practice. I exercised it.”

“Was there any other will which preceded this for which probate has now been granted?”

“Yes, one made in the month before Peregrine Westhall left the nursing home and moved to Stone Cottage with Candace and Marcus. You may as well have a sight of it. This, too, was handwritten. It will give you the opportunity to compare the writing. If you'll kindly unlock the bureau and lift the lid, you'll find a black deed box. It's the only one I have brought with me. Perhaps I needed it as a kind of talisman, an assurance that one day I might be working again.”

He insinuated his long deformed fingers in an inner pocket and produced a key. Dalgliesh brought over the deed box and placed it before him. The smaller key on the same ring unlocked it.

The solicitor said, “Here, as you will see, he revokes the previous will and leaves half the estate to his nephew, Robin Boyton, the remaining half to be divided equally between Marcus and Candace. If you compare the handwriting on both these wills, I think you will find it's by the same hand.”

As with the later will, the writing was strong, black and distinctive, surprisingly so from an old man, the letters tall, the downward strokes heavy, the upward lines thin. Dalgliesh said, “And of course neither you nor any member of your firm would have notified Robin Boyton of his prospective good fortune?”

“It would have been seriously unprofessional. As far as I know, he neither knew nor enquired.”

“And even if he had known, he could hardly challenge the later will once probate had been granted.”

“And nor, I suggest, can you, Commander.” After a pause, he went on: “I have submitted to your questions; now there is one I need to ask. Are you completely satisfied that Candace Westhall murdered both Robin Boyton and Rhoda Gradwyn and attempted to murder Sharon Bateman?”

Dalgliesh said, “Yes to the first part of your question. I don't believe the confession in its entirety, but in one respect it's true. She both murdered Miss Gradwyn and was responsible for the death of Mr. Boyton. She has confessed to planning the murder of Sharon Bateman. By then she must have made up her mind to kill herself. Once she suspected that I knew the truth about the last will, she couldn't risk a cross-examination in court.”

Philip Kershaw said, “The truth about the last will. I thought we would come to that. But do you know the truth? And even if you do, would it stand up in court? If she were alive and were convicted of forging the signatures, both of her father and of the two witnesses, the legal complications over the will, with Boyton dead, would be considerable. It's a pity I can't discuss some of them with my colleagues.”

He seemed almost animated for the first time since Dalgliesh had entered the room. Dalgliesh asked, “And what, under oath, would you have said?”

“About the will? That I regarded it as valid and had no suspicions about the signatures either of the testator or of the witnesses. Compare the writing on these two wills. Can there be any doubt that they are by the same hand? Commander, there is nothing you can do and nothing you need to do. This will could only have been challenged by Robin Boyton, and Boyton is dead. Neither you nor the Metropolitan Police have any
locus standi
in this matter. You have your confession. You have your murderess. The case is closed. The money was bequeathed to the two people who had the best right to it.”

Dalgliesh said, “I accept that, given the confession, nothing more can reasonably be done. But I don't like unfinished business. I needed to know if I was right and if possible to understand. You have been very helpful. Now I know the truth, insofar as it can be known, and I think I understand why she did it. Or is that too arrogant a claim?”

“To know the truth and to understand it? Yes, with respect, Commander, I think it is. An arrogance and, perhaps, an impertinence. How we scrap around in the lives of the famous dead, like squawking chickens pecking at every piece of gossip and scandal. And now I have a question for you. Would you be willing to break the law if by doing so you could right a wrong or benefit a person you loved?”

Dalgliesh said, “I'm prevaricating, but the question is hypothetical. It must depend on the importance and reasonableness of the law I would be breaking and whether the good to the mythical loved person, or indeed the public good, would in my judgement be greater than the harm of breaking the law. With certain crimes—murder and rape, for example—how could it ever be? The question can't be considered in the abstract. I'm a police officer, not a moral theologian or an ethicist.”