The Malcontenta

23

It was almost 10 p.m. when they came over the stone bridge and turned on to the gravel drive leading to Stanhope Clinic. It was a clear, cold night, and the lights of the house glimmered brightly across the black meadow. Kathy drove slowly past the car park and along the lane which curved beyond the staff cottages, thinking that the Director might be at home by that hour. His cottage was in darkness, however, its brick walls drained of colour under the faint moonlight. She turned at the end of the lane and returned to the car park. As she and Brock walked towards the house, she pointed to a window on the main floor. That’s his study, isn’t it? The one with the light?’

‘Could be.’

The front door was still unlocked, the hall deserted. They both hesitated briefly as their noses picked up the familiar cloying smell, and then they walked down the corridor to the west wing. They stopped at Beamish-Newell’s office and Kathy rapped on the panelled door.

He looked up from the desk and astonishment spread over his face. ‘I didn’t expect… What are you doing here?’

‘I think it’s time I took the statement from you that I never managed to get last November, doctor,’ Kathy said. ‘The one that takes us to the truth of the matter.’

Beamish-Newell stared at her and seemed confused. ‘I didn’t think it would be you.’ He turned in consternation to Brock.

‘Detective Chief Inspector Brock is not directly involved with this matter, sir. However, he has been helping with my inquiry and will be reporting to Scotland Yard on the outcome.’

‘Your inquiry? I thought …’ His voice trailed away. There was no aggression in it, only confusion, as if he had prepared himself for something else and now it was happening differently. Kathy felt like an actor who has blundered on stage at the wrong time, throwing the others off cue. She wondered what he had been expecting. She stared at his eyes, trying to read them. They seemed to have become even more piercing, their sockets, like his cheeks, more hollow and gaunt. There was a film of sweat on his forehead, and his voice seemed hoarser than before.

‘You thought what, doctor?’

‘I think …’ Beamish-Newell seemed to rouse himself. ‘I think I should confirm what you’re doing here with the Deputy Chief Constable.’ He reached for the phone.

‘You might prefer to hear what we have to say before you do that, sir. It could affect the way in which we proceed.’

He hesitated, reluctant to refuse the offer of information. He withdrew his hand and waited.

Kathy extracted a notebook and pen from her shoulder bag, taking her time.

‘You recall a patient here called Grace Carrington?’

He looked startled, as if it was the last thing he expected her to say. ‘Of course. What of it?’

‘You know that she died last Saturday?’

‘I heard. I was sorry I wasn’t able to go to the funeral.’

‘Before she died she wrote to Chief Inspector Brock. A letter to be posted after her funeral.’

Beamish-Newell had become very still, his dark, hypnotic eyes staring at Kathy’s.

‘It was a suicide note.’

‘My God,’ he whispered, almost inaudibly. Then, ‘No. She was very ill, terminally ill.’ The protest was weak, his voice entirely lacking its previous forcefulness.

‘In her note she confessed that she had been helped to die.’

Kathy paused. He said nothing and continued to look blankly at her. She went on, ‘We’re also interested in the death of another sick person that you were treating, the mother of Errol Bates.’ She paused again and returned his stare.

He sat motionless, waiting for more. When Kathy remained silent he finally whispered, T have nothing to say.’

Brock now cleared his throat and began to speak, addressing himself to his hands on his lap until he had Beamish-Newell’s full attention, then raising his head to speak to the man directly. ‘We don’t need to remind you of how the law stands at present, Stephen. I’m sure you’re much more familiar with its ramifications than we are. A doctor may give drugs to relieve pain even if it shortens life, but may not shorten life even if it relieves pain. A frustrating distinction, no doubt, and perhaps one that will change. But that’s how it stands at present. Nobody has the right, even with the patient’s consent, to shorten life.

‘I had a high regard for Mrs Carrington. While I was here she spoke to me about her condition and about the trust she put in you. Anyone who was of help to her when she needed it most has my respect. We have no real desire to pursue that matter. We are only interested in the Petrou and Duggan deaths. We know that Geoffrey Parsons was not responsible for them. We want to walk out of here tonight with your statement of what really happened. If we don’t get it, then we shall pursue whatever other avenues we must.’

Beamish-Newell’s face had become chalk-white, contrasting shockingly with the shiny black of his beard and hair. He opened his mouth in protest. ‘You can’t … can’t expect that!’

Again Kathy had the impression that he was following a different script.

Brock frowned at him and leaned forward, his voice intent. ‘I do expect it. I think I can understand something of the position you were in — are in. There would have been intolerable stress.’

‘My God!’ Beamish-Newell groaned and leaned forward on the desk, cradling his brow. ‘Stress!’ he echoed. ‘Unbelievable stress! But you can’t ask that. You know that I, of all people, can’t do that.’

Kathy’s mind was racing, trying to understand.

Beamish-Newell gave a sudden grunt and sat up straight. ‘Stress always has a long history. You know that, David — your shoulder. Stress is like memory, it ties the parts of our lives together. The unresolved, unhappy parts. You may think that you’ve come to terms with something when really you’ve only bottled up the poison, which secretly builds stress. Then something happens to break the bottle and the poison becomes a terrible weapon.’

The confusing homily on mental well-being caught them by surprise.

‘One death leads to another,’ he went on, ‘and then another.’

Three deaths? Kathy thought, and, simultaneously with the thought came the words: ‘Laura’s dead baby.’

Beamish-Newell winced as if she had stabbed him.

He turned to her and said, ‘She’s told you?’ and when Kathy nodded, it seemed as if a weight had been lifted from him. ‘Then you do know.’

He took a sip of water from the glass on his desk to summon his strength, then began to speak. ‘You must understand how difficult it was for her, at the end of a long pregnancy and after all the difficulties with my first wife, to lose the child.’ He spoke as if he still couldn’t quite believe that it had happened. ‘But I knew that she was strong and that the pain would pass when she became pregnant again. Only she never has.’

Kathy interrupted softly. ‘Doctor, you understand that I am recording this conversation?’ She placed the small recorder on the desk.

He nodded his head. ‘I only want to explain the background. The stress was immense. How Petrou came to learn about the baby so long after the event, I have no idea. But it was typical of him. He had a way of wriggling his way into people’s lives, discovering things about them, which was quite uncanny. And then he used the things he knew, played with them like a child with a machine-gun. But to use that against Laura was unforgivable.’

He shook his head, lapsing into silence again, still appalled by something which must have happened six months before.

‘Yes, I see that,’ Kathy said, trying to sustain the momentum of his confession. ‘You must have felt obliged to do something.’

But he only spread his hands in a hopeless gesture. She found the change in him since their last encounter disconcerting. Despite the evaporation of his domineering manner, it was unexpectedly difficult to get to grips with him.

‘Why don’t you tell us what happened on that Sunday, 28 October last year?’ she prompted gently, as if to an invalid.

‘I don’t see why. If you’ve spoken to her, surely — ’

‘We have to have your account, Stephen,’ Brock broke in. ‘You met with Petrou at what time?’

‘Er …’ For a moment it seemed he couldn’t recall, then, ‘I met him in the morning, when I came over here to interview incoming patients.’

‘Tell us about that.’

‘I walked over from our cottage at ten or soon after. I came through the basement, and passed Petrou going into the gym downstairs. It had become his sort of … den.’ He gave an odd emphasis to the word.

‘He asked to talk with me in private, and he closed the heavy door behind me. I felt uncomfortable about that and he recognized it immediately. I had noticed before how roa attuned he was to people’s sensitivities. It is a powerful talent, especially for a therapist, and one of the reasons I employed him in the first place. But it was the way he used it — he liked to give the impression that he could see your innermost thoughts.’

Kathy felt that, coming from Beamish-Newell, that was a remarkable acknowledgment.

‘And found them amusing,’ he added. ‘What he had to say was bizarre. I could barely credit it. He said he intended to open a health club in London and wanted my endorsement and help in various ways. The more he went on, the more outrageous he became. His qualifications and experience were quite limited of course; but in any case, what he had in mind seemed more a social or entertainment club — at best. He wanted me to lend my name to it, become a nominal director, encourage our patients to go there, and even expected me to invest in it!

I listened to this for a while and then told him to stop. I wouldn’t have anything to do with that sort of place, I told him, and then I started to express my severe reservations about what he had been doing at Stanhope. I’d been getting quite uneasy about the cavalier way he was behaving. Laura had warned me about it, but I’d put off speaking to him. He was becoming a law unto himself, ignoring instructions and going his own way. The trouble was, he had quite a substantial following among the patients, and some of the staff as well. But I told him that I felt his attitudes were incompatible with the Stanhope way.

‘He laughed! He said I shouldn’t speak to him like that, because, underneath, we were closer than we seemed. He seemed to imply that there was some bond between us.’ Beamish-Newell shook his head, ‘He had an extraordinarily manipulative way about him.’

Again Kathy was struck by the irony of his description of Petrou.

I took exception to the way he spoke to me — quite unapologetic, as if he was the employer and I was the one who needed to be brought into line. Then his manner changed. He told me he didn’t need my help — he had plenty of powerful friends. But I would help him anyway, he said. He told me that some of my patients found the Stanhope way a bit tiresome, a bore. Their tastes ran to things somewhat stronger than carrot juice and hydrotherapy, and he had been able to cater to them. He told me, quite openly, that he had supplied narcotics to them.

‘You can imagine how shocked I was. I lost my temper and then he told me he obtained some of the drugs from a friend of mine, Errol, who supplies greengroceries to the clinic. He began to tell me what Errol had told him about my help for his mother.’

Beamish-Newell stopped talking. He tried to refill his glass from the carafe, but his hand was trembling so much that Kathy had to get up and do it for him. He drank and gasped for air and drank some more. It was a while before he started talking again. ‘That was all. I left him and came up here to my office. I spoke to Errol on the phone and arranged to meet him that afternoon. I wanted to find out what he had really told Petrou. It was all I could think to do.’

‘And when you met Errol, he confirmed that Petrou did know what he claimed to know?’

Beamish-Newell nodded. ‘Eventually, yes. It was a nightmare.’

‘So you returned from seeing Errol at what time?’

‘I’m not sure. It was dark, about five-thirty.’

‘And you saw Petrou again? In the basement gym?’

He shook his head, ‘No, no. I came back here to this room. Almost immediately Laura came in, and I could see from her expression that something was dreadfully wrong. She was pale, tense, seemed to be in a sort of controlled shock, the way nurses sometimes look when something terrible is happening in front of them and they can do nothing but stand still and watch. The odd thing that struck me was that she was clutching her cheque book.’

‘Cheque book?’

‘Yes. She was sort of cradling it to her breast.’ He gulped more water. ‘I asked her what was wrong and she said, “What did Petrou say to you?” and I was surprised, because I hadn’t told her about seeing him or visiting Errol. I began to tell her about his threats if I didn’t help him, and she cut me off. “Yes, yes,” she said, “he threatened me too.” I became angry, but again she stopped me and said that there was no need for me to do anything. There was nothing more to be done, she said. Her brother Geoffrey would help her, and they’d take care of everything.’

Beamish-Newell turned his face to Kathy in appeal. ‘Then I understood about the cheque book, you see. I thought she had bought him off. She and Geoffrey inherited a little money from their parents, and I imagined that was what she meant. I began to protest, but she stopped me, said it was all arranged and I mustn’t mention it again. It was only later, the next morning, when Geoffrey came to me to tell me about Petrou’s body in the temple, that I began to think otherwise. I tried to remember her exact words, what she had been trying to say to me.

‘That evening, after you and your colleagues had all left, Sergeant, she told me how Petrou had known about the baby, and how he had taunted her, said unspeakable things. Then I understood very well how she had been able to bring herself to kill him.’

Kathy and Brock stared at him, stunned.

‘Your wife, Laura, killed Alex Petrou?’ Kathy said the words slowly.

He nodded.

‘That’s an affirmation,’ she said, for the tape.

‘That’s what she told you, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘I knew she would tell you in her own time. And I’m convinced that Geoffrey wasn’t involved, not at first. Killing Petrou was an impulsive act, done under great stress and provocation. Geoffrey would have helped later to move the body to the temple.’

‘Did you ever discuss it?’

‘No. After she told me about his threats and … suggestions to her, she said it was all over and she didn’t want us to talk about it ever again. I agreed.’

‘And Rose?’

Beamish-Newell rubbed his forehead again, as if trying to keep his brain functioning. ‘She buried it, you see. On the surface she’d buried it completely. Her behaviour, her manner, seemed completely normal, and I tried to do the same. Geoffrey was much less successful. It took a terrible toll on him, knowing what his sister had done and becoming an accomplice, and so in a way — in the eyes of the law — becoming as guilty himself. He fell ill — he was seized by vomiting fits. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t even make love with his fiancee, Rose.

‘She became very concerned. She spoke to me and Laura about it. It was very hard for us to deal with her. We both tried to help Geoffrey. I gave him a number of herbal treatments for his nerves, but they weren’t very successful. Laura was quite hard with Rose, because of course it was so difficult for her to cope with her own memories, without having to continually reopen them in dealing with her brother. There was also the fact that Rose suspected Geoffrey’s distress was linked to what had happened to Petrou, and she liked Petrou.

‘Rose’s persistence was driving Geoffrey mad — and I use that word advisedly. Eventually he felt compelled to tell her that Petrou’s death had been an appalling accident in which someone close to him had been involved, and he had become involved too in order to protect them. She immediately guessed he was talking about his sister, and she decided to speak to the police about it, so that Geoffrey would be freed of the guilt he was carrying. Rose hinted to him that she would tell Mr Brock herself at his next acupuncture session, and Geoffrey in a panic told Laura.’

Beamish-Newell seemed to be losing control of his speech as he recounted this unravelling of their affairs. His tongue was having difficulty articulating words with the letter V, and longer words faded before their end.

Take your time, Stephen,’ Brock urged him softly.

‘Laura came and told me. I said she should do nothing until I’d had time to reason with Rose. To give us more time, I gave you a sedative in your orange juice you had on your tray that lunch-time. I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t be able to talk to her. When you fell asleep, I had to behave normally. A phone call came for me and I left the room, as if I weren’t trying to prevent her from being left alone with you.

‘When I returned … All I can say is, that the … the violence of what was done to Rose wasn’t Laura. It was a measure of the awful stress that had built inside her. It must have been explosive when she finally let go. Since then she’s been in the deepest torment. The fact that they accused her brother was the final obscenity. I knew that, eventually, she must come to you. But I couldn’t help you. She is my wife.’

His head sagged and his eyes closed; his skin was a jaundiced grey, his breathing laboured. Kathy and Brock exchanged looks. Neither doubted the sincerity of Beamish-Newell’s account. He seemed wrecked by what he had had to live with.

‘Did your wife believe that Rose was pregnant when she died?’ Kathy asked him quietly.

His eyes flicked open, startled. ‘Pregnanti? I had no idea.’

‘If she knew, is it possible she thought that you might be the father, that history was repeating itself?’

Beamish-Newell’s mouth dropped. ‘Oh my God,’ he groaned.

‘Where is your wife, Stephen?’ Brock asked.

His head rocked slightly. ‘Don’t know … I thought you had seen her. We’re avoiding each other. She’s in the cottage, probably.’

‘I’ll go,’ Kathy said quietly to Brock. ‘You’d better stay with him.’

He nodded agreement. ‘Be careful, Kathy. Shall I get help?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘We’re not there yet.’