A Mind to Murder

4

Dr. Baguley knew that he couldn’t in decency neglect to offer Miss Kettle a lift home. She lived in Richmond and her house was directly on the route to his Surrey village. Usually he managed to avoid her; her attendance at the clinic was so erratic that they seldom left at the same time and he could usually drive alone without compunction. He enjoyed driving. Even the frustrations of getting through the city in the rush hour were a small price to pay for those few miles of straight road before he reached home when he could feel the power of the car like a physical thrust in his back and the tensions of the day were ripped from him in the singing air. Just before he reached Stalling, it was his custom to stop at a quiet pub for a pint of beer. He never drank more nor less. This nightly ritual, the formal division of day from night, had become necessary to him since he had lost Fredrica. The night brought no relief from the strain of coping with neurosis. He was accustoming himself to a life in which the greatest demands on his patience and professional skill were made in his own home. But it was good to sit alone and in peace, savouring the brief interlude between two different but essentially similar worlds.

He drove slowly at first since Miss Kettle was known to dislike speed. She sat beside him, close-wrapped in a heavy tweed coat, her grey, cropped head incongruously crowned with a knitted red cap. Like many professional social workers she had little instinctive understanding of people, a lack which had gained her an undeserved reputation for insensitivity. It was, of course, different if they were her clients—and how Baguley hated that word! Once they were securely caged behind the bars of a professional relationship, she gave them a dedicated and meticulous attention which left few of their privacies intact. They were understood whether they liked it or not, their weaknesses exposed and condoned, their efforts applauded and encouraged, their sins forgiven. Apart from her clients the rest of the Steen Clinic hardly existed for Miss Kettle. Baguley did not dislike her. He had long come to the melancholy conclusion that psychiatric social work held a strong attraction for those least suited to it and Miss Kettle was better than most. The reports she provided for him were overlong and spattered with the peculiar jargon of the job but at least she provided them. The Steen Clinic had its share of those PSWs who, driven by their irresistible urge to treat patients, were restless until they had trained as lay psychotherapists and left behind such lesser excitements as the writing of social reports and the arranging of recuperative holidays. No, he did not dislike Ruth Kettle, but tonight, of all nights, he would have been happier to drive alone.

She did not speak until they had reached Knightsbridge, then her high, breathy voice fluted in his ear.

“Such a very complicated murder, wasn’t it? And so oddly timed. What did you think of the superintendent?”

“He’s efficient, I suppose,” replied Dr. Baguley. “My attitude to him is a little ambivalent, probably because I haven’t an alibi. I was alone in the medical-staff cloakroom when Miss Bolam is thought to have died.”

He knew that he was hoping for reassurance, expecting to hear her eager protestations that, naturally, no one could think of suspecting him. Despising himself he added quickly: “It’s a nuisance, of course, but not important. I expect he’ll clear the matter up pretty quickly.”

“Oh, do you think so? I wonder. I thought he seemed rather puzzled by the whole thing. I was alone in my room most of the evening so I probably haven’t an alibi either. But then I don’t know when she’s supposed to have died.”

“Probably at about six-twenty,” said Baguley briefly.

“Is that so? Then I most certainly haven’t an alibi.” Miss Kettle spoke with the liveliest satisfaction. After a moment she said: “I shall be able to arrange a country holiday from Free Money for the Worrikers now—Miss Bolam was always so difficult about spending Free Money on patients. Dr. Steiner and I feel that if the Worrikers can have a quiet fortnight together in some pleasant country hotel, they may be able to sort things out. It may save the marriage.”

Dr. Baguley was tempted to say that the Worriker marriage had been in jeopardy for so many years that its salvation or otherwise was hardly likely to be settled in a fortnight, however pleasant the hotel. Being precariously married was the Worrikers’ main emotional preoccupation and one they were unlikely to relinquish without a struggle. He asked: “Isn’t Mr. Worriker in work then?”

“Oh, yes! He’s in work,” replied Miss Kettle, as if that fact could have no relevance to his ability to pay for a holiday. “But his wife is a poor manager, I’m afraid, although she does her best. They can’t really afford to go away unless the clinic pays. Miss Bolam wasn’t very sympathetic, I’m sorry to say. There was another matter, too. She would make appointments for me to see patients without telling me. It happened today. When I looked at my diary just before I left, there was a new patient booked for ten on Monday. Mrs. Bostock had written it in, of course, but she added ‘on Miss Bolam’s instructions.’ Mrs. Bostock would never do a thing like that herself. She’s a very pleasant and efficient secretary.”

Dr. Baguley thought that Mrs. Bostock was an ambitious troublemaker but saw no point in saying so. Instead, he asked how Miss Kettle had got on during her interview with Dalgliesh.

“I wasn’t able to help him very much, I’m afraid, but he was interested to hear about the lift.”

“What about the lift, Miss Kettle?”

“Someone was using it this evening. You know how it creaks when someone’s using it and then bangs when it reaches the second floor? Well, I heard it bang. I don’t know exactly when, of course, as it didn’t seem important at the time. It wasn’t very early in the evening. I suppose it could have been at about six-thirty.”

“Surely Dalgliesh isn’t seriously thinking that someone used the lift to get down to the basement. It’s large enough, of course, but it would need two people.”

“Yes, it would, wouldn’t it? No one could hoist himself up in it. It would need an accomplice.” She spoke the word conspiratorially as if it were part of some criminal patois, a naughty expression which she was daring to use. She went on: “I can’t imagine dear Dr. Etherege squatting in the lift like a plump little Buddha while Mrs. Bostock heaved on the ropes with her strong, red hands, can you?”

“No,” said Dr. Baguley curtly. The description had been unexpectedly vivid. To change the image he said: “It would be interesting to know who was last in the medical-record room. Before the murder, I mean. I can’t remember when I last used the place.”

“Oh, can’t you! How strange! It’s such a dusty, claustrophobic room that I can always remember when I have to go down there. I was there at a quarter to six this evening.”

Dr. Baguley nearly stopped the car in his surprise. “At five-forty-five this evening? But that was only thirty-five minutes before the time of death!”

“Yes, it must have been, mustn’t it, if she died at about six-twenty? The superintendent didn’t tell me that. But he was interested to hear that I’d been in the basement. I fetched one of the old Worriker records. It must have been about five-forty-five when I went down and I didn’t stay; I knew just where the record was.”

“And the room was as usual? The records weren’t chucked on the floor?”

“Oh, no, everything was perfectly tidy. The room was locked, of course, so I got the key from the porters’ restroom and locked the room again when I’d finished. I put the key back on the board.”

“And you didn’t see anyone?”

“No, I don’t think so. I could hear your LSD patient, though. She seemed very noisy, I thought. Almost as if she were alone.”

“She wasn’t alone. She never is. As a matter of fact I was with her myself up to about five-forty. If you’d been a few minutes earlier, we should have seen each other.”

“Only if we’d happened to pass on the basement stairs or if you’d come into the record room. But I don’t think I saw anyone. The superintendent kept asking me. I wonder if he’s a capable man. He seemed very puzzled by the whole thing, I thought.”

They did not speak again about the murder although, to Dr. Baguley, the air of the car was heavy with unspoken questions. Twenty minutes later he drew up outside Miss Kettle’s flat off Richmond Green and leaned over to open the car door for her with a sense of relief. As soon as she had disappeared from view, he got out of the car and, in defiance of the chilly dampness, opened the roof. The next few miles fled in a gold thread of winking cat’s eyes marking the crown of the road, a rush of cold autumnal air. Outside Stalling he turned from the main road to where the dark, uninviting little pub was set well back among its surrounding elms. The bright boys of Stalling Coombe had never discovered it or had rejected it in favour of the smart pubs edging the green belt; their Jaguars were never seen parked against its black brick walls. The saloon bar was empty as usual but there was a murmur of voices across the wooden partition which separated it from the public bar. He took his seat by the fire which burned summer and winter, evidently stocked with malodorous chunks of the publican’s old furniture. It was not a welcoming room. The chimney smoked in an east wind, the stone floor was bare and the wooden benches lining the walls were too hard and narrow for comfort. But the beer was cold and good, the glasses clean, and there was a kind of peace about the place bred out of its bareness and the solitude.

George brought over his pint. “You’re late this evening, Doctor.”

George had called him that since his second visit. Dr. Baguley neither knew nor cared how George had discovered what his job was.

“Yes,” he replied. “I was kept late at the clinic.” He said no more and the man went back to his bar. Then he wondered whether he had been wise. It would be in all the papers tomorrow. They would probably be talking about it in the public bar. It would be natural for George to say: “The doctor was in as usual on Friday. He didn’t say anything about the murder … Looked upset, though.”

Was it suspicious to say nothing? Wasn’t it more natural for an innocent man to want to talk about a murder case in which he was involved? Suddenly the little room became unbearably stuffy, the peace dissolved in an uprush of anxiety and pain. He had got to tell Helen somehow and the sooner she knew, the better.

But although he drove fast, it was well after ten before he reached home and saw through the tall beech hedge the light in Helen’s bedroom. So she had gone up without waiting for him; that was always a bad sign. Garaging the car he braced himself for whatever lay ahead. Stalling Coombe was very quiet. It was a small, private estate of architect-designed houses, built in the traditional manner and set each in a spacious garden. It had little contact with the neighbouring village of Stalling and was, indeed, an oasis of prosperous suburbia whose inhabitants, bound by ties of common prejudices and snobberies, lived like exiles determinedly preserving the decencies of civilization in the midst of an alien culture. Baguley had bought his house fifteen years ago, soon after his marriage. He had disliked the place then and the past years had taught him the folly of disregarding first impressions. But Helen had liked it; and Helen had been pregnant then so that there was an additional reason for trying to make her happy. To Helen, the house, spacious mock Tudor, had promised much. There was the huge oak in the front lawn (“just the place for the pram on hot days”), the wide entrance hall (“the children will love it for parties later on”), the quiet of the estate (“so peaceful for you, darling, after London and all those dreadful patients”).

But the pregnancy had ended in a miscarriage and there had never again been the hope of children. Would it have made any difference if there had? Would the house have been any less an expensive repository of lost hopes? Sitting quietly in the car and watching that ominous square of lighted window, Dr. Baguley reflected that all unhappy marriages were fundamentally alike. He and Helen were no different from the Worrikers. They stayed together because they expected to be less miserable together than apart. If the strain and miseries of marriage became greater than the expense, the inconvenience and the trauma of a legal separation, then they would part. No sane person continued to endure the intolerable. For him there had been only one valid and overriding need for a divorce, his hope of marrying Fredrica Saxon. Now that the hope was over forever, he might as well continue to endure a marriage which, for all its strain, at least gave him the comfortable illusion of being needed. He despised his private image, the stock predicament of the psychiatrist unable to manage his own personal relationships. But at least something remained from the marriage; a fugitive surge of tenderness and pity which for most of the time enabled him to be kind.

He locked the garage gates and crossed the wide lawn to the front door. The garden was looking unkempt. It was expensive to maintain and Helen took little interest in it. It would be better in every way if they sold and bought a smaller place. But Helen wouldn’t talk of selling. She was as happy at Stalling Coombe as she could hope to be anywhere. Its narrow and undemanding social life gave her at least a semblance of security. This cocktail-and-canapé existence, the bright chatter of its smart, lean, acquisitive women, the gossip over the iniquities of foreign maids and au pair girls, the lamentations over school fees and school reports and the boorish ingratitude of the young, were preoccupations which she could sympathize with or share. Baguley had long known with pain that it was in her relationship with him that she was least at home.

He wondered how he could best break the news of Miss Bolam’s murder. Helen had only met her once, that Wednesday at the clinic, and he had never learned what they had said to each other. But that brief, catalytic encounter had established some kind of intimacy between them. Or was it perhaps an offensive alliance directed against himself? But not on Bolam’s part, surely? Her attitude to him had never altered. He could even believe that she approved of him more than of most psychiatrists. He had always found her co-operative, helpful and correct. It was without malice, without vindictiveness, without even disliking him particularly, that she had called Helen into her office that Wednesday afternoon and, in half an hour’s conversation, destroyed the greatest happiness he had ever known. It was then that Helen appeared at the top of the stairs.

“Is that you, James?” she called. For fifteen years he had been greeted every night with that unnecessary question.

“Yes. I’m sorry I’m late. I’m sorry, too, that I couldn’t tell you more on the phone. But something pretty dreadful has happened at the Steen and Etherege thought it better to say as little as possible. Enid Bolam has been killed.”

But her mind had seized on the medical director’s name. “Henry Etherege! He would, of course. He lives in Harley Street with an adequate staff and about twice our income. He might consider me a little before keeping you at the clinic until this hour. His wife isn’t stuck in the country alone until he chooses to come home.”

“It wasn’t Henry’s fault that I was kept. I told you. Enid Bolam’s been killed. We’ve had the police at the clinic most of the evening.”

This time she heard. He sensed her sharp intake of breath, saw her eyes narrow as she came down the stairs to him, clutching her dressing gown around her.

“Miss Bolam killed?”

“Yes, murdered.”

She stood motionless, seeming to consider, then asked calmly: “How?”

As he told her, she still didn’t speak. Afterwards they stood facing each other. He wondered uneasily whether he ought to go to her, to make some gesture of comfort or sympathy. But why sympathy? What, after all, had Helen lost? When she spoke, her voice was as cold as metal.

“None of you liked her, did you? Not one of you!”

“That’s ridiculous, Helen! Most of us hardly came into touch with her except briefly and in her capacity as AO.”

“It looks like an inside job, doesn’t it?”

He winced at the crude police-court jargon, but said curtly: “On the face of it, yes. I don’t know what the police think.”

She laughed bitterly. “Oh, I can guess what the police think!” Again she stood silent then suddenly asked: “Where were you?”

“I told you. In the medical-staff cloakroom.”

“And Fredrica Saxon?”

It was hopeless now to wait for that spring of pity or tenderness. It was useless, even, to try to keep control. He said with a deadly calm: “She was in her room, scoring a Rorschach. If it’s any satisfaction to you, neither of us had an alibi. But if you’re hoping to pin this murder on Fredrica or me, you’ll need more intelligence than I give you credit for. The superintendent’s hardly likely to listen to a neurotic woman acting out of spite. He’s seen too many of that type. But make an effort! You might be lucky! Why not come and examine my clothes for blood?”

He threw out his hands towards her, his whole body shaking with anger. Terrified, she gave him one glance, then turned and stumbled up the stairs, tripping over her dressing gown and crying like a child. He gazed after her, his body cold from tiredness, hunger and self-disgust. He must go to her. Somehow it must be put right. But not now, not at once. First, he must find a drink.

He leaned for a moment against the banister and said with infinite tiredness: “Oh, Fredrica. Darling Fredrica. Why did you do it? Why? Why?”

Sister Ambrose lived with an elderly nurse friend who had trained with her thirty-five years ago and who had recently retired. Together they had bought a house in Gidea Park where they had lived together for the last twenty years on their joint income, in comfort and happy accord. Neither of them had married and neither of them regretted it. In the past they had sometimes wished for children, but observation of the family life of their relations had convinced them that marriage, despite a common belief to the contrary, was designed to benefit men at the expense of women and that even motherhood was not an unmixed blessing. Admittedly this conviction had never been put to the test since neither of them had ever received a proposal. Like any professional worker in a psychiatric clinic, Sister Ambrose was aware of the dangers of sexual repression, but it had never once occurred to her that these might apply to herself and, indeed, it would be difficult to imagine anyone less repressed. It is possible that she would have dismissed most of the psychiatrists’ theories as dangerous nonsense if she had ever considered them critically. But Sister Ambrose had been trained to think of consultants as only one degree lower than God. Like God, they moved in mysterious ways their wonders to perform but, like God, they were not subject to open criticism. Some, admittedly, were more mysterious in their ways than others but it was still the privilege of a nurse to minister to these lesser deities, to encourage the patients to have confidence in their treatment, especially when its success appeared most doubtful, and to practise the cardinal professional virtue of complete loyalty.

“I’ve always been loyal to the doctors” was a remark frequently heard at Acacia Road, Gidea Park. Sister Ambrose often noted that the young nurses who occasionally worked at the Steen as holiday reliefs were trained in a less accommodating tradition, but she had a poor opinion of most young nurses and an even poorer opinion of modern training.

As usual she took the Central Line to Liverpool Street, changed to an electric train on the eastern suburban line and twenty minutes later was letting herself into the neat semidetached house which she shared with Miss Beatrice Sharpe. Tonight, however, she fitted her key in the lock without her customary inspection of the front garden, without running a critical eye over the paintwork on the door and even without reflecting, as was her custom, on the generally satisfactory appearance of the property and on the gratifying capital investment that its purchase had proved to be.

“Is that you, Dot?” called Miss Sharpe from the kitchen. “You’re late.”

“It’s a wonder I’m not later. We’ve had murder at the clinic and the police have been with us for most of the evening. As far as I know, they’re still there. I’ve had my fingerprints taken and so have the rest of the staff.”

Sister Ambrose deliberately kept her voice level but the effect of the news was gratifying. She had expected no less. It is not every day one has such excitement to relate and she had spent some time in the train rehearsing how most effectively to break the news. The selected sentence expressed concisely the salient details. Supper was temporarily forgotten. Murmuring that a casserole could always wait, Miss Sharpe poured her friend and herself a glass of sherry, specific against shock, and settled down with it in the sitting room to hear the full story. Sister Ambrose, who had a reputation at the clinic for discretion and taciturnity, was a great deal more forthcoming at home and it wasn’t long before Miss Sharpe knew as much about the murder as her friend was able to tell.

“But who do you think did it, Dot?” Miss Sharpe refilled their glasses—an unprecedented extravagance—and applied her mind to analysis.

“As I see it, the murder must have been done between six-twenty when you saw Miss Bolam going towards the basement stairs and seven o’clock when the body was discovered.”

“Well, that’s obvious! That’s why the superintendent kept asking me whether I was sure about the time. I was the last person to see her alive, there’s no doubt about that. Mrs. Belling had finished treatment and was ready to go home at about six-fifteen and I went across to the waiting room to let her husband know. He’s always fussed about time because he’s on night duty and has to be fed and at work by eight. So I looked at my watch and saw that it was just six-twenty. As I came out of the ECT room door, Miss Bolam passed me and went towards the basement stairs. The superintendent asked me what she looked like and whether we spoke. Well, we didn’t and, as far as I could see, she looked the same as usual.”

“What’s he like?” asked Miss Sharpe, visions of Maigret and Inspector Barlow crowding her mind.

“The superintendent? Perfectly polite, I must say. One of those lean, bony faces. Very dark. I didn’t say a great deal. You could see he’s used to smarming things out of people. Mrs. Shorthouse was with him for hours and I bet he got plenty out of her. Well, I wasn’t playing that game. I’ve always been loyal to the clinic.”

“All the same, Dot, it is murder.”

“That’s all very well, Bea, but you know what the Steen is. There’s enough gossip without adding to it. None of the doctors liked her and nor did anyone else as far as I know. But that’s no reason for killing her. Anyway, I kept my mouth shut and, if the others have any sense, they’ll do the same.”

“Well, you’re all right, anyway. You’ve got an alibi if you and Dr. Ingram were together in the ECT room all the time.”

“Oh, we’re all right. So are Shorthouse and Cully and Nagle and Miss Priddy. Nagle was out with the post after six-fifteen and the others were together. I’m not sure about the doctors, though, and it’s a pity that Dr. Baguley left the ECT room after the Belling treatment. Mind you, no one in their senses could suspect him, but it’s unfortunate all the same. While we were waiting for the police, Dr. Ingram came over to suggest that we ought not to say anything about it. A nice mess we’d get Dr. Baguley into with that kind of hanky-panky! I pretended not to understand. I just gave her one of my looks and said: ‘I’m sure that if we all tell the truth, Doctor, the innocent will have nothing to fear.’ That shut her up all right. And that’s what I did. I told the truth. But I wasn’t going any further. If the police want gossip, they can go to Mrs. Shorthouse.”

“What about Nurse Bolam?” inquired Miss Sharpe.

“It’s Bolam I’m worried about. She was on the spot all right and you can’t say an LSD patient is an alibi for anyone. The superintendent was on to her quick enough. He tried to pump me. Were she and her cousin friendly? No doubt they worked at the Steen to be together? You can tell that to the Marines, I thought, but I kept my mouth shut. He didn’t get much change out of me. But you could see which way his mind was working. You can’t wonder, really. We all know Miss Bolam had money and, if she hasn’t willed it to a cats’ home, it will go to her cousin. There’s no one else to leave it to, after all.”

“I can’t see her leaving it to a cats’ home,” said Miss Sharpe, who had a literal mind.

“I didn’t mean that exactly. As a matter of fact she never took much notice of Tigger although he’s supposed to be her cat. I always thought that was typical of Miss Bolam. She found Tigger practically starving in the square and took him into the clinic. Ever since then she’s bought three tins of cat meat for him every week. But she never petted him or fed him or let him into any of the upstairs rooms. On the other hand, that fool Priddy is always down in the porters’ room with Nagle making a fuss of Tigger, but I’ve never seen either of them bringing in food for him. I think Miss Bolam just bought the food out of a sense of duty. She didn’t really care for animals. But she might leave her money to that church she’s so keen on or to the Guides, for that matter.”

“You’d think she’d leave it to her own flesh and blood,” said Miss Sharpe. She herself had a poor opinion of her own flesh and blood and found much to criticize in the conduct of her nephews and nieces, but her small and slowly accumulated capital had been carefully willed between them. It was beyond her understanding that money should be left out of the family.

They sipped their sherry in silence. The two bars of the electric fire glowed and the synthetic coals shone and flickered as the little light behind them revolved. Sister Ambrose looked around at the sitting room and found it good. The standard lamp threw a soft light on the fitted carpet and the comfortable sofa and chairs. In the corner a television set stood, its small twin aerials disguised as two flowers on their stems. The telephone nestled beneath the crinolined skirt of a plastic doll. On the opposite wall, above the piano, hung a cane basket from which an indoor plant, cascading streamers of green, almost concealed the wedding group of Miss Sharpe’s eldest niece which had pride of place on the piano. Sister Ambrose took comfort from the unchanged homeliness of these familiar things. They at least were the same. Now that the excitement of telling her news was over, she felt very tired. Planting her stout legs apart she bent to loosen the laces of her regulation black shoes, grunting a little with the effort. Usually she changed out of uniform as soon as she got home. Tonight she couldn’t be bothered.

Suddenly she said: “It isn’t easy to know what to do for the best. The superintendent said that anything, however small, might be important, That’s all very well. But suppose it’s important in the wrong way? Suppose it gives the police the wrong ideas?”

Miss Sharpe was not imaginative nor sensitive, but she had not lived in the same house as her friend for twenty years without recognizing a plea for help.

“You’d better tell me what you have in mind, Dot.”

“Well, it happened on Wednesday. You know what the ladies’ cloakroom is like at the Steen? There’s the large outside room with the wash basin and the lockers and two lavatories.

“The clinic was rather later than usual. I suppose it was well after seven when I went to wash. Well, I was in the lavatory when Miss Bolam came into the outer room. Nurse Bolam was with her. I thought they’d both gone home, but I suppose Miss Bolam must have wanted something from her locker and Nurse just followed her in. They must have been in the AO’s office together because they’d obviously been talking and were just carrying on with the argument. I couldn’t help hearing. You know how it is. I could have coughed or flushed the pan, I suppose, to show I was there but, by the time I thought of it, it was too late.”

“What were they arguing about?” inquired her friend. “Money?” In her experience this was the most frequent cause of family dissension.

“Well, that’s what it sounded like. They weren’t talking loudly and I certainly didn’t try to hear. I think they must have been having words about Nurse Bolam’s mother—she’s a DS, you know, and more or less confined to bed now—because Miss Bolam said she was sorry, but she was doing as much as she could and that it would be wiser if Marion accepted the situation and placed her mother’s name on a waiting list for a hospital bed.”

“That’s reasonable enough. You can’t nurse these cases at home indefinitely. Not without giving up outside work and staying at home all the time.”

“I don’t suppose Marion Bolam could afford that. Anyway, she started arguing and saying that her mother would only end up in a geriatric ward with a lot of senile old women and Enid had a duty to help them because that’s what her mother would have wanted. Then she said something about the money coming to her if Enid died and how much better to have some now when it would make such a difference to them.”

“What did Miss Bolam reply to that?”

“That’s what’s worrying me,” said Sister Ambrose. “I can’t remember the actual words, but what it amounted to was that Marion shouldn’t rely on getting any of the money because she was going to change her will. She said that she meant to tell her cousin quite openly as soon as she had really made up her mind. She talked about what a great responsibility the money was and how she had been praying for guidance to do the right thing.”

Miss Sharpe sniffed. She found it impossible to believe that the Almighty would ever counsel leaving cash away from the family. Miss Bolam was either an ineffectual petitioner or had wilfully misinterpreted the divine instructions. Miss Sharpe was not even sure that she approved of the praying. There are some things, surely, which one ought to be able to decide on one’s own. But she saw her friend’s difficulty.

“It would look bad if it came out,” she admitted. “No doubt about that.”

“I think I know Bolam pretty well, Bea, and that child wouldn’t lay hands on a fly. The idea of her murdering anyone is ridiculous. You know what I think about young nurses generally. Well, I wouldn’t mind Bolam taking over when I retire next year and that’s saying something. I’d trust her completely.”

“Maybe, but the police wouldn’t. Why should they? She’s probably their first suspect already. She was on the spot; she hasn’t an alibi; she has medical knowledge and would know where the skull is most vulnerable; and where to put that chisel in. She was told that Tippett wouldn’t be in the clinic. And now this!”

“And it’s not as if it’s a small sum.” Sister Ambrose leaned forward and dropped her voice. “I thought I heard Miss Bolam mention thirty thousand pounds. Thirty thousand, Bea! It would be like winning the pools!”

Miss Sharpe was impressed despite herself, but remarked merely that people who went on working when they had thirty thousand wanted their brains examined.

“What would you do, Bea? Do you think I ought to say anything?” Sister Ambrose, sturdily independent and used to settling her own affairs, recognized that this decision was beyond her and threw half the burden on her friend. Both of them knew that the moment was unique. Never had two friends made fewer demands on each other.

Miss Sharpe sat in silence for a moment or two, then said: “No. Not yet, anyway. After all she is your colleague and you trust her. It wasn’t your fault that you overheard the conversation but it was only overhearing. It was only chance that you happened to be in the loo. I should try to forget it. The police will find out how Bolam has left her money anyway and whether the will has been changed. Either way Nurse Bolam will be suspected. And if it should come to a trial—I’m only saying ‘if,’ remember—well, you don’t want to get involved unnecessarily. Remember those nurses in the Eastbourne case, the hours they spent in the box. You wouldn’t want that kind of publicity.”

Indeed she wouldn’t, thought Sister Ambrose. Her imagination set the scene only too vividly. Sir Somebody or Other would be prosecuting, tall, beak-nosed, bending his terrifying gaze on her, thumbs hooked in the bands of his gown.

“And now, Sister Ambrose, perhaps you will tell his Lordship and the jury what you were doing when you overheard this conversation between the accused and her cousin.”

Titters in court. The judge, terrifying in scarlet and white wig, leans down from his seat.

“If there is any more of this laughter I shall clear the court.” Silence. Sir Somebody on the ball again.

“Well, Sister Ambrose …?”

No, she certainly wouldn’t want that kind of publicity. “I think you’re right, Bea,” she said. “After all, it’s not as if the superintendent actually asked me whether I’d ever overheard them quarrelling.” Certainly he hadn’t and, with luck, he never would.

Miss Sharpe felt that it was time to change the subject. “How did Dr. Steiner take it?” she asked. “You always said that he was working to get Bolam moved to another unit.”

“That’s another extraordinary thing! He was terribly upset. You know I told you that he was with us when we first saw the body? D’you know he could hardly control himself? He had to turn his back on us and I could see his shoulders shaking. He was actually crying, I think. I’ve never seen him so upset. Aren’t people extraordinary, Bea?”

It was a vehement cry of resentment and protest. People were extraordinary! You thought you knew them. You worked with them, sometimes for years. You spent more time with them than you would with family or close friends. You knew every line of their faces. And all the time they were private. As private as Dr. Steiner who cried over the dead body of a woman he had never liked. As private as Dr. Baguley who had been having a love affair with Fredrica Saxon for years with no one knowing until Miss Bolam found out and told his wife. As private as Miss Bolam who had taken God knows what secrets to the grave. Miss Bolam, dull, ordinary, unremarkable Enid Bolam, who had inspired so much hate in someone that she had ended with a chisel in her heart. As private as that unknown member of the staff who would be at the clinic on Monday morning, dressed as usual, looking the same as usual, speaking and smiling as usual and who was a murderer.

“Damned smiling villain!” said Sister Ambrose suddenly. She thought that the phrase was a quotation from some play or other. Shakespeare probably. Most quotations were. But its terse malevolence suited her mood.

“What you need is food,” said Miss Sharpe positively. “Something light and nourishing. Suppose we leave the casserole until tomorrow night and just have boiled eggs on a tray?”

She was waiting for him at the entrance to St James’s Park just as he had expected her to be. As he crossed the mall and saw the slight figure drooping a little disconsolately by the war memorial, Nagle could almost feel sorry for her. It was the hell of a raw night to be standing about. But her first words killed any impulse to pity.

“We should have met somewhere else. This is all right for you, of course. You’re on the way home.” She sounded as peevish as a neglected wife.

“Come back to the flat, then,” he taunted her softly. “We can get a bus down.”

“No. Not the flat. Not tonight.” He smiled into the darkness and they moved together into the black shadow of the trees. They walked a little way apart and she made no move towards him. He glanced down at the calm, uplifted profile cleansed now of all traces of crying. She looked desperately tired.

Suddenly she said: “That superintendent is very good-looking, isn’t he? Do you think he suspects us?”

So here it was, the grasping at reassurance, the childish need to be protected. And yet she had sounded almost uncaring. He said roughly: “For God’s sake why should he? I was out of the clinic when she died. You know that as well as I do.”

“But I wasn’t. I was there.”

“No one’s going to suspect you for long. The doctors will see to that. We’ve had all this out before. Nothing can go wrong if you keep your head and listen to me. Now this is what I want you to do.”

She listened as meekly as a child but, watching that tired, expressionless face, he felt that he was in the company of a stranger. He wondered idly whether they would ever get free of each other again. And suddenly he felt that it was not she who was the victim.

As they came to the lake, she stopped and gazed out over the water. Out of the darkness came the subdued cry and shuffle of ducks. He could smell the evening breeze, salty as a sea wind, and shivered. Turning to study her face, ravaged now with fatigue, he saw, in his mind’s eye, another picture: a broad brow under a white nurse’s cap, a swathe of yellow hair, immense grey eyes which gave nothing away. Tentatively he pondered a new idea. It might come to nothing, of course. It might easily come to nothing. But the picture would soon be finished and he could get rid of Jenny. In a month he would be in Paris but Paris was only an hour’s flight away and he would be coming back often. And with Jenny out of the way and a new life in his grasp, it would be worth trying. There were worse fates than marrying the heiress to thirty thousand pounds.

Nurse Bolam let herself into the narrow terraced house at 17 Rettinger Street, NW1, and was met by the familiar ground-floor smell compounded of frying fat, furniture polish and stale urine. The twins’ pram stood behind the door with its stained under blanket thrown across the handle. The smell of cooking was less strong than usual. She was very late tonight and the ground-floor tenants must long have finished their evening meal. The wail of one of the babies sounded faintly from the back of the house, almost drowned by the noise of the television. She could hear the national anthem. The BBC service was closing for the day.

She mounted to the first floor. Here the smell of food was fainter and was masked by the tang of a household disinfectant. The first-floor tenant was addicted to cleanliness as the basement tenant was to drink. There was the usual note on the landing window ledge. Tonight it read: “Do not stand your dirty milk bottles here. This ledge is private. This means you.” From behind the brown polished door, even at this late hour, came the roar of a vacuum cleaner in full throttle.

Up now to the third floor, to their own flat. She paused on the bottom step of the last flight and saw, as if with a stranger’s eyes, the pathetic attempt she had made to improve the look of the place. The walls here were painted with white emulsion paint. The stairs were covered with a grey drugget. The door was painted a bright citrus yellow and sported a brass knocker in the shape of a frog’s head. On the wall, carefully disposed one above the other, were the three flower prints she had picked up in Berwick Street market. Until tonight she had been pleased with the result of her work. It really had given the entrance quite an air. There had been times when she had felt that a visitor, Mrs. Bostock from the clinic, perhaps, or even Sister Ambrose, might safely be invited home for coffee without the need to apologize or explain. But tonight, freed, gloriously freed forever from the self-deceit of poverty, she could see the flat for what it was, sordid, dark, airless, smelly and pathetic. Tonight, for the first time, she could safely recognize how much she hated every brick of 17 Rettinger Street.

She trod very softly, still not ready to go in. There was so little time in which to think, in which to plan. She knew exactly what she would see when she opened the door of her mother’s room. The bed stood against the window. In summer evenings Mrs. Bolam could lie and watch the sun setting behind a castellation of sloping roofs and twisting chimneys with, in the distance, the turrets of St. Pancras Station darkening against a flaming sky. Tonight the curtains would be drawn. The district nurse would have put her mother to bed, would have left the telephone and portable wireless on the bedside table, together with the handbell which could, if necessary, summon aid from the tenant of the flat below. Her mother’s bedside lamp would be lit, a small pool of light in the surrounding gloom. At the other end of the room one bar of the electric fire would be burning, one bar only, the nicely calculated allocation of comfort for an October evening. As soon as she opened the door, her mother’s eyes would meet her, brightened by pleasure and anticipation. There would be the same intolerably bright greeting, the same minute inquiries about the doings of the day.

“Did you have a good day at the clinic, darling? Why were you late? Did anything happen?”

And how did one answer that? “Nothing of any importance, Mummy, except that someone has stabbed Cousin Enid through the heart and we’re going to be rich after all.”

And what did that mean? Dear God, what didn’t it mean? No more smell of polish and napkins. No more need to propitiate the second-floor harpy in case she were needed to answer that bell. No more watching the electricity meter and wondering whether it was really cold enough for that extra bar of the fire. No more thanking Cousin Enid for her generous cheque twice a year, the one in December that made such a difference to Christmas, the one late in July that paid for the hired car and the expensive hotel which catered for invalids who could afford to pay for being a nuisance. No longer any need to count the days, to watch the calendar, to wonder whether Enid was going to oblige this year. No need to take the cheque with becoming gratitude to conceal behind lowered eyes the hate and resentment that longed to tear it up and throw it in that smug, plain, condescending face. No need to climb these stairs any more. They could have the house in a suburb which her mother talked about. One of the better-class suburbs, of course, near enough to London for easy travelling to the clinic—it wouldn’t be wise to give up the job before she really had to—but far enough out for a small garden, perhaps, even for a country view. They might even afford a little car. She could learn to drive. And then, when it was no longer possible for her mother to be left, they could be together. It meant the end of this nagging anxiety about the future. There was no reason now to picture her mother in a chronic sick ward, cared for by overworked strangers, surrounded by the senile and incontinent, waiting hopelessly for the end. And money could buy less vital but not unimportant pleasures. She would get some clothes. It would no longer be necessary to wait for the biennial sales if she wanted a suit with some evidence of quality. It would be possible to dress well, really well, on half the amount Enid had spent on those unattractive skirts and suits. There must be wardrobes full of them in the Kensington flat. Someone would have the job of sorting them out. And who would want them? Who would want anything that had belonged to Cousin Enid? Except her money. Except her money. Except her money. And suppose she had already written to her solicitor about changing the will. Surely that wasn’t possible! Nurse Bolam fought down panic and forced herself once again to consider the possibility rationally. She had thought it out so many times before. Suppose Enid had written on Wednesday night. All right, suppose she had. It would be too late to catch the post that evening so the letter would have been received only this morning. Everyone knew how long solicitors took to do anything. Even if Enid had stressed the urgency, had caught the Wednesday post, the new will couldn’t possibly be ready for signature yet. And if it were ready, if it were waiting to be posted in its solid, official-looking envelope, what did it matter? Cousin Enid wouldn’t sign it now with that round, upright, unadult hand which had always seemed so typical of her. Cousin Enid would never sign anything again.

She thought again about the money. Not about her own share. That was hardly likely to bring her happiness now. But even if they arrested her for murder, they couldn’t stop Mummy inheriting her share. No one could stop that. But somehow she must get hold of some cash urgently. Everyone knew that a will took months to prove. Would it look very suspicious or heartless if she went to Enid’s solicitor to explain how poor they were and to ask what could be arranged? Or would it be wiser to approach the bank? Perhaps the solicitor would send for her. Yes, of course he would. She and her mother were the next of kin. And as soon as the will was read, she could tactfully raise the question of an advance. Surely that would be natural enough? An advance of one hundred pounds wouldn’t be much to ask by someone who was going to inherit a share of thirty thousand.

Suddenly she could bear it no longer. The long tension broke. She wasn’t conscious of covering those last few stairs, of putting her key in the lock. At once she was in the flat and through to her mother’s room. Howling with fear and misery, crying as she had not cried since childhood, she hurled herself on her mother’s breast and felt around her the comfort and the unexpected strength of those brittle, shaking arms. The arms rocked her like a baby. The beloved voice cooed its reassurance. Under the cheap nightdress she smelt the soft familiar flesh.

“Hush, my darling. My baby. Hush. What is it? What’s happened. Tell me, darling.”

And Nurse Bolam told her.

Since his divorce two years earlier Dr. Steiner had shared a house in Hampstead with his widowed sister. He had his own sitting room and kitchen, an arrangement which enabled Rosa and him to see little of each other, thus fostering the illusion that they got on well together. Rosa was a culture snob. Her house was the centre for a collection of resting actors, one-volume poets, aesthetes posing on the fringe of the ballet world and writers more anxious to talk about their craft in an atmosphere of sympathetic understanding than to practise it. Dr. Steiner did not resent them. He merely ensured that they ate and drank at Rosa’s expense, not his. He was aware that his profession had a certain cachet for his sister and that to introduce “my brother Paul—the famous psycho-analyst”—was in some measure a compensation for the low rent which he spasmodically paid and the minor irritations of propinquity. He would hardly have been housed so economically and comfortably had he been a bank manager.

Tonight Rosa was out. It was exasperating and inconsiderate of her to be missing on the one evening when he needed her company, but that was typical of Rosa. The German maid was out, too, presumably illicitly since Friday was not her half day. There was soup and salad put ready for him in his kitchen, but even the effort of heating the soup seemed beyond him. The sandwiches he had eaten without relish at the clinic had taken away his appetite but left him hungry for protein, preferably hot and properly cooked. But he did not want to eat alone. Pouring himself a glass of sherry he recognized his need to talk to someone—anyone—about the murder. The need was imperative. He thought of Valda.

His marriage to Valda had been doomed from the start, as any marriage must be when husband and wife have a basic ignorance of each other’s needs coupled with the illusion that they understand each other perfectly. Dr. Steiner had not been desolated by his divorce but he had been inconvenienced and distressed and had been harried afterwards by an irrational sense of failure and guilt. Valda, on the other hand, apparently throve on freedom. When they met, he was always struck with her glow of physical well-being. They did not avoid each other, since meeting her ex-husband and discarded lovers with the greatest appearance of friendliness and good humour was what Valda meant when she talked about civilized behaviour. Dr. Steiner did not like or admire her. He liked the company of women who were well-informed, well-educated, intelligent and fundamentally serious. But these were not the kind of women he liked to go to bed with. He knew all about this inconvenient dichotomy. Its causes had occupied many expensive hours with his analyst. Unfortunately, knowing is one thing and changing is another, as some of his patients could have told him. And there had been times with Valda (christened Millicent) when he hadn’t really wanted to be different.

The telephone rang for about a minute before she answered and he told her about Miss Bolam against a background noise of music and clinking glasses. The flat was apparently full of people. He wasn’t even sure she had heard him.

“What is it?” he asked irritably. “Are you having a party?”

“Just a few chums. Wait while I turn down the gramophone. Now, what did you say?”

Dr. Steiner said it again. This time Valda’s reaction was entirely satisfactory.

“Murdered! No! Darling, how too frightful for you! Miss Bolam. Isn’t she that dreary old AO you hated so much? The one who kept trying to do you down over your travelling claims?”

“I didn’t hate her, Valda. In some ways I respected her. She had considerable integrity. Of course, she was rather obsessional, frightened of her own subconscious aggressions, possibly sexually frigid …”

“That’s what I said, darling. I knew you couldn’t bear her. Oh, Paulie, they won’t think you did it, will they?”

“Of course not,” said Dr. Steiner, beginning to regret his impulse to confide.

“But you always did say that someone should get rid of her.” The conversation was beginning to have a nightmare quality. The gramophone thudded its insistent bass to the treble cacophony of Valda’s party and the pulse in Dr. Steiner’s temple beat in unison. He was going to start one of his headaches.

“I meant that she should be transferred to another clinic, not bashed on the head with a blunt instrument.”

The hackneyed phrase sharpened her curiosity. Violence had always fascinated her. He knew that she saw in imagination a spatter of blood and brains.

“Darling, I must hear all about it. Why not come over?”

“Well, I was thinking of it,” said Dr. Steiner. He added cunningly: “There are one or two details I can’t give you over the phone. But if you’ve got a party, it’s rather difficult. Frankly, Valda, I’m not capable of being sociable just now. I’ve got one of my heads starting. This has all been a terrible shock. After all, I did more or less discover the body.”

“You poor sweet. Look, give me half an hour and I’ll get rid of the chums.”

The chums sounded to Dr. Steiner as if they were well entrenched and he said so.

“Not really. We were all going on to Toni’s. They can manage without me. I’ll give them a shove and you set off in about half an hour. All right?”

It was certainly all right. Replacing the receiver, Dr. Steiner decided that he would just have time to bathe and change in comfort. He pondered on a choice of tie. The headache unaccountably seemed to have gone. Just before he left the house, the telephone rang. He felt a spasm of apprehension. Perhaps Valda had changed her mind about seeing off the chums and having some time alone together. That, after all, had been a recurring pattern in his marriage. He was irritated to find that the hand reaching for the receiver was not quite steady. But the caller was only Dr. Etherege to say that he was calling an emergency meeting of the Clinic Medical Committee for eight p.m. the following evening. In his relief Dr. Steiner, momentarily forgetting Miss Bolam, just saved himself in time from the folly of asking why.

If Ralfe and Sonia Bostock had lived in Clapham, their flat would have been called a basement. Since, however, it was in Hampstead, half a mile in fact from Dr. Steiner’s house, a small wooden notice, lettered with impeccable taste, directed one to the garden flat. Here they paid nearly twelve pounds a week for a socially acceptable address and the privilege of seeing a green sloping lawn from the sitting-room window. They had planted this lawn with crocuses and daffodils and in spring those plants which managed to bloom in the almost complete lack of sun at least fostered the illusion that the flat had access to a garden. In autumn, however, the view was less agreeable and dampness from the sloping soil seeped into the room. The flat was noisy. There was a nursery school two houses away and a young family in the ground-floor flat.

Ralfe Bostock, dispensing drinks to their carefully selected friends and raising his voice against the wail of bath-time tantrums, would say: “Sorry for the row. I’m afraid the intelligentsia have taken to breeding but not—alas—to controlling their brats.” He was given to malicious remarks, some of which were clever, but he overworked them. His wife lived in constant apprehension that he would make the same witticism twice to the same people. There were few things more fatal to a man’s chances than the reputation for repeating his jokes.

Tonight he was out at a political meeting. She approved of the meeting which might be an important one for him and she did not mind being alone. She wanted time to think. She went into the bedroom and took off her suit, shaking it carefully and hanging it in the wardrobe, then put on a housecoat of brown velvet. Next she sat at her dressing table. Binding a crêpe bandage about her brow she began to cream the makeup from her face. She was more tired than she had realized and needed a drink, but nothing would deter her from her evening ritual. There was much to think about, much to plan. The grey-green eyes, ringed with cream, gazed calmly back at her from the glass. Leaning forward she inspected the delicate folds of skin beneath each eye, watching for the first lines of age. She was only twenty-eight, after all. There was no need to worry yet. But Ralfe was thirty this year. Time was passing. If they were to achieve anything, there was no time to lose.

She considered tactics. The situation would need careful handling and there was no room for mistakes. She had made one already. The temptation to slap Nagle’s face had proved irresistible, but it was still a mistake and possibly a bad one, too like vulgar exhibitionism to be safe. Aspiring administrative officers did not slap a porter’s face even when under strain, particularly if they wanted to create an impression of calm, authoritative competence. She remembered the look on Miss Saxon’s face. Well, Fredrica Saxon was in no position to be censorious. It was a pity that Dr. Steiner was there but it had all happened so quickly that she couldn’t be sure that he had really seen. The Priddy child was of no importance.

Nagle would have to go, of course, once she was appointed. Here, too, she would have to be careful. He was an insolent devil, but the clinic could do much worse and the consultants knew it. An efficient porter made quite a difference to their comfort, especially when he was willing and able to carry out the many small repair jobs that were needed. It wouldn’t be a popular move if they had to wait for someone to come from the group engineer’s department every time a sash cord broke or a fuse needed replacing. Nagle would have to go, but she would put out feelers for a good replacement before taking any action.

The main concern at present must be to get the consultants’ support for her appointment. She could be sure of Dr. Etherege and his was the most powerful voice. But it wasn’t the only one. He would be retiring in six months’ time and his influence would be on the wane. If she were offered an acting appointment, and all went well, the Hospital Management Committee might not be in too much of a hurry to advertise the post. Almost certainly they would wait until the murder was either solved or the police shelved the case. It was up to her to consolidate her position in the intervening months. It wouldn’t do to take anything for granted. When there had been trouble at a unit, committees tended to make an outside appointment. There was safety in bringing in a stranger uncontaminated by the previous upset. The group secretary would be an influence there. It had been a wise move to see him last month and ask his advice about working for the diploma of the Institute of Hospital Administrators. He liked his staff to qualify and, being a man, he was flattered to be asked for advice. But he wasn’t a fool. He didn’t have to be. She was as suitable a candidate as the HMC were likely to find, and he knew it.

She lay back, relaxed, on her single bed, her feet raised on a pillow, her mind busy with the images of success. “My wife is administrative officer of the Steen Clinic.” So much more satisfactory than, “Actually, my wife is working as a secretary at present. The Steen Clinic, as a matter of fact.”

And less than two miles away, in a mortuary in north London, Miss Bolam’s body, tight-packed as a herring in an ice box, stiffened slowly through the autumn night.