Shroud for a Nightingale

VI

It was after eleven o’clock when Dalgliesh turned the key in his desk drawer, locked the office behind him and let himself out of the side door of Nightingale House to walk back to Falconer’s Arms. At the turn of the path where it narrowed before losing itself in the dark shadows of the trees, he looked back at the gaunt pile of the house, enormous and sinister, with its four turrets black against the night sky. The house was in almost total darkness. There was only one lighted window and it took him a minute to identify the room. So Mary Taylor was in her bedroom but not yet asleep. The light was merely a faint glow, perhaps from a bedside lamp, and as he watched it went out.

He made his way towards the Winchester Gate. The trees here were very close to the path. Their black boughs arched over his head shutting out the faint light from the nearest lamp. For about fifty yards he walked in absolute darkness, treading swiftly and silently over the mush of dead leaves. He was in that state of physical tiredness when the mind and body seem detached, the body, conditioned to reality, moving half consciously in the familiar physical world, while the liberated mind swings into uncontrolled orbit in which fantasy and fact show an equally ambiguous face. Dalgliesh was surprised that he was so tired. This job was no more arduous than any other. He was working long hours, but then a sixteen-hour day was normal for him when he was on a case. And this extraordinary weariness wasn’t the exhaustion of frustration or failure. The case would break by tomorrow morning. Later tonight Masterson would be back with another piece of the jigsaw and the picture would be complete. In two days at the latest he would have left Nightingale House. In two days’ time he would have seen the last of that gold and white room in the south-west turret.

Moving like an automaton he heard, too late, the sudden muted footfall at his back. Instinctively, he threw himself round to face his adversary and felt the blow glance from his left temple to his shoulder. There was no pain, only a crack as if his whole cranium had split, a numbness of his left arm, and after a second which seemed an eternity, the warm, almost comforting, gush of blood. He gave one gasp and crumpled forward. But he was still conscious. Blinded by blood and fighting against nausea, he tried to rise, feeling for the earth with both hands, willing himself to get up and fight But his feet scrabbled ineffectively in the moist earth and there was no strength in his arms. His eyes were blinded by his own blood. The suffocating smell of damp humus pressed against his nose and mouth, pungent as an anesthetic. He lay there, helplessly retching, waking pain with every spasm, and waited in angry impotence for the final annihilating blow.

But nothing happened. He sank, unresisting, into unconsciousness. A few seconds later he was recalled to reality by a hand gently shaking his shoulder. Someone was bending over him. He heard a woman’s voice.

“It’s me. What’s ‘appened? Somebody cosh yer?”

It was Morag Smith. He struggled to answer, to warn her to get away quickly. The two of them would be no match for a determined killer. But his voice seemed incapable of forming words. He was aware that somewhere very close a man was groaning, then realized with bitter humor, that the voice was his. He seemed to have no control over it He was aware of hands moving around his head. Then she shuddered like a child.

“Ugh! Yer all over blood!”

Again he tried to talk. She bent her head nearer. He could see the dark strands of hair and the white face hovering in front of him. He straggled to rise and this time managed to get to his knees.

“Did you see him?”

“Not really-‘e ’eard me coming through. Made off towards Nightingale ‘ouse. Blimey, you don’t ’alf look a bloody mess, ”ere, lean on me.“

“No. Leave me and get help. He may be back.”

“Not ‘im. Anyway, we’re better together. I don’t fancy going it alone. Ghosts is one thing, bloody murderers is another. Come on, I’ll give yer a ’and.”

He could feel the sharp bones in her thin shoulders, but the fragile body was remarkably wiry and she stood his weight well He forced himself to his feet and stood there swaying. He asked:

“Man or woman?”

“Didn’t see. Could’ve been either. Never mind about that now. Think yer can make it to Nightingale ‘ouse? That’d be the nearest.”

Dalgliesh felt remarkably better now that he was on his legs. He could scarcely see the path but he took a few tentative steps forward, his hand supported by her shoulder.

“I think so. The back door would be the nearest It cant be more than fifty yards. Ring the bell of Matron’s flat I know she’s there.”

Together they shuffled slowly along the path obliterating, as Dalgliesh realized bitterly, any footprints as he might have otherwise have hoped to find next morning. Not that these sodden leaves would yield many clues. He wondered what had happened to the weapon. But this was pointless speculation. He could do nothing until it was light He felt a wave of gratitude and affection for the tough little person whose brittle arm lay weightless as a child’s around his hip. We must look an odd pair, he thought He said:

“You probably saved my life, Morag. He only ran off because he heard you coming.”

He, or was it she? If only Morag had been in time to glimpse whether it were a man or a woman. He could scarcely catch her reply.

“Don’t talk bloody daft.”

He heard, without surprise, that she was crying. She made no attempt to suppress or check her sobbing and it didn’t impede their progress. Perhaps, to Morag, crying was almost as natural as walking. He made no effort to comfort her except to press on her shoulders. She took that as a plea for more support and tightened her arm around his hips, leaning against him, helping him on his way. And thus incongruously entwined they passed under the shadows of the trees.