Sister

17

Tuesday

At the CPS I squeeze into a lift. Bodies are unwillingly pressed against one another, sweat smelling of burned rubber. Surrounded by people, in the bright light of morning, I know that I will not say anything about the man in the park. Because Mr. Wright would just tell me, correctly, that he’s in prison, refused bail, and that after the trial he’ll be sentenced to life imprisonment, without parole. Rationally, I should know that he can never hurt me again. As the lift reaches the third floor I tell myself sternly that he is not here and never will be, that he is an absence, not a presence, and I must not allow him to become one, even in my imaginings.

So this morning is one of new resolutions. I will not be intimidated by a specter of imagined evil. I will not allow him any power over my mind as he once had over my body. Instead, I will be reassured by Mr. Wright and Mrs. Crush Secretary and all the other people who surround me in this building. I know that my blackouts are still happening, and more frequently, and that my body is getting weaker, but I will not give way to irrational terror nor to my physical frailty. Instead of imagining the frightening and the ugly, I will try to find the beautiful in everyday things, as you did. But most of all, I will think about what you went through—and know, again, that in comparison I have no right to indulge myself in a phantom menace and self-pity. I decide that today it will be me who is the coffee maker. It is nonsense to think that my arms are trembling. Look, I’ve managed to make two cups of coffee—and carry them into Mr. Wright’s office—no problem.

Mr. Wright, a little surprised, thanks me for the coffee. He puts a new cassette into the recorder and we resume.

“We’d got to your talking to Tess’s friends about Simon Greenly and Emilio Codi?” he asks.

“Yes. Then I went back to our flat. Tess had an ancient answering machine that she’d got in a garage sale, I think. But she thought it was fine.”

I’m skirting round the issue, but must get to the point.

“When I came in, I saw a light flashing, indicating the tape was full.”

Still my coat, I played the message, which was just something from a gas company, unimportant. I’d already listened to all the other messages, other people’s one-way conversations with you.

I took off my coat and was about to rewind the tape when I saw it had an A side and a B side. I’d never listened to the B side, so I turned it over. Each message was preceded by a time and date in an electronic voice.

The last message on the B side was on Tuesday, January twenty-first, at 8:20 p.m. Just a few hours after you’d had Xavier.

The sound of a lullaby filled the room. Sweetly vicious.

I try to sound brisk, and a little too loud, wanting my words to drown out the vocal memory in my head.

“It was a professional recording, and I thought whoever had played it must have put the telephone receiver against a CD player.”

Mr. Wright nods; he has already heard the recording, though unlike me, he probably doesn’t know it by heart.

“I knew from Amias that she felt threatened by the calls,” I continue. “That she was afraid of whoever was doing this, so I knew he must have done it many times, but only one was recorded.”

No wonder your phone was unplugged when I arrived at your flat. You couldn’t bear to listen to any more.

“You phoned the police straightaway?” asks Mr. Wright.

“Yes. I left a message on DS Finborough’s voice mail. I told him about Simon’s fake project and that I’d also discovered a reason why Emilio would have waited till after the baby was born to kill Tess. I said I thought there might be something wrong with the CF trial because the women were paid and Tess’s medical notes had gone missing, although I thought it unlikely there was a link. I said I thought the lullabies were the key to it. That if they could find out who had played her the lullabies, they’d find her killer. It wasn’t the most moderate or calm of messages. But I’d just listened to the lullaby. I didn’t feel moderate or calm.”

After I’d left my message for DS Finborough, I went to St. Anne’s. My anger and upset were visceral, needing physical release. I went to the psychiatric department where Dr. Nichols was having an outpatient clinic. I found his name written on a card pinned to a door and pushed past a patient who was about to go in. Behind me, I heard the receptionist remonstrating but took no notice.

Dr. Nichols looked at me, startled.

“There was a lullaby on her answering machine,” I said. Then I started singing the lullaby, “Sleep, baby, sleep / Your father tends the sheep / Your mother shakes the dreamland tree / And from it fall sweet dreams for thee / Sleep, baby, sleep.”

“Beatrice, please—”

I interrupted. “She heard it the evening she got back from the hospital. Only a few hours after her baby had died. God knows how many more times he played her lullabies. The phone calls weren’t ‘auditory hallucinations.’ Someone was mentally torturing her.”

Dr. Nichols, looking at me shocked, was silent.

“She wasn’t mad but someone was trying to drive her mad or make everyone think she was mad.”

His voice sounded shaken. “Poor girl, the lullabies must have been appalling for her. But are you sure they were intentionally cruel? Do you think they may have just been a terrible blunder by one of her friends who didn’t know her baby had died?”

I thought how convenient that would be for him.

“No, I don’t think that.”

He turned away from me. He was wearing a white coat this time, but it was crumpled and a little stained, and he seemed even more scruffily hopeless.

“Why didn’t you just listen to her? Ask her more?”

“On the only occasion I met her, my clinic was overbooked as usual, with emergencies just added with no more time allocated, and I had to get through them, keep down waiting times.” I looked at him, but he didn’t meet my eye. “I should have taken longer with her. I’m sorry.”

“You knew about the PCP?”

“Yes. The police told me. But not until after our last meeting. I told them it would cause hallucinations, probably terrifying hallucinations. And it would be especially potent given Tess’s grief. The literature says that users frequently harm themselves. The lullabies must have been the final straw.”

There was no dog in his NHS consulting room, but I could sense how much he wanted to reach out and stroke a reassuring silky ear.

“It would account for why she changed that morning from when I saw her to being suicidal,” he continued. “She must have heard one of the lullabies, maybe taken some PCP too, and the combination—” He stopped as he saw the expression on my face. “You think I’m trying to make excuses for myself?”

I was surprised by his first intuitive remark.

“But there aren’t any excuses,” he continued. “She was clearly having visual hallucinations. And whether that was from psychosis or PCP isn’t the point. I missed it. Whatever the cause—psychosis or a drug—she was a danger to herself and I didn’t protect her as I should have done.”

As in our first meeting, I heard shame seeping out of his words.

I’d come to vent my rage but there seemed little point now. He seemed to be already punishing himself. And he wasn’t going to change his opinion. The door swung open and a receptionist with a male nurse bustled in and seemed surprised by the silence in the room.

I closed the door behind me. There was nothing left to say to him.

I walked hurriedly down a corridor, as if I could outpace the thoughts that were stalking me because now I had no purpose to distract me; I could only think about you listening to the lullaby.

“Beatrice?”

I’d virtually stumbled into Dr. Saunders. Only then did I realize that I was crying, my eyes streaming, nose running, a sodden handkerchief in my hand.

“She was mentally tortured before she was murdered. She was framed for her own suicide.”

Without asking questions, he gave me a hug. His arms around me felt strong but not safe. I’d always found physical intimacy unsettling, even with family, let alone a near stranger, so I was more anxious than reassured. But he seemed quite used to holding distressed women, totally at ease with it.

“Can I ask you for coffee again?”

I agreed, because I wanted to ask him about Dr. Nichols. I wanted to get proof that he was incompetent and that the police should rethink everything he’d told them. And partly too, because when I’d spilled out about your being mentally tortured, he’d taken it in his stride, not showing any sign of incredulity, and had joined Amias and Christina in the very small band of people who didn’t dismiss me out of hand.

We sat at a table in the middle of the bustling café. He looked directly at me, giving me his full attention. I remembered our staring competitions.

“Just look into the pupils, Bee, that’s the trick.”

But I still couldn’t. Not when the eyes belonged to a beautiful man. Not even in these circumstances.

“Dr. Saunders, do you—”

He interrupted. “William, please. I’ve never been good at formalities. I blame my parents for sending me to a progressive school. The first time I ever put on a uniform was when I got a white coat for this job.” He smiled. “Also, I have a habit of volunteering more information than I was asked for. I interrupted—you wanted to ask me something?”

“Yes, do you know Dr. Nichols?”

“I used to. We were on a Senior House Officer rotation together many years ago and we’ve stayed friends, although I don’t see much of him nowadays. Can I ask why?”

“He was Tess’s psychiatrist. I want to know if he’s incompetent.”

“No is the short answer to that. Although you think otherwise?”

He waited for me to answer, but I wanted to get information, not give it, and he seemed to understand that.

“I know Hugo comes across as a little shambolic,” William continued. “Those tweedy clothes and that ancient dog of his, but he is good at his job. If something went wrong with your sister’s care, then it’s far more likely to be down to the pitiful state of mental health funding in the NHS rather than Hugo.”

Again, he reminded me of you, looking at the best in people, and as so often with you, I must have looked skeptical.

“He was a research fellow before becoming a hands-on doctor,” William continued. “The rising star of the university, apparently. Rumor had it that he was brilliant—destined for greatness and all of that.”

I was taken aback by this description of Dr. Nichols; it didn’t tally with the man I’d met at all; nothing about Dr. Nichols had suggested this.

William went to get milk from the counter and I wondered if Dr. Nichols had played me. Had the dog and the scruffy clothes at our first meeting been carefully constructed to present a certain image, which I had unwittingly bought? But why would he go to that much trouble? Be that deceitful? Manipulative? Used now to suspecting everyone I encountered, distrust felt familiar. But I couldn’t sustain my suspicion of him. He was just too decent and scruffily hopeless to be connected to violence. The rumor of his brilliance was surely wrong. In any case, he met you only after you had Xavier, and then only once, so unless he was a psychopath, what possible reason could he have for murdering you?

William came back with the milk. I wanted to confide in him; it would have been a relief to share what I knew, but instead I stirred my coffee, and saw my ring. I should have given it back to Todd.

William must have noticed it too. “Quite a rock.”

“Yes. Actually, I’m not engaged anymore.”

“So why are you wearing it?”

“I forgot to take it off.”

He burst out laughing, reminding me of the way you laugh at me, with kindness. No one but you ever teases me that way.

His pager went off and he grimaced. “Usually I have twenty minutes to get to the emergency. But the juniors on today need more hand-holding.”

As he got up, his gold wedding ring, hanging on a chain around his neck, swung out from beneath his scrubs top. Maybe I signaled more than I intended.

“My wife’s in Portsmouth—a radiologist,” he said. “It’s not easy finding jobs in the same city let alone the same hospital.” He tucked the ring on its chain back inside his top. “We’re not allowed to wear a ring on a finger—too many germs can fester underneath. Rather symbolic, don’t you think?”

I nodded, surprised. I felt that he was treating me differently than I’d been treated before. And I was suddenly conscious that my clothes were a little crumpled, my hair not blow-dried, my face bare of makeup. No one from my life in New York would have recognized me as I furiously sang the lullaby in Dr. Nichols’s consulting room. I wasn’t the slickly presented, self-controlled person I’d been in the States, and I wondered if that encouraged other people to let the untidy aspects of themselves and their lives show in return.

As I watched William leave the café, I wondered, as I still do now, if I’d been wanting to meet someone who reminded me of you, even a little bit. And I wondered if it was hope that made me see a likeness to you, or if it was really there.

I have told Mr. Wright about my visit to Dr. Nichols, followed by my conversation with William.

“Who did you think had played her the lullabies?” Mr. Wright asks.

“I didn’t know. I thought that Simon was capable of it. And Emilio. I couldn’t imagine Professor Rosen knowing enough about a young woman to torture her like that. But I’d got him wrong before.”

“And Dr. Nichols?”

“He’d know how to mentally torture someone. His job guaranteed that. But he didn’t seem in the least cruel or sadistic. And he had no reason to.”

“You questioned your opinion of Professor Rosen but not Dr. Nichols?”

“Yes.”

Mr. Wright looks as if he’s about to ask me another question, then decides against it. Instead he makes a note.

“And later that day Detective Inspector Haines phoned you back?” he asks.

“Yes. He introduced himself as DS Finborough’s boss. I thought, to start with, it was a good thing that someone more senior was calling me back.”

DI Haines’s voice boomed down the telephone; a man used to making a noisy room listen to him.

“I have sympathy for you, Miss Hemming, but you can’t simply go around indiscriminately blaming people. I gave you the benefit of the doubt when Mr. Codi lodged his complaint, out of sympathy for your loss, but you have used up your quota of my patience. And I have to make this clear—you cannot continue crying wolf.”

“I’m not crying wolf, I—”

“No,” he interrupted. “You’re crying several wolves all at once, not sure if any of them are actually wolves at all.” He almost chortled at his own witticism. “But the coroner has reached a verdict about your sister’s death based on the facts. However unpalatable the truth is for you—and I do understand that it is hard for you—the truth is she committed suicide and no one else is responsible for her death.”

I don’t suppose the police service recruits people like DI Haines anymore: superior, patriarchal, patronizing toward other people and unquestioning of himself.

I struggled to sound self-possessed, not to be the irrational woman he thought me. “But surely with the lullabies you can see that someone was trying to—”

He interrupted. “We already knew about the lullaby, Miss Hemming.”

I was completely thrown. DI Haines continued, “When your sister went missing, her upstairs neighbor, an elderly gentleman, let us into her flat. One of my officers checked to see if there was anything that might help us find her whereabouts. He listened to all the messages on her answering machine tape. We didn’t think the lullaby was sinister in any way.”

“But there must have been more than one lullaby, even though only one was recorded. That’s why she was scared of the phone calls. That’s why she unplugged the phone. And Amias said there were calls, plural.”

“He is an elderly gentleman who readily admits that his memory is no longer perfect.”

I was still trying to seem composed. “But didn’t you find even one strange?”

“No more strange than having a wardrobe in the sitting room or having expensive oil paints but no kettle.”

“Is that why you didn’t tell me before? Because you didn’t think the lullaby was sinister or even strange?”

“Exactly.”

I turned the phone on to speaker and put it down, so he wouldn’t realize that my hands were shaking.

“But surely together with the PCP found in her body, the lullabies show that someone was mentally torturing her?”

His booming voice on speakerphone filled the flat. “Don’t you think it far more likely that it was a friend who didn’t realize that she’d already had the baby and was unintentionally tactless?”

“Did Dr. Nichols tell you that?”

“He didn’t need to. It’s the logical conclusion. Especially as the baby wasn’t due for another three weeks.”

I couldn’t stop the shake in my voice.

“So why did you phone me? If you already knew about the lullabies but had dismissed them?”

“You phoned us, Miss Hemming. As a courtesy I am returning your call.”

“The light is better in her bedroom. That’s why she moved the wardrobe out, so she could use the bedroom as a studio.”

But he had already hung up.

Since living there, I understand.

“And a week after you heard the lullaby it was the college’s art show?” asks Mr. Wright.

“Yes. Tess’s friends had invited me. Simon and Emilio were bound to be there, so I knew I had to go.”

And I think it’s appropriate that it was at the college’s art show—with your wonderful paintings on display, your spirit and love of life visible to everyone—that I finally found the avenue that would lead me to your murderer.