The Black Tower

CHAPTER SIX A Bloodless Murder

THE NEXT AFTERNOON, on the last day of her life, Grace Willison sat in the courtyard in the afternoon sun. Its rays were still warm on her face but now they touched her parched skin with a gentler valedictory warmth. From time to time a cloud moved across the face of the sun and she found herself shivering with the first intimation of winter. The air smelt keener, the afternoons were darkening fast. There wouldn’t be many more days warm enough or her to sit outside. Even today she was the only patient in the courtyard and she was grateful for the warmth of the rug across her knees.

She found herself thinking about Commander Dalgliesh. She wished that he had come more often to Toynton Grange. He was still at Hope Cottage apparently. Yesterday he had helped Julius rescue Wilfred from the fire in the black tower. Wilfred had bravely made light of his ordeal as one would expect. It had only been a small fire caused entirely by his own carelessness; he had never been in real danger. But, all the same, she thought, it was fortunate that the Commander had been at hand to help.

Would he leave Toynton, she wondered, without coming to say goodbye to her? She hoped not. She had liked him so much in their brief time together. How pleasant it would be if he could be sitting here with her now, talking about Father Baddeley. No one at Toynton Grange now ever mentioned his name. But, of course, the Commander couldn’t be expected to give up his time.

The thought was entirely without bitterness or resentment. There really wasn’t anything to interest him at Toynton Grange. And it wasn’t as if she could issue a personal invitation. She allowed herself for one minute to indulge in regret for the retirement which she had hoped for and planned. Her small pension from the Society, a little cottage, sun filled and bright with chintz and geraniums; her dear mother’s possessions, the ones she had sold before she came to Toynton; the rose-patterned tea service; the rosewood writing table; the series of water colours of English cathedrals; how lovely to be able to invite anyone she liked to her own home to take tea with her. Not a communal institutional tea at a bleak refectory table, but proper afternoon tea. Her table; her tea service; her food; her guest.

She became aware of the weight of the book on her lap. It was a paperback edition of Trollope’s Last Chronicle of Barset. It had lain there all the afternoon. Why, she wondered, was she so strangely reluctant to read it? And then she remembered. This had been the book she was rereading on that dreadful afternoon when Victor’s body had been brought home. She hadn’t opened it since. But that was ridiculous. She must put the thought out of her mind. It was stupid, no, it was wrong, to spoil a book she so loved—its leisurely world of cathedral intrigue, its sanity, its delicate moral sensibility—by contaminating it with images of violence, hatred and blood.

She curved her deformed left hand around the book and parted the pages with her right. There was a book mark between the last pages she had read, a single pink antirrhinum pressed between a sheet of tissue. And then she remembered. It was a flower from the small posy Father Baddeley had brought her on the afternoon of Victor’s death. Normally he never picked wild flowers except for her. They hadn’t lasted long, less than a day. But this single flower she had pressed at once between the leaves of her book. She gazed at it, motionless.

A shadow fell across the page. A voice said:

“Anything wrong?”

She looked up and smiled.

“Nothing. It’s just that I’ve remembered something. Isn’t it extraordinary how the mind rejects anything which it associates with horror or great distress? Commander Dalgliesh asked me if I knew what Father Baddeley did on the few days before he went into hospital. And, of course, I do know. I know what he did on the Wednesday afternoon. I don’t suppose it’s the least important, but it would be nice to tell him. I know that everyone here is terribly busy but do you think that …?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll find time to drop in at Hope Cottage. It’s time he showed his face here if he proposes to stay on much longer. And now, don’t you think it would be wise for you to come in? It’s getting chilly.”

Miss Willison smiled her thanks. She would have preferred to have stayed out a little longer. But she didn’t like to insist. It was meant kindly. She closed her book again and her murderer grasped the chair with strong hands and wheeled her in to her death.

Ursula Hollis always asked her nurses to leave her curtains undrawn and tonight in the faint haze of light from her luminous bedside clock, she could still just discern the oblong frame which separated darkness outside from the darkness within. It was nearly midnight. The night was starless and very still. She lay in blackness so thick that it was almost a weight on her chest, a dense curtain descending to stifle breath. Outside, the headland was asleep, except, she supposed, for the small animals of the night scurrying among the rigid grasses. Inside Toynton Grange she could still hear distant sounds; brisk footsteps passing down a passage; the quiet closing of a door; the squeak of unoiled wheels as someone moved a hoist or a wheelchair; the mouselike scrabbling sounds from next door as Grace Willison moved restlessly in her bed; a sudden blare of music, instantly muted, as someone opened and shut the sitting room door. Her bedside clock snatched at the seconds and ticked them into oblivion. She lay rigid, the warm tears flowing in a constant stream over her face to seep, suddenly cold and sticky, into her pillow. Under the pillow was Steve’s letter. From time to time she folded her right arm painfully across her chest and insinuated her fingers under the pillow to feel the envelope’s knife sharp edge.

Mogg had moved into the flat; they were living together. Steve had written the news almost casually as if it were merely a temporary and mutually convenient arrangement for sharing the rent and the chores. Mogg was doing the cooking; Mogg had redecorated the sitting room and put up more shelves; Mogg had found him a clerical job with his publishers which might lead to a permanent and better post. Mogg’s new book of poems were due out in the spring. There was only a perfunctory enquiry after Ursula’s health. He hadn’t even made the usual vague and insincere promises to visit. He had written no word about her return home, the planned new flat, his negotiations with the local authority. There was no need. She never would return. They both knew it. Mogg knew it.

She hadn’t received the letter until teatime. Albert Philby had been unaccountably late in fetching the post and it was after four o’clock before it was placed in her hand. She was grateful that she had been alone in the sitting-room, that Grace Willison hadn’t yet come in from the courtyard to get ready for tea. There had been no one to watch her face as she read it, no one to make tactful enquiries, or, more tactfully, to refrain. And anger and shock had carried her through until now. She had held on to anger, feeding it with memory and imagination, willing herself to eat her usual two slices of bread, to drink her tea, to contribute her sentences of platitude and small talk to the party. Only now, when Grace Willison’s heavy breathing had settled into a gentle snoring, when there was no longer a risk that Helen or Dot might pay a last visit, when Toynton Grange was finally wrapping itself in silence for the night, could she give way to desolation and loss and indulge in what she knew was self-pity. And the tears, when once they started, would not stop. The grief once indulged was unassuageable. She had no control over her crying. It no longer even distressed her; it had nothing to do with grief or longing. It was a physical manifestation, involuntary as a hiccup, but silent and almost consoling; an interminable stream.

She knew what she had to do. She listened through the rhythm of her tears. There was no sound from next door except Grace Willison’s snoring which was now regular. She put out her hand and switched on the light. The bulb had the lowest wattage which Wilfred could buy but the brightness was still blinding. She imagined it, a dazzling oblong of light shining out to signal her intention to all the world. She knew that there was no one to see it, but in imagination the headland was suddenly full of running feet and loud with calling voices. She had stopped crying now but her swollen eyes saw the room as if it were a half-developed photograph, an image of bleared and distorted shapes, shifting and dissolving and seen through a stinging curtain pierced with needles of light.

She waited. Nothing happened. There was still no sound from next door but Grace’s harsh and regular breathing. The next step was easy; she had done it twice before. She dropped both her pillows on the floor and, manoeuvring her body to the edge of the bed, let herself drop gently on top of their soft cushion. Even with the pillows to break her weight it seemed that the room shook. Again she waited. But there were no quick footsteps hurrying down the passage. She raised herself upwards on the pillows against the bed and began propelling herself towards its foot. It was an easy matter to stretch out her hand and withdraw the cord from her dressing gown. Then she began her painful progress towards the door.

Her legs were powerless; what strength she had was in her arms. Her dead feet lay white and flabby as fish on the cold floor, the toes splayed like obscene excrescences vainly scrabbling for a grip. The linoleum was unpolished but smooth and she slid along with surprising speed. She remembered with what joy she had discovered that she could do this; that, ridiculous and humiliating as the trick might be, she could actually move around her room without the use of her chair.

But now she was going farther afield. It was lucky that the modern insubstantial doors of the annexe rooms were opened by depressing a handle and not turning a knob. She made the dressing gown cord into a loop and, at the second attempt, managed to throw it over the handle. She tugged and the door quietly opened. Discarding one of the pillows, she edged her way into the silent passage. Her heart was thudding with such power it must surely betray her. Again she slipped the cord over the handle and, manoeuvring herself a few feet down the passage, heard the door click shut.

One single light-bulb, heavily shaded, was always kept burning at the far end of the corridor and she could see without difficulty where the short staircase led to the upper floor. This was her objective. Reaching it proved astonishingly easy. The linoleum in the passage, although never polished, seemed smoother than that in her room; or perhaps she had gained the knack of progress. She slid forward with almost exhilarating ease.

But the staircase was more difficult. She was relying on pulling herself up by the banister, step by step. But it was necessary to take the pillow with her. She would need it on the floor above. And the pillow seemed to have swollen into a gigantic, soft, white encumbrance. The stairs were narrow and it was difficult to prop it safely. Twice it tumbled down and she had to slide after it to retrieve it. But after four steps had been painfully negotiated she worked out the best method of progress. She tied one end of the dressing gown cord around her waist and the other tightly round the middle of the pillow. She wished she had put on the dressing gown. It would have hampered her progress, but she was already shivering.

And so, step by step, gasping and sweating despite the cold, she pulled herself up, grasping the banisters with both hands. The stairs creaked alarmingly. She expected any minute to hear the faint summons of a bedside bell and hear from the distance Dot or Helen’s hurrying footsteps.

She had no idea how long it took to reach the top of the stairs. But at last she was sitting crouched and shivering on the final step, grasping the banisters with both hands so convulsively that the wood shook, and peering down at the hall below. It was then that the cloaked figure appeared. There were no warning footsteps, no cough, no sound of human breath. One second the passage was empty. In the next a brown cloaked figure—head bent, hood drawn well over the face—had moved silently and swiftly beneath her, and disappeared down the passage. She waited terrified, hardly daring to breathe, huddling herself as far as possible out of view. It would come back. She knew that it would come back. Like the dreadful figure of death which she had seen in old books, carved on monumental tombs, it would pause beneath her and throw back the concealing hood to reveal the grinning skull, the eyeless sockets, would poke at her through the banister its fleshless fingers. Her heart, beating in icy terror against the rib cage, seemed to have grown too large for her body. Surely its frantic thudding must betray her! It seemed an eternity, but she realized that it could only have been less than a minute before the figure reappeared and passed, beneath her terrified eyes, silently and swiftly into the main house.

Ursula realized then that she wasn’t going to kill herself. It had only been Dot, or Helen, or Wilfred. Who else could it have been? But the shock of that silent figure, passing like a shadow, had restored in her the will to live. If she had really wanted to die, what was she doing here crouched in cold discomfort at the top of the stairs? She had her dressing gown cord. Even now she could tie it round her neck and let herself slip unresisting down the stairs. But she wouldn’t. The very thought of that last fall, the strangling cord biting into her neck, made her moan in agonized protest. No, she had never meant to kill herself. No one, not even Steve, was worth an eternity of damnation. Steve might not believe in Hell, but what did Steve really know about anything that mattered? But she had to complete her journey now. She had to get hold of that bottle of aspirin which she knew must be somewhere in the clinical room. She wouldn’t use it, but she would keep it always within reach. She would know that, if life became intolerable, the means to end it was at hand. And perhaps, if she just took a handful, and left the bottle by the bed they would realize at last that she was unhappy. That was all she intended; all she had ever intended. They would send for Steve. They would take some notice of her misery. Perhaps they might even force Steve to take her back to London. Having come so far at such cost, she had to get to the clinical room.

The door presented no problem. But when she had sidled through, she realized that this was the end. She couldn’t switch on the light. The low bulb in the corridor gave a faint diffused glow but, even with the door of the clinical room ajar, it was inadequate to show her the position of the light. And if she were to succeed in switching it on with the dressing gown cord, she had to know accurately at what spot to aim. She stretched out her hand and felt along the wall. Nothing. She held the cord in a loop and flung it softly and repeatedly where she thought the switch might be. But it fell away uselessly. She began to cry again, defeated, desperately cold, suddenly realizing that she had the whole painful journey to do again in reverse, and that dragging herself back into bed would be the most difficult and painful of all.

And then, suddenly, a hand stretched out of the darkness and the light was switched on. Ursula gave a little scream of fright. She looked up. Framed in the doorway, wearing a brown habit open down the front and with the hood flung back was Helen Rainer. The two women, petrified, stared at each other speechlessly. And Ursula saw that the eyes bent on hers were as full of terror as her own.

Grace Willison’s body jerked into wakefulness and immediately began to tremble uncontrollably as if a strong hand were shaking her into full consciousness. She listened in the darkness, raising her head with difficulty from the pillow; but she could hear nothing. Whatever noise, real or imagined, had woken her was now stilled. She switched on her bedside lamp; nearly midnight. She reached for her book. It was a pity that the paperback Trollope was so heavy. It meant that it had to be propped up on the coverlet and since, once stretched into her conventional attitude for sleep she couldn’t easily bend her knees, the effort of slightly raising her head and peering down at the small print was tiring both to her eyes and to the muscles of her neck. The discomfort sometimes made her wonder whether reading in bed was the pleasant indulgence she had always believed it to be since those childhood days when her father’s parsimony over the electricity bill and her mother’s anxiety about eye strain and eight hours good sleep each night, had denied her a bedside lamp.

Her left leg was jerking uncontrollably and she watched, detached and interested the erratic jump of the coverlet as if an animal were loose among the bed clothes. To wake suddenly like this once she had first fallen asleep was always a bad sign. She was in for a restless night. She dreaded sleeplessness and for a moment was tempted to pray that she might be spared it just for tonight. But she had finished her prayers and it seemed pointless to pray again for a mercy which experience had taught her she wasn’t going to receive. Pleading to God for something which he had already made it perfectly plain he wasn’t disposed to give you was to behave like a peevish, importunate child. She watched her limb’s antics with interest, vaguely comforted by the sensation which was now almost self-induced of being detached from her unruly body.

She lay down her book and decided instead to think about the pilgrimage to Lourdes in fourteen days’ time. She pictured the happy bustle of departure—she had a new coat saved for the occasion—the drive across France with the party gay as a picnic; the first glimpse of the mists swirling around the foothills of the Pyrenees; the snow-capped peaks; Lourdes itself with its concentrated business, its air of being always en fête. The Toynton Grange party, except for the two Roman Catholics, Ursula Hollis and Georgie Allan, were not part of an official English pilgrimage, did not take Mass, grouped themselves with becoming humility at the back of the crowd when the bishops in their crimson robes made their slow way round Rosary Square, the golden monstrance held high before them. But how inspiring, how colourful, how splendid it all was! The candles weaving their patterns of light, the colours, the singing, the sense of belonging again to the outside world but a world in which sickness was honoured, no longer regarded as an alienation, a deformity of the spirit as well as the body. Only thirteen more days now. She wondered what her father, implacably Protestant, would have said about this keenly awaited pleasure. But she had consulted Father Baddeley about the propriety of going on pilgrimage and his advice had been very clear. “My dear child, you enjoy the change and the journey, and why not? And surely no one could believe themselves harmed by a visit to Lourdes. By all means help Wilfred to celebrate his bargain with the Almighty.”

She thought about Father Baddeley. It was still difficult to accept that she wouldn’t ever again be talking with him in the patients’ courtyard or praying with him in the quiet room. Dead; an inert, neutral, unattractive word. Short, uncompromising, a lump of a word. The same word, come to think of it, for a plant, an animal or a man. That was an interesting thought. One would have expected a distinctive, more impressive or momentous word for the death of a man. But why? He was only part of the same creation, sharing its universal life, dependent on the same air. Dead. She had hoped to be able to feel that Father Baddeley was close to her; but it hadn’t happened, it just wasn’t true. They are all gone into the world of light. Well, gone away; not interested any more in the living.

She ought to put out her light; electricity was expensive; if she didn’t intend to read it was her duty to lie in the darkness. Lighten our darkness; her mother had always liked that collect; and by Thy great mercy defend us from all the perils and dangers of this night. Only there was no peril here, only sleeplessness and pain; the familiar pain to be tolerated, almost welcomed as an old acquaintance because she knew that she could cope with the worst it could do; and this new frightening pain which, sometime soon, she would have to worry someone about.

The curtain trembled in the breeze. She heard a sudden click, unnaturally loud, so that for a second her heart thudded. There was a rasp of metal on wood. Maggie hadn’t checked the window fastening before bedding her down for the night. It was too late now. Her chair was at the side of the bed but she couldn’t get into it without help. But all would be well unless it were a stormy night. And she was perfectly safe, no one would climb in. There was nothing at Toynton Grange to steal. And beyond that fluttering curtain of white, nothing; nothing but a black void, dark cliffs stretching to the unsleeping sea.

The curtain billowed, bursting into a white sail, a curve of light. She exclaimed at the beauty of it. Cool air streamed across her face. She turned her eyes to the door and smiled a welcome. She began to say:

“The window—would you be good enough …?”

But she didn’t finish. There were three seconds only left to her of earthly time. She saw the cloaked figure, hood well down obscuring the face, moving swiftly towards her on silent feet like an apparition, familiar but horribly different, ministering hands that held death, blackness bearing down on her. Unresisting, since that was her nature and how could she resist, she did not die ungently, feeling at the last through the thin veil of plastic only the strong, warm, oddly comforting lineaments of a human hand. Then the hand reached out and delicately, without touching the wooden stand, switched off the bedside lamp. Two seconds later the light was switched on again, and, as if by afterthought, the cloaked figure stretched out a hand for the Trollope, gently rustled the pages, found the pressed flower between the fold of tissue, and crumpled them both with strong fingers. Then the hand reached out for the lamp again and the light went out for the last time.

At last they were back in Ursula’s room. Helen Rainer closed the door with quiet firmness and leaned back momentarily against it as if exhausted. Then she went quickly over to the window and swept the curtains across in two swift gestures. Her heavy breathing filled the little room. It had been a difficult journey. Helen had left her in the clinical room briefly while she positioned Ursula’s wheelchair at the foot of the stairs. Once they reached it all would be well. Even if they were seen together in the ground-floor corridor it would be assumed that Ursula had rung her night bell and was being helped to the bathroom. The stairs were the problem and the descent, with Helen half-supporting, half-carrying her, had been exhausting and noisy, five long minutes of laboured breathing, creaking banisters, hissed instructions, of Ursula’s half-stifled moans of pain. It seemed now like a miracle that no one had appeared in the hall. It would have been quicker and easier to have moved into the main part of the Grange and used the lift, but the clanging metal grill and the noisy engine would have woken half the house.

But at last they were safely back and Helen, white faced but calm, pulled herself together and moved away from the door and began with professional competence to put Ursula to bed. Neither spoke until the task was completed and Ursula lay in rigid half-fearful silence.

Helen bent her face close to Ursula’s, unpleasantly close. In the glare of the bedside lamp she could see the features magnified, coarsened, pores like miniature craters, two unplucked hairs standing like bristles at the corner of the mouth. Her breath smelt slightly sour. Odd, thought Ursula, that she hadn’t noticed it before. The green eyes seemed to grow and protrude as she hissed her instructions, her dreadful warning.

“When the next patient goes, he’ll have to start admitting from the waiting list or give in. He can’t run this place on less than six patients. I’ve taken a look at the books when he’s left them about in the business room and I know. He’ll either sell out completely or hand over to the Ridgewell Trust. If you want to get out of here there are better ways than killing yourself. Help me to ensure that he sells out, and get back to London.”

“But how?”

Ursula found herself whispering back like a conspirator.

“He’ll hold what he calls a family council. He always does when there’s something important affecting all the household to decide. We all give our views. Then we go away to meditate in silence for one hour. Then we all vote. Don’t let anyone persuade you to vote for the Ridgewell Trust. That way you’ll be trapped here for life. It’s hard enough for local authorities to find a place for the young chronic sick. Once they know you’re being looked after, they’ll never transfer you.”

“But if the Grange does close down, will they really send me home?”

“They’ll have to, back to London anyway. That’s still your permanent address. You’re the responsibility of your own local authority, not of Dorset. And once back, at least you’ll see him. He could visit you, take you out, you could go home for weekend leaves. Besides, the disease isn’t really advanced yet. I don’t see why you shouldn’t manage together in one of those flats for disabled couples. After all he is married to you. He’s got responsibilities, duties.”

Ursula tried to explain:

“I don’t mind about responsibilities and duties. I want him to love me.”

Helen had laughed, a coarse, uncomfortable sound.

“Love. Is that all? Isn’t that what we all want? Well, he can’t stay in love with someone he never sees, can he? It doesn’t work like that with men. You’ve got to get back to him.”

“And you won’t tell?”

“Not if you promise.”

“To vote your way?”

“And to keep your mouth shut about trying to kill yourself, about everything that’s happened here tonight. If anyone mentions hearing a noise in the night, you rang for me and I was taking you to the lavatory. If Wilfred discovers the truth he’ll send you to a mental hospital. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

No, she wouldn’t want that. Helen was right. She had to get home. How simple it all was. She felt suddenly filled with gratitude, and struggled to hold out her arms towards Helen. But Helen had moved away. Firm hands were tucking in the bed clothes, rocking the mattress. The sheets were drawn taut. She felt imprisoned, but secure, a baby swaddled for the night. Helen stretched out her hand to the light. In the darkness a white blur moved towards the door. Ursula heard the soft click of the latch.

Lying there alone exhausted but strangely comforted she remembered that she hadn’t told Helen about the cloaked figure. But it could be of no importance. It was probably Helen herself answering Grace’s bell. Was that what Helen had meant when she warned, say nothing about anything that happened here tonight? Surely not. But she would say nothing. How could she speak without betraying that she had been crouching there on the stairs. And everything was going to be all right. She could sleep now. How lucky that Helen had gone to the clinical room to get a couple of aspirin for a headache and had found her! The house was blessedly unnaturally quiet. There was something strange, something different, about the silence. And then, smiling into the darkness she remembered. It was Grace. No sound, no rasp of snoring breath came through the thin partition to disturb her. Tonight even Grace Willison was sleeping in peace.

Usually Julius Court fell asleep within minutes of turning out his bedside light. But tonight he turned in restless wakefulness, mind and nerves fidgety, his legs as cold and heavy as if it were winter. He rubbed them together, considering whether to dig out his electric blanket. But the bother of re-making the bed discouraged him. Alcohol seemed a better and quicker remedy both for sleeplessness and the cold.

He walked over to the window and looked out over the headland. The waning moon was obscured by scudding clouds; the darkness inland pierced only by a single oblong of yellow light. But as he watched, blackness was drawn like a shutter over the far window. Instantaneously the oblong became a square; then that, too, was extinguished. Toynton Grange lay, a faintly discerned shape etched in darkness on the silent headland. Curious, he looked at his watch. The time was eighteen minutes past midnight.

Dalgliesh awoke at first light, to the cold, quiet morning, and dragging on his dressing gown, went downstairs to make tea. He wondered if Millicent was still at the Grange. Her television had been silent all the previous evening and now, although she was neither an early nor a noisy riser, Hope Cottage was wrapped in the slightly clandestine and unmistakable calm of complete isolation. He lit the lamp in the sitting room, carried his cup to the table, and spread out his map. Today he would explore the northeast of the county aiming to arrive at Sherborne for lunch. But first it would be courteous to call at Toynton Grange and enquire after Wilfred. He felt no real concern; it was difficult to think of yesterday’s charade without irritation. But it might be worth making one more attempt to persuade Wilfred to call in the police, or at least to take the attack on himself more seriously. And it was time that he paid some rent for the use of Hope Cottage. Toynton Grange could hardly be so prosperous that a tactful contribution wouldn’t be welcome. Neither chore need keep him at the Grange for longer than ten minutes.

There was a knock on the door and Julius came in. He was fully dressed and, even at this early hour, gave his usual impression of slightly elegant informality. He said, calmly, and as if the news were hardly worth the trouble of telling:

“I’m glad you’re up. I’m on my way to Toynton Grange. Wilfred has just rung. Apparently Grace Willison has died in her sleep and Eric is in a tizzy about the death certificate. I don’t know what Wilfred thinks I can do about it. Restoring Eric to the medical register seems to have restored him also to the customary arrogance of his profession. Grace Willison wasn’t due, in his opinion, to die for at least another eighteen months, possibly two years. That being so he’s at a loss to put a name to this insubordination. As usual, they’re all extracting the maximum drama from the situation. I shouldn’t miss it if I were you.”

Dalgliesh glanced towards the adjacent cottage without speaking. Julius said cheerfully:

“Oh, you needn’t worry about disturbing Millicent; I’m afraid she’s there already. Apparently her television broke down last night so she went up to Toynton Grange to see a late programme and decided, for some unaccountable reason, to stay the night. Probably saw an opportunity of saving her own bed linen and bath water.”

Dalgliesh said:

“You go on, I’ll follow you later.”

He drank his tea without haste and spent three minutes shaving. He wondered why he had been so reluctant to accompany Julius, why, if he had to go to Toynton Grange, he preferred to walk there on his own. He wondered, too, why he felt so keen a regret. He had no wish to involve himself in the controversy at Toynton. He had no particular curiosity about Grace Willison’s death. He was aware of feeling nothing except an inexplicable unease amounting almost to grief for a woman he had barely known and a vague distaste that the start of a beautiful day should have been spoilt by the intimations of decay. And there was something else; a sense of guilt. It seemed to him both unreasonable and unfair. By dying she seemed to have allied herself with Father Baddeley. There were two accusing ghosts, not one. This was to be a double failure. It was by an effort of will that he set out for Toynton Grange.

He could be in no doubt which room was Grace Willison’s, he could hear the raised voices even as he entered the annexe. When he opened the door he saw that Wilfred, Eric, Millicent, Dot and Julius were grouped around the bed with the desultory, uneasy air of strangers meeting fortuitously at the scene of an accident with which they would much prefer not to become involved but which they hardly like to leave.

Dorothy Moxon stood at the end of the bed, her heavy hands, red as hams, clasped to the rail. She was wearing her matron’s cap. The effect, so far from providing a touch of professional reassurance, was grotesque. The high frilled pie crust of muslin looked like a morbid and bizarre celebration of death. Millicent was still in her dressing gown, an enveloping plaid in heavy wool frogged like a ceremonial uniform which must once have belonged to her husband. In contrast, her slippers were insubstantial fripperies in pink fur. Wilfred and Eric were wearing their brown habits. They glanced briefly at the door when he entered, then immediately turned their attention back to the bed. Julius was saying:

“There was a light in one of the annexe rooms shortly after midnight. Isn’t that when you say she died, Eric?”

“It could have been about then. I’m only going by the cooling of the body and the beginning of rigor mortis. I’m not an expert in these things.”

“How odd! I thought that death was the one thing you were expert at.”

Wilfred said quietly:

“The light was from Ursula’s room. She rang shortly after midnight to be taken to the lavatory. Helen looked after her, but she didn’t go into Grace. There was no need. She didn’t ring. No one saw her after Dot put her to bed. She made no complaint then.”

Julius turned again to Eric Hewson:

“You haven’t any option, have you? If you can’t say what she died of, you can’t write a certificate. Anyway, I should play for safety if I were you. After all, you’ve only recently been permitted to sign a death certificate. Better not take any chances of getting it wrong.”

Eric Hewson said:

“You keep out of it, Julius, I don’t need your advice. I don’t know why Wilfred rang you.”

But he spoke without conviction, like an insecure and frightened child, his eyes flicking to the door as if hoping for the arrival of an ally. Julius was unabashed:

“It seems to me that you need any advice that’s going. What’s worrying you anyway? Do you suspect foul play? What a ridiculous phrase that is, come to think of it, so delightfully British, compounded of the public school ethos and the boxing ring.”

Eric exerted himself to make a show of authority.

“Don’t be ridiculous! Obviously it’s a natural death. The difficulty is that I’m puzzled why it should have happened now. I know D.S. patients can go off quickly like that, but in her case I didn’t expect it. And Dot says that she seemed just as usual when she put her to bed at ten o’clock. I’m wondering whether there was some other organic disease present which I missed.”

Julius went on happily:

“The police do not suspect foul play. Well, you’ve got a representative of them here if you want professional advice. Ask the Commander if he suspects foul play.”

They turned and looked at Dalgliesh as if fully aware of his presence for the first time. The window latch was rattling with irritating insistence. He went across to the window and glanced out. The ground close to the stone wall had been dug for a width of about four feet as if someone had intended to plant a border. The sandy earth was smooth and undisturbed. But of course it was! If a secret visitor had wanted to get into Grace’s room unseen, why climb in at the window when the door of Toynton Grange was never locked?

He fastened the catch and, moving back to the bed, looked down at the body. The dead face looked not exactly peaceful, but slightly disapproving, the mouth a little open, the front teeth, more rabbity than in life, pressing against the lower lip. The eyelids had contracted showing a glimpse of the irises of the eye so that she seemed to be peering at her own two hands disposed so neatly over the taut coverlet. The strong right hand, blotched with the brown stigmata of age, was curved over the withered left as if instinctively protecting it from his pitying gaze. She was shrouded for her last sleep in an old-fashioned white nightdress of creased cotton with a child’s bow in narrow blue ribbon tied incongruously under her chin. The long sleeves were gathered into frilled wrists. There was a fine darn about two inches from her elbow. His eyes fixed obsessively on it. Who today, he wondered, would take such trouble? Certainly her diseased tormented hands couldn’t have woven that intricate pattern of repair. Why should he find that darn more pathetic, more heart shaking, than the concentrated calm of the dead face?

He was aware that the company had stopped arguing, that they were looking at him in a half-wary silence. He picked up the two books on Miss Willison’s bedside table, her prayer book and a paperback copy of The Last Chronicle of Barset. There was a book mark in the prayer book. She had, he saw, been reading the collect and gospel for the day. The place was marked by one of those sentimental cards favoured by the pious, a coloured picture of a haloed St. Francis surrounded by birds and apparently preaching to a motley and incongruous congregation of animals remote from their habitat and drawn with finicky precision. He wondered, irrelevantly, why there was no book mark in the Trollope. She was not a woman to turn down the pages, and surely of the two volumes this was the one in which she would more easily lose her place. The omission vaguely worried him.

“Is there a next of kin?” he asked, and Anstey answered:

“No. She told me that her parents were only children. They were both over forty when she was born and they died within months of each other about fifteen years ago. She had an older brother but he was killed in the war in North Africa. El Alamein, I believe.”

“What about her estate?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing at all. After her parents’ death she worked for several years for Open Door, the discharged prisoners charity, and had a small disability pension from them, a pittance merely. That, of course, dies with her. Her fees here were paid by the local authority.”

Julius Court said with sudden interest:

“The Open Door. Did she know Philby before you took him on?”

Anstey looked as if he found this irrelevant question in poor taste.

“She may have done; she certainly never said so. It was Grace who suggested that The Open Door might find us a handyman, that this was a way in which Toynton Grange could help the work of the charity. We have been very glad of Albert Philby. He’s one of the family. I haven’t repented my decision to take him on.”

Millicent broke in:

“And you got him cheap, of course. Besides it was Philby or no one wasn’t it? You didn’t have much luck with the labour exchange when the applicants found that you were offering £5 a week and all found. I sometimes wonder why Philby stays.”

Discussion of this point was prevented by the entrance of Philby himself. He must have been told of Miss Willison’s death for he showed no surprise to find her room full of people and gave no explanation of his presence. Instead he stationed himself beside the door like an embarrassing and unpredictable guard dog. The company behaved as if they had decided that it would be prudent not to notice him. Wilfred turned to Eric Hewson:

“Can’t you reach a diagnosis, without a postmortem? I hate the idea of her being cut up, the indignity, the impersonality. She was so sensitive about her body, so modest in a way we don’t understand nowadays. An autopsy is the last thing she herself would have wanted.”

Julius said coarsely:

“Well, it’s the last thing she’s going to get, isn’t it?”

Dot Moxon spoke for the first time. She swung round on him in sudden anger, her heavy face blotched, hands clenched.

“How dare you! What has it to do with you? You didn’t care about her dead or alive, her or any of the patients. You only use this place for your own purpose.”

“Use?” The grey eyes flickered and then widened; Dalgliesh could almost see the irises growing. Julius stared at Dot with incredulous anger.

“Yes, use! Exploit, if you like. It gives you a kick, doesn’t it, to come visiting Toynton Grange when London begins to bore you, patronizing Wilfred, pretending to advise him, handing out treats to the inmates like Father Christmas? It makes you feel good, reinforces your ego to contrast your health with their deformity. But you take damned good care not to put yourself out. The kindness doesn’t really cost you anything. No one but Henry gets invited to your cottage. But then Henry was quite important in his time wasn’t he? He and you have things to gossip about. You’re the only one here with a view of the sea, but we don’t find you inviting us to wheel the chairs on to your patio. No bloody fear! That’s one thing you could have done for Grace, take her to your place occasionally, let her sit quietly and look at the sea. She wasn’t stupid, you know. You might even have enjoyed her conversation. But that would have spoilt the appearance of your elegant patio wouldn’t it, an ugly middle-aged woman in a wheelchair? And now she’s dead you come here pretending to advise Eric. Well, for God’s sake, cut it out!”

Julius laughed uneasily. He seemed to have himself in hand but his voice was high and brittle.

“I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve that outburst. I didn’t realize that by buying a cottage from Wilfred I’d made myself responsible for Grace Willison or for anyone else at Toynton Grange for that matter. I’ve no doubt it’s a shock for you, Dot, losing another patient so soon after Victor, but why take it out on me? We all know that you’re in love with Wilfred and I’ve no doubt that’s pretty unrewarding for you, but it’s hardly my fault. I may be a little ambivalent in my sexual tastes but I’m not competing for him, I assure you.”

Suddenly she blundered up to him and threw back her arm to slap his face in a gesture at once theatrical and absurd. But before she could strike, Julius had caught her wrist. Dalgliesh was surprised at the quickness and effectiveness of his reaction. The taut hand, white and trembling with effort, held hers high in a muscled vice so that they looked like two ill-matched contestants locked in a tableau of conflict. Suddenly he laughed and dropped her hand. He lowered his hand more slowly, his eyes still on her face, and began massaging and twisting his wrist. Then he laughed again, a dangerous sound, and said softly:

“Careful! Careful! I’m not a helpless geriatric patient, you know.”

She gave a gasp and, bursting into tears, blundered sobbing from the room, an ungainly and pathetic but not a ridiculous figure. Philby slipped out after her. His departure caused as little interest as his arrival. Wilfred said softly:

“You shouldn’t have said that, Julius, any of it.”

“I know. It was unforgivable. I’m sorry. I’ll tell Dot so when we are feeling calmer.”

The brevity, the absence of self-justification and the apparent sincerity of the apology silenced them. Dalgliesh said quietly:

“I imagine that Miss Willison would have found this quarrelling over her body a great deal more shocking than anything that could happen to her on the mortuary slab.”

His words recalled Wilfred to the matter in hand; he turned to Eric Hewson:

“But we didn’t have all this trouble with Michael, you gave a certificate without difficulty then.”

Dalgliesh could detect the first trace of peevishness in his voice.

Eric explained:

“I knew why Michael had died, I had seen him only that morning. It was only a matter of time for Michael after that last heart attack. He was a dying man.”

“As we all are,” said Wilfred. “As we all are.”

The pious platitudes seemed to irritate his sister. She spoke for the first time.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Wilfred. I’m certainly not dying and you would be very disconcerted to be told that you were. And as for Grace, she always looked to me a great deal sicker than anyone here seemed to understand. Now perhaps you will realize that it isn’t always the ones who make the most fuss who need the most attention.”

She turned to Dalgliesh:

“What exactly will happen if Eric doesn’t give a certificate? Does it mean that we’ll have the police here again?”

“A policeman will probably come, yes; just an ordinary policeman. He’ll be the coroner’s officer and he will take charge of the body.”

“And then?”

“The coroner will arrange for a postmortem. According to the result he will either issue a certificate for the registrar or he’ll conduct an inquest.”

Wilfred said:

“It’s all so horrible, so unnecessary.”

“It’s the law and Dr. Hewson knows that it is the law.”

“But what do you mean, it’s the law? Grace died of D.S., we all know that. What if there was some other disease present? Eric can’t treat her or do anything to help her now. What law are you talking about?”

Dalgliesh patiently explained:

“The doctor who attends a dead person during his last illness is required to sign and deliver to the registrar a certificate in a prescribed form stating the cause of death to the best of his knowledge and belief. At the same time he is required to deliver to a qualified informant, and that could be the occupant of the house where the death occurred, a notice to the effect that he has signed such a certificate. There is no statutory duty on a doctor to report any death to the coroner, but it’s usual to do so where there is any doubt. When the doctor reports a death to a coroner he’s not relieved of his duty to issue a certificate of the cause of death but there is provision for him to state on the form that he has reported the death so that the registrar will know that he must defer registration until he hears from the coroner. Under Section 3 of the Coroners Act 1887 a coroner has a duty to make enquiries whenever he is informed that there is lying within his jurisdiction the body of a person who there is reason to believe may have died a violent or unnatural death or a sudden death, the cause of which is unknown, or who has died in prison or in any place or circumstances which under another Act require an inquest to be held. That, since you have enquired—and in somewhat tedious detail—is the law. Grace Willison has died suddenly and in Dr. Hewson’s opinion the cause is at present unknown. His best course is to report the death to the coroner. It will mean a postmortem, but not necessarily an inquest.”

“But I hate the thought of her lying mangled on an autopsy slab.” Wilfred was beginning to sound like an obstinate child. Dalgliesh said coolly:

“Mangled isn’t exactly the word. A postmortem is an organized and perfectly tidy procedure. And now if you will excuse me I’ll get back to my breakfast.”

Suddenly Wilfred made an almost physical effort to pull himself together. He straightened up, and crossed his hands into the wide sleeves of his habit and stood for a moment in silent meditation. Eric Hewson looked at him, puzzled, then glanced from Dalgliesh to Julius as if seeking guidance. Then Wilfred spoke:

“Eric, you had better ring the coroner’s officer now. Normally Dot would lay out the body but that had better wait until we get instructions. After you have telephoned, please let everyone know that I want to talk to all the family immediately after breakfast. Helen and Dennis are with them at present. Millicent, perhaps you could find Dot and see that she is all right. And now I should like to speak to you Julius, and to Adam Dalgliesh.”

He stood for a moment, eyes closed, at the foot of Grace’s bed. Dalgliesh wondered whether he were praying. Then he led the way out. As they followed, Julius whispered with hardly a movement of his lips:

“Unpleasantly reminiscent of those summonses to the headmaster’s study. We should have fortified ourselves with breakfast.”

In the business room Wilfred wasted no time.

“Grace’s death means that I have to make my decision sooner than I’d hoped. We can’t carry on with only four patients. On the other hand, I can hardly start admitting from the waiting list if the Grange isn’t going to continue. I shall hold a family council on the afternoon Grace is buried. I think it would be right to wait until then. If there are no complications, that should be in less than a week’s time. I should like you both to take part and help us to our decision.”

Julius said quickly:

“That’s impossible, Wilfred. I’ve absolutely no interest; interest, I mean in the legal or insurance sense. It just isn’t my business.”

“You live here. I’ve always thought of you as one of the family.”

“Sweet of you, and I’m honoured. But it isn’t true. I’m not one of the family and I have absolutely no right to vote on a decision that can’t really affect me one way or the other. If you decide to sell out, and I wouldn’t blame you, I probably shall too. I don’t fancy living on Toynton Head once it’s a caravan site. But it won’t matter to me. I’ll get a good price from some bright young executive from the Midlands who won’t give a damn about peace and quiet but who will build a natty cocktail bar in the sitting room and run up a flagpole on the patio. I shall probably look for my next cottage in the Dordogne after careful enquiries about any bargains which the owner may have made with God or the devil. Sorry, but it’s a definite no.”

“And you, Adam?”

“I’ve even less right to an opinion than Court. This place is home to the patients. Why on earth should their future be decided, at least in part, by the vote of a casual visitor?”

“Because I greatly trust your judgement.”

“There’s no reason why you should. In this matter, better trust your accountant.”

Julius asked:

“Are you inviting Millicent to the family council?”

“Of course. She may not have always given me the support I hoped for from her, but she is one of the family.”

“And Maggie Hewson?”

Wilfred said curtly:

“No.”

“She’s not going to like that. And isn’t it a little hurtful to Eric?”

Wilfred said magisterially:

“As you have just made it plain that you don’t consider yourself in any way concerned, why not leave me to decide what’s hurtful to Eric. And now, if you will both excuse me, I shall join the family for breakfast.”

As they left Wilfred’s room, Julius said roughly and as if on impulse:

“Come up to the cottage and have breakfast. Have a drink anyway. Or if it’s too early for alcohol, have coffee. Anyway, please come. I’ve started the day in a mood of self-disgust and I’m bad company for myself.”

It was too close to an appeal to be easily disregarded. Dalgliesh said:

“If you can give me about five minutes. There’s someone I want to see. I’ll meet you in the hall.”

He remembered from his first conducted tour of the Grange which was Jennie Pegram’s room. There might, he thought, be a better time for this encounter but he couldn’t wait for it. He knocked and heard the note of surprise in her answering “come in.” She was sitting in her wheelchair in front of her dressing table, her yellow hair flowing over her shoulders. Taking the poison pen letter from his wallet he walked up behind her and laid it in front of her. In the mirror their eyes met.

“Did you type that?”

She let her glance travel over it without picking it up. Her eyes flickered; a red stain began to travel like a wave over her neck. He heard the hiss of indrawn breath, but her voice was calm.

“Why should I?”

“I can suggest reasons. But did you?”

“Of course not! I’ve never seen it before.”

She glanced at it again dismissively, contemptuously.

“It’s … it’s stupid, childish.”

“Yes, a poor effort. Done in a hurry, I imagine. I thought you might take rather a poor view of it. Not quite as exciting or imaginative as the others.”

“What others?”

“Come now, let’s start with the one to Grace Willison. That did you credit. An imaginative effort, cleverly composed to spoil her pleasure in the only real friend she had made here, and nasty enough to ensure that she would be ashamed to show it to anyone. Except, of course, to a policeman. Even Miss Willison didn’t mind showing it to a policeman. Where obscenity is concerned, we enjoy an almost medical dispensation.”

“She wouldn’t dare! And I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Wouldn’t she? It’s a pity you can’t ask her. You know that she’s dead?”

“That’s nothing to do with me.”

“Luckily for you, I don’t think it is. She wasn’t the suicidal type. I wonder if you were as lucky—or unlucky—with your other victims, with Victor Holroyd for example.”

There was no mistaking her terror now. The thin hands were twisting the handle of her hairbrush in a desperate pantomime.

“That wasn’t my fault! I never wrote to Victor! I never wrote to anyone.”

“You aren’t as clever as you think are you. You forget about fingerprints. Perhaps you didn’t realize that forensic laboratories can detect them on writing paper. And then there’s the timing. All the letters have been received since you arrived at Toynton Grange. The first was received before Ursula Hollis was admitted and I think we can rule out Henry Carwardine. I know that they’ve stopped since Mr. Holroyd’s death. Was that because you realized just how far you’d gone? Or did you hope that Mr. Holroyd would be held responsible? But the police will know that those letters weren’t written by a man. And then there’s the saliva test. All except fifteen per cent of the population excrete their blood group in their saliva. It’s a pity you didn’t know that before you licked the envelope flaps.”

“The envelopes … but they weren’t …”

She gasped at Dalgliesh. Her eyes widened with terror. The flush receded leaving her very pale.

“No, there weren’t any envelopes. The notes were folded and placed in the victim’s library book. But no one knows that except the recipients and you.”

She said, not looking at him:

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know yet.”

And he didn’t know. He felt a mixture, strange to him, of embarrassment, anger and some shame. It had been so easy to trick her, so easy and so contemptible. He saw himself as clearly as if he were an onlooker, healthy and able, sitting magisterially in judgement on her weakness, delivering the customary admonition from the bench, deferring sentence. The picture was distasteful. She had caused Grace Willison pain. But at least she could claim some psychological excuse. How much of his own anger and disgust had its roots in guilt? What had he done to make Grace Willison’s last days happier? Yet something would have to be done about her. She was unlikely at present to make more mischief at Toynton Grange, but what of the future? And Henry Carwardine presumably had a right to know. So, one could argue, had Wilfred and the Ridgewell Trustees if they took over. Some people, too, would argue that she needed help. They would produce the orthodox contemporary solution, referral to a psychiatrist. He just didn’t know. It wasn’t a remedy in which he had much confidence. It would gratify her vanity, perhaps, and minister to her urge for self-importance to be taken seriously. But if the victims had resolved to keep silent, if only to protect Wilfred from worry, what right had he to deride their motive or break their confidence? He had been used in his job to working to rules. Even when he had taken an unorthodox decision, which wasn’t seldom, the moral issues—if one could use that word and he never had—had been clear and unambiguous. His illness must have sapped his will and judgement as well as his physical strength for this paltry problem to defeat him. Ought he to leave a sealed note for Anstey or his successor to open in case of further trouble? Really it was ridiculous to be driven to such a weak and histrionic expedient. For God’s sake, why couldn’t he make a straight decision? He wished that Father Baddeley were alive, knowing on whose frail shoulders he could safely have lain this particular burden.

He said:

“I shall leave it to you to tell the victims, all of them, that you were responsible and that it won’t happen again. You had better see that it doesn’t. I leave it to your ingenuity to think out an excuse. I know that you must miss all the fuss and attention you had at your last hospital. But why compensate by making other people unhappy?”

“They hate me.”

“Of course they don’t. You hate yourself. Did you write these notes to anyone else except Miss Willison and Mr. Carwardine?”

She looked up at him slyly from under her eyelids.

“No. Only those two.”

It was probably a lie, he thought wearily. Ursula Hollis had probably had a letter. Would it do more harm or less if he asked her?

He heard Jennie Pegram’s voice, stronger now, more confident. She lifted her left hand and began stroking her hair, drawing the strands across her face. She said:

“No one here cares about me. They all despise me. They never wanted me to come here. I didn’t want it either. You could help me but you don’t really care. You don’t even want to listen.”

“Get Dr. Hewson to refer you to a psychiatrist and confide in him. He’s paid to listen to neurotics talking about themselves. I’m not.”

He regretted the unkindness as soon as the door was closed. He knew what had prompted it; the sudden remembrance of Grace Willison’s shrunken, ugly body in its cheap nightdress. It was well, he thought, in a mood of self-disgust, that he was giving up his job if pity and anger could so destroy his detachment. Or was it Toynton Grange? This place, he thought, is getting on my nerves.

As he walked quickly down the passage the door next to Grace Willison’s room opened and he saw Ursula Hollis. She beckoned him in, swivelling her wheelchair to clear the doorway.

“They’ve told us to wait in our rooms. Grace is dead.”

“Yes, I know.”

“What is it? What happened?”

“No one really knows yet. Dr. Hewson is arranging for a postmortem.”

“She didn’t kill herself—or anything.”

“I’m sure not. It looked as if she died quietly in her sleep.”

“You mean like Father Baddeley?”

“Yes, just like Father Baddeley.”

They paused, staring at each other. Dalgliesh asked:

“You didn’t hear anything last night?”

“Oh, no! Nothing! I slept very well, that is, after Helen had been in to me.”

“Would you have heard if she called out or if anyone went in to her?”

“Oh yes, if I wasn’t asleep. Sometimes she kept me awake with her snoring. But I didn’t hear her call out, and she went to sleep before I did. My light was out before twelve-thirty and I thought then how quiet she was.”

He moved towards the door and then paused, feeling that she was reluctant to see him go. He asked:

“Is anything worrying you?”

“Oh, no! Nothing. It was just the uncertainty about Grace, not knowing, everyone being so mysterious. But if they’re going to do a postmortem … I mean the postmortem will tell us how she died.”

“Yes,” he said without conviction, as if reassuring himself as well as her, “the postmortem will tell us.”

Julius was waiting alone in the front hall and they left the Grange together walking through the bright morning air, abstracted, a little apart, their eyes fixed on the path. Neither spoke. As if yoked by an invisible cord, they paced, carefully distanced, towards the sea. Dalgliesh was glad of his companion’s silence. He was thinking about Grace Willison, trying to understand and analyse the root of his concern and unrest, emotions which seemed to him illogical to the point of perversity. There had been no visible marks on the body; no lividity; no petechiae on face or forehead; no sign of disturbance in her room; nothing unusual except an unlatched window. She had lain there stiffening in the quietus of natural death. Why then this irrational suspicion? He was a professional policeman, not a clairvoyant. He worked by evidence not by intuition. How many postmortems were carried out in a year? Over 170,000 wasn’t it? 170,000 deaths which required at least some preliminary investigation. Most of them could provide an obvious motive, at least for one person. Only the pathetic derelicts of society had nothing to leave, however meagre, however uncoveted to sophisticated eyes. Every death benefited someone, enfranchised someone, lifted a burden from someone’s shoulders, whether of responsibility, the pain of vicarious suffering or the tyranny of love. Every death was a suspicious death if one looked only at motive, just as every death, at the last, was a natural death. Old Dr. Blessington, one of the first and greatest of the forensic pathologists, had taught him that. It had, he remembered, been Blessington’s last postmortem, the young Detective Constable Dalgliesh’s first. The hands of both had been shaking, but for very different reasons, although the old man had been as steady as a surgeon once the first incision was made. The body of a forty-two-year-old, red-haired prostitute was on the slab. The postmortem assistant had with two strokes of his gloved hand wiped from her face the blood, the dirt, the pancake of paint and matted powder, leaving it pale, vulnerable, anonymous. His strong living hand, not death, had erased from it all personality. Old Blessington had demonstrated the cunning of his craft.

“You see, lad, the first blow, warded off by her hand, slipped down the neck and throat towards the right shoulder. A lot of blood, a lot of mess, but no great harm done. With the second, directed upwards and across, he severed the trachea. She died of shock, blood loss and asphyxia, probably in that order from the look of the thymus. When we get them on the slab, lad, there’s no such thing as unnatural death.”

Natural or unnatural, he was through with it now. It was irritating that with a will so strong, his mind apparently needed this constant reassurance, that it was so obstinately reluctant to leave the problems alone. What possible justification, anyway, had he for going to the local police with a complaint that death was becoming a little too common at Toynton? An old priest dying of heart disease, without enemies, without possessions, except a modest fortune unexceptionally willed for charitable purposes to the man who had befriended him, a notable philanthropist whose character and reputation were beyond reproach. And Victor Holroyd? What could the police do about that death other than they had already most competently done. The facts had been investigated, the inquest jury had pronounced their finding. Holroyd had been buried, Father Baddeley cremated. All that remained was a coffin of broken bones and decaying flesh and a fistful of grey, gritty dust in Toynton churchyard; two more secrets added to the store of secrets buried in that consecrated earth. All of them were beyond human solving now.

And now this third death, the one for which everyone at Toynton Grange had probably been superstitiously waiting, in thrall to the theurgy that death comes in threes. They could all relax now. He could relax. The coroner would order a postmortem, and Dalgliesh had little doubt of the result. If Michael and Grace Willison had both been murdered, their killer was too clever to leave signs. And why should he? With a frail, sick, disease-ridden woman, it would have been only too easy, as simple and quick as a firm hand placed over nose and mouth. And there would be nothing to justify his interference. He couldn’t say: I, Adam Dalgliesh, have had one of my famous hunches—I disagree with the coroner, with the pathologist, with the local police, with all the facts. I demand in the light of this new death that Father Baddeley’s incinerated bones be resurrected and forced to yield up their secret.

They had reached Toynton Cottage. Dalgliesh followed Julius round to the seaward porch which led directly from the stone patio into the sitting-room. Julius had left the door unlocked. He pushed it open and stood a little aside so that Dalgliesh could go in first. Then they both stood stock still, stricken into immobility. Someone had been there before them. The marble bust of the smiling child had been smashed to pieces.

Still without speaking they moved together warily over the carpet. The head, hacked into anonymity lay among a holocaust of marble fragments. The dark grey carpet was bejewelled with gleaming grits of stone. Broad ribbons of light from the windows and open door lay across the room and, in their rays, the jagged slivers twinkled like a myriad of infinitesimal stars. It looked as if the destruction had at first been systematic. Both ears had been cleanly severed, and lay together, obscene objects oozing invisible blood, while the bouquet of flowers, so delicately carved that the lilies of the valley had seemed to tremble with life, lay a little distance from the hand as if tossed lightly aside. A miniature dagger of marble had lodged upright in the sofa, a microcosm of violence.

The room was very still; its ordered comfort, the measured ticking of the carriage clock on the mantelshelf, the insistent thudding of the sea, all heightened the sense of outrage, the crudity of destruction and hate.

Julius dropped to his knees and picked up a shapeless lump which had once been the child’s head. After a second he let it drop from his loosened grasp. It rolled clumsily, obliquely, across the floor and came to rest against the foot of the sofa. Still without speaking, he reached over and picked up the posy of flowers cradling it gently in his hands. Dalgliesh saw that his body was shaking; he was very pale and his forehead, bent over the carving, glistened with sweat. He looked like a man in shock.

Dalgliesh went over to the side table which held a decanter and poured out a generous measure of whisky. Silently he handed the glass to Julius. The man’s silence and the dreadful shaking worried him. Anything, he thought, violence, a storm of rage, a spate of obscenity would be better than this unnatural silence. But when Julius did speak his voice was perfectly steady. He shook his head at the offered glass.

“No, thank you. I don’t need a drink. I want to know what I’m feeling, know it here in my belly not just in my head. I don’t want my anger dulled, and by God, I don’t need it stimulated! Think of it, Dalgliesh. He died three hundred years ago, this gentle boy. The marble must have been carved very shortly afterwards. It was of absolutely no practical use to anyone for three hundred years except to give comfort and pleasure and remind us that we are dust. Three hundred years. Three hundred years of war, revolution, violence, greed. But it survived. It survived until this year of grace. Drink that whisky yourself, Dalgliesh. Raise the glass and toast the age of the despoiler. He didn’t know that this was here, unless he peers and pries when I am away. Anything of mine would have served. He could have destroyed anything. But when he saw this, he couldn’t resist it. Nothing else could have given him quite such an exaltation of destruction. This isn’t just hatred of me you know. Who ever did it, hated this too. Because it gave pleasure, was made with an intention, not just a lump of clay thrown against a wall, paint stamped into a canvas, a piece of stone smoothed into innocuous curves. It had gravity and integrity. It grew out of privilege and tradition, and contributed to it. God, I should have known better than to bring it here among these barbarians!”

Dalgliesh knelt beside him. He picked up two portions of a smashed forearm and fitted them together like a puzzle. He said:

“We know probably to within a few minutes when it was done. We know that it needed strength and that he—or she—probably used a hammer. There ought to be marks on that. And he couldn’t have walked here and back in the time. Either he escaped down your path here to the shore, or he came by van and then went on to collect the post. It shouldn’t be difficult to find out who is responsible.”

“My God, Dalgliesh, you have a policeman’s soul haven’t you? Is that thought supposed to comfort me?”

“It would me; but then, as you say, it’s probably a matter of soul.”

“I’m not calling in the police if that’s what you’re suggesting. I don’t need the local fuzz to tell me who did this. I know, and so do you, don’t you?”

“No. I could give you a short list of suspects in order of probability, but that’s not the same thing.”

“Spare yourself the trouble. I know and I’ll deal with him in my own way.”

“And give him the added satisfaction of seeing you brought up on a charge of assault or G.B.H. I suppose.”

“I wouldn’t get much sympathy from you would I, or from the local bench? Vengeance is mine saith Her Majesty’s Commission of the Peace. Naughty, destructive boy, underprivileged lad! Five pounds fine and put him on probation. Oh! don’t worry! I shan’t do anything rash. I’ll take my time, but I’ll deal with it. You can keep your local pals out of it. They weren’t exactly a flaming success when they investigated Holroyd’s death were they? They can keep their clumsy fingers out of my mess.”

Getting to his feet he added with sulky obstinacy, almost as an afterthought:

“Besides, I don’t want any more fuss here at present, not just after Grace Willison’s death. Wilfred’s got enough on his plate. I’ll clear this mess away and tell Henry that I have taken the marble back to London. No one else from the Grange comes here, thank God, so I shall be spared the usual insincere condolences.”

Dalgliesh said:

“I find it interesting, this concern for Wilfred’s peace of mind.”

“I thought you might. In your book I am a selfish bastard. You’ve got an identikit to selfish bastards, and I don’t precisely fit. Ergo, find a reason. There has to be a first cause.”

“There’s always a cause.”

“Well, what is it? Am I somehow in Wilfred’s pay? Am I fiddling the books? Has he some hold over me? Is there, perhaps, some truth in Moxon’s suspicions? Or perhaps I’m Wilfred’s illegitimate son.”

“Even a legitimate son might reasonably feel that it was worth causing Wilfred some distress to discover who did this. Aren’t you being too scrupulous? Wilfred must know that someone at Toynton Grange, probably one of his disciples, nearly killed him, intentionally or otherwise. My guess is that he’d take the loss of your marble fairly philosophically.”

“He doesn’t have to take it. He’s not going to know. I can’t explain to you what I don’t understand myself. But I am committed to Wilfred. He is so vulnerable and pathetic. And it is all so hopeless! If you must know, he reminds me in some way of my parents. They had a small general store in Southsea. Then when I was about fourteen, a large chain store opened next door. That was the end for them. They tried everything; they wouldn’t give in. Extended credit when they weren’t getting their money anyway; special offers when their profit margins were practically nil; hours spent after closing time rearranging the window; balloons given free to the local kids. It didn’t matter, you see. It was all utterly pointless and futile. They couldn’t succeed. I thought I could have borne their failure. What I couldn’t bear was their hope.”

Dalgliesh thought that, in part, he did see. He knew what Julius was saying. Here am I, young, rich, healthy. I know how to be happy. I could be happy, if only the world were really as I want it to be. If only other people wouldn’t persist in being sick, deformed, in pain, helpless, defeated, deluded. Or if only I could be just that bit more selfish so that I didn’t care. If only there weren’t the black tower. He heard Julius speaking:

“Don’t worry about me. Remember I am bereaved. Don’t they say that the bereaved always have to work through their grief? The appropriate treatment is a detached sympathy and plenty of good plain nourishment. We’d better get some breakfast.”

Dalgliesh said quietly:

“If you’re not going to ring the police, then we might as well clear up this mess.”

“I’ll get a dustbin. I can’t bear the noise of the vacuum cleaner.”

He disappeared into his immaculate, fashionably overequipped kitchen, and came back with a dustpan and two brushes. In an odd companionship they knelt together to their task. But the brushes were too soft to dislodge the slivers of marble, and in the end they had to pick them up laboriously one by one.

The forensic pathologist was a locum tenens senior registrar, and if he had expected this three-week stint of duty in the agreeable West Country to be less arduous than his London job, he was disappointed. When the telephone rang for the tenth time that morning he peeled off his gloves, tried not to think about the fifteen naked cadavers still waiting on their refrigerated shelves and lifted the receiver philosophically. The confident masculine voice, except for its pleasant country burr, could have been the voice of any Metropolitan police officer, and the words, too, he had heard before.

“That you, Doc? We’ve got a body in a field three miles north of Blandford which we don’t like the look of. Could you come to the scene?”

The summons seldom differed. They always had a body they didn’t like the look of, in a ditch, a field, a gutter, in the tangled steel of a smashed car. He took up his message pad and asked the usual questions, heard the expected replies. He said to the mortuary assistant:

“OK Bert, you can sew her up now. She’s no twelve-guinea special. Tell the Coroner’s officer that he can issue the disposal order. I’m off to a scene. Get the next two ready for me, will you?”

He glanced for the last time at the emaciated body on the table. There had been nothing difficult about Grace Miriam Willison, spinster, aged 57. No external signs of violence, no internal evidence to justify sending the viscera for analysis. He had muttered to his assistant with some bitterness that if the local GPs were going to look to an over-stretched forensic pathology service to settle their differential diagnoses the service might as well pack up. But her doctor’s hunch had been right. There was something he’d missed, the advanced neoplasm in the upper stomach. And much good that knowledge now would do him or her. That, or the D.S. or the heart condition had killed her. He wasn’t God and he’d taken his choice. Or maybe she’d just decided that she had had enough and turned her face to the wall. In her state it was the mystery of continuing life not the fact of death that needed explaining. He was beginning to think that most patients died when they decided that it was their time to die. But you couldn’t put that on a certificate.

He scribbled a final note on Grace Willison’s record, called out a final instruction to his assistant, then pushed his way through the swing doors towards another death, another body, towards, he thought, with something like relief, his proper job.