Authors: P. D. James
“Is that you, James?” she called. For fifteen years he had been greeted every night with that unnecessary question.
“Yes. I’m sorry I’m late. I’m sorry, too, that I couldn’t tell you more on the phone. But something pretty dreadful has happened at the Steen and Etherege thought it better to say as little as possible. Enid Bolam has been killed.”
But her mind had seized on the medical director’s name. “Henry Etherege! He would, of course. He lives in Harley Street with an adequate staff and about twice our income. He might consider me a little before keeping you at the clinic until this hour. His wife isn’t stuck in the country alone until he chooses to come home.”
“It wasn’t Henry’s fault that I was kept. I told you. Enid
Bolam’s been killed. We’ve had the police at the clinic most of the evening.”
This time she heard. He sensed her sharp intake of breath, saw her eyes narrow as she came down the stairs to him, clutching her dressing gown around her.
“Miss Bolam killed?”
“Yes, murdered.”
She stood motionless, seeming to consider, then asked calmly: “How?”
As he told her, she still didn’t speak. Afterwards they stood facing each other. He wondered uneasily whether he ought to go to her, to make some gesture of comfort or sympathy. But why sympathy? What, after all, had Helen lost? When she spoke, her voice was as cold as metal.
“None of you liked her, did you? Not one of you!”
“That’s ridiculous, Helen! Most of us hardly came into touch with her except briefly and in her capacity as AO.”
“It looks like an inside job, doesn’t it?”
He winced at the crude police-court jargon, but said curtly: “On the face of it, yes. I don’t know what the police think.”
She laughed bitterly. “Oh, I can guess what the police think!” Again she stood silent then suddenly asked: “Where were you?”
“I told you. In the medical-staff cloakroom.”
“And Fredrica Saxon?”
It was hopeless now to wait for that spring of pity or tenderness. It was useless, even, to try to keep control. He said with a deadly calm: “She was in her room, scoring a Rorschach. If it’s any satisfaction to you, neither of us had an alibi. But if you’re hoping to pin this murder on Fredrica or me, you’ll need more intelligence than I give you credit for. The superintendent’s hardly likely to listen to a neurotic woman acting out of spite.
He’s seen too many of that type. But make an effort! You might be lucky! Why not come and examine my clothes for blood?”
He threw out his hands towards her, his whole body shaking with anger. Terrified, she gave him one glance, then turned and stumbled up the stairs, tripping over her dressing gown and crying like a child. He gazed after her, his body cold from tiredness, hunger and self-disgust. He must go to her. Somehow it must be put right. But not now, not at once. First, he must find a drink.
He leaned for a moment against the banister and said with infinite tiredness: “Oh, Fredrica. Darling Fredrica. Why did you do it? Why? Why?”
Sister Ambrose lived with an elderly nurse friend who had trained with her thirty-five years ago and who had recently retired. Together they had bought a house in Gidea Park where they had lived together for the last twenty years on their joint income, in comfort and happy accord. Neither of them had married and neither of them regretted it. In the past they had sometimes wished for children, but observation of the family life of their relations had convinced them that marriage, despite a common belief to the contrary, was designed to benefit men at the expense of women and that even motherhood was not an unmixed blessing. Admittedly this conviction had never been put to the test since neither of them had ever received a proposal. Like any professional worker in a psychiatric clinic, Sister Ambrose was aware of the dangers of sexual repression, but it had never once occurred to her that these might apply to herself and, indeed, it would be difficult to imagine anyone less repressed. It is possible that she would have dismissed most of the psychiatrists’ theories as dangerous nonsense if she had ever considered them critically. But Sister Ambrose had been trained
to think of consultants as only one degree lower than God. Like God, they moved in mysterious ways their wonders to perform but, like God, they were not subject to open criticism. Some, admittedly, were more mysterious in their ways than others but it was still the privilege of a nurse to minister to these lesser deities, to encourage the patients to have confidence in their treatment, especially when its success appeared most doubtful, and to practise the cardinal professional virtue of complete loyalty.
“I’ve always been loyal to the doctors” was a remark frequently heard at Acacia Road, Gidea Park. Sister Ambrose often noted that the young nurses who occasionally worked at the Steen as holiday reliefs were trained in a less accommodating tradition, but she had a poor opinion of most young nurses and an even poorer opinion of modern training.
As usual she took the Central Line to Liverpool Street, changed to an electric train on the eastern suburban line and twenty minutes later was letting herself into the neat semidetached house which she shared with Miss Beatrice Sharpe. Tonight, however, she fitted her key in the lock without her customary inspection of the front garden, without running a critical eye over the paintwork on the door and even without reflecting, as was her custom, on the generally satisfactory appearance of the property and on the gratifying capital investment that its purchase had proved to be.
“Is that you, Dot?” called Miss Sharpe from the kitchen. “You’re late.”
“It’s a wonder I’m not later. We’ve had murder at the clinic and the police have been with us for most of the evening. As far as I know, they’re still there. I’ve had my fingerprints taken and so have the rest of the staff.”
Sister Ambrose deliberately kept her voice level but the effect of the news was gratifying. She had expected no less. It
is not every day one has such excitement to relate and she had spent some time in the train rehearsing how most effectively to break the news. The selected sentence expressed concisely the salient details. Supper was temporarily forgotten. Murmuring that a casserole could always wait, Miss Sharpe poured her friend and herself a glass of sherry, specific against shock, and settled down with it in the sitting room to hear the full story. Sister Ambrose, who had a reputation at the clinic for discretion and taciturnity, was a great deal more forthcoming at home and it wasn’t long before Miss Sharpe knew as much about the murder as her friend was able to tell.
“But who do you think did it, Dot?” Miss Sharpe refilled their glasses—an unprecedented extravagance—and applied her mind to analysis.
“As I see it, the murder must have been done between six-twenty when you saw Miss Bolam going towards the basement stairs and seven o’clock when the body was discovered.”
“Well, that’s obvious! That’s why the superintendent kept asking me whether I was sure about the time. I was the last person to see her alive, there’s no doubt about that. Mrs. Belling had finished treatment and was ready to go home at about six-fifteen and I went across to the waiting room to let her husband know. He’s always fussed about time because he’s on night duty and has to be fed and at work by eight. So I looked at my watch and saw that it was just six-twenty. As I came out of the ECT room door, Miss Bolam passed me and went towards the basement stairs. The superintendent asked me what she looked like and whether we spoke. Well, we didn’t and, as far as I could see, she looked the same as usual.”
“What’s he like?” asked Miss Sharpe, visions of Maigret and Inspector Barlow crowding her mind.
“The superintendent? Perfectly polite, I must say. One of those lean, bony faces. Very dark. I didn’t say a great deal. You could see he’s used to smarming things out of people. Mrs. Shorthouse was with him for hours and I bet he got plenty out of her. Well, I wasn’t playing that game. I’ve always been loyal to the clinic.”
“All the same, Dot, it is murder.”
“That’s all very well, Bea, but you know what the Steen is. There’s enough gossip without adding to it. None of the doctors liked her and nor did anyone else as far as I know. But that’s no reason for killing her. Anyway, I kept my mouth shut and, if the others have any sense, they’ll do the same.”
“Well, you’re all right, anyway. You’ve got an alibi if you and Dr. Ingram were together in the ECT room all the time.”
“Oh, we’re all right. So are Shorthouse and Cully and Nagle and Miss Priddy. Nagle was out with the post after six-fifteen and the others were together. I’m not sure about the doctors, though, and it’s a pity that Dr. Baguley left the ECT room after the Belling treatment. Mind you, no one in their senses could suspect him, but it’s unfortunate all the same. While we were waiting for the police, Dr. Ingram came over to suggest that we ought not to say anything about it. A nice mess we’d get Dr. Baguley into with that kind of hanky-panky! I pretended not to understand. I just gave her one of my looks and said: ‘I’m sure that if we all tell the truth, Doctor, the innocent will have nothing to fear.’ That shut her up all right. And that’s what I did. I told the truth. But I wasn’t going any further. If the police want gossip, they can go to Mrs. Shorthouse.”
“What about Nurse Bolam?” inquired Miss Sharpe.
“It’s Bolam I’m worried about. She was on the spot all right and you can’t say an LSD patient is an alibi for anyone. The superintendent was on to her quick enough. He tried to pump me. Were she and her cousin friendly? No doubt they worked
at the Steen to be together? You can tell that to the Marines, I thought, but I kept my mouth shut. He didn’t get much change out of me. But you could see which way his mind was working. You can’t wonder, really. We all know Miss Bolam had money and, if she hasn’t willed it to a cats’ home, it will go to her cousin. There’s no one else to leave it to, after all.”
“I can’t see her leaving it to a cats’ home,” said Miss Sharpe, who had a literal mind.
“I didn’t mean that exactly. As a matter of fact she never took much notice of Tigger although he’s supposed to be her cat. I always thought that was typical of Miss Bolam. She found Tigger practically starving in the square and took him into the clinic. Ever since then she’s bought three tins of cat meat for him every week. But she never petted him or fed him or let him into any of the upstairs rooms. On the other hand, that fool Priddy is always down in the porters’ room with Nagle making a fuss of Tigger, but I’ve never seen either of them bringing in food for him. I think Miss Bolam just bought the food out of a sense of duty. She didn’t really care for animals. But she might leave her money to that church she’s so keen on or to the Guides, for that matter.”
“You’d think she’d leave it to her own flesh and blood,” said Miss Sharpe. She herself had a poor opinion of her own flesh and blood and found much to criticize in the conduct of her nephews and nieces, but her small and slowly accumulated capital had been carefully willed between them. It was beyond her understanding that money should be left out of the family.
They sipped their sherry in silence. The two bars of the electric fire glowed and the synthetic coals shone and flickered as the little light behind them revolved. Sister Ambrose looked around at the sitting room and found it good. The standard lamp threw a soft light on the fitted carpet and the
comfortable sofa and chairs. In the corner a television set stood, its small twin aerials disguised as two flowers on their stems. The telephone nestled beneath the crinolined skirt of a plastic doll. On the opposite wall, above the piano, hung a cane basket from which an indoor plant, cascading streamers of green, almost concealed the wedding group of Miss Sharpe’s eldest niece which had pride of place on the piano. Sister Ambrose took comfort from the unchanged homeliness of these familiar things. They at least were the same. Now that the excitement of telling her news was over, she felt very tired. Planting her stout legs apart she bent to loosen the laces of her regulation black shoes, grunting a little with the effort. Usually she changed out of uniform as soon as she got home. Tonight she couldn’t be bothered.
Suddenly she said: “It isn’t easy to know what to do for the best. The superintendent said that anything, however small, might be important, That’s all very well. But suppose it’s important in the wrong way? Suppose it gives the police the wrong ideas?”
Miss Sharpe was not imaginative nor sensitive, but she had not lived in the same house as her friend for twenty years without recognizing a plea for help.
“You’d better tell me what you have in mind, Dot.”
“Well, it happened on Wednesday. You know what the ladies’ cloakroom is like at the Steen? There’s the large outside room with the wash basin and the lockers and two lavatories.
“The clinic was rather later than usual. I suppose it was well after seven when I went to wash. Well, I was in the lavatory when Miss Bolam came into the outer room. Nurse Bolam was with her. I thought they’d both gone home, but I suppose Miss Bolam must have wanted something from her locker and Nurse just followed her in. They must have been in the AO’s office together because they’d obviously been talking and were
just carrying on with the argument. I couldn’t help hearing. You know how it is. I could have coughed or flushed the pan, I suppose, to show I was there but, by the time I thought of it, it was too late.”
“What were they arguing about?” inquired her friend. “Money?” In her experience this was the most frequent cause of family dissension.
“Well, that’s what it sounded like. They weren’t talking loudly and I certainly didn’t try to hear. I think they must have been having words about Nurse Bolam’s mother—she’s a DS, you know, and more or less confined to bed now—because Miss Bolam said she was sorry, but she was doing as much as she could and that it would be wiser if Marion accepted the situation and placed her mother’s name on a waiting list for a hospital bed.”
“That’s reasonable enough. You can’t nurse these cases at home indefinitely. Not without giving up outside work and staying at home all the time.”
“I don’t suppose Marion Bolam could afford that. Anyway, she started arguing and saying that her mother would only end up in a geriatric ward with a lot of senile old women and Enid had a duty to help them because that’s what her mother would have wanted. Then she said something about the money coming to her if Enid died and how much better to have some now when it would make such a difference to them.”