An Empty Death (56 page)
Authors: Laura Wilson
‘What did you say his name was?’
‘Dr Christopher Rice.’
‘And you say he specialises in psychiatry?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t know him.’
‘Well, apparently you wrote a reference for him in late November or early December last year, for Dr Reinhardt of the Northfield Military Hospital.’
‘No. I’ve heard of Reinhardt’s work, of course, but I had nothing to do with any reference for this man Rice.’
‘So you didn’t write the reference?’
‘Certainly not. The man has obtained his post under false pretences. I cannot let my name, or the hospital’s, be used in this fashion. I shall speak to Dr Reinhardt at once.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t allow you to do that, sir.’
‘Allow? But—’
‘This is a police investigation.’ Stratton was aware that he’d raised his voice several decibels. ‘I must insist that you don’t do anything of the sort.’
‘But—’
‘I shall make it clear to Dr Reinhardt that you did not supply the reference.’
Haycraft mumbled something Stratton didn’t catch, then - giant penny dropping with an almighty crash - he said, ‘Is this to do with that man Dacre?’
‘We are looking into it, sir—’
‘And you’ll let me know, won’t you? This is a serious breach of—’
‘I’m quite aware of how serious it is, sir.’
‘Well, I . . . I shall . . .’ More mumbling followed, as Haycraft, torn between the desire to revert to his usual vague pomposity and the consciousness of his negligence, tried to find the right tone.
‘I’ll say goodbye, then. sir.’ Stratton cut across him and put down the receiver.
He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself, then lit a cigarette and sat back in his chair, willing himself to relax as he waited for Ballard to return. He tilted his head back and, focusing on a particularly dark patch on the ceiling, which, after decades of smoking by the room’s inhabitants, had an all-over greasy, ochre-coloured coating, he thought, we’re finally getting somewhere. As well as the prickings of hope, there were other things playing in his mind, faint but persistent, like a poorly tuned wireless in the next room. But they could wait until the time came. First things first. He sat up straight and banged his fist down hard on the desk. ‘The tables have bloody well turned,’ he said to his invisible adversary. ‘I’m in charge, now.’ All things considered, he reflected, rubbing his smarting knuckles, it really was well overdue that life - or fate, or God, or possibly all three - stopped kicking him in the balls. It was time to go to work.
Seventy-Three
S
tratton sat with Dr Rice in the Smoking Room of the latter’s London club, feeling completely out of place. They had ascended the enormous staircase, hung round with oils whose patina of age and grime made it almost impossible to make out their subjects, with a ceremonial chair, as big as a throne, on the corner of each landing. Everything was mahogany and leather, and either brown, holly green, or beef red. The ceiling was ornate, and there were framed ‘Spy’ cartoons on the walls, and bronzes of moustachioed men on polo ponies and busts of fierce-looking statesmen with chipped noses on the surfaces. The elderly servants wore black knee-breeches, and knew as well as Stratton did that he did not belong. Don’t give yourself airs, said their eyes. We know you’re one of us.
tratton sat with Dr Rice in the Smoking Room of the latter’s London club, feeling completely out of place. They had ascended the enormous staircase, hung round with oils whose patina of age and grime made it almost impossible to make out their subjects, with a ceremonial chair, as big as a throne, on the corner of each landing. Everything was mahogany and leather, and either brown, holly green, or beef red. The ceiling was ornate, and there were framed ‘Spy’ cartoons on the walls, and bronzes of moustachioed men on polo ponies and busts of fierce-looking statesmen with chipped noses on the surfaces. The elderly servants wore black knee-breeches, and knew as well as Stratton did that he did not belong. Don’t give yourself airs, said their eyes. We know you’re one of us.
Dr Rice was, Stratton thought, in his middle fifties. He looked like a sportsman - lean and muscular, despite the thinning hair. He had a rather languid manner, which seemed unsuitable for children, and Stratton wondered if he altered it when he was at work. When Ballard had tracked him down, he’d turned out to be ‘in town’, and immediately agreed to meet Stratton. Now they were drinking muddy coffee, and Rice was staring intently at the photograph of Todd.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Don’t recognise him. I might have seen him before, but . . .’ He spread his hands.
‘How about this?’ Stratton passed over the photograph of Todd which Ballard, during his absence, had had doctored by a police artist to remove the moustache and darken the hair. It was pretty crude, but the likeness wasn’t bad.
‘Now, he does look familiar. I’ve certainly seen him before.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘I have absolutely no idea.’
‘But you’re sure you’ve seen him?’
‘Oh, yes. Before I explain, perhaps you could tell me why you require this information? Your sergeant was somewhat, shall we say, vague, on the telephone.’
‘An enquiry into obtaining employment under false pretences, sir.’
The eyebrows rose gracefully. ‘Then of course I shall co-operate. I first encountered this man when I was staying with my niece and her husband in Ferny Stratford, which is a few miles from Bletchley. My niece’s husband is the local doctor. He was called to Bletchley railway station because there was a man there who’d been sitting on a bench all day and the porter couldn’t get any sense out of him. When spoken to, he became distressed and appeared not to know who, or where, he was. When I questioned him several days later, I had the impression that he thought he’d blacked out - fainted, perhaps - but he hadn’t been observed to fall down at any point. Dr Lonsdale - that’s my niece’s husband - brought him home and asked me to examine him. I couldn’t get any sense out of him either, at first. He was dazed, bewildered, kept asking where he was. I thought he must be concussed. As I said, nobody had seen him fall, and there hadn’t been any sort of altercation noticed on the platform, so I can only suppose that the trauma had occurred before he arrived there.’
‘Do you know how he arrived there?’
‘No. He’d been there quite a few hours, you see, so if he had got off a train the other passengers were long gone, and none of the staff could remember anything.’
‘Was there nothing to identify him? Belongings? His ration book?’
‘Not a thing. No identity card, nothing. He had a suitcase, but the only things in it were clothes, a razor . . . the usual sorts of things. We wondered if he might have been robbed, but he said he couldn’t remember.’
‘And no left-luggage ticket, or anything like that?’
‘No.’
‘His distress - could it have been put on?’
Dr Rice shook his head. ‘He had several episodes of weeping, he was sweating profusely, trembling . . . I really don’t think so. Most of my experience is with children, but I believe I can tell a man in the last stages of mental and physical exhaustion, Inspector.’
‘I see. And what happened after that?’
‘Well, he calmed down a lot over the next few days, but he appeared to have no autobiographical memory - nothing before he arrived at my niece’s house. He wasn’t able to tell me his name or anything about himself - family, occupation, and so on. He didn’t seem aware of external events, either. With concussion, these things generally go off, given time, but there seemed to be no change over the course of a week.’ Rice shook his head. ‘All very difficult. You see, Inspector, memory is - if you like - the bones of thought. Without it, there is nothing else - no past, and no future, either, because there’s no anchor for it. There’s no identity, and no real chance of building any sort of relationship with another person, so it’s very isolating for the sufferer.
‘He asked me a lot of questions - some of a personal nature, some about my work. At first, I was rather taken aback, but I think he was looking for something to build on. Something he could remember, so that it would be a place to start. I must say, I rather liked him. He certainly wasn’t sub-normal in any way - quite the reverse, in fact. Intelligent. And a good sense of humour. My niece really took a shine to him.’
‘Did you notice if he had any distinguishing marks?’
‘A scar,’ said Dr Rice, promptly. ‘One of his hands. Can’t remember which, but it was quite noticeable. At the base of his thumb.’
Up till then, Stratton had hoped, but hadn’t allowed himself to feel certain. Now, the hairs on the back of his neck prickled. Piece by piece, it was falling into place . . . ‘Did you believe the memory loss?’ he asked.
‘That it was real, yes. As to the cause . . . There are many reasons for amnesia, Inspector. I’m sure it was absolutely genuine in the early stages, caused by some stress or pressure on him, or some external source. After that, who knows? Things usually do come back, but sometimes there are episodes that the person simply doesn’t want to remember, so he blocks them out. The result, to the sufferer, can be just as real as a loss of memory.’
‘And what happened after that?’
‘He vanished. Quite suddenly. It was a couple of days before I was due to go back home. We had reported his appearance to the local police, with a description, in case anyone was looking for him, and naturally we told them he’d gone, but we never heard from them, so . . .’ Rice shrugged.
‘Did he take anything with him when he left?’
‘Stealing, you mean? No, nothing from the house - no money or silver. My niece checked.’
‘And from you?’
Dr Rice hesitated, looking less sure of himself than before. ‘I don’t know. You see, I’d taken some papers with me - things I needed to work on - and when I’d finished, I put them away, and had no reason to take them out again until a month or so after I returned home. It was only then that I noticed a few of the papers were missing - letters, and such. Nothing very important, except something relating to my new position at the Maudsley. I wrote to my niece asking her to look for them, but she couldn’t find anything. It was easily remedied, and to be honest I didn’t think any more of it.’ He gave Stratton a shrewd look. ‘You think he took them.’
‘It’s possible,’ admitted Stratton.
‘May I ask if you’ve found him?’
‘Not yet, but we will.’
‘Well, when you find him, I shall be interested to know his story. He sounds like a fascinating case.’
More than you know, chum, thought Stratton, as he descended the great staircase. Standing at the top of the steps, beneath the huge porch with its fluted pillars, he remembered Rice’s words about memory being the bones of thought. Without it, there is nothing else . . .
Fancy names aside, he thought, it was Jenny who’d come closest to understanding what was wrong with Mrs Ingram when she said she didn’t feel in her heart that Mr Ingram was her husband - or, to put it another way, she’d lost her emotional memory. And he’d thought she was being illogical. What an idiot.
He stood quite still, feeling the anger - against Dacre, against himself, against the world - boil up inside him. This time, he told himself, there would be no mistake. He’d get a warrant for obtaining employment under false pretences, and then he was going up to Northfield Military Hospital to nail the bastard. And, he decided, this time he was going alone. He had a score to settle, and - whatever the outcome - he’d fucking well settle it.
Seventy-Four
T
he train was stuffy and crowded. Soldiers jammed the corridors, rifles and kitbags lay everywhere, and the air was blue with smoke and obscenities. Eventually, Stratton managed to find a free seat next to a rowdy group of sailors.
he train was stuffy and crowded. Soldiers jammed the corridors, rifles and kitbags lay everywhere, and the air was blue with smoke and obscenities. Eventually, Stratton managed to find a free seat next to a rowdy group of sailors.
For some reason, most of the servicemen departed at Rugby, so he had the compartment to himself as he tried to collect his thoughts. He wondered if Chief Superintendent Dewhurst would have enough for a fingerprint match from the mortuary. He’d said there was a partial palm print and fingertips on the office bookshelf, but there might be more elsewhere. He’d just have to hope they didn’t clean the place too thoroughly. Of course, that wouldn’t prove that their man had killed Dr Byrne, and, if Ballard was right, Reynolds and Leadbetter - but it would prove that Todd, Dacre and Rice were the same person, which was certainly a start . . . ‘I’ll have you for Byrne, mate, if it’s the last thing I do,’ he muttered. ‘You are going to fucking swing.’
Northfield Hospital proved to be a five-mile journey from Birmingham on a rickety tram, followed by about a mile’s walk uphill, and by the time Stratton reached the gatehouse he was tired, sweaty, and not best pleased to be told that it was another mile down the tree-lined drive to the building itself. As he walked closer, he suddenly stopped, turned to the side and retched. Head hanging down, hands on his knees, he told himself forcefully that there would be no Mrs Ingrams here: this place was not an institution for the criminally insane, like Broadmoor, but a place for shell-shocked soldiers, and therefore entirely different.
The main tower became visible before the rest of the institution, which turned out to be a vast and forbidding pile of Victorian red brick. As Stratton trudged towards it, working saliva into his mouth to try and remove the bitter taste of bile, he could hear intermittent bursts of machine-gun fire issuing from somewhere in the distance. He passed a group of men in PT singlets and shorts, who, apparently oblivious to the racket, were standing in the middle of a lawn, throwing a medicine ball around in an unenthusiastic manner, and several more, clad in bright blue serge suits and red ties, who were shuffling about aimlessly amongst the flowerbeds that bordered it. One of them, staring fixedly down at a row of petunias, was rubbing his groin vigorously enough to set his trousers on fire.
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