The Murder Room (26 page)

They sat in silence. Outside the office the life of the hospital went on, the births and the deaths, the pain and the hope, ordinary people doing extraordinary jobs; none of it reached them. It was difficult for Dalgliesh to see such grief without seeking for words of comfort. There were none that he could give. His job was to discover her lover's murderer. He had no right to deceive her into thinking that he came as a friend.

He waited until she was calmer, then said, “There's one last question. Had he any enemies, any patients who might wish him harm?”

“If anyone hated him enough to wish him dead I think I'd have known. He wasn't greatly loved, he was too solitary for that, but he was respected and liked. Of course there is always a risk, isn't there? Psychiatrists accept that and I don't suppose they're more at risk than the staff in Accident and Emergency, especially on Saturday nights when half the patients come in drunk or on drugs. Being a nurse or doctor on A and E is a dangerous occupation. That's the kind of world we've produced. Of course there are patients who can be aggressive, but they couldn't plan a murder. Anyway, how could they know about his car and his regular visit to collect it every Friday?”

Dalgliesh said, “His patients will miss him.”

“Some of them, and for a time. Mostly they'll be thinking of themselves. ‘Who'll look after me now? Who shall I see at next Wednesday's clinic?' And I shall have to go on seeing his handwriting in the patients' records. I wonder how long it will be before I can't even remember his voice.”

She had had herself under control, but now, suddenly, her voice changed. “What's so awful is that I can't grieve, not openly. There's no one I can talk to about Neville. People hear gossip about his death and speculate. They're shocked, of course, and seem genuinely distressed. But they're also excited. Violent death is horrible but it's also intriguing. They're interested. I can see it in their eyes. Murder corrupts, doesn't it? It takes so much away, not just a life.”

Dalgliesh said, “Yes, it's a contaminating crime.”

Suddenly she was openly crying. He moved towards her and she clung to him, her hands clawing at his jacket. He saw that there was a key in the door, perhaps a necessary safeguard, and half carrying her across the room he turned it. She gasped, “I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” but the weeping didn't stop. He saw that there was a second door on the left wall and, placing her gently in her chair, he opened it carefully. To his relief it was as he hoped. It led to a small corridor with a unisex lavatory to the right. He went back to Mrs. Faraday, who was a little calmer now, and helped her towards the door, then closed it after her. He thought he could hear the rush of running water. No one knocked or tried the handle of the other door. She was not away long. Within three minutes she was back, outwardly calm, her hair combed in place and with no trace of the passionate weeping except for a puffiness of the eyes.

She said, “I'm sorry, that was embarrassing for you.”

“There's no need to apologize. I'm only sorry that I have no comfort to offer.”

She went on formally as if there had been nothing between them but a brief official encounter. “If there's anything else you need to know, anything I can help with, please don't hesitate to ring. Would you like my home number?”

Dalgliesh said, “It would be helpful,” and she scribbled the digits on her notepad, tore out the page and handed it over.

He said, “I'd be grateful if you could look through the patients' records and see if there is anything there that could help with the inquiry. A patient who felt resentful or tried to sue him, a dissatisfied relation, anything that might suggest he had an enemy among those he treated.”

“I can't believe that's possible. If he had I think I would know. Anyway, the patients' records are confidential. The hospital wouldn't agree to anything being passed on without the right authority.”

“I know that. If necessary the authority would have to be obtained.”

She said, “You're a strange policeman, aren't you? But you are a policeman. It would never be wise for me to forget that.”

She held out her hand and he took it briefly. It was very cold.

Walking down the corridor towards the waiting-room and the front door, he had the sudden need of coffee. It coincided with seeing a sign pointing to the cafeteria. Here, at the start of his career, when he had visited the hospital he had snatched a quick meal or a cup of tea. He recalled that it had been run by the League of Friends and wondered whether it still looked the same. It was certainly in the same place, a room some twenty feet by ten with windows looking out on a small paved garden. The grey brick opposite the high arched windows reinforced the impression that he was in a church. The tables he remembered with their red-checked cloths had been replaced by sturdier Formica-topped tables, but the serving counter to the left of the door with its hissing urns and glass display shelves looked much the same. The menu too was little different: baked potatoes with various fillings, beans and egg on toast, bacon rolls, tomato and vegetable soup and a variety of cakes and biscuits. It was a quiet time, the people wanting lunch had left and there was a high pile of dirty plates on a side table below a notice requesting people to clear their own tables. The only people there were two large workmen in their overalls at a far table and a young woman with a baby in a buggy. She seemed unaware of a toddler who, finger in mouth, swung herself round on the leg of a chair, singing unmelodiously, then stood stock-still, regarding Dalgliesh with wide, curious eyes. The mother was sitting with a cup of tea in front of her, gazing out into the garden while perpetually rocking the buggy with her left hand. It was impossible to see whether her look of tragic unawareness was caused by tiredness or grief. Dalgliesh reflected that a hospital was an extraordinary world in which human beings encountered each other briefly, bearing an individual weight of hope, anguish or despair, and yet was a world curiously familiar and accommodating, paradoxically both frightening and reassuring.

The coffee, served at the counter by an elderly woman, was cheap but good and he drank quickly, suddenly anxious to be away. This brief respite had been an indulgence in the over-busy day. The prospect of interviewing the senior Mrs. Faraday had assumed greater interest and importance. Had she known of her daughter-in-law's infidelity? If so, how much had she cared?

When he regained the main corridor he saw Angela Faraday immediately in front of him and paused to study one of the sepia photographs to give her time to avoid him. When she reached the waiting-room a young man appeared, as promptly as if he had recognized the sound of her footsteps. Dalgliesh saw a face of remarkable beauty, sensitive, fine-boned and with wide, luminous eyes. The young man didn't see Dalgliesh. His eyes were on his wife as he stretched out his hand to grasp hers and then joined her, his face suddenly irradiated with trust and an almost childlike joy.

Dalgliesh waited until they had left the hospital. For some reason which he was unable to explain it was an encounter that he wished he had not seen.

12

Major Arkwright lived in the first-floor flat of a converted period house in Maida Vale. It was meticulously maintained behind iron railings that looked newly painted. The brass plate bearing the names of the four tenants was polished to a silvery whiteness and there were two tubs, each containing a bay tree, one on either side of the door. A male voice responded quickly when Piers pressed the bell. There was no lift.

At the top of the carpeted stairs Major Arkwright awaited them at the open door. He was a dapper little man wearing a tailored suit with matching waistcoat and what could have been a regimental tie. His moustache, a thin pencil line in contrast to the bushiness of his eyebrows, was a fading ginger, but little could be seen of his hair. His whole head, looking unusually small, was enclosed in a close-fitting cap of muslin beneath which the pad of white gauze was visible above the left ear. Piers thought that the cap made him look like an elderly, out-of-work but undiscouraged Pierrot. Two eyes of remarkable blue gave Piers and Kate a keen appraising look but it was not unfriendly. He glanced at their warrant cards with no evident concern, merely nodding them in as if in approval that they had arrived so precisely on time.

It was at once apparent that the Major collected antiques, particularly Staffordshire commemorative figures. The narrow hall was so crowded that Kate and Piers entered it gingerly, as if venturing into an overstocked antiques market. A narrow shelf ran the whole length of the wall on which were arrayed an impressive collection: the Duke of Clarence, Edward VII's ill-fated son, and his fiancée, Princess May; Queen Victoria in state robes; a mounted Garibaldi; Shakespeare leaning on a pillar topped with books, resting his head on his right arm; notable Victorian preachers fulminating from their pulpits. On the opposite wall there was a miscellaneous collection chiefly of Victoriana, silhouettes in their oval frames, a framed sampler dated 1852, small oil paintings of nineteenth-century rural scenes in which country labourers and their families, looking unconvincingly well fed and clean, gambolled or sat peacefully outside their picturesque cottages. Piers's practised eyes took in the details at a glance, with some surprise that nothing seen so far reflected the Major's military career.

They were led through a sitting-room, comfortable if overfurnished with a display cabinet crammed with similar Staffordshire figures, then down a short passage and into a conservatory built out over the garden. It was furnished with four cane armchairs and a table with a glass top. Shelves round the base of the wall held a remarkable selection of plants, most of them evergreens and all of them flourishing.

The Major seated himself and waved Piers and Kate to the other chairs. He seemed as cheerfully unconcerned as if they were old friends. Before Piers or Kate could speak, he said in a gruff staccato voice, “Found the boy yet?”

“Not yet, sir.”

“You will. I don't think he'll have thrown himself in the river. Not that kind. He'll surface as soon as he realizes I'm not dead. You needn't bother about the fracas we had—but then you aren't bothered, are you? More important concerns. I wouldn't have called the ambulance or the police if Mrs. Perrifield—she lives downstairs—hadn't heard me fall and come up. A well-meaning woman, but inclined to interfere. Ryan bumped into her as he dashed out of the house. He'd left the door open. She called the ambulance and the police before I could stop her. I was a bit dazed—well, unconscious really. Surprised she didn't call the Fire Brigade, the Army, and anyone else she could think of. Anyway, I'm not pressing charges.”

Piers was anxious to get a quick answer to the one vital question. He said, “We're not concerned with that, sir, not primarily. Can you tell us at what time Ryan Archer arrived home yesterday evening?”

“ 'Fraid not. I was in South Ken at a sale of Staffordshire pottery. One or two pieces I fancied. Outbid on all of them. Used to be able to pick up a commemorative piece for about £30. Not now.”

“And you got back when, sir?”

“About seven o'clock, near enough. Met a friend outside the auction room and we went to a local pub for a quick drink. Ryan was here when I got back.”

“Doing what, sir?”

“Watching television in his room. I hired a separate set. The boy watches different programmes from me and I like some privacy in the evenings. Works all right on the whole.”

Kate said, “How did he seem when you got in?”

“How d'you mean?”

“Was he agitated, distressed, different from his usual self?”

“I didn't see him for about fifteen minutes. Just called out and he answered. Can't remember what we said. Then he came in and the row developed. My fault really.”

“Can you tell us exactly what happened?”

“It began when we started talking about Christmas. I'd arranged to take him to Rome, hotel booked, flights fixed. He said he'd changed his mind, that he'd been invited to spend Christmas with someone else, a woman.”

Choosing her words carefully, Kate said, “Did this upset you? Did you feel disappointed, jealous?”

“Not jealous, bloody angry. I'd bought the air tickets.”

“Did you believe him?”

“Not really, not about the woman.”

“What then?”

“It was obvious he didn't want to come to Rome. I thought he could have told me before I booked. And I'd sent for some information about possible further education. The boy's bright enough, but he's virtually uneducated. Truanted most of the time. I left him the brochures to look through so we could discuss the possibilities. He'd done nothing. There was an argument about the whole idea. I thought he was keen, but apparently not. He said he was sick of my interference, something like that. Don't blame the boy. As I said, the whole thing was my fault. I used the wrong words.”

“Which were?”

“I said, ‘You'll never amount to anything in life.' Was going on to say, ‘Unless you get some education or training.' Never got the chance to complete the sentence. Ryan went berserk. Those must have been the words he heard from his stepfather. Well, not the stepfather, the man who moved in with his mother. It's the usual story, you must have heard it a dozen times. Father moves out, mother takes a succession of lovers and eventually one of them moves in. Son and lover detest each other and one of them has to go. No prize for guessing which. The man was obviously a brute. Funny, some women seem to like that kind of thing. Anyway, he more or less turned Ryan out. Surprising Ryan didn't lay him out with a poker.”

Kate said, “He told the housekeeper at the museum that he'd been in care since childhood.”

“Lot of rot! He lived at home until he was fifteen. His dad died eighteen months before then. Ryan hints that it was a particularly tragic death but he never explained. Probably another fantasy. No, he was never in care. The boy's a mess, but not as big a mess as he'd be if the care authorities had got their hands on him.”