Death in Holy Orders

by P. D. James

  “Not yet.”

  “You will. He’s already been on to me.”

  He took a last look at the body and said with surprising gentleness, “Poor lady. But at least it was quick. Two seconds of terror and then nothing. She’d have preferred to die in her bed but then, wouldn’t we all?”

  Dalgliesh had seen no need to cancel his instruction to Kate to visit Ashcombe House and by nine o’clock she and Robbins were on their way. It was a morning of penetrating chill. The first light had spread itself, pink as diluted blood, over the grey waste of sea. A fine drizzle was falling and the air tasted sour. As the windscreen wipers smeared then cleared the glass, Kate saw a landscape drained of colour in which even the far fields of sugar beet had lost their green brightness. She had to fight down her slight resentment at being chosen for what she privately thought could be a waste of time. AD seldom admitted to a hunch, but she knew from her own experience that a detective’s strong hunch usually has its roots in reality; a word, a look, a coincidence, something apparently insignificant or unrelated to the main inquiry which takes root in the subconscious and gives rise to that small shoot of unease. Often in the end it withers into inconsequence, but sometimes it provides the vital clue and only the foolish ignore it. She disliked leaving the scene of the crime with Piers in possession, but there were compensations. She was driving AD’s Jaguar and that was a satisfaction apart from her pleasure in the car.

  And she wasn’t altogether sorry to have a respite from St. Anselm’s. She had seldom been part of a murder inquiry in which she had physically and psychologically felt less at home. The college was too masculine, too self-contained, even too claustrophobic for comfort. The priests and ordinands had been unfailingly polite but it was a courtesy which jarred. They saw her primarily as a woman, not as a police officer; she had thought that that battle had been won. She felt too that they were in possession of some secret knowledge, some esoteric source of authority which subtly diminished her own. She wondered whether AD and Piers felt the same. Probably not, but then they were men and St. Anselm’s, despite its apparent gentleness, was an almost defiantly masculine world. Furthermore it was an academic world, and there too AD and Piers would feel at home. Some of her old social and educational insecurities returned. She thought that she had come to terms with them, if not entirely conquered them. It was humiliating that fewer than a dozen black-cassocked men could revive those old uncertainties. It was with a positive sense of relief that she turned westwards from the cliff-top track and the pulse of the sea gradually faded. It had beaten for too long in her ears.

  She would have preferred to have had Piers with her. At least they could have discussed the case on terms of equality, sparred and argued, and been more open than she could be with a junior officer. And she was beginning to find Sergeant Robbins irritating; she had always felt him almost too good to be true. She glanced at his boyish clear-cut profile, at the grey eyes gazing steadily ahead, and wondered again what had led him to choose the police. If he had seen the job as a vocation, well so had she. She had needed a job in which she could feel useful, where the lack of a university degree wouldn’t be seen as a disadvantage, a job which provided stimulus, excitement and variety. For her the police service had been a means of putting behind her for ever the squalor and poverty of her childhood, the stink of those urine-soaked stairs at Ellison Fairweather Buildings. The service had given her much, including the flat overlooking the Thames which she could still hardly believe she had achieved. In return she had given it a loyalty and devotion that sometimes surprised even herself. For Robbins, in his spare time a lay preacher, it was probably a vocation to serve his Nonconformist God. She wondered whether what he believed was different from what Father Sebastian believed, and if so, how different and why, but judged the time was not propitious for a theological discussion. What would be the point? In her class at school there had been thirteen different nationalities and almost as many religions. For her, none had been possessed of a coherent philosophy. She told herself that she could live her life without God; she was not sure she could live it without her job.

  The hospice was in a village south-east of Norwich. Kate said, “We don’t want to get tangled with the city. Watch out for the Bramerton turning on the right.”

  Five minutes later they had left the Aiq6 and were driving more slowly between denuded hedges behind which clusters of red-roofed bungalows and identical houses proclaimed the spread of suburbia over the green fields.

  Robbins said quietly, “My mum died in a hospice two years ago. The usual thing. Cancer.”

  “I’m sorry. This visit isn’t going to be easy for you.”

  “I’m all right. They were wonderful to Mum in the hospice. To us as well.”

  Keeping her eyes on the road, Kate said, “Still, it’s bound to bring back painful memories.”

  “It’s what Mum suffered before she went into the hospice that’s painful.” There was another longer pause, then he said, “Henry James called death “that distinguished thing”.”

  Oh God, thought Kate, first AD and his poetry, then Piers who knows about Richard Hooker, and now Robbins who reads Henry James! Why can’t they send me a sergeant whose idea of a literary challenge is reading Jeffrey Archer ?

  She said, “I had a boyfriend, a librarian who tried to get me to enjoy Henry James. By the time I’d got to the end of a sentence I’d forgotten how it began. Remember that criticism, some writers bite off more than they can chew. Henry James chews more than he’s bitten off?”

  Robbins said, “I’ve only read The Turn of the Screw. That was after I’d seen the TV film. I came across that quote about death somewhere and it stuck.”

  “Sounds good but it isn’t true. Death is like birth, painful, messy and undignified. Most of the time anyway.” She thought, perhaps it’s just as well. Reminds us that we’re animals. Maybe we’d do better if we tried to behave more like good animals and less like gods.

  There was a longer pause, then Robbins said quietly, “Mum’s death wasn’t without dignity.”

  Well, thought Kate, she was one of the lucky ones.

  They found the hospice without difficulty. It was in the grounds of a solid red brick house on the outskirts of the village. A large sign directed them down a driveway to the right of the house and to a car park. Behind it stretched the hospice, a single-storey modern building fronted with a lawn in which two circular beds planted with a variety of low evergreen shrubs and heathers made a brave show of green, purple and gold.

  Inside the reception area the immediate impression was of light, flowers and busyness. Two people were already at the reception desk, a woman making arrangements to take her husband out for a drive next day, and a clergyman patiently waiting. A baby was 28s wheeled past, her round bald head ludicrously encircled with a red ribbon adorned with a huge bow in the centre. She turned on Kate her bland incurious gaze. A young girl, obviously with her mother, came in carrying a puppy. The child called out, “We’re bringing Trixie to see Granny’, and laughed as the puppy slobbered over her ear. A young nurse in a pink overall with a name badge crossed the hall quietly supporting an emaciated man. Visitors came in with flowers and bags, calling out a cheerful greeting. Kate had expected an atmosphere of reverent calm, but not this sense of purposeful activity, of a stark functional building given life by the coming and going of people who felt at home in it.

  When the grey-haired non-uniformed woman at the reception desk turned to them, she glanced at Kate’s identification as if the arrival of two officers from the Metropolitan Police Force was a common occurrence. She said, “You rang earlier, didn’t you? Matron Miss Whetstone is expecting you. Her office is straight ahead.”

  Miss Whetstone was waiting at the door. Either she was used to her visitors arriving promptly, or had exceptionally keen ears to catch their coming. She ushered them into a room, the walls of which were three-quarters glass. It was situated at the hub of the hospital and gave a view of two corridors stretching n
orth and south. The easterly window looked out over a garden which seemed to Kate more institutional than the hospice itself. She saw a carefully-tended lawn with wooden benches at regular intervals round the stone paths and carefully-spaced beds in which the fading buds of tightly-furled roses gave smudges of colour among the denuded bushes.

  Miss Whetstone waved them to a couple of chairs, seated herself behind the desk and gave them the encouraging smile of a school-teacher welcoming not particularly promising new pupils. She was a short, heavily-bosomed woman with strong grey hair cut in a fringe above eyes that Kate suspected missed little, but which judged with determined charity. She was wearing a uniform dress in pale blue with a silver buckled belt and with the hospital badge pinned to her chest. Despite the atmosphere of institutional informality, Ashcombe House obviously believed in the status and virtues of the old-fashioned matron.

  Kate said, “We’re looking into the death of a student at St. Anselm’s Theological College. The body was found by Mrs. Margaret Munroe, who used to work here before she took the job at St. Anselm’s. There’s no suggestion whatever that she was concerned in the young man’s death, but she did leave a diary with a detailed account of how she found the body. A later entry mentions that the tragedy caused her to remember something which happened in her life twelve years ago. Apparently it was an event which, when she recalled it, caused her concern. We’d like to find out what it was. As she was nursing here twelve years ago, there was a possibility it was something which happened here, someone she met, a patient she nursed. We’re wondering whether your records would help. Or perhaps there’s someone on the staff who knew her that we could talk to.”

  On the journey Kate had mentally rehearsed what she would say, selecting, rejecting and assessing each word and sentence. It had been as much for her own clarification as for Miss Whetstone’s. Before setting out she had been on the point of asking AD what exactly she was looking for, but hadn’t wanted to betray confusion, ignorance or reluctance for the job.

  As if sensing what she had felt, Adam Dalgliesh had said, “Something important happened twelve years ago. Twelve years ago Margaret Munroe was nursing at Ashcombe House hospice. Twelve years ago, on 30 April 1988, Clara Arbuthnot died in the hospice. The facts may or may not be connected. It’s a fishing trip rather than a specific enquiry.”

  Kate had said, “I can see that there could be a link between Ronald Treeves’s death, however that happened, and Mrs. Munroe’s. I’m still not clear how all this connects with the Archdeacon’s murder.”

  “Nor am I, Kate, but I have a feeling that these three deaths -Ronald Treeves’s, Margaret Munroe’s and Crampton’s are connected. Not directly perhaps, but in some way. It’s also possible that Margaret Munroe was murdered. If she was, then her death and Crampton’s are almost certainly linked. I can’t believe we’ve two murderers loose in St. Anselm’s.”

  The argument had held a certain credibility at the time. Now, her small prepared speech ended, her doubts returned. Had she over-rehearsed the spiel? Would it have been better to rely on the inspiration of the moment? They weren’t helped by Miss Whetstone’s clear and sceptical gaze.

  She said, “Let me be sure I’ve understood you, Inspector. Margaret Munroe has recently died of a heart attack leaving a diary which refers to an event of importance in her life which happened twelve years ago. In connection with some unspecified enquiry you’re anxious to know what this was. Since she worked here twelve years ago you’re suggesting it could be something to do with the hospice. You’re hoping that our records might help or that there might be someone still in post who knew her and would remember incidents of twelve years ago.”

  Kate said, “It’s a long shot, I know. But the entry was made in the diary and we have to follow it up.”

  “In connection with a boy who was found dead. Was that death foul play?”

  “There’s no suggestion of that, Miss Whetstone.”

  “But there has been a recent murder at St. Anselm’s, surely. News gets about in the country. Archdeacon Crampton was done to death. Is this visit concerned with that inquiry?”

  “We have no reason to suppose it is. Our interest in the diary began before the Archdeacon was murdered.”

  “I see. Well, we all have a duty to help the police and I have no objection to looking at Mrs. Munroe’s file and passing on any information that might help you, provided I think that she wouldn’t object if she were still with us. I can’t believe the file will yield anything useful. Significant events happen frequently at Ashcombe House, including bereavement and death.”

  Kate said, “According to our information a patient died, a Miss Clara Arbuthnot, a month before Mrs. Munroe took up her post here. We are anxious to check the dates. We’d like to know if there was a chance that the two women did meet.”

  “That seems highly unlikely unless they met outside Ashcombe House. However, I can check the dates for you. All our records are now, of course, on computer, but we haven’t gone back as far as twelve years. We only keep the staff records in case prospective employers ask us for a reference. Both these files are in the main house. There may be information on Miss Arbuthnot’s medical record that I regard as confidential. You’ll understand I can’t pass that on.”

  Kate said, “It would be helpful if we could see both files, Mrs. Munroe’s record of employment and Miss Arbuthnot’s medical record.”

  “I don’t think I could allow that. Of course this situation is unusual. I’ve never been faced with this kind of request before. You have hardly been forthcoming about your interest either in Mrs. Munroe or in Miss Arbuthnot. I think I should have a word with Mrs. Barton -she’s our chairman before we go any further.”

  Before Kate had decided how to respond, Robbins said, “If all this sounds vague it’s because we don’t ourselves know what we’re looking for. We only know that something important happened in Mrs. Munroe’s life twelve years ago. She seems to have been a lady with few interests outside her job and it’s possible that it was something to do with Ashcombe House. Couldn’t you have a look at the two files to check we’ve got the dates right? If there’s nothing on Mrs. Munroe’s file that seems to you significant, then I’m afraid we’ve been wasting your time. If there is something, then you could consult Mrs. Barton before deciding whether it would be right to reveal it.”

  Miss Whetstone looked at him steadily for a moment.

  “That seems sensible. I’ll see if I can lay hands on the records. It may take a little time.”

  At that moment the door was opened and a nurse put her head round.

  “The ambulance has just arrived, Miss Whetstone, with Mrs. Wilson. Her daughters are with her.”

  Miss Whetstone’s face immediately brightened into happy expectancy. She might have been welcoming a fellow-guest into a prestigious hotel.

  “Good. Good. I’ll come. I’ll come now. We’re putting her in with Helen, aren’t we? I think she’ll be more comfortable with someone her own age.” She turned to Kate.

  “I’ll be busy for a little time. Do you want to come back or wait?”

  Kate felt that their physical presence in her office offered the best hope of getting the information quickly. She said, “We’ll wait if we may, please’, but after hearing the first two words Miss Whetstone was out of the door.

  Kate said, “Thank you, Sergeant. That was helpful.”

  She strode over to the window and stood quietly watching the comings and goings in the corridor. Glancing at Robbins she saw that his face was white and set in a mask of endurance. She thought she could detect a bead of moisture at the corner of his eye and quickly looked away. She thought, I’m not as good or as kind as I used to be two years ago. What’s happening to me? AD was right when I spoke to him. If I can’t give this job what it needs, and that includes humanity, maybe I’d be better leaving. Thinking of Dalgliesh, she wished with a sudden intensity that he were there. She smiled, remembering how in such a situation he could never resist the lure o
f words. It sometimes seemed to her that his reading was an obsession. He would be too scrupulous to study the papers left on the desk unless they were relevant to the inquiry, but he would certainly be moving over to study the numerous notices on the large cork board which obscured part of the window.

  Neither she nor Robbins spoke and they remained standing as they had been when Miss Whetstone got up from her chair. They were not kept waiting long. It was just under a quarter of an hour when she returned with two folders and again seated herself at her desk and laid them before her.

  “Do sit down, please!” she said.

  Kate felt like a candidate at an interview awaiting the humiliating exposure of an unimpressive record.

  Miss Whetstone had obviously studied the files before returning. She said, “I’m afraid there’s nothing here to help you. Margaret Munroe came to us on i June 1988 and left on 30 April 1994. She was suffering from a deteriorating condition of the heart and was strongly recommended by her doctor to seek less demanding work. She went, as you know, to St. Anselm’s mainly to look after the linen and to undertake such minor nursing tasks as might be expected in a small college consisting mostly of healthy young men. There’s little on her record except the usual applications for annual leave, medical certificates and an annual confidential report. I arrived six months after she left, so have no personal knowledge of her, but she seems to have been a conscientious and sympathetic if unimaginative nurse. The lack of imagination may have been a virtue; the lack of sentimentality certainly was. No one here is ever helped by over-emotionalism.”

  Kate said, “And Miss Arbuthnot?”

  “Clara Arbuthnot died a month before Margaret Munroe came to us. She can’t, therefore, have been nursed by Mrs. Munroe and if they did meet, it wasn’t here as patient and nurse.”