by P. D. James
Mr. Courtney-Briggs made no attempt to keep the satisfaction out of his voice.
“I think that is likely to challenge even your ingenuity, Sergeant. Mr. Martin Dettinger died on the day Nurse Pearce left this ward. If I remember rightly, she was with him when he died. So both of them are safely out of reach of your inquisition. And now, if you’d be good enough to excuse us, Sister and I have work to do.”
He held open the door and Sister Brumfett strutted out before him. Sergeant Masterson was left alone, holding the ward record book in his hand.
“Bloody bastard,” he said aloud.
He stood for a moment, thinking. Then he went in search of the medical records department.
6
Ten minutes later he was back in the office. Under his arm was the ward report book and a buff-coloured file, stamped with a warning in black capital letters that it was not to be handed to the patient, and bearing the name of the hospital and Martin Dettinger’s medical record number. He placed the book on the table and handed the file to Dalgliesh.
“Thank you. You got it without trouble?”
“Yes, sir,” said Masterson. He saw no reason to explain that the Medical Records Officer had been out of his department and that he had half persuaded, half bullied the junior clerk on duty into handing over the file on the grounds, which he didn’t for a moment believe, that the rules about the confidentiality of medical records no longer applied when the patient was dead and that when a Superintendent of the Yard asked for a thing he was entitled to get it without fuss and without delay.
They studied the file together. Dalgliesh said: “Martin Dettinger. Aged forty-six. Gave his address as his London club. C. of E. Divorced. Next-of-kin, Mrs. Louise Dettinger, 23 Saville Mansions, Marylebone. Mother. You had better see the lady, Masterson. Make an appointment for tomorrow evening. I shall need you here during the day while I’m in town. And take trouble with her. She must have visited her son pretty frequently when he was in hospital. Nurse Pearce was specializing him. The two women probably saw quite a lot of each other. Something happened to upset Pearce while she was working on the private ward during the last week of her life and I want to know what it was.”
He turned back to the medical record.
“There’s a lot of paper here. The poor chap seems to have had a stormy medical history. He suffered from colitis for the past ten years, and before that there’s a record of long spells of un diagnosed ill-health, perhaps a forerunner of the condition which killed him. He was in hospital for three periods during his army service, including a spell of two months in an army hospital in Cairo in 1947. He was invalided out of the army in 1952 and emigrated to South Africa. That doesn’t seem to have done him much good. There are notes here from a hospital in Johannesburg. Courtney-Briggs wrote for them; he certainly takes trouble. His own notes are pretty copious. He took over the case a couple of years ago and seems to have been acting as a kind of general practitioner to Dettinger as well as his surgeon. The colitis became acute about a month ago, and Courtney-Briggs operated to remove a large part of the bowel on Friday, 2nd January. Dettinger survived the operation, although he was in a pretty bad state by then, and made some progress until the early afternoon of Monday, 5th January, when he relapsed. After that he was seldom conscious for long, and he died at five-thirty p.m. on Friday, 9th January.”
Masterson said: “Nurse Pearce was with him when he died.”
“And apparently she nursed him almost single-handed for the last week of his life. I wonder what the nursing record tells us.”
But the nursing record was far less informative than the medical file. Nurse Pearce had entered in her careful schoolgirl’s hand the details of her patient’s temperature, respiration and pulse, his restlessness and brief hours of sleep, his medication and food. It could not be faulted as a meticulous record of nursing care. Beyond that it told them nothing.
Dalgliesh closed the book.
“You’d better return this to the ward and the medical folder to the proper department. We’ve learned all we can from them. But I feel in my bones that Martin Dettinger’s death has something to do with this case.”
Masterson did not reply. Like all detectives who had worked with Dalgliesh, he had a healthy respect for the old man’s hunches. Inconvenient, perverse and far-fetched they might seem, but they had been proved right too often to be safely ignored. And he had no objection to an evening trip to London. Tomorrow was Friday. The timetable on the hall notice-board showed that the students’ sessions ended early on Friday. They would be free soon after five. He wondered whether Julia Pardoe would fancy a drive to town. After all, why not? Dalgliesh wouldn’t be back by the time he was due to set out. It could be arranged with care. And there were some suspects it would be a positive pleasure to interview on their own.
7
Just before half past four Dalgliesh, in defiance of convention and prudence, took tea alone with Sister Gearing in her bed-sitting-room. She had met him casually passing across the ground-floor hall as the students were filing out of the lecture room after the last seminar of the day. She had given the invitation spontaneously and without coyness, although Dalgliesh noted that Sergeant Masterson was not included. He would have accepted the invitation even had it been delivered on highly scented and pink writing-paper and accompanied by the most blatant of sexual innuendoes. What he wanted after the formal interrogation of the morning was to sit in comfort and listen to a flow of artless, candid and slightly malicious gossip; to listen with the surface of his mind soothed, uninvolved, even a little cynically amused, but with the sharp claws of the intelligence sharpened for their pickings. He had learned more about the Nightingale House Sisters from their conversation at luncheon than he had in all his formal interviews, but he couldn’t spend all his time tagging along behind the nursing staff, picking up scraps of gossip like so many dropped handkerchiefs. He wondered whether Sister Gearing had something to tell or something to ask. Either way he didn’t expect an hour in her company to be wasted.
Dalgliesh hadn’t yet been in any of the rooms on the third floor except Matron’s flat and he was struck by the size and pleasant proportions of Sister Gearing’s room. From here, even in winter, the hospital couldn’t be seen, and the room had a calm of its own, remote from the frenetic life of wards and departments. Dalgliesh thought that in summer it must be very pleasant with nothing but a curdle of tree tops breaking the view of the far hills. Even now, with the curtains drawn against the fading light and the gas fire giving out a merry hiss, it was welcoming and warm. Presumably the divan bed in the corner with its cretonne cover and carefully arranged bank of cushions had been provided by the Hospital Management Committee, as had the two comfortable armchairs similarly covered and the rest of the uninteresting but functional furniture. But Sister Gearing had imposed her own personality on the room. There was a long shelf along the far wall on which she had arranged a collection of dolls in different national costumes. On another wall was a smaller shelf holding an assortment of china cats of different sizes and breeds. There was one particularly repulsive specimen in spotted blue, bulging of eye and adorned with a bow of blue ribbon; and propped beside it was a greetings card. It showed a female robin, the sex denoted by a frilly apron and flowered bonnet, perched on a twig. At her feet, a male robin was spelling out the words “Good luck” in worms. Dalgliesh hastily averted his eyes from this abomination and continued his tactful examination of the room.
The table in front of the window was presumably intended as a desk but about half a dozen photographs in silver frames effectively took up most of the working space. There was a record player in a corner with a cabinet of records beside it and a poster of a recent pop idol pinned on the wall above. There was a large number of cushions of all sizes and colours, three pouffes of unattractive design, an imitation tiger rug in brown-and-white nylon, and a coffee table on which Sister Gearing had set out the tea. But the most remarkable object in the room, in Dalgliesh’s eyes, wa
s a tall vase of winter foliage and chrysanthemums, beautifully arranged, standing on a side table. Sister Gearing was reputably good with flowers, and this arrangement had a simplicity of colour and line which was wholly pleasing. It was odd, he thought, that a woman with such an instinctive taste in flower arrangement should be content to live in this vulgarly over-furnished room. It suggested that Sister Gearing might be a more complex person than one would at first suppose. On the face of it, her character was easily read. She was a middle-aged, uncomfortably passionate spinster, not particularly well-educated or intelligent, and concealing her frustrations with a slightly spurious gaiety. But twenty-five years as a policeman had taught him that no character was without its complications, its inconsistencies. Only the young or the very arrogant imagined that there was an identikit to the human mind.
Here in her own place Sister Gearing was less overtly flirtatious than she was in company. Admittedly she had chosen to pour the tea while curled on a large cushion at his feet, but he guessed from the number and variety of these cushions plumped around the room that this was her usual comfortable habit, rather than a kittenish invitation for him to join her. The tea was excellent. It was hot and freshly brewed, and accompanied by lavishly buttered crumpets with anchovy paste. There was an admirable absence of doilies and sticky cakes, and the cup handle could be comfortably held without dislocating one’s fingers. She looked after him with quiet efficiency. Dalgliesh thought that Sister Gearing was one of those women who, when alone with a man, considered it their duty to devote themselves entirely to his comfort and the flattering of his ego. This may arouse fury in less dedicated women, but it is unreasonable to expect a man to object.
Relaxed by the warmth and comfort of her room and stimulated by tea, Sister Gearing was obviously in a mood for talk. Dalgliesh let her chatter on, only occasionally throwing in a question. Neither of them mentioned Leonard Morris. The artless confidences for which Dalgliesh hoped would hardly spring from embarrassment or restraint.
“Of course, what happened to that poor kid Pearce is absolutely appalling, however it was caused. And with the whole set looking on like that! I’m surprised that it hasn’t upset their work completely, but the young are pretty tough these days. And it isn’t as if they liked her. But I can’t believe that any one of them put that corrosive into the feed. After all, these are third-year students. They know that carbolic acid taken straight into the stomach in that concentration is lethal. Damn it all, they had a lecture about poisons in their previous block. So it couldn’t have been a practical joke that misfired.”
“All the same, that seems to be the general view.”
“Well, it’s natural, isn’t it? No one wants to believe that Pearce’s death was murder. And if this were a first-year block I might believe it. One of the students might have tampered with the feed on impulse, perhaps with the idea that lysol is an emetic and that the demonstration might be enlivened by Pearce sicking up all over the G.N.S. Inspector. An odd idea of humour, but the young can be pretty crude. But these kids must have known what that stuff would do to the stomach.”
“And what about Nurse Fallon’s death?”
“Oh, suicide I should think. After all, the poor girl was pregnant. She probably had a moment of intense depression and didn’t see the point of going on. Three years of training wasted and no family to turn to. Poor old Fallon! I don’t think she was really the suicidal type, but it probably happened on impulse. There has been a certain amount of criticism about Dr. Snelling—he looks after the students’ health—letting her come back to the block so soon after her influenza. But she hated being off and it wasn’t as if she were on the wards. This is hardly the time of the year to send people away for convalescence. She was as well off in school as anywhere. Still, the flu couldn’t have helped. It probably left her feeling pretty low. This epidemic is having some pretty nasty after-effects. If only she’d confided in someone. It’s awful to think of her putting an end to herself like that with a houseful of people who would have been glad to help if only she’d asked. Here, let me give you another cup. And try one of those shortbreads. They’re homemade. My married sister sends me them from time to time.”
Dalgliesh helped himself to a piece of shortbread from the proffered tin and observed that there were those who thought that Nurse Fallon might have had another reason for suicide, apart from her pregnancy. She could have put the corrosive in the feed. She had certainly been seen in Nightingale House at the crucial time.
He put forward the suggestion slyly, awaiting her reaction. It wouldn’t, of course, be new to her; it must have occurred to everyone in Nightingale House. But she was too simple to be surprised that a senior detective should be discussing his case so frankly with her, and too stupid to ask herself why.
She dismissed this theory with a snort.
“Not Fallon! It would have been a foolish trick and she was no fool. I told you, any third-year nurse would know that the stuff was lethal. And if you’re suggesting that Fallon intended to kill Pearce—and why on earth should she?—I’d say that she was the last person to suffer remorse. If Fallon decided to do murder she wouldn’t waste time repenting afterwards, let alone kill herself in remorse. No, Fallon’s death is understandable enough. She had post-flu depression and she felt she couldn’t cope with the baby.”
“So you think they both committed suicide?”
“Well, I’m not so sure about Pearce. You’d have to be pretty crazy to choose that agonizing way of dying, and Pearce seemed sane enough to me. But it’s a possible explanation, isn’t it? And I can’t see you proving anything else however long you stay.”
He thought he detected a note of smug complacency in her voice and glanced at her abruptly. But the thin face showed nothing but its usual look of vague dissatisfaction. She was eating shortbread, nibbling at it with sharp, very white teeth. He could hear them rasping against the biscuits.
She said: “When one explanation is impossible, the improbable must be true. Someone said something like that. G. K. Chesterton wasn’t it? Nurses don’t murder each other. Or anyone else for that matter.”
“There was Nurse Waddingham,” said Dalgliesh.
“Who was she?”
“An unprepossessing and unpleasant woman who poisoned with morphine one of her patients, a Miss Baguley. Miss Baguley had been so ill-advised as to leave Nurse Waddingham her money and property in turn for life-long treatment in the latter’s nursing home. She struck a poor bargain. Nurse Waddingham was hanged.”
Sister Gearing gave a frisson of simulated distaste.
“What awful people you do get yourself mixed up with! Anyway, she was probably one of those unqualified nurses. You can’t tell me that Waddingham was on the General Nursing Council’s Register.”
“Come to think of it, I don’t believe she was. And I wasn’t mixed up with it. It happened in 1935.”
“Well, there you are then,” Sister Gearing said as if vindicated.
She stretched across to pour him a second cup of tea, then wriggled herself more comfortably into her cushion and leaned back against the arm of his chair, so that her hair brushed his knee. Dalgliesh found himself examining with mild interest the narrow band of darker hair each side of the parting where the dye had grown out. Viewed from above, her foreshortened face looked older, the nose sharper. He could see the latent pouch of skin under the bottom eyelashes and a spatter of broken veins high on the cheekbones, the purple threads only half disguised by make-up. She was no longer a young woman; that he knew. And there was a great deal more about her that he had gleaned from her dossier. She had trained at a hospital in the East End of London after a variety of unsuccessful and unprofitable office jobs. Her nursing career had been chequered and her references were suspiciously noncommittal. There had been doubt about the wisdom of seconding her for training as a clinical instructor, a suggestion that she had been motivated less by a desire to teach than by the hope of an easier job than that of ward sister. He knew that she was
having difficulty with the menopause. He knew more about her than she realized, more than she would think he had any right to know. But he didn’t yet know whether she was a murderess. Intent for a moment on his private thoughts, he hardly caught her next words.
“It’s odd your being a poet. Fallon had your last volume of verse in her room, didn’t she? Rolfe told me. Isn’t it difficult to reconcile poetry with being a policeman?”
“I’ve never thought of poetry and police work as needing to be reconciled in that ecumenical way.”
She laughed coyly.
“You know very well what I mean. After all it is a little unusual. One doesn’t think of policemen as poets.”
He did, of course, know what she meant. But it wasn’t a subject he was prepared to discuss. He said: “Policemen are individuals like people in any other job. After all, you three nursing Sisters haven’t much in common have you? You and Sister Brumfett could hardly be more different personalities. I can’t see Sister Brumfett feeding me on anchovy crumpets and homemade shortbread.”
She had reacted at once, as he had known she would.
“Oh, Brumfett’s all right when you get to know her. Of course she’s twenty years out of date. As I said at lunch, the kids today aren’t prepared to listen to all that guff about obedience and duty and a sense of vocation. But she’s a marvellous nurse. I won’t hear a word against Brum. I had an appendectomy here about four years ago. It went a bit wrong and the wound burst. Then I got an infection which was resistant to antibiotics. The whole thing was a mess. Not one of our Courtney-Briggs’s most successful efforts. Anyway I felt like death. One night I was in ghastly pain and couldn’t sleep and I felt absolutely sure I wouldn’t see the morning. I was terrified. It was sheer funk. Talk about the fear of death! I knew what it meant that night. Then Brumfett came round. She was looking after me herself; she wouldn’t let the students do a thing for me when she was on duty. I said to her: ‘I’m not going to die, am I?’ She looked down at me. She didn’t tell me not to be a fool or give me any of the usual comforting lies. She just said in that gruff voice of hers: ‘Not if I can help it you aren’t.’ And immediately the panic stopped. I knew that if Brumfett was fighting on my side I’d win through. It sounds a bit daft and sentimental put like that, but that’s what I thought. She’s like that with all the really sick patients. Talk about confidence! Brumfett makes you feel that she’d drag you back from the edge of the grave by sheer will-power, even if all the devils in hell were tugging the other way; which in my case they probably were. They don’t make them like that any more.”