by P. D. James
The hackneyed phrase sharpened her curiosity. Violence had always fascinated her. He knew that she saw in imagination a spatter of blood and brains.
“Darling, I must hear all about it. Why not come over?”
“Well, I was thinking of it,” said Dr. Steiner. He added cunningly: “There are one or two details I can’t give you over the phone. But if you’ve got a party, it’s rather difficult. Frankly, Valda, I’m not capable of being sociable just now. I’ve got one of my heads starting. This has all been a terrible shock. After all, I did more or less discover the body.”
“You poor sweet. Look, give me half an hour and I’ll get rid of the chums.”
The chums sounded to Dr. Steiner as if they were well entrenched and he said so.
“Not really. We were all going on to Toni’s. They can manage without me. I’ll give them a shove and you set off in about half an hour. All right?”
It was certainly all right. Replacing the receiver, Dr. Steiner decided that he would just have time to bathe and change in comfort. He pondered on a choice of tie. The headache unaccountably seemed to have gone. Just before he left the house, the telephone rang. He felt a spasm of apprehension. Perhaps Valda had changed her mind about seeing off the chums and having some time alone together. That, after all, had been a recurring pattern in his marriage. He was irritated to find that the hand reaching for the receiver was not quite steady. But the caller was only Dr. Etherege to say that he was calling an emergency meeting of the Clinic Medical Committee for eight p.m. the following evening. In his relief Dr. Steiner, momentarily forgetting Miss Bolam, just saved himself in time from the folly of asking why.
If Ralfe and Sonia Bostock had lived in Clapham, their flat would have been called a basement. Since, however, it was in Hampstead, half a mile in fact from Dr. Steiner’s house, a small wooden notice, lettered with impeccable taste, directed one to the garden flat. Here they paid nearly twelve pounds a week for a socially acceptable address and the privilege of seeing a green sloping lawn from the sitting-room window. They had planted this lawn with crocuses and daffodils and in spring those plants which managed to bloom in the almost complete lack of sun at least fostered the illusion that the flat had access to a garden. In autumn, however, the view was less agreeable and dampness from the sloping soil seeped into the room. The flat was noisy. There was a nursery school two houses away and a young family in the ground-floor flat.
Ralfe Bostock, dispensing drinks to their carefully selected friends and raising his voice against the wail of bath-time tantrums, would say: “Sorry for the row. I’m afraid the intelligentsia have taken to breeding but not—alas—to controlling their brats.” He was given to malicious remarks, some of which were clever, but he overworked them. His wife lived in constant apprehension that he would make the same witticism twice to the same people. There were few things more fatal to a man’s chances than the reputation for repeating his jokes.
Tonight he was out at a political meeting. She approved of the meeting which might be an important one for him and she did not mind being alone. She wanted time to think. She went into the bedroom and took off her suit, shaking it carefully and hanging it in the wardrobe, then put on a housecoat of brown velvet. Next she sat at her dressing table. Binding a crêpe bandage about her brow she began to cream the makeup from her face. She was more tired than she had realized and needed a drink, but nothing would deter her from her evening ritual. There was much to think about, much to plan. The grey-green eyes, ringed with cream, gazed calmly back at her from the glass. Leaning forward she inspected the delicate folds of skin beneath each eye, watching for the first lines of age. She was only twenty-eight, after all. There was no need to worry yet. But Ralfe was thirty this year. Time was passing. If they were to achieve anything, there was no time to lose.
She considered tactics. The situation would need careful handling and there was no room for mistakes. She had made one already. The temptation to slap Nagle’s face had proved irresistible, but it was still a mistake and possibly a bad one, too like vulgar exhibitionism to be safe. Aspiring administrative officers did not slap a porter’s face even when under strain, particularly if they wanted to create an impression of calm, authoritative competence. She remembered the look on Miss Saxon’s face. Well, Fredrica Saxon was in no position to be censorious. It was a pity that Dr. Steiner was there but it had all happened so quickly that she couldn’t be sure that he had really seen. The Priddy child was of no importance.
Nagle would have to go, of course, once she was appointed. Here, too, she would have to be careful. He was an insolent devil, but the clinic could do much worse and the consultants knew it. An efficient porter made quite a difference to their comfort, especially when he was willing and able to carry out the many small repair jobs that were needed. It wouldn’t be a popular move if they had to wait for someone to come from the group engineer’s department every time a sash cord broke or a fuse needed replacing. Nagle would have to go, but she would put out feelers for a good replacement before taking any action.
The main concern at present must be to get the consultants’ support for her appointment. She could be sure of Dr. Etherege and his was the most powerful voice. But it wasn’t the only one. He would be retiring in six months’ time and his influence would be on the wane. If she were offered an acting appointment, and all went well, the Hospital Management Committee might not be in too much of a hurry to advertise the post. Almost certainly they would wait until the murder was either solved or the police shelved the case. It was up to her to consolidate her position in the intervening months. It wouldn’t do to take anything for granted. When there had been trouble at a unit, committees tended to make an outside appointment. There was safety in bringing in a stranger uncontaminated by the previous upset. The group secretary would be an influence there. It had been a wise move to see him last month and ask his advice about working for the diploma of the Institute of Hospital Administrators. He liked his staff to qualify and, being a man, he was flattered to be asked for advice. But he wasn’t a fool. He didn’t have to be. She was as suitable a candidate as the HMC were likely to find, and he knew it.
She lay back, relaxed, on her single bed, her feet raised on a pillow, her mind busy with the images of success. “My wife is administrative officer of the Steen Clinic.” So much more satisfactory than, “Actually, my wife is working as a secretary at present. The Steen Clinic, as a matter of fact.”
And less than two miles away, in a mortuary in north London, Miss Bolam’s body, tight-packed as a herring in an ice box, stiffened slowly through the autumn night.
5
If there had to be a murder at the Steen, Friday was the most convenient day for it. The clinic did not open on Saturday so that the police were able to work in the building without the complications presented by the presence of patients and staff. The staff, presumably, were glad of two days’ grace in which to recover from the shock, determine at leisure what their official reaction should be and seek the comfort and reassurance of their friends.
Dalgliesh’s day began early. He had asked for a report from the local CID about the Steen burglary and this, together with typescripts of the previous day’s interviews, was waiting on his desk. The burglary had puzzled the local men. There could be no doubt that someone had broken into the clinic and that the fifteen pounds was missing. It was not so certain that these two facts were related. The local sergeant thought it odd that a casual thief had picked the one drawer which held cash while neglecting the safe and leaving untouched the silver inkstand in the medical director’s office. On the other hand, Cully had undoubtedly seen a man leaving the clinic and both he and Nagle had alibis for the time of entry. The local CID were inclined to suspect Nagle of having helped himself to the cash while he was alone in the building but it had not been found on him and there was no real evidence. Besides, the porter had plenty of opportunities for dishonesty at the Steen if he were so inclined and nothing was known against him. The whole
affair was puzzling. They were still working on it but weren’t very hopeful. Dalgliesh asked that any progress should be reported to him at once and set off with Sergeant Martin to examine Miss Bolam’s flat.
Miss Bolam had lived on the fifth floor of a solid, red-brick block near Kensington High Street. There was no difficulty over the key. The resident caretaker handed it over with formal and perfunctory expressions of regret at Miss Bolam’s death. She seemed to feel that some reference to the murder was necessary, but managed to give the impression that the company’s tenants usually had the good taste to quit this life in more orthodox fashion.
“There will be no undesirable publicity, I hope,” she murmured, as she escorted Dalgliesh and Sergeant Martin to the lift. “These flats are very select and the company are most particular about their tenants. We have never had trouble of this kind before.”
Dalgliesh resisted the temptation to say that Miss Bolam’s murderer had obviously not recognized one of the company’s tenants.
“The publicity is hardly likely to affect the flats,” he pointed out. “It’s not as if the murder took place here.” The caretaker was heard to murmur that she hoped not indeed!
They ascended to the fifth floor together in the slow, old-fashioned panelled lift. The atmosphere was heavy with disapproval.
“Did you know Miss Bolam at all?” Dalgliesh inquired. “I believe she had lived here for some years.”
“I knew her to say good morning to, nothing more. She was a very quiet tenant. But then all our tenants are. She has been in residence for fifteen years, I believe. Her mother was the tenant previously and they lived here together. When Mrs. Bolam died, her daughter took over the tenancy. That was before my time.”
“Did her mother die here?”
The caretaker closed her lips repressively. “Mrs. Bolam died in a nursing home in the country. There was some unpleasantness, I believe.”
“You mean that she killed herself?”
“I was told so. As I said, it happened before I took this job. Naturally I never alluded to the fact either to Miss Bolam or to any of the other tenants. It is not the kind of thing one would wish to talk about. They really do seem a most unfortunate family.”
“What rent did Miss Bolam pay?”
The caretaker paused before replying. This was obviously high on her list of questions that should not properly be asked. Then, as if reluctantly admitting the authority of the police, she replied: “Our fourth- and fifth-floor two-bedroom flats are from £490 excluding rates.”
That was about half Miss Bolam’s salary, thought Dalgliesh. It was too high a proportion for anyone without private means. He had yet to see the dead woman’s solicitor, but it looked as if Nurse Bolam’s assessment of her cousin’s income was not far wrong.
He dismissed the caretaker at the door of the flat and he and Martin went in together.
This prying among the personal residue of a finished life was a part of his job which Dalgliesh had always found a little distasteful. It was too much like putting the dead at a disadvantage. During his career he had examined with interest and with pity so many petty leavings. The soiled underclothes pushed hurriedly into drawers, personal letters which prudence would have destroyed, half-eaten meals, unpaid bills, old photographs, pictures and books which the dead would not have chosen to represent their taste to a curious or vulgar world, family secrets, stale makeup in greasy jars, the muddle of ill-disciplined or unhappy lives. It was no longer the fashion to dread an unshriven end but most people, if they thought at all, hoped for time to clear away their debris. He remembered from childhood the voice of an old aunt exhorting him to change his vest. “Suppose you got run over, Adam. What would people think?” The question was less absurd than it had seemed to a ten-year-old. Time had taught him that it expressed one of the major preoccupations of mankind, the dread of losing face.
But Enid Bolam might have lived each day as if expecting sudden death. He had never examined a flat so neat, so obsessively tidy. Even her few cosmetics, the brush and comb on her dressing table were arranged with patterned precision. The heavy double bed was made. Friday was obviously her day for changing the linen. The used sheets and pillowcases were folded into a laundry box which lay open on a chair. The bedside table held nothing but a small travelling clock, a carafe of water and a Bible with a booklet beside it appointing the passage to be read each day and expounding the moral. There was nothing in the table drawer but a bottle of aspirin and a folded handkerchief. A hotel room would have held as much individuality.
All the furniture was old and heavy. The ornate mahogany door of the wardrobe swung open soundlessly to reveal a row of tightly packed clothes. They were expensive but unexciting. Miss Bolam had bought from that store which still caters mainly for country-house dowagers. There were well-cut skirts of indeterminate colour, heavy coats tailored to last through a dozen English winters, woollen dresses which could offend no one. Once the wardrobe was closed, it was impossible accurately to recall a single garment. At the back of them all, closeted from the light, were bowls of fibre, planted no doubt with bulbs whose Christmas flowering Miss Bolam would never see.
Dalgliesh and Martin had worked together for too many years to find much talking necessary and they moved about the flat almost in silence. Everywhere was the same heavy, old-fashioned furniture, the same ordered neatness. It was hard to believe that these rooms had been recently lived in, that anyone had cooked a meal in this impersonal kitchen. It was very quiet. At this height and muffled by the solid Victorian walls the clamour of traffic in Kensington High Street was a faint, distant throbbing. Only the insistent ticking of a grandfather clock in the hall stabbed the still silence. The air was cold and almost odourless except for the smell of the flowers. They were everywhere. There was a bowl of chrysanthemums on the hall table and another in the sitting room. The bedroom mantelpiece held a small jug of anemones. On the kitchen dresser was a taller brass jug of autumn foliage, the gatherings perhaps of some recent country walk. Dalgliesh did not like autumn flowers, the chrysanthemums which obstinately refuse to die, flaunting their shaggy heads even on a rotting stem, scentless dahlias fit only to be planted in neat rows in municipal parks. His wife had died in October and he had long recognized the minor bereavements which follow the death of the heart. Autumn was no longer a good time of the year. For him the flowers in Miss Bolam’s flat emphasized the general air of gloom, like wreaths at a funeral.
The sitting room was the largest room in the flat and here was Miss Bolam’s desk. Martin fingered it appreciatively.
“It’s all good solid stuff, sir, isn’t it? We’ve got a piece rather like this. The wife’s mother left it to us. Mind you, they don’t make furniture like it today. You get nothing for it, of course. Too big for modern rooms, I suppose. But it’s got quality.”
“You can certainly lean against it without collapsing,” said Dalgliesh.
“That’s what I mean, sir. Good solid stuff. No wonder she hung on to it. A sensible young woman on the whole, I’d say, and one who knew how to make herself comfortable.” He drew a second chair up to the desk where Dalgliesh was already seated, planted his heavy thighs in it and did indeed look comfortable and at home.
The desk was unlocked. The top rolled back without difficulty. Inside was a portable typewriter and a metal box containing files of paper, each file neatly labelled. The drawers and compartments of the desk held writing paper, envelopes and correspondence. As they expected, everything was in perfect order. They went through the files together. Miss Bolam paid her bills as soon as they were due and kept a running account of all her household expenditure.
There was much to be gone through. Details of her investments were filed under the appropriate heading. At her mother’s death the trustee securities had been redeemed and the capital reinvested in equities. The portfolio was skilfully balanced and there could be little doubt that Miss Bolam had been well advised and had increased her assets considerably during the past five
years. Dalgliesh noted the name of her stockbroker and solicitor. Both would have to be seen before the investigation was complete.
The dead woman kept few of her personal letters; perhaps there had been few worth keeping. But there was one, filed under P, which was interesting. It was written in a careful hand on cheap lined paper from a Balham address and read:
Dear Miss Bolam,
These are just a few lines to thank you for all you done for Jenny. It hasn’t turned out as we wished and prayed for but we shall know in His good time what His purpose is. I still feel we did right to let them marry. It wasn’t only to stop talk, as I think you know. He has gone for good, he writes. Her dad and me didn’t know that things had got that bad between them. She doesn’t talk much to us but we shall wait patiently and maybe, one day, she will be our girl again. She seems very quiet and won’t talk about it so we don’t know whether she grieves. I try not to feel bitterness against him. Dad and I think it would be a good idea if you could get Jenny a post in the health service. It is really good of you to offer and be interested after all that’s happened. You know what we think about divorce so she must look to her job now for happiness. Dad and I pray every night that she’ll find it.
Thanking you again for all your interest and help. If you do manage to get Jenny the post, I’m sure she won’t let you down. She’s learnt her lesson and it’s been a bitter one for us all. But His will be done.
Yours respectfully, Emily Priddy (Mrs.)
It was extraordinary, thought Dalgliesh, that people still lived who could write a letter like that, with its archaic mixture of subservience and self-respect, its unashamed yet curiously poignant emotionalism. The story it told was ordinary enough, but he felt detached from its reality. The letter could have been written fifty years ago; he almost expected to see the paper curling with age and smell the tentative scent of potpourri. It had no relevance, surely, to that pretty, ineffectual child at the Steen.