by P. D. James
“We’ll give it in beer. It’s pretty filthy stuff but they can hardly taste it in beer. Odd that. Two drams, Sister, to 2 cc.”
And Jenny, who disliked beer, would taste it even less. Quickly he put the screwdriver and the small blue bottle of paraldehyde in his jacket pocket and slipped out, lighting his way with the torch. All the clinic curtains were drawn, but it was important to show as little light as possible. He needed at least another undisturbed half-hour.
She looked up in surprise at his quick reappearance. He went over to her and kissed the back of her neck.
“I’m sorry, sweetie, I shouldn’t have left you. I’d forgotten that you might be nervous. The lock can wait, anyway. How’s the letter going?”
She pushed it over to him. He turned his back on her to read the few carefully penned lines deliberately, taking his time. But his luck had held. It was as neat and convincing a suicide note as was ever read in a coroner’s court. He couldn’t have dictated anything better. He felt a surge of confidence and excitement as he did when a painting was going well. Nothing could spoil it now. Jenny had written:
I can’t say I’m sorry for what I’ve done. I haven’t any choice. I feel so happy and it would all be perfect if I didn’t know that I’m making you miserable. But it’s the only and best thing for me. Please try to understand. I love you very much. Jenny.
He put the letter back on the table and went to pour out the beer, his actions hidden by the open door of the cupboard. God, the stuff did stink! Quickly he added the foaming light ale and called to her.
“Are you happy?”
“You know I am.”
“Then let’s drink to it. To us, darling.”
“To us.”
She grimaced as the liquid met her lips. He laughed. “You look as if you’re drinking poison. Knock it back, girl. Like this!”
He opened his throat and drained his own glass. Laughing, she shuddered slightly and gulped down her ale. He took the empty glass from her and folded her in his arms. She clung to him, her hands like a cold compress on the back of his neck. Releasing himself he drew her down beside him onto the armchair. Then, clasped together, they slid to the floor and lay together on the rug in front of the gas fire. He had turned off the light and her face shone in the fierce red glow of the fire as if she lay in the full sun. The hiss of the gas was the only sound in the silence.
He pulled a cushion from one of the armchairs and pushed it under her head. Only one cushion; he had a use for the other. It could rest on the bottom of the gas stove. She would be less likely to wake if he made her comfortable on that last, brief slide from unconsciousness to death. He put his left arm around her and they lay tight clasped without speaking.
Suddenly she turned her face to his and he felt her tongue, wet and slippery as a fish, infiltrating between his teeth. Her eyes, their pupils black in the gaslight, were heavy with desire. “Darling,” she whispered. “Darling.”
Christ, he thought, not that. He couldn’t make love to her now. It would keep her quiet but it wasn’t possible. There wasn’t time. And surely the police pathologist could tell how recently that had happened to a woman. He thought for the first time with relief of her obsession with safety and whispered, “We can’t darling. I haven’t got anything with me. We can’t risk it now.”
She gave a little murmur of acquiescence and nuzzled against him, moving her left leg over his thighs. It lay there, heavy and inert, but he dare not move nor speak in case he broke that insidious drop into unconsciousness. She was breathing more deeply now, hotly and irritatingly into his left ear. God, how much longer was it going to take! Holding his own breath he listened. Suddenly she gave a little snort like a contented animal. Under his arm he sensed a change in the rhythm of her breathing. There was an almost physical release of tension as her body relaxed. She was asleep.
Better give her a few minutes, he thought. There wasn’t much time to spare, but he dare not hurry. It was important that there were no bruises on her body and he knew he couldn’t face a struggle. But there could be no turning back now. If she woke and resisted, it would still have to be done.
So he waited, lying so still that they might both have been dead bodies stiffening together into a final, stylized embrace. After a little time he raised himself cautiously on his right elbow and looked at her. Her face was flushed, her mouth with its short upper lip curved against the white, childish teeth was half open. He could smell the paraldehyde on her breath. He watched her for a moment, noting the length of the pale lashes against her cheeks, the upward slant of the eyebrows and the shadows under the broad cheek bones. Strange that he had never got round to drawing her face. But it was too late to think of that now.
He murmured to her as he lifted her gently across the room to the black mouth of the gas oven.
“It’s all right, Jenny darling. It’s only me. I’m making you comfortable. It’s all right, darling.”
But it was himself that he was reassuring. There was plenty of room in the large, old-fashioned oven, even with the cushion. The bottom of the oven was only a few inches from the ground. Feeling for her shoulder blades he edged her gently forward. As the cushion took the weight of her head, he looked to make sure that the gas jets were still unimpeded. Her head rolled gently sideways so that the half-open mouth, moist and vulnerable as a baby’s, hung just above them, poised and ready to suck up death. As he slid his hands from under her body, she gave a little sigh as if she were comfortable at last.
He gave one last look at her, satisfied with his handwork. And now it was time to hurry. Feeling in his pocket for the rubber gloves, he moved with fantastic speed, treading lightly, his breath coming in shallow gasps as if he could no longer bear the sound of his own breathing. The suicide note was on the table. He took the screwdriver and wrapped her right hand gently round it, pressing the palm around the shining handle, the right fingertip against the base of the blade. Was that how she would have held it? Near enough. He placed the screwdriver on top of the suicide note.
Next he washed up his own glass and put it back in the cupboard, holding the dishcloth in front of the gas fire for a second until the damp stain had evaporated. He turned off the fire. No need to worry about prints here. There was nothing to show when last it had been lit. He wondered briefly about the paraldehyde bottle and Jenny’s glass, but decided to leave them on the table with the note and the screwdriver. The natural thing would surely be for her to drink sitting at the table and then to move to the stove when she felt the first signs of drowsiness. He wiped his own prints from the bottle and clasped her left hand around it, her right-hand index finger and thumb on the stopper. He was almost afraid to touch her, but she was now deeply asleep. Her hand was very warm to his touch and so relaxed that it felt boneless. He was repelled by its limp flaccidity, by this touch which was without communication, without desire. He was glad when he had dealt similarly with the drinking glass and the bottle of beer. It would only be necessary now to touch her once again.
Last of all he took his own letter to the Priddys and the pair of gloves and threw them into the boiler. There was only the gas tap to turn on. It was on the right of the stove and within easy reach of her limp right arm. He lifted the arm, pressed her index finger and thumb against the tap and turned it on. There was the soft hiss of escaping gas. How long, he wondered, was it likely to take? Not long surely? Perhaps only a matter of minutes. He put out the light and backed out, closing the door behind him.
It was then that he remembered the front-door keys. They must be found on her. His heart struck cold as he realized how fatal that one mistake could have been. He edged into the room again by the light of his torch. Taking the keys from his pocket and holding his breath against the gas, he placed them in her left hand. He had reached the door before he heard Tigger’s mew. The cat must have been sleeping under the cupboard. It was moving slowly round the body now, putting out a tentative paw towards the girl’s right foot. Nagle found that he could not bear to g
o near her again.
“Come here, Tigger,” he whispered. “Come here, boy.” The cat turned its great amber eyes on him and seemed to be considering but without emotion and without haste. Then it came slowly across to the door. Nagle hooked his left foot under the soft belly and lifted the cat through the door in one swift movement.
“Come out of it, you bloody fool. D’you want to lose all nine lives at one go? That stuff’s lethal.”
He closed the door and the cat, suddenly active, shot away into the dark.
Nagle made his way without lights to the back door, felt for the bolts and let himself out. He paused for a moment, back against the door, to check that the mews was empty. Now that it was over, he had time to note the signs of strain. His forehead and hands were wet with sweat and he had difficulty with his breathing. He drew in deep gasps of the damp and blessedly cool night air. The fog wasn’t thick, hardly more than a heavy mist, through which the street lamp which marked the end of the mews gleamed like a yellow smudge in the darkness. That gleam, only forty yards away, represented safety. Yet all at once it seemed unattainable. Like an animal in its lair he gazed in horrified fascination at the dangerous beacon and willed his legs to move. But their power had gone. Crouching in the darkness and shelter of the doorway, his back pressed against the wood, he fought off panic. After all, there was no great hurry. In a moment he would leave this spurious sanctuary and put the mews behind him. Then it was only a matter of re-entering the square from the other side and waiting until there was a casual passerby to witness his vain hammering at the front door. Even the words he would speak were ready. “It’s my girl. I think she’s in there but she won’t open up. She was with me earlier this evening and, when she’d gone, I found the keys were missing. She was in a queer state. Better get a copper. I’m going to smash this window.”
Then the crash of broken glass, the dash to the basement and the chance to lock the back door again before the hurrying footsteps were at his heels. The worst was over. From now on it was all so easy. By ten o’clock the body would have been removed, the clinic empty. In a moment he would move on to the final act. But not yet. Not quite yet.
Along the Embankment the traffic was almost stationary. There seemed to be some kind of function on at the Savoy. Suddenly Dalgliesh said: “There’s no guard at the clinic now, of course?”
“No, sir. You remember I asked you this morning if we need keep a man there and you said no.”
“I remember.”
“After all, sir, it hardly seemed necessary. We’d examined the place thoroughly and there aren’t all those men to spare.”
“I know, Martin,” replied Dalgliesh testily. “Surprisingly enough those were the reasons for my decision.” The car came to a stop once more. Dalgliesh put his head out of the window. “What the hell does he think he’s doing?”
“I think he’s doing his best, sir.”
“That’s what I find so depressing. Come on, Sergeant. Get out! We’ll do the rest on foot. I’m probably being a bloody fool but, when we get to the clinic, we’ll cover both exits. You go round to the back.”
If Martin felt surprise, it was not his nature to show it. Something seemed to have got into the old man. As like as not Nagle was back in his flat and the clinic locked and deserted. A couple of fools they’d look creeping up on an empty building. Still, they’d know soon enough. He bent his energies to keeping up with the superintendent.
Nagle never knew how long he waited in the doorway, bent almost double and panting like an animal. But after a time, calmness returned and with it the use of his legs. He moved stealthily forward, hoisted himself over the rear railings and set off down the mews. He walked like an automaton, hands stiffly by his sides, his eyes closed. Suddenly he heard the footfall. Opening his eyes, he saw silhouetted against the street lamp a familiar bulky figure. Slowly, inexorably, it moved towards him through the mist. His heart leapt in his chest then settled into a regular, tumultuous throbbing that shook his whole body. His legs felt heavy and cold as death, checking that first fatal impulse to flight. But at least his mind worked. While he could think, there was hope. He was cleverer than they. With luck they wouldn’t even think of entering the clinic. Why should they? And surely she would be dead by now! With Jenny dead they could suspect what they liked. They’d never prove a thing.
The torch shone full on his face. The slow, unemphatic voice spoke: “Good evening, lad. We were hoping to meet you. Going in or coming out?”
Nagle did not reply. He stretched his mouth into the semblance of a smile. He could only guess how he looked in that fierce light: a death’s head, the mouth agape with fright, the eyes staring.
It was then that he felt the tentative rub against his legs. The policeman bent and scooped up the cat, holding it between them. Immediately it began to purr, throbbing its contentment at the warmth of that huge hand.
“So here’s Tigger. You let him out, did you? You and the cat came out together.”
Then, instantaneously, they were both aware of it and their eyes met. From the warmth of the cat’s fur there rose between them, faint but unmistakable, the smell of gas.
The next half-hour passed for Nagle in a confused whirl of noise and blinding lights out of which a few vivid tableaux sprang into focus with unnatural clarity and stayed fixed in his mind for the rest of his life. He had no memory of the sergeant dragging him back over the iron railings, only of the grip, firm as a tourniquet, numbing his arm and the hot rasp of Martin’s breath in his ear. There was a smash and the sad, delayed tinkle of broken glass as someone kicked out the windows of the porters’ room, the shrill screech of a whistle, a confusion of running feet on the clinic stairs, a blaze of lights hurting his eyes. In one of the tableaux Dalgliesh was crouched over the girl’s body, his mouth wide-stretched as a gargoyle’s, clamped over her mouth as he forced his breath into her lungs. The two bodies seemed to be fighting, locked in an obscene embrace like the rape of the dead. Nagle didn’t speak. He was almost beyond thought, but instinct warned him that he must say nothing. Pinned against the wall by strong arms and watching fascinated the feverish heave of Dalgliesh’s shoulders, he felt tears start in his eyes. Enid Bolam was dead and Jenny was dead and he was tired now, desperately tired. He hadn’t wanted to kill her. It was Bolam who had forced him into all the trouble and danger of murder. She and Jenny between them had left him no choice. And he had lost Jenny. Jenny was dead. Faced with the enormity, the unfairness of what they had made him do, he felt without surprise the tears of self-pity flow in a warm stream down his face.
The room was suddenly full. There were more uniformed men, one of them burly as a Holbein, pig-eyed, slow-moving. There was the hiss of oxygen, a murmur of consulting voices. Then they were edging something onto a stretcher with gentle, experienced hands, a red-blanketed shape which rolled sideways as the poles were lifted. Why were they carrying it so carefully? It couldn’t feel jolting any more.
Dalgliesh didn’t speak until Jenny had been taken away. Then, without looking at Nagle, he said: “Right, Sergeant. Get him down to the station. We can hear his story there.”
Nagle moved his mouth. His lips were so dry that he heard them crack. But it was some seconds before the words would come and then there was no stopping them. The carefully rehearsed story tumbled out in a spate, bald and unconvincing: “There’s nothing to tell. She came to see me at my flat and we spent the evening together. I had to tell her that I was going away without her. She took it pretty badly and, after she’d left, I found that the clinic keys were missing. I knew she was in a bit of a state so I thought I’d better come along. There’s a note on the table. She’s left a note. I could see she was dead and I couldn’t help, so I came away. I didn’t want to be mixed up in it. I’ve got the Bollinger to think of. It wouldn’t look good getting mixed up with a suicide.”
Dalgliesh said: “You’d better not say anything else for the present. But you’ll have to do better than that. You see, it isn’t quite what she
has told us. That note on the table isn’t the only one she left.”
With slow deliberation he took from his breast pocket a small folded sheet of paper and held it an inch from Nagle’s fascinated, fear-glazed eyes.
“If you were together this evening in your flat, how do you explain this note which we found under your door knocker?”
It was then that Nagle realized with sick despair that the dead, so impotent and so despised, could bear witness against him after all. Instinctively he put out his hand for the note then dropped his arm.
Dalgliesh replaced the note in his pocket. Watching Nagle closely, he said: “So you rushed here tonight because you were concerned for her safety? Very touching! In that case let me put your mind at rest. She’s going to live.”
“She’s dead,” said Nagle dully. “She killed herself.”
“She was breathing when we’d finished with her. Tomorrow, if all goes well, she’ll be able to tell us what happened. And not only what happened here tonight. We shall have some questions about Miss Bolam’s murder.”
Nagle gave a shout of harsh laughter: “Bolam’s murder! You’ll never get me for that! And I’ll tell you why, you poor boobs. Because I didn’t kill her! If you want to make fools of yourselves, go ahead. Don’t let me stop you. But I warn you. If I’m arrested for Bolam’s murder, I’ll make your names stink in every newspaper in the country.”
He held out his wrists to Dalgliesh. “Come on, Superintendent! Go ahead and charge me. What’s stopping you? You’ve worked it all out very cleverly, haven’t you? You’ve been too clever by half, you bloody supercilious copper!”
“I’m not charging you,” said Dalgliesh. “I’m inviting you to come to headquarters to answer some questions and to make a statement. If you want a solicitor present, you’re entitled to have one.”
“I’ll have one all right. But not just at the moment. I’m in no hurry, Superintendent. You see, I’m expecting a visitor. We arranged to meet here at ten and it’s nearly that now. I must say we’d planned to have the place to ourselves and I don’t think my visitor will be particularly pleased to see you. But if you want to meet Miss Bolam’s killer, you’d better stick around. It won’t be long. The person I’m expecting has been trained to be on time.”