The Private Patient

by P. D. James

  ‘And you’ve been here how long?’

  ‘It will be six years next month.’

  Kate said, ‘It can’t have been easy for you.’

  ‘Not easy in what way, Inspector?’

  Miss Cressett’s tone was one of detached interest but Benton didn’t miss the note of suppressed resentment. He had encountered this reaction before, a suspect, usually one with some authority, more used to putting questions than answering them, unwilling to antagonise the chief investigating officer but venting their resentment on a subordinate. Kate wasn’t intimidated.

  She said, ‘To return to a house so beautiful which your family has owned for generations and to see someone else in occupation. Not everyone could cope with that.’

  ‘Not everyone is required to. Perhaps I should explain. My family owned and lived in the Manor for more than four hundred years but everything comes to an end. Mr Chandler-Powell is fond of the house and it is better in his care than in the care of the others who viewed and wanted to buy it. I didn’t murder one of his patients in order to shut down the clinic and pay him back for buying my family home or for getting it cheap. Forgive my frankness, Inspector, but isn’t that what you came to find out?’

  It was never wise to rebut an allegation which hadn’t yet been made, particularly with such brutal frankness, and it was obvious that she realised her mistake as soon as the words were out of her mouth. So the resentment was there. But against whom or what, Benton wondered. The police, Chandler-Powell’s desecration of the west wing, or Rhoda Gradwyn who so inconveniently and embarrassingly had brought the vulgarity of a criminal investigation into her ancestral halls?

  Kate asked, ‘How did you come to get the job?’

  ‘I applied for it. Isn’t that usually how one gets a job? It was advertised and I thought it would be interesting to return to the Manor and see what changes had been made, apart from the building of the clinic. My own profession, if you can call it that, is of an art historian, but I could hardly combine that with living here. I hadn’t intended to stay long but I find the work interesting and I’m in no hurry at present to move on. I expect that’s what you wanted to know. But is my personal history really relevant to Rhoda Gradwyn’s death?’

  Kate said, ‘We can’t tell what is or what is not relevant without asking questions which may seem an intrusion. Often they are. We can only hope for co-operation and understanding. A murder investigation isn’t a social occasion.’

  ‘Then let’s not treat it as one, Inspector.’

  A flush flowed quickly over her pale and remarkable face like a dying rash. The temporary loss of composure made her more human and, surprisingly, more attractive. She held her emotions under control but they were there. She was not, thought Benton, a passionless woman, only one who had learnt the wisdom of keeping her passions under control.

  He said, ‘How much contact did you have with Miss Gradwyn either on her first visit or subsequently?’

  ‘Practically none, except on both occasions to be part of the reception committee and to show her to her room. We hardly spoke. My job has nothing to do with the patients. Their treatment and comfort is the responsibility of the two surgeons and Sister Holland.’

  ‘But you recruit and control the domestic staff?’

  ‘I find them when there’s a vacancy. I have been used to running this house. And, yes, they come under my general authority, although that word is too strong for the kind of control I exercise. But when, as occasionally happens, they have anything to do with the patients, then that’s Sister Holland’s responsibility. I suppose there’s a certain overlapping of duties since I’m responsible for the kitchen staff and Sister for the kind of food the patients receive, but it seems to work quite well.’

  ‘Did you appoint Sharon Bateman?’

  ‘I placed the advertisement in a number of papers and she applied. She was working at the time in a home for the elderly and presented very good references. I didn’t actually interview her. I was at my London flat at the time so Mrs Frensham, Miss Westhall and Sister Holland saw her and took her on. I don’t think anyone has regretted it.’

  ‘Did you know, or did you ever meet Rhoda Gradwyn before she arrived here?’

  ‘I never met her, but of course I’d heard of her. I suppose everyone has who reads a broadsheet. I knew her to be a successful and influential journalist. I had no reason to think kindly of her but a personal resentment, which was really no more than discomfort on hearing her name, didn’t make me wish her dead. My father was the last male Cressett and he lost almost all the family money in the Lloyd’s disaster. He was forced to sell the Manor and Mr Chandler-Powell bought it. Shortly after the sale, Rhoda Gradwyn wrote a short article in a financial paper critical of the Lloyd’s Names, and in particular naming my father, among others. There was a suggestion that those who were unfortunate had got what they deserved. She gave a brief description of the Manor and something of its history in the article, but that must have been taken from a guidebook since, as far as any of us knew, she’d never actually been here. Some of my father’s friends thought it was the article that killed him, but I’ve never believed that and nor, I think, did they. It was an overdramatic response to comments which were unkind but hardly libellous. My father had long-standing heart problems and knew that his life was fragile. It may have been selling the Manor that was the final blow, but I very much doubt whether anything Rhoda Gradwyn could write or say would have troubled him. After all, what was she? An ambitious woman who made money out of the pain of others. Someone hated her enough to put his hands round her throat, but it wasn’t anyone who slept here last night. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like you to leave. I shall, of course, be here tomorrow whenever you wish to see me, but I’ve had enough excitement for today.’

  It was not a request they could refuse. The interview had lasted less than half an hour. As they heard the door close firmly behind them, Benton reflected, and with some regret, that a preference for Thomas Hardy’s poetry over his novels was probably the only thing the two of them had in common, or were ever likely to have.

  13

  Perhaps because the group interrogation in the library was a fresh and unpleasant memory, the suspects, as if by unspoken agreement, avoided open discussion of the murder, but Lettie knew that they spoke of it privately – herself and Helena, the Bostocks in the kitchen which they had always regarded as their home but now saw as a refuge and, she assumed, the Westhalls in Stone Cottage. Only Flavia and Sharon seemed to distance themselves from the others and kept their silence, Flavia busying herself with unspecified jobs in the operating suite, Sharon seeming to regress to a moody monosyllabic teenager. Mog moved between them distributing pieces of gossip and theory like alms into outstretched hands. Without any formal meeting or agreed strategy, it seemed to Lettie that a common theory was emerging which only the most sceptical found unconvincing, and they were holding their peace.

  Obviously the murder was an outside job and Rhoda Gradwyn herself had let her killer into the Manor, the date and time probably by prior agreement before she left London. That was why she had been so adamant that no visitors should be admitted. She was, after all, a notorious investigative journalist. She must have made enemies. The car seen by Mog was probably the killer’s, and the light glimpsed at the stones by Mrs Skeffington was his waving torch. The bolted door next morning was a difficulty, but the murderer could have bolted the door himself after the deed and then hidden himself in the Manor until the door was unbolted next morning by Chandler-Powell. There had, after all, been only a superficial search of the Manor before the police arrived. Had anyone, for example, searched the four empty suites in the west wing? And there were plenty of cupboards in the Manor large enough to contain a man. It was perfectly possible for an intruder to be undetected. He could have made his exit unnoticed by the west door and escaped down the lime walk to the field while the whole household was immured in the north-facing library being interrogated by Commander Dalgl
iesh. If the police hadn’t been so anxious to concentrate on the household the killer might have been caught by now.

  Lettie couldn’t remember who first named Robin Boyton as an alternative chief suspect, but when raised the idea spread by a kind of osmosis. After all, he had come to Stoke Cheverell to visit Rhoda Gradwyn, had apparently been desperate to see her and had been rebuffed. Probably the killing hadn’t been premeditated. Miss Gradwyn had been perfectly able to walk after the operation. She had let him in, there had been a quarrel and he had lost his temper. Admittedly he wasn’t the owner of the car parked near the stones, but that might well have had nothing to do with the murder. The police would be trying to trace the owner. No one said what they all thought: that it would be convenient if they failed. Even if the motorist proved to be an over-tired traveller prudently stopping for a short sleep, the theory of an outside intruder held good.

  By dinner time Lettie sensed that the speculation was dying down. It had been a long and traumatic day and what they all craved now was a period of peace. They seemed also to need solitude. Chandler-Powell and Flavia told Dean that they would have dinner served in their rooms. The Westhalls departed for Stone Cottage and Helena invited Lettie to share a meal of a herb omelette and salad which she would cook in her small private kitchen. After the meal, they washed up together, then settled down before the wood fire to listen to a concert on Radio Three in the subdued light of a single lamp. Neither mentioned Rhoda Gradwyn’s death.

  By eleven the fire was dying. A fragile blue flame licked at the last log as it disintegrated into grey ash. Helena turned off the radio and they sat in silence. Then she said, ‘Why did you leave the Manor when I was thirteen? Was it to do with Father? I’ve always thought it was, that you were lovers.’

  Lettie replied quietly. ‘You were always too sophisticated for your age. We were getting too fond of each other, too interdependent. It was right for me to go. And you needed to be with other girls, to have a wider education.’

  ‘I suppose so. That dreadful school. Were you lovers? Did you have sex? Awful expression, but all alternatives are even cruder.’

  ‘Once. That’s why I knew it had to end.’

  ‘Because of Mummy?’

  ‘Because of all of us.’

  ‘So it was Brief Encounter without the railway station?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Poor Mummy. Years of doctors and nurses. After a time her failing lungs hardly seemed like an illness, just part of what she was. And when she died I hardly missed her. She hadn’t really been there. I remember being sent for from school, but too late. I think I was glad not to be there in time. But that empty bedroom, that was horrible. I still hate that room.’

  Lettie said, ‘A question in return. Why did you marry Guy Haverland?’

  ‘Because he was funny, clever, charming and very rich. Even at eighteen I knew from the first it wouldn’t last. That’s why we got married in London in a registry office. The promises seemed less onerous than in a church. Guy couldn’t resist any good-looking woman and he wasn’t going to change. But we had three wonderful years and he taught me so much. I’ll never regret them.’

  Lettie got up. She said, ‘Time for bed. Thanks for the dinner, and goodnight, my dear.’ And she was gone.

  Helena moved over to the west-facing window and drew back the curtains. The west wing was in darkness, no more than a long shape lit by the moon. Was it, she wondered, violent death that had released the impulse to confide, to ask questions which had remained unspoken for years? She wondered about Lettie and her marriage. There had been no children and she suspected that this had been a grief. Was that priest she had married one who still thought of sex as somehow indecent and saw his wife and all virtuous women as Madonnas? And were that night’s revelations a substitute for the question which was in both their minds and which neither had dared to ask?

  14

  Until seven thirty Dalgliesh had had little opportunity to examine and settle into his temporary home. The local police had been helpful and busy, phone lines had been checked, a computer installed and a large corkboard attached to the wall in case Dalgliesh should need to display visual images. Thought had also been given to his comfort, and although the stone cottage had the faint musty smell of a house unoccupied for some months, a wood fire had been set and was blazing in the hearth. The bed had been made up and an electric fire provided upstairs. The shower, although not modern, delivered very hot water when he tested it and the refrigerator had been stocked with sufficient provisions to keep him going for at least three days, including a casserole of obviously home-made lamb stew. There were also cans of beer and two bottles each of very drinkable red and white wine.

  By nine o’clock he had showered and changed and had heated up and eaten the lamb stew. A note found under the casserole dish explained that it had been cooked by Mrs Warren, a discovery which reinforced Dalgliesh’s view that her husband’s temporary assignment to the Squad was fortunate. He opened a bottle of the red wine and placed it with three glasses on a low table before the fire. With the cheerfully patterned curtains drawn against the night, he found himself, as he sometimes did on a case, comfortably ensconced in a period of solitude. To spend at least some part of the day totally alone was something which from childhood had been as necessary to him as food and light. Now, the brief respite over, he took out his small personal notebook and began his review of the day’s interviews. From the time when he was a detective sergeant he had put down in an unofficial notebook a few salient words and phrases which could immediately bring to mind a person, an unwise admission, a snatch of dialogue, an exchange of glances. With this aid he had almost complete recall. This private review done, he would phone Kate and ask her and Benton to join him, when the day’s progress would be discussed and he would set out the programme for tomorrow.

  The interviews had produced no fundamental changes in the evidence they had already given. Admittedly Kimberley, despite having been assured by Mr Chandler-Powell that she had acted correctly, was obviously unhappy, seeking to persuade herself that she might after all have been mistaken. Alone in the library with Dalgliesh and Kate, she kept stealing glances at the door as if hoping to see her husband or fearing the arrival of Mr Chandler-Powell. Dalgliesh and Kate were patient with her. Asked if she had been sure at the time that the voices she had heard were those of Mr Chandler-Powell and Sister Holland, she had squeezed her face into a parody of agonised thought.

  ‘I did think it was Mr Chandler-Powell and Sister, but I would, wouldn’t I? I mean, I wouldn’t expect it to be anyone else. It did sound like them or I wouldn’t have thought that it was them, would I? But I can’t remember what they were saying. I thought they sounded as if they were quarrelling. I opened the sitting-room door just a little and they weren’t there, so perhaps they were in the bedroom. But, of course, they might have been in the sitting room and I didn’t see them. And I did hear loud voices, but perhaps they were just talking together. It was very late…’

  Her voice had faltered. Kimberley, like Mrs Skeffington, if called for the prosecution, would be a gift for the defence. Asked what had happened next, Kimberley said that she had returned to where Dean was waiting outside Mrs Skeffington’s sitting room and had told him.

  ‘Had told him what?’

  ‘That I thought I heard Sister arguing with Mr Chandler-Powell.’

  ‘And that’s why you didn’t call out to them and tell Sister that you had taken tea to Mrs Skeffington?’

  ‘It’s like I said in the library, sir. We both thought Sister wouldn’t like to be disturbed and that it wouldn’t really matter because Mrs Skeffington hadn’t had her operation. Anyway, Mrs Skeffington was all right. She hadn’t asked for Sister and, if she’d wanted her, she could have rung her bell.’

  Kimberley’s evidence had been later corroborated by Dean. He looked if anything more distressed than Kimberley. He hadn’t noticed whether the door to the lime avenue was unbolted when he and Kimbe
rley took up the tea tray, but was adamant that it was unbolted when they returned. He had noticed it when passing the door. He repeated that he hadn’t bolted it because it was possible that Mr Chandler-Powell was taking a particularly late walk and in any case it wasn’t his job. He and Kimberley were the first to rise and had early morning tea together in the kitchen at six o’clock. He then went to look at the door and saw that it was bolted. He had not thought that surprising; Mr Chandler-Powell seldom unbolted it before nine o’clock in the winter months. He hadn’t told Kimberley about the door being unbolted at the time in case she became nervous. He wasn’t himself worried because there were the two security locks. He couldn’t explain why he hadn’t returned later to check both the locks and the bolt except to say that security wasn’t his responsibility.

  Chandler-Powell had remained as calm as he had been when the team first arrived. Dalgliesh admired the stoicism with which he must be contemplating the destruction of his clinic, possibly of the greater part of his private practice. At the end of the interview in his study, which produced nothing new, Kate said, ‘No one here, with the exception of Mr Boyton, says that they knew Miss Gradwyn before she came to the Manor. But in a sense she isn’t the only victim. Her death must inevitably affect the success of your work here. Is there anyone who might have an interest in harming you?’

  Chandler-Powell had said, ‘All I can say is that I have every confidence in everyone who works here. And it seems to me extremely far-fetched to suggest that Rhoda Gradwyn was murdered to inconvenience me. The idea is bizarre.’

  Dalgliesh had resisted the obvious retort: Miss Gradwyn’s death had been bizarre. Chandler-Powell confirmed that he had been with Sister Holland in her apartment from just after eleven until one o’clock. Neither of them had seen or heard anything unusual. There were medical matters he needed to discuss with Sister Holland but they were confidential and had nothing to do with Miss Gradwyn. His evidence had been confirmed by Sister Holland and it was obvious that neither had any intention at present of saying more. Medical confidentiality was an easy excuse for silence but it was a valid one.