The Private Patient

by P. D. James

  Kate asked, ‘At what time did the afternoon lesson end?’

  ‘Well they were supposed to get an hour but I had no immediate engagements so I let it over-run a bit. It was half past four by the time they left. Then I worked here in the office until six when I went to the pub – the Leaping Hare, a new gastropub in Napier Road. I met a pal – I can give you his name and address – and was there with him until about eleven when I walked home. I’ll have to look in my address book for the addresses and phone numbers, but I’ll do that now if you can wait.’

  They waited while he went to the desk and, within a few minutes of riffling through his address book, found a piece of paper in his desk drawer, copied the information and handed over the paper. He said, ‘If you have to check I’d be glad if you’d make it plain that I’m not a suspect. It’s bad enough trying to come to terms with the loss of Robin – it hasn’t hit me yet, perhaps because I still can’t believe it, but believe me it will – and I don’t fancy being seen as his murderer.’

  Benton said, ‘If what you’ve told us is confirmed, I don’t think there’ll be any risk of that, sir.’

  Nor would there. If the facts were accurate the only time when Jeremy was alone was the hour and a half between the end of his lesson and his arrival at the pub, and that wouldn’t have given him time even to get to Stoke Cheverell.

  Kate said, ‘We’d like now to have a look at Mr Boyton’s room. I suppose it hasn’t been locked since his death?’

  Coxon said, ‘It couldn’t be, there isn’t a lock. Anyway, it never occurred to me that it needed to be locked. If you expected that, surely you’d have phoned me. As I keep saying, I haven’t been told anything until your arrival today.’

  Kate said, ‘I don’t expect it’s important. I take it no one’s been in the room since his death?’

  ‘No one. Not even me. The place depressed me when he was alive. I can’t face it now.’

  The room was down the landing at the back. It was large and well proportioned with two windows looking out over the lawn with its central flowerbed and, beyond it, the canal.

  Without entering the room, Coxon said, ‘I’m sorry it’s in such a mess. Robin only moved in two weeks ago and everything he owns has been dumped here except the stuff he gave away to Oxfam or sold at the pub, and I don’t suppose there were many takers.’

  The room was certainly uninviting. There was a single divan to the left of the door piled high with unwashed clothes. The doors of a mahogany wardrobe stood open revealing shirts, jackets and trousers crammed on metal hangers. There were half a dozen large square boxes stamped with the name of a removal firm and three bulging black plastic bags on top. In the corner to the right of the door were piles of books and a cardboard carton filled with magazines. Between the two windows a pedestal desk with drawers and a cupboard on each side held a laptop and an adjustable reading lamp. The room smelled unpleasantly of unwashed clothes.

  Coxon said, ‘The laptop is new, bought by me. Robin was supposed to help with some of the correspondence but he didn’t get down to it. I imagine that’s the only thing in the room worth anything. He’s always been appallingly untidy. We had a bit of a row just before he left for Dorset. I complained that he could at least have got his clothes cleaned before he moved. Of course, now I feel a mean-spirited bastard. I suppose I always shall. It’s irrational, but there it is. Anyway, all he possesses, as far as I know, is in this room and as far as I’m concerned you’re welcome to rummage through it. He hasn’t any relations to object. At least, he did mention a father, but I gather they haven’t been in touch since he was a boy. You’ll find the two drawers in the desk are locked but I don’t have a key.’

  Benton said, ‘I don’t see why you should feel guilty. The room is a mess. He could at least have gone to the launderette before he moved in. You were only speaking the truth.’

  ‘But being untidy isn’t exactly high moral delinquency. And what the hell did it matter? Not worth shouting about. And I knew what he was like. Some licence is surely due to a friend.’

  Benton said, ‘But we can’t watch our words just because a friend might die before we have a chance to put things right.’

  Kate thought it was time to move on. Benton seemed inclined to elaborate. Given the chance, he would probably initiate a quasi-philosophical discussion about the relative obligations of friendship and truth. She said, ‘We’ve got his key ring. The key to the drawers is probably there. If there’s a lot of paper we may need a bag to carry it away. I’ll give you a receipt.’

  ‘You can carry it all away, Inspector. Shove it in a police van. Hire a skip. Burn it. It depresses me profoundly. Give me a call when you’re ready to go.’

  His voice broke and he sounded close to tears. Without another word he disappeared. Benton walked over to the window and opened it wide. The fresh air flowed in. Benton said, ‘Is this too much for you, ma’am?’

  ‘No Benton, leave it open. How on earth can anybody live like this? It looks as if he didn’t make the slightest effort to keep the room habitable. Let’s hope we’ve got the desk key.’

  It wasn’t difficult to identify the one they needed. It was by far the smallest of the bunch and it fitted easily into the lock of both drawers. They tackled the left-hand one first, but Kate had to tug it open against a wedge of paper jammed at the back. As she jerked it open, old bills, postcards, an out-of-date diary, some unused Christmas cards and a collection of letters sprang from it and littered the floor. Benton opened the cupboard and that, too, was crammed with bulging files, old theatre programmes, scripts and publicity photographs, a wash bag which, when opened, revealed old stage make-up.

  Kate said, ‘We won’t bother to go through all this mess now. Let’s see if we get more joy from the other drawer.’

  This yielded more easily to her pull. It contained a manila folder and a book. The book was an old paperback, Untimely Death by Cyril Hare, and the folder contained only one sheet of paper with writing on both sides. It was a copy of a will, headed The Last Will and Testament of Peregrine Richard Westhall and dated in letters on the last page: Witness my hand this seventh day of July, two thousand and five. With the will was a receipt for five pounds from the Holborn Probate Office. The whole document was handwritten, a black upright hand, strong in places but becoming more shaky in the last paragraph. The first paragraph appointed his son Marcus St John Westhall, his daughter Candace Dorothea Westhall and his solicitors, Kershaw & Price-Nesbitt as executors. The second paragraph expressed his wish for a private cremation with no one present other than immediate family, no religious observances and no later memorial service. The third paragraph – the writing here rather larger, stated: I give and bequeath all my books to Winchester College. Any which the College does not wish to have to be sold or otherwise disposed of as my son, Marcus St John Westhall, shall decide. I give all else that I possess in money and chattels in equal measure to my two children, Marcus St John Westhall and Candace Dorothea Westhall.

  The will was signed and the signature witnessed by Elizabeth Barnes, describing herself as a domestic servant and giving the address as Stone Cottage, Stoke Cheverell, and Grace Holmes, a nurse, of Rosemary Cottage, Stoke Cheverell.

  Kate said, ‘Nothing on the face of it to interest Robin Boyton, but he obviously took the trouble to get this copy. I suppose the book had better be read. How quick a reader are you, Benton?’

  ‘Pretty quick, ma’am. It’s not particularly long.’

  ‘Then you’d better start tackling it in the car and I’ll drive. We’ll get a bag from Coxon and get this stuff to the Old Police Cottage. I don’t suppose there’s anything in the other cupboard to interest us, but we better go through it.’

  Benton said, ‘Even if we find that he has more than one friend with a grievance, I can’t somehow envisage an enemy going down to Stoke Cheverell to kill him, getting access to the Westhalls’ cottage and sticking the body in their freezer. But obviously a copy of the will must mean something, unless he
just wanted to confirm that the old man had left him nothing. I wonder why it was hand-written. Obviously Grace Holmes isn’t still living in Rosemary Cottage. The place is for sale. But why was Boyton trying to contact her? And what’s happened to Elizabeth Barnes? She isn’t working for the Westhalls now. The date of the will is interesting though, isn’t it?’

  Kate said slowly, ‘Not only the date. Let’s get out of this mess. The sooner we get this to AD the better. But we’ve been told to see Miss Gradwyn’s agent. I’ve a feeling that it shouldn’t take long. Remind me who and where she is, Benton.’

  ‘Eliza Melbury, ma’am. Our appointment’s for three fifteen. The office is in Camden.’

  ‘Damn! It’s out of our way. I’ll check with AD that there’s nothing else he wants done in London while we’re here. There’s usually something he needs picking up at the Yard. Then we’ll find somewhere for a quick lunch and be on our way to see what, if anything, Eliza Melbury has to tell us. But at least this morning hasn’t been wasted.’

  2

  With their car enmeshed in London traffic, the journey to Eliza Melbury’s address in Camden was tedious and time-consuming. Benton hoped that the information gained from her would justify the time and trouble taken to reach her. Her office was over a greengrocer’s shop and the smell of fruit and vegetables followed them as they climbed the narrow stairs to the first floor and passed into what was obviously the general office. Three young women were seated at their computers while an elderly man was busy rearranging the books, all in their bright jackets, on a shelf which ran the whole length of one wall. Three pairs of eyes looked up and, when Kate showed her warrant card, one young woman got up and knocked on the door at the front of the building and called cheerily, ‘The police are here, Eliza. You said you were expecting them.’

  Eliza Melbury had been finishing a telephone call. Now she replaced the handset, smiled at them and indicated two chairs opposite the desk. She was a large handsome woman with a flaring bush of dark crimped hair to her shoulders, plump cheeked and wearing a bright caftan festooned with beads.

  She said, ‘You’re here, of course, to talk about Rhoda Gradwyn. All I’ve been told is that you’re investigating what was described as a suspicious death, which I take to mean murder. If so, it’s deeply shocking, but I’m not sure there’s anything I can tell you which will help. She came to me twenty years ago when I first split from the Dawkins-Bower agency and set up on my own, and she’s been with me ever since.’

  Kate asked, ‘How well did you know her?’

  ‘As a writer, I suppose very well. That means I could identify any piece of prose as being by her, knew how she liked to deal with her publishers and could anticipate what her response would be to any proposals I put forward. I respected her and liked her and was glad to have her on my list. We lunched together once every six months, usually to discuss literary concerns. Beyond that I can’t say I knew her.’

  Kate said, ‘She’s been described to us as a very private person.’

  ‘Yes, she was. Thinking about her – as, of course, I have been since I got the news – it seems that she was like someone burdened with a secret which she needed to keep and which inhibited her from intimacy. I knew her little better after twenty years than I did when she first came to me.’

  Benton, who had been taking a lively interest in the furnishing of the office, particularly the photographs of writers ranged on one wall, said, ‘Isn’t that unusual between an agent and a writer? I’ve always imagined that the relationship must be particularly close to succeed.’

  ‘Not necessarily. There has to be liking and trust, and a common agreement about what is important. People differ. Some of my authors have become close friends. A number need a very high degree of personal involvement. One can be required to be mother confessor, financial adviser, marriage counsellor, editor, literary executor, occasionally even childminder. Rhoda needed none of these services.’

  Kate said, ‘And as far as you know, she had no enemies?’

  ‘She was an investigative journalist. There were a number of people she may have offended. She never suggested to me that she ever felt in any physical danger from them. None as far as I know threatened physical harm. One or two threatened legal proceedings, but my advice to her then was that she say and do nothing and, as I expected, no one had recourse to law. Rhoda wasn’t a woman to write anything which could be proved to be untrue or libellous.’

  Kate said, ‘Not even an article in the Paternoster Review accusing Annabel Skelton of plagiarism?’

  ‘Some people used that article as a weapon to castigate modern journalism generally, but most recognised it as a serious piece on an interesting subject. Rhoda and I did have a visit from one of the aggrieved people, a Candace Westhall, but she took no action. Nor could she. The paragraphs which offended her were expressed in moderate language and their truth was undeniable. All that was about five years ago.’

  Benton asked, ‘Did you know that Miss Gradwyn had decided to have her scar removed?’

  ‘No, she didn’t tell me. We never spoke of her scar.’

  ‘And her present plans? Was she proposing to make a change of career?’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t discuss that. In any case nothing was settled and I think her plans were still being formed. She wouldn’t wish me to discuss them with anyone other than herself when she was alive, and you’ll understand that I can’t talk about them now. I can assure you that they can have no possible relevance to her death.’

  There was nothing else to be said and Ms Melbury was already making it clear that she had work to do.

  Leaving the office, Kate said, ‘Why that question about future plans?’

  ‘Just that I wondered if she was thinking perhaps of a biography. If the subject were someone living, he or she might have a motive for stopping it before Gradwyn even got started.’

  ‘Possibly. But unless you’re suggesting this hypothetical person managed to find out what Ms Melbury herself didn’t know – that Miss Gradwyn would be at the Manor – and managed to persuade the victim or someone else to let him in, whatever Miss Gradwyn had in mind for her future isn’t going to help us.’

  As they clipped on their seatbelts Benton said, ‘I rather liked her.’

  ‘Then when you write your first novel, which, given your range of interests you undoubtedly will, you’ll know who to contact.’

  Benton laughed. ‘It’s been quite a day, ma’am. But at least we’re not going back empty-handed.’

  3

  The journey back to Dorset proved a nightmare. It took them over an hour to get from Camden to the M3 and they were then caught in the procession of cars almost bumper to bumper leaving London at the end of the working day. After junction 5 the slow procession drew to a halt because a coach had broken down, blocking one of the lanes, and they were stationary for nearly an hour before the road was cleared. As Kate was unwilling after that to stop for food, they didn’t arrive at Wisteria House until nine o’clock, tired and hungry. Kate rang the Old Police Cottage and Dalgliesh asked them to come along as soon as they had fed. The meal to which they had increasingly looked forward was eaten in a hurry, and Mrs Shepherd’s steak-and-kidney pudding hadn’t improved with the long wait.

  It was half past ten before they sat down with Dalgliesh to report on the day.

  Dalgliesh said, ‘So you’ve learnt nothing from the agent other than what we already know, that Rhoda Gradwyn was a very private woman. Eliza Melbury obviously respects that in death as she did in life. Let’s look at what you’ve brought back from Jeremy Coxon. We’ll start with the least important item, this paperback novel. You’ve read it, Benton?’

  ‘Skimmed it quickly in the car, sir. It ends with a legal complication which I didn’t manage to grasp. A lawyer would, and the novel was written by a judge. But the plot does deal with a fraudulent attempt to conceal the time of death. I can see that it could have given Boyton his idea.’

  ‘So it’s one more piece of
evidence to confirm that Boyton did indeed come to Stoke Cheverell with the idea of extracting money from the Westhalls, an idea which, according to Candace Westhall, he originally got from Rhoda Gradwyn who told him about the novel. Let’s get on to a more important piece of information, what Coxon told you about Boyton’s change of mood. He says that Boyton returned home despondent after his first visit on the 27th of November. Why despondent if Candace Westhall had promised to settle? Could it be because his suspicions about freezing the body had been shown to be nonsense? Do we really believe that Candace Westhall had decided to string him along while planning some more dramatic exposure? Would any sensible woman act like that? Then, before returning here on Thursday last when Rhoda Gradwyn was admitted for her operation, Coxon says that Boyton’s mood had changed, that he was excited and optimistic and talking about the prospect of money. He sends his text message imploring Miss Gradwyn to see him, telling her that the matter is urgent. So what happened between his first and second visits to change the whole situation? He went to Holborn Probate Office and obtained a copy of Peregrine Westhall’s will. Why, and why then? He must have known that he wasn’t a beneficiary. Isn’t it possible that, when Candace had demolished his allegation about freezing the body, she did offer him financial help, or in some way made him suspect that she wanted any argument about her father’s will to end?’

  Kate said, ‘You’re thinking of forgery, sir?’

  ‘It’s a possibility. It’s time to take a look at the will.’

  Dalgliesh spread out the will and they studied it in silence. He said, ‘The whole will is in holograph with the date written in full, the seventh day of July, two thousand and five. The day of the London bombings. If one were forging the date, not a sensible one to choose. Most people remember what they were doing on 7/7 as we remember what we were doing on 9/11. Let’s assume then that both the date and the will itself are in Professor Westhall’s handwriting. The writing is distinctive and a forgery at such length would almost certainly be detected. But what about the three signatures? Today I telephoned a member of the firm of Professor Westhall’s solicitors with questions about the will. One signatory, Elizabeth Barnes, an elderly maid with long service at the Manor, is now dead. The other is Grace Holmes, who was something of a recluse in the village and emigrated to Toronto to live with a niece.’