by P. D. James
V
Usually Julius Court fell asleep within minutes of turning out his bedside light. But tonight he turned in restless wakefulness, mind and nerves fidgety, his legs as cold and heavy as if it were winter. He rubbed them together, considering whether to dig out his electric blanket. But the bother of re-making the bed discouraged him. Alcohol seemed a better and quicker remedy both for sleeplessness and the cold.
He walked over to the window and looked out over the headland. The waning moon was obscured by scudding clouds; the darkness inland pierced only by a single oblong of yellow light. But as he watched, blackness was drawn like a shutter over the far window. Instantaneously the oblong became a square; then that, too, was extinguished. Toynton Grange lay, a faintly discerned shape etched in darkness on the silent headland. Curious, he looked at his watch. The time was eighteen minutes past midnight.
VI
Dalgliesh awoke at first light, to the cold, quiet morning, and dragging on his dressing gown, went downstairs to make tea. He wondered if Millicent was still at the Grange. Her television had been silent all the previous evening and now, although she was neither an early nor a noisy riser, Hope Cottage was wrapped in the slightly clandestine and unmistakable calm of complete isolation. He lit the lamp in the sitting room, carried his cup to the table, and spread out his map. Today he would explore the northeast of the county aiming to arrive at Sherborne for lunch. But first it would be courteous to call at Toynton Grange and enquire after Wilfred. He felt no real concern; it was difficult to think of yesterday’s charade without irritation. But it might be worth making one more attempt to persuade Wilfred to call in the police, or at least to take the attack on himself more seriously. And it was time that he paid some rent for the use of Hope Cottage. Toynton Grange could hardly be so prosperous that a tactful contribution wouldn’t be welcome. Neither chore need keep him at the Grange for longer than ten minutes.
There was a knock on the door and Julius came in. He was fully dressed and, even at this early hour, gave his usual impression of slightly elegant informality. He said, calmly, and as if the news were hardly worth the trouble of telling:
“I’m glad you’re up. I’m on my way to Toynton Grange. Wilfred has just rung. Apparently Grace Willison has died in her sleep and Eric is in a tizzy about the death certificate. I don’t know what Wilfred thinks I can do about it. Restoring Eric to the medical register seems to have restored him also to the customary arrogance of his profession. Grace Willison wasn’t due, in his opinion, to die for at least another eighteen months, possibly two years. That being so he’s at a loss to put a name to this insubordination. As usual, they’re all extracting the maximum drama from the situation. I shouldn’t miss it if I were you.”
Dalgliesh glanced towards the adjacent cottage without speaking. Julius said cheerfully:
“Oh, you needn’t worry about disturbing Millicent; I’m afraid she’s there already. Apparently her television broke down last night so she went up to Toynton Grange to see a late programme and decided, for some unaccountable reason, to stay the night. Probably saw an opportunity of saving her own bed linen and bath water.”
Dalgliesh said:
“You go on, I’ll follow you later.”
He drank his tea without haste and spent three minutes shaving. He wondered why he had been so reluctant to accompany Julius, why, if he had to go to Toynton Grange, he preferred to walk there on his own. He wondered, too, why he felt so keen a regret. He had no wish to involve himself in the controversy at Toynton. He had no particular curiosity about Grace Willison’s death. He was aware of feeling nothing except an inexplicable unease amounting almost to grief for a woman he had barely known and a vague distaste that the start of a beautiful day should have been spoilt by the intimations of decay. And there was something else; a sense of guilt. It seemed to him both unreasonable and unfair. By dying she seemed to have allied herself with Father Baddeley. There were two accusing ghosts, not one. This was to be a double failure. It was by an effort of will that he set out for Toynton Grange.
He could be in no doubt which room was Grace Willison’s, he could hear the raised voices even as he entered the annexe. When he opened the door he saw that Wilfred, Eric, Millicent, Dot and Julius were grouped around the bed with the desultory, uneasy air of strangers meeting fortuitously at the scene of an accident with which they would much prefer not to become involved but which they hardly like to leave.
Dorothy Moxon stood at the end of the bed, her heavy hands, red as hams, clasped to the rail. She was wearing her matron’s cap. The effect, so far from providing a touch of professional reassurance, was grotesque. The high frilled pie crust of muslin looked like a morbid and bizarre celebration of death. Millicent was still in her dressing gown, an enveloping plaid in heavy wool frogged like a ceremonial uniform which must once have belonged to her husband. In contrast, her slippers were insubstantial fripperies in pink fur. Wilfred and Eric were wearing their brown habits. They glanced briefly at the door when he entered, then immediately turned their attention back to the bed. Julius was saying:
“There was a light in one of the annexe rooms shortly after midnight. Isn’t that when you say she died, Eric?”
“It could have been about then. I’m only going by the cooling of the body and the beginning of rigor mortis. I’m not an expert in these things.”
“How odd! I thought that death was the one thing you were expert at.”
Wilfred said quietly:
“The light was from Ursula’s room. She rang shortly after midnight to be taken to the lavatory. Helen looked after her, but she didn’t go into Grace. There was no need. She didn’t ring. No one saw her after Dot put her to bed. She made no complaint then.”
Julius turned again to Eric Hewson:
“You haven’t any option, have you? If you can’t say what she died of, you can’t write a certificate. Anyway, I should play for safety if I were you. After all, you’ve only recently been permitted to sign a death certificate. Better not take any chances of getting it wrong.”
Eric Hewson said:
“You keep out of it, Julius, I don’t need your advice. I don’t know why Wilfred rang you.”
But he spoke without conviction, like an insecure and frightened child, his eyes flicking to the door as if hoping for the arrival of an ally. Julius was unabashed:
“It seems to me that you need any advice that’s going. What’s worrying you anyway? Do you suspect foul play? What a ridiculous phrase that is, come to think of it, so delightfully British, compounded of the public school ethos and the boxing ring.”
Eric exerted himself to make a show of authority.
“Don’t be ridiculous! Obviously it’s a natural death. The difficulty is that I’m puzzled why it should have happened now. I know D.S. patients can go off quickly like that, but in her case I didn’t expect it. And Dot says that she seemed just as usual when she put her to bed at ten o’clock. I’m wondering whether there was some other organic disease present which I missed.”
Julius went on happily:
“The police do not suspect foul play. Well, you’ve got a representative of them here if you want professional advice. Ask the Commander if he suspects foul play.”
They turned and looked at Dalgliesh as if fully aware of his presence for the first time. The window latch was rattling with irritating insistence. He went across to the window and glanced out. The ground close to the stone wall had been dug for a width of about four feet as if someone had intended to plant a border. The sandy earth was smooth and undisturbed. But of course it was! If a secret visitor had wanted to get into Grace’s room unseen, why climb in at the window when the door of Toynton Grange was never locked?
He fastened the catch and, moving back to the bed, looked down at the body. The dead face looked not exactly peaceful, but slightly disapproving, the mouth a little open, the front teeth, more rabbity than in life, pressing against the lower lip. The eyelids had contracted showing a glimpse of the
irises of the eye so that she seemed to be peering at her own two hands disposed so neatly over the taut coverlet. The strong right hand, blotched with the brown stigmata of age, was curved over the withered left as if instinctively protecting it from his pitying gaze. She was shrouded for her last sleep in an old-fashioned white nightdress of creased cotton with a child’s bow in narrow blue ribbon tied incongruously under her chin. The long sleeves were gathered into frilled wrists. There was a fine darn about two inches from her elbow. His eyes fixed obsessively on it. Who today, he wondered, would take such trouble? Certainly her diseased tormented hands couldn’t have woven that intricate pattern of repair. Why should he find that darn more pathetic, more heart shaking, than the concentrated calm of the dead face?
He was aware that the company had stopped arguing, that they were looking at him in a half-wary silence. He picked up the two books on Miss Willison’s bedside table, her prayer book and a paperback copy of The Last Chronicle of Barset. There was a book mark in the prayer book. She had, he saw, been reading the collect and gospel for the day. The place was marked by one of those sentimental cards favoured by the pious, a coloured picture of a haloed St. Francis surrounded by birds and apparently preaching to a motley and incongruous congregation of animals remote from their habitat and drawn with finicky precision. He wondered, irrelevantly, why there was no book mark in the Trollope. She was not a woman to turn down the pages, and surely of the two volumes this was the one in which she would more easily lose her place. The omission vaguely worried him.
“Is there a next of kin?” he asked, and Anstey answered:
“No. She told me that her parents were only children. They were both over forty when she was born and they died within months of each other about fifteen years ago. She had an older brother but he was killed in the war in North Africa. El Alamein, I believe.”
“What about her estate?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing at all. After her parents’ death she worked for several years for Open Door, the discharged prisoners charity, and had a small disability pension from them, a pittance merely. That, of course, dies with her. Her fees here were paid by the local authority.”
Julius Court said with sudden interest:
“The Open Door. Did she know Philby before you took him on?”
Anstey looked as if he found this irrelevant question in poor taste.
“She may have done; she certainly never said so. It was Grace who suggested that The Open Door might find us a handyman, that this was a way in which Toynton Grange could help the work of the charity. We have been very glad of Albert Philby. He’s one of the family. I haven’t repented my decision to take him on.”
Millicent broke in:
“And you got him cheap, of course. Besides it was Philby or no one wasn’t it? You didn’t have much luck with the labour exchange when the applicants found that you were offering £5 a week and all found. I sometimes wonder why Philby stays.”
Discussion of this point was prevented by the entrance of Philby himself. He must have been told of Miss Willison’s death for he showed no surprise to find her room full of people and gave no explanation of his presence. Instead he stationed himself beside the door like an embarrassing and unpredictable guard dog. The company behaved as if they had decided that it would be prudent not to notice him. Wilfred turned to Eric Hewson:
“Can’t you reach a diagnosis, without a postmortem? I hate the idea of her being cut up, the indignity, the impersonality. She was so sensitive about her body, so modest in a way we don’t understand nowadays. An autopsy is the last thing she herself would have wanted.”
Julius said coarsely:
“Well, it’s the last thing she’s going to get, isn’t it?”
Dot Moxon spoke for the first time. She swung round on him in sudden anger, her heavy face blotched, hands clenched.
“How dare you! What has it to do with you? You didn’t care about her dead or alive, her or any of the patients. You only use this place for your own purpose.”
“Use?” The grey eyes flickered and then widened; Dalgliesh could almost see the irises growing. Julius stared at Dot with incredulous anger.
“Yes, use! Exploit, if you like. It gives you a kick, doesn’t it, to come visiting Toynton Grange when London begins to bore you, patronizing Wilfred, pretending to advise him, handing out treats to the inmates like Father Christmas? It makes you feel good, reinforces your ego to contrast your health with their deformity. But you take damned good care not to put yourself out. The kindness doesn’t really cost you anything. No one but Henry gets invited to your cottage. But then Henry was quite important in his time wasn’t he? He and you have things to gossip about. You’re the only one here with a view of the sea, but we don’t find you inviting us to wheel the chairs on to your patio. No bloody fear! That’s one thing you could have done for Grace, take her to your place occasionally, let her sit quietly and look at the sea. She wasn’t stupid, you know. You might even have enjoyed her conversation. But that would have spoilt the appearance of your elegant patio wouldn’t it, an ugly middle-aged woman in a wheelchair? And now she’s dead you come here pretending to advise Eric. Well, for God’s sake, cut it out!”
Julius laughed uneasily. He seemed to have himself in hand but his voice was high and brittle.
“I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve that outburst. I didn’t realize that by buying a cottage from Wilfred I’d made myself responsible for Grace Willison or for anyone else at Toynton Grange for that matter. I’ve no doubt it’s a shock for you, Dot, losing another patient so soon after Victor, but why take it out on me? We all know that you’re in love with Wilfred and I’ve no doubt that’s pretty unrewarding for you, but it’s hardly my fault. I may be a little ambivalent in my sexual tastes but I’m not competing for him, I assure you.”
Suddenly she blundered up to him and threw back her arm to slap his face in a gesture at once theatrical and absurd. But before she could strike, Julius had caught her wrist. Dalgliesh was surprised at the quickness and effectiveness of his reaction. The taut hand, white and trembling with effort, held hers high in a muscled vice so that they looked like two ill-matched contestants locked in a tableau of conflict. Suddenly he laughed and dropped her hand. He lowered his hand more slowly, his eyes still on her face, and began massaging and twisting his wrist. Then he laughed again, a dangerous sound, and said softly:
“Careful! Careful! I’m not a helpless geriatric patient, you know.”
She gave a gasp and, bursting into tears, blundered sobbing from the room, an ungainly and pathetic but not a ridiculous figure. Philby slipped out after her. His departure caused as little interest as his arrival. Wilfred said softly:
“You shouldn’t have said that, Julius, any of it.”
“I know. It was unforgivable. I’m sorry. I’ll tell Dot so when we are feeling calmer.”
The brevity, the absence of self-justification and the apparent sincerity of the apology silenced them. Dalgliesh said quietly:
“I imagine that Miss Willison would have found this quarrelling over her body a great deal more shocking than anything that could happen to her on the mortuary slab.”
His words recalled Wilfred to the matter in hand; he turned to Eric Hewson:
“But we didn’t have all this trouble with Michael, you gave a certificate without difficulty then.”
Dalgliesh could detect the first trace of peevishness in his voice.
Eric explained:
“I knew why Michael had died, I had seen him only that morning. It was only a matter of time for Michael after that last heart attack. He was a dying man.”
“As we all are,” said Wilfred. “As we all are.”
The pious platitudes seemed to irritate his sister. She spoke for the first time.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Wilfred. I’m certainly not dying and you would be very disconcerted to be told that you were. And as for Grace, she always looked to me a great deal sicker than anyone here seemed to understa
nd. Now perhaps you will realize that it isn’t always the ones who make the most fuss who need the most attention.”
She turned to Dalgliesh:
“What exactly will happen if Eric doesn’t give a certificate? Does it mean that we’ll have the police here again?”
“A policeman will probably come, yes; just an ordinary policeman. He’ll be the coroner’s officer and he will take charge of the body.”
“And then?”
“The coroner will arrange for a postmortem. According to the result he will either issue a certificate for the registrar or he’ll conduct an inquest.”
Wilfred said:
“It’s all so horrible, so unnecessary.”
“It’s the law and Dr. Hewson knows that it is the law.”
“But what do you mean, it’s the law? Grace died of D.S., we all know that. What if there was some other disease present? Eric can’t treat her or do anything to help her now. What law are you talking about?”
Dalgliesh patiently explained:
“The doctor who attends a dead person during his last illness is required to sign and deliver to the registrar a certificate in a prescribed form stating the cause of death to the best of his knowledge and belief. At the same time he is required to deliver to a qualified informant, and that could be the occupant of the house where the death occurred, a notice to the effect that he has signed such a certificate. There is no statutory duty on a doctor to report any death to the coroner, but it’s usual to do so where there is any doubt. When the doctor reports a death to a coroner he’s not relieved of his duty to issue a certificate of the cause of death but there is provision for him to state on the form that he has reported the death so that the registrar will know that he must defer registration until he hears from the coroner. Under Section 3 of the Coroners Act 1887 a coroner has a duty to make enquiries whenever he is informed that there is lying within his jurisdiction the body of a person who there is reason to believe may have died a violent or unnatural death or a sudden death, the cause of which is unknown, or who has died in prison or in any place or circumstances which under another Act require an inquest to be held. That, since you have enquired—and in somewhat tedious detail—is the law. Grace Willison has died suddenly and in Dr. Hewson’s opinion the cause is at present unknown. His best course is to report the death to the coroner. It will mean a postmortem, but not necessarily an inquest.”