Dying to Write

by Judith Cutler

  He struggled more purposefully. Then he slipped clear. But instead of diving to freedom, he clawed up my shoulder and on to my neck, where he lay, heavy, warm and wet. Presumably this was what rats considered first-class travel.

  I simply walked into Kate’s room via Matt’s, which happened to be empty and unlocked. But there was no food around, apart from a sprinkling around the edge of the room, a giant parabola of brightly coloured confetti. The packet of digestive biscuits had gone from Kate’s table too. I thrust the rat with some loss of his dignity into the cage, balanced the litter tray on top, and retreated to my own room, where it would be easier to keep an eye on him. Food? A rapid raid on the kitchen produced cheese, the heel of a granary loaf, an apple. The biscuit barrel was empty.

  Sidney eyed the apple and cheese with disdain. It was a good job I’d thought of the bread. Plainly there was more to rodents than I’d realised.

  I nibbled the cheese and apple myself, and started to feel better.

  Chris had made his own plans for the evening meeting. He’d asked Shazia, Matt and me to join him in the staff flat above the rabbit-hutches, then he wanted everyone together after supper so he could make a general announcement.

  Shazia welcomed us politely and showed us into her living room. The room contained a genial mixture of Impressionist prints and Islamic art. There were a number of holy texts in Arabic lettering; Shazia followed my gaze and said quietly, ‘Yes, we made the hajj two years ago.’

  I was impressed – they were very young to have made the expensive pilgrimage.

  Chris gestured at the dining table: it might be more businesslike to sit there.

  ‘The pathologist’s report,’ he began, in his official voice, ‘confirms that Mrs Compton –’

  ‘Nyree?’ asked Matt.

  ‘Mrs Nyree Compton died of a mixture of alcohol and barbiturates,’ Chris finished. ‘Specifically, as you saw, she choked on her own vomit.’

  ‘So it’s what we thought,’ said Shazia, visibly relaxing. ‘We all warned her about her drinking.’

  Or thought about it. I’d never spoken aloud.

  ‘Stupid woman,’ said Matt.

  ‘Or a very sad one,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, there’s no suicide note,’ said Chris. ‘Don’t think we didn’t check,’ he added smugly.

  ‘Her whole life was probably a suicide note,’ I said, thinking of the Stevie Smith poem about drowning. ‘You can’t behave like that if you’re happy,’ I continued. ‘I wish I’d made an effort. I just let her make me mad. If I’d tried –’

  Chris looked at me sharply. ‘Any particular reason? For you to be mad with her?’

  ‘She was unkind.’ I stopped. I didn’t want to tell him about Nyree’s ogling Shazia’s husband. Nor did I want to introduce my cousin Andy at this stage of the conversation. ‘I might be unkind myself at times, but I don’t really like unkind people.’

  ‘I think you’re very kind,’ Chris said, ‘for all you pretend to be waspish.’

  ‘I am waspish. I’m waspish because I should have found other ways of dealing with my irritation. I could have hidden her sleeping tablets, rationed them or whatever.’

  Then we remembered we had an audience. Chris coughed slightly and resumed his official voice: ‘The pathologist reports she took round about the standard dose. So you probably wouldn’t have done any good if you had tried to interfere.’

  ‘She wouldn’t have thanked you for trying,’ said Matt.

  I tried to imagine myself acting as night nurse, doling out a pill at a time. And failed. I tried to imagine Nyree being sober enough to shake just one tablet out of a bottle. And failed. She’d have dropped them all over the floor and had to scrabble for them. There might even be a couple under the bed for the police to pick up.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Shazia.

  ‘Yes. No. I was just wondering what would have happened to Sidney if he’d chanced on one.’ And I remembered with a flush of guilt I’d told no one about the rat’s recent adventures. Now was certainly not the time. I’d waylay Chris later.

  ‘They’d come in a bubble pack,’ said Chris, dismissively. So I caught his eye, to be rewarded with a long, slow flush. His expression changed from complacency to pure panic, taking in horror on the way. Chris had not yet seen the tablets, had he?

  Which meant, of course, they hadn’t been in Nyree’s room.

  I let him talk on: he had no objection on the course continuing –

  ‘Well, I bloody have,’ said Matt. ‘How can the course bloody continue when one of the tutors has gone missing and you lot aren’t even interested?’

  Chris’s expression was opaque. So they were interested, but he wasn’t admitting how. I would probe a little.

  But Matt pre-empted me.

  ‘She leaves her room without telling anyone, is missing all day – bugger it, it’s time we had a search party out for her. She may be lying out there sick or injured, and all we do is talk about Nyree and her angst. And whether the course will go on. Do something about Kate and then I’ll talk about the course!’

  He pushed away from the table. We heard him slam out of the flat and could follow his footfall until the sound insulation mopped it up.

  It was better not to remark on it. We smiled our thanks to Shazia and left.

  ‘We have to talk, Chris,’ I said, as we reached my corridor.

  ‘Later.’

  ‘Now. There are things you need to know to help you make your decisions. Apart from finding those tablets you assumed were hers – you could get one of your underlings to check for that, surely?’

  He flushed. ‘I’ve had the room sealed to preserve the scene. Anything in there will turn up.’

  We walked past my room to Nyree’s. Beyond the police tape, the door was open. Someone had put boards down on the floor. I pointed at them. ‘What on earth?’

  ‘So people don’t have to walk on the carpet, of course. With modern technology we can actually lift footprints off carpets. If,’ he added, grinning like a naughty schoolboy, ‘they haven’t been hoovered off first.’

  It was the nearest he’d get to thanking me.

  He spoke to a plain-clothes officer with a video camera; she nodded – she’d look for the tablets at once, she said, beaming winsomely. Chris rewarded her with a very warm smile. She blushed.

  We went back towards my room.

  ‘OK, what do you want to talk about?’

  I opened the bedroom door and pointed at Sidney.

  ‘That, for starters,’ I said.

  Chapter Six

  I settled Chris in the only chair. I sat on a pillow on the floor. I didn’t like having to look up at him, but preferred it to the alternative – sitting on the bed. Before we could began talking, Sidney started to pound up and down his cage, which I took – rightly – as demand for his litter tray. He then settled down to consume with rather unpleasant enthusiasm another bit of bread.

  Chris watched the whole procedure with distaste. ‘How long have you had that?’ he asked, getting up and ostentatiously opening the window.

  ‘Since four this afternoon. Chris: this is Sidney. Sidney: Chris.’

  ‘What on earth possessed you –?’

  ‘He did. He possessed me. He’s Kate’s. He went missing and came and found me. Since there’s no sign of Kate, I thought he’d be safer here. What are you going to do about Kate?’

  ‘Nothing. Not yet.’

  ‘She’s been gone twelve hours. Her rat was wandering around –’

  ‘She probably went looking for it.’

  ‘Him. And then –? She’s a professional woman, Chris. Here doing a job for which she’d get paid. She wouldn’t bunk off without letting at least Matt know what she was up to.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Do you intend to wait till something nasty happens to another woman? There are a lot of us on this course for someone to choose from.’

  He shook his head. Kindly. I could have hit him.

  ‘Tell you w
hat,’ he said at last, ‘if she doesn’t turn up for supper, I’ll reconsider. And I’ll have a word with everyone after you’ve eaten. Put them in the picture.’

  He got up to go, weariness in every movement. Even his smile was tired. I wished I could suggest we had a drink together. But there was no bar, he had work to do, and I had to face the others at supper. I followed him out of the room.

  Supper was a silent and unappetising affair. Mr Woodhouse had been teamed with the aspiring publisher and Jean, the third grey lady. Her menu reflected her experience as a school dinner lady in the days when they’d had them: cottage pie, diced carrot and mashed potato. Toad, who was improving the shining hour with a buttercup yellow T-shirt bearing a bilious green message that fur looked better on animals, left the meat in a greyish ring round the edge of his plate. I had to draw myself up short. Mostly I avoid red meat, and I wouldn’t dream of wearing fur; why should I find his behaviour objectionable? Perhaps it was his air of complacent ostentation that irritated me. Certainly it annoyed Gimson, who stared testily at him and seemed only to be searching for an opportunity to say something truly scathing.

  Rice pudding followed. Not, I’ll admit, your average school pud: she’d used golden syrup to sweeten it. Matt, despite his testy anxiety, scraped and ate the crusty bits from round the top. Toad and he had tossed for the golden-brown skin; Toad had won. Courtney did no more than push his food from side to side of his plate. He’d tied back his hair in a fashionable if miniscule pony-tail, but the style made him look not trendy but gaunt. I kept thinking about Chris. I wanted to talk about his experiences in India before he could bury them in the matchless police prose of the report he’d no doubt have to write. But all I’d done was talk about Nyree and Kate. At least the gloom on my face would match that on the others’.

  Would Chris make a grand entrance into the lounge after supper, or would he simply stand there waiting for us? I favoured the more theatrical option; so, it transpired, did he. His style was so good, one or two people started to their feet like punctilious third-formers. I caught his eye in approval. But I was sure the slight grin he flashed me included guilt.

  He didn’t need a cough, portentous or otherwise, to gain our attention.

  ‘I know that in a group like this rumours gather and spread like colds,’ he began, with a smile to fetch the ducks off the water. ‘So I thought you all ought to know what few facts we’ve gathered. And if anyone has anything they think I ought to know, perhaps they’d reciprocate.

  ‘First, as you all know, Mrs Compton – Nyree – died this morning. Mr Gimson examined her as soon as Shazia found her. That was at about nine. There was nothing anyone could have done. She’d been dead several hours by then. The cause of death was alcohol plus barbiturates.’

  Gimson, who had been casually inspecting his nails, was galvanised. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Barbiturates.’

  ‘Sleeping tablets,’ Jean explained kindly.

  ‘As I said, she was a stupid woman,’ said Matt.

  ‘Anything special to look at?’ asked Thea.

  ‘Tiny little white ones. My aunt used to take them,’ Jean said. ‘We found whole bottles full of them when she died. Ever so careless, her doctor. Oh, no offence, Mr Gimson, please – I didn’t mean …’

  Gimson permitted himself a frosty smile.

  ‘Bottles?’ I repeated. ‘I thought,’ I pursued, not looking at Chris, ‘that drugs tended to come in bubble packs, these days.’

  ‘Those are still dispensed loose,’ said Gimson, apparently bored again.

  ‘And, unfortunately, we haven’t yet found any trace of a pill bottle in her effects,’ Chris confessed, studiously avoiding my eye.

  ‘Have you looked in the bathrooms?’ asked Mr Woodhouse. ‘I’m always leaving things behind in these bathrooms. And you never remember until someone else is in there.’

  ‘How typical of the woman to leave dangerous drugs around,’ said Agnes. ‘To take them to the bathroom and be so – so –’

  ‘– drunk,’ Matt supplied.

  ‘– she forgot to pick them up.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Chris.

  ‘And a couple of times I’ve picked up someone else’s toothpaste,’ Woodhouse continued. ‘D’you suppose someone might have picked up these pills of hers?’

  ‘That’s a distinct possibility, sir,’ said Chris, as sincerely as if the idea were new to him. ‘Maybe you’d all be kind enough to check when you return to your rooms. And if you find anything in your spongebags or whatever that doesn’t belong there, perhaps you’d be kind enough to tell one of my colleagues. One or two of them will be on duty here all night.’

  ‘What about Kate, for Christ’s sake? There’s that lovely woman who might be lying sick or injured anywhere in the grounds. Damn it, her computer’s still plugged in – she can’t have meant to go anywhere for long. And all you do is rabbit on about some obnoxious gossip-mongering nymphomaniac lush’s dentures!’

  ‘Dentures?’ wailed Toad. ‘Nyree wouldn’t – she didn’t …’

  ‘Of course, not,’ I said briskly. ‘Matt’s joking.’

  ‘Joking, when she’s – ’ Toad broke off, covering his face and lurching from the room.

  After a moment, Shazia followed. So did a policeman, who’d been barely visible through a crack in the door.

  There was an embarrassed silence.

  Chris broke it. ‘As far as Ms Freeman is concerned,’ he said, not looking at me, ‘a search of the house and grounds is taking place at this moment.’

  ‘What about that dear little animal of hers?’ asked Jean.

  ‘I’m looking after him,’ I said, wondering whether she was being brave or hypocritical.

  ‘Will you be setting up a what-do-you-call-it?’ asked Mr Woodhouse. ‘Like they do on TV? You know, with all the computers and polythene sheets round the body.’

  ‘An incident room,’ Jean said. ‘But they’ve taken the body away.’

  ‘Unless they find Kate’s,’ said Mr Woodhouse.

  ‘These days of excellent communications we tend not to need an on-the-spot incident room,’ said Chris. ‘Rose Road Police Station is the place where I have my office, and they’re geared up for everything we should need. But I may ask if we could use somewhere as a base – cups of tea, taking statements and so on.’

  ‘The stable block? That’s self-contained,’ said Matt.

  ‘But that’s where I like to write,’ said Mr Woodhouse. ‘All the sounds of nature so close. So inspiring.’

  ‘Perhaps you could move to the conservatory,’ said Matt.

  ‘If that’s OK, then, that’s where we’ll set up our control point. So you’ll all know where to find us if you need us. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you’ll be able to get on with your writing and won’t find this unpleasant business too obtrusive. Oh,’ he said, as if he’d genuinely forgotten, ‘one small thing. We shall have to speak to each of you and ask you to make short statements. Just a formality. One or two of you might like to get it out of the way now, and my colleagues and I are ready to help. Shazia suggested we use the library for this evening. Tomorrow you’ll find us in the stables. Thank you all. Good evening.’

  I fell quite casually into step with Chris as he left the lounge, and we walked amicably to my room. Chris strode straight to the window, which I’d closed before supper.

  ‘I just didn’t want any surprise visitors,’ I said apologetically, as he opened it to its maximum.

  ‘A child of three couldn’t get through that,’ he replied. ‘And I’m sure you’ve no need to worry. Not this time.’

  He smiled.

  If only I could have responded by walking into his arms! I smiled back, sadly. He sat down on the foot of the bed, this time. I took the chair.

  ‘If no one hands in the bottle of pills, what then?’

  ‘I search. With or without a warrant. You don’t expect anyone to produce them?’

  ‘Do you?’ I shrugged. ‘Why did Gimson p
rick up his ears when you mentioned barbiturate?’

  ‘I thought you’d notice. Thanks for not asking.’

  His smile was sadder than mine; I would have to move into bracing mode.

  ‘Come on, Chris, you’ve got me better trained than that. All that undercover work we did together! Tell you what, you couldn’t find an excuse for us to go undercover at the Music Centre again? I’m finding this place quite claustrophobic. And I’ve not written a single word yet.’

  ‘Did you expect to?’

  ‘I thought I’d try. When in Rome, you know. Anyway, these ’ere tablets – what’s wrong with them? Why did Gimson leap to life?’

  ‘Because they’re unusual these days. Most doctors prescribe drugs without such drastic side effects: diazepam-related ones, usually.’

  ‘But they can have side effects!’ I’d once had a week on some. ‘They can give you unimaginable nightmares.’

  ‘Unpleasant side effects, true. But not as fatal as those Nyree experienced.’

  ‘OK. So why did she take them?’

  ‘I’m trying to locate her GP now. But she’s been all over the world, according to her passport. She could have picked them up anywhere. God, Sophie, you should have seen the drugs you could get in India just for the asking. Steroids, antibiotics – the whole caboodle.’

  ‘But the bottle – you’re absolutely sure it is a bottle?’ I grinned.

  ‘It’s a bottle of very small tablets, perhaps five millimetres across,’ he said stolidly. ‘And I could wish,’ he added, perking up again, ‘that that wretched, noisome rodent had found one and put us out of our misery. Do you really propose to sleep with it stinking the place out like this?’

  ‘There is, as the lady once said, No Alternative. No one else would be fool enough to take him in.’

  He stood up. ‘You said it; not me. What are you planning to write about?’ he asked, looking at the desk with the blank pad and unused biro.

  ‘About George,’ I said. ‘I still miss him, Chris, more than I could have imagined. I want to phone him for a natter. If I leave my tapes or books in a mess, I expect him to be there putting them in order. And he’s not there for me to phone, and when I turn round he’s not there. It’s as if part of me is missing. Something inside.’