Nine Lessons

by Nicola Upson

  ‘That’s an Inverness accent, if I’m not mistaken?’ Mrs Thompson said. Wrong-footed, Josephine nodded. ‘Ay, I thought so. Have you been long away from the Highlands?’

  ‘About ten days,’ she said dryly. ‘I live there.’

  ‘Ah, how nice. And what does your family do?’

  ‘My mother was a teacher but she died several years ago. My father has a fruiterer’s shop.’

  ‘Does he now? And where would that be?’

  ‘In Castle Street.’

  ‘Well then, my aunt’s bound to know him. She loves a Golden Russet.’

  ‘Your aunt?’

  ‘That’s right. Didn’t I mention I had family in Inverness?’

  ‘No, I don’t think you did,’ Josephine said, horrified to have given away so much about herself already. ‘You’ll have to excuse me, but I was just doing some work and I really need to get on. I’m sorry you’ve had a wasted trip—’

  ‘Not wasted at all. What sort of work is it that you do?’

  ‘I’m a writer.’

  ‘Well, that’s quite a change from fruit, but I expect your father’s very proud all the same. Now, you get on with your work while I have a little look round the house. I always insist on that before I take a new position—you wouldn’t believe some of the things I’ve been expected to put up with in the past. I’ll be as quiet as a mouse, I promise. You won’t even know I’m here.’

  Before Josephine could object, Mrs Thompson was climbing the stairs to the first floor and she had no choice but to follow. ‘The rooms are actually quite small, aren’t they?’ the prospective help said, glancing round the study. ‘This will be no trouble at all.’ She walked across to the desk by the window, where Josephine had been working, and looked at the open newspaper and the map. ‘I expect you’ve had a lot of sightseers past your windows since Friday night,’ she said sagely. ‘People do so love to talk. My husband’s on the agency’s books, too—odd jobs and gardening, that sort of thing—and all he’s done these last few weeks is fit locks and bolts for single girls. I swear I’ve never known him to be so busy.’

  ‘Well, I suppose even violent crime has its silver lining,’ Josephine said brightly, smiling to take the edge off her words. ‘Now, if you’ve seen enough, we should discuss a date for you to start.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll start on Thursday,’ she said, as if the decision were entirely hers. ‘If that’s not convenient, the agency will find me somewhere else and you’ll be back at the bottom of the waiting list. Just one more floor, is there?’

  ‘That’s right, but surely you don’t need to see everything?’

  ‘In a mess, I suppose? No need to be embarrassed about that—we’ll have it all shipshape soon enough.’ The bed was indeed still unmade, which was shameful enough for four o’clock in the afternoon, but Josephine knew it wasn’t that which had caught Mrs Thompson’s attention; she was looking at the collection of photographs on the bedside table, which—without exception—were all of her with Marta. They went back downstairs, but there was a new edge to Mrs Thompson’s voice when she spoke again. ‘My references are all in here,’ she said, laying the envelope on the hall table, ‘together with my terms and conditions. My days will be Monday and Thursday, nine until twelve, and every other weekend. All financial matters will be handled by the agency, with whom you must also leave a key. Perhaps you could confirm all that with your friend?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Josephine saw her to the door and closed it firmly behind her, wondering how long it would take the aunt from Inverness to stock up on fruit.

  15

  After some persuasion, the bursar’s office reluctantly gave Penrose the details of where Alastair Frost was living out the last, painful days of his life. The Evelyn Nursing Home was on Trumpington Road and he found it easily among the handsome, desirable residences that lay to the south of the town. A sweeping gravelled drive led him through rows of mature trees towards an old, ivy-covered house and, a few yards further on, a more modern two-storey building with an attractive curved facade. He parked his car midway between the two and looked round, admiring the home’s extensive grounds—lawns edged by carefully tended flower borders, with kitchen gardens and a greenhouse to the rear and a sizeable area given over to soft fruits and an orchard. If there was such a thing as a desirable place to be ill, this was obviously it. The gardens were faded now as they headed towards the quiet of winter, but he imagined that they were still a source of great pleasure to the patients—although not to Alastair Frost, it seemed: from what the matron had said when Penrose telephoned to make an appointment, he was arriving just in time.

  The sound of wheels on the gravel brought a middle-aged woman to the door, dressed in a matron’s uniform and carrying a small dog. ‘Miss Cacroft?’ he asked, getting out of the car.

  ‘Yes, Chief Inspector. You’ve made excellent time.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m a little earlier than we agreed. If it’s inconvenient, please just say and I’ll wait.’

  ‘No, not at all inconvenient. Would you like some tea after your journey, or would you prefer to see Dr Frost right away?’

  ‘I won’t put you to the trouble of tea, but I would like a word with you first if you’ve time?’

  ‘Of course. Come through to my sitting room, and I’ll take you over to the hospital wing when you’re ready.’

  She put the terrier down and it led the way obligingly down a hallway lined with watercolours to a small room at the back of the house. It was sparsely furnished—Penrose had never been in a nurse’s room that didn’t show the same respect for stillness and order which her professional life demanded—but everything was chosen with an eye for taste. There were a number of architectural drawings on the wall, early plans for the hospital buildings, and he studied them with interest before taking the seat he was offered. ‘You’ve got a wonderful facility here,’ he said. ‘It must be a real asset to the town.’

  Edith Cacroft seemed gratified by the compliment. ‘It’s certainly a great improvement on its predecessor,’ she said. ‘Up until the end of the war, the only private nursing facilities were in a hostel in Thompson’s Lane. A black hole with no daylight, someone once called it—and he wasn’t far wrong.’ She smiled, and pointed to a photograph of the old building to show what she meant. ‘It was very basic, to say the least, and even that was under threat—the building was leased from Magdalene College and they wanted it back to cope with the flood of undergraduates coming back after the war. But we were fortunate in finding a benefactor. I don’t suppose you know Morland Agnew?’ Penrose shook his head. ‘No, long before your time, I imagine. He was a Trinity man, and his wife convalesced in the Thompson’s Lane hostel after an operation at Addenbrooke’s. It wasn’t the most comfortable few weeks she’d ever spent, and it made him determined to give Cambridge something better. She was the Evelyn who gives us our name.’

  ‘And you’ve obviously been here from the very beginning?’

  ‘That’s right. I was matron at a hospital in France during the war, then I came back to Cambridge via London. This place has been my life for more than sixteen years, and it’s been a privilege to see it grow and develop. We even have nurses working in some of the colleges now—much to the delight of the undergraduates and the horror of the Fellows. But you haven’t come to the Evelyn to listen to me. Time is precious. You learn that very quickly here.’

  Penrose nodded, grateful for her understanding. ‘How long has Dr Frost been with you?’ he asked.

  ‘Since early October. He came back to Cambridge after a research trip to Italy, determined to begin the Michaelmas term as usual, but it soon became obvious that he wasn’t well enough to care for himself, let alone to teach, so he moved in here shortly afterwards.’

  ‘And how is he now?’

  ‘I would say he has days left rather than weeks, and perhaps not many of those. He’s been sleeping a lot, and he’s past the stage now when he can swallow anything but fluids. We’ve made him as comfortable as w
e can—the morphine helps with his breathing as well as with the pain—but there’s very little else that can be done in the final stages of lung cancer.’

  ‘Has he had many visitors while he’s been here?’

  ‘Several colleagues, naturally, and some of his students have begun to drop by since they heard the news. I gather he’s a very popular member of the college, and not many days go by without someone from King’s calling to see him. He has a brother who lives in Scotland. It’s hard for him, obviously, being so far away, but he’s visited twice and hopes to come again before the end.’

  ‘What about an old friend of his called Robert Moorcroft?’

  The matron looked at him in surprise. ‘Now how did you know that, I wonder? I’m not sure I would have called him an old friend, but yes—Mr Moorcroft was here recently.’

  ‘And Rufus Carrington?’

  ‘I don’t recognise that name.’

  ‘How about Richard Swayne?’

  ‘I’m beginning to think you know my hospital better than I do, Chief Inspector. Mr Swayne came at the weekend, although he didn’t stay long because Dr Frost was having a particularly bad day.’

  So Swayne wasn’t quite as unmoved by the murders as he had made out, Penrose thought; he had obviously been troubled enough to come to Cambridge. ‘Did either of those visits seem to disturb Dr Frost?’ he asked.

  She thought carefully before answering. ‘No, I wouldn’t say that. On the contrary—he seemed rather amused by Mr Moorcroft’s visit. Perhaps “amused” isn’t quite the right word, but he was certainly in better spirits afterwards.’

  ‘Do you like Dr Frost, Miss Cacroft?’

  So far, the matron had afforded Penrose the courtesy of answering his questions without any reference to why he might be asking them, but now she looked at him curiously. ‘I couldn’t say that I like him, simply because I don’t know him well enough to make such a personal judgement—but I certainly respect him. Many of the terminal patients who pass through our doors rail against their illness, but Dr Frost never has. Some are angry at the injustice of it, others are full of self-pity, but not once to my knowledge has he ever complained, and he has borne the severest of pain with great stoicism and dignity. And if you asked the nurses who spend their days caring for him and are in a better position to comment than I am, I imagine that most of them would tell you that they like him very much.’

  ‘How did he react when you told him that I was coming today?’

  ‘He said that you were twenty-four years too late.’ She gave him a wry smile. ‘I’m tempted to ask what that means, but it suggests that you won’t want to waste any more time. Would you like me to take you across to him now?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  He followed her back to the door, deep in thought, then across the front lawn to the nursing block. It was an attractive building with a deceptively simple design: repeated groups of French and casement windows alternated with panels of cream plaster and brick. The rooms were all south facing, and those on the ground floor had wide doors to a pleasant terraced area, where beds could be wheeled out in fine weather. ‘Handsome, isn’t it?’ Miss Cacroft said as they approached. ‘Sir Aston Webb was the architect. He also designed Admiralty Arch and parts of Buckingham Palace.’

  ‘Then you’re in good company.’

  ‘Indeed.’ She opened a door at the side of the building and allowed him to go in first. The main corridor curved gently round, following the line of the building, and they walked past several teak doors with gleaming brass handles. ‘Dr Frost is in the room at the end,’ Miss Cacroft said, stopping outside a nurses’ duty room, its entrance flanked by linen cupboards. ‘I realise that whatever has brought you here must be important, Chief Inspector, but I would ask you to be as brief as possible with your questions—and please try not to disturb Dr Frost unnecessarily. Whatever time he has left—well, it’s my duty to make sure that he spends it peacefully.’

  ‘Of course.’

  She knocked softly and opened the door. A nurse left her seat at the foot of Frost’s bed, and the matron gestured for Penrose to take her place. ‘There’ll be someone outside should you need her.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The blind used to shade the room from the sun in summer was pulled low against the gentle autumn daylight, giving the room a muted half-life which was strangely appropriate. Penrose was struck immediately by the clinical nature of the space: there were no personal belongings on the shelves or bedside table to suggest that the room had been occupied for several weeks—no photographs, no books or cards, nothing to taunt the man in the bed with the pleasures he must leave behind or the things he would never finish; the emptiness moved him, as if—for Frost—the real death had already occurred and the physical act of breathing his last was simply something to be endured as efficiently as possible. The room was so quiet and still that he thought Frost was sleeping, but, as he got closer to the bed, he noticed two wide-awake eyes fixed firmly on him. ‘Illness turns the strongest of men into frightened children,’ Frost said, his voice low and fragile. ‘Any sort of company is better than being left alone, even a policeman’s.’

  Penrose moved the chair closer to the head of the bed so that Frost needn’t struggle to be heard. He forced himself to meet the dying man’s eyes without revulsion or pity, but it required some considerable effort and he found it hard to believe that he was looking at a man his own age: Frost was desperately thin, and the frail arm which rested on the bed sheet was mottled and bluish from lack of circulation. His forehead was clammy, and—except for the dark rings that circled hollow eyes—his face had the colour of unbleached wax. The skin across his cheekbones was taut and paper-thin, and, as he made the effort to speak again, Penrose had the unsettling illusion of holding a conversation with a skeleton. ‘Robert said you’d be here sooner or later.’

  ‘And did he say why?’

  Frost nodded. ‘I’m afraid you’ve had a wasted trip, though. I like a good thriller as much as the next man, but the convenient chapter where the dying man confesses everything is always such a disappointment. It’s not a part I’m inclined to play.’

  ‘So there is something to confess? That’s more than I was certain of when I walked in here.’ Frost tried to smile but his lips were too cracked and sore to oblige him. Penrose took the glass of water from the bedside table and held it to his mouth. ‘This isn’t a thriller, though,’ he said quietly. ‘People are dying—men who were once your friends. What am I twenty-four years too late for?’

  ‘To help any of us. To save us from ourselves.’

  ‘Is that why Moorcroft and Swayne came to see you?’ Penrose asked. ‘To beg your silence? To remind you of a pact you all made years ago and to point out that they still have a lot to lose, even if you haven’t?’

  ‘Something like that. I was surprised at Swayne, but Robert has always been stupid. It hasn’t occurred to him that by helping you and speaking out I might just save his life.’ Frost’s breathing was laboured and irregular now, in spite of the morphine, and he paused to rest. ‘And that is precisely why I’m not going to tell you anything, Penrose, except this: what’s happening is justice, pure and simple. All of these deaths are warranted, mine included. If my silence ensures that justice will take its course right to the bitter end, then so be it.’

  ‘You can’t take the law into your own hands like that,’ Penrose insisted. ‘If you know who’s doing this and you die without telling anyone, you are culpable in part for any future deaths.’

  ‘So I’ll burn in hell?’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘You don’t believe that justice and the law are the same thing any more than I do. Simon Westbury was proof of that. But even if what you say is true, my conscience is clear—on that, at least. I have absolutely no idea who is doing this. If that’s your question, I couldn’t answer it even if I wanted to.’

  ‘But you know why it’s happening.’

  ‘Oh yes. We all know that, and we’ve had to live with it in our differe
nt ways. “The mind is its own place, and in it self can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.”’

  ‘Milton,’ Penrose said, recognising the lines from Paradise Lost.

  Frost nodded approvingly, as if rewarding a bright undergraduate. ‘For a few years—just a few—I thought I could succeed in making a heaven from the hell that we created. I had my books and my teaching, and I honestly believed that by giving those young men something truly worthwhile I could make up for what I did—for what we did.’ Penrose listened, struck by the similarities between Frost’s words and the selfless teaching that had been an important part of Stephen Laxborough’s life, the charity work credited to Giles Shorter. ‘But good doesn’t cancel out evil, does it? The stain is always there, and it’s so much easier to make a hell from heaven than the other way round.’

  He closed his eyes, and for a moment Penrose thought he had fallen asleep. In the deep, expectant silence of the room, he watched the sheet move up and down and heard the ominous, low-pitched rattle in Frost’s chest. ‘If you can’t tell me who and you won’t tell me why, can you at least tell me why it’s happening like this?’ he pleaded, no longer sure that the man could hear him. ‘What have these murders got to do with M. R. James?’

  He waited a long time for his answer. ‘That’s where we went afterwards,’ Frost whispered eventually. ‘We drank Monty’s whisky and smoked his tobacco, and listened while he told innocent stories of horror that were nothing compared to the one we had just lived through. Someone obviously knows that.’

  ‘And did Dr James know what you’d done?’

  ‘No, absolutely not. If he had, none of this would be necessary. We loved him. If he’d seen us for what we were, the shame would have been unbearable. As I said, Monty liked his evil to be innocent, something he could put away at the end of the evening.’