“Is that you, James?” she called. For fifteen years he had been greeted every night with that unnecessary question.
“Yes. I’m sorry I’m late. I’m sorry, too, that I couldn’t tell you more on the phone. But something pretty dreadful has happened at the Steen and Etherege thought it better to say as little as possible. Enid Bolam has been killed.”
But her mind had seized on the medical director’s name. “Henry Etherege! He would, of course. He lives in Harley Street with an adequate staff and about twice our income. He might consider me a little before keeping you at the clinic until this hour. His wife isn’t stuck in the country alone until he chooses to come home.”
“It wasn’t Henry’s fault that I was kept. I told you. Enid Bolam’s been killed. We’ve had the police at the clinic most of the evening.”
This time she heard. He sensed her sharp intake of breath, saw her eyes narrow as she came down the stairs to him, clutching her dressing gown around her.
“Miss Bolam killed?”
“Yes, murdered.”
She stood motionless, seeming to consider, then asked calmly: “How?”
As he told her, she still didn’t speak. Afterwards they stood facing each other. He wondered uneasily whether he ought to go to her, to make some gesture of comfort or sympathy. But why sympathy? What, after all, had Helen lost? When she spoke, her voice was as cold as metal.
“None of you liked her, did you? Not one of you!”
“That’s ridiculous, Helen! Most of us hardly came into touch with her except briefly and in her capacity as AO.”
“It looks like an inside job, doesn’t it?”
He winced at the crude police-court jargon, but said curtly: “On the face of it, yes. I don’t know what the police think.”
She laughed bitterly. “Oh, I can guess what the police think!” Again she stood silent then suddenly asked: “Where were you?”
“I told you. In the medical-staff cloakroom.”
“And Fredrica Saxon?”
It was hopeless now to wait for that spring of pity or tenderness. It was useless, even, to try to keep control. He said with a deadly calm: “She was in her room, scoring a Rorschach. If it’s any satisfaction to you, neither of us had an alibi. But if you’re hoping to pin this murder on Fredrica or me, you’ll need more intelligence than I give you credit for. The superintendent’s hardly likely to listen to a neurotic woman acting out of spite. He’s seen too many of that type. But make an effort! You might be lucky! Why not come and examine my clothes for blood?”
He threw out his hands towards her, his whole body shaking with anger. Terrified, she gave him one glance, then turned and stumbled up the stairs, tripping over her dressing gown and crying like a child. He gazed after her, his body cold from tiredness, hunger and self-disgust. He must go to her. Somehow it must be put right. But not now, not at once. First, he must find a drink.
He leaned for a moment against the banister and said with infinite tiredness: “Oh, Fredrica. Darling Fredrica. Why did you do it? Why? Why?”
Sister Ambrose lived with an elderly nurse friend who had trained with her thirty-five years ago and who had recently retired. Together they had bought a house in Gidea Park where they had lived together for the last twenty years on their joint income, in comfort and happy accord. Neither of them had married and neither of them regretted it. In the past they had sometimes wished for children, but observation of the family life of their relations had convinced them that marriage, despite a common belief to the contrary, was designed to benefit men at the expense of women and that even motherhood was not an unmixed blessing. Admittedly this conviction had never been put to the test since neither of them had ever received a proposal. Like any professional worker in a psychiatric clinic, Sister Ambrose was aware of the dangers of sexual repression, but it had never once occurred to her that these might apply to herself and, indeed, it would be difficult to imagine anyone less repressed. It is possible that she would have dismissed most of the psychiatrists’ theories as dangerous nonsense if she had ever considered them critically. But Sister Ambrose had been trained to think of consultants as only one degree lower than God. Like God, they moved in mysterious ways their wonders to perform but, like God, they were not subject to open criticism. Some, admittedly, were more mysterious in their ways than others but it was still the privilege of a nurse to minister to these lesser deities, to encourage the patients to have confidence in their treatment, especially when its success appeared most doubtful, and to practise the cardinal professional virtue of complete loyalty.
“I’ve always been loyal to the doctors” was a remark frequently heard at Acacia Road, Gidea Park. Sister Ambrose often noted that the young nurses who occasionally worked at the Steen as holiday reliefs were trained in a less accommodating tradition, but she had a poor opinion of most young nurses and an even poorer opinion of modern training.
As usual she took the Central Line to Liverpool Street, changed to an electric train on the eastern suburban line and twenty minutes later was letting herself into the neat semidetached house which she shared with Miss Beatrice Sharpe. Tonight, however, she fitted her key in the lock without her customary inspection of the front garden, without running a critical eye over the paintwork on the door and even without reflecting, as was her custom, on the generally satisfactory appearance of the property and on the gratifying capital investment that its purchase had proved to be.
“Is that you, Dot?” called Miss Sharpe from the kitchen. “You’re late.”
“It’s a wonder I’m not later. We’ve had murder at the clinic and the police have been with us for most of the evening. As far as I know, they’re still there. I’ve had my fingerprints taken and so have the rest of the staff.”
Sister Ambrose deliberately kept her voice level but the effect of the news was gratifying. She had expected no less. It is not every day one has such excitement to relate and she had spent some time in the train rehearsing how most effectively to break the news. The selected sentence expressed concisely the salient details. Supper was temporarily forgotten. Murmuring that a casserole could always wait, Miss Sharpe poured her friend and herself a glass of sherry, specific against shock, and settled down with it in the sitting room to hear the full story. Sister Ambrose, who had a reputation at the clinic for discretion and taciturnity, was a great deal more forthcoming at home and it wasn’t long before Miss Sharpe knew as much about the murder as her friend was able to tell.
“But who do you think did it, Dot?” Miss Sharpe refilled their glasses—an unprecedented extravagance—and applied her mind to analysis.
“As I see it, the murder must have been done between six-twenty when you saw Miss Bolam going towards the basement stairs and seven o’clock when the body was discovered.”
“Well, that’s obvious! That’s why the superintendent kept asking me whether I was sure about the time. I was the last person to see her alive, there’s no doubt about that. Mrs. Belling had finished treatment and was ready to go home at about six-fifteen and I went across to the waiting room to let her husband know. He’s always fussed about time because he’s on night duty and has to be fed and at work by eight. So I looked at my watch and saw that it was just six-twenty. As I came out of the ECT room door, Miss Bolam passed me and went towards the basement stairs. The superintendent asked me what she looked like and whether we spoke. Well, we didn’t and, as far as I could see, she looked the same as usual.”