She considered tactics. The situation would need careful handling and there was no room for mistakes. She had made one already. The temptation to slap Nagle’s face had proved irresistible, but it was still a mistake and possibly a bad one, too like vulgar exhibitionism to be safe. Aspiring administrative officers did not slap a porter’s face even when under strain, particularly if they wanted to create an impression of calm, authoritative competence. She remembered the look on Miss Saxon’s face. Well, Fredrica Saxon was in no position to be censorious. It was a pity that Dr. Steiner was there but it had all happened so quickly that she couldn’t be sure that he had really seen. The Priddy child was of no importance.
Nagle would have to go, of course, once she was appointed. Here, too, she would have to be careful. He was an insolent devil, but the clinic could do much worse and the consultants knew it. An efficient porter made quite a difference to their comfort, especially when he was willing and able to carry out the many small repair jobs that were needed. It wouldn’t be a popular move if they had to wait for someone to come from the group engineer’s department every time a sash cord broke or a fuse needed replacing. Nagle would have to go, but she would put out feelers for a good replacement before taking any action.
The main concern at present must be to get the consultants’ support for her appointment. She could be sure of Dr. Etherege and his was the most powerful voice. But it wasn’t the only one. He would be retiring in six months’ time and his influence would be on the wane. If she were offered an acting appointment, and all went well, the Hospital Management Committee might not be in too much of a hurry to advertise the post. Almost certainly they would wait until the murder was either solved or the police shelved the case. It was up to her to consolidate her position in the intervening months. It wouldn’t do to take anything for granted. When there had been trouble at a unit, committees tended to make an outside appointment. There was safety in bringing in a stranger uncontaminated by the previous upset. The group secretary would be an influence there. It had been a wise move to see him last month and ask his advice about working for the diploma of the Institute of Hospital Administrators. He liked his staff to qualify and, being a man, he was flattered to be asked for advice. But he wasn’t a fool. He didn’t have to be. She was as suitable a candidate as the HMC were likely to find, and he knew it.
She lay back, relaxed, on her single bed, her feet raised on a pillow, her mind busy with the images of success. “My wife is administrative officer of the Steen Clinic.” So much more satisfactory than, “Actually, my wife is working as a secretary at present. The Steen Clinic, as a matter of fact.”
And less than two miles away, in a mortuary in north London, Miss Bolam’s body, tight-packed as a herring in an ice box, stiffened slowly through the autumn night.
5
If there had to be a murder at the Steen, Friday was the most convenient day for it. The clinic did not open on Saturday so that the police were able to work in the building without the complications presented by the presence of patients and staff. The staff, presumably, were glad of two days’ grace in which to recover from the shock, determine at leisure what their official reaction should be and seek the comfort and reassurance of their friends.
Dalgliesh’s day began early. He had asked for a report from the local CID about the Steen burglary and this, together with typescripts of the previous day’s interviews, was waiting on his desk. The burglary had puzzled the local men. There could be no doubt that someone had broken into the clinic and that the fifteen pounds was missing. It was not so certain that these two facts were related. The local sergeant thought it odd that a casual thief had picked the one drawer which held cash while neglecting the safe and leaving untouched the silver inkstand in the medical director’s office. On the other hand, Cully had undoubtedly seen a man leaving the clinic and both he and Nagle had alibis for the time of entry. The local CID were inclined to suspect Nagle of having helped himself to the cash while he was alone in the building but it had not been found on him and there was no real evidence. Besides, the porter had plenty of opportunities for dishonesty at the Steen if he were so inclined and nothing was known against him. The whole affair was puzzling. They were still working on it but weren’t very hopeful. Dalgliesh asked that any progress should be reported to him at once and set off with Sergeant Martin to examine Miss Bolam’s flat.
Miss Bolam had lived on the fifth floor of a solid, red-brick block near Kensington High Street. There was no difficulty over the key. The resident caretaker handed it over with formal and perfunctory expressions of regret at Miss Bolam’s death. She seemed to feel that some reference to the murder was necessary, but managed to give the impression that the company’s tenants usually had the good taste to quit this life in more orthodox fashion.
“There will be no undesirable publicity, I hope,” she murmured, as she escorted Dalgliesh and Sergeant Martin to the lift. “These flats are very select and the company are most particular about their tenants. We have never had trouble of this kind before.”
Dalgliesh resisted the temptation to say that Miss Bolam’s murderer had obviously not recognized one of the company’s tenants.
“The publicity is hardly likely to affect the flats,” he pointed out. “It’s not as if the murder took place here.” The caretaker was heard to murmur that she hoped not indeed!
They ascended to the fifth floor together in the slow, old-fashioned panelled lift. The atmosphere was heavy with disapproval.
“Did you know Miss Bolam at all?” Dalgliesh inquired. “I believe she had lived here for some years.”
“I knew her to say good morning to, nothing more. She was a very quiet tenant. But then all our tenants are. She has been in residence for fifteen years, I believe. Her mother was the tenant previously and they lived here together. When Mrs. Bolam died, her daughter took over the tenancy. That was before my time.”
“Did her mother die here?”
The caretaker closed her lips repressively. “Mrs. Bolam died in a nursing home in the country. There was some unpleasantness, I believe.”
“You mean that she killed herself?”
“I was told so. As I said, it happened before I took this job. Naturally I never alluded to the fact either to Miss Bolam or to any of the other tenants. It is not the kind of thing one would wish to talk about. They really do seem a most unfortunate family.”
“What rent did Miss Bolam pay?”
The caretaker paused before replying. This was obviously high on her list of questions that should not properly be asked. Then, as if reluctantly admitting the authority of the police, she replied: “Our fourth- and fifth-floor two-bedroom flats are from £490 excluding rates.”
That was about half Miss Bolam’s salary, thought Dalgliesh. It was too high a proportion for anyone without private means. He had yet to see the dead woman’s solicitor, but it looked as if Nurse Bolam’s assessment of her cousin’s income was not far wrong.
He dismissed the caretaker at the door of the flat and he and Martin went in together.
This prying among the personal residue of a finished life was a part of his job which Dalgliesh had always found a little distasteful. It was too much like putting the dead at a disadvantage. During his career he had examined with interest and with pity so many petty leavings. The soiled underclothes pushed hurriedly into drawers, personal letters which prudence would have destroyed, half-eaten meals, unpaid bills, old photographs, pictures and books which the dead would not have chosen to represent their taste to a curious or vulgar world, family secrets, stale makeup in greasy jars, the muddle of ill-disciplined or unhappy lives. It was no longer the fashion to dread an unshriven end but most people, if they thought at all, hoped for time to clear away their debris. He remembered from childhood the voice of an old aunt exhorting him to change his vest. “Suppose you got run over, Adam. What would people think?” The question was less absurd than it had seemed to a ten-year-old. Time had taught him that it expressed one of the major preoccupations of mankind, the dread of losing face.