After Dr. Ingram’s outburst the meeting seemed to lose heart. Dr. Etherege made only spasmodic attempts to control it and the conversation ranged in a tired, desultory way from one subject to another but, always and inevitably, returned to the murder. There was a feeling that the Medical Committee should express some common view. Groping from theory to theory the meeting eventually came to accept Dr. Steiner’s proposition. The killer had obviously entered the clinic earlier in the day when the system of booking people in and out was not in force. He had secreted himself in the basement, selected his weapons at leisure and called Miss Bolam down by noting the number of her extension from the card hung beside the telephone. He had made his way to the upper floors without being observed and left by one of the windows, managing to close it behind him before edging his way onto the fire escape. That this procedure argued considerable luck, coupled with unusual and remarkable agility, was not overemphasized. Under Dr. Steiner’s leadership the theory was elaborated. Miss Bolam’s telephone call to the group secretary was dismissed as irrelevant. She had undoubtedly wished to complain about some trifling misdemeanour, real or imagined, and which was quite unconnected with her subsequent death. The suggestion that the killer had swarmed up the pulley in the lift shaft was generally discounted as somewhat fanciful although, as Dr. Maddox pointed out, a man who could shut a heavy window while balancing on the outside sill, then swing himself some five feet through space to reach the fire escape, would hardly find the lift shaft an insuperable problem.
Dr. Baguley, wearying of his part in the fabrication of this mythical killer, half-closed his eyes and gazed from under lowered lids at the bowl of roses. Their petals had been opening gently and almost visibly in the warmth of the room. Now the red, green and pink swam together in an amorphous pattern of colour which, as his gaze shifted, was reflected in the shining table.
Suddenly he opened his eyes fully and saw Dr. Etherege looking fixedly at him. There was concern in that sharp, analytic regard; Dr. Baguley thought that there was also pity. The medical director said: “Some of our members have had enough. So, I think, have I. If no one has any urgent business to bring forward, I declare, the meeting closed.”
Dr. Baguley thought that it was not altogether by chance that he and the medical director found themselves alone in the room, the last to leave. As he tested the windows to check that they were locked, Dr. Etherege said: “Well, James, have you come to a decision yet about succeeding me as medical director?”
“It’s more a question of deciding whether or not to apply for the job when it’s advertised, surely?” said Baguley. He asked: “What about Mason-Giles or McBain?”
“M. G. isn’t interested. It’s maximum sessions, of course, and he doesn’t want to give up his teaching-hospital connection. McBain is tied up with the new regional unit for adolescents.”
It was typical of the medical director’s occasional insensitivity that he didn’t try to soften the fact that he had tried others first. He’s scraping the bottom of the barrel, thought Baguley.
“And Steiner?” he asked. “He’ll be applying, I imagine?” The medical director smiled.
“Oh, I don’t think the Regional Board will appoint Dr. Steiner. This is a multidiscipline clinic. We must have someone who can hold the place together. And there may be very great changes. You know my views. If there is to be a closer integration of psychiatry with general medicine, a place like this may have to die for the greater good. We ought to have access to beds. The Steen may find its natural home in a general-hospital outpatient department. I don’t say it’s probable. But it’s possible.”
So that was the way the Board was thinking? Dr. Etherege had his ear well to the ground. A small outpatient unit with no registrars, no training function and no link with a general hospital might well become anachronistic in the eyes of the planners.
Dr. Baguley said: “I don’t mind where I see my patients as long as I get peace and quiet, a certain tolerance and not too much of the hierarchical claptrap and starched linen. These proposed psychiatric units in general hospitals are all very well so long as the hospital appreciates what we’re going to need in staff and space. I’m too tired to do battle.” He looked at the medical director. “Actually, I had more or less decided not to apply. I telephoned your room yesterday evening from the medical-staff room to ask if we could chat about it after the clinic.”
“Indeed? At what time?”
“At about six-twenty or six-twenty-five. There was no reply. Later, of course, we had other things to think about.”
The medical director said: “I must have been in the library. I’m very glad I was if it means that you’ve had time to reconsider your decision. And I hope that you will reconsider it, James.”
He turned out the lights and they went downstairs together. Pausing at the foot, the medical director turned to Baguley and said: “It was at about six-twenty that you telephoned? I find that very interesting, very interesting indeed.”
“Well, about then, I suppose.” Dr. Baguley realized with irritation and surprise that it was he, not the medical director, who sounded guilty and embarrassed. He was seized by an intense desire to get out of the clinic, to escape from the blue, speculative gaze which was so adept at putting him at a disadvantage. But there was something else which must be said. At the door he forced himself to pause and face Dr. Etherege. But despite his attempt at nonchalance his voice sounded forced, even belligerent: “I’m wondering whether we ought to do something about Nurse Bolam.”
“In what way?” asked the medical director gently. Receiving no reply, he went on: “All the staff know that they can ask to see me at any time. But I’m not inviting confidences. This is a murder investigation, James, and it’s out of my hands. Out of my hands completely. I think you would be wise to take the same attitude. Good night.”
6
Early Monday morning, the anniversary of his wife’s death, Dalgliesh called in at a small Catholic church behind the Strand to light a candle. His wife had been a Catholic. He had not shared her religion and she had died before he could begin to understand what it meant to her or what importance this fundamental difference between them might have for their marriage. He had lit the first candle on the day she had died out of the need to formalize an intolerable grief and, perhaps, with a childish hope of somehow comforting her spirit. This was the fourteenth candle. He thought of this most private action in his detached and secretive life not as superstition or piety, but as a habit which he could not now break even if he wished. He dreamed of his wife only seldom, but then with absolute clarity; waking he could no longer accurately recall her face. He pushed his coin through the slot and held his candle’s wick to the dying flame of a moist stump. It caught immediately and the flame grew bright and clear. It had always been important to him that the wick should catch at once. He gazed through the flame for a moment feeling nothing, not even anger. Then he turned away.
The church was nearly empty, but it held for him an atmosphere of intense and silent activity which he sensed but could not share. As he walked to the door, he recognized a woman, red-coated and with a dark green scarf over her head, who was pausing to dip her fingers in the water stoup. It was Fredrica Saxon, senior psychologist of the Steen Clinic. They reached the outer door together and he forced it open for her against the sudden swirl of an autumn wind. She smiled at him, friendly and unembarrassed.