Then the crash of broken glass, the dash to the basement and the chance to lock the back door again before the hurrying footsteps were at his heels. The worst was over. From now on it was all so easy. By ten o’clock the body would have been removed, the clinic empty. In a moment he would move on to the final act. But not yet. Not quite yet.
Along the Embankment the traffic was almost stationary. There seemed to be some kind of function on at the Savoy. Suddenly Dalgliesh said: “There’s no guard at the clinic now, of course?”
“No, sir. You remember I asked you this morning if we need keep a man there and you said no.”
“I remember.”
“After all, sir, it hardly seemed necessary. We’d examined the place thoroughly and there aren’t all those men to spare.”
“I know, Martin,” replied Dalgliesh testily. “Surprisingly enough those were the reasons for my decision.” The car came to a stop once more. Dalgliesh put his head out of the window. “What the hell does he think he’s doing?”
“I think he’s doing his best, sir.”
“That’s what I find so depressing. Come on, Sergeant. Get out! We’ll do the rest on foot. I’m probably being a bloody fool but, when we get to the clinic, we’ll cover both exits. You go round to the back.”
If Martin felt surprise, it was not his nature to show it. Something seemed to have got into the old man. As like as not Nagle was back in his flat and the clinic locked and deserted. A couple of fools they’d look creeping up on an empty building. Still, they’d know soon enough. He bent his energies to keeping up with the superintendent.
Nagle never knew how long he waited in the doorway, bent almost double and panting like an animal. But after a time, calmness returned and with it the use of his legs. He moved stealthily forward, hoisted himself over the rear railings and set off down the mews. He walked like an automaton, hands stiffly by his sides, his eyes closed. Suddenly he heard the footfall. Opening his eyes, he saw silhouetted against the street lamp a familiar bulky figure. Slowly, inexorably, it moved towards him through the mist. His heart leapt in his chest then settled into a regular, tumultuous throbbing that shook his whole body. His legs felt heavy and cold as death, checking that first fatal impulse to flight. But at least his mind worked. While he could think, there was hope. He was cleverer than they. With luck they wouldn’t even think of entering the clinic. Why should they? And surely she would be dead by now! With Jenny dead they could suspect what they liked. They’d never prove a thing.
The torch shone full on his face. The slow, unemphatic voice spoke: “Good evening, lad. We were hoping to meet you. Going in or coming out?”
Nagle did not reply. He stretched his mouth into the semblance of a smile. He could only guess how he looked in that fierce light: a death’s head, the mouth agape with fright, the eyes staring.
It was then that he felt the tentative rub against his legs. The policeman bent and scooped up the cat, holding it between them. Immediately it began to purr, throbbing its contentment at the warmth of that huge hand.
“So here’s Tigger. You let him out, did you? You and the cat came out together.”
Then, instantaneously, they were both aware of it and their eyes met. From the warmth of the cat’s fur there rose between them, faint but unmistakable, the smell of gas.
The next half-hour passed for Nagle in a confused whirl of noise and blinding lights out of which a few vivid tableaux sprang into focus with unnatural clarity and stayed fixed in his mind for the rest of his life. He had no memory of the sergeant dragging him back over the iron railings, only of the grip, firm as a tourniquet, numbing his arm and the hot rasp of Martin’s breath in his ear. There was a smash and the sad, delayed tinkle of broken glass as someone kicked out the windows of the porters’ room, the shrill screech of a whistle, a confusion of running feet on the clinic stairs, a blaze of lights hurting his eyes. In one of the tableaux Dalgliesh was crouched over the girl’s body, his mouth wide-stretched as a gargoyle’s, clamped over her mouth as he forced his breath into her lungs. The two bodies seemed to be fighting, locked in an obscene embrace like the rape of the dead. Nagle didn’t speak. He was almost beyond thought, but instinct warned him that he must say nothing. Pinned against the wall by strong arms and watching fascinated the feverish heave of Dalgliesh’s shoulders, he felt tears start in his eyes. Enid Bolam was dead and Jenny was dead and he was tired now, desperately tired. He hadn’t wanted to kill her. It was Bolam who had forced him into all the trouble and danger of murder. She and Jenny between them had left him no choice. And he had lost Jenny. Jenny was dead. Faced with the enormity, the unfairness of what they had made him do, he felt without surprise the tears of self-pity flow in a warm stream down his face.
The room was suddenly full. There were more uniformed men, one of them burly as a Holbein, pig-eyed, slow-moving. There was the hiss of oxygen, a murmur of consulting voices. Then they were edging something onto a stretcher with gentle, experienced hands, a red-blanketed shape which rolled sideways as the poles were lifted. Why were they carrying it so carefully? It couldn’t feel jolting any more.
Dalgliesh didn’t speak until Jenny had been taken away. Then, without looking at Nagle, he said: “Right, Sergeant. Get him down to the station. We can hear his story there.”
Nagle moved his mouth. His lips were so dry that he heard them crack. But it was some seconds before the words would come and then there was no stopping them. The carefully rehearsed story tumbled out in a spate, bald and unconvincing: “There’s nothing to tell. She came to see me at my flat and we spent the evening together. I had to tell her that I was going away without her. She took it pretty badly and, after she’d left, I found that the clinic keys were missing. I knew she was in a bit of a state so I thought I’d better come along. There’s a note on the table. She’s left a note. I could see she was dead and I couldn’t help, so I came away. I didn’t want to be mixed up in it. I’ve got the Bollinger to think of. It wouldn’t look good getting mixed up with a suicide.”
Dalgliesh said: “You’d better not say anything else for the present. But you’ll have to do better than that. You see, it isn’t quite what she has told us. That note on the table isn’t the only one she left.”
With slow deliberation he took from his breast pocket a small folded sheet of paper and held it an inch from Nagle’s fascinated, fear-glazed eyes.
“If you were together this evening in your flat, how do you explain this note which we found under your door knocker?”
It was then that Nagle realized with sick despair that the dead, so impotent and so despised, could bear witness against him after all. Instinctively he put out his hand for the note then dropped his arm.
Dalgliesh replaced the note in his pocket. Watching Nagle closely, he said: “So you rushed here tonight because you were concerned for her safety? Very touching! In that case let me put your mind at rest. She’s going to live.”
“She’s dead,” said Nagle dully. “She killed herself.”
“She was breathing when we’d finished with her. Tomorrow, if all goes well, she’ll be able to tell us what happened. And not only what happened here tonight. We shall have some questions about Miss Bolam’s murder.”