Brock sipped at his water and lemon, and allowed himself a little glow of self-righteousness. The feeling didn’t last long, as his mind turned to the first session marked on his timetable: ‘Hydrotherapy’ and, ominously, ‘Room B52’. His mind again returned to his first day at big school, waiting for the first fearful Latin lesson, and the sudden anxiety that he wasn’t dressed properly or had come without some essential item that everyone else would certainly have.
It was half an hour before Grace Carrington finally claimed her tray. She was in her early forties, he guessed, a slender figure in a lime-green tracksuit, with a lean, attractive face, one which he didn’t remember seeing the previous day. Her hair was brown, cut to her jaw-line and lightly curled, and her eyes were intelligent and sad. They met his briefly as she turned from the long table, and then she moved to a corner table and sat alone, fingering a glass of orange juice, preoccupied. He didn’t feel inclined to disturb her.
Room B52 seemed to live up to its explosive name when Brock opened the door, as clouds of steam burst out and enveloped him. He stripped as he was told, and after the first numbing shock found the alternating hot and cold hip-baths of the Sitz bath treatment surprisingly bearable. He was moved on to soak for a while in a warm mineral bath, and finished the session in a Scottish douche, with jets of hot and cold water pulsing over his spinal column. At each stage his supervisor explained the theory of what was happening to him, the opening and cleansing of the pores of his skin, the improvement to his circulation and stimulation of the underlying muscles. By the time he got dressed again and went upstairs for the mid-morning break, his body was tingling all over in a remarkably pleasant way.
‘How are we this morning?’ Martha Price’s voice piped out from the huddle around the long table where herbal tea was being poured, and he found himself sounding extraordinarily cheerful as he waved a greeting and said he felt good.
‘Physiotherapy, B16’ came next. At first Brock thought it might be in the subterranean gym he had visited with Rose the previous day, but instead found a bright, sunlit room at the far end of the basement, below the west wing. Couches, a couple of exercise bikes and some exercise frames were arranged round the edge, and there were two physiotherapists who ran the session for half a dozen new patients, beginning with breathing and mild stretching exercises for the whole group, and then going on to individual massage on the couches.
He saw Grace Carrington again in the dining room at lunch-time. He began to make his way towards her with his pathetic tray, but was stopped by a call from Martha and Sidney, whom he hadn’t noticed as he threaded between the tables.
‘Sorry, I didn’t see you there,’ he muttered, taking the chair they offered him.
‘Perhaps you were wanting to sit with someone else,’ Martha said coquettishly, raising her eyebrow suggestively in the direction of Grace Carrington’s corner.
‘Not at all.’ Brock felt his spleen return. It was hard to decide which of her little acts was more aggravating, the Tartar or the tease.
‘You seemed to be more cheerful today, when we saw you earlier.’
‘Yes, I feel reinvigorated,’ he said. ‘I had hydrotherapy first, then physiotherapy. Stress management this afternoon.’
‘They’re breaking you in gently, David. Will you be having acupuncture later, do you think?’
‘Ah.’ Brock’s sense of well-being suffered a further deflation. Somehow, every time the word ‘acupuncture’ was mentioned, his mind jumped to Kathy’s description of the punctured eyeball of the corpse on the mortuary table. ‘Yes, it’s on the timetable for later in the week. Thursday, I think.’
‘And osteopathy for your shoulder?’
‘Yes, that too. Why? Is it uncomfortable?’
‘No, no, no.’ She patted his arm with the reassuring smile of a veteran, exaggerated enough to raise serious doubts. ‘And the fast, how are you coping with that now?’ She stared fixedly into his eyes.
‘Oh, fine. I think I’ve more or less come to terms with that.’
‘That’s splendid. You’ll find your stomach will shrink and you’ll lose your appetite after a while.’
She smiled winsomely and lifted her fork to her mouth.
‘What have you got there?’ Brock regretted hearing himself say.
‘Golden Slice. It’s quite delicious, and so very simple to do yourself. Some finely grated carrot and cheese, and some rolled oats, about equal quantities of each to make up to about a pound in all, then an egg, a couple of ounces of margarine and a little rosemary. Mix them all up with seasoning to taste, but only a little salt of course, and press the mixture into a greased tin and bake at gas mark four for twenty minutes or so until quite browned. Then cut it into slices and serve with a parsley sauce. Isn’t it good, Sidney?’
Sidney nodded, scraping up the last of the sauce on his plate.
‘And he’s a very fussy eater. You must buy some of the Stanhope recipe books before you go, David, so you can try them all at home.’
Brock cleared his throat and sipped at his glass of water. The name Stanhope …’ he began slowly, then paused.
‘Yes?’ she chirped.
‘It was familiar to me, before I came. I wasn’t sure why, but then I remembered: it was in the papers last year. Didn’t a member of staff have a nasty accident or something? You must have been here then, weren’t you?’
‘Oh yes, we were here.’ Martha lowered her eyes for a moment as if contemplating whether he was yet enough of an insider to be confided in. Mrs Thatcher took over from Mae West as she made up her mind and continued. ‘I will not encourage prurient gossip, David,’ she said sharply.
‘Prurient?’ He raised his eyebrows in innocent surprise. ‘Was there something. … unsavoury about it?’
‘I sometimes think that Stanhope is like a ship in many ways, don’t you? Self-contained, somewhat detached from the everyday world, especially at this time of the year with the countryside so silent and white all around.’
Brock wondered if the thought of prurience had made her lose track of the conversation, but she continued. ‘And on a ship, it is not uncommon for gossip to get out of hand, to become … overheated. I’m afraid there was some of that here. You may hear stories about Alex Petrou’s death which you must simply ignore.’
‘Really.’ Brock shook his head sadly. ‘What sort of stories?’ He looked at Sidney encouragingly.
‘Well,’ Sidney spoke up for the first time since Brock had arrived, ‘he was found hanged in the Temple of Apollo, out there in the grounds. Have you been there? Spooky sort of place. And the story is that he not only did it in the middle of the night, but that he first dressed himself up in these — ’ Sidney cast around for a term he might use ‘- fetish sort of clothes.’
‘That’s the sort of unseemly gossip — ’
But Brock broke in before Martha’s scathing voice could entirely dampen Sidney’s prurient imagination. ‘That’s right, I remember now. It was mentioned in the papers. So he was involved in some kind of sexual perversion, then?’
Martha gave a squawk of protest. Sidney raised his eyes towards the chandelier as if to say, man to man, what would you think?
‘With the patients, do you mean?’ Brock persisted.
‘David!’ Martha’s outraged voice stopped the conversations at the surrounding tables. ‘That is precisely the sort of speculation that makes for an unhappy ship!’ she spluttered, then registered the puzzled expressions on the faces turned her way.
‘But, Martha,’ Brock said, in a reasonable tone, ‘what was the explanation, then? It seems an odd sort of thing to do to yourself.’
With an effort she brought herself under control and spoke with suppressed indignation. ‘Drugs,’ she hissed. ‘The poor man had come under some very bad influence, outside of the clinic of course, and had taken drugs. He didn’t know what he was doing.’