‘Just browsing, really,’ he said, and offered his hand. ‘David Brock.’
‘Norman de Loynes,’ the man introduced himself and sat down beside Brock. ‘You’re a new boy, I gather. Overheard your little contretemps with Lady Martha at lunch just now. Couldn’t help it, I was sitting at the table behind you. She’s an impossible cow, isn’t she? I call them S 8c M, the two of them, although they’re the wrong way round of course, Sidney being an irredeemable masochist. Have to be, to put up with her. I sometimes amuse myself, when I have to sit through some tedious discussion about fruit and nuts or how to defecate in a bio-friendly way, by imagining her in the role of Madame Lash. Frightening thought, eh?’
De Loynes chuckled playfully until he had raised a grin from Brock. Then the smile vanished from his face and he said abruptly, ‘What’s your interest in Alex Petrou?’
Brock stared at the book in the man’s hand and noted the title, Showdown at Purple Gulch. ‘Who?’
‘The fellow who died here last year. You were asking about him.’
‘Oh, yes. Just curiosity. I remembered reading the newspaper reports.’
‘They had a field day, of course.’
‘Martha Price seems to feel he was maligned.’
‘Oh, he pandered to her, I expect. He was good at amusing the ladies. He was a charmer when he wanted to be.’
‘You’re a regular here, obviously.’
‘Mmm. I knew him quite well, if that’s what you mean.
Great shock when he went, of course.’ He didn’t sound greatly disturbed.
‘Yes, it must have caused quite a stir. Were you here at the time?’
De Loynes nodded. ‘Police turned the place upside down. They were very thorough — remarkably so, really. Since then we’ve been the poorer without young Alex,’ he added. ‘He brought a certain something that we lack. There’s a fatal streak of the moral puritan in most of the people who come here. Makes them dull as weak tea. Or perhaps that appeals to you?’
It seemed to be a challenge, and Brock smiled. ‘No, no. I think I know what you mean. But maybe it’s the diet. After a couple more days on water and lemon juice, I’ll be taking to weak tea like strong meat.’
De Loynes laughed, a braying sound, head back. ‘My dear chap, we’ll have to look after you. After the initiation period, Stephen will start you on a few vitamins, get you going again. Then we’ll have to find you something more satisfying to get your teeth into.’
He got to his feet. ‘Glad to catch up with you, David. We’ll meet again … Oh.’ He stopped on his way to the door and looked back. ‘Have you spoken to Ben Bromley yet? He’s worth having a chat to, if you’re interested — ’ he gestured at Felicity Field’s book in front of Brock ‘- in what goes on in this place.’
‘As a matter of fact, I’ve got an appointment to see him tomorrow, Norman.’
‘Good, excellent. Entertaining fellow, our Ben. Small, but perfectly formed.’ He smiled maliciously. ‘See you.’
Brock watched the door close behind him, grimaced and took a deep breath. He lowered his head, staring at the book but not seeing it. De Loynes wasn’t on Kathy’s list. He was here last October, but he wasn’t on her bloody list.
Brock shook his head and blinked. Focusing on the page in T?4 front of him, he noticed a photograph captioned ‘Dr and Mrs Beamish-Newell soon after the opening of Stanhope Clinic to the first patients — September 1977’. The Director looked considerably more youthful, his face leaner and beardless, his hair thicker and longer. Standing beside him was a dark-haired beauty not remotely similar to Laura Beamish-Newell.
Frowning, his mind still preoccupied by de Loynes, Brock thumbed back through the book, looking for further references to what presumably was Beamish-Newell’s first wife. Eventually he found her name, Gabriele, and a short account of their meeting and falling in love when he was a medical student at Cambridge and she an Italian studying English at one of the language schools in the city. From her subsequent comments, Miss Field gave most of the credit for selecting Stanhope House for the new clinic to Gabriele, and invited the reader to note how wonderfully appropriate this choice was, given that the Director’s young wife originated from the same region of northern Italy from which Palladio himself had come.
Brock shrugged and snapped the book shut, his face still set in a frown as he thought about de Loynes. When he returned the history to its place among the reference books, he searched for and found a copy of Who’s Who. The de Loynes family had three entries: a brigadier, an MP, and their nephew Norman, aged forty-six, an orthopaedic surgeon. Norman the goat, Brock thought, and swung the glass front of the bookcase closed.
Stress management was run by an intense, wiry, middle-aged woman who made her class very nervous by insisting that they begin by opening up individually to the group, sharing some particular fear. Brock confessed that he was haunted by the thought of standing in front of a huge, expectant audience and discovering that both his mind and the pages of notes he had brought were inexplicably blank. The therapist nodded vigorously and told him that he had a fear of exposure.
After this awkward beginning there was a period of theory on the causes of stress and the biochemical effects of flight-or-fight conditioning. One by one the patients’ faces went politely blank, until they were each given a questionnaire to assess their own stress level. ‘Have you tried to track a murderer during the past few days?’ didn’t figure among the questions, and since he hadn’t recently divorced, moved house, lost his job or a close relative, Brock’s score was shamefully low.
Finally there were techniques for stress management, particularly relaxation, and this at least was outstandingly successful. Each patient lay still on the floor, head on a small pillow, eyes closed, following the instructions on breathing, then muscle relaxation, and finally calming the mind, and before long the woman’s mellifluous voice was accompanied by first one, then several nasal murmurings, which grew steadily in volume as she led the patients who remained awake through an idyllic summer woodland of the imagination.
As he came out of the room, Brock caught sight of Grace Carrington’s lime-green tracksuit disappearing down the basement corridor. He followed her and came at last to the door at the end of the west wing, which led outside to the gardens. He noticed the sharp smell of fresh air in the corridor, something he had become unused to in the overheated atmosphere of the house. On the doormat was some snow, blown in when she had left. A pair of white slip-on shoes, still warm from her feet, lay beside the mat, and next to them half a dozen pairs of Wellington boots, together with a collection of umbrellas and walking sticks, all presumably available for casual use by patients. Hanging from a row of pegs above were a number of bright orange anoraks.
Brock helped himself to the largest size of boots and coat he could find, selected a round-handled walking stick and stepped out into the cold afternoon. The lungful of crisp air made him dizzy, and he had to blink and adjust to the outdoors, as if shaking himself awake after a deep sleep. Her footprints were quite clear, curving away along the snow-covered gravel path which led up towards the knoll and the Temple of Apollo.
13
Brock crunched through the snow after Grace Carrington, all the way to the front steps of the temple, and saw where she’d kicked her boots clean at the threshold. The tall glass-panelled doors, their timber frames slightly twisted through years of neglect, creaked complainingly as Brock pulled them open, and he heard the sound echo within. There was no sign of her in the upper chamber and, as his eyes grew more accustomed to the dim light, Brock moved forward, his boots clumping on the marble floor panels until he reached the swastika grille. Still.no indication that she was there, except perhaps the faintest trace of soap or perfume in the dank air.