‘What I think is that you should leave Rose alone. I think you should leave me alone. And above all I think you should leave Stephen Beamish-Newell alone. Because that’s what this is really about, isn’t it? You just can’t stop yourselves trying to get at him, at people like him. You hate the fact that he cares, when all you can do is punish:
He let her go. Out of the window the rain had dissolved almost all the snow, and the knoll brooded dark and threatening over a sodden landscape. Brock left the copy of The Wind in the Willows lying on the table and made for the door, feeling sick.
He stayed in his room through lunch-time, then went down to the games room and sat by the window, pretending to read a paper. The window looked west towards the stables and the gravel road leading round to the staff cottages. At about two-thirty he saw Rose and another woman come down the road and head for the door into the basement. He got to his feet, went out into the hall and took the stairs. He met them at the foot.
‘Ah, Rose. Could I have a quick word?’ He saw her look of antagonism, and saw that her companion had noticed it too. ‘Only for a second.’
She looked annoyed, then said reluctantly, ‘Go on, Trudy. I’ll catch you up.’
Trudy stared at Brock, then moved on.
‘I just wanted to apologize for pestering you, Rose. Grace Carrington had a word with me and said I’d upset you. I’m sorry. I won’t mention the matter again.’
She looked doubtfully at him. ‘Oh … well. That’s fine, then.’
He nodded and she seemed to accept that he was genuine. ‘I probably overreacted. I’ve been a bit tense lately. You only wanted to help, I suppose.’
She turned to follow her friend.
‘That’s right,’ Brock said. ‘I did think I might have a word with Geoffrey Parsons. You wouldn’t know where I could find him, would you?’
She spun back to face him. ‘No! I don’t want you to do that! I — ’
She stared at him, at a loss for words, her bottom lip clenched between her teeth.
‘Please,’ she said finally, her voice tense and urgent, ‘don’t do that. Don’t speak to Geoffrey. Will you promise me that?’
He looked quizzically at her and scratched his beard.
She put out her hand and touched his sleeve. ‘I need … I need time to think. Just give me a little time. Will you? Please?’
‘Of course, Rose. Whatever you say.’
He was suddenly conscious of a movement in a doorway nearby and they both turned their heads at the same time to see Laura Beamish-Newell standing staring at them. Her eyes were focused on Rose’s hand on Brock’s sleeve. Rose turned abruptly and ran down the corridor after her friend.
‘Could I have a word with you, Mr Brock?’ The Director’s wife fixed him with a cold look. ‘In my office?’
He followed her to the small room and sat on the metal chair as he had on his first day while she closed the door and came round behind her desk. She sat down, put her elbows on the desk and examined him without speaking.
The interrogator’s initiative, Brock thought to himself. I couldn’t stare at you like this unless we both knew you were guilty as sin.
He placidly examined his fingernails, not attempting to meet her eyes.
‘I am very protective of my staff, Mr Brock,’ she said finally. ‘The work that they do inevitably brings them into close physical contact with patients. This intimacy is necessary for them to do their work properly, for the health and well-being of their patients. Unfortunately, a patient may occasionally — very occasionally, I’m pleased to say — try to take advantage of this.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Brock looked up at her in surprise. ‘Are you suggesting that my behaviour has been in some way improper?’
‘I am suggesting that you have been putting pressure on Rose for some reason of your own.’ Her voice was deadly calm. Brock wondered if it was significant that she used the same phrase as Grace. ‘I am suggesting that you have been upsetting her. Do you deny that?’
‘Mrs Beamish-Newell,’ Brock replied, rising slowly to his feet, ‘I can assure you that I have absolutely no wish to take advantage of Rose in any way whatsoever. I think if you speak to her she will confirm that.’
He waited to give her the opportunity to say that she had already spoken to Rose, but instead she said, ‘I understand that you were extremely belligerent with another member of our staff, too.’
Brock stared at her, puzzled. ‘Who?’
‘Mr Parsons. Outside in the grounds, when you were walking with Mrs Carrington.’
Brock was stunned. ‘Belligerent?’
‘He told me that you ran after him. He thought you might be going to attack him. I understand very well how new patients sometimes have difficulty at first in adjusting to a different way of life here, Mr Brock. I would simply ask you to remember that the harmonious atmosphere of Stanhope is something we all have to work at, staff and visitors alike.’
As Brock returned to his room he thought how odd it was that Parsons had reported his encounter with Brock and Grace to Laura Beamish-Newell. It was clear that there was little chance of privacy at the clinic. He was also struck by the protective way that she had spoken of the other staff, and in particular of the Estates Manager.
A video, Ruthless People, was shown in the drawing room after dinner that evening. The audience generally seemed to warm to the idea that Bette Midler became a pleasanter human being the more she lost weight, while Brock was more taken by the thought of Ben Bromley as a Lancastrian Danny de Vito. It finished around nine-thirty, and the patients drifted slowly away to their rooms for the night. Brock went to the games room, where a few card-players remained, but they too broke up after a short while, and by ten the public rooms were deserted. He went up to his room and lay on his bed in the dark, watching the strip of light beneath his door. It went off at ten-forty. He waited half an hour and got to his feet.
That afternoon he had collected the jack handle from his car, and he now wrapped it, together with a flat-bladed dinner knife borrowed from the dining room that evening, in a towel. In his pocket he had a small notebook and a ballpoint pen.
The corridor and stairs were lit by dim green emergency lights, and, looking like some ghostly eccentric hunting for the showers, he made his way silently down to the entrance hall. The door to the reception area and office was fitted with a cheap, modern, aluminium knob set, with the lock housed in the knob. Brock slid the blade of the knife into the crack of the jamb and held it against the corner of the panelled door to protect it from being damaged as he forced the sharp end of the jack handle in behind the blade. He gave a jerk and the lock burst open with a bang. He slipped inside and pressed the button down on the inside knob to relock the door. He repeated the process on the inner door into the office area which held Jay’s computer.
There were no windows here, and he could see nothing in the pitch darkness. Eventually, moving very cautiously towards the centre of the room, he felt Jay’s desk and found the lamp. He pressed the switch and settled into her chair.
The musical ping of the computer as it came to life sounded remarkably loud in the silence of the night. He waited for the demand for the password, then typed in the letters JAY and watched the screen clear. He soon found what he was looking for in a folder labelled ‘Mailing Lists’. Inside were separate files: ‘Patients’, ‘Staff, ‘Executive’, ‘Newsletter’ and, finally, ‘Friends’. He opened ‘Friends’ and began scrolling through a list of names and addresses.
Not wanting to contend with the printer, Brock began copying the list by hand into his notebook. Two names were as expected — de Loynes and Long — and others seemed familiar though not immediately placeable. When he had finished he closed the file, then the ‘Mailing Lists’ folder, and began a second search. Inside a folder marked ‘Admin General’ he uncovered a large number of files devoted to correspondence of various kinds, and among them a series of spreadsheets marked ‘Bookings’, each covering a specific year. He opened the one for the previous year and scrolled through to October. De Loynes was booked from 21 October to 3 November, the two weeks straddling Petrou’s death on 27 October. In the listing for the second of the two weeks his name was misspelt ‘de Loyns’, and, without thinking, Brock corrected it.