He now began to cross-check the list of Friends with the list of patients booked in at the Clinic on 27 October. After a few minutes he found one: Simon Mortimer, booked from 21 to 28 October. He was writing the details in his book when a sound made him freeze.
It was a metallic click and, though muffled, was uncomfortably distinct. It was hard to place where it had come from. He held his breath, waiting, but nothing more disturbed the stillness. Hurriedly now, he continued scanning the names on the screen and comparing them with those in his notebook.
There was another click.
This time Brock rose slowly to his feet. As he did so, his line of sight cleared the back edge of Jay’s desk and took in the pale line of light from the bottom of the connecting door to Ben Bromley’s office. At the same moment he heard the murmur of a voice beginning to speak in the next room. It was Bromley’s voice, and it was answered by another that he recognized, a woman’s, Laura Beamish-Newell.
It occurred to him that if he could see their light under the door, it was possible they could see his. Very carefully he the jack handle and knife back into the towel and reached for his notebook and pen. At that moment the computer in front of him gave a loud ping and the message ‘Save Now?’ flashed up on the screen. Immobilized by the sudden noise, he hesitated long enough to realize his stupidity in correcting the spelling mistake, and so provoking the computer’s question. He was conscious of the abrupt silence from the next room as the murmur of voices stopped.
Then Bromley spoke, his tone quiet, incredulous.
Brock grabbed at his things, switched off the desk lamp and flew for the door. He banged his shin against something as he reached it and wrestled the knob open. As he swung it closed, a shaft of light from behind him flashed against the jamb. He could hear their voices as he reached the outer door, and then he was through and dodging between the armchairs in the entrance hall. He made the corridor and sprinted to the far end of the west wing without pausing to hear if he was pursued. On to the fire stairs, then up to his floor; he peeked through the fire door to make sure the corridor was empty, then made the last dash to his room. His chest was heaving with the sudden exertion. From the direction of the main stairs he could hear a faint voice, and the glow of the stair light coming on suddenly reflected along the corridor wall. He felt in his pocket for his bedroom key and immediately knew, with complete certainty, that it was still lying on his bedside cabinet on the other side of the door. Leaving his room in the dark, he had forgotten to pick it up.
The voices in the stairwell were growing. He reached for the knife and jack handle and fumbled to get them into the door jamb. The handle slipped out of his grip and landed on the floor with a thump. As he groped for it in the gloom, the main lights in the corridor blazed alive. He grabbed the jack handle again, slammed it into the gap and wrenched. With a splintering crack the door flew open and he stumbled into the dark room. Recovering, he swung the door closed again and clicked the lock. He pressed his forehead against the cool surface of the paint and took a deep breath, feeling his heart pounding in his chest.
Suddenly the light in the room snapped on. A voice behind him said, ‘What are you doing?’
16
Brock turned and was startled to see Grace Carrington in his bed. She was staring at him wide-eyed over the edge of the blankets. Then he noticed that the curtains were different, the wardrobe in a different place.
‘Oh no,’ he groaned. ‘The wrong door.’
‘What?’ She was looking at him as if he were mad. Behind him Brock could hear voices approaching.
He took another deep breath. ‘I was trying to break into my own room. I locked myself out. But in the dark I thought your door was mine.’
Her eyes moved from his flushed face to the jack handle in his hand. Then she too heard the voices outside. ‘What’s going on, David?’ she whispered.
He hesitated. ‘I’ve been misbehaving, Grace. And I very nearly got caught.’
She watched him, then said, ‘Do you want to leave now?’
‘I’d rather hang on a moment — if you don’t mind.’
‘Then you’d better sit down and explain what you’re doing in my room in the middle of the night.’ She seemed calmer now.
So he sat on the end of her bed and told her about Kathy, and about her visit with Dowling to his home. He described some of Kathy’s frustrations with the case, and his offer to spend some time at Stanhope. And he spoke of his reasons for breaking into the clinic’s computer that evening.
‘I can’t believe that a senior police officer would do such a thing,’ she said. ‘What if you’d been caught?’
He nodded and hung his head. ‘You’re right. Kathy said exactly the same.’
‘If you believe Alex was murdered, then who do you suspect?’
‘I don’t know. The problem is that the motive is unclear. It might have been blackmail, or sexual jealousy. Or perhaps it was an accident in which others were involved who would prefer to keep their names out of it. I find it hard to come to grips with Petrou. He seems to have been so many different things to different people.’
She nodded, thinking back. ‘I suppose that’s true. He had a surface charm, which he could adapt to the people that he came into contact with. There was a certain intimacy almost immediately you met him; he seemed soft, yielding. But I always felt that underneath he was quite hard, that he had a very strong sense of self-preservation and self-interest.’
‘He was manipulative, then.’
‘Yes, I think he was.’ She looked hard at Brock, who was nursing his breaking-and-entering tools. ‘I’m sorry I flew off the handle at you earlier. I thought you were being manipulative.’
‘Well, I suppose I was. Until I got to know you, anyway.’
‘What are you going to do now?’
‘Right now? Well, if the coast is clear, go back to my room, I suppose.’
‘You’re going to smash another door in?’ He smiled, shrugged.
‘Maybe it was fate, David, that you broke into this room. Maybe it was even intentional — subconsciously, I mean.’
He reddened.
‘Alternatively,’ she said, ‘you could just stay here and in the morning I’ll tell Jay that I’ve locked myself out again and she’ll lend me the master key — she does it all the time for the patients.’
Brock looked at the chair by the desk. It seemed the only possibility, but he’d already found from the one in his own room that he was too big for it. ‘Well …’ He sounded doubtful.
‘Don’t be daft,’ she said. She wriggled over in the narrow bed to make room for him, and then reached up to turn off the light.
‘You are real, then.’ He opened his eyes at the sound of her voice and saw her gazing at him. A weak silver light leaked in around the curtain, and the hot water gurgled in the old cast-iron radiator under the window.
‘Yes.’ He felt their bodies pressed together in the narrow bed. ‘I’m real, and a bit… surprised.’
‘Don’t you do this much, then?’ She smiled at him, and he thought how very nice a smile it was, and how much poorer the world was going to be without it. He kissed her cheek and stretched as much as he could in the confined space. ‘I just didn’t expect to find myself waking up here with you. I’m very glad I have, though.’