‘In half an hour I’ll go downstairs and get someone to give me the key. But not yet.’ She slid her hand across his chest and gave him a squeeze.
‘No,’ he agreed, and eased his arm under her shoulders. For the first time he noticed that his automatic wince was unnecessary, for there was no pain from his shoulder.
‘You think Stephen Beamish-Newell killed Alex, don’t you?’ she asked.
He hesitated. ‘I have no real reason to. I think Kathy does.’
‘I can understand that. He can seem intimidating, even terrifying, I suppose. But he would have the most to lose if someone was murdered at the clinic’
‘And perhaps the most to lose from someone who was threatening the reputation of the clinic in some way. You like him, don’t you?’
‘It’s not liking. More trusting. I just don’t believe he would do it.’
‘How about his wife?’
‘Laura?’ Grace looked at him in surprise, then frowned. ‘Of course not! How do they train you to think like this?’
‘It comes from having to punish people all the time, I suppose.’
‘I’m sorry I said that, David. It must be very hard, doing what you do. Not allowed to forgive anyone.’
‘That’s what makes it bearable, Grace. It would be too difficult to have to forgive as well. Someone else gets that job.’
A wood pigeon had settled on their window-sill and began cooing reassuringly. Then a blast of the gusting north-easterly wind sent it fluttering away out of earshot.
An hour later Grace returned from her visit downstairs. ‘Jay doesn’t come in on a Sunday, but the girl who opens the office for her gave me the key. She didn’t seem to know about any goings-on last night.’
‘There’s no way they couldn’t have heard me. And I left the computer on. Still, it doesn’t sound as if they called the police. Not yet, anyway.’
‘What have you got planned today?’
‘Not a lot. I’m supposed to be writing a paper for a conference …’ Brock’s voice trailed away. Talking with her about anything happening in the future was so difficult. He thought how much he would have liked to take her to Italy.
‘Go on,’ she said.
‘It’s not important. Not in the least. What about you?’
‘Can I spend time with you, David? It doesn’t matter, if you feel awkward about it.’
‘Of course I don’t feel awkward. I’d like that.’
‘It isn’t that I don’t love my husband. But this …’ She gestured hopelessly round the bare little room.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘It isn’t Paris in the springtime, but it’s a comfort. It’s a comfort for me too, Grace, believe me.’
She moved up against him. ‘I arranged to meet Rose this afternoon,’ she said. ‘If you like, I’ll try to persuade her to talk to you.’
They went for a walk in the grounds after lunch and looked in the library when they returned, to see if they could retrieve Brock’s gift to her, but it was gone.
Grace went off to keep her appointment with Rose. ‘She says she will talk to you, David,’ she reported back later. ‘I gather it has something to do with her fiance, Geoffrey Parsons. Apparently, there’s something he kept from the police, and he’s been worrying a lot about it. He doesn’t want Rose to speak to anyone, but she feels he’s going to have a breakdown if he doesn’t do something. She’s tried getting him to speak to Stephen Beamish-Newell, but he says there’s no one he can talk to.’
‘Does she have any idea what it is that he’s hiding?’
‘I’m not sure if she knows or just suspects. It’s strange — sometimes she sounds very protective and concerned about him, and the next minute she becomes quite aggrieved and annoyed. I got the feeling that their relationship hasn’t been very happy lately, almost as if she’s only keeping it going because he’s dependent on her.’
‘It’s funny you should say that. I got a lecture from Laura Beamish-Newell yesterday about harassing her staff. Apart from Rose, she said I’d been belligerent towards Parsons, who’d told her about the time he approached you while we were out there in the snow. He claimed I almost attacked him.’
‘You were very protective.’ She smiled at him. ‘I thought that was sweet.’
‘Well, the thing that surprised me was how protective Laura was towards Parsons. More so than towards Rose. It almost made me wonder if there could be something going on between them.’
‘What? Oh no,’ she laughed. ‘I’m sure there isn’t. She’s probably just noticed that he’s been under a strain lately. I really do think she worries about people she feels responsible for, David.’
‘Maybe. When can I see Rose?’
‘She says that’s difficult. Laura has been questioning her about you, and she thinks Laura has asked the other girls in the house to keep an eye on her. She says she’ll be seeing you anyway tomorrow afternoon for acupuncture, and she’ll talk to you then.’
‘Oh no,’ Brock groaned.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Acupuncture. I don’t know what it is about it. I passed out in the first session I had.’ ‘You didn’t? Really?’
‘Yes. I don’t know why. I barely made it through the second one. I’ve been feeling a bit groggy anyway for the last couple of days. I’d say I was going down with flu, except for what that patient said to Beamish-Newell the first night I was here, about feeling much worse after a week than when she arrived. He said it was to be expected.’
She looked at him with concern. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve been selfish. You should be resting this weekend.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ he said.
17
If it hadn’t been for Rose, Brock would have abandoned his afternoon therapy session. The morning osteopathy had left his back aching, barely able to bend. Worse were the headaches and nausea which had been recurring in waves over the past days, and he was convinced he was going down with flu. His stomach felt as if it belonged to someone else and his vision kept blurring. The thought of another acupuncture session filled him with dread, but if Rose was going to talk to him, he would have to be there. Beamish-Newell had brought the time of his session forward to two o’clock, during the rest hour for the other patients, and he suspected that this was to avoid alarm and inconvenience if he passed out again. His sense of gloom was heightened by the darkness of the day, the light of the sun overwhelmed by a motionless mass of black cloud.
Rose was waiting for him, looking nervous. She avoided his eyes as Beamish-Newell swept in and went through the preliminaries. He seemed distant to Brock, even abrupt, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that Rose had asked for the meeting, he might have wondered if she had complained to the Director about him. Perhaps his wife had.
He said conversationally, trying to get Beamish-Newell to talk, to hear the intonation of his voice, ‘How many needles today, Stephen?’
Beamish-Newell took a long time to say anything, and when he did the reply sounded ominous. ‘Let’s see how many you can take. It’s probably time we stopped mollycoddling you.’
Brock rolled on to his front and closed his eyes, feeling dizzy even before the first needle went in.
When he opened them again he was completely disoriented. He groaned inwardly. I’ve blacked out again.
He blinked, trying to make out what had happened, but it was so dim. My eyes are dim, I cannot see, I have not brought my specs with me. His head was spinning, half waking, half trying not to. He felt an agonizing cramp in his legs, but when he tried to move them he couldn’t. They’ve paralysed my spine, for God’s sake. He struggled desperately to make them work, and suddenly there was a thump and the trolley shifted slightly and he found he was able to move them at last. Thank Christ for that. He realized that it was so dim because the overhead light was off, and although it was only mid-afternoon it was so dark outside that little light was coming through the small high window. Or was it mid-afternoon? He really had no idea. His back was so bad after the manipulation that he could hardly raise his head and turn his wrist to look at his watch. When he finally managed it he saw it was only two-forty. He’d been out for twenty minutes or so.