Kathy shook her head, ‘So Tanner knew everything, all along the line. What a farce! I led you straight into it, Brock. I just don’t know what to say.’
He shrugged. ‘Such is life. If we both end up selling hamburgers at the gates of Stanhope Clinic, so be it. We’ll probably make a fortune. The thing I’m more interested in is who killed Rose and Petrou. Tanner wasn’t smarter than us, just better informed. I wonder how much better informed he is about Parsons? Let’s hope there’s something, in there’ — he nodded at the envelope Kathy had brought back from Penny — ‘because I still can’t see it.’
‘It has to be Beamish-Newell’ Kathy surprised him with her sudden vehemence. ‘We’ve been going round and round this,’ she went on, ‘but in the end he’s the only one who fits. He told us all those lies about his movements when Petrou was killed, he was on the spot when Rose was killed and, as Gabriele said, he’s ruthless in getting what he wants.’
‘What motive?’
‘He’s a closet gay. Petrou tried blackmailing him, having been pointed in the right direction by Gabriele. He murdered Petrou, and then Rose discovered something from Parsons that would incriminate Beamish-Newell, and he had to kill her too.’
‘Come on, Kathy,’ Brock objected. ‘These days you don’t kill people who threaten to reveal you’re bisexual. All right, Dowling — a young lad just starting out in the police force — might be intimidated by a bully like Tanner, but Beamish-Newell would never have been panicked by Petrou. He’d have told him to get lost.’
‘Maybe he was blackmailing other people too — the goats, important people who would have been embarrassed to appear in the tabloids wearing what Petrou died in.’
Brock shook his head, unconvinced. ‘They’d pay up, buy him off. He’d have accepted, I’m sure. Murder’s far too risky.’
‘Perhaps it depends how greedy he was.’
They sat a while longer in front of the hissing gas fire, talking over the possibilities, until Brock offered to show her to her room. Although she’d grown used to sleeping under a duvet in her own bed, the crisp white sheets were freshly laundered and tucked in tight, the way a nurse would have done it, and Kathy fell quickly into a deep sleep. By the time Brock started roaming around in the kitchen next morning, she had already showered and made a pot of coffee, and was working in the study on Penny’s material.
‘While you get on with that,’ Brock told her over a bowl of cornflakes, ‘I think I’d better go up to the Yard and snoop around. Try to find out discreetly how we’re placed before I make an official entrance.’
It was late morning before he returned, looking preoccupied and carrying a bulging briefcase.
‘How did it go?’ Kathy said, and had to make do with the muttered reply, ‘Don’t ask.’
He took off his jacket and tie and cast an eye over the paperwork sorted into piles on the bench. He grunted abstractedly, hands deep in his pockets, and Kathy had the impression his mind wasn’t taking anything in.
‘Is something wrong?’ she asked. ‘I mean, even more wrong than we thought?’
‘I don’t know.’ He shook his head. ‘Look at this.’
He turned to the armchair where he’d thrown his briefcase and pulled out a small brown-paper parcel. It had been neatly wrapped and just as carefully opened. ‘Security thought it was a bomb.’
He spread the brown paper open and showed her the paperback book inside. The pages were dog-eared and yellowing with age. Its title was Meaning in the Visual Arts, and the author Erwin Panovsky. Brock opened the cover and pulled out a folded sheet of plain white paper, on which there were a few lines of handwriting. He handed it to her without a word, and she read,
Dear David,
Chapter 7 is for you.
Forgive me.
Forgive those who helped me, please, please, for my sake3. Remember me. I too was in Arcady.
G.
Puzzled, Kathy picked up the book and turned to chapter 7, an essay on a group of paintings and their common theme, entitled ‘Et in Arcadia Ego’. She looked up at Brock for an explanation.
‘One of the patients who was at the clinic, both when Petrou died and when I was there, was Grace Carrington.’
Kathy nodded, remembering the name.
‘Because of that, I befriended her. We talked about paintings, about the subject of that essay. She was suffering from cancer. She said she was going to die.’
‘You want to find out what happened to her.’
He nodded heavily. ‘Yes.’
He phoned Stanhope Clinic, but they would only tell him that she had checked out on 2.7 March, which was two days after Rose was murdered. They refused to give him her home address.
‘I think she said her home was in Essex. The postmark on the parcel is Chingford. I’ve been trying to remember her husband’s name, but I can’t.’
‘Winston,’ Kathy said.
‘Yes! How the hell did you know that?’
‘It’s here, on the flyleaf.’ She showed him the book. ‘Almost faded away; “With love from Winston, Christmas 1968”.’
Brock took a deep breath, then reached for the first volume of an old set of Greater London telephone directories on the shelf above the bench. There was only one entry for ‘W. amp; G. Carrington’ in Chingford.
‘Well,’ Kathy said, ‘can I come? Or would you rather go on your own?’
‘Please do,’ he said, if you don’t mind taking a break from that.’
They found the house without difficulty. The street was quiet, private, with spring blossoms beginning to flower from decorative shrubs and trees.
A man in early middle-age answered the door, wearing an open-neck shirt, sweater, jeans and trainers.
‘Mr Carrington?’
He nodded.
‘I wonder if I might speak to your wife?’ Brock’s voice, never loud, was now almost inaudible.
The man seemed to brace himself a little. ‘No, I’m afraid you can’t. What do you want her for?’
‘We’re police officers. It’s concerning the murder that took place at Stanhope Clinic a couple of weeks ago. Your wife was a patient there at the time. We just wanted to ask her a couple of things.’
‘Well, I’m afraid you can’t.’ The muscles around his mouth were taut, so that an involuntary smile seemed to cross his face. ‘She died last weekend.’
Brock just stared at him. After a moment Kathy broke the silence. ‘We did understand that she was ill. We didn’t realize it was quite so … critical.’
‘Yes.’ Winston Carrington cleared his throat with a dry little cough and rubbed his mouth. ‘Yes,’ he repeated.
‘It must have been a terrible shock for you.’
He nodded and began to speak very rapidly. ‘She’d been on remission for some while and had been doing remarkably well, but we knew it couldn’t last. She phoned on the Tuesday, that’s the week before last, and said she was starting to feel ill again and wanted to come home, so I went down to Stanhope the next day to pick her up. All that following week she went downhill very quickly. The doctor had arranged for her to go into hospital last Sunday, but in the event she didn’t make it. She had a bad night on the Friday, and I phoned the doctor the following morning. She was dead by the time he arrived.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Kathy said and looked at Brock uncertainly. He still didn’t seem able to speak.
‘The funeral was on Wednesday,’ Carrington added.
‘I don’t suppose she said anything to you about what happened at the clinic in the few days before she came home?’
He shook his head. ‘That was the last thing on her mind.’
‘Of course. Well, we won’t disturb you further,’ Kathy said, again looking at Brock for a lead.
Suddenly he spoke, his voice very low. ‘What was the official cause of death?’