An Empty Death

by Laura Wilson

  Todd found the bus stop and stood waiting, keeping an eye out in case Stratton should appear. After five minutes, when it was evident that this wasn’t going to happen, he felt able to relax. A few moments later a bus arrived, and, having ascertained that it was supposed to be going back into the centre of town, he boarded it and sat, elbows on the back of the seat in front, smoking and thinking, as the vehicle snorted its slow way past the houses and shops.

  He felt gloomy and rejected, and knowing that this wasn’t entirely irrational didn’t help. It’s all very well for Inspector Stratton, he thought. He can be contented in his own skin, with his house and his wife, because he’s only ever been one person, not a whole series of different ones. He wondered what it would be like to have a wife; to love and to be loved without pretence. He thought of his brown-eyed nurse and smiled. She was his, all right. Strange, he’d always recoiled from the idea of love – it was too genuine, too intimate. Now he knew different. She had made him feel that way. As for the illusion of intimacy, he could buy it, if only for a short time; barring infection, it carried no risk. The thought of Stratton and his wife lingered in his mind, encased in a sort of nimbus, as the bus trundled towards Stoke Newington, and by the time it had reached Shoreditch, he’d come to a decision. Alighting from the bus at the London Bridge terminal, he crossed the river and walked up King William Street in the twilight, past missing railings, a group of auxiliary firemen herding squealing pigs across a bomb-site, and people hastily doing their blackouts. At the top, he found a bus that would take him to Soho, and boarded it.

  It would be easy enough to obtain the brief comfort of a warm body next to his own – at this hour, the place was heaving with tarts, lured there by the promise of easy money from the foreign servicemen. He paused in Old Compton Street, outside the Swiss, wondering if he wanted a drink first – it seemed an odd thing not to know, but he didn’t. He opened the door and, glimpsing wall-to-wall khaki and air-force blue, all of it wreathed in smoke, decided it was too crowded. He was about to close the door again when a slender female shape detached itself from the mass and came towards him, jiggling on platform-soled shoes. She was clearly young – no more than twenty – with darkish hair, hazel eyes and long lashes, but her face had a thick, almost clownish coating of powder, and her mouth was caked in scarlet lipstick. She stopped in front of him and struck a pose, one hip stuck out, and said, ‘Looking for someone, dear?’

  As the light caught her hair, he saw that it was bright chestnut, like Stratton’s wife’s, and it was this, more than anything else, that decided him. ‘I think I’ve just found her, haven’t I?’

  ‘That’s nice, dear. You coming along with me, then?’

  ‘Got a room?’

  ‘Yes, dear. Three quid. More if you want something special.’

  ‘Just the usual, but I want to rent it, not buy it. I’m not some Yank with more money than sense.’

  The girl considered him, her head on one side. ‘All right. Two pound ten. Unless…’ she put her hand on his arm, ‘you could manage a few shillings more? I’ve got a fine to pay, and I’ve been poorly all week, so I’m short…I’ll give you ever such a good time.’

  Todd didn’t believe the bit about the fine – it was something they often tried – but he said, ‘We’ll see. Go on, I’ll follow you.’

  She left at a fast clip and he trailed her, at a discreet distance, to a dilapidated house in Frith Street, where he hesitated for a couple of minutes before following her inside. She was waiting for him in a dirty hall with scabby-looking walls. ‘Up here,’ she called, from somewhere beyond the stairs.

  Bare and grimy, with a few sticks of cheap furniture, and a balding candlewick bedspread, the room had cumulus clouds of damp on all the walls. A couple of canes stood in one corner, one with a red ribbon dangling forlornly from its handle, and there was a cluster of empty beer bottles on the mantelpiece.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

  ‘Business first, dear. No kissing, and you’ll have to use a French letter. Got the money?’

  When Todd handed over the two pounds ten, she said, ‘Couldn’t manage a little bit more, could you? I’d be ever so grateful.’

  Todd took half a crown out of his pocket, holding it up between a thumb and finger. ‘If you tell me your name,’ he said.

  ‘For one of those,’ she said, deftly swiping the coin and dancing away from him, ‘I’ll be anyone you want me to be. Anyone at all.’

  Todd eyed her thoughtfully. ‘Your name,’ he said, ‘is Fay. Now come here and shut up.’

  Fifteen

  The following morning at half past ten, Stratton, having received the results of the Leadbetter post-mortem – strangled but not raped, which was something to be thankful for, at least – was sitting in the room allotted him by the Middlesex waiting for the first of the nurses to be brought to him. In a room down the corridor, Sergeant Ballard was preparing to interview the orderlies, porters, and other menials.

  Stratton had already re-interviewed the doctors, none of whom had anything interesting to tell him, and seen the matron. Miss Hornbeck was a small, dignified woman with thick spectacles, who had explained that the nurses would be sent to him one by one, beginning with the senior staff and ending with the probationers.

  He lit a cigarette and, resisting the urge to swing the swivel chair – a novelty only enjoyed at Savile Row by DCI Lamb – full circle, contented himself with turning it to face the window, which gave him a good view of the hospital’s vegetable garden. It was a great deal tidier than his allotment, which was in dire need of weeding. Jenny would be out again this evening, so he’d go and spend a couple of hours up there after supper. That was an odd business last night, thinking he’d seen a man watching them over the garden fence. It was only an impression – one that Jenny said he’d imagined – but he was sure someone had been there, although he couldn’t imagine why anyone should want to spy on them.

  Probably just kids, messing about. He dismissed it from his mind and was about to go and see if anyone was waiting outside without realising she was supposed to knock, when the door opened, revealing a skinny woman in a dark blue uniform. She had a desiccated look, as if you might be able to reconstitute her into a proper person by adding water. ‘Assistant Matron,’ she announced balefully. ‘I hope this won’t take long. We’re very busy.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Stratton, rising. ‘Please come in and take a seat.’

  By the end of the morning, Stratton had finished interviewing the sisters and staff nurses and begun working his way down the hierarchy. The senior nurses, who, whatever their shape or size, seemed to him to be more like monuments than real women, had been replaced by junior ones in stripy uniforms, many of whom wore harassed expressions and arrived in a flurry, adjusting their cuffs and pushing wisps of hair under their caps. All, without exception, spoke of Dr Reynolds with reverence and expressed shock and regret, but none had anything to add to what little the doctors had already told him. They all seemed to know – albeit with varying degrees of accuracy – the results of the post-mortem. That, Stratton supposed, was not surprising; hospitals were just as likely to be hotbeds of gossip as anywhere else. About Leadbetter, they had even less to say – although a competent nurse, the young woman seemed to have formed no close friendships; in fact, she seemed to have made very little impression at all. No-one, apparently, had come near the disused operating theatre all afternoon, and nor had any of the patients gone AWOL.

  At one o’clock, with his meagre stock of cigarettes much depleted, Stratton left for some fresh air and a spot of lunch.

  At four o’clock, after a scared-looking probationer had scuttled in with a cup of tea and emptied the ashtray, he received Nurse Maddox from the Men’s Surgical Ward. She was a flat-chested girl with pink cheeks, who would, but for a calculating expression in her light blue eyes, have been rather pretty. Stratton, who had, by this time, largely given up on any sort of preamble, said, ‘So, what can you tell me about Dr R
eynolds?’

  Nurse Maddox eyed the packet of Weights on the desk and said coquettishly, ‘Mind if I have one of those?’

  Interesting, thought Stratton. Not only was she the first one who hadn’t immediately expressed dismay or sorrow at Reynolds’s death, she was also the first who had asked directly for a cigarette, the others having simply cast longing looks at the packet until it was offered. He slid the cigarettes across the desk – ‘Thanks ever so’ – and leant over with a match. Judging from the exhibition she made of it – lots of exaggerated sucking and blowing and fancy wrist movements – she wasn’t a habitual smoker. It was, Stratton thought, an attempt to be sophisticated, and matched her voice, which was cockney with a self-consciously genteel overlay, like someone unaccustomed to answering the telephone.

  This, he thought, was definitely one who fitted the matron’s description of a junior nurse who wanted to make herself important; the first so far. The others had been nervous, shy, or just pleased to have a break in routine and take the weight off their feet. ‘Well?’ he said. ‘When did you last see Dr Reynolds?’

  ‘About three days ago, I think.’

  ‘What were you doing on the evening of Wednesday the twenty-first?’

  Nurse Maddox did a bit more wrist twirling and put her head slightly on one side in what Stratton supposed was meant to be an imitation of a film star. ‘Let me think…’ She batted her eyelashes at him. Come on, darling, thought Stratton. We both know you weren’t dining at the Ritz.

  ‘Actually, I was here,’ she admitted, clearly disappointed not to be able to give a more glamorous-sounding alibi. ‘In the nurses’ quarters with some of the other girls.’

  ‘All the time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Fair enough. Had you much to do with Dr Reynolds?’

  ‘Sometimes. He used to come into the Men’s Surgical Ward. It’s so much easier,’ she added, confidingly, ‘nursing men than women. Women are frightful.’ The last word came out as ‘freightfull’.

  ‘When you say he used to come in,’ said Stratton, ‘do you mean he was treating the patients?’

  ‘Well,’ she ducked her head and tried an up-from-under look on him. ‘He was sometimes.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Stratton. ‘He wasn’t a surgeon, was he?’

  ‘No, but some of them were people he’d referred from Casualty. Air raid casualties and car smashes and things like that.’

  ‘So he came to see them.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘What about the other times?’

  She put her head back and blew smoke at the ceiling. ‘Other times?’

  ‘You said he was there to see patients sometimes. What was he there for the rest of the time?’

  ‘Oooh…’ She did the head-on-the-side thing again, but with a lot less conviction this time. ‘I don’t think that’s for me to say.’

  ‘Yes it is,’ snapped Stratton. ‘This is a serious matter, Miss Maddox. Dr Reynolds is dead. Failure to tell me what you know could have serious consequences, and I don’t have time to sit here while you go through your Hollywood movie-star act, so I suggest you pull yourself together and start co-operating.’

  Nurse Maddox, flushing, mumbled, ‘Sorry,’ and bent forward to grind out her cigarette in the ashtray. The humped shape of her shoulders, and the fact that she seemed to be taking a long time about doing it, made Stratton feel uneasy. His words had come out more harshly than he expected. Some chap had probably told the wretched girl that she looked like Veronica Lake or someone, and the poor kid had never got over it.

  When she raised her head, Stratton saw fear in her eyes and realised that she’d never meant to say anything but hadn’t been able to help herself. It was entirely possible, of course, that she had absolutely nothing to tell. Either way, the thing had clearly gone further than she’d intended, but at this point he couldn’t risk passing up any information. ‘Tell me what you meant,’ he said.

  The words came out haltingly, in an almost-whisper. ‘Sometimes he came to see one of the nurses. He pretended it was something else, but that’s why he was there.’

  ‘Which nurse?’

  ‘Marchant.’

  Stratton looked at his paper. ‘Fay Marchant?’ he asked, without mentioning that she was the next name on his list, and probably waiting outside.

  ‘Yes. She used to work in Casualty. We get moved around, you see, and—’

  ‘Why did he come to see her?’ asked Stratton, neutrally.

  ‘He…Look, she doesn’t know I know about it. She’d never speak to me again if…It was only a couple of times. I just happened to catch sight of them, and then when he came in another time, I saw her looking at him, and it was, you know…’

  ‘When you caught sight of them, what were they doing?’

  ‘They were in the sluice.’

  ‘Sluice?’

  ‘The sluice room. For the bed pans.’ She gave a little moue of disgust.

  ‘Oh, yes. Of course. But a doctor wouldn’t normally be in there, would he?’

  ‘No. That’s why it was strange. The door was open a little way, and that’s when I saw them.’

  ‘What were they doing?’

  ‘He had his arms round her. He gave her a kiss.’

  ‘On the lips?’

  Nurse Maddox shook her head – regretfully, Stratton thought. ‘On the cheek. But he was embracing her.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘A couple of weeks ago, I think. Maybe ten days. I can’t remember exactly.’

  ‘I see. Now, how about Nurse Leadbetter? Did you know her?’

  ‘I knew who she was, but…Not really.’

  ‘Do you think she might’ve had some connection with Dr Reynolds?’

  ‘Like that, you mean?’ The femme fatale returned as Nurse Maddox tossed her head. ‘Hardly!’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘She was a little mouse of a thing. Never went out or wore makeup or anything like that.’

  ‘Any boyfriends that you know of?’

  ‘No. She wasn’t interested in anything like that. Far too serious.’ Nurse Maddox leant forward, prurient, agog. ‘They’re saying she was strangled, Inspector. Is that true?’

  ‘We haven’t had the results of the post-mortem yet,’ said Stratton.

  ‘Well, I can’t understand it if she was – that’s a sex crime, isn’t it, strangling?’

  ‘Not always, Miss Maddox. Perhaps,’ suggested Stratton, gently, ‘you should spend less time at the pictures.’ He rose to escort her from the room. ‘Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.’

  When he opened the door he saw, leaning against the opposite wall of the corridor, a slim young woman with smooth dark-brown hair tucked neatly under her cap. Nurse Maddox saw her too. She turned the colour of beetroot and uttered a little shriek before dashing away. The dark-haired girl stared after her for a moment, then turned to Stratton, eyebrows raised in surprise. He mirrored her expression with his own for long enough to convey that he had no idea why she’d reacted in such a fashion, then said, ‘Nurse Marchant?’

  She smiled. ‘Yes, Inspector.’

  Fay Marchant, Stratton thought, was beautiful. Her enormous eyes were deep chocolate brown with long lashes, her complexion was ivory and her lips were full. Stratton cast a discreet glance at her legs as she preceded him across the room. They might have been encased in thick black stockings, but they still looked shapely, and so, beneath the uniform, did the rest of her.

  He seated himself in the swivel chair. ‘Would you like a cigarette, Miss Marchant?’

  That smile again. ‘Thank you.’

  Once the cigarette had been lit – this time with the minimum of fuss – Stratton said, ‘So, tell me about Dr Reynolds,’ and, putting his elbows on the desk, rested his chin on his hands in a manner suggestive of one about to hear a confession.

  ‘Well,’ Fay (it was impossible to think of her as Nurse Marchant, despite the uniform) hesitated. ‘It was a terri
ble shock, for all of us. And his poor wife…I wouldn’t say I knew him, really. Of course, I knew who he was, because I was in Casualty before I was transferred to Men’s Surgical.’

  ‘You knew he was married?’

  ‘Well, yes…I mean, it’s not as if it was a secret, or anything.’

  ‘But your relationship with him – you knew him quite well, didn’t you?’

  Fay frowned. ‘I don’t understand what you mean.’

  ‘You were observed in a rather…’ Stratton paused deliberately to see if Fay’s face would betray anything, but she looked merely puzzled, ‘intimate position with Dr Reynolds.’

  ‘Was I? Who told you…? Oh.’ Fay, evidently remembering Nurse Maddox’s odd behaviour, said, ‘Of course. You don’t have to tell me. Oh, dear. I didn’t realise.’ She stared down at the polished wood of the desk for a moment, then raised her head and, looking him straight in the eye, said, ‘She saw us in the sluice room, didn’t she? I did wonder at the time…Look, I can see why she came to that conclusion, Inspector, but it really wasn’t what she thought.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘It’s hard to explain to someone who doesn’t work here, Inspector.’

  ‘Have a go.’ Stratton gave her an encouraging smile.

  ‘Well, I was on nights, and one of the patients, an elderly man who’d been smashed up in an air raid – he’d had a couple of operations, but he was in a bad way, and we’d done everything we could…’ Fay looked at Stratton as if he might be in some doubt about this.

  ‘I’m sure you did. What happened then?’

  ‘He died. The night sister had called the house surgeon, and we’d all done our best, but it wasn’t any good. Dr Reynolds had come up, and—’