The Bone Jar

by S W Kane

  ‘And she’s still alive?’ he asked, feeling a tingle of excitement. He was sure Ena’s murder had something to do with her past.

  ‘Yep. Nursing home in Epsom . . .’ Anderson looked the name up in his notes. ‘Littledene Care Home.’

  Kirby turned to Kobrak, who’d been standing by listening. ‘Get on the phone. See if it’s okay to visit Margaret Halliday tonight – tell them it’s urgent.’

  ‘Will do,’ said Kobrak, scurrying off.

  ‘Did they say anything else about these visits?’ Kirby asked Anderson.

  ‘Only that she visited every few weeks, as Margaret Halliday had no one else.’

  ‘How thoughtful. And no one at the hospice mentioned any complaints about Ena?’

  ‘None. An example to us all, apparently,’ said Anderson, pulling a pious face.

  ‘Well, she sure as shit pissed someone off.’

  ‘And there’s something else,’ said Anderson, holding up the rabbit’s paw like a talisman before rummaging about in a carrier bag he’d brought back with him. ‘The pièce de résistance.’ With a flourish, he pulled out a framed photograph and handed it to Kirby.

  The photograph was colour, taken on the steps of the hospice, and showed Ena Massey being given a small trophy by a tanned-looking man in a suit. Beneath the picture, it said: Ena Massey – Volunteer of the Year 2014.

  ‘You are fucking joking,’ said Kirby, staring at the image. ‘How did Kobrak miss this?’ Maybe he’d been too lenient on the young sergeant after all.

  ‘He obviously didn’t go into the kitchen. Staff manager offered me a cuppa.’ Anderson smiled and stroked the rabbit’s paw. ‘How could I refuse?’

  Kirby looked at the photograph again and studied the man giving Ena her award. There was no mistaking who it was. Patrick Calder.

  CHAPTER 28

  Kirby arrived at Calder’s house having left Anderson with the unenviable task of telling Harry Joyce that his grandson was dead. Calder’s secretary had told Kirby that her boss was at home, and when he’d rung to check Mrs Calder had answered the phone.

  ‘Of course he’ll see you, Detective. I’ll tell him you’re coming.’

  As Kirby walked up the steps of the large house on Clapham Common Westside, he wondered whether he should have informed Hamer he was going. He’d barely spoken to his boss since their conversation the night before, and after this evening’s briefing Hamer had left before he’d had a chance.

  Kirby rang the bell and waited, listening to it echo in what sounded like a large hall behind a front door that was at least twice the size of most. After a few minutes it opened, and a rather glamorous-looking woman appeared. She introduced herself as Saskia Calder and invited Kirby in, closing the door just as Patrick Calder emerged from one of the rooms off the hall. She glanced at her husband, and without saying another word disappeared upstairs. Whatever charm Calder had once had, with his velvety voice and perfect teeth, it seemed to have stopped working on Mrs Calder a long time ago.

  ‘What’s this about?’ he asked, making no move to invite Kirby any further into his house. ‘I would offer you a drink, but I have to leave soon for a dinner appointment. You’ve come to tell me we can begin work, I hope.’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ said Kirby. ‘Ena Massey, the woman whose body we found, won a Volunteer of the Year Award four years ago. It seems you presented it to her.’ He held out the photograph for Calder to look at. ‘St Elizabeth’s Hospice.’

  ‘What of it?’ said Calder, his eyes barely looking at the framed image.

  ‘She was found murdered on your land, and you told us that you didn’t know her. That’s what of it.’

  ‘I don’t – didn’t – know her. Maybe I did present her with an award. Honestly? I can’t remember.’

  ‘So you have no recollection of meeting her?’

  ‘None. I meet a lot of people, and you’d be surprised at how few are worth remembering.’ Calder smiled, and Kirby wondered whether he was included in that category.

  ‘Why did the hospice ask you?’

  ‘As a successful local businessman I’m often called upon to present awards, give speeches, and so forth. It comes with the territory.’

  ‘That’s not quite what I meant,’ said Kirby. ‘I meant why did they ask you specifically? They could have asked anyone – and, well, I’m surprised that you had the time.’

  Calder regarded him for a few seconds. ‘They nursed my grandmother when she was dying. I owe them a debt of gratitude.’

  ‘When was this?’ asked Kirby.

  ‘I don’t see what my grandmother’s death has to do with any of this, but if you must know, it was 1996. And before you ask, no, Ena Massey never had anything to do with the care of my grandmother.’ He took a step towards the front door. ‘I’m sorry to rush things, but a table at The Ivy isn’t something one wants to be late for.’

  ‘We pulled a body out of the Thames earlier,’ said Kirby, as they stood by the door. He wasn’t letting Calder off the hook just yet. ‘Edward Blake. It was his phone that we found at the crime scene. I don’t suppose you’ve thought any more about whether you know him?’

  ‘Of course I haven’t. Why would I?’

  ‘You’d forgotten that you knew Ena Massey, and so I wondered whether you might have forgotten knowing Mr Blake too. As you said, you do meet a lot of people.’

  ‘Meeting someone is one thing, knowing them is quite another. I don’t recall doing either with Mr Blake. I’m genuinely sorry that I can’t be of more help.’

  ‘In that case, I’m sorry to have kept you,’ Kirby said, stepping outside and on to the driveway. ‘Say goodnight to Mrs Calder for me, won’t you?’

  Calder said nothing and closed the door with a soft whoosh, as though sealing a vacuum. Kirby noticed it had a handsome Hand of Fatima doorknocker, and wondered how good a job it did of keeping evil out of the Calder household. Something made him look up, and he saw Saskia Calder watching him from an upstairs window. Their eyes met briefly and then she moved away, leaving him to wonder what kind of marriage they had. Not a happy one, by the looks of things.

  CHAPTER 29

  It took Kirby over an hour to reach Littledene Care Home, where Margaret Halliday lived, and he was just pulling up outside when Anderson called.

  ‘Get anything from Calder?’ he asked.

  Kirby told him about their brief conversation. ‘I can’t see what motive he’d have for murdering Ena Massey and leaving the body on his own land. Doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Plus, he’s got an alibi.’

  ‘There is that,’ said Kirby. ‘How’d it go at Harry Joyce’s?’

  Anderson sighed. ‘As you’d imagine. Poor bastard’s devastated. Although you’ll never guess who was there with him.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Connie Darke.’

  ‘I didn’t know they knew each other that well,’ said Kirby, remembering Connie mention Harry briefly when they were at Blackwater earlier that day.

  ‘They don’t, not really. She’s been keeping an eye on him since Blake went missing. She showed me a room upstairs where Blake kept some of his things. No computer or anything, just research and junk connected to his exploring. There was quite a lot of stuff on Blackwater, including a few cuttings of Ena. Seems she made the headlines a few times, allegations of misconduct and the like. Never charged with anything.’

  ‘Interesting – let’s get them checked out. Could be a long-held grudge, although it doesn’t sound very likely. How did Connie seem?’ Kirby thought about their conversation earlier and how Blake had been going to tell her what he’d found out about her sister’s mysterious companion. He wouldn’t be doing that anymore.

  ‘Upset. Kept it in check for the old man though.’

  Kirby noticed the time. ‘Look, I’d better go, otherwise I’ll be talking to Margaret Halliday in bed.’

  Anderson chuckled. ‘What with Karen McBride in her onesie and a retired nurse in a winceyette, you’ll be getting a bad rep.’<
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  ‘Fuck off,’ said Kirby, and hung up.

  The care home was a handsome Victorian house set within what looked to be well-tended grounds. The street lights cast an orange glow over the front garden, and even beneath the snow Kirby could tell that the grass was cut, the hedges had been trimmed and the flowerbeds were neat. It certainly didn’t look like your average care home, and he wondered what the fees were to stay in a place like this.

  He rang the front bell, and after a few minutes was admitted into the hall, where he could hear the clinking of glass and the vague sound of activity coming from somewhere in the house. It felt more like a private club than an old people’s home.

  ‘I’m Theresa Bethell,’ said the woman who’d answered the door. ‘Was it you I spoke to on the phone earlier?’

  ‘No, that was Sergeant Kobrak. I’m DI Kirby.’

  ‘This way.’ She led him through the hallway and into an impressive, large room with a roaring fire in one corner. ‘Some of the residents are just having a small sherry or cocoa before bed.’

  Armchairs were scattered around the room in small groups, about half of them occupied by residents, the rest empty. Of the people there, the average age looked to be around eighty.

  ‘Sorry, I realise this might be a bit late. I was held up,’ said Kirby, suddenly feeling guilty.

  ‘That’s all right. Margaret doesn’t retire until gone nine most nights. She’s over there.’ Theresa pointed to a woman sitting in the far corner on her own, staring out of the French windows into the garden. Kirby followed her eyes and was surprised to see a large, brightly lit pond at the end of the garden. It was like a miniature version of the lake at Blackwater.

  ‘I’ll introduce you,’ said Theresa, and Kirby followed her across the room.

  ‘Margaret, this is the detective I told you about earlier, Detective Inspector Kirby. He’d like to ask you a few questions.’ She turned to Kirby. ‘Would you like anything to drink, Inspector?’

  ‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’ He sat down opposite Margaret Halliday and waited as Theresa walked off.

  The woman opposite had probably been quite formidable in her day. Even sitting down, Kirby could tell that she was tall. Her shoulders were now stooped, but they were broad and looked as though they had once been strong, like a swimmer’s.

  ‘Miss Halliday, I’d like to ask you a few questions about your time at Blackwater Asylum, if you don’t mind. I’m investigating the death of Ena Massey, who I believe you knew.’

  Margaret Halliday continued to look out of the window, blinking every now and then but staring with such intensity that Kirby wondered if she’d heard what he’d said. ‘I’d really like to ask you about—’ he began, when she suddenly turned and interrupted.

  ‘It was a long time ago,’ she said, looking at him just as she’d watched whatever it was outside that had held her attention.

  ‘Yes, I realise that. I wondered what you could tell me about Ena Massey, as I gather that you worked there together in the 1960s and that she used to come and visit you.’

  Margaret frowned, two deep ridges forming between her eyebrows. ‘Ena Massey,’ she repeated, before slowly shaking her head and looking out of the window again. ‘Ena Massey never once visited me. You have been misinformed.’

  ‘She never came to see you here?’ He wondered if Margaret Halliday had the beginnings of dementia, although it hadn’t been mentioned when the visit was arranged.

  ‘Never. Why would she?’

  Her voice was firm, and instinctively he felt that she was telling the truth. ‘Can you think of a reason why Ena would tell people that she came here to visit you, when in fact she didn’t?’

  Margaret shifted her gaze once more to Kirby’s face, as though searching for something. ‘I haven’t seen her in nearly thirty years, but I imagine that she hasn’t changed much. To whom did she tell this lie?’

  ‘A hospice where she was doing voluntary work.’

  Margaret slowly began to shake her head, a smile forming on her lips, which turned into something more ugly. ‘So she hadn’t changed then.’

  Kirby waited for the retired nurse to continue.

  After a few moments, she began to speak. ‘To understand Ena, you have to understand that she was a complete fraud. From start to finish. I can only conclude that telling the hospice that she visited an old friend in a care home was to reflect well on herself. There is simply no other explanation.’

  Although he’d had his doubts about Ena’s character, he hadn’t been expecting to hear this. He’d even begun to think his cynicism was clouding his judgement. ‘When you say a “fraud”, what do you mean, exactly?’

  The old nurse smoothed the blanket over her knees, as though choosing her next words carefully. ‘There’s no point in lying about it now, I suppose,’ she said. ‘A fraud. Exactly that. Ena pretended to be a good nurse. Pretended to care about her patients. Pretended that she knew what she was doing – she even pretended to be a good mother. She was none of those things.’

  ‘Can you explain a bit more? How did she get away with it? Didn’t people see through her?’

  Margaret’s hands were clasped on her lap, the joints distorted by arthritis. Her right thumb rubbed a ring on her middle finger, and Kirby thought about the rings found in Ena’s house, which were now in his pocket. ‘It was a different time. There was a private ward, which wasn’t subject to the same regulations as the rest of the hospital. Dr Brayne, who was in overall charge, gave Ena full rein.’

  ‘Why? Surely if his reputation was on the line—’

  ‘It was safer to have Ena where he could keep an eye on her. If he let her go, she would have ruined him. He wasn’t without fault himself, Ena being a case in point.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The girl, Ena’s daughter . . .’

  ‘Karen,’ interjected Kirby.

  Margaret nodded. ‘Brayne was the father.’

  Dr Alistair Brayne was Karen McBride’s father? He wondered what Karen would make of the information if she ever found out.

  ‘A proper little madam,’ Margaret Halliday went on, inspecting something in the distance before continuing. ‘I felt sorry for her though. Ena paid her almost no attention whatsoever. No wonder she left as soon as she could.’

  ‘Did she know who her father was?’

  ‘No. Ena would tease her about it. It was cruel to watch.’

  ‘Ena teased her daughter about who her father was?’ He tried to imagine why anyone would do that to a child.

  ‘Oh yes. She’d point at him and say, “That’s your father, Karen.” And then when Karen asked why her daddy never cuddled her and why they didn’t live together, Ena would laugh and say, “Only joking! You didn’t really think that was true, did you? You didn’t really think that someone like that could ever be your father?”’

  Kirby was stunned. ‘Didn’t anyone say anything to Ena?’

  ‘We wanted to keep our jobs,’ said Margaret. ‘As I said, it was a different time.’

  ‘Didn’t Dr Brayne do anything about it – he must have known Karen was his daughter?’

  ‘Dr Brayne was very charming and charismatic – handsome, even. He was also very bright, very academic. But compassionate?’ Margaret shook her head. ‘Alas, no. And that extended to his daughter.’

  Talk about being unsuitable for a job. Kirby pulled the evidence bag containing the rings out of his pocket. ‘Do you recognise these?’ he asked, handing it to Margaret.

  She took the bag and squinted at the contents. ‘They’re wedding rings,’ she said. ‘Never seen them before. Why do you ask?’ She passed them back.

  ‘They were found among Ena’s possessions. As were these.’ He took out the copies he’d had made of the letters. ‘They were addressed to patients at Blackwater.’ He handed her the correspondence and watched as she looked through them.

  When she’d finished, she let them fall on to her lap and was silent for a few minutes.

  ‘I remember
a few of these patients,’ she eventually said. ‘Ruthie, that rings a bell, although . . .’

  Kirby waited expectantly.

  ‘Sorry.’ She shook her head. ‘My memory isn’t what it used to be.’

  A fox crossed the lawn, stopping momentarily to look at them. They watched as it lazily went on its way.

  ‘We’ve been speaking to an ex-patient, Raymond Sweet, who now lives in the Old Lodge at Blackwater. Do you remember him?’ asked Kirby.

  ‘Raymond.’ She smiled. ‘I do. A sad soul. I saw in the paper that he’d won the right to stay.’

  ‘Do you think he’s capable of murder?’

  ‘Not the Raymond I knew. I think if he had been, Ena would have been dead years ago.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Dr Brayne dealt in sleep,’ said the old nurse. ‘Deep Sleep Therapy, it was called. He believed that the brain could regenerate itself if it was switched off for a period. Looking back, I think he treated his patients more as experiments than human beings. Some of them were sedated for weeks, including Raymond.’ She paused, and then said quietly, ‘Ena was in charge of that.’

  So that’s what Raymond had meant when he told Anderson that Ena kept putting him to sleep. Kirby dreaded to think what the long-term effects were, and wondered whether Raymond’s ghost was a figment of his imagination. ‘What about the people in the letters, did they undergo Deep Sleep Therapy – did it work?’

  Margaret looked down at the letters on her lap and nodded. ‘It was a long time ago, but I’m fairly certain that they did. And no, it didn’t work.’

  ‘Can you think of a reason why Ena would have kept these letters?’

  ‘None. They weren’t hers to keep.’ She handed them back as though she no longer wanted anything to do with them.

  Kirby folded up the letters and returned them to his pocket. ‘You said that Ena was in charge of patient sedation – can you elaborate?’

  ‘Up to ten patients were sedated and kept asleep in what became known as the Narcosis Room. Male and female. I was in charge of the nightingales – those were the nurses who did the real work. I say “real work”; they were the ones who looked after those poor souls, took them to the toilet, bathed them, combed their hair. Ena was incapable of any of that. When staff were short, the smell was awful. Sweat, urine, sometimes worse.’