A Mind to Murder

by P. D. James

  “But I told you, Superintendent! I was in number two consulting room, the one between the front one and the patients’ waiting room.”

  “Doing what, Doctor?” Really, it was almost laughable! What could Steiner have been up to to produce this degree of embarrassment? Dalgliesh’s mind toyed with bizarre possibilities. Reading pornography? Smoking hemp? Seducing Mrs. Shorthouse? It surely couldn’t be anything so conventional as planning murder.

  But the doctor had obviously decided that the truth must be told. He said with a burst of shamefaced candour: “It sounds silly, I know, but … well … it was rather warm and I’d had a busy day and the couch was there.” He gave a little giggle. “In fact, Superintendent, at the time Miss Bolam is thought to have died, I was, in the vulgar parlance, having a kip!”

  Once this embarrassing confession was off his chest, Dr. Steiner became happily voluble and it was difficult to get rid of him. But at last he was persuaded that he could help no more for the present and his place was taken by Dr. Baguley.

  Dr. Baguley, like his colleagues, made no complaint of his long wait, but it had taken its toll. He was still wearing his white coat and he hugged it around himself as he drew the chair under him. He seemed to have difficulty in settling comfortably, twitching his lean shoulders and crossing and recrossing his legs. The clefts from nose to mouth looked deeper, his hair was dank, his eyes black pools in the light of the desk lamp. He lit a cigarette and, fumbling in his coat pocket, produced a slip of paper and passed it to Martin.

  “I’ve written down my personal details. It’ll save time.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Martin stolidly.

  “I may as well say now that I haven’t an alibi for the twenty minutes or so after six-fifteen. I expect you’ve heard that I left the ECT clinic a few minutes before Sister saw Miss Bolam for the last time. I went into the medical-staff cloakroom at the end of the hall and had a cigarette. The place was empty and no one came in. I didn’t hurry back to the clinic so I suppose it was about twenty to seven before I rejoined Dr. Ingram and Sister. They were together for the whole of that time, of course.”

  “So Sister tells me.”

  “It’s ridiculous even to consider that either of them would be involved but I’m glad they happened to stick together. The more people you can eliminate, the better, from your point of view, I suppose. I’m sorry not to be able to produce an alibi. I can’t help in any other way either, I’m afraid. I heard and saw nothing.”

  Dalgliesh asked the doctor how he had spent the evening. “It was the usual pattern, until seven o’clock, that is. I arrived just before four and went into Miss Bolam’s office to sign the medical-attendance book. It used to be kept in the medical-staff cloakroom until recently when she moved it into her office. We talked for a short time—she had some queries about the servicing arrangements for my new ECT machine—and then I went to start my clinic. We were pretty busy until just after six and I also had my lysergic-acid patient to visit periodically. She was being specialled by Nurse Bolam in the basement treatment room. But I’m forgetting. You’ve seen Mrs. King.”

  Mrs. King and her husband had been sitting in the patients’ waiting room on Dalgliesh’s arrival and he had taken very little time to satisfy himself that they could have had nothing to do with the murder. The woman was still weak and a little disorientated and sat holding tightly to her husband’s hand. He had not arrived at the clinic to escort her home until a few minutes after Sergeant Martin and his party. Dalgliesh had questioned the woman briefly and gently and had let her go. He had not needed the assurances of the medical director to be satisfied that this patient could not have left her bed to murder anyone. But he was equally sure that she was in no state to give an alibi to anyone else. He asked Dr. Baguley when he had last visited his patient.

  “I looked in on her shortly after I arrived, before I started the shock treatment, actually. The drug had been given at three-thirty and the patient was beginning to react. I ought to say that LSD is given in an effort to make the patient more accessible to psychotherapy by releasing some of the more deep-seated inhibitions. It’s only given under close supervision and the patient is never left. I was called down again by Nurse Bolam at five and stayed for about forty minutes. I went back upstairs and gave my last shock treatment at about twenty to six. The last ECT patient actually left the clinic a few minutes after Miss Bolam was last seen. From about six-thirty I was clearing up and writing my notes.”

  “Was the door of the medical-record room open when you passed it at five o’clock?”

  Dr. Baguley thought for a moment or two and then said: “I think it was shut. It’s difficult to be absolutely certain, but I’m pretty sure I should have noticed if it had been open or ajar.”

  “And at twenty to six when you left your patient?”

  “The same.”

  Dalgliesh asked again the usual, the inevitable, the obvious questions. Had Miss Bolam any enemies? Did the doctor know of any reason why someone might wish her dead? Had she seemed worried lately? Had he any idea why she might have sent for the group secretary? Could he decipher the notes on her jotting pad?

  But Dr. Baguley could not help. He said: “She was a curious woman in some ways, shy, a little aggressive, not really happy with us. But she was perfectly harmless, the last person I’d have said to invite violence. One can’t go on saying how shocking it is. Words seem to lose their meaning with repetition. But I suppose we all feel the same. The whole thing is fantastic! Unbelievable!”

  “You said she wasn’t happy here. Is this a difficult clinic to administer? From what I’ve heard, Miss Bolam wasn’t particularly skilled at dealing with difficult personalities.”

  Dr. Baguley said easily: “Oh, you don’t want to believe all you hear. We’re individualists, but we get along with each other pretty well on the whole. Steiner and I scrap a bit but it’s all quite amiable. He wants the place to become a psychotherapy training unit with registrars and lay professional staff running around like mice and a bit of research on the side. One of those places where time and money are spent lavishly on anything but actually treating patients—especially psychotics. There’s no danger he’ll get his way. The Regional Board wouldn’t wear it for one thing.”

  “And what were Miss Bolam’s views, Doctor?”

  “Strictly speaking she was hardly competent to hold any but that didn’t inhibit her. She was anti-Freudian and pro-eclectic. Anti-Steiner and pro-me if you like. But that didn’t mean anything. Neither Dr. Steiner nor I were likely to knock her on the head because of our doctrinal differences. As you see, we haven’t even taken a knife to each other yet. All this is utterly irrelevant.”

  “I’m inclined to agree with you,” said Dalgliesh. “Miss Bolam was killed with great deliberation and considerable expertise. I think the motive was a great deal more positive and important than a mere difference of opinion or clash of personality. Did you know, by the way, which key opens the record room?”

  “Of course. If I want one of the old records, I usually fetch it myself. I also know, if it’s any help to you, that Nagle keeps his box of tools in the porters’ restroom. Furthermore, when I arrived this afternoon, Miss Bolam told me about Tippett. But that’s hardly relevant, is it? You can’t seriously believe that the murderer hoped to implicate Tippett.”

  “Perhaps not. Tell me, Doctor. From your knowledge of Miss Bolam what would be her reaction to finding those medical records strewn about the floor?”

  Dr. Baguley looked surprised for a second then gave a curt laugh.

  “Bolam? That’s an easy one! She was obsessionally neat. Obviously she’d start to pick them up!”

  “She wouldn’t be more likely to ring for a porter to do the work or to leave the records where they were as evidence until the culprit was discovered?”

  Dr. Baguley thought for a moment and seemed to repent of his first categorical opinion.

  “One can’t possibly know for certain what she’d do. It’s all con
jecture. Probably you’re right and she’d ring for Nagle. She wasn’t afraid of work but she was very conscious of her position as AO. I’m sure of one thing, though. She wouldn’t have left the place in a mess like that. She couldn’t pass a rug or a picture without straightening it.”

  “And her cousin? Are they alike? I understand that Nurse Bolam works for you more than for any other consultant.”

  Dalgliesh noticed the quick frown of distaste that this question provoked. Dr. Baguley, however co-operative and frank about his own motives, was not disposed to comment on those of anyone else. Or was it that Nurse Bolam’s gentle defencelessness had aroused his protective instincts? Dalgliesh waited for a reply.

  After a minute the doctor said curtly: “I shouldn’t have said the cousins were alike. You will have formed your own impression of Nurse Bolam. I can only say that I have complete trust in her, both as a nurse and a person.”

  “She is her cousin’s heir. Or perhaps you knew that?” The inference was too plain to be missed and Dr. Baguley too tired to resist the provocation.

  “No, I didn’t. But I hope for her sake that it’s a bloody great sum and that she and her mother will be allowed to enjoy it in peace. And I hope, too, that you won’t waste time suspecting innocent people. The sooner this murder is cleared up, the better. It’s a pretty intolerable position for all of us.”

  So Dr. Baguley knew about Nurse Bolam’s mother. But, then, it was likely that most of the clinic staff knew. He asked his last question: “You said, Doctor, that you were alone in the medical-staff cloakroom from about six-fifteen until twenty to seven. What were you doing?”

  “Going to the lavatory. Washing my hands. Smoking a cigarette. Thinking.”

  “And that was absolutely all you did during the twenty-five minutes?”

  “Yes—that was all, Superintendent.” Dr. Baguley was a poor liar. The hesitation was only momentary; his face did not change colour; the fingers holding his cigarette were quite steady. But his voice was a little too nonchalant, the disinterest a little too carefully controlled. And it was with a palpable effort that he made himself meet Dalgliesh’s eyes. He was too intelligent to add to his statement but his eyes held those of the detective as if willing Dalgliesh to repeat his question and bracing himself to meet it.

  “Thank you, Doctor,” said Dalgliesh calmly. “That will be all for the present.”

  3

  And so it went on: the patient questioning, the meticulous taking of notes, the close watch of suspects’ eyes and hands for the revealing flicker of fear, the tensed reaction to an unwelcome change of emphasis. Fredrica Saxon followed Dr. Baguley. As they passed each other in the doorway, Dalgliesh saw that they were careful not to meet each other’s eyes. She was a dark, vital, casually dressed woman of twenty-nine who would do no more than give brief but straightforward answers to his questions and who seemed to take a perverse pleasure in pointing out that she had been alone scoring a psychological test in her own room from six until seven and could neither claim an alibi for herself nor give one to anyone else. He got little help or information from Fredrica Saxon but did not, on that account, assume that she had none to give.

  She was followed by a very different witness. Miss Ruth Kettle had apparently decided that the murder was none of her affair and, although she was willing to answer Dalgliesh’s questions, it was with a vague lack of interest which suggested that her thoughts were on higher things. There is only a limited number of words to express horror and surprise and the clinic staff had used most of them during the evening. Miss Kettle’s reaction was less orthodox. She gave her opinion that the murder was peculiar … really very odd indeed, and sat blinking at Dalgliesh through her thick spectacles in gentle bewilderment as if she did indeed find it odd, but hardly sufficiently odd to be worth discussing at length. But at least two pieces of information which she was able to give were interesting. Dalgliesh could only hope that they were reliable.

  She had been vague about her own movements during the evening, but Dalgliesh’s persistence elicited that she had been interviewing the wife of one of the ECT patients until about twenty to six when Sister had telephoned to say that the patient was ready to be taken home. Miss Kettle had walked downstairs with her client, said “good night” in the hall and had then gone straight down to the record room to fetch a file. She had found the room in perfect order and had locked it after her. Despite her gentle incertitude about most of the evening’s activities she was positive about the time. In any case, thought Dalgliesh, it could probably be verified by Sister Ambrose. The second clue was more nebulous and Miss Kettle mentioned it with apparent indifference to its importance. Some half-hour after returning to her room on the second floor she had heard the unmistakable sound of the service lift thumping to a stop.

  Dalgliesh was tired now. Despite the central heating he felt spasms of cold and recognized the familiar malaise that preceded an attack of neuralgia. The right side of his face already felt stiff and heavy and the needling pain was beginning to stab spasmodically behind his eyeball. But his last witness was here.

  Mrs. Bostock, the senior medical stenographer, had none of the doctors’ tolerant acceptance of a long wait. She was angry and her anger came into the room with her like a chill wind. She seated herself without speaking, crossed a pair of long and remarkably shapely legs and looked at Dalgliesh with frank dislike in her pale eyes. She had a striking and unusual head. Her long hair, golden as a guinea, was coiled in intricate folds above a pale, arrogant, sharp-nosed face. With her long neck, poised, colourful head and slightly protuberant eyes, she looked like some exotic bird. Dalgliesh had difficulty in concealing his shock when he saw her hands. They were as huge, red and raw-boned as the hands of a butcher, and looked as if they had been incongruously grafted on to the slim wrists by some malignant fate. It was almost a deformity. She made no attempt to conceal them, but her nails were short and she wore no polish. She had a beautiful figure and was well and expensively dressed, an object lesson in the art of minimizing one’s defects and emphasizing one’s advantages. She probably lived her life, thought Dalgliesh, on much the same principle.

  She gave details of her movements since six o’clock that evening briefly and with no apparent reluctance. She had last seen Miss Bolam at six o’clock when, as was usual, she had taken in the post for the administrative officer to sign. There were only five letters. Most of the post consisted of medical reports and letters to general practitioners from the psychiatrists and Miss Bolam was not, of course, concerned with these. All the outgoing mail was registered in the post book by either Mrs. Bostock or Miss Priddy and was then taken across the road by Nagle to catch the six-thirty from the pillar-box. Miss Bolam had seemed her usual self at six o’clock. She had signed her own letters and Mrs. Bostock had returned to the general office, handed them with the doctors’ post to Miss Priddy and had then gone upstairs to take dictation from Dr. Etherege for the last hour of the day. It was an understood thing that she helped Dr. Etherege on Friday evenings for one hour with his research project. She and the medical director had been together except for a few short periods. Sister rang at about seven o’clock with the news of Miss Bolam’s death. As she and Dr. Etherege left the consulting room, they met Miss Saxon who was just leaving. She went down to the basement with the medical director. Mrs. Bostock, at Dr. Etherege’s request, had gone to join Cully at the front door to ensure that the instructions were followed about no one leaving the building. She had stayed with Cully until the party from the basement appeared and they had then all collected in the waiting room to await the arrival of the police, except for the two porters who remained on duty in the hall.

  “You said that you were with Dr. Etherege from just after six onwards except for short periods. What were you both doing?”

  “We were both working, naturally.” Mrs. Bostock managed to suggest that the question had been both stupid and a little vulgar. “Dr. Etherege is writing a paper on the treatment of twin schizophrenic women
by psychoanalysis. As I said, it has been agreed that I shall assist him for one hour on Friday evenings. That is quite inadequate for his needs, but Miss Bolam took the view that the work wasn’t strictly a clinic concern and that Dr. Etherege should do it in his own consulting room with the help of his private secretary. Naturally that’s impossible. All the material, including some on tape, is here. My part of the job is varied. For some of the time I take dictation. Sometimes I work in the little office typing directly from the tape. Sometimes I look up references in the staff library.”

  “And what did you do this evening?”

  “I took dictation for about thirty minutes. Then I went into the adjoining office and worked from the tape. Dr. Etherege rang me to come in at about ten to seven. We were working together when the phone rang.”

  “That would mean that you were with Dr. Etherege taking dictation until about six-thirty-five.”

  “Presumably.”

  “And for the whole of that time you were together?”

  “I think Dr. Etherege went out for a minute or so to verify a reference.”

  “Why should you be uncertain, Mrs. Bostock? Either he did or he didn’t.”

  “Naturally, Superintendent. As you say, either he did or he didn’t. But there is no reason why I should particularly remember. This evening was in no way remarkable. My impression is that he did go out for a short time but I really couldn’t recall exactly when. I expect he may be able to help you.”

  Suddenly Dalgliesh changed the course of questioning. He paused for a full half-minute and then asked quietly: “Did you like Miss Bolam, Mrs. Bostock?” It was not a welcome question. Under the patina of makeup he saw a flush of anger or embarrassment die along her neck.

  “She wasn’t an easy person to like. I tried to be loyal to her.”