A Mind to Murder

by P. D. James

  Dalgliesh did not ask whom Miss Bolam had told. He said: “It was obviously something concerned with the administration of the clinic. Had anything unusual happened lately?”

  “Nothing but our famous burglary and the missing fifteen quid. But you know about that.”

  “That’s nothing to do with Peter,” said the girl with quick defensiveness. “He wasn’t even at the clinic when the fifteen pounds arrived.” She turned to Nagle. “You remember, darling? That was the morning you got stuck in the Underground. You didn’t even know about the money!”

  She had said something wrong. The flash of irritation in those large, mud-brown eyes was momentary, but Dalgliesh did not miss it. There was a pause before Nagle spoke, but his voice was perfectly controlled.

  “I knew soon enough. We all did. What with the fuss over who sent it and the row over who was to spend it, the whole damn group must have known.” He looked at Dalgliesh. “Is that all?”

  “No. Do you know who killed Miss Bolam?”

  “I’m glad to say I don’t. I shouldn’t think it was one of the psychiatrists. Those boys are the strongest reason I know for staying sane. But I can’t see any of them actually killing. They haven’t the nerve.”

  Someone very different had said much the same thing. As he reached the door, Dalgliesh paused and looked back at Nagle. He and the girl were sitting together on the bed as he had first seen them; neither of them made any move to see him out, but Jenny gave him her happy valedictory smile.

  Dalgliesh asked his last question: “Why did you go for a drink with Cully on the night of the burglary?”

  “Cully asked me.”

  “Wasn’t that unusual?”

  “So unusual that I went with him out of curiosity to see what was up.”

  “And what was?”

  “Nothing really. Cully asked me to lend him a quid which I refused and, while the clinic was left empty, someone broke in. I don’t see how Cully could have foreseen that. Or maybe he did. Anyway, I can’t see what it’s got to do with the murder.”

  Nor, on the face of it, could Dalgliesh. As he passed down the stairs, he was vexed by the thought of time passing, time wasted, the drag of hours before Monday morning when the clinic would reopen and his suspects reassemble in the place where they were likely to be most vulnerable. But the last forty minutes had been well spent. He was beginning to trace the dominant thread in this tangled skein. As he passed by the third-floor flat, the pianist was playing Bach. Dalgliesh paused for a moment to listen. Contrapuntal music was the only kind he truly enjoyed. But the pianist stopped suddenly with a crash of discordant keys. And then nothing. Dalgliesh passed down the stairs in silence and left the quiet house unseen.

  When Dr. Baguley arrived at the clinic for the Medical Committee meeting, the parking space reserved for doctors’ cars was already occupied. Dr. Etherege’s Bentley was there parked next to Steiner’s Rolls. On the other side of it was the battered Vauxhall which proclaimed that Dr. Albertine Maddox had decided to attend.

  Upstairs in the first-floor boardroom the curtains were drawn against the blue-black October sky. In the middle of the heavy mahogany table was a bowl of roses. Baguley remembered that Miss Bolam had always supplied flowers for the meetings of the Medical Committee. Someone had decided to continue the practice. The roses were the slim, hothouse buds of autumn, rigid and scentless on their thornless stems. In a couple of days they would open for their brief and barren flowering. In less than a week they would be dead. Baguley thought that so extravagant and evocative a flower was inappropriate to the mood of the meeting. But the empty bowl would have been unbearably poignant and embarrassing.

  “Who supplied the roses?” he asked.

  “Mrs. Bostock, I think,” said Dr. Ingram. “She was up here getting the room ready when I arrived.”

  “Remarkable,” said Dr. Etherege. He put out a finger and stroked one of the buds so gently that the stem did not even tremble. Baguley wondered whether the comment referred to the quality of the roses or to Mrs. Bostock’s perspicacity in supplying them.

  “Miss Bolam was very fond of flowers, very fond,” said the medical director. He looked round as if challenging his colleagues to disagree.

  “Well,” he said. “Shall we get started?” Dr. Baguley, as honorary secretary, seated himself on the right of Dr. Etherege. Dr. Steiner took the chair next to him. Dr. Maddox sat on Steiner’s right. No other consultant was there. Dr. McBain and Dr. Mason-Giles were in the States attending a conference. The rest of the medical staff, torn between curiosity and a disinclination to interrupt their weekend break, had apparently decided to wait in patience for Monday. Dr. Etherege had thought it proper to telephone them all and let them know of the meeting. He gave their apologies formally and they were as gravely received.

  Albertine Maddox had been a surgeon and a highly successful one before she qualified as a psychiatrist. It was perhaps typical of her colleagues’ ambivalence towards their specialty that Dr. Maddox’s double qualification enhanced her standing in their eyes. She represented the clinic on the Group Medical Advisory Committee, where she defended the Steen against the occasional snipings of physicians and surgeons with a wit and vigour which made her respected and feared. At the clinic she took no part in the Freudian versus eclectic controversy being, as Baguley observed, equally beastly to both sides. Her patients loved her but this did not impress her colleagues. They were used to being loved by their patients and merely observed that Albertine was particularly skilful in handling a strong transference situation. Physically she was a plump, grey-haired, unremarkable woman who looked what she was, the comfortable mother of a family. She had five children, the sons intelligent and prosperous, the girls well-married. Her insignificant-looking husband and the children treated her with a tolerant, faintly amused solicitude which never failed to astonish her colleagues at the Steen to whom she was a formidable personality. She sat now, with Hector, her old Pekinese, squatting malevolently on her lap, looking as comfortably anticipatory as a suburban housewife at a matinée.

  Dr. Steiner said testily: “Really, Albertine, need you have brought Hector? I don’t want to be unkind but that animal is beginning to smell. You should have him put down.”

  “Thank you, Paul,” replied Dr. Maddox in her deep, beautifully modulated voice. “Hector will be put down, as you so euphemistically describe it, when he ceases to find life pleasant. I judge that he has not yet reached that state. It is not my habit to kill off living creatures simply because I find certain of their physical characteristics displeasing; nor, I may say, because they have become somewhat of a nuisance.”

  Dr. Etherege said quickly: “It was good of you to find time to come tonight, Albertine. I’m sorry that the notice was so short.”

  He spoke without irony, although he was as well aware as were his colleagues that Dr. Maddox only attended one committee meeting in four on the grounds, which she made no effort to conceal, that her contract with the Regional Board contained no clause compelling her to a monthly session of boredom laced with claptrap, and that the company of more than one psychiatrist at a time made Hector sick. The truth of this last assertion had been demonstrated too often to be safely challenged.

  “I am a member of this committee, Henry,” replied Dr. Maddox graciously. “Is there any reason why I should not make the effort to attend?”

  Her glance at Dr. Ingram implied that not everyone present had an equal right. Mary Ingram was the wife of a suburban general practitioner and attended the Steen twice a week to give the anaesthetic at ECT sessions. Not being either a psychiatrist or a consultant she was not normally present at meetings of the Medical Committee.

  Dr. Etherege interpreted the glance correctly and said firmly: “Dr. Ingram has been good enough to come along tonight at my request. The main business of the meeting is naturally concerned with Miss Bolam’s murder and Dr. Ingram was in the clinic on Friday evening.”

  “But is not a suspect, so I understand,” replied Dr
. Maddox. “I congratulate her. It is gratifying that there is one member of the medical staff who has been able to produce a satisfactory alibi.”

  She looked at Dr. Ingram severely, her tone implying that an alibi was, in itself, suspicious and hardly becoming to the most junior member of the staff since three senior consultants had been unable to produce one. No one asked how Dr. Maddox knew about the alibi. Presumably she had been speaking to Sister Ambrose.

  Dr. Steiner said pettishly: “It’s ridiculous to talk about alibis as if the police could seriously suspect one of us! It’s perfectly obvious to me what happened. The murderer was lying in wait for her in the basement. We know that. He may have been hidden down there for hours, perhaps even since the previous day. He could have slipped past Cully with one of the patients or have pretended to be a relative or a hospital-car attendant. He could even have broken in during the night. That has been known, after all. Once in the basement there would be plenty of time to discover which key opened the record-room door and plenty of time to select a weapon. Neither the fetish nor the chisel were hidden.”

  “And how do you suggest this unknown murderer left the building?” asked Dr. Baguley. “We searched the place pretty thoroughly before the police arrived and they went over it again. The basement and first-floor doors were both bolted on the inside, remember.”

  “Climbed up the lift shaft by the pulley ropes and out through one of the doors leading to the fire escape,” replied Dr. Steiner, playing his trump card with a certain panache. “I’ve examined the lift and it’s just possible. A small man—or a woman, of course—could squeeze over the top of the box and get into the shaft. The ropes are quite thick enough to support a considerable weight and the climb wouldn’t be too difficult for anyone reasonably agile. They’d need to be slim, of course.” He glanced at his own rounding paunch with complacency.

  “It’s a pleasant theory,” said Baguley. “Unfortunately all the doors opening on the fire escape were also bolted on the inside.”

  “There is no building in existence which a desperate and experienced man cannot break into or get out of,” proclaimed Dr. Steiner, as if from a plenitude of experience. “He could have got out of a first-floor window and edged along the sill until he could get a foothold on the fire escape. All I’m saying is that the murderer isn’t necessarily one of the staff who happened to be on duty yesterday evening.”

  “It could be I, for example,” said Dr. Maddox. Dr. Steiner was undaunted.

  “That, of course, is nonsense, Albertine. I make no accusations. I merely point out that the circle of suspects is less restricted than the police seem to think. They should direct their inquiries to Miss Bolam’s private life. Obviously she had an enemy.”

  But Dr. Maddox was not to be diverted. “Fortunately for me,” she proclaimed, “I was at the Bach recital at the Royal Festival Hall last night with my husband and dined there before the concert. And while Alasdair’s testimony on my behalf might be suspect, I was also with my brother-in-law who happens to be a bishop. A High Church bishop,” she added complacently, as if incense and chasuble set a seal on episcopal virtue and veracity.

  Dr. Etherege smiled gently and said: “I should be relieved if I could produce even an evangelical curate to vouch for me between six-fifteen and seven o’clock yesterday evening. But isn’t all this theorizing a waste of time? The crime is in the hands of the police and there we must leave it. Our main concern is to discuss its implications for the work of the clinic and, in particular, the suggestion of the chairman and the group secretary that Mrs. Bostock should carry on for the present as acting administrative officer. But we’d better proceed in order. Is it your pleasure that I sign the minutes of the last meeting?”

  There was the unenthusiastic but acquiescent mumble which this question usually provokes and the medical director drew the minute book towards him and signed. Dr. Maddox said suddenly: “What is he like? This superintendent, I mean.”

  Dr. Ingram, who hadn’t so far spoken, surprisingly replied: “He’s about forty, I should think. Tall and dark. I liked his voice and he has nice hands.” Then she blushed furiously, remembering that, to a psychiatrist, the most innocent remark could be embarrassingly revealing. That comment about nice hands was, perhaps, a mistake.

  Dr. Steiner, ignoring Dalgliesh’s physical characteristics, launched into a psychological assessment of the superintendent to which his fellow psychiatrists gave the polite attention of experts interested in a colleague’s theories. Dalgliesh, had he been present, would have been surprised and intrigued by the accuracy and percipience of Dr. Steiner’s diagnosis.

  The medical director said: “I agree that he’s obsessional and also that he’s intelligent. That means that his mistakes will be the mistakes of an intelligent man—always the most dangerous. We must hope for all our sakes that he makes none. The murder, and the inevitable publicity, are bound to have an effect on the patients and on the work of the clinic. And that brings us to this suggestion about Mrs. Bostock.”

  “I have always preferred Bolam to Bostock,” said Dr. Maddox. “It would be a pity if we lost one unsuitable AO—however regrettably and fortuitously—only to be saddled with another.”

  “I agree,” said Dr. Baguley. “Of the two I personally always preferred Bolam. But this would only be a temporary arrangement presumably. The job will have to be advertised. In the meantime someone’s got to take over and Mrs. Bostock does at least know the work.”

  Dr. Etherege said: “Lauder made it plain that the HMC wouldn’t favour putting in an outsider until the police have finished their investigation, even if they could find anyone willing to come. We don’t want any additional upheaval. There will be enough disturbance to cope with. And that brings me to the problem of the press. Lauder suggested, and I have agreed, that all inquiries are referred to Group Headquarters and that no one here makes any statements. It seems much the best plan. It’s important in the interests of the patients that we don’t have reporters running all over the clinic. Therapy is likely to suffer enough without that. Have I this committee’s formal confirmation of the decision?”

  He had. No one evinced any enthusiasm for coping with the press.

  Dr. Steiner did not contribute to the general murmur of consent. His thoughts were still with the problem of Miss Bolam’s successor. He said querulously: “I can’t understand why Dr. Maddox and Dr. Baguley have this animus against Mrs. Bostock. I’ve noticed it before. It’s ridiculous to compare her adversely with Miss Bolam. There’s no doubt which of them is—was—is—the more suitable administrator. Mrs. Bostock is a highly intelligent woman, psychologically stable, efficient and with a real appreciation of the importance of the work we do here. No one could have said as much of Miss Bolam. Her attitude to the patients was sometimes most unfortunate.”

  “I didn’t know that she came into contact much with the patients,” said Dr. Baguley. “Anyway, none of mine complained.”

  “She made appointments occasionally and paid out travelling expenses. I can quite believe that your patients didn’t remark on her attitude. But mine are a rather different class. They’re also more sensitive to these things. Mr. Burge, for example, mentioned the matter to me.”

  Dr. Maddox laughed unkindly. “Oh, Burge! Is he still coming? I see that his new opus is promised for December. It will be interesting to see, Paul, whether your efforts have improved his prose. If so, it’s probably public money well spent.”

  Dr. Steiner burst into pained expostulation. He treated a fair number of writers and artists, some of them protégés of Rosa in search of a little free psychotherapy. Although he was sensitive to the arts, his usually keen critical insight failed completely where his patients were concerned. He could not bear to hear them criticized, lived in perpetual hope that their great talents would at last be recognized and was roused to quick, defensive anger on their behalf. Dr. Baguley thought that it was one of Steiner’s more endearing qualities; in many ways he was touchingly naïve. He launched
now into a muddled defence of both his patient’s character and his prose style, ending: “Mr. Burge is a most talented and sensitive man, very distressed by his inability to sustain a satisfactory sexual relationship, particularly with his wives.”

  This unfortunate solecism seemed likely to provoke Dr. Maddox to further unkindness. It was certainly, thought Baguley, her night to be pro-eclectic.

  Dr. Etherege said mildly: “Could we forget our professional differences for a moment and concentrate on the matter in hand? Dr. Steiner, have you any objection to accepting Mrs. Bostock as a temporary administrative officer?”

  Dr. Steiner said grumpily: “The question is purely academic. If the group secretary wishes her to be appointed, she will be appointed. This farce of appearing to consult us is ridiculous. We have no authority either to approve or disapprove. That was made perfectly clear to me by Lauder when I approached him last month about getting Bolam transferred.”

  “I didn’t know you had approached him,” said Dr. Etherege.

  “I spoke to him after the September meeting of the House Committee. It was merely a tentative suggestion.”

  “And was met with a pretty positive brush off, no doubt,” said Baguley. “You would have been wiser to keep your mouth shut.”

  “Or to have brought the matter before this committee,” said Etherege.

  “And with what result?” cried Steiner. “What happened last time I complained about Bolam? Nothing! You all admitted that she was an unsuitable person to hold the post of administrative officer. You all agreed—well, most of you agreed—that Bostock—or even an outsider—would be preferable. But when it came to action, not one of you was prepared to put your signature to a letter to the Hospital Management Committee. And you know very well why! You were all terrified of that woman. Yes, terrified!”