Going Gently

by David Nobbs

  Kate and Graham only spent three nights apart in the whole of their married life. Kate had flu, and couldn’t accompany Graham on a trip to Copenhagen to see Timothy collect the Danish Detective Writers’ Award for his novel, Trouble in the Skagerrak. Maurice flew in from Moscow, Nigel from Cologne, and they all had a happy reunion without her, after which Graham stayed on to sort out some loose ends in the Sudsø affair. Kate couldn’t remember when she had last been ill, and she vowed never to be ill again.

  Maurice charged round the world, sometimes in Russia, sometimes reporting happily on the independence celebrations of nation after nation, but he always managed to see them, even if only briefly, with his attractive fiancée Clare, between assignments. Elizabeth and her rather dull husband Don came every now and then with the twins, although they really preferred Leatherhead to London. ‘A man who is tired of Leatherhead is tired of life, as Doctor Johnson never said,’ said Kate on one occasion, and Elizabeth, missing the point as usual, said, ‘It isn’t Leatherhead particularly that we like, it’s its position. It’s so handy for London and the south coast.’

  The one puzzling incident occurred at a publishers’ party for the publication of Timothy’s sixth book, Trouble at the Hockey Festival, a gripping yarn about the murder of a complete Spanish hockey team, all murdered so that nobody would be able to work out which of them was the intended victim. Nobody except Inspector Trouble, that is. The critics were beginning to ignore Timothy now, at just the moment when readers were beginning to turn to him.

  Graham was in a very solemn mood at the party, Kate remembered, almost as if he suspected that he was going to be murdered.

  ‘You’re very solemn tonight,’ Kate said.

  ‘I’m on to something big,’ he said.

  ‘A con?’

  ‘A con against the whole human race.’

  ‘Good Lord, is that all? Well, aren’t you going to tell me any more?’

  ‘Not at this stage. I want to be sure of my ground first.’ He saw the disappointment on her face. They were partners, after all. ‘I’ll tell you soon,’ he said. ‘Don’t I always? S’ssh! Timothy.’

  Timothy approached them, kissed his mother, shook hands with Graham, waved to one corner of the room, nodded to another corner, and made eye contact with a pretty young lady, all in one movement, very much the pumped-up celebrity of the night.

  ‘I can’t wait to read your book,’ said Graham.

  ‘Like fuck you can’t,’ said Timothy, and he turned away and stormed off.

  Kate chased after him.

  ‘What was all that about?’ she demanded.

  ‘Ask Graham.’

  She did.

  ‘I haven’t a clue,’ said Graham.

  Two days later he was dead. Kate had been shopping in Harrods’ Food Hall, which was just across the road. Venison. She remembered to this day what she had bought. Venison, which she would marinade in red wine and a little cinnamon. That was for tomorrow. For tonight there was sea-bass. They had only recently discovered sea-bass, which in those days was still not farmed, and tasted of . . . well, of sea-bass. They would have that tonight, grilled with fennel. She put both shopping bags in her left hand, unlocked the door with her right hand, entered the house, closed the door, walked across the hall, called out, ‘Are you home, darling?’, got no reply, assumed he wasn’t home, went into the kitchen, unloaded, opened the bottle of wine that she’d bought for the marinade because all the wine he’d bought would be too good for a marinade, got the cinnamon, marinaded the venison, made herself a cup of strong black coffee, and only then went into the sitting-room and saw him.

  He was sitting in his usual chair, and there was blood all down his shirt. Kate couldn’t see where the blood had come from, because his face was covered by a yellow page from Yellow Pages. She didn’t stop to think about evidence or fingerprints, she whipped the page off and let it flutter to the floor.

  Graham was staring at her with a look of deep surprise and shock frozen on his face. There was a single bullet hole in the centre of his forehead.

  Kate didn’t shout, ‘I’m free! I’m free!’ She screamed and collapsed in a faint, hitting her head on the edge of something sharp, so that when she came to she was bleeding quite badly, and there was blood on a huge wooden board, with two thick wooden legs, which was lying on the carpet. On the board, was a single word, in huge letters, LENINGRAD.

  Kate held her head back and pressed a handkerchief to it to staunch the flow of blood. It was a silk handkerchief initialled KE, given to her by Graham. She lifted the phone, dialled 999, and saw a single sheet of paper lying beside the phone. Neatly typed in capital letters, right in the middle of the page, were just two words: ‘Sorry, Ma’.

  15 Barry

  WELL, SHE’D GOT there. At last, in the early hours of her ninth day in hospital, the deed had been done. Graham was dead. Her investigations could begin.

  Ward 3C still slept, even if the sleep was not exactly peaceful, interrupted as it was by farts, burps, snores, moans, groans and the occasional cry from Angela Critchley.

  Kate opened her eyes cautiously, moved them to the right just a little. She really did feel that there was a little more movement in them. She tried to move her fingers and toes. They seemed an awfully long way away, but there did seem to be a little more movement there too. She was improving. She was on the mend. Nothing dramatic yet, but, yes, she really did feel hopeful.

  The sky lightened imperceptibly. She tried hard to catch it at its dawn games, but it was too wily for her. You watch a dark sky, you never see it get any lighter, you concentrate as hard as you can, there is never a particular moment in which the light increases, and yet suddenly it is morning. That was how it was that day. Kate found herself staring at a mottled, streaked October sky.

  ‘Rodney! Really! Not in the billiard room!’ Angela Critchley was waking up. It sometimes seemed to Kate that there was more consistency in Angela Critchley’s night-time world than in her waking one. She wondered if, because the waking moments of the insane were disordered, frightening and surreal, their dreams would reorder the disorder and so become sane and sensible. Maybe they dreamt of going shopping and getting all the groceries, or making pots of tea.

  Then there was a staccato fart. Dawn had broken, and so had Glenda’s wind. Kate recognised this as the waking-up fart. Soon they’d be in the throes of the day, she’d be back in the effluent society, listening to the enema variations, her only music now. There’d be the taking of temperatures, pulses and blood pressure, the enquiries about the movement of bowels, there’d be breakfast and lunch and visits by well-meaning clergymen. Kate closed her eyes, too tired for all that, and fell into a sound sleep.

  When she awoke it was early afternoon, and Timothy was with her. She still felt tired. Well, it wasn’t surprising. She’d spent a disturbed night, living with a man who was about to be murdered, going into their elegant sitting-room and seeing him there, staring at her, with a bullet hole in his forehead. It was enough to tire somebody a lot younger than ninety-nine.

  She wished that Timothy would go. She had so much thinking to do. At last he did go, and she wanted to cry, ‘Come back! Come back!’ She was too tired to think. She realised that she’d been picturing herself, as she played back the story of her life, as the beautiful woman she’d been. She was a shrunken collection of bones and creases. Her face was covered in fine lines, she was like stretched parchment, she’d looked old and frail before the stroke, what must she look like now? She recalled the story of the old woman who goes berserk and runs naked through an old people’s home. Two old ladies see her streak past. ‘What was that woman wearing?’ asks one. ‘I don’t know,’ says the other, ‘but whatever it was it needed ironing.’ The immensity of her task, the absurdity of her ambition overwhelmed her. She was delighted when Nigel arrived and gave her another excuse not to think.

  She found herself thinking, in spite of herself, about something that Nigel had said, here, in this ward, that might be very
significant. It hovered, just out of reach of her consciousness. It tormented her. She gave up.

  And then Nigel left and she was on her own and she knew that she must start. The beginning was always the hardest thing. With each book it had been so, and it was now. Where to begin?

  Then there was another visitor in the ward. She heard the clank of bottles, a stifled laugh, a man talking, Lily replying, and she welcomed the interruption, any interruption.

  A few minutes later, Lily had to go to the lavatory. The excitement of visitors often brought this on. The nurse – yet another nurse new to Kate, she hated it when the nurses were new – led Lily away.

  The moment she had gone, the man addressed the ward.

  ‘Good evening, ladies,’ he said. ‘While we’re on our own, there’s something I’d like to say. My name is Barry Stannidge, by the way. I’m Lily’s son. I was in France, unfortunately, in Sarlat-la-Canéda, well, I think they just call it Sarlat really, and I keep in touch with the warden at my mother’s sheltered flat, he’s very good, he phoned me after she’d collapsed, I was with a friend, I left her and got the TGV back home and here I am. Erm . . . I know that you’re going to make my mother very happy here.’

  ‘We’ll certainly try,’ said Glenda, and Kate felt grateful.

  ‘We certainly will,’ said Angela Critchley. ‘It’s not her fault there’s been a mess-up with the bookings.’

  Barry lowered his voice. ‘My mother led a good life,’ he said. ‘In the later years she and my father went on cruises. Cruises to places like Greece and Italy and Turkey. My mother loved ruins, and now, sadly, she’s one herself. In recent times, since my father died, my mother has not been able to afford cruises. She has sailed only on the Sea of Gin. She has called in, occasionally, to those fine Italian ports, Campari, Cinzano and Martini. In France she has dallied a while in Noilly Prat.’

  Kate wanted to applaud. He sounded kind and she liked his style. But of course she couldn’t let her guard slip. What a burden is a guard.

  ‘My point is that I have here bottles,’ said kindly, stylish Barry. ‘They do not contain water. I hope I can rely on your discretion, and I hope that my mother won’t be a nuisance.’

  ‘ “Gin”, did you say?’ asked Angela Critchley.

  ‘Would you like one?’

  ‘Er . . . I would. I’d like that very much, but I haven’t any money on me at the moment. In the old days, in Luigi’s day, I could have things on tick, as I think it was called. Not any more. The personal touch has gone.’

  ‘I’ll buy you this round,’ said Barry.

  ‘Oh, thank you, thank you. Bless you, you kind man,’ said Angela Critchley.

  Kate could have quite fancied a nice gin herself. Plymouth, of course.

  ‘Is it Plymouth?’ asked Angela Critchley, and Kate felt a little frisson of shock.

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘No matter.’

  ‘Just hang on a moment,’ said Barry. ‘I hear the nurse returning. Our little secret, eh?’

  Kate sensed a conspiratorial thrill run through the ward.

  The nurse returned with Lily, and it took a while to get her into bed. At last the nurse had gone, and Kate heard the delightful sound of gin being poured. Curlews trilling, streams burbling, gin being poured – just three of this rich old world’s delightful sounds.

  ‘Cheers,’ said Angela Critchley.

  ‘Cheers.’ This was Barry.

  ‘Cheers.’ Lily.

  ‘Idle talk costs lives,’ said Glenda.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said Barry.

  ‘One careless word can bring the whole edifice tumbling down,’ said Glenda.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’

  ‘Oh! Well . . . I hope you don’t think I was hinting! . . . No, but yes, I would if I could,’ said Glenda. ‘I don’t see that it can do any harm. I’m not ill, though the doctor thinks I am, and I’m hardly likely to see anyone I know here, except Douglas, and he won’t mind. Besides, the sun has gone down over the yard-arm. Yes, I think a weak gin and tonic would be very acceptable. Not too weak, of course.’

  Kate heard another gin being poured.

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘No, she’s paralysed, poor thing.’

  So paralysed Kate, poor thing, had to listen to the swigging of gin and she thought of her dear parents, sweet gentle Bronwen, dear stern John Thomas, and she thought, Mother darling, dearest Father, I’m so glad you can’t see into my soul now and realise how much I crave a tumbler of gin at this moment.

  Her body screamed for gin. How could she ever embark on her investigations without it? How can you think without fuel?

  ‘I’m hiding the bottles now, Mum,’ said Barry to his mother, and to the ward he said, ‘She gets confused about a lot of things, but never about her gin. It’s sad, but it’s her raison d’être.’

  Shortly after Barry had hidden the bottles, Doctor Ramgobi arrived on his evening rounds.

  As Lily had a visitor he began with Kate. Kate thought his checks were becoming slightly more perfunctory. She was beginning to be taken for granted. In no time at all he’d moved on to Angela Critchley.

  ‘And how’s Mrs Critchley this evening?’ he enquired.

  ‘In the pink, doctor,’ said Angela Critchley.

  ‘Ah!’ said Doctor Ramgobi. ‘You know I’m a doctor, then.’

  ‘Well, of course I do,’ said Angela Critchley. ‘What else would you be?’

  ‘Well, the other day you thought I was room service,’ said Doctor Ramgobi.

  ‘We’ve had room service,’ said Angela Critchley. ‘I had a gin and tonic.’

  ‘I hope you had lemon with it,’ said Doctor Ramgobi jocularly.

  ‘I certainly did,’ said Angela Critchley. ‘It wasn’t Plymouth, and there was no ice, but it was just the strength I like.’

  ‘Jolly good,’ said Doctor Ramgobi.

  ‘We’ve all had gin and tonics, doctor,’ said Lily Stannidge.

  ‘Of course you have,’ said Doctor Ramgobi. ‘You’ve all had gin and tonics just the strength you like.’

  The doctor cut short his evening visit. Kate could just picture the scene, the patients happy and smiling, Doctor Ramgobi beaming with delight as he humoured them and then beetling off while the going was good, as fast as his little legs would carry him. (She pictured him as having little legs. She hoped he had little legs.)

  Soon after that, Barry left, and soon after that the ward was being settled down for the night.

  As the long hospital night began, Kate realised why she was experiencing such difficulty in starting her investigations. She was starting too soon. Many extraordinary things were said to her, in the days after Graham’s death. She needed to sift through all those. Inspector Crouch interviewed her several times (well, he would, thoroughness being his middle name). She needed to go through those interviews with a fine-tooth comb. Tomorrow would provide an awesome challenge. But tonight, tonight she could enjoy herself. Tonight she could wallow in another chapter in the saga of her life, and – imagine this – it was a chapter with a happy ending! She felt exhilarated, as if she’d had a gin and tonic.

  16 Michael

  ‘PLEASE DON’T SIT there,’ said Kate. ‘That’s the chair in which he was murdered.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right,’ said Inspector Crouch, sinking into the chair with a weary sigh. ‘Its pathological evidence has been exhausted.’

  ‘I meant,’ said Kate sharply, ‘that it’s offensive to me.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Inspector Crouch. He stood up rapidly. He was a man of medium height with a wide face and very bushy eyebrows below straggly dark hair very carefully arranged to hide his spreading baldness. He was wearing a pale grey suit that showed every mark and fitted him atrociously, being far too tight around his bulky backside. ‘So sorry. The wife always says that tact is my Achilles heel. Where do you want me to sit?’

  ‘Nowhere, frankly. I’m in deep shock, inspector, and when I recover from the s
hock I shall be shattered by grief.’

  ‘Of course. Of course. Daresay I’d be pretty shocked if I went in our lounge and there was the wife murdered. Might I sit here?’

  He indicated a Hepplewhite chair that Kate felt to be far too delicate for anyone who used that odious term, ‘the wife’.

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He plonked himself in it. She flinched, but the chair stood up to it. Kate of the One Settee settled herself on her one settee.

  He smiled. She preferred it when he didn’t smile.

  ‘I don’t know if you are familiar with murder inquiries,’ he said.

  ‘Only from my son’s books, and I can’t finish them.’

  ‘I never read detective fiction. It makes my blood boil. It’s so unlike my dull life. Madam, I have to tell you that everything you say will be taken down and may be used in evidence against you.’

  ‘Am I a suspect?’

  ‘Oh no, madam. Not as such.’

  ‘What do you mean – “as such”?’

  ‘I have no reason to assume that you murdered your husband, but everyone is presumed guilty until found innocent.’

  ‘I thought it was the other way round.’

  ‘That bit comes later.’

  An attractive young lady with muscular calves came in, sat on the matching Hepplewhite chair, and took notes. The inspector led Kate through the whole story of her relationship with Graham from their first meeting to the discovery of the body. When she hesitated, he probed.