The Private Patient

by P. D. James

  Barely conscious, she slumped against the rope and waited for death: Mary Keyte’s death. And then she heard what sounded like a sob followed by a great cry. It couldn’t be her voice; she had no voice. And then the can of paraffin was lifted and flung towards the hedge. She saw an arc of fire and the hedge exploded into flame.

  And now she was alone. Half-fainting, she began pulling at the cord round her neck, but there was no strength to lift her arms. The crowd had gone now. The fire was beginning to die. She slumped against her bonds, her legs buckling, and knew nothing more.

  Suddenly there were voices, a blaze of torches dazzling her eyes. Someone was vaulting over the stone wall, running to get her, leaping over the dying fire. There were arms round her, a man’s arms, and she heard his voice.

  ‘You’re all right. You’re safe. Sharon, can you understand me? You’re safe.’

  5

  They had heard the sound of the departing car even before they reached the stones. There was no point in making a desperate dash to follow. Sharon had been the top priority. Now Dalgliesh said to Kate, ‘Look after things here, will you? Get a statement as soon as Chandler-Powell says she’s fit. Benton and I will go after Miss Westhall.’

  The four security men, alerted by the flames, were coping with the blazing hedge, which, dampened by the earlier rain, was quickly subdued into charred twigs and acrid smoke. Now low cloud slid from the face of the moon and the night became numinous. The stones, silvered in the moon’s aberrant light, shone like spectral tombs and the figures, which Dalgliesh knew were Helena, Lettie and the Bostocks, became discarnate shapes disappearing into the darkness. He watched while Chandler-Powell, hieratic in his long dressing gown, with Flavia at his side, carried Sharon over the wall and then they, too, disappeared into the lime walk. He was aware of someone who remained and now, suddenly in the moonlight, Marcus Westhall’s face seemed a disembodied floating image, the face of a dead man.

  Moving up to him, Dalgliesh said, ‘Where is she likely to go? We have to know. Nothing is served by delay.’

  Marcus’s voice, when it came, was hoarse. ‘She’ll go to the sea. She loves the sea. She’ll go where she likes to swim. Kimmeridge Bay.’

  Benton had rapidly pulled on trousers and had struggled into a thick jersey as he ran towards the fire. Now Dalgliesh called out to him. ‘Do you remember the number of Candace Westhall’s car?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Get on to the local traffic division. They’ll start the search. Suggest they try Kimmeridge. We’ll use the Jag.’

  ‘Right, sir.’ Benton was off, running strongly.

  But now Marcus had found his voice. He stumbled after Dalgliesh, clumsy as an old man, shouting hoarsely, ‘I’m coming with you. Wait for me! Wait for me!’

  ‘There’s no point. In the end she will be found.’

  ‘I have to come. I need to be there when you find her.’

  Dalgliesh wasted no time in argument. Marcus Westhall had a right to be with them and could be helpful in identifying the right stretch of beach. He said, ‘Get a warm coat, but hurry.’

  His car was the fastest, but speed was hardly important, nor was it possible on the winding country road. It could be too late now to get to the sea before she walked to her death, if drowning was what she had in mind. It was impossible to know if her brother was speaking the truth but, remembering his anguished face, Dalgliesh thought that he probably was. Benton took only minutes fetching the Jaguar from the Old Police Cottage and was waiting as Dalgliesh and Westhall reached the road. Without speaking he opened the back door for Westhall to get in, then followed him. Apparently this passenger was too unpredictable to be left alone in the back of a car.

  Benton took out his torch and gave directions for their route. The smell of paraffin from Dalgliesh’s clothes and hands filled the car. He lowered the window and the night air, cold and sweet, filled his lungs. The narrow country roads, rising and falling, uncurled before them. On either side Dorset stretched away, its valleys and hills, the small villages, the stone cottages. There was little traffic in this, the dead of night. All the houses were in darkness.

  And now he could smell a change in the air, a freshness which was more a sensation than a smell but to him unmistakable: the salt tang of the sea. The lane narrowed as they descended through the silent village and then on to the quayside at Kimmeridge Bay. Before them the sea shimmered under the stars and the moon. Whenever Dalgliesh was in reach of the sea he felt himself drawn to it like an animal to a pool of water. Here, down the centuries since man first stood upright on a shore, its immemorial plangency, unfailing, unseeing, uncaring, caught at so many emotions, not least, as now, the awareness of the transience of human life. They moved eastward to the beach under the looming blackness of the shale cliff, rising dark as coal and tufted at its base with grass and bushes. The slabs of black shale ran out to sea in a pathway of sea-splashed rocks. The waves slid over them, hissing their retreat. In the moonlight they glistened like polished ebony.

  They crunched on by the light of their torches, sweeping them over the beach and the causeway of black shale. Marcus Westhall, who had been silent on the journey, seemed now revitalised and plunged on through the pebbled fringe of shoreline as if tireless. They rounded a promontory and were faced by another narrow beach, another stretch of black fissured rocks. They found nothing.

  And now they could go no further. The beach ended and the cliffs, sloping to the sea, barred their way.

  Dalgliesh said, ‘She’s not here. We could try the other beach.’

  Westhall’s voice, raised against the rhythmic boom of the sea, was a hoarse cry. ‘She doesn’t swim there. It’s here she’d come. She’s out there somewhere.’

  Dalgliesh said calmly, ‘We’ll renew the search in daylight. I think this is where we call a halt.’

  But Westhall was again making his way over the rocks, precariously balancing, until he was on the edge of the breaking tide. And there he stood, outlined against the horizon. Glancing at each other, Dalgliesh and Benton leaped carefully over the tide-swept slabs towards him. Westhall didn’t turn. The sea, under a mottled sky in which low clouds were dulling the brightness of starlight and the moon, looked to Dalgliesh like an unending cauldron of dirty bathwater, heaving with soapsuds which drifted into the crevices in the rocks like scum. The tide was running strongly and he could see that Westhall’s trousers were soaking and, as he reached his side, a sudden full-bellied wave broke over the legs of the rigid figure, nearly knocking them both from the rock. Dalgliesh grasped his arm, steadying him. He said quietly, ‘Come away now. She isn’t here. There’s nothing you can do.’

  Without a word, Westhall allowed himself to be helped across the treacherous stretch of shale and gently urged into the car.

  They were halfway to the Manor when the radio crackled. It was DC Warren. ‘We’ve found the car, sir. She didn’t go further than Baggot’s Wood, less than half a mile from the Manor. We’re searching the wood now.’

  ‘Was the car open?’

  ‘No, sir, locked. And there’s no sign of anything inside.’

  ‘Right. Go ahead and I’ll join you.’

  It was not a search to which he looked forward. As she had parked the car and hadn’t used the exhaust to kill herself the chances were that this was a hanging. Hanging had always horrified him, and not only because it had been for so long the British method of execution. However mercifully carried out there was something peculiarly degrading in the inhuman stringing up of another human being. He had little doubt now that Candace Westhall had killed herself but, please God, not that way.

  Without turning his head, he said to Westhall, ‘The local police have found your sister’s car. She isn’t there. I’ll take you back to the Manor now. You need to get dry and changed. Now you must wait. There’s absolutely no point in doing anything else.’

  There was no reply, but when the gates were opened for them and they drew up at the front door, Westhall allowed himself t
o be led in by Benton and handed over to the waiting Lettie Frensham. He followed her like an obedient child into the library. There was a pile of blankets and a rug warming before a roaring fire and brandy and whisky on the table beside a fireside chair.

  She said, ‘I think you’d be better with some of Dean’s soup. He has it ready. But now take off your jacket and trousers and wrap these blankets round you. I’ll fetch your slippers and dressing gown.’

  He said dully, ‘They’re somewhere in the bedroom.’

  ‘I’ll find them.’

  Docile as a child he did as he was told. The trousers, like a pile of rags, steamed before the leaping flames. He sank back into the chair. He felt like a man coming out of an anaesthetic, surprised to find that he could move, reconciling himself to being alive, wishing that he could relapse into unconsciousness because that way the pain would stop. But he must have slept in the armchair for a few minutes. Opening his eyes he saw Lettie beside him. She helped him into his dressing gown and slippers. Soup in a mug appeared before him, hot and strong tasting, and he found that he could drink it, although he noticed only the taste of sherry.

  After a time, during which she sat beside him in silence, he said, ‘There’s something I have to tell you. I shall have to tell Dalgliesh but I need to say it now. I need to tell you.’

  He looked into her face and saw the tension in her eyes, the dawning anxiety over what she might be about to hear.

  He said, ‘I know nothing of Rhoda Gradwyn’s or Robin’s murders. It isn’t that. But I lied to the police. It wasn’t because the car was causing problems that I didn’t stay with the Greenfields that night. I left to see a friend, Eric. He has a flat close to St Angela’s Hospital where he works. I wanted to break the news that I was going to Africa. I knew it would distress him but I had to try to make him understand.’

  She said quietly, ‘And did he?’

  ‘No, not really. I messed that up as I do everything.’

  Lettie touched his hand. ‘I shouldn’t worry the police with that unless you need to or they ask. It won’t be important to them now.’

  ‘It is to me.’

  There was a silence, then he said, ‘Please leave me now. I’m all right. I promise I’m all right. I need to be alone. Just let me know when they find her.’

  He could be sure that Lettie was the one woman who would understand his need to be left in peace and wouldn’t argue. She said, ‘I’ll turn the lights low.’ She placed a cushion on a stool. ‘Lie back and put your feet up. I’ll be back in an hour. Try to sleep.’

  And then she was gone. But he had no intention of sleeping. Sleep had to be fought off. There was only one place where he needed to be if he was to stop himself from going mad. He had to think. He had to try to understand. He had to accept what his mind told him was true. He had to be where he found a greater peace and a surer wisdom than he could find here among these dead books and the empty eyes of the busts.

  He made his way quietly out of the room, closing the door behind him, through the great hall, now in darkness, and to the back of the house, past the kitchen and through the side door into the garden. He neither felt the strength of the wind nor the cold. He passed the old stables then through the formal garden to the stone chapel.

  As he approached through the dawning light, he saw that there was a dark shape on the stones outside the door. Something had been spilled, something which shouldn’t be there. Confused, he knelt down and touched its stickiness with trembling fingers. And then he could smell it and, raising his hands, saw that they were covered with blood. He struggled forward on his knees and, willing himself to stand, managed to raise the latch. The door was bolted. And then he knew. He beat against it, sobbing, calling her name until his strength gave out and he sank slowly to his knees, his red palms pressed against the unyielding wood.

  And it was there, still kneeling in her blood, that the searchers found him twenty minutes later.

  6

  Both Kate and Benton had been on duty for over fourteen hours and when the body had finally been removed, Dalgliesh had ordered them to rest for two hours, eat an early supper and join him in the Old Police Cottage at eight o’clock. Neither spent those two hours in sleep. In his darkening room, the window open to the fading light, Benton lay as rigidly as if nerves and muscles were tensed, ready at any moment to spring into action. The hours since the moment when, answering Dalgliesh’s call, they had first glimpsed the fire and heard Sharon’s screams seemed an eternity in which the longueurs of waiting for the pathologist, the photographer, the mortuary van, were interposed with moments so vividly recalled that he felt they were being clicked onto his brain like slides on a screen: the gentleness of Chandler-Powell and Sister Holland, half-carrying Sharon over the stone wall and supporting her down the lime avenue; Marcus standing alone on the slab of black shale, looking out over the grey pulsating sea; the photographer carefully mincing his way round the body to avoid the blood; the crack of the finger joints as Dr Glenister broke them one by one and forced the tape from Candace’s grip. He lay there, unaware of tiredness but feeling still the pain of his bruised upper arm and shoulder from that final lunge at the chapel door.

  He and Dalgliesh together had strained their shoulders against the oak but the bolt hadn’t yielded. Dalgliesh had said ‘We’re getting in each other’s way. Take a run at it, Benton.’

  He had taken his time over it, choosing a line which would avoid the blood, walking back some fifteen yards. The first assault had shaken the door. At the third attempt it had burst open against the body. Then he had stood back while Dalgliesh and Kate entered first.

  She had been lying, curled like a sleeping child, the knife beside her right hand. There was only one cut in her wrist but it was deep, gaping like an open mouth. Grasped in her left hand was a cassette.

  The image was shattered by the clatter of his alarm and Kate’s loud knock on the door. He sprang into action. Within minutes both of them were dressed and downstairs. Mrs Shepherd placed sizzling pork sausages, baked beans and mashed potato on the table and distanced herself in the kitchen. It wasn’t a meal she usually served but she seemed to know that what they craved was hot comfort food. They were surprised to find themselves so hungry and ate avidly, mostly in silence, then set out together for the Old Police Cottage.

  Passing the Manor, Benton saw that the security team’s caravan and cars were no longer parked outside. The windows blazed with light as if for a celebration. It was not a word any of the household would have used but Benton knew that a great weight had been lifted from all of them, a final loosening of fear, suspicion and the deepening anxiety that the truth might never be known. The arrest of one of them would have been preferable to that, but an arrest would have meant prolonging the suspense, the prospect of a national trial, the public show of the witness box, the damaging publicity. A confession followed by suicide was the rational and – they would be able to tell themselves – the most merciful solution for Candace. It was not a thought they would voice but Benton, when he returned to the Manor with Marcus, had seen it in their faces. Now they would be able to wake in the morning without the descending cloud of fear of what that day might bring, could sleep behind unlocked bedroom doors, need not measure their words. Tomorrow or the day after they would see the end of the police presence. Dalgliesh and his team would have to return to Dorset for the inquest, but there was nothing left for the team to do now at the Manor. They would not be missed.

  Three copies of the suicide tape had been made and authenticated and the original was in the custody of the Dorset police to be submitted as an exhibit at the inquest. Now they would listen again as a team.

  It was apparent to Kate that Dalgliesh had not slept. The fire had been stacked with logs, the flames leaping, and as usual there was a smell of burning wood and freshly made coffee, but no wine. They sat at the table and he placed the tape in the machine and turned it on. Candace Westhall’s voice was expected, but it was so clear and confident that for
a moment Kate could believe she was in the room with them.

  ‘I am speaking to Commander Adam Dalgliesh in the knowledge that this tape will be passed on to the coroner and anyone else with a legitimate interest in the truth. What I am speaking now is the truth, and I don’t think it will come as a surprise to you. I have known for over twenty-four hours that you were going to arrest me. My plan to burn Sharon at the witch’s stone was my last desperate attempt to save myself from a trial and life sentence, and all that would involve for those I care about. And if I had been able to kill Sharon I would have been safe, even if you had suspected the truth. Her burning would have looked like the suicide of a neurotic and obsessed murderer, a suicide which I hadn’t arrived in time to prevent. And how could you have charged me with Gradwyn’s murder with any hope of a conviction while Sharon, with her history, was among the suspects?

  ‘Oh yes, I knew. I was there when she was interviewed for a job at the Manor. Flavia Holland was with me but she early saw that Sharon wouldn’t be suitable for any work with the patients, and left me to decide whether there was a place for her with the domestic staff. And we were desperately short at the time. We needed her. Of course I was curious. A twenty-five-year-old woman with no husband, no lover, no family, apparently no history, no ambition to be more than the lowest in the domestic pecking order? There had to be some explanation. That mixture of irritating desire to please interposed with a silent withdrawal, a sense that she was at home in an institution, that she had been used to being watched, that she was in some way under surveillance. There was only one crime for which all this was appropriate. In the end I knew because she told me.