“Perhaps our most severe cases are in this room,” continued the almoner. “By the window is Ned Locke, who has no hands and is badly disfigured.”
“Another flier?”
“A navigator, actually. All of the rest of the crew were killed. He is more tormented by that than by his own injuries. He holds himself responsible because the plane went off course in a fog.”
Tyler marked him as NOT ABLE.
“Next to him is Donald Barnard, who is blind. He was piloting a Lancaster that was hit by flak. The gas tank exploded and burned off most of his face. Somehow or other he managed to fly it home and save the lives of his crew.”
NOT ABLE.
“In this bed is Sidney Hill, a civilian injured in a bombing raid in Birmingham. Both legs were amputated and he is quite deaf. The saddest thing is he has two young children.”
NOT ABLE.
“Here is Graham Coates. He is our youngest patient, just nineteen. He was working at a munitions factory when there was an explosion. Five people died and he suffered severe burns to most of his body.”
“Was that at Bridgend?” Tyler asked.
She nodded. “That’s the one … Graham has sight, albeit poor, and he is mobile. But he is badly disfigured and unfortunately remains in a state of depression.”
Tyler added Coates’s name to his ABLE list, but again with a question mark.
“You said earlier that some of the patients had been known to wander. Which ones?”
“We did have a case previously, but he went back to East Grinstead. He needed more help than we were able to provide. Of our current patients, we do have to keep an eye on Vadim. Even though he is blind, he still tries to get out.”
Tyler made a note.
The final thing to inspect was a huge, marble-tiled bathroom and the separate toilet next to it. The entrance was from the hall just in front of the nurses’ desk.
“We are given licence to use as much hot water as we wish,” said Sister Rebecca. “Many patients find a saline bath to be soothing.”
They went back into the hall. There was less sunlight now. Clouds were moving in – or maybe that was just his mood, Tyler thought. It wasn’t easy to be given a tour like this.
Sister Rebecca had spoken without sentimentality but with much compassion. As for him, his policeman’s mind was concentrating on ABLE, NOT ABLE. Possible assassin, not a possible assassin.
NOT ABLES were definitely predominating, and he felt a slightly irrational sense of relief. He didn’t want his brutal killer to be a tormented patient.
“Those are all our male patients, Inspector. Shall we go to the third floor?”
At that moment, they heard rapid footsteps on the stairs and one of the sisters appeared.
The nun halted abruptly when she saw Tyler and the almoner. “Beg pardon. I realized I’d left me mug on me desk. It’s me special one.”
Sister Rebecca nodded at her. “Sister Ivy, I don’t believe you’ve met Inspector Tyler yet. He’s conducting the investigation into the … the, er, deaths.”
The other nun was a husky woman, her broad cheekbones ruddy and sprinkled with freckles. Like Sister Rebecca, she wore a plain blue frock and a short black veil, but whereas the almoner was neat and composed, Sister Ivy was definitely rumpled. Tyler couldn’t help but notice she had spilled what looked like some of her cocoa down her front.
She blinked nervously at Tyler. “What would ’ee like to know?” She was a Shropshire woman.
Tyler smiled reassuringly. “First off, the obvious. Did you hear anything at all last night?”
“Nowt. All quiet on the Western Front the whole time.” Suddenly her eyes filled with tears and she ducked her head. “Who could have done such a dreadful wicked thing, Inspector? Young Ben McHattie was hardly out of short trousers. And Jock? A good man through and through. What on earth happened?”
“I can’t give you an answer yet, Sister. Anything you can tell me could be of help. Anything at all.”
Sister Ivy pointed at the sole chair. “Do ’ee mind if I sits meself down? I’ve been shaky on me pins all morning. Completely knackered is the truth.”
“Allow me,” said Tyler as he pulled out the chair. The nun plonked herself down with a sigh. “That’s better,” she said with a grin. She had big, widely spaced teeth, and her smile was infectious.
She was so unpretentious he couldn’t help but smile in return. Sister Ivy was the kind of nurse who would always be described as jolly.
“Where were I?” she asked.
“I was just asking about last night. I’m sure you have your routine. Did anything out of the ordinary take place?”
He thought he saw fear flash across her eyes, but it was gone so fast he couldn’t be sure.
“Well, I come on duty at eleven. Patients was all asleep by then. As they was supposed to be. We goes to bed early here ’cos we gets up with the dawn. Sister Rachel, who was on evening duty, handed me her report. All present and correct.”
“Did you go to check in on the patients when you first arrived?”
“Not right then. I didn’t want to disturb nobody. Some of them is light sleepers. As long as the previous sister says all is well, which Sister Rachel did say, I don’t do me first round until midnight.”
“Then did you go into each room?”
“Aye.”
“Any problems?”
“None. What’s I mean is, no unforeseen problems. I ’as to help Mr. Locke to the toilet at least once a night.” She lowered her eyes. “ ’E’s got no ’ands, see. ’E usually needs to go about one o’clock. Then I got ’im settled back in bed.” She paused, and Tyler thought she was preparing her words. “Everybody was fast asleep. I checks to make sure they ’aven’t kicked off their covers or they’re not ’aving a nightmare. They whimpers and twitches if they is, so I might just wait to see if they’re going to wake up and need another sleeping draught or if it will just pass. They was all peaceful last night, bless ’em.”
“Did you do another round after that?” he asked.
“Oh yes. We go every hour. Then the last one is at half past five. They start getting up about six.”
“Does your round include going to the third floor to check on the women patients?”
“It does. They aren’t no trouble. There’s only four of them.”
“How long would that take you?”
“No more than ten minutes at the most. They each have a bell by theys bed, see. They can ring if they need anything. Never do.”
“In between rounds, did you stay at your desk the entire time, Sister?”
She shot a glance at Sister Rebecca. “Course I did. Except for when I has me tea break at a quarter past two. I made some cocoa on the spirit stove and I also used the toilet. Otherwise I was sat right there without budging the whole night. As I’m supposed to.”
“Could anybody have left their room while you were upstairs or in the toilet?”
“Not likely,” she snorted. “Like I said, the upstairs round is only about ten minutes, and as for the toilet …” she dropped her eyes modestly. “Well, I was only in there a few minutes. Besides, if somebody did get out of bed, where would they have gone? Us don’t encourage them to go wandering around on’s own. You never know if they’re going to trip over something. They’re given strict instructions. ‘Do not get out of bed to use the toilet without first calling the nurse on duty.’ We say that all the time, don’t we, Sister?”
Sister Rebecca nodded. “Yes, we do.”
“Furthermore, when I have finished my ablutions,” said Sister Ivy, “I always have another check of all rooms upstairs and down. Last night, as usual, all was present and asleep.”
“It must get pretty dull on night duty,” said Tyler. “Do you ever find yourself nodding off? Not that I’d blame you, mind.”
Sister Ivy shook her head vigorously. “Not I. I does me reports and reads me Bible.” But Sister Ivy had blushed and Tyler thought she wasn’t telling the whole truth.
At this point, Sister Rebecca interceded. “We consider it safer to have a back-up plan. Our two orderlies rotate night duty. They can sleep if they want to, but they are on call if needed. There is a cot outside in the passageway.”
“Who was there last night?”
“Dai Hughes. You met him at the cottage.”
Tyler turned to Sister Ivy. “Did you see Mr. Hughes, Sister?”
Again she blushed. “Aye. He comes on duty same time as me. Eleven o’clock. We had a bit of a chinwag, then he went to his bed.” She looked anxiously over at the almoner. “I don’t mean chinwag exactly. Mr. Hughes wanted to ask something about the medications. We were expecting a new delivery from Boots, but it hadn’t come yet. We didn’t speak long. I didn’t really break the Grand Silence, Sister.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t talk unless it was necessary, Sister Ivy.”
Sister Rebecca’s tone of voice was neutral and Tyler didn’t detect any covert sarcasm, but the other nun squirmed.
She scowled at Tyler.
“None of our patients would be a murderer, if that’s what you’re trying to find out. Isn’t that right, Sister? Tell the inspector he’s barking up the wrong tree.”
Sister Rebecca let slip a barely audible sigh. “The inspector has to investigate every possibility.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s right. Poor men have suffered enough.”
Her loyalty was admirable even if her logic wasn’t.
“I was just about to take the inspector to the third floor,” said the almoner. “You must be tired, Sister. Why don’t you get a rest. The inspector can call on you later if he has to.”
Sister Ivy beamed her big smile again. “All right then. I could do with a bit of shut-eye.”
“Just before you go, Sister, there is one more question,” said Tyler. “A rather important one. At the moment, we have no idea if the murder of Jock McHattie was planned or random. If it was planned, the implication is that the murderer was familiar with the routine of the hospital. Perhaps he knew that Mrs. McHattie and her daughter would not be at home, for instance.”
“They allus went to Wem on Tuesdays. Everybody here knows that.”
“Precisely. In the same vein, then, how fixed a routine is there at night? You’ve described your rounds to me, but do you always take your tea break at the same time?”
She nodded and he could see how tense she had become. “Unless there was somebody needed tending to, I always have me cocoa after me two o’clock round. Just one cup and then it’s back on duty.”
“Thank you, Sister. You have been very helpful.”
“I’ll bid you good morning then.”
She picked up her mug and left them.
Sister Rebecca turned to Tyler. “I apologize for Sister Ivy, Inspector. She is one of our longest-serving sisters, and she is not at all a worldly woman.”
Maybe not, thought Tyler, but she was rather good at presenting herself as guileless. He’d have to question the orderly about the duration and content of the little chat they’d had. Was it just religious guilt that made her seem as if she was hiding something? Had they simply talked longer than they should have? Had she taken more time than she admitted for her tea break? Was it important if she had? From what she had said, there were short periods of time when patients were not under her direct supervision. But even if somebody had got out, they would hardly have had time to go to the McHattie cottage, commit murder, and return to their room.
Unless of course the murderer and Sister Ivy were, for some incomprehensible reason, in cahoots.
10.
SISTER REBECCA OPENED THE DOOR TO A NARROW passageway.
“We did our best to make it a little more presentable,” said Sister Rebecca. “We gave it a new coat of paint and added wall sconces. Nonetheless, I do believe I can still feel the presence of those maids, going up to their bare attic rooms with their candlesticks, trying to make as little noise as possible so as not to disturb their betters.”
Tyler raised his eyebrows. “Do I detect a whiff of socialism, Sister?”
“No particular politics, Inspector, just human sympathy.”
At the far end of the passage was a flight of stairs that turned sharply up to the next level. Squeezed between these and the wall was a lift with an iron door. Tucked underneath the stairs was a cot.
“The orderly on night duty rests there,” said the nun.
Tyler glimpsed a magazine partly hidden under the blanket. It was the kind familiar to young men, the kind his mother would have been shocked to see. He wondered if the nun was aware what one of her staff was reading.
The stairs to the third floor were steep.
They reached a tiny landing and Sister Rebecca switched on a low light. There were two doors and she opened one of them.
“Miss Susan Broadbent and Mrs. Caroline Bowman are in here.”
Tyler made a note. Here again there had clearly been an attempt to make the room cheery, with fresh, buttercup-coloured paint, but there was only one small window, high up. The ceilings sloped and there was little space. It seemed dreary to him, especially after the spacious, light-filled rooms the men enjoyed.
“Miss Broadbent is confined to a wheelchair,” said the almoner. “She was travelling home on leave from London when her train was strafed. We cannot determine the extent of her injuries. They seemed to be superficial, but she is unable to walk.”
Tyler put her on the ABLE list, with a question mark.
“Mrs. Bowman is one of our saddest cases,” said Sister Rebecca. “She is from Liverpool. Her house received a direct hit and she was buried in the rubble along with her two children. They had been sheltering in the pantry under the stairs. Both children were killed, and she herself was not rescued for three days. She has not uttered a word since.”
“Is she mobile?”
“In a manner of speaking. She has her sight and the use of her limbs, but we can get no response from her. She doesn’t move.”
“Does she have any other family?”
“Her parents are deceased. Her husband is fighting in North Africa and we have not been able to contact him. The poor fellow has no idea what has happened.”
Tyler added Mrs. Bowman to the ABLE column, with a double question mark.
“It must be difficult to get the women down those stairs if they can’t walk.”
“Very. We always need two people. But at least we do have the lift, tiny as it is.”
They entered the second room. The walls were painted a soft pink, but otherwise it was the same as the first.
“Daisy Stevens is in here. She was a WREN. Still is, I suppose. She was injured by flying glass when an unexploded bomb went off near the restaurant where she was having lunch. She has lost most of her scalp and has no vision in her right eye. She was one of the group who were studying massage.”
Tyler put Daisy in the ABLE column.
“Finally, we have Miss Barbara Oakshutt, who was a WAAF. She was injured during an attack on the airfield where she was stationed. Her fiancé, a mechanic, was killed in the same attack. She is blind.”
NOT ABLE.
Tyler put away his notebook. “Thank you, Sister. I must say these are horrific tales.”
“They are indeed. However, we do our level best to impart hope to these unfortunates. With the right attitude, there is a lot they can do. And mostly they are young people with all the resilience of youth.”
The words could have sounded ridiculously optimistic, but Tyler already knew Sister Rebecca was not one to trivialize the terrible challenges her patients faced. She believed what she said and would stand by it.
“Perhaps I could take a closer look at their individual files sometime later.”
“Of course. And my office is completely at your disposal.”
“Right! The breakfast room.”
“Exactly … Your constable seems very competent, by the way. I’m glad to see more openings for young women in the police force.”
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“I am too,” said Tyler. “Although to be honest, I’m still sorting out how to respond to the changes.”
She smiled. “As is the rest of the world, Inspector.”
He plunged on. “I must say how much I admire the care you provide for your patients.”
Her eyes met his in surprise. “I don’t know how one could be other than caring. But as you know, St. Anne’s is a drop in the bucket given the number of wounded men and women who need help … Madness has been unleashed upon the world. Here we are doing our best to help the victims of that insanity. Ultimately, I know it will not prevail.”
He halted. “In my better moments, I agree with you, Sister. And at other times, I’m not so sure.”
He half expected she would offer him some piety, some affirmation that God was looking after the righteous, but she didn’t.
They went back down to the second floor.
Tyler indicated the lift. “Do you mind if we go that way to the ground floor?” he asked. “I’d like to check it.”
She was right about the lift being tiny. It would barely fit a wheelchair, let alone two people. She and Tyler were forced into close proximity, shoulder to shoulder. She stood with her hands clasped, looking straight ahead. She was almost the same height as he was and she smelled faintly of antiseptic. Tyler’s thoughts jumped to Clare, who loved expensive scent. What brand was it she liked so much? Something French, as he remembered. One bottle cost more than he made in a month. Sort of flowery …
The lift halted with a jolt and they exited into the empty kitchen. Sister Rebecca led the way into yet another passageway. She selected a key from the ring at her waist and unlocked the side door.
A trellis thick with climbing roses ran to a wooden gate in the wall, about a dozen feet away. It was identical to the one he’d entered through when he first arrived. The trellis ensured privacy, screening any comings and goings from the house itself.
“As you can see,” said the almoner, “there are three bars on the gate – a holdover from the previous owners. They’re probably rusted shut by now. I don’t think we’ve used it since we arrived. It was a tradesmen’s entrance.”
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