The Discourtesy of Death

by William Brodrick

  No reply.

  She pressed again.

  Still no reply. Just two voices, a man’s and a woman’s, rising slowly like a great wave.

  Olivia tried the door and found it wasn’t locked. She pushed it open with a long, steady finger …

  The hallway was covered with a rich cherry-red carpet, the deep pile running right up the stairs to a small landing. Though it was mid-morning, the lights were on. A large painting of two majestic elephants dominated one wall.

  ‘Doctor Ingleby?’

  Olivia had called out but there was no response. The wave of song was opening out, arching towards the shore. The picture buzzed lightly against the wall.

  ‘It’s the end of Norma,’ said Olivia, her features hard and enquiring. ‘Callas, Corelli and Zaccaria …’

  She walked slowly down the corridor into the sitting room, emerging with a shake of the head. Same for the kitchen. They stood at the base of the stairs, looking up towards the empty landing and the source of the music.

  ‘It’s the final scene,’ explained Olivia in a monotone. She raised her voice – ‘Doctor Ingleby.’

  Her tone had been insistent. Anselm called out, too, following Olivia up the stairs as the music grew louder. He traced the voices to a door, pushed it open and found Doctor Ingleby’s study. Framed cartoons of doctor jokes. Laden shelves from floor to ceiling – journals, textbooks, novels and papers leaning right and left to make a vast herringbone. Cardboard boxes instead of filing cabinets. A tidy roll-top desk and a cup of unfinished cocoa. A carved pipe on a stand. Several burned matches in a stone ashtray. Framed photographs of the doctor and a woman. An ergonomic chair. A CD player on a side table. A rich, heavy smell that could only be called brown.

  The great wave of song rose high and then, with a sort of devastating delight, collapsed into silence … and then Callas was on her own … Deh! Non volerli vittime del mio fatale errore … the song had begun again. Doctor Ingleby had switched on the repeat button. The music would go on for ever.

  Turning around, Anselm saw Olivia, serious and knowing. She stepped back into the corridor and Anselm followed her to the bathroom. He didn’t enter. He kept his distance one step behind Mitch. All he could see was Doctor Ingleby’s serene, bloodless face. He was lying in the bath, his white flesh in shocking contrast to the crimson water.

  An ambulance was called. The forensic people came. Police tape was strung across the entrance to the property and the house. There’d be an investigation to rule out foul play. And it would be thorough. By the time they’d finished, the detectives would know more about Doctor Ingleby than anyone else. For the time being, all they had was a statement from the nearest neighbour attracted to the scene by the sudden activity next door. Doctor Ingleby had spent the afternoon on his knees in the garden. Raking. Weeding. Cutting back. Jobs for late summer and spring … not autumn.

  ‘What were they singing about?’ asked Anselm.

  ‘She’s asking forgiveness for having betrayed the gods, crying for her children … sacrificing her life to save the man she loves.’

  ‘What did the first line mean?’

  ‘Don’t let them be victims of my fatal error.’

  They were standing some distance from the house by a blue gardening shed. The door was yellow and the windows were blocked by drawn yellow curtains. From afar they could hear the crackle of radios and the crunch of gravel underfoot. This is where the music ended. Olivia handed Doctor Ingleby’s letter to Anselm. He read it holding the paper with trembling hands.

  I’ve been under the moonshadow now for two years.

  It’s growing stronger and stronger. I walk along these lanes under its strange revealing light. Nothing looks the same any more. Everything is painfully beautiful. Many would stay and look for as long as they can, but I’m ready to close my eyes. I’ve seen enough. I’ve made a choice.

  I’ve been involved in such choosing only once before in my life. A patient who couldn’t act for herself turned to me for help. I listened. She wanted death to come as a surprise, like finding a flower in a forest.

  Jennifer Henderson died from an injection of insulin administered between the toes during a medical examination. She felt nothing and was not aware of what I was doing.

  I acted alone and without the unwitting assistance or knowledge of anyone. I make this known now because I understand that doubts have arisen in the family over the manner of her dying.

  To those who cannot understand Jenny’s decision or my actions I ask them to at least remember her autonomy and my acceptance of all responsibility.

  Anselm raised his eyes. An aeroplane was drawing a faint, silent line across the blue sky. There wasn’t a cloud in sight.

  ‘Well,’ said Olivia, not quite from on high, but like a senior officer might regard a junior colleague. ‘We now know that Jennifer Henderson didn’t die of cancer. Nigel was right all along. So was your correspondent. So were you, because I’m sure you followed a hunch. And now the family knows it was suicide.’

  There was a very faint tone of enquiry in Olivia’s voice. Not quite, ‘Are you sure it was worth it?’ so much as ‘Wasn’t it easier for the family to accept beforehand?’ She couldn’t utter the question, of course, because a crime had been uncovered. She was as troubled as Anselm by the tension at the heart of any investigation – will the outcome lead to necessary closure or will it open worse, unforeseen distress? – but she evidently couldn’t help wondering if life would be a lot easier all round if certain stones in the garden had been left unturned.

  ‘Hopefully, Peter Henderson can start afresh,’ said Anselm, as if giving Olivia his justification. ‘No one’s accusing him any more.’ Mitch drove Anselm back to Larkwood. Norma’s final plea kept ringing in Anselm’s ears. He saw the homely study. He saw the face in the bath. He saw the chalk line being drawn across the sky.

  ‘You did the right thing,’ Mitch said, fervently, unsure that Anselm was listening. ‘If you’d thrown that letter away, the letter to your Prior, Peter Henderson would be dead now. You saved his life. You brought the family to the negotiating table and they walked out as one. Even though they were heading for a cover-up, they know what it feels like to be on the same side for once. It’s a start. Who knows where that might lead?’

  Doctor Ingleby had asked exactly the same question. He’d sat throughout Emma’s crystal-clear presentation of the wide road and the narrow road and he’d said nothing. Both roads led to a kind of hell, in fact, because each of them resulted from Timothy’s shocking action; his shocking implementation of what his father simply couldn’t do. The doctor had smiled at Anselm, knowing the answer to his own question.

  ‘Look at what this means,’ urged Mitch, slowing down, looking more at Anselm than the road. ‘It means that Timothy didn’t kill his mother. It means the weight he’s been carrying since his mother’s death has gone. It means the weight carried by Emma since his confession has gone. It means the weight she was asking everyone to share has gone. It means Peter Henderson doesn’t have to lift another brick. The crisis facing that family has completely disappeared. They can look back and say it wasn’t even there. It’s all been a colossal misunderstanding. All they’re left with now is the usual knockabout stuff – you know, attempted murder, mutual detestation, unremitting hostility to what the other person thinks and stands for … they’re just your average middle-class family from the Home Counties.’

  Anselm didn’t laugh. He was meditating on Doctor Ingleby’s letter. According to his confession, he’d killed Jenny believing that he was fulfilling an explicit request from a patient to her clinician. But he’d said nothing of the sort when Emma disclosed Timothy’s secret. He’d just sat there, watching and listening. He could have explained, there and then, that Jenny was already dead when Timothy had entered the room … but he hadn’t done. He’d gone home to reflect. He’d made no such admission to Anselm in the Chapter Room, where, a week later, they’d met to speak honestly and without fear of condemnation. O
n the contrary, far from disclosing his role in an assisted suicide, he’d made a very different confession: that he’d become Jenny’s doctor so as to protect her – from Peter and from herself. And yet, even as he poured the wine – with some ceremony – Doctor Ingleby had already decided to cut open his wrists. Why? Because of the moonshadow? Absolutely not. Anselm was in no doubt: nothing could have prompted Doctor Ingleby to take his life – at this particular moment – save for what he’d heard in the threshing room: that Timothy had killed his mother.

  ‘Anselm, this is good news,’ urged Mitch, pulling into a lay-by. ‘You solved a case where there was no crime, no suspect and no evidence. You went out into the dark without a torch. And you’ve come back after giving Timothy a completely different future – the one that his grandparents were prepared to kill for … and you landed that in the bag at the cost of the truth. What’s wrong with that?’

  Anselm reached over and pressed the indicator down, signalling that they’d better get back on the road. In his mind he listened to Callas, Corelli and Zaccaria sing desperately about forgiveness and sacrifice. But Anselm was deeply troubled. He doubted the letter. Had Doctor Ingleby in fact killed Jenny? Or had he entrusted Anselm with a secret narrative: the meaning to the song.

  50

  Anselm listened with stunned dismay.

  A telephone call had eventually come from a representative of the Henderson and Goodwin families. They’d been informed of Doctor Ingleby’s letter. Collectively, and with unanimity, they’d agreed that Nigel should contact Anselm. Would he speak to Timothy and explain that he hadn’t, in fact, killed his mother? The illusion of responsibility would have to be dispelled delicately, ideally by an outsider, someone not involved in the tangled family history. And who better than Anselm, a concerned party who already commanded Timothy’s complete confidence?

  ‘Yes,’ replied Anselm, barely hearing his own voice.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘With one proviso. You agree to meet me with Michael.’

  ‘He won’t agree.’

  ‘Then make him.’

  Arrangements were made and Anselm put the telephone down. In a daze he ambled out of the monastery to a bench that faced the old abbey ruin. Sylvester couldn’t help with this one. The Boer War held no parallels. He was on his own.

  And he was mildly indignant. He was, after all, the contemptible swords into ploughshares man. Now that the moral crisis had miraculously disappeared, they could wheel him in like Francis of Assisi so he could talk to the birds. There was one ironic consolation: Jenny’s last wish had been fulfilled. Anselm was now at the heart of her family, his mission to bring peace and reconciliation where there had previously been war and resentment. But even that well of comfort was poisoned. He was to begin his intervention with Timothy. And he would tell him without equivocation that Doctor Ingleby had killed his mother. Only, he wasn’t sure.

  ‘May I propose one condition?’ asked Doctor Ingleby.

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘We promise never to repeat what the other has said.’

  ‘Unless you confess to a crime.’

  ‘Agreed …’

  And Doctor Ingleby had confessed to no crime. He could have done. The confession had been in his pocket the whole time. There was no reason for him to hide what he later claimed to have done. Anselm gazed over towards all that remained of the old abbey, built in the thirteen hundreds: tall arches, empty windows onto the sky; night stairs from a vanished dorter; moss, lichen and vermilion creepers swaying gently in the wind. The crisis – in terms of finding out the truth – had peaked not passed. For while the letter may have brought peace of mind to Jenny’s family, it had left Anselm tormented. Doctor Ingleby had said one thing and he’d written another. He’d left Anselm with a haunting ambiguity.

  Anselm brought Timothy to his circle of beehives, introducing each by its saint’s name, shortly digressing into the anxious question of commerce: what to do with the honey. So far he’d put the stuff in pots, made swedgers – ‘Glaswegian for “a sweet”’ – and he was now planning a devastating spiced mead, something to challenge Larkwood’s legendary cider. Then, reaching his pew, they sat down.

  Where to begin?

  Given his concerns, Anselm had decided to approach matters with the precise sensitivity of the lawyer and not the scruples of the monk. He would construe the meaning of Doctor Ingleby’s letter rather than assert – and thus adopt – its implications.

  ‘You understand that Doctor Ingleby has died?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Timothy was dressed in jeans and a red jumper. Black ruffled hair moved in the slight breeze. He sat angled towards Anselm, vaguely apprehensive, but pleasantly so. Someone had told him the monk had a surprise for him.

  ‘He took his own life.’

  ‘Yes, my dad told me. He had cancer.’

  It was chilly, but not uncomfortably so. After the lazy warmth of autumn that slight nip to the air brought the promise of crisp mornings, frost, a lively fire in the evening; the comforting dark of winter.

  ‘Yes, he did,’ confirmed Anselm, not wanting to believe that this was, in Timothy’s short life, his second experience of suicide. The boy thought both of them were related to choice in the face of illness. In fact, one of them was murder; the other was almost certainly not what it seemed.

  ‘He wrote a letter, explaining himself.’

  Timothy nodded. Anselm paused.

  ‘He admits to having taken another life, once before; did you know that?’

  ‘No.’

  He was a burdened boy. His voice flat and his speech dutiful. He ought to have been troubled by his appearance and preoccupied with the striking girl who routinely ignored him, not by this – the inescapable weight that comes with an irreversible decision; the greatest decision that any human being can make. Two years ago he’d acted with the terrifyingly simple moral outlook of a twelve-year-old submerged in a catastrophe. He’d seen no grey. No reason to hesitate. He’d known what he believed his mother had wanted. But since then, without necessarily knowing why, he’d grown ill at ease. Begun to feel some nausea. And, slowly, it had grown; like a signal from a tumour. He’d seen his grandmother crushed by his secret. He’d seen his father’s endless troubled glances over breakfast before hurling a brick at a boy just like him. He’d begun to question himself … unable to understand why this inner voice was both insistent and troubled. He’d been left adrift and anguished. All he’d learned was that the certainties of a twelve-year-old’s universe aren’t that robust.

  ‘He took another life?’ he repeated, lamely.

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘Your mother’s.’

  The breeze returned to tousle the boy’s hair some more. ‘My mum’s?’

  ‘Your mum’s.’

  Timothy’s wide, deep eyes began to swim. He couldn’t process the implications. Two years of his life – everything he’d ever thought and felt about his mother’s death – had suddenly disappeared. The sense of guilt distilled from his father’s and grandmother’s strained behaviour had evaporated.

  ‘It wasn’t me?’

  ‘That’s what the letter means, Timothy.’

  ‘I didn’t do it?’

  ‘Doctor Ingleby has left no room for doubt.’

  And Anselm, in a low and measured voice, spelled out the implications of the text, because Doctor Ingleby’s words left no room for misunderstanding: by the time Timothy entered that room, his mother had already picked her flower and gone.

  Timothy stood up, pushing both hands into his already tangled hair. He walked around the hives, raking his feet through the long grass. He muttered to himself and then came to a restive halt in front of Anselm.

  ‘It wasn’t me?’ he asked again.

  ‘That is what the letter means.’

  Timothy threw his head back, unable to believe the news. He was no longer an exile. His father would look at him differently; his grandmother would stop buying him sweets and cakes and ice crea
m, all the confectionery she could think of to sweeten his soured world.

  ‘Not me?’ He was almost laughing.

  Anselm made a gesture of surprised agreement. And then he spoke for Doctor Ingleby. It was part of the meaning of the letter. ‘Timothy, you can move away from the sitting room now; you don’t have to trouble yourself any more for what you thought you’d done.’

  If this was Doctor Ingleby’s message, it had been delivered. But despite Timothy’s evident relief, Anselm felt ill at ease. He believed in the liberating power of the truth, not merciful fictions, and he didn’t know, in his heart, which of the two was now at work. There was no time to brood. Timothy was approaching him, hands working and suppliant.

  ‘Can I tell you what happened?’ he asked, unsure of himself but driven now to make a clean breast of everything. ‘I’ve never told anyone before and I’d like you to understand … to understand why I did it … even though I didn’t do it …’

  Anselm pointed to the space on the bench at his side, moving his arm slowly, to introduce some calm; to communicate his readiness to hear anything.

  ‘All the time Mum lay there, unable to move, I couldn’t forget what she’d said,’ explained Timothy with remembered distress. ‘That she wanted to go if things got worse. And I couldn’t forget my dad, how upset he was, holding onto her hand, saying “no” when Mum was begging him to say “yes”.’

  Anselm could picture the scene. This is who Jenny once was; not who she became.

  ‘And when she got cancer I knew she was frightened and worried and she actually said to my dad, “Things can’t get worse”, and he couldn’t reply because she was right, wasn’t she?’

  Anselm made an ambiguous gesture, a tilt of the head, something to give him comfort.