Used to pressing a button and watching a plastic cup fill with brown sludge, Seymour was still puzzling over the mechanics of the device when the door opened and the pretty nurse looked in.
“Bet you’re good with cars though,” she said as she made him a cup of delicious coffee.
“Yeah, keep getting head-hunted by Ferrari, but I don’t care for their team colors.”
He reckoned it was quite a good line but he only got a polite, slightly puzzled smile. He helped himself to a scone and made for the door. It opened and Hat Bowler came in.
“Hi, Dennis. Might have guessed I’d find you stuffing your face. My uncle not bothering you, is he, miss?”
The nurse laughed out loud and said, “Is there a police convention here they didn’t tell me about?”
“No, I’ve just been sent to make sure this guy’s doing his job. Also I’m looking for someone. Bet those bright blue eyes don’t miss much. Ever see her around?”
He put the edited photo into the nurse’s hand then made himself a cup of coffee with an ease that even more than the nurse’s reaction told Seymour he was getting old.
The nurse said, “I think it could be Miss Bannerjee. She was a patient when I started a year ago, but I didn’t really know her, as she moved on not long after I came.”
“Moved on? You don’t mean she, you know, died?” said Hat, mouthing the last word lugubriously.
“No, of course not. I mean she left,” said the nurse, laughing.
“Thank God for that!” said Hat, laughing with her. “Had me worried for a moment. So she was discharged, everything in working order? That’s great. I expect they’ll have a forwarding address in the office.”
“I expect so,” said the nurse. “Though there might be a problem. If I remember right, she wasn’t discharged as such, more sort of like I said…left.”
“Left? You mean like…disappeared? Here one moment, gone the next? Indian rope trick?”
“No, don’t be daft! I think her family decided she should go, there was a bit of bother…. Look, I shouldn’t be talking to you about a patient really…”
“You’re not, ’cos she’s not a patient, is she?” said Hat triumphantly. “Anyway, if you’re talking about the rumors about her and Dr. Feldenhammer, no one pays any attention to that sort of thing. Happens all the time with doctors, and with policemen too. I mean, here’s you and me talking away, all innocent, but if someone decided to start spreading a rumor that I really fancied you, there’s nothing we could do about it, is there? Specially ’cos a rumor like that would be really easy to believe. I’ve just heard it myself and I’m starting to believe it!”
It was ludicrously corny, but that didn’t stop it from working, thought Seymour half enviously. Another couple of minutes of this should be enough for Bowler to have extracted everything she knew about the rumored relationship between Feldenhammer and Miss Bannerjee.
Time to give him a free run.
“Best be getting back,” he said.
He stuck the scone in his mouth to free a hand to pick up a newspaper. That might win him a few precious minutes in the fight against boredom.
As he reached the intensive care unit door, he glanced through the glass panel and suddenly boredom seemed a condition devoutly to be wished.
There was someone in there, stooping over the recumbent figure on the bed, his hands hovering over her head.
It was Gordon Godley.
Dropping his cup and newspaper, and letting out a bellow of, “Hat!” that Dalziel would have been proud of, Seymour pushed open the door and rushed in.
“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded, grabbing hold of the man and dragging him away.
Godley offered no resistance.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Really. It’s okay.”
“It better had be, you bastard,” grated Seymour, pushing the man up against the wall and holding him there with one hand on his chest, the other ready with clenched fist to deliver a disabling punch if he tried anything.
Hat Bowler burst through the door, followed by the pretty nurse.
“You need any help there?” demanded Bowler.
“No. I’ve got him,” said Seymour, irritated to realize he was much more out of breath than Godley. “Just check that she’s okay, will you?”
He glowered at his unresisting captive till the nurse said, “Everything looks fine. No harm done.”
“Good,” said Bowler. “Well done, Dennis. You got him before he had time to do anything.”
“Thank Christ for that,” said Seymour, shuddering to think of Pascoe’s reaction if he’d been too late.
But Mr. Godley was shaking his head.
“No, I don’t think so,” he said. “It felt like I had plenty of time.”
“For what, you bastard?” demanded Seymour, alarmed once more. “What were you trying to do to her?”
Then the nurse cried, “Look!”
He turned, fearful of what he might see.
Clara Brereton had opened her eyes. They were moving rapidly, taking in the room, the people there. She brought her fingers up to the tube down her throat as if she wanted to speak.
The nurse said, “I’ll get a doctor,” and pressed a button on the wall by the bed.
Seymour looked back at Godley.
The man was smiling and nodding his head.
“There,” he said. “I knew I’d had time.”
10
Seymour was by nature and by nurture an honest, straightforward man, so much so that it never even occurred to him, as many of his colleagues theorized, that if he’d had just a little capacity for deviousness, he might have risen a lot higher in his career.
When Pascoe turned up at the Avalon, the DC made no attempt to conceal the dereliction of duty that had allowed Godley access to Clara Brereton, only perhaps slightly overstressing in mitigation the miraculous nature of the woman’s recovery.
But Pascoe was in no mood either to administer bollockings or to debate miracles.
“Is she talking yet?” he demanded.
“Don’t know. Dr. Feldenhammer made us leave the room.”
Another thing Pascoe wasn’t in the mood for was being obstructed by doctors whose professional expertise was no match for the mumbo jumbo of a hairy healer.
He strode into the intensive care unit. Clara Brereton was lying there, still looking very pale, but unencumbered by breathing or feeding tubes. He saw her intelligent eyes register his arrival.
There were several nurses and doctors around the bed. One of them said indignantly, in an American accent, “Now see here, whoever you are—”
“Pascoe. DCI Pascoe. It’s Dr. Feldenhammer, isn’t it? I’ve seen your photo.”
“That’s right. So you’re Pascoe. I’ve heard about you.”
“And I about you,” said Pascoe significantly. “I’d like to speak to Miss Brereton.”
“Not possible till my people are done here.”
“If she can talk, it’s possible,” said Pascoe.
The men glared at each other, but the struggle was ended by a whisper from the bed.
“Mr. Pascoe…”
“Yes. I’m here, Miss Brereton.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes full of tears, “but I can’t remember anything…. What happened to me?…I can’t remember….”
Pascoe allowed himself to be escorted out of the room by Feldenhammer.
“So what’s the prognosis?” he asked, his tone now conciliatory.
“Surprisingly good. As you saw, she can breathe unaided and though her fractures and possible internal injuries will probably keep her bedridden for some time, her mind seems unimpaired. Memory loss is common in such cases. Often it returns eventually, at least in part, but you’ll just have to be patient.”
“One of my officers will be with her, or close to her, at all times. I’d like your assurance that anything she says to any of your staff will be passed on immediately.”
“We have a duty of c
onfidentiality, Mr. Pascoe—”
“I’m glad to hear you take your responsibilities to your patients so seriously, Doctor,” said Pascoe heavily. “Regardless of race or creed. It’s a concept I may need to discuss with you sometime in the future. Meanwhile, if I can have your assurance…”
Feldenhammer looked at him uneasily, perhaps recalling the remark about seeing his photo. Finally he said, “Yes, of course, we’ll be happy to cooperate. Now excuse me.”
He went back into the room.
Pascoe said, “Dennis, no cockups this time, right? Next time you may not be so lucky.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now where’s Hat?”
Bowler was sitting in the visitors’ room, drinking coffee.
“Like a cup, sir?” he asked. “It’s really good.”
“No thanks. I take it from your demeanor, Hat, that you’ve got some news for me.”
“Yes, sir. The lady in the picture is Miss Indira Bannerjee, a former patient here. Her problems were psychological, my source didn’t have any detail, and in any case she didn’t want to say—”
“Yeah yeah, patient confidentiality, I know all about it,” said Pascoe.
“But she didn’t mind a bit of gossip. Evidently, Miss Bannerjee was what you might call hot stuff…”
Pascoe noted the young man’s effort to find an idiom he might understand.
He said, “You mean, she put it about a bit?”
“Yeah,” grinned Bowler. “Started young, I gather. She was only seventeen when she was here. Evidently the nurses called her the Bannerjee Jump.”
“Very witty. And her and Feldenhammer?”
“Oh yes. There were rumors. Nothing positive, but it was generally agreed that what Indira wanted, Indira got.”
“What about the family? If they suspected…”
“They might have been suspicious, but they wouldn’t have been surprised,” said Bowler. “What they weren’t going to do was demand an investigation and encourage the tabloids to dig up all the others. So they simply took her away.”
“Great. Well done, Hat. Another job for you. You seemed to get on all right with Sidney Parker? Well, get yourself up to the hotel and talk to him again.”
“Yes, sir. Sir, is it right what they’re saying, that he’s gay?”
“Doesn’t bother you, does it?”
“No, sir,” said Hat indignantly.
“Oh, I get it. You thought he liked you for your cultural depth and witty conversation! Don’t brood on it, Hat—use it! Undo another button on your shirt if it helps. I want to know precisely when he and Ted Denham stopped screwing in their little love nest on the cliff. Maybe Sid likes to keep check of how long it takes. He is, after all, an accountant. Okay?”
“Yes, sir,” said Hat unhappily.
“If he doesn’t want to be cooperative, you might like to wonder why, when his niece Minnie told him she’d stumbled upon Dr. Feldenhammer performing an act of indecency with an underage girl who also happened to be his patient, he didn’t inform the authorities.”
“But Miss Bannerjee was seventeen, sir,” objected Hat.
“You know that and I know that, but there’s no reason for Sidney Parker to know that, is there?” said Pascoe. “Call me if you get anything.”
He rose and went out to his car. When he got back to the Hall he found as expected that Dalziel and Novello had returned with the Denhams. He’d left instructions with Wield to keep them separate, Ted in the Incident Room, Esther in the Hall.
Dalziel was sitting on the lawn talking to Charley Heywood and her brother. There was another figure with them. Sammy Ruddlesdin.
“What the hell’s he doing there?” Pascoe demanded of PC Scroggs.
“Said he was waiting for you, sir. Said you were expecting him.”
In a sense it was true. But he was in no mood to exchange pleasantries with the journalist just now.
Dalziel had spotted him and rose not without effort from the grass. Ruddlesdin started to get up too, but the Fat Man put his hand on his shoulder and pushed him back down.
“So what’s she say?” he asked as he joined Pascoe on the steps.
“A convenient CRAFT moment,” said Pascoe.
“Nay, don’t be cynical,” said Dalziel. “Experience like that, nasty knock to the head, does funny things to the mind, as I know. Even now, most of what happened afore I got blown up is like an old movie I saw years back and didn’t much care for. Any road, why should she lie?”
“Because she’s not yet sure which way the wind is going to blow,” said Pascoe.
“Which wind’s that?”
“The wind that Ted Denham blows out of his mouth when he talks. How did he look when you picked him up? Any problem?”
“Came like a lamb. When I mentioned his watch, he went and got it for me. Gave it to yon Frodo to check out, but you were right, the broken catch were dead flimsy.”
“Excellent. And Esther?”
“No problem either. At a guess I’d say being brought in didn’t come like a bolt from the blue to either of them.”
“Meaning they’ve probably been doing a bit of rehearsal,” said Pascoe. “With the woman as director and scriptwriter. Be interesting to see if Ted can remember his lines. I think I’ll start with Esther. That way I’ll know what the lines are.”
Dalziel said, “Pete, about Ted and Clara, you’re forgetting one thing, aren’t you? When me and Ivor went off to Denham Park, you didn’t know then the will wasn’t valid.”
“So?”
“So that fancy tale you wove doesn’t make sense if, soon as the bart mentions the will to Clara, she says, ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ I mean, once he catches on that her signature must be a forgery, he’s home and clear, isn’t he? Let them find the will! It changes nowt!”
Pascoe was unconcerned.
“Makes no difference. Clara’s a very bright girl. I can imagine Denham rattling on at great length, putting on the charm, imagining he was overcoming her scruples with his subtle arguments, while all the time he was only giving her space to get her head round what he was saying. She tells him she’ll need time to think. He thinks she means whether to be a good honest citizen or to tear up the will. Whereas what she’s really thinking is: I need to see this will. And by the time she finds it, she’s worked out it doesn’t matter if it’s valid or not, as long as Sir Ted thinks it is! Like I say, a bright girl.”
“Not all that bright,” said the Fat Man. “Else she’d have also worked out Ted were the person benefiting most from Daph and Ollie’s deaths, so maybe it weren’t so clever meeting up with a possible killer on an empty beach. And another thing, if Ted thought he’d been disinherited, why the fuck would he want to kill his aunt anyway?”
“I don’t know, Andy,” said Pascoe, irritated. “Perhaps it was a spur of the moment thing. I’ll ask him about it when I interrogate him, shall I? By the way, was Ruddlesdin here when you brought the Denhams in?”
“’Fraid so.”
“Shit. Tell him I’ll kill him if he prints anything before he gets my say-so.”
“Pete, it’s no use gagging the Mid-York News. By now the national vultures will be dropping down on Sandytown. If I were you, I’d think about a press conference.”
“Never thought I’d see the day when you suggested that, Andy.”
“Never thought I’d see the day when you didn’t, Pete.”
The two men looked at each other in silence for a while, then Pascoe forced a smile and said, “Well, I’d better not keep Esther waiting any longer.”
“You don’t want me to sit in then?”
Pascoe said, “I think not. But thanks for the offer.”
“Anytime,” said the Fat Man. He turned and walked away to rejoin the trio on the lawn. As he reached them, he said, “Twang!”
“What?” said Charley.
“Nowt. Just the sound of an umbilical cord snapping.”
“So what’s happening, Mr. Dalziel?” said Ruddl
esdin. “How soon can we expect to hear that Sir Edward’s been charged?”
“Don’t think you’ll be able to hear owt for the sound of my stomach rumbling,” said Dalziel. “I’m fair clemmed. Charley, George, you can’t lie around here all day, cluttering up a crime scene. On your feet. We’re all off to the Hope and Anchor. Mr. Ruddlesdin’s treat.”
Sammy Ruddlesdin looked ready to object. Then he looked up at Dalziel’s bulky figure, looming over him like the Old Man of Hoy.
“My pleasure, Mr. Dalziel,” he said. “My pleasure.”
11
Pascoe had his strategy all carefully worked out as he made his way to the big drawing room. Esther would be sitting on the sofa that Beard had occupied, her expression a mix of weary indifference and intellectual superiority. Novello would be sitting watchfully opposite her. On his entrance, the DC would rise and vacate her seat. He would sit down, smile, apologize for keeping Esther waiting. And then he would take her through her initial statement, getting her to reconfirm every last detail. Eventually he would start gently nudging her into making alterations. Why, if she’d avoided the storm, had she felt the need to change her clothing? How, if she hadn’t been among those who removed the body from the hog roast basket, had she come to burn her arm? What was that? You haven’t burnt your arm? Perhaps you’d care to roll up your right sleeve…?
Eventually she would have to abandon her script and move on to his and then the drama was ready to unfold.
But when he pushed open the door, he realized that he’d been rehearsing the wrong play.
Esther Denham wasn’t sitting on the sofa but was at the open bureau, writing. She wasn’t wearing an arm-concealing blouse, but a sleeveless top, revealing a neat dressing on her right forearm. Novello, standing behind her, looked round at Pascoe’s entry and shrugged helplessly.
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