The Malcontenta bak-2

by Barry Maitland

  De Loynes chuckled playfully until he had raised a grin from Brock. Then the smile vanished from his face and he said abruptly, ‘What’s your interest in Alex Petrou?’

  Brock stared at the book in the man’s hand and noted the title, Showdown at Purple Gulch. ‘Who?’

  ‘The fellow who died here last year. You were asking about him.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Just curiosity. I remembered reading the newspaper reports.’

  ‘They had a field day, of course.’

  ‘Martha Price seems to feel he was maligned.’

  ‘Oh, he pandered to her, I expect. He was good at amusing the ladies. He was a charmer when he wanted to be.’

  ‘You’re a regular here, obviously.’

  ‘Mmm. I knew him quite well, if that’s what you mean.

  Great shock when he went, of course.’ He didn’t sound greatly disturbed.

  ‘Yes, it must have caused quite a stir. Were you here at the time?’

  De Loynes nodded. ‘Police turned the place upside down. They were very thorough — remarkably so, really. Since then we’ve been the poorer without young Alex,’ he added. ‘He brought a certain something that we lack. There’s a fatal streak of the moral puritan in most of the people who come here. Makes them dull as weak tea. Or perhaps that appeals to you?’

  It seemed to be a challenge, and Brock smiled. ‘No, no. I think I know what you mean. But maybe it’s the diet. After a couple more days on water and lemon juice, I’ll be taking to weak tea like strong meat.’

  De Loynes laughed, a braying sound, head back. ‘My dear chap, we’ll have to look after you. After the initiation period, Stephen will start you on a few vitamins, get you going again. Then we’ll have to find you something more satisfying to get your teeth into.’

  He got to his feet. ‘Glad to catch up with you, David. We’ll meet again … Oh.’ He stopped on his way to the door and looked back. ‘Have you spoken to Ben Bromley yet? He’s worth having a chat to, if you’re interested — ’ he gestured at Felicity Field’s book in front of Brock ‘- in what goes on in this place.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I’ve got an appointment to see him tomorrow, Norman.’

  ‘Good, excellent. Entertaining fellow, our Ben. Small, but perfectly formed.’ He smiled maliciously. ‘See you.’

  Brock watched the door close behind him, grimaced and took a deep breath. He lowered his head, staring at the book but not seeing it. De Loynes wasn’t on Kathy’s list. He was here last October, but he wasn’t on her bloody list.

  Brock shook his head and blinked. Focusing on the page in T?4 front of him, he noticed a photograph captioned ‘Dr and Mrs Beamish-Newell soon after the opening of Stanhope Clinic to the first patients — September 1977’. The Director looked considerably more youthful, his face leaner and beardless, his hair thicker and longer. Standing beside him was a dark-haired beauty not remotely similar to Laura Beamish-Newell.

  Frowning, his mind still preoccupied by de Loynes, Brock thumbed back through the book, looking for further references to what presumably was Beamish-Newell’s first wife. Eventually he found her name, Gabriele, and a short account of their meeting and falling in love when he was a medical student at Cambridge and she an Italian studying English at one of the language schools in the city. From her subsequent comments, Miss Field gave most of the credit for selecting Stanhope House for the new clinic to Gabriele, and invited the reader to note how wonderfully appropriate this choice was, given that the Director’s young wife originated from the same region of northern Italy from which Palladio himself had come.

  Brock shrugged and snapped the book shut, his face still set in a frown as he thought about de Loynes. When he returned the history to its place among the reference books, he searched for and found a copy of Who’s Who. The de Loynes family had three entries: a brigadier, an MP, and their nephew Norman, aged forty-six, an orthopaedic surgeon. Norman the goat, Brock thought, and swung the glass front of the bookcase closed.

  Stress management was run by an intense, wiry, middle-aged woman who made her class very nervous by insisting that they begin by opening up individually to the group, sharing some particular fear. Brock confessed that he was haunted by the thought of standing in front of a huge, expectant audience and discovering that both his mind and the pages of notes he had brought were inexplicably blank. The therapist nodded vigorously and told him that he had a fear of exposure.

  After this awkward beginning there was a period of theory on the causes of stress and the biochemical effects of flight-or-fight conditioning. One by one the patients’ faces went politely blank, until they were each given a questionnaire to assess their own stress level. ‘Have you tried to track a murderer during the past few days?’ didn’t figure among the questions, and since he hadn’t recently divorced, moved house, lost his job or a close relative, Brock’s score was shamefully low.

  Finally there were techniques for stress management, particularly relaxation, and this at least was outstandingly successful. Each patient lay still on the floor, head on a small pillow, eyes closed, following the instructions on breathing, then muscle relaxation, and finally calming the mind, and before long the woman’s mellifluous voice was accompanied by first one, then several nasal murmurings, which grew steadily in volume as she led the patients who remained awake through an idyllic summer woodland of the imagination.

  As he came out of the room, Brock caught sight of Grace Carrington’s lime-green tracksuit disappearing down the basement corridor. He followed her and came at last to the door at the end of the west wing, which led outside to the gardens. He noticed the sharp smell of fresh air in the corridor, something he had become unused to in the overheated atmosphere of the house. On the doormat was some snow, blown in when she had left. A pair of white slip-on shoes, still warm from her feet, lay beside the mat, and next to them half a dozen pairs of Wellington boots, together with a collection of umbrellas and walking sticks, all presumably available for casual use by patients. Hanging from a row of pegs above were a number of bright orange anoraks.

  Brock helped himself to the largest size of boots and coat he could find, selected a round-handled walking stick and stepped out into the cold afternoon. The lungful of crisp air made him dizzy, and he had to blink and adjust to the outdoors, as if shaking himself awake after a deep sleep. Her footprints were quite clear, curving away along the snow-covered gravel path which led up towards the knoll and the Temple of Apollo.

  13

  Brock crunched through the snow after Grace Carrington, all the way to the front steps of the temple, and saw where she’d kicked her boots clean at the threshold. The tall glass-panelled doors, their timber frames slightly twisted through years of neglect, creaked complainingly as Brock pulled them open, and he heard the sound echo within. There was no sign of her in the upper chamber and, as his eyes grew more accustomed to the dim light, Brock moved forward, his boots clumping on the marble floor panels until he reached the swastika grille. Still.no indication that she was there, except perhaps the faintest trace of soap or perfume in the dank air.

  He found the small spiral staircase leading to the lower chamber and made his way awkwardly down, his clumsy rubber boots too large for the triangular stone treads. When he reached the bottom he didn’t notice her at first. She was standing motionless in front of the organ console below the grille, exactly where Alex Petrou had been found. In the shadow of the recess her face was very pale, a hand raised to her mouth, her eyes wide with fright, and she looked as if she were about to scream.

  ‘Good lord!’ Brock said. ‘You gave me a start.’

  ‘Who are you?’ she whispered.

  ‘Brock, David Brock. I’m new here. Only arrived yesterday. I was just exploring. Are you all right?’

  She took in his orange anorak and Wellington boots, just like hers.

  ‘Yes.’ He heard her take a deep breath. ‘You scared me. I heard the sound of the front door, then your footsteps and the tapping of your stick. And then I
heard you coming down the stairs. I suddenly felt very frightened. Stupid…’

  ‘Oh no, I can imagine exactly what it must have sounded like. This is a very spooky sort of place. Mind you, I’m finding everything a bit strange at the moment.’

  ‘I’m sorry — ’ she stepped out of the darkness towards him ‘- my name is Grace Carrington.’ They shook hands formally. ‘Actually, I have seen you. I think your room is close to mine.’ She sounded faint, a wraith that might fade away at any moment.

  ‘Ah. I was in the library after lunch,’ Brock said, trying to fill the chill space around them with the confidence of his voice, ‘and I found a history of the house and the estate. It mentioned this place, so I thought I’d take a look. The Temple of Apollo.’ He gave a snort, as if to dispel any lingering miasmas with his scepticism.

  ‘He was the god of music,’ she said, indicating the organ console behind her.

  ‘Yes, and of the healing art — appropriate for a clinic, I suppose. Identified also with the sun, both as the giver of life and the destroyer. It’s amazing how many jobs they were able to hold down in those days.’

  She managed a smile. ‘You’re finding it a bit strange here, you said.’

  ‘Yes. It’s my first time. It all seems quite odd.’

  ‘You’ll soon get used to it. And when you come to leave, you’ll find that the world outside seems equally strange at first.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘I found I’d become … detached from it.’ ‘So you’ve done this a few times?’

  Grace shivered suddenly. ‘Let’s go upstairs,’ she said, and made for the foot of the stairs. ‘This is my third visit. I’m not as much a regular as Martha or Sidney — I saw you talking to them at lunch-time today.’

  ‘Yes.’ Brock’s voice became muffled as he climbed the spiral staircase. ‘I think Martha decided to take me under her wing.’

  Grace was standing at the top, waiting for him, and smiled again at the expression on his face. ‘She has a habit of doing that with new people. She’ll let you go after a bit.’

  ‘I think I may have already exhausted her patience. I got her a bit upset today.’

  ‘Did you? How did you manage that?’ They began walking slowly back up the nave.

  ‘I recalled seeing something that was reported in the papers last year, about one of the staff here who was found hanged. In this building.’

  Grace stopped and turned towards him, looking carefully at his face. ‘Yes. What did you say?’

  ‘I was just trying to find out what she thought really happened. I’m afraid she was offended, thought I was casting aspersions on the man.’

  Grace turned away, saying nothing at first. Then, ‘I was here, too.’

  Brock waited for her to say more, and when nothing came he spoke carefully, pitching his voice lower. ‘Just now, Grace, when I came upon you down there, it occurred to me that you must be standing in the actual place where he was found.’

  She didn’t acknowledge his comment for a long while. Eventually she turned towards him again and said, ‘I think many of us … would like to know what happened.’

  ‘Martha said drugs.’

  ‘That’s what they said at the inquest. But you’ve seen what it’s like down there … Knowing him, it’s hard to believe.’

  They paused for a moment outside the doors, in the space behind the four Ionic columns of the temple front.

  ‘These columns were here for a hundred years before the temple was built,’ Grace said, resting her hand on the fluted surface of one of them, picking at some lichen with her nail. ‘They were meant to be a ruin, you see, something to be contemplated from the house, or while strolling in the gardens. To remind you of the passage of time, of your mortality.’

  ‘Yes, that was mentioned in the book I was reading in the library,’ Brock said. ‘And you know about the other things, too?’

  ‘No. What other things?’

  ‘The ruin was just one of a series of mementi mori — is that the plural? According to the book, the others should still be around somewhere in the grounds. I thought I might mount an expedition at some point to try and track them down.’

  She smiled. ‘That’s a nice idea. You must tell me what you find.’

  ‘Why not join me? In this weather it might be safer to explore in pairs in case one of us gets lost in the drifts.’

  She didn’t answer and they set off towards the house, the silence broken only by the sound of their footsteps until Brock said, ‘I met someone else today who said he was here last October when that chap died. Norman de Loynes. Did you meet him then?’

  ‘Yes, I do remember him. He made himself unpopular with some of the staff. A cleaner, I think. He was quite arrogant about something, as far as I remember — he’s not a friend of yours, is he?’

  ‘No, no.’ Brock’s eyes had been studying their original footprints as they retraced their steps, the deep grip of the soles of their boots showing up as two different patterns. He noticed that there was also a third pattern of footprints, with a distinctive diamond-shaped heel mark, heading towards the temple and in some places obliterating the tracks which Brock and Grace had left. Brock stopped and stared back towards the knoll, but he couldn’t see anyone. As they approached the door to the west wing, this third set of tracks could be seen curving in towards them from the direction of the car park, its origins lost in the slush of the roadway.

  ‘All right,’ Grace said as they closed the door behind them and started pulling off their outdoor clothes. She was quicker than Brock and finished while he was still wrestling with his anorak. ‘I’ll come on your expedition. When do you want to go?’

  ‘What about tomorrow afternoon?’

  She nodded. ‘I’ll meet you down here,’ and she walked quickly away down the corridor.

  After dinner that evening a video, On Golden Pond, was shown in the drawing room for the patients. Brock skipped both dinner and video and, tucking into yet another glass of water, forced himself to do some work on his paper.

  The following morning’s treatment sessions were a repeat of the previous day’s, with hydrotherapy followed by physiotherapy and massage. He had little opportunity to talk to the staff involved, and saw no sign of Rose, whom he had been hoping to meet again.

  At two, after the lunch hour, the patients dispersed, some to their rooms to rest, others to the drawing room to read the morning papers or to the games room to play a hand of cards. Brock went to the reception desk to keep his appointment with Ben Bromley. The receptionist lifted the counter flap for him and led him to a door at the back of her office, knocked and showed him in. Expecting the converted store-cupboard that Kathy had described, Brock was surprised by a generous office, with a large window overlooking the gravelled terrace at the front of the house. The furniture and fittings appeared to be recently delivered and, unlike everywhere else in the building, were coordinated with each other. There was a pungent smell of new carpet, and another smell as well, elusive and enticing, which Brock couldn’t quite identify until he saw, incongruous in the middle of the large executive desk, a hot meat pie and a bottle of beer.

  The receptionist, taking no notice of them, said, ‘Have a seat, Mr Brock. Mr Bromley has just stepped out. He’ll be back in a sec’

  Brock sat down, mesmerized by the shockingly blatant display on the desk. He wondered if this was some kind of test, if Beamish-Newell might be watching him on a hidden camera, waiting to see if he would break down and hurl himself at the forbidden fruit.

  Bromley bustled in after a while, cheerfully shook Brock’s hand and went round to sit in the large, pneumatically operated chair behind the desk. His aftershave was powerful. ‘Sorry about this,’ he said, gesturing towards the pie and beer. ‘I got held up in town, negotiating with the stoats and weasels at the bank. Went on much longer than I’d expected, and I missed my lunch. You’ve had yours, I suppose?’

  Brock nodded. ‘Please, go ahead. Don’t let it get cold.’ He tried to
drag his eyes away.

  ‘Well, if you really don’t mind, I might just do that. I’m ravenous, as a matter of fact. Always does that to me, talking about money.’ Bromley grinned and bit a large chunk out of the pie. While he chewed, he carried on talking. ‘Well now, David, mmm, mmm, what can I do for you?’

  Brock coughed, clearing the saliva in his throat. ‘Well … it was Dr Beamish-Newell who suggested I might speak to you. About the possibility of investing in the clinic. Then I was speaking to Norman de Loynes, and he suggested the same thing.’

  ‘Mmm, mmm.’ Bromley nodded vigorously, licked his lips and took another bite of pie. Gravy oozed down his chin. ‘Good idea. Stephen did mention you to me. This is your first visit, I understand.’

  ‘Yes. I must admit I’m pretty new to all this. I really don’t know a lot about it. I only arrived on Monday.’

  ‘Mmm. Well, I imagine the Director has been painting the picture, mmm, of the health side of things. Obviously, what Stanhope has to offer in that respect is a very superior product. Maybe unique. What has probably also become apparent to you is that Stanhope is a community of like-minded people. That’s a very important part of the philosophy, mmm; it’s not just some sort of sterile out-patient facility or a commercial fat-farm.’

  Bromley nodded at his own words and paused briefly to take a swig from the beer bottle and another bite from the remains of the pie. ‘But the third aspect of Stanhope, mmm, mmm, which may not be so apparent up front, David, is that it is also a very sound business enterprise. I’ll show you figures in a tick. Three things, you see — health, community and enterprise. Together they create a really special investment context.’

  He let that sink in while he finished the pie, screwed up the foil tray and tossed it into his waste-paper basket. ‘Smashing,’ he said.