A Dead Man in Malta

by Michael Pearce

  ‘Well, there you are!’ said Mrs Wynne-Gurr. ‘And when the time comes, we shall be ready. Meanwhile, we may be in a position to help our friends the police here with some problems that they face. Thanks not least to your endeavours, ladies!’

  ‘Really?’ said the ladies, a little surprised but also impressed.

  ‘I believe so. Your reports on your observations in the hospital wards have been very fruitful. Very fruitful! When combined with analysis - my analysis,’ said Mrs Wynne-Gurr firmly, ‘I believe that they will help us to point the police in the direction of the person who has committed these dreadful murders. Now, I shall need just a little time this morning to marshal my arguments - our arguments - before we show our hand. So I would be grateful, Mrs Wagstaffe, if you could chair this morning. If we could split up into small groups first and then come together in a planning session just before lunch, when I hope to be able to rejoin you - ’

  ‘A word with you, Mr Seymour, if I may.’

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘I have been reflecting on these dreadful murders, and particularly in the light of the day we spent observing in the hospital.’

  ‘Ye-e-s?’

  ‘I have to own that my first thoughts on the subject were premature and impulsive.’

  ‘What!’ said Seymour, stopped in his tracks.

  ‘I attributed too much significance to a similarity I had noticed between these deaths and some deaths I had recently learned about in my own local hospital - the Godalming, you know.’

  ‘Cot deaths, if I remember ...’

  ‘And the Admiral - I think he was an Admiral - properly reproved me. There were similarities. Similarities can be deceptive, however, and I now think I was deceived. Or deceived myself. They were clearly not cot deaths.’

  ‘I am glad you now think that, Mrs Wynne-Gurr.’

  ‘However - ’

  However?

  ‘ - I was right in one particular: my focus on nursing practice.’

  ‘Well, I am not sure - ’

  ‘Or nursing routine. You may not be aware of the importance of routines in a nurse’s life, Mr Seymour.’

  He looked around desperately. Over by the reception desk Chantale was talking to a group of St John ladies. He willed her to come over. She saw him; but merely waved a friendly hand and stayed put.

  ‘A nurse’s life is built of routines. When she takes over, she usually goes round the ward. At a certain point takes temperatures, gives medicine. Records. Goes for her break. And the routines are pretty regular. She takes temperatures at the same time, distributes medicines at the same time. Goes for her break at the same time.

  ‘Now, of course, as you will recognize - perhaps have recognized - this is important. For, you see, one of the things that puzzled me - puzzled you, no doubt - was that, on at least two of the occasions when the crime was committed, a nurse was present. Present, or nearby. Or should have been. But if the nurse was present, how could she have let such a thing occur?

  ‘The obvious deduction was that at the crucial time in each case she was not present. How could that be? The obvious answer was that the attack was made during her break. But for that to happen, the attacker must have known when the breaks would occur. He must have been in a position to predict it. Now, something very important follows from that, which I shall return to.

  ‘But, first, there is the question to be answered of whether the breaks were taken at regular times? Because if they weren’t, it would be impossible to know with confidence when they would occur.

  ‘Now, Mr Seymour, as the result of the many observations made by my ladies while they were in the wards, I am in a position to say that they were. There was some variation, of course, but it was within quite severely restricted limits. So,’ said Mrs Wynne-Gurr, pausing, and with a certain degree of triumph, ‘here we have the explanation of how the attacks could take place without being observed: they were made during the nurse’s break for refreshments.’

  ‘Well, yes, but - ‘

  ‘There is, of course, a further point, the additional one I referred to earlier: the attacker knew in advance when the break would occur. And that could come only from a very detailed knowledge of that particular nurse’s routine. And that will come only from someone within the hospital. Which means that either the attacker himself came from inside the hospital or else he had an accomplice within the hospital. To anyone familiar with hospital routine, Mr Seymour, such as myself, that points to another nurse.’

  ‘Of course, it could be - ’

  ‘Yes, I know, Mr Seymour. It could equally be someone else on the hospital staff. So far as the provision of information is concerned, yes, I agree with you, although I think that the detail of the knowledge makes it much more likely that we are talking about a nurse. And something has come up in my analysis of the date that lends support to that conclusion. I wish to check my workings just once again, Mr Seymour, before sharing them with you, since the implications are so serious. But it appears from my analysis that in each case - including that of the German aviator - a particular nurse was in close proximity. As I say, I shall need to check my data just once again, but it looks to me, Mr Seymour, that the St John Ambulance will soon be in a position to say, once again, that they have done it.’

  Chapter Eleven

  When Felix arrived at the Ferreiras’ house the next morning he found Sophia still sitting at breakfast with Chantale but with a face like a thundercloud.

  ‘They’ve turned down my project.’ she informed him.

  ‘I thought you hadn’t finished it yet?’

  ‘Actually, I haven’t started it. We had to hand in the final form of the title yesterday. And they rejected it!’

  ‘They didn’t like the Victoria Lines?’

  ‘I didn’t like the Victoria Lines. So I decided to change it.’

  ‘What did you change it to?’

  ‘ ”Malta and the Decline of the British Empire”.’

  ‘That is quite a lot different.’

  ‘It’s more in line with the direction of my thinking.’ said Sophia.

  ‘Why did they object to it?’

  ‘They said it was too big a subject for a School Certificate project. And that it was too general. (I don’t think it’s general at all. It’s very specific.) And that it was tendentious. I’m not sure what “tendentious” means but I’m pretty sure my project’s not it.’

  ‘I know what “tendentious” means,’ said Grandfather.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Writing that has a particular tendency.’

  ‘Well, all writing that’s trying to say something has a particular tendency.’

  ‘ “Calculated to advance a cause”, it says here.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Maybe they think it’s not objective,’ said Mrs Ferreira.

  ‘That’s just what they think. I think it is objective.’

  ‘What is your cause?’ asked Chantale.

  ‘The freeing of Malta. From the British.’

  ‘Yes, well, look - ’ said her grandfather.

  ‘It is rather general,’ said Mrs Ferreira, ‘for a Certificate project.’

  ‘It’s censorship, that’s what it is!’ said Sophia. ‘And I am going to fight it!’

  ‘Could you fight it after you’ve passed the Certificate?’ asked Mrs Ferreira.

  Seymour went in to see how Lucca was this morning. He found him filling in forms: ‘German forms’, he called them.

  ‘Just give me a minute!’ he said.

  Along the corridor Seymour could hear Luigi’s petulant voice.

  ‘My clothes!’ he was saying. ‘I’ve got to have my clothes!’

  ‘I’ll bring you a change in,’ he heard Suzie say soothingly.

  ‘I don’t want just one change,’ Luigi said, almost tearfully. ‘I want all my clothes!’

  ‘Well, darling, I don’t think they’ll let you have them all. You’ve got quite a lot of clothes, you know. And there isn’t roo
m for them here.’

  ‘I’ll ask Benito!’

  ‘I don’t think even Benito will let you. Because, look, there just isn’t room for them here. Where would you put them? There isn’t a wardrobe. And if you put them on hangers, you’d have to hang them all over the place. And where would you hang them from? There simply aren’t places. If you hung them all from the window, all together, they’d get crumpled, wouldn’t they? And you know you wouldn’t like that.’

  ‘This one is all crumpled already. And I’ve nothing to change into!’

  Lucca looked up and sighed. ‘What’s he worried about? My uniform’s all crumpled, too, and Marta says she’s not pressing it until Saturday. Saturday is the day she does the ironing, she says. “Put your other one on if you’re that bothered.” “I can’t,” I say. “It’s too small for me these days.” “It’s not that it’s too small; it’s that you’ve got too big. You’ve put on weight, Benito. I keep telling you you’ve got to get it off!”‘

  ‘I’ve told you I’ll bring you in another one,’ said Suzie, placatorily.

  ‘Bring it in this afternoon!’ said Luigi.

  ‘I can’t, dear. You know I’m busy.’

  ‘Nobody cares about me any more!’ said Luigi tearfully. ‘Not even Paolo. He’s not been in once.’

  ‘I expect he’s busy, too,’ said Suzie. ‘You know he’s got a berth on the Ascania? It’s putting in next week, and they need stewards. So then he’ll be away for a few weeks. So he’s got to get his things together.’

  ‘He ought to have looked in on me,’ whined Luigi. ‘After what I did for him. I’m his mate.’

  ‘So you are, Luigi, and I’m sure he’ll look in. It’s just that he’s so busy. But I’ll remind him.’

  ‘And where are the others? No one’s been in to see me since I’ve been put in here!’

  ‘I’ll remind them all. Little Luigi is languishing away, I’ll say.’

  ‘I’m not little! I’m right for people of my build. It’s just that other people are fat.’

  ‘Christ!’ said Lucca. ‘Even Luigi’s on to me now!’

  ‘But I’m wiry and I can do things that they can’t. Even Paolo says that. “You can go places that other people can’t,” he said. But I don’t want to get my clothes dirty. “I’ll pay for you to get them cleaned,” he said. But he hasn’t. That’s not right, is it?’

  ‘I’ll mention that to him, too,’ said Suzie.

  ‘It’s that sailor again, isn’t it?’ said Bettina.

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘It won’t go away, will it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He died on my watch.’

  Seymour smiled. ‘You’re another Navy nurse, aren’t you? Like Macfarlane.’

  ‘We’re all Navy nurses here,’ said Bettina.

  ‘And every shift is a watch?’

  ‘And if something happens on your watch, then you’re responsible.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s entirely fair. Being a nurse is not quite like being on the bridge. If someone dies when you’re on duty, there may be nothing you could have done about it.’

  ‘Or there may have been: I keep asking myself if there was something I could have done but didn’t do. Maybe when I was doing the rounds I didn’t look closely enough.’

  ‘But you did look, didn’t you?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I did look. But maybe I didn’t see.’

  ‘Of course, you were looking at the patients. But can I ask you about something else you may have seen?’

  ‘Ye-e-s?’

  ‘There’s a cupboard at the end of the ward.’

  ‘Ye-e-s?’

  ‘What is it used for?’

  ‘Nothing much. Sometimes the cleaners put their mops in there. But lately they’ve taken to keeping them at the other end of the ward, where there is a little kitchen. Then they can pick up the water at the same time.’

  ‘So no one goes in much?’

  ‘Not much, no.’

  ‘Do they ever go in?’

  ‘Well ...’

  ‘Let me put it another way: have you seen or do you know of anyone making use of it for their own private purpose?’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Bettina.

  ‘Not a nurse.’

  ‘No.’

  There was another pause.

  ‘You know?’ said Bettina.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Seymour.

  ‘I suspected it. And once I caught them. I turfed them out and told - told her, that she must never do it again. And then I kept my eye on the cupboard, and thought she’d stopped. But - but now you’re saying that she didn’t?’

  ‘She was in there that night. The night the man died.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ said Bettina.

  ‘And so was he.’

  ‘That’s awful!’

  ‘But perhaps not so unusual. He says he left before - before anything happened.’

  ‘But how could he have left? I was there all the time.’

  ‘That, actually, is the point.’

  ‘I don’t see how he could have left! I would have seen him!’

  ‘He says he crawled out on hands and knees. You were there but you didn’t see him.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ said Bettina bitterly. ‘What a fool I am!’

  ‘Well, maybe. But it’s hardly the sort of thing you would be looking out for, is it?’

  ‘Still . . .’ said Bettina.

  ‘Still!’ said Seymour. ‘However, it’s easily done. But it would not be so easy to miss the other thing that happened that night. Someone else came into the ward. Either from the cupboard or from outside.’

  Bettina shook her head.

  ‘She wouldn’t.’ she said. ‘She’s not that kind of person.’

  ‘We never think they are.’

  She still shook her head.

  ‘Too small,’ she said. ‘Wilson was a strong man. Not big, but strong.’

  ‘Someone else, then.’

  Bettina looked puzzled.

  ‘But I still don’t see - ’ she began. ‘How could they have done it? I would surely have seen them. That, I could not have missed!’

  ‘If you had been there,’ said Seymour.

  Bettina flushed.

  ‘I can assure you I was there!’ she said.

  ‘The whole time?’

  ‘The whole time.’

  ‘You didn’t take a break?’

  ‘Only the usual one ... I see.’ said Bettina.

  ‘Do you take it at a fixed time?’

  ‘It’s not fixed, but I suppose we take it most nights at much the same time.’

  ‘And do you remember - ?’

  ‘Actually, I do,’ said Bettina. ‘I hadn’t been feeling too good that night. It was that period of the month. Melinda knew, and she came in and offered to take over for a bit while I went to the rest room and lay down.’

  ‘Ah!’

  ‘But I said no. I said I would hang on to the regular time. And that’s that I did.’

  ‘On watch as usual!’ said Seymour.

  ‘I’m always on watch.’ said Laura. ‘And always on guard.’

  ‘Not from me, I hope!’

  ‘From marauding males!’

  Seymour laughed. ‘I promise I’ll be on my best behaviour.’

  ‘So what did you want to see me about?’ said Laura.

  ‘Cover at night,’ said Seymour. ‘For you.’

  ‘I’m on till nine,’ said Laura, ‘and then the porters take over. We don’t really need a receptionist at night. This isn’t like an ordinary hospital. Oh, yes, we do have admissions at night, but there are not many of them. And the porters and medical staff handle them between themselves.’

  ‘So if a person comes in with an injury - ?’

  ‘The nurse on duty sees them and makes arrangements.’

  ‘And what if they don’t have an injury?’

  ‘Suddenly taken ill? The same. The nurse sees them.’

  ‘And someo
ne not ill?’

  Laura raised her eyebrows. ‘They don’t come in. It’s outside visiting hours.’

  ‘Drunks?’

  ‘The porters see to them.’

  ‘That might be difficult if there’s only one porter on duty.’

  ‘We’ve not had any problems.’

  ‘Or not any porter on duty.’

  Laura looked at him. ‘That time - ? Mario, you mean? It happened once. It won’t happen again.’

  ‘It’s that once that interests me.’

  Umberto was carrying a lamp. He put it down when he saw Seymour waiting for him.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I know I shouldn’t have done it. He’s only a young lad, and he was helping me out. But, listen, I’m the one to blame. Not him.’

  ‘I’m not blaming him. I’m not even blaming you. But there’s something I want to know. Who else knew about it?’

  ‘About - ?’

  ‘About him being left to cover for you while you were sniffing around your girlfriend.’

  Umberto winced.

  ‘You don’t need to put it like that,’ he said. ‘She was on her own and needed comforting.’

  ‘And you were just the man to do that when you should have been on duty at the hospital?’

  ‘Nine times out of ten it would have been all right, I’d checked beforehand. Honestly, I’d checked! I went round all the nurses, the ones on night duty that week. And they all said that no one was going to be in trouble. “So you’ll be able to kip all night,” Bettina said. Of course she didn’t know that it wasn’t kipping that I had in mind.’

  ‘So you thought it was all right to leave young Mario in charge?’

  ‘Well, Christ, I didn’t know that he’d have to deal with something like this! No one did. And I can tell you, no one was as surprised as me. You get a feel for these things, you know, when you’ve worked here as long as I have. You can sort of sense if someone is likely to go. But not this time. I couldn’t believe it when I heard. But then, afterwards, when I heard the rumours I felt sick. Someone must have got in. Taken advantage of me not being there.’

  ‘Someone knew that you were not going to be there,’ said Seymour. ‘Who?’