The Dying of the Light: A Mystery (4 page)

‘This would be a good way to kill someone,’ she murmured.

The silence was broken only by the clink of crockery and the sound of Mr Purvey sucking tea through his dentures.

‘How many is it now?’ Dorothy asked suddenly.

Rosemary gave her a cautious glance.

‘How many what?’

‘And no one ever investigates, do they?’ Dorothy went on. ‘After all, it’s the most natural thing in the world for old people to die.’

Rosemary sipped her tea.

‘It’s not a question of common or garden death,’ she remarked dismissively. ‘It’s a question of
murder
.’

Dorothy gave a wan smile.

‘Oh well, that’s different, of course.’

Rosemary picked up one of the empty sachets.

‘All the killer would need to do is steam one of these open carefully, so as not to tear the paper. Then he …’

She paused, eyeing her friend expectantly.

‘Or she,’ Dorothy murmured at length.

Rosemary nodded.

‘… would refill the sachet with poison …’

‘… from the potting shed in the kitchen garden …’

‘… where everyone has been at some time or another …’

‘… on some more or less feeble pretext,’ concluded Dorothy. ‘Yes, but how would you make sure that the intended victim was given the poisoned sachet?’

Rosemary frowned.

‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

Dorothy sipped her tea.

‘Cocoa would be better,’ she said.

‘But that’s already sugared,’ objected Rosemary.

Dorothy’s needles clacked assiduously.

‘Yes, but it tastes so strong that you could add poison without the victim noticing.’

Rosemary shook her head.

‘You’ve still got the same problem, Dot. The mugs of cocoa are just left out on a tray in the hall. There’s no way of making sure that the poison reaches the right person.’

Dorothy set down her knitting. She cradled the tea cup in her hands, as though to warm them.

‘I always take the blue one. Most people use the same mug every night. Yours is the brown one with the broken handle glued back on. Charles likes the dark green one, while Grace prefers the pale pink. Weatherby always uses that hideous coronation mug, and Mrs Hargreaves …’

‘You haven’t really changed your will, have you Dot?’ Rosemary interrupted.

Dorothy picked up her knitting without answering. Rosemary looked at her friend with a preoccupied expression.

‘It’s none of my business, of course,’ she went on, ‘but I must say that I would personally consider it most unwise to put any faith in promises which may have been made in a certain quarter. I shouldn’t think there’s the slightest chance of their being honoured.’

Dorothy clutched her chest and moaned.

‘What is it?’ cried Rosemary in alarm.

‘I’m all right. Only would you be an angel and fetch my medicine? What with one thing and another I never did manage to get upstairs, and now it’s started to hurt quite badly.’

‘Is there anything else?’ asked Rosemary, springing to her feet.

Dorothy tried a smile which did not quite come off.

‘Could you possibly spare that thick cardie of yours? I feel the cold so now that winter’s here.’

‘Of course you can. Although it’s only September, you know. Or October at the latest.’

‘Does it matter?’ Dorothy returned in an oddly muted voice. ‘You can’t change anything with words, Rose. I’m
cold
.’

CHAPTER 3

Rosemary made her way along the corridor which wound about the first floor of the building, connecting the various bedrooms. Most of the doors were either closed or slightly ajar, but at length a further bend in the passage revealed one which lay wide open. The room inside looked as though it had been prepared for a guest who had not yet arrived. The furniture was the same as in all the other bedrooms: a sturdy metal-framed single bed with a cabinet beside it, a chest of drawers, a large wardrobe and a hard armchair.

Everything was in its place, corners aligned and not a speck of dust to be seen. The bed was perfectly made, the corners of the covers turned down as though in readiness for the intended occupant. On top of the chest of drawers the various paraphernalia which Mr Purvey needed to keep his diabetes under control were arranged in a precise geometric pattern. Although he had been a resident for several years, Purvey still acted as though he were an uninvited guest who had long outstayed his welcome. Perhaps because of this, he kept his room irreproachably clean and tidy and always left the door open, to indicate that he was not claiming any rights of privacy, still less possession.

Rosemary opened the door opposite and went inside. She always appreciated her fortune in having one of the smaller bedrooms, which had escaped subdivision. As a result, the walls were solid and the proportions made sense, with two good-sized windows overlooking the grounds at the front of the house. Despite the thick patina of grime on the glass, there was a fine view over the flat expanse of the former croquet lawn, the rockery beyond, and then the pastures rising to the ridge which overlooked the valley. There was a minor road somewhere up there, and when the intervening hedgerows and trees were bare one could sometimes catch a flash of colour as a vehicle sped by.

The noise of footsteps drew her attention abruptly back to the foreground, where a figure in a dark overcoat was striding across the weed-spattered gravel to the blue saloon car parked outside the house, clicking and creaking intermittently as its engine cooled. The man opened the rear door and reached inside. Rosemary hastily stepped back into the shadows of the room as he turned round again, holding a black medical bag. Then the footsteps crunched back to the house again, and the front door distantly slammed.

Rosemary pulled open the middle drawer of the chest which stood between the two windows and lifted out a green cardigan, exposing a panel of sallow newsprint with an article about an agricultural fair. She pushed the drawer closed, overcoming its slight tendency to jam, and was about to open the door when she heard the noise of rubber-soled shoes in the corridor outside.

‘Ahm alwuss trahin’,’
sang a powerful female voice.
‘Fower to make dat punishment fit dat crime!
Sure am! Lordy! Bet your sweet ass!’

Rosemary waited until the squelching footsteps had receded before venturing out. Closing the door carefully behind her, she hurried off along the corridor towards Dorothy’s room. This was situated on the north-facing side of the building, which meant it got no sun and had a much less attractive view over the former kitchen garden, stables and other outbuildings. To make matters worse, the original room had been divided to accommodate extra guests, back in the far-off days when Eventide Lodge had been a flourishing enterprise under the energetic direction of old Mrs Anderson.

Since her son had taken over, death had steadily reduced the number of residents, but the partitions remained in place, strips of flimsy plasterboard through which you could hear everything that happened in the neighbouring room. This was particularly unfortunate in Dorothy’s case since her neighbour, George Channing, snored loudly. Rosemary had tried to have her friend transferred to Mr Purvey’s room, next door to her own, but Mr Anderson had told her that ‘to avoid any suspicion of favouritism’ residents must retain the room they had been allocated on arrival.

The doorway to the two adjoining rooms gave into a cramped plasterboard cubicle from which plywood fire-retardant doors led off on either side. Rosemary was about to open the door into Dorothy’s room when she heard a loud groan from behind the walling to her right. After a moment’s hesitation she grasped the handle of the other door, stepped inside and stood open-mouthed and staring, struck dumb by the sight which met her eyes.

The room was in chaos. Blood-stained clothes lay strewn about. There was more blood on the walls, as well as on the overturned chest of drawers and the broken chair. The floor was littered with shards of glass. A cold draught swept in through the smashed window, making the curtains flap wildly. But Rosemary barely noticed any of this. All she could see was the body outstretched on the bed, roped to the frame at wrist and ankle, covered in gashes and abrasions, the skin deathly pale, the torn clothing blotched with blood.

The man’s mouth was bound with sticking tape, but his eyes were fixed on Rosemary’s with manic intensity, and his whole body seemed to resonate with the eerie moaning. But before Rosemary could think what to do, let alone do it, she heard voices nearing along the corridor outside. With a helpless glance at the man she hurried out, closing the door quietly behind her, and slipped into Dorothy’s room just before the two speakers reached the doorway.

‘Shame he didn’t break his damned neck while he was at it,’ Anderson was saying. ‘Injured’s no good to me, Jim. I need them dead.’

‘You want the police called in?’ replied a man Rosemary recognized as Dr Morel. ‘They die in bed is one thing, but I can’t just rubber-stamp something like that. Should have put bars on the windows.’

‘It all costs money, you know. Besides, it doesn’t look good.’

‘And how good do you think this looks? An ex-Battle of Britain ace trying a stunt like this at eighty something. People are going to wonder why he bothered.’

‘No they aren’t, Jim. Because they aren’t going to find out, as long as you keep your mouth shut.’

‘And then to set the dog on him …’

The voices became muffled as the two men entered the next room and closed the door behind them. Rosemary walked slowly over to the window, hugging the green cardigan to her chest. The walled kitchen garden below was now overgrown with brambles whose long tendrils had matted together to form an impenetrable mass of spiny undergrowth. A narrow path of concrete slabs had been kept open, leading from the back door to a doorway in the wall. Halfway along it was a rough clearing where Anderson’s Doberman was normally kept tethered. Now its orange nylon cord lay limp on the ground amid the dog’s massive droppings.

The murmur of voices was still audible next door, although only the occasional word was intelligible from where Rosemary was standing. She tiptoed over to the bed, crouched up on it and put her ear to the wall.

‘Jesus Christ almighty!’ Morel exclaimed. ‘Do you file that hound’s teeth or what?’

‘Klaus is an attack dog,’ replied Anderson haughtily. ‘His jaws are the result of generations of selective breeding.’

‘Pity they forgot to leave room for a brain.’

‘It was his own fault, Jim. If Klaus hadn’t got him, he’d probably have been hedgehogged by some passing motorist.’

‘All I’m trying to say is you can’t run a place like this by yourself, Bill.’

‘Letty’s not just a pretty face, you know.’

‘I mean someone human. And preferably with a few relevant qualifications.’

‘It all comes down to money,’ Anderson sighed. ‘Speaking of which, what’s the good word
in re
the Davenport?’

Rosemary jerked her head away abruptly from the wall. She got down off the bed and crossed to the chest of drawers on the other side of the room, where Dorothy’s meagre stock of personal possessions were displayed. There was a small statue of a lighthouse inscribed ‘Land’s End’, a faded photograph of two solemn children holding hands, a set of miniature spirit bottles in a wooden case, a Chinese fan with a broken gilt clasp and a spray of dried poppies. There was also a brown bottle with a typed label reading
The Mixture Mrs D. Davenport To be taken as directed Do not exceed the stated dose.
A transparent plastic spoon was attached to the bottle by a rubber band, its bowl lightly stained with a blue smear.

Taking the bottle in one hand and holding the cardigan under her arm, Rosemary walked quietly to the door. In the cubicle leading to the corridor the voices once more loomed up at her.

‘… out of the question,’ Morel was saying. ‘I’ve read the consultant’s report, Bill. The only way she’s going to leave hospital is in a bag.’

‘Fine, but
when
?’

‘That’s hard to say. Could be a few months, could be a year. Someone our age you’d be talking weeks, but the old last longer, funnily enough. The metabolism’s running down, you see, so even a rampant malignancy like this takes a while to run its course.’

‘So what if she tells the nurses about our chum here? If this gets in the papers …’

‘Don’t fret, Bill. She’ll be out of it on pain control most of the time, plus with the staffing levels these days no one has the time to stand around nattering.’

‘All the same, I’d be happier if she stayed here.’

‘No can do, Bill. Once the machinery’s been set in motion …’

Rosemary ran as fast as she dared along the corridor to the landing and clattered downstairs. Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she noticed that she was patting the back of her right hand, which held the medicine bottle. That gesture had been the closest her mother, an undemonstrative woman, had ever come to physical intimacy, and then only on very special occasions when she had felt it necessary or desirable to reassure the child – in much the same way that she kept a small bottle of brandy on the top shelf of the cupboard in the bathroom ‘for medicinal purposes only’.

Rosemary turned briskly away. That was quite enough of that. She wasn’t having mirrors going soft on her. Shiny, hard and shallow was how she wanted them, reflecting her as she was, as she appeared to be, an elderly maiden aunt whose emotions were under perfect control at all times. It was a relief to return to the lounge and find the other guests all in their places: the colonel with his newspaper, the peeress at the piano, the clergyman buried in his book, the lovebirds using the jigsaw as an excuse for their proximity, the invalid widow swathed in her blankets, the Jew on the phone. Only George Channing, the corned beef millionaire, appeared to be missing.

Rosemary slipped into the chair beside her friend.

‘We must talk, Dot!’ she said urgently. ‘Here, put the cardigan on. I’ve been a fool, Dot. No, not that button, there’s one right here at the bottom. We’ve been totally and utterly wrong all along, and I almost didn’t realize the truth until it was too late! Quick, take your medicine and then I’ll explain.’