The Private Patient (17 page)

12

The rest of the afternoon was occupied with the individual interviews, most of them taking place in the library. Helena Cressett was the last of the household to be seen, and Dalgliesh had given the task to Kate and Benton. He sensed that Miss Cressett expected him to do the questioning, and he needed her to know that he headed a team, and that both his junior officers were competent. Surprisingly, she invited Kate and Benton to join her in her private flat in the east wing. The room into which she led them was obviously her sitting room but in its elegance and richness was hardly the accommodation a housekeeper-administrator would expect to occupy. The furnishings and the placing of the pictures revealed a highly individual taste, and although the room wasn't exactly cluttered, there was a suggestion of valued objects being brought together more for the satisfaction of the owner than as part of a coherent decorative plan. It was, thought Benton, as if Helena Cressett had colonised part of the Manor for her private domain. Here was none of the dark solidity of Tudor furniture. Apart from the sofa, covered in cream linen and piped with red, which stood at right angles to the fireplace, most of the furniture was Georgian.

Nearly all the pictures on the panelled walls were family portraits, and Miss Cressett's resemblance to them was unmistakable. None seemed to him particularly fine—perhaps those had been sold separately—but all had a striking individuality and were competently painted, some more than competently. Here a Victorian bishop in his lawn sleeves gazed at the painter with ecclesiastical hauteur belied by a suspicion of unease, as if the book on which his palm rested was
The
Origin of Species.
Next to him a seventeenth-century Cavalier, hand on sword, posed with unashamed arrogance, while, over the mantelpiece, an early-Victorian family was grouped in front of the house, the ringleted mother with her younger children gathered about her, the eldest boy mounted on a pony, the father at their side. And always there were the high arched brows above the eyes, the dominant cheekbones, the full curve of the upper lip.

Benton said, “You're among your ancestors, Miss Cressett. The resemblance is striking.”

Neither Dalgliesh nor Kate would have said that—it was maladroit and could be unwise to begin an interview with a personal comment—and, although Kate was silent, Benton felt her surprise. But he quickly justified to himself a remark which had been spontaneous by reflecting that it would probably prove useful. They needed to know the woman they were dealing with and, more precisely, her status at the Manor, how far she was in control and how strong her influence on Chandler-Powell and the other residents. Her response to what she might see as a minor impertinence could be revealing.

Looking him full in the face, she said coolly,
“The years-heired feature
that can / In curve and voice and eye / Despise the human span / Of
durance—that is I; / The eternal thing in Man, / That heeds no call to die.
It doesn't take a professional detective to detect that. Do you enjoy Thomas Hardy, Sergeant?”

“As a poet more than a novelist.”

“I agree. I find depressing his determination to make his characters suffer even when a little common sense on both his part and theirs could avoid it. Tess is one of the most irritating young women in Victorian fiction. Won't you both sit down?”

And here was the hostess, recalling duty but unable or unwilling to control the note of condescending reluctance. She indicated the sofa and seated herself in an armchair facing it. Kate and Benton sat.

Without preliminaries, Kate took over. “Mr. Chandler-Powell described you as the administrator here. What exactly does the job entail?”

“My job here? It's difficult to describe. I'm a manager, administrator, housekeeper, secretary and part-time accountant. I suppose ‘general manager' covers it all. But Mr. Chandler-Powell usually describes me as the administrator when speaking to patients.”

“And you've been here how long?”

“It will be six years next month.”

Kate said, “It can't have been easy for you.”

“Not easy in what way, Inspector?”

Miss Cressett's tone was one of detached interest, but Benton didn't miss the note of suppressed resentment. He had encountered this reaction before: a suspect, usually one with some authority, more used to putting questions than answering them, unwilling to antagonise the chief investigating officer but venting his or her resentment on a subordinate. Kate wasn't intimidated.

She said, “To return to a house so beautiful which your family has owned for generations and to see someone else in occupation. Not everyone could cope with that.”

“Not everyone is required to. Perhaps I should explain. My family owned and lived in the Manor for more than four hundred years, but everything comes to an end. Mr. Chandler-Powell is fond of the house, and it is better in his care than in the care of the others who viewed and wanted to buy it. I didn't murder one of his patients in order to shut down the clinic and pay him back for buying my family home or for getting it cheap. Forgive my frankness, Inspector, but isn't that what you came to find out?”

It was never wise to rebut an allegation which hadn't yet been made, particularly with such brutal frankness, and it was obvious that she realised her mistake as soon as the words were out of her mouth. So the resentment was there. But against whom or what? Benton wondered. The police, Chandler-Powell's desecration of the west wing, or Rhoda Gradwyn, who so inconveniently and embarrassingly had brought the vulgarity of a criminal investigation into her ancestral halls?

Kate asked, “How did you come to get the job?”

“I applied for it. Isn't that usually how one gets a job? It was advertised, and I thought it would be interesting to return to the Manor and see what changes had been made, apart from the building of the clinic. My own profession, if you can call it that, is of an art historian, but I could hardly combine that with living here. I hadn't intended to stay long, but I find the work interesting and I'm in no hurry at present to move on. I expect that's what you wanted to know. But is my personal history really relevant to Rhoda Gradwyn's death?”

Kate said, “We can't tell what is or what is not relevant without asking questions which may seem an intrusion. Often they are. We can only hope for co-operation and understanding. A murder investigation isn't a social occasion.”

“Then let's not treat it as one, Inspector.”

A flush flowed quickly over her pale and remarkable face like a dying rash. The temporary loss of composure made her more human and, surprisingly, more attractive. She held her emotions under control, but they were there. She was not, thought Benton, a passionless woman, only one who had learnt the wisdom of keeping her passions under control.

He said, “How much contact did you have with Miss Gradwyn, either on her first visit or subsequently?”

“Practically none, except on both occasions to be part of the reception committee and to show her to her room. We hardly spoke. My job has nothing to do with the patients. Their treatment and comfort are the responsibility of the two surgeons and Sister Holland.”

“But you recruit and control the domestic staff?”

“I find them when there's a vacancy. I have been used to running this house. And, yes, they come under my general authority, although that word is too strong for the kind of control I exercise. But when, as occasionally happens, they have anything to do with the patients, then that's Sister Holland's responsibility. I suppose there's a certain overlapping of duties, since I'm responsible for the kitchen staff and Sister for the kind of food the patients receive, but it seems to work quite well.”

“Did you appoint Sharon Bateman?”

“I placed the advertisement in a number of papers and she applied. She was working at the time in a home for the elderly and presented very good references. I didn't actually interview her. I was at my London flat at the time, so Mrs. Frensham, Miss Westhall and Sister Holland saw her and took her on. I don't think anyone has regretted it.”

“Did you know, or did you ever meet Rhoda Gradwyn before she arrived here?”

“I never met her, but of course I'd heard of her. I suppose everyone has who reads a broadsheet. I knew her to be a successful and influential journalist. I had no reason to think kindly of her, but a personal resentment, which was really no more than discomfort on hearing her name, didn't make me wish her dead. My father was the last male Cressett, and he lost almost all the family money in the Lloyd's disaster. He was forced to sell the Manor, and Mr. Chandler-Powell bought it. Shortly after the sale, Rhoda Gradwyn wrote a brief article in a financial paper critical of the Lloyd's Names, and in particular naming my father, among others. There was a suggestion that those who were unfortunate had got what they deserved. She gave a brief description of the Manor and something of its history in the article, but that must have been taken from a guidebook, since, as far as any of us knew, she'd never actually been here. Some of my father's friends thought it was the article that killed him, but I've never believed that, and nor, I think, did they. It was an overdramatic response to comments which were unkind but hardly libellous. My father had long-standing heart problems and knew that his life was fragile. It may have been selling the Manor that was the final blow, but I very much doubt whether anything Rhoda Gradwyn could write or say would have troubled him. After all, what was she? An ambitious woman who made money out of the pain of others. Someone hated her enough to put his hands round her throat, but it wasn't anyone who slept here last night. And now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like you to leave. I shall, of course, be here tomorrow, whenever you wish to see me, but I've had enough excitement for today.”

It was not a request they could refuse. The interview had lasted less than half an hour. As they heard the door close firmly behind them, Benton reflected, and with some regret, that a preference for Thomas Hardy's poetry over his novels was probably the only thing the two of them had in common, or were ever likely to have.

13

Perhaps because the group interrogation in the library was a fresh and unpleasant memory, the suspects, as if by unspoken agreement, avoided open discussion of the murder, but Lettie knew that they spoke of it privately—herself and Helena, the Bostocks in the kitchen, which they had always regarded as their home but now saw as a refuge, and, she assumed, the Westhalls in Stone Cottage. Only Flavia and Sharon seemed to distance themselves from the others and kept their silence, Flavia busying herself with unspecified jobs in the operating suite, Sharon seeming to regress to a moody monosyllabic teenager. Mog moved between them distributing pieces of gossip and theory like alms into outstretched hands. Without any formal meeting or agreed strategy, it seemed to Lettie that a common theory was emerging which only the most sceptical found unconvincing, and they were holding their peace.

Obviously the murder was an outside job and Rhoda Gradwyn herself had let her killer into the Manor, the date and time probably by prior agreement before she left London. That was why she had been so adamant that no visitors should be admitted. She was, after all, a notorious investigative journalist. She must have made enemies. The car seen by Mog was probably the killer's, and the light glimpsed at the stones by Mrs. Skeffington was his waving torch. The bolted door next morning was a difficulty, but the murderer could have bolted the door himself after the deed and then hidden himself in the Manor until the door was unbolted next morning by Chandler-Powell. There had, after all, been only a superficial search of the Manor before the police arrived. Had anyone, for example, searched the four empty suites in the west wing? And there were plenty of cupboards in the Manor large enough to contain a man. It was perfectly possible for an intruder to be undetected. He could have made his exit unnoticed by the west door and escaped down the lime walk to the field while the whole household was immured in the north-facing library being interrogated by Commander Dalgliesh. If the police hadn't been so anxious to concentrate on the household, the killer might have been caught by now.

Lettie couldn't remember who first named Robin Boyton as an alternative chief suspect, but when raised the idea spread by a kind of osmosis. After all, he had come to Stoke Cheverell to visit Rhoda Gradwyn, had apparently been desperate to see her and had been rebuffed. Probably the killing hadn't been premeditated. Miss Gradwyn had been perfectly able to walk after the operation. She had let him in, there had been a quarrel and he had lost his temper. Admittedly he wasn't the owner of the car parked near the stones, but that might well have had nothing to do with the murder. The police would be trying to trace the owner. No one said what they all thought: that it would be convenient if they failed. Even if the motorist proved to be an overtired traveller prudently stopping for a short sleep, the theory of an outside intruder held good.

By dinner time, Lettie sensed that the speculation was dying down. It had been a long and traumatic day, and what they all craved now was a period of peace. They seemed also to need solitude. Chandler-Powell and Flavia told Dean that they would have dinner served in their rooms. The Westhalls departed for Stone Cottage, and Helena invited Lettie to share a meal of a herb omelette and salad which she would cook in her small private kitchen. After the meal, they washed up together, then settled down before the wood fire to listen to a concert on Radio
3
in the subdued light of a single lamp. Neither mentioned Rhoda Gradwyn's death.

By eleven, the fire was dying. A fragile blue flame licked at the last log as it disintegrated into grey ash. Helena turned off the radio, and they sat in silence. Then she said, “Why did you leave the Manor when I was thirteen? Was it to do with Father? I've always thought it was, that you were lovers.”

Lettie replied quietly. “You were always too sophisticated for your age. We were getting too fond of each other, too interdependent. It was right for me to go. And you needed to be with other girls, to have a wider education.”

“I suppose so. That dreadful school. Were you lovers? Did you have sex? Awful expression, but all alternatives are even cruder.”

“Once. That's why I knew it had to end.”

“Because of Mummy?”

“Because of all of us.”

“So it was
Brief Encounter
without the railway station?”

“Something like that.”

“Poor Mummy. Years of doctors and nurses. After a time, her failing lungs hardly seemed like an illness, just part of what she was. And when she died, I hardly missed her. She hadn't really been there. I remember being sent for from school, but too late. I think I was glad not to be there in time. But that empty bedroom, that was horrible. I still hate that room.”

Lettie said, “A question in return. Why did you marry Guy Haverland?”

“Because he was funny, clever, charming and very rich. Even at eighteen, I knew from the first it wouldn't last. That's why we got married in London, in a registry office. The promises seemed less onerous than in a church. Guy couldn't resist any good-looking woman and he wasn't going to change. But we had three wonderful years and he taught me so much. I'll never regret them.”

Lettie got up. She said, “Time for bed. Thanks for the dinner, and good night, my dear.” And she was gone.

Helena moved over to the west-facing window and drew back the curtains. The west wing was in darkness, no more than a long shape lit by the moon. Was it, she wondered, violent death that had released the impulse to confide, to ask questions which had remained unspoken for years? She wondered about Lettie and her marriage. There had been no children, and she suspected that this had been a grief. Was that priest she had married one who still thought of sex as somehow indecent and saw his wife and all virtuous women as Madonnas? And were that night's revelations a substitute for the question which was in both their minds and which neither had dared to ask?