A Mind to Murder (11 page)

“This clinic wasn’t intended to treat grossly psychotic patients, of course. It was founded to provide a centre for analytically orientated psychotherapy, particularly for middle class and highly intelligent patients. We treat people who would never dream of entering a mental hospital—and who would be just as out of place in the ordinary psychiatric out-patient department. In addition, of course, there is a large research element in our work.”

“What were you doing between six o’clock and seven this evening, Doctor?” inquired Dalgliesh.

Dr. Steiner looked pained at this sudden intrusion of sordid curiosity into an interesting discussion but answered, meekly enough, that he had been conducting his Friday night psychotherapy session.

“I arrived at the clinic at five-thirty when my first patient was booked. Unfortunately he defaulted. His treatment has arrived at a stage when poor attendance is to be expected. Mr. Burge was booked for six-fifteen and he is usually very prompt. I waited for him in the second consulting-room on the ground floor and joined him in my own room at about ten-past six. Mr. Burge dislikes waiting with Dr. Baguley’s patients in the general waiting-room and I really don’t blame him. You’ve heard of Burge, I expect. He wrote that interesting novel
The Souls of the Righteous
, a quite brilliant exposure of the sexual conflicts concealed beneath the conventionality of a respectable English suburb. But I’m forgetting. Naturally you have interviewed Mr. Burge.”

Dalgliesh had indeed. The experience had been tedious and not unenlightening. He had also heard of Mr. Burge’s book, an opus of some two hundred thousand words in which the scabrous episodes are inserted with such meticulous deliberation that it only requires an exercise in simple arithmetic to calculate on what page the next will occur. Dalgliesh did not suspect Burge of any part in the murder. A writer who could produce such a hotchpotch of sex and sadism was probably impotent and certainly timid. But he was not necessarily a liar. Dalgliesh said:

“Are you quite sure of your times, Doctor? Mr. Burge says that he arrived at six-fifteen and Cully has booked him in at that time. Burge says he went straight into your own consulting-room, having checked with Cully that you weren’t seeing a patient, and that it was a full ten minutes before you joined him. He was getting impatient and was thinking of going to inquire where you were.”

Dr. Steiner did not appear either frightened or angry at his patient’s perfidy. He did, however, look embarrassed.

“It’s interesting Mr. Burge should say that. I’m afraid he may be right. I thought he seemed a little put out when he began the session. If he says that I joined him at six-twenty-five I have no doubt he’s telling the truth. The poor man has had a very short and interrupted session this evening. It’s very unfortunate at this particular stage in his treatment.”

“So, if you weren’t in the front consulting-room when your patient arrived, where were you?” persisted Dalgliesh gently.

An astonishing change came over Dr. Steiner’s face. Suddenly he looked as shamefaced as a small boy who has been caught in the middle of mischief. He didn’t look frightened but he did look extremely guilty. The metamorphosis from consultant psychiatrist to embarrassed delinquent was almost comical.

“But I told you, Superintendent! I was in number two consulting-room, the one between the front one and the patients’ waiting-room.”

“Doing what, Doctor?”

Really, it was almost laughable! What could Steiner have been up to to produce this degree of embarrassment? Dalgliesh’s mind toyed with bizarre possibilities. Reading pornography? Smoking hemp? Seducing Mrs. Shorthouse? It surely couldn’t be anything so conventional as planning murder. But the doctor had obviously decided that the truth must be told. He said with a burst of shamefaced candour:

“It sounds silly, I know, but… well… it was rather warm and I’d had a busy day and the couch was there.” He gave a little giggle. “In fact, Superintendent, at the time Miss Bolam is thought to have died, I was, in the vulgar parlance, having a kip!”

Once this embarrassing confession was off his chest Dr. Steiner became happily voluble and it was difficult to get rid of him. But at last he was persuaded that he could help no more for the present and his place was taken by Dr. Baguley.

Dr. Baguley, like his colleagues, made no complaint of his long wait, but it had taken its toll. He was still wearing his white coat and he hugged it around himself as he drew the chair under him. He seemed to have difficulty in settling comfortably, twitching his lean shoulders and crossing and recrossing his legs. The clefts from nose to mouth looked deeper, his hair was dank, his eyes black pools in the light of the desk lamp. He lit a cigarette and, fumbling in his coat pocket, produced a slip of paper and passed it to Martin.

“I’ve written down my personal details. It’ll save time.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Martin stolidly.

“I may as well say now that I haven’t an alibi for the twenty minutes or so after six-fifteen. I expect you’ve heard that I left the E.C.T. clinic a few minutes before Sister saw Miss Bolam for the last time. I went into the medical staff cloakroom at the end of the hall and had a cigarette. The place was empty and no one came in. I didn’t hurry back to the clinic so I suppose it was about twenty to seven before I rejoined Dr. Ingram and Sister. They were together for the whole of that time, of course.”

“So Sister tells me.”

“It’s ridiculous even to consider that either of them would be involved but I’m glad they happened to stick together. The more people you can eliminate the better from your point of view, I suppose. I’m sorry not to be able to produce an alibi. I can’t help in any other way either, I’m afraid. I heard and saw nothing.”

Dalgliesh asked the doctor how he had spent the evening.

“It was the usual pattern, until seven o’clock that is. I arrived just before four and went into Miss Bolam’s office to sign the medical attendance book. It used to be kept in the medical staff cloakroom until recently when she moved it into her office. We talked for a short time—she had some queries about the servicing arrangements for my new E.C.T. machine—and then I went to start my clinic. We were pretty busy until just after six and I also had my lysergic acid patient to visit periodically. She was being specialled by Nurse Bolam in the basement treatment-room. But I’m forgetting. You’ve seen Mrs. King.”

Mrs. King and her husband had been sitting in the patients’ waiting-room on Dalgliesh’s arrival and he had taken very little time to satisfy himself that they could have had nothing to do with the murder. The woman was still weak and a little disorientated and sat holding tightly to her husband’s hand. He had not arrived at the clinic to escort her home until a few minutes after Sergeant Martin and his party. Dalgliesh had questioned the woman briefly and gently and had let her go. He had not needed the assurances of the medical director to be satisfied that this patient could not have left her bed to murder anyone. But he was equally sure that she was in no state to give an alibi to anyone else. He asked Dr. Baguley when he had last visited his patient.

“I looked in on her shortly after I arrived, before I started the shock treatments actually. The drug had been given at 3.30 and the patient was beginning to react. I ought to say that LSD is given in an effort to make the patient more accessible to psychotherapy by releasing some of the more deep-seated inhibitions. It’s only given under close supervision and the patient is never left. I was called down again by Nurse Bolam at five and stayed for about forty minutes. I went back upstairs and gave my last shock treatment at about twenty to six. The last E.C.T. patient actually left the clinic a few minutes after Miss Bolam was last seen. From about six-thirty I was clearing up and writing my notes.”

“Was the door of the medical record-room open when you passed it at five o’clock?”

Dr. Baguley thought for a moment or two and then said:

“I think it was shut. It’s difficult to be absolutely certain, but I’m pretty sure I should have noticed if it had been open or ajar.”

“And at twenty to six when you left your patient?”

“The same.”

Dalgliesh asked again the usual, the inevitable, the obvious questions. Had Miss Bolam any enemies? Did the doctor know of any reason why someone might wish her dead? Had she seemed worried lately? Had he any idea why she might have sent for the group secretary? Could he decipher the notes on her jotting pad? But Dr. Baguley could not help. He said:

“She was a curious woman in some ways, shy, a little aggressive, not really happy with us. But she was perfectly harmless, the last person I’d have said to invite violence. One can’t go on saying how shocking it is. Words seem to lose their meaning with repetition. But I suppose we all feel the same. The whole thing is fantastic! Unbelievable!”

“You said she wasn’t happy here. Is this a difficult clinic to administer? From what I’ve heard, Miss Bolam wasn’t particularly skilled at dealing with difficult personalities.”

Dr. Baguley said easily:

“Oh, you don’t want to believe all you hear. We’re individualists, but we get along with each other pretty well on the whole. Steiner and I scrap a bit but it’s all quite amiable. He wants the place to become a psychotherapy training unit with registrars and lay professional staff running around like mice and a bit of research on the side. One of those places where time and money are spent lavishly on anything but actually treating patients—especially psychotics. There’s no danger he’ll get his way. The Regional Board wouldn’t wear it for one thing.”

“And what were Miss Bolam’s views, Doctor?”

“Strictly speaking she was hardly competent to hold any, but that didn’t inhibit her. She was anti-Freudian and pro-eclectic. Anti-Steiner and pro-me if you like. But that didn’t mean anything. Neither Dr. Steiner nor I were likely to knock her on the head because of our doctrinal differences. As you see we haven’t even taken a knife to each other yet. All this is utterly irrelevant.”

“I’m inclined to agree with you,” said Dalgliesh. “Miss Bolam was killed with great deliberation and considerable expertise. I think the motive was a great deal more positive and important than a mere difference of opinion or clash of personality. Did you know, by the way, which key opens the record-room?”

“Of course. If I want one of the old records I usually fetch it myself. I also know, if it’s any help to you, that Nagle keeps his box of tools in the porters’ rest room. Furthermore, when I arrived this afternoon, Miss Bolam told me about Tippett. But that’s hardly relevant, is it? You can’t seriously believe that the murderer hoped to implicate Tippett.”

“Perhaps not. Tell me, Doctor. From your knowledge of Miss Bolam what would be her reaction to finding those medical records strewn about the floor?”

Dr. Baguley looked surprised for a second then gave a curt laugh.

“Bolam? That’s an easy one! She was obsessionally neat. Obviously she’d start to pick them up!”

“She wouldn’t be more likely to ring for a porter to do the work or to leave the records where they were as evidence until the culprit was discovered?”

Dr. Baguley thought for a moment and seemed to repent of his first categorical opinion.

“One can’t possibly know for certain what she’d do. It’s all conjecture. Probably you’re right and she’d ring for Nagle. She wasn’t afraid of work but she was very conscious of her position as A.O. I’m sure of one thing, though. She wouldn’t have left the place in a mess like that. She couldn’t pass a rug or a picture without straightening it.”

“And her cousin? Are they alike? I understand that Nurse Bolam works for you more than for any other consultant.”

Dalgliesh noticed the quick frown of distaste that this question provoked. Dr. Baguley, however co-operative and frank about his own motives, was not disposed to comment on those of anyone else. Or was it that Nurse Bolam’s gentle defencelessness had aroused his protective instincts? Dalgliesh waited for a reply. After a minute the doctor said curtly:

“I shouldn’t have said the cousins were alike. You will have formed your own impression of Nurse Bolam. I can only say that I have complete trust in her, both as a nurse and a person.”

“She is her cousin’s heir. Or perhaps you knew that?”

The inference was too plain to be missed and Dr. Baguley too tired to resist the provocation.

“No, I didn’t. But I hope for her sake that it’s a bloody great sum and that she and her mother will be allowed to enjoy it in peace. And I hope, too, that you won’t waste time suspecting innocent people. The sooner this murder is cleared up the better. It’s a pretty intolerable position for all of us.”

So Dr. Baguley knew about Nurse Bolam’s mother. But, then, it was likely that most of the clinic staff knew. He asked his last question:

“You said, Doctor, that you were alone in the medical staff cloakroom from about six-fifteen until twenty to seven. What were you doing?”

“Going to the lavatory. Washing my hands. Smoking a cigarette. Thinking.”

“And that was absolutely all you did during the twenty-five minutes?”

“Yes—that was all, Superintendent.”

Dr. Baguley was a poor liar. The hesitation was only momentary; his face did not change colour; the fingers holding his cigarette were quite steady. But his voice was a little too nonchalant, the disinterest a little too carefully controlled. And it was with a palpable effort that he made himself meet Dalgliesh’s eyes. He was too intelligent to add to his statement but his eyes held those of the detective as if willing Dalgliesh to repeat his question, and bracing himself to meet it.

“Thank you, Doctor,” said Dalgliesh calmly. “That will be all for the present.”

Chapter Three

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And so it went on; the patient questioning; the meticulous taking of notes, the close watch of suspects’ eyes and hands for the revealing flicker of fear, the tensed reaction to an unwelcome change of emphasis. Fredrica Saxon followed Dr. Baguley. As they passed each other in the doorway Dalgliesh saw that they were careful not to meet each other’s eyes. She was a dark, vital, casually-dressed woman of twenty-nine who would do no more than give brief but straightforward answers to his questions and who seemed to take a perverse pleasure in pointing out that she had been alone scoring a psychological test in her own room from six until seven and could neither claim an alibi for herself nor give one to anyone else. He got little help or information from Fredrica Saxon but did not, on that account, assume that she had none to give.