Dying in the Wool (20 page)

He gave me a reproachful look as though believing I had called unannounced in order to catch him out. ‘Constable Mitchell took my statement at the time. He interviewed staff and patients. I did not keep the gates locked. Why should I? I had opened this hospital only seven days previously – a hospital, not a prison.’

‘I don’t understand how a man of Joshua Braithwaite’s standing could disappear into thin air. It’s a puzzle, Dr Grainger.’

He sighed, and nodded agreement, making a steeple of his fingers. ‘I didn’t know the man. I spoke to him for about ten minutes when he was first admitted. Since the family have asked you to look into this …’

I corrected him. ‘Tabitha Braithwaite asked me.’

The slightest flush of embarrassment darkened his features at my unspoken hint that Evelyn didn’t give a tinker’s damn about her husband’s fate. He shuffled papers on his desk, glancing none too surreptitiously at his watch.

‘Miss Braithwaite may be reassured that during my brief consultation with him, her father denied attempting suicide. She may be less comforted to know that the human mind is far more complex than we credit. I have known cases of unacknowledged death wish, sometimes coupled with mounting paranoia.’

‘Are you suggesting that was the case with Mr Braithwaite?’

‘I can’t offer a prognosis on so superficial an acquaintance with the man. It was to oblige Constable Mitchell that I agreed to admit him. I left him in the charge of an orderly, but I take full responsibility. It had been a difficult
time for me – having been in France, and my move here to open a new facility. That day I needed some air. I went for a ride on the moors. It was hours after my return that I discovered Mr Braithwaite had gone. To tell you the truth, my first thought was that he had taken himself home. I telephoned PC Mitchell. The rest, you know.’

‘That’s the trouble – the rest I don’t know, and neither does anyone else.’

He tapped a pile of papers into a neat pile.

‘Normally, I’d be more than glad to talk to you, but I’m literally on my way out. I’ve a talk to give at the Mechanics’ Institute. I’ve to finish writing it and really haven’t another second to spare.’ He reached for his diary. ‘Would next Monday be any use?’

‘Afraid not. Family commitments will take me away for a few days.’

He looked back at his diary. ‘If you could be here at eleven on the dot tomorrow, I could spare you half an hour, Mrs Shackleton, though I’m not sure I’ve anything useful to tell you.’

‘Thank you. I’ll be here tomorrow. I’m sorry to be such a frightful nuisance but I did promise Tabitha I’d do my best, and leave no stone unturned.’

By eleven o’clock in the morning, he would have had time to speak to Evelyn. The puzzle was that they had not already decided what he should say.

I stood up. ‘What is the subject of your talk?’

He opened the door. We stepped into a dark hall.

‘The symbolism of dreams. I have made something of a case study of the dreams of the men who have been in my charge over the past years.’

We had reached the front door. ‘Will you mind very much if I look around the grounds? It’s such a lovely setting for a hospital.’

He looked at me steadily as though about to question my interest in horticulture. He shrugged. ‘Be my guest.’

His response was less than gracious, but I thanked him and stepped out into the late afternoon sun. It was that time of evening when a stillness pencils through the light, as if the world holds its breath.

The gardener was hoeing between rows of onions. As best I could, I tried to engage him in conversation, making inane remarks about root vegetables. Men who are attached to the soil become unused to speaking. After ten minutes of monosyllabic replies, I gave up. To this gardener, I was just another well-meaning, well-to-do female, sticking in her nose where it wasn’t wanted.

I walked round the grounds, as if the walls of the house might give me some message from the past. Surely some orderly or kitchen maid would venture out to offer me a cup of tea and a vital piece of information. None did. After twenty minutes, I gave up and walked back to the car.

Driving back into the village, I stopped by the Mechanics’ Institute and read the notice on the board.

Tonight – 7 p.m.

Dr Grainger

Lecture – the meaning and therapeutic value of dreams

I prevailed upon Tabitha to have an early tea and come to the lecture. We slipped into the back of the hall at 7 o’clock and found a couple of seats on the end of a row.

I realised he had lied about needing to finish writing his talk. His notes consisted of a set of cards that he did not refer to once. This was a speech he had given many times. He spoke with confidence, and a tone that seemed just right for his audience, not talking down to them. As I watched and listened, I forgot that I was there as part of my investigations and was caught up in his fascinating account of men’s dreams and nightmares.

*

The next morning, promptly at eleven, Dr Grainger and I sat opposite each other in easy chairs, glasses of sherry in hand. He seemed more relaxed than the day before, sitting with legs crossed, leaning forward slightly as if to show a great interest in whatever I might have to say, looking at me as though no other person in the world existed or ever had existed.

‘I’m sorry if I was less than hospitable yesterday, Mrs Shackleton. Any other day I would have shown you round the grounds myself.’

‘Did yesterday’s talk go well, Doctor?’ I decided not to flatter him by admitting that I was there.

He smiled with pleasure at my apparent interest. ‘Very well, thank you. I have a great deal of material to draw on. The interpretation of dreams can be a useful aid in helping soothe the troubled mind.’ As he spoke, he became enlivened with enthusiasm. ‘I feel I owe it to the men I’ve worked with to write a book, so that something good may come out of this – a new approach to dealing with mental anguish.’

His passion for such a deep and disturbing subject intrigued me.

‘I should think that will be a hard book to write.’

His glance shot to a mound of papers on the desk. ‘It’s finding the time that’s difficult, what with the hospital closing and all the paperwork that goes along with that.’

‘And you? Where will you go, when the hospital closes?’

He cleared his throat and took a sip of sherry. His legs twisted around each other in a way a contortionist might envy. I wondered whether the shiftiness in his manner was not because he cared whether I knew his plans but that he cared that Evelyn should not.

‘That’s still up for discussion. I’ve had offers.’

That didn’t surprise me in the least. One offer no doubt came from Evelyn. It astonished me that he had chosen
Evelyn over Tabitha. But I supposed Evelyn was available, and Tabitha was not. When did his relationship with Evelyn begin, I wondered? It must have been convenient for the two of them that Braithwaite disappeared. I looked into my sherry glass, in case he guessed my suspicions.

‘Would these offers you’ve had take you away from this area?’

‘Possibly. An old professor of mine has the job of setting up the Maudsley Hospital. It should have opened before the war but everything was put on hold. It’s scheduled for next year.’

‘Would that be Professor Podmore?’

In his surprise, he uncurled his legs. ‘You know him? How extraordinary.’

I felt my hackles rise. He saw me as some country hick who never set foot off the beaten track. ‘He’s a regular visitor at my aunt’s house. I don’t know him very well myself, but shall be seeing him next week, at her birthday dinner.’

‘What a small world.’ He stood up. ‘Will you have another sherry?’ He filled my glass. ‘Just within these four walls, I have already said yes to Professor Podmore’s suggestion. It’s too big a challenge to turn down. And he’s very sympathetic towards my plan for the book. Positively encouraging in fact.’

My half hour stole on. Somehow I felt it would be extendable.

‘One misses society,’ he sighed, ‘tucked away in the country for years.’

‘But the value of your work,’ I flattered. ‘It must have been greatly appreciated by so many of your patients.’

‘Some of whom I cured sufficiently for them to return to the front.’

‘That must have been hard.’

‘Harder for them. Poor chaps.’

It was time to come in for the kill. ‘I can see that Mr
Braithwaite may not have been such a great priority.’

‘Perhaps not.’ He twisted the sherry glass in his hand. ‘Of course with hindsight, he should have been. I have had the chance to go over his file, if you have any particular questions. You understand that I wouldn’t be divulging information as a rule, but under the circumstances …’

‘What was his state of mind?’

Grainger walked back to his desk and stood, hand on the chair-back, looking at a set of notes. ‘I barely spent ten minutes with him. My notes say I would have explored possible paranoia. He believed the person who came to his aid – the scoutmaster I mean, after the boy scouts found him – had a grudge against him.’

After he had consulted his notes, Grainger stood straight and alert, as though ready for the new life ahead of him. I suddenly realised who he reminded me of. It was an absurd connection to make. I thought of Joshua Braithwaite in his wedding photograph, standing upright and ready to smile. Someone had to be Braithwaite’s champion. That task had fallen to me.

‘Perhaps Mr Braithwaite was right, and there was ill-feeling on the part of the scoutmaster.’

Grainger sighed. ‘Yes. Regretfully I did not probe further during that brief first talk with him. Braithwaite denied attempting suicide, but given the shame of the act and the seriousness of the penalties one would expect that.’

Is it Russians who throw their glasses in the fireplace and smash them? I felt such a mixture of emotions. Here was an attractive, intelligent man, easy in his manner and yet on this one topic of Mr Braithwaite he was so bloody complacent and ready to judge that I felt like flinging not just the sherry glass but the bottle.

‘Was there anything else in your notes?’

‘Only that his denial of suicide may have been delusional.’

‘I see. Well, thank you.’

For reinforcing my prejudices against talking cures.

‘More sherry?’ he asked.

‘Better not,’ I said reluctantly. ‘Don’t want to mow down the local population on my way back. But tell me, who was on the staff when Mr Braithwaite was here? Are any of them still with you?’

He opened his desk drawer and took out a log book. As he flicked through its pages, he said, ‘It was still early days for us. We had just two orderlies, and neither of them are still with us. One was …’ He ran his finger down the page. ‘Here we are … Stafford, M. Malcolm I think. He was here until last Christmas. Good chap. He’d lost an eye but he didn’t miss much in spite of that. I gave preference to chaps who’d been wounded, with the thought that the officers would feel they were among their own. It seemed to work.’

‘Where is Stafford now?’

‘He and his wife went to Kent to take over a public house after the death of his brother-in-law. The other orderly … here we are – Kellett, P. He wasn’t with us very long. Don’t think the work suited him.’

I held my breath. No one had mentioned that Kellett worked here. But then, I hadn’t asked. Surely there couldn’t be two P Kelletts in the area? ‘Do you remember if Mr Kellett had a particular war disability?’

‘Yes. He was still coming to terms with it. Gave him a bit of gyp. Lost a hand. Apparently, according to some of my audience last night – stayed for a chat after my talk – poor man died only this week. Terrible accident.’

I struggled to stay composed and to collect my thoughts. Dr Grainger looked through his journal to find Kellett’s leaving date, which was shortly after Braithwaite’s disappearance.

Why had I spent the best part of a day creaming out non-existent facial wrinkles and trying on gowns in preparation for the Gawthorpes’ party? And if only Kellett’s
colleagues had gossiped to Sykes about his spell at Milton House, instead of telling tales about selling dyes and saving up for a cottage by the sea, we might have asked a crucial question of Kellett before it was too late.

Grainger looked suddenly concerned. For a moment I thought he was going leap across and take my pulse. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked. ‘Did you know Kellett?’

‘Not really. I met him briefly at the mill.’

‘They’re dangerous workplaces,’ Grainger added, somewhat unnecessarily.

‘Could Kellett have helped Mr Braithwaite – brought him clothes, a horse, or a bicycle, or escorted him to a safe place?’

‘If he did, he didn’t admit it to the police when the investigation was going on.’

‘Thank you. You’ve been helpful. I won’t take up any more of your time.’

He looked surprised. ‘I don’t hold Kellett responsible. Mr Braithwaite was in my care. I fell down on my duty. I shall regret that for the rest of my life.’

So you bloody well should, I thought.

He rose to walk me to the door. ‘I want to show you something.’