The Corpse of St James's (24 page)

Alan looked at me over the tops of his glasses. ‘You're tired, and you're depressed. I'd suggest you rest for a bit while I make us some dinner, and then we'll brainstorm.'

Even though he sometimes exasperates me, I often have occasion to bless the day I married this man. He knows me so well.

The rest turned into a nap, of course, but I woke when the smell of dinner became too enticing to ignore.

The dear man had concocted some sort of ragout, with beef and onions and mushrooms and baby carrots in a rich gravy. He'd made mashed potatoes to go with it, and a salad, and by the time I'd made my way through every bite, I was feeling very much better.

‘It's a good thing I didn't know you could cook like this before I married you, or you'd think the whole deal was just to get a chef.'

‘No, indeed, my dear. I knew you married me for my accent.'

‘That, too. Oh, no, thanks, I'll just have coffee.'

Alan put the fruit tarts back in the fridge. ‘They're store-bought, anyway. Pastry isn't my strong point, and I had the feeling you might not want much dessert. Now, love, while you were snoring away, I've been thinking.'

I sipped my coffee and looked encouraging.

‘The source of all the troubles, in more ways than one, is Melissa's father, Bert Higgins. Or Robert Whatever-it-is.'

‘Hathaway. Well, he was certainly the source of Melissa!'

‘And of the information about Jarvis. Now I've begun to wonder about that. If his name has been changed, and Higgins hasn't seen him since the encounter . . . or non-encounter . . . in Brighton, how did Higgins know his present name?'

‘Oh. Maybe we're wrong about the name change.'

‘Quite possibly. But in any case, don't you think another little visit to London is in order?'

I sighed. ‘What I think is that I'd like a little brandy with my coffee.'

The fact, I admitted to myself and finally to Alan, was that, old Sam notwithstanding, I was tired of London. Oh, not for good. There would come a time when I would want to enjoy the bustle and the glitter again, but June in the country is gorgeous. Bob was getting my garden in shape, and the Cathedral was looking at its best, and . . . well, much as I hated to say it, I wanted to stay home and tend to my knitting.

‘You never were very good at knitting,' Alan observed to that last comment. ‘What's really wrong, Dorothy?'

‘I am genuinely tired, Alan. And discouraged. Every time we find something that looks like a promising path to explore, it leads to nothing, or at least to a place where we can go no further. I've never felt like this before. There was always something just ahead to chase, like . . . like a fox's brush. Now . . . oh, I'm ready to give up the whole thing.'

Alan took my hand, and we sat there for a long time. I finished my coffee and my brandy in silence. There seemed to be nothing to say.

The phone rang. Neither of us really wanted to answer it, but Alan finally released my hand and got to his feet.

‘Nesbitt here.' A brief pause. ‘I see. Thank you, sir.'

He turned to me, his face set in lines of worry. ‘That was Carstairs. Jonathan's in hospital. He's tried to commit suicide.'

W
e spoke little on the way to London. Alan concentrated on his driving, and there was either too much to say, or too little.

‘They didn't give me any details, Dorothy,' Alan said in response to my tentative query. ‘They went to his flat to ask him a few questions, and found him unresponsive, apparently drugged.'

‘Will he . . .?' The question stuck in my throat.

‘They don't know yet.'

The road unrolled. Lights flew past. The long June twilight darkened into night.

‘I hope someone's called Letty!' I said suddenly, sharply.

‘I don't know. Probably.'

And that was all, until we hit the nightmare of London traffic.

Alan, who knows the great city well, found a car park close to London Bridge Station. ‘We can get a taxi from here,' he said briefly.

‘Not the Underground?'

‘It'll be closing soon. A taxi's slower, but surer.'

I was all but biting my nails by the time we got to St Thomas's and found the Accident and Emergency department.

Mr Carstairs rose as we came in. ‘He's going to be all right,' he said instantly.

I dropped into the nearest chair. Somehow my legs didn't want to hold me up.

‘Can you tell us what happened?' Alan was keeping his voice from shaking, but I could hear the effort. He spoke in the hushed tones one uses in places where death is a frequent visitor.

‘Not in any detail. He apparently swallowed a good many oxycodone capsules. We phoned him to say we wanted to talk to him for a bit, and when we got no answer, we went to the flat. That is, my people went. They found the door unlocked and Quinn almost unconscious on the bed, with the empty bottle beside him.'

‘A note?'

Carstairs pulled a plastic bag out of his pocket and handed it to Alan, who read the note inside and grimaced. ‘Bloody little fool!' he said under his breath.

‘Let me see,' I whispered. He handed it to me.

In crisp, precise handwriting it read simply, ‘Sorry for everything.' It was not signed.

‘It's his handwriting,' Alan said, and gave the pathetic little document back to Carstairs.

There was a gloomy silence.

‘Can we see him?' I asked finally.

‘They'll let us know when he's conscious and can talk to us. I'll have to question him, of course.'

Of course. Suicide is a crime, even when it isn't successful.

A hospital waiting room may well be the most depressing place on this earth. Its stark functionality provides no cheer for the soul; no rest for the body. One is tired and uncomfortable, simultaneously bored and terrified. At our ages, Alan and I brought to the place a lot of unhappy memories, as well. We'd done this before, and the outcome had sometimes been tragic. I knew he was thinking of his first wife, as I was of my first husband. Both had died suddenly, unexpectedly, and far too young. They'd died in hospitals thousands of miles apart, but in one sense, in exactly the place where we now sat, restless and frightened.

‘Coffee, love?' Alan asked after a while, gesturing at the machines in the corridor.

I shuddered. ‘I'm not that desperate. A candy bar, maybe. Or a Coke.'

He brought both. The candy was stale and the Coke warm. I ate and drank anyway. It was something to do.

Hours passed.

I was too tense and uncomfortable to sit, too tired to pace. I was aching in every muscle, and nearly weeping from weariness, when the nurse came in and beckoned to Carstairs.

We all stood, Alan and I with some difficulty.

‘He's conscious and rational,' she said briefly. ‘One of you may see him for five minutes.'

Carstairs followed her. Alan and I sat back in our easeless chairs.

He was back in less than the allotted time, and sat down beside us.

‘He confirmed that he took the capsules. There was never much doubt, but I had to make sure.'

‘Did he say why?' I asked. ‘Or no, I don't suppose you wanted to ask at this stage.'

‘No, I wouldn't have asked. Not yet. But he told me a bit. The world has rather dumped on him of late, but the trigger tonight – last night – had to do with Jemima.' The superintendent suddenly looked a good deal more human. ‘He's got a bad case, hasn't he?'

‘But what did Jemima do, or say, or . . .?'

‘He wasn't specific; he's very tired and feels bloody. She came to see him. I gather they had a row. We'll know more tomorrow.' He sighed. ‘Meanwhile, he isn't allowed any visitors, and he's under observation.'

‘But . . . he's going to be all right. You said so.' My panic started to rise again.

‘In case he thinks about trying again, love,' said Alan gently.

‘Oh.' I was too tired even to try to stop the tears that welled up.

Carstairs offered us a lift to a small hotel nearby. It was nearly morning, but we were too tired to drive home safely, and in any case we wanted to talk to Jonathan when he was feeling better. I slept like the dead and woke at mid-morning with a raging headache and a mouth that felt like our cats' litterbox.

‘No toothbrush!' I moaned. ‘And no ibuprofen!'

‘You used to carry both those essentials in your handbag,' Alan said mildly. He had just stepped out of the shower. Clad in a towel, he found my bag, rummaged in it, and tossed me the items requested. ‘And there's shampoo in the bathroom. You'll have to do without a facecloth, I'm afraid. This is a genuine English hotel.'

The English, as I learned many years ago to my dismay, consider a washcloth as personal as a toothbrush, and travel with their own. Many hotels nowadays supply them, but I've learned to do without when necessary.

I felt slightly better with clean teeth and a clean body, but I hated getting back into clothes that felt like I'd worn them non-stop for a week. Alan had made coffee. I don't care much for instant, but it supplied caffeine, and with the ibuprofen, took the edge off my headache.

‘No biscuits, worse luck,' Alan commented. ‘And it's far too late for breakfast. Would you like to go straight to the hospital, or find a snack somewhere?'

‘Don't I remember a Starbucks in the hospital lobby?' That lobby had startled me considerably, the first time I saw it. It looked more like a shopping mall.

There was indeed a Starbucks, and I lingered over an indulgent mocha and a huge muffin. Truth to tell, I was not eager to talk to Jonathan.

‘I don't know how to act,' I admitted to Alan. ‘What does one say to someone who's tried to . . .?' I couldn't say the words.

‘What you would say to anyone else who was ill and in distress,' said my husband sensibly. ‘Ask how he's feeling, and let him take it from there.'

‘I suppose. It's just . . . it feels like he's a different person, somehow.'

‘Buck up, old girl. You'll manage. I suspect he'll be more embarrassed than you are.'

We were told, when we announced ourselves, that Jonathan had been moved to a room, now that he was in no imminent danger. A single room, not a ward. A uniformed policeman sat discreetly in the corner, but stood when we entered. ‘Mr Nesbitt. Mrs Martin. I was told to expect you. I'm to remain in the room, you know, but I'll try to be invisible.'

Jonathan made some sort of noise, a protest, I thought. I turned to him, intending to say something bright and cheery, and found myself unable to speak at all.

He looked so small, lying there flat and pale. And so very young and helpless. I put out a hand, and he grasped it. ‘Let you down. Sorry.'

I swallowed hard and decided to ignore that. ‘Are you really feeling all right?'

‘I feel like hell. Have you ever had your stomach pumped? I don't recommend it. But I daresay I deserve it. And before you ask, no, I'm not fool enough to try it again. They're wasting manpower.'

He nodded his head in the direction of the mandated observer, who cleared his throat. ‘Orders, sir.'

‘I know. I doubt that Chief Constable Alan Nesbitt, retired, and his lady wife, have smuggled drugs in, but . . .' Jonathan made a weary gesture. ‘Ah, hell. I've caused everyone enough trouble.'

‘Are you up to talking about it?' I asked cautiously.

He lifted a hand and let it drop to the blanket. ‘There was another row with Jemima. I'd thought . . . but I was wrong. She made it quite clear . . . and it just put the lid on. I had all those pills. I hadn't taken any for a long time, trying to tough it out. So there they were, and I . . .'

‘You thought it was the easy way out of your troubles.' I tried to say it gently.

‘In fact, old man, it's dug you in a bit deeper, you know.' Alan was speaking gently, too, and sadly. ‘You can't escape the obvious conclusion.'

‘Suicide as a confession of guilt,' said Jonathan in a flat voice. ‘And that damn-fool note didn't help, did it.' It wasn't a question.

‘What's going to happen now?' I asked. ‘You can't just go back to your flat alone. Will you go to Letty's? Oh, Lord, where is she, anyway? I forgot all about her last night, but surely—'

‘It appears no one thought to tell her until this morning,' said Jonathan, ‘and by that time there was no reason for her to traipse all this way. No, I'm not going to stay with her. It's too much of a burden. She's had enough to deal with.'

He sounded stronger, which was a good sign. Stronger, and thinking of someone besides himself.

‘They won't let you go home alone, you know,' said Alan. ‘You're under a suicide watch.'

‘I've told you, I—'

‘I know what you've told us. The fact remains.' Alan consulted me with a raised eyebrow. I nodded.

‘All right, old man. When are they going to let you out of here?'

‘This afternoon, I think. I didn't take enough to cause serious damage, they tell me.'

‘It would have been serious enough if they hadn't found you!' I couldn't help saying.

‘Yes, well. Anyway, they need the bed, so I'm out soon. With my keeper, I suppose. Bloody waste of police time.'

‘I have an alternative proposal,' said Alan. ‘We'd like you to come home with us.'

It took a little persuading, but Jonathan was sensible enough to realize he had little choice. The police would not let him go home alone, and he was firm in his decision not to go to Letty. We checked with Carstairs to make sure our hospitality would meet official requirements, and finally told Jonathan to phone us when he was ready to leave.

‘W
hat do you want to do about lunch?' I asked Alan when we were out in the sunshine again. ‘We probably have a few hours to kill.'