The Private Patient (11 page)

“Clara and Annie have said that, if our plans come unstuck, they'd love me to stay for the weekend. I'll give them a ring.”

Clara was Emma's best friend, and Dalgliesh understood what she valued in her: honesty, intelligence and a sturdy common sense. He had met Clara and now they were at ease with each other, but the early days of his love for Emma hadn't been easy. Clara had made it plain that she considered him to be too old, too absorbed in his job and his poetry to make a serious commitment to any woman, and simply not good enough for Emma. Dalgliesh agreed with the last indictment, a self-incrimination which didn't make it any more agreeable to hear it from another, particularly not from Clara. Emma must lose nothing by her love for him.

Clara and Emma had known each other from their school days, had gone in the same year to the same Cambridge college and, though subsequently taking very different paths, had never lost touch. It was on the face of it a surprising friendship, commonly explained by the attraction of opposites. Emma, heterosexual, with her disturbing heart-stirring beauty which Dalgliesh knew could be more a burden than the envied and unmixed blessing of popular imagination; Clara, short with a round cheerful face, bright-eyed behind large spectacles and with the stumpy walk of a ploughman. That she was attractive to men was to Dalgliesh one more example of the mystery of sexual appeal. He had sometimes wondered whether Clara's first response to him had been activated by jealousy or regret. Both seemed unlikely. Clara was so obviously happy with her partner, the frail gentle-faced Annie, who, Dalgliesh suspected, was tougher than she looked. It was Annie who made their Putney flat a place where no one entered without—in Jane Austen's words—the sanguine expectation of happiness. After achieving a first in mathematics, Clara had begun working in the City, where she was a highly successful fund manager. Colleagues came and went, but Clara was retained. Emma had told him that she planned to leave the job in three years' time, when she and Annie would use the considerable capital accrued to begin a very different life. In the meantime, much of what she earned was spent on good causes close to Annie's heart.

Three months earlier, Emma and he had attended the ceremony of Clara and Annie's civil partnership, a quietly satisfying celebration at which only Clara's parents, Annie's widowed father and a few close friends had been guests. Afterwards there had been a lunch cooked by Annie in the flat. After the second course was finished Clara and Dalgliesh together carried plates into the kitchen to bring in the pudding. It was then she had turned to him with a resolution which suggested that she had been waiting for this opportunity.

“It must seem perverse in us to tie a legal knot when you heteros are scrambling in thousands to divorce, or living together without benefit of marriage. We were perfectly happy as we were, but we needed to ensure that each is the other's recognised next of kin. If Annie is ever in hospital, I need to be there. And then there's the property. If I die first, it must go untaxed to Annie. I expect she'll spend most of it on lame ducks, but that's up to her. It won't be wasted. Annie is very wise. People think that our partnership lasts because I'm the stronger and Annie needs me. Actually the reverse is true, and you're one of the rare people who've seen that from the start. Thank you for being with us today.”

Dalgliesh knew those last gruffly spoken words had been the confirmation of an acceptance which, once given, would be unassailable. He was glad that, whatever the unknown faces, problems and challenges that lay ahead for him in the next few days, Emma's weekend would be lively in his imagination and for her would be happy.

2

For Detective Inspector Kate Miskin, her flat on the north bank of the Thames, downstream from Wapping, was a celebration of achievement in the only form which, for her, had any hope of permanence, solidified in steel, bricks and wood. She had known when first taking possession of the flat that it was too expensive for her, and the first few years of paying the mortgage had meant sacrifices. She had made them willingly. She had never lost that first excitement of walking through rooms full of light, of waking and falling asleep to the changing but never-ending pulsation of the Thames. Hers was the top-floor corner flat, with two balconies giving wide views upstream and to the opposite bank. Except in the worst weather, she could stand silently contemplating the changing moods of the river, the mystic power of T. S. Eliot's brown god, the turbulence of the inrushing tide, the glittering stretch of pale blue under hot summer skies, and after dark the black viscous skin slashed with light. She watched for the familiar vessels as if they were returning friends: the launches of the Port of London Authority and the river police, the dredgers, the low-laden barges, in the summer the pleasure boats and the small cruise ships and, most exciting of all, the tall sailing ships, their young crews lining the rails as they moved with majestic slowness upstream to pass under the great raised arms of Tower Bridge into the Pool of London.

The flat could not be more different from those claustrophobic rooms on the seventh floor of Ellison Fairweather Buildings where she had been brought up by her grandmother, from the smell, the vandalised lifts, the overturned rubbish bins, the screaming voices, the ever-constant awareness of danger. As a small child she had walked frightened and wary-eyed in an urban jungle. Her childhood had been defined for her by the words of her grandmother to a neighbour, overheard when she was seven and never forgotten. “If her ma had to have an illegitimate kid, at least she could have stayed alive to look after it, not dumped it on me! She never knew the father, or if she did she wasn't saying.” In adolescence she had taught herself to forgive her grandmother. Tired, overworked, poor, she was coping unaided with a burden she hadn't expected and didn't want. What remained with Kate, and always would, was the knowledge that never to have known either parent was to live life with some essential part of you missing, a hole in the psyche which could never be filled.

But she had her flat, a job she loved and was good at, and until six months ago there had been Piers Tarrant. They had been so close to love, although neither of them ever spoke the word, but she knew how much he had enhanced her life. He had left the Special Investigation Squad to join the Met's anti-terrorist branch, and although much of his present work was secret, they could relive the old days when they had been colleagues. They used the same language, he understood the ambiguities of policing as no civilian ever could. She had always found him sexually attractive but knew that an affair would be disastrous while they were colleagues. AD was intolerant of anything which could damage the effectiveness of the Squad, and one, or probably both, of them would have been reallocated. But it seemed to her that the years of working alongside each other, the shared danger, disappointments, exhaustion and successes, even at times the rivalry for AD's approbation, had so bound them together that, when they became lovers, it was a natural and happy confirmation of something which had always existed.

But six months ago she had ended the affair, and she couldn't regret her decision. For her it was insupportable to have a partner who was unfaithful. She had never expected permanence in any relationship; nothing in her childhood and youth had ever promised that. But what for him had been a bagatelle had for her been betrayal. She had sent him away and she had heard and seen nothing of him since. Looking back she told herself that from the start she had been naïve. After all, she had known his reputation. The break had happened when at the last moment she had decided to attend Sean McBride's farewell party. It threatened to be the usual boozy affair, and she had long outgrown farewell parties, but she had worked with Sean for a short time when she was a detective constable, and he had been a good boss, helpful and without the then all-too-common prejudice against female officers. She would put in an appearance to wish him good luck.

Fighting her way through the crowd, she had seen Piers at the centre of a raucous group. The blonde who was winding herself round him was so scantily dressed that the men had difficulty in deciding whether to focus on her crotch or her breasts. There had been no doubt of their relationship; this had been a trophy lay and they were both happy to demonstrate it. He had seen Kate through the gap in the close-packed jostling crowd. Their eyes had briefly met, but before he had time to break through and approach her she had left.

Early the next morning he had arrived and the break had been formalised. Much of what they had said was now forgotten, but disconnected snatches still echoed in her mind like a mantra.

“Look, Kate, it's unimportant. It didn't mean anything. She doesn't mean anything.”

“I know. That's what I object to.”

“You're asking a lot of me, Kate.”

“I'm not asking anything of you. If that's how you want to live, that's your affair. I'm simply telling you that I don't want to have sex with a man who's sleeping with other women. That may sound unfashionable in a world where a one-night stand means another score on your truncheon, but that's how I am and I can't change, so for us it's the end. It's a good thing neither of us is in love. We'll be spared the usual tedium of tears and recriminations.”

“I could give her up.”

“And the next one, and the one after that? You haven't begun to understand. I'm not offering sex as a good-conduct prize. I don't want explanations, excuses, promises. It's the end.”

And it had been the end. For six months he had disappeared completely from her life. She told herself she was getting used to being without him, but it hadn't been easy. She missed more than the mutual fulfilment of their lovemaking. The laughter, the drinks in their favourite riverside pubs, the stress-free companionship, the meals in her flat which they cooked together, all had released in her a lighthearted confidence in life which she had never before known.

She wanted to talk to him about the future. There was no one else in whom she could confide. The next case might well be her last. It was certain that the Special Investigation Squad wouldn't continue in its present form. Commander Dalgliesh had so far managed to thwart official plans to rationalise the maverick staffing, define its functions in contemporary jargon devised to obscure rather than illumine, and incorporate the Squad in some more orthodox bureaucratic structure. The SIS had survived because of its undoubted success and relative cheapness—not in some eyes a convenient virtue—and because it was headed by one of the country's most distinguished detectives. The rumour mill of the Met ground incessantly and more often than not produced a kernel of wheat among the chaff. The present rumours had all come to her ears: Dalgliesh, deploring the politicisation of the Met and much else, himself wanted to retire; AD had no intention of retiring and would shortly take over a special inter-force department concerned with detective training; approaches had been made to him from two university departments of criminology; someone in the City wanted him for an unspecified job at a salary four times that at present enjoyed by the Commissioner.

Kate and Benton had countered all questions with silence. It had required no self-discipline. They knew nothing but were confident that when AD had made his choice they would be among the first to be told. The chief for whom she had worked since she became a detective sergeant would be marrying his Emma in a few months. After the years together, he and she would no longer be part of the same team. She would get her promised promotion to detective chief inspector, perhaps within weeks, and could hope to rise even higher. The future might be lonely, but if it was, she had her job, the only one she had ever wanted, the one which had given her all she now possessed. And she knew better than most that there were worse fates than loneliness.

The call came at ten-fifty. She wasn't due in the office until one-thirty and was about to leave the flat to deal with the routine chores which always took hours out of her free half-day: a visit to the supermarket to buy food, a watch that was being mended to collect, some clothes to be taken to the dry-cleaners. The call came on her dedicated mobile, and she knew whose voice she would hear. She listened closely. It was, as she had expected, a murder case. The victim, Rhoda Gradwyn, an investigative journalist, found dead in her bed at seven-thirty, apparently strangled, after an operation at a private clinic in Dorset. He gave the address as Cheverell Manor, Stoke Cheverell. No explanation of why the Squad were taking over, but apparently Number Ten was involved. They were to travel by car, either hers or Benton's, and the team would aim to arrive together.

She said, “Yes, sir. I'll ring Benton now and meet him at his flat. I think we'll take his car. Mine's due for a service. I have my murder bag, and I know he has his.”

“Right. I need to call in at the Yard, Kate, and I'll meet you at Shepherd's Bush, I hope by the time you get there. I'll give you further details as far as I know them when we meet.”

She ended the call, then rang Benton, and within twenty minutes had changed into the tweed trousers and jacket she wore for a country case. Her grip with other clothes she might need was always packed and ready. Swiftly she checked windows and power plugs and, picking up her murder bag, turned the keys in the two security locks and was on her way.

3

Kate's call to Sergeant Francis Benton-Smith came while he was shopping in the Notting Hill Farmers' Market. His day had been carefully planned and he was in the excellent spirits of a man who could look forward to a well-earned rest day which presaged more energetic pleasure than rest. He had promised to cook lunch for his parents in the kitchen of their South Kensington home, would later spend the afternoon in bed with Beverley in his Shepherd's Bush flat, and planned to end a perfect mixture of filial duty and pleasure by taking her to see the new film at the Curzon. The day would also be for him a private celebration of his recent reinstatement as Beverley's boyfriend. The ubiquitous word slightly irritated him, but it seemed inappropriate to describe her as his lover, which to his mind suggested a greater degree of commitment.

Beverley was an actor—she insisted that she should not be described as an actress—and was making a career for herself on television. She had from the start made it clear where her priority lay. She liked variety in her boyfriends but was as intolerant of promiscuity as any fundamentalist preacher. Her sex life was a strictly time-enforced procession of single affairs, few, as she was considerate enough to inform Benton, with any hope of lasting for more than six months. Despite the slenderness of her neat, tough little body, she loved food, and he knew that part of his attraction had been the meals, either in carefully chosen restaurants which he could ill afford or, as she preferred, cooked by him at home. This lunch, to which she had been invited, was planned in part to remind her what she had been missing.

He had met her parents once and only briefly, and was surprised that this solidly fleshed couple, conventional, well dressed and physically unremarkable, should have produced such an exotic child. He loved to look at her, the pale oval face, dark hair cut in a fringe over slightly slanted eyes which gave her a faintly Oriental attraction. She came from a background as privileged as his and, despite her efforts, had never succeeded in losing all evidence of a good general education. But the despised bourgeois values and appurtenances had been rejected in the service of her art, and in speech and appearance she had become Abbie, the wayward daughter of a publican, in a television soap set in a Suffolk village. When they had first come together, her acting prospects had been bright. There were then plans for an affair with the church organist, a pregnancy and an illegal operation, and general mayhem in the village. But there had been complaints from viewers that this country idyll was beginning to compete with
EastEnders,
and the rumour now was that Abbie was to be redeemed. There was even a suggestion of a faithful marriage and virtuous motherhood. As Beverley complained, it was a disaster. Already her agent was putting out feelers to capitalise on her present notoriety while it lasted. Francis—he was Benton only to his colleagues at the Met—had no doubt that the lunch would be a success. His parents were always curious to learn about the mysterious worlds to which they had no access, and Beverley would be happy to provide a spirited rendering of the latest plot, probably with dialogue.

His own appearance was, he felt, as misleading as Beverley's. His father was English, his mother Indian, and he had inherited her beauty but none of the deep attachment to her country which she had never lost and which her husband shared. They had married when she was eighteen and he twelve years older. They had been passionately in love and remained in love, and their annual visits to India were the highlight of their year. Throughout boyhood Francis had accompanied them, but always with a sense of being an alien, ill at ease, unable to participate in a world to which his father, who seemed happier, more light-hearted, in India than in England, readily adapted himself in speech, dress and food. He had felt, too, from early childhood that his parents' love was too all-consuming to admit of a third person, even an only child. He knew he was loved, but in the company of his father, a retired headmaster, had always felt more like a promising and valued sixth-former than a son. Their benign non-interference was disconcerting. When he was sixteen, listening to the complaints of a school friend about his parents—the ridiculous rule about coming home before midnight, the warnings about drugs, heavy drinking, AIDS, their insistence that homework should take precedence over pleasure, niggling complaints about hairstyle, clothes and the state of his room, which, after all, was supposed to be private—had made Francis feel that his parents' tolerance amounted to an uninterest which was close to emotional neglect. This was not what parenting was supposed to be.

His father's response to his choice of career had been one that he suspected had been used before. “There are only two important things about one's choice of job: that it should promote the happiness and well-being of others and give satisfaction to you. The police service fulfils the first and I hope that it will fulfil the second.” He had almost had to stop himself from saying, “Thank you, sir.” But he knew that he loved his parents and was sometimes quietly aware that the distancing was not all on their side and that he saw them too seldom. This lunch was to be some small atonement for neglect.

The call came on his dedicated mobile at ten-fifty-five, while he was adding to his selection of organic vegetables, and was Kate's voice. “We have a case. The apparent murder of a patient at a private clinic in Stoke Cheverell, in Dorset. It's in a manor house.”

“That makes a change, ma'am. But why the Squad? Why not Dorset Constabulary?”

Her voice sounded impatient. This was no time for chattering. “Heaven knows. They're being coy about it, as usual, but I gather it's something to do with Number Ten. I'll give you all the information I have when we're on the way. I suggest we take your car, and Commander Dalgliesh wants us to arrive at the Manor at the same time. He'll have his Jag. I'll be with you as soon as I can. I'll leave my car in your garage, and he'll join us there. I take it you've got your murder kit? And bring your camera. It could be useful. Where are you now?”

“At Notting Hill, ma'am. With luck I'll be back at the flat in under ten minutes.”

“Good. You may as well pick up some sandwiches or wraps and something to drink. AD won't want us to arrive hungry.”

As Kate rang off, Benton reflected that he already knew that. He had only two calls to make, one to his parents and one to Beverley. His mother took the call and, wasting no time, quickly expressed her regrets and rang off. Beverley didn't answer her mobile, which he felt was just as well. He left a simple message that their plans would have to be cancelled and said he would call later.

It took him only minutes to buy the sandwiches and drink. Running from the market to Holland Park Avenue, he saw that a number
94
bus was just slowing at the stop and, sprinting, managed to leap in before the doors closed. Already his plans for the day were forgotten, and he was looking ahead to the more demanding task of enhancing his reputation with the Squad. It worried him, but only slightly, that this exhilaration, the sense that the immediate future was full of excitement and challenge, depended on an unknown body stiffening in a Dorset manor house, on grief, anguish and fear. He admitted, and not without a small spasm of conscience, that it would be disappointing to arrive in Dorset to find that, after all, this was only a commonplace murder, and that the perpetrator had already been identified and arrested. It had never yet happened, and he knew that it was unlikely. The Squad was never called in to a commonplace murder.

Standing at the bus doors, he waited impatiently for them to open, then sprinted to his block of flats. Stabbing the lift button, he stood breathless listening for its descent. It was then that he realised, without in the least caring, that he had left his bag of carefully selected organic vegetables in the bus.