The Private Patient (32 page)

4

She didn't set the alarm clock for two-thirty, afraid that, however quickly she silenced its rattle, someone would hear it and be roused from sleep. But she didn't need an alarm. For years she had been able to wake by act of will, just as she could feign sleep so convincingly that her breathing became shallow and she herself hardly knew whether she was awake or asleep. Two-thirty was a good time. Midnight was the witching hour, the potent hour of mystery and secret ceremony. But the world no longer slept at midnight. If Mr. Chandler-Powell was restless, he might well walk into the night at twelve, but he wouldn't be abroad at two-thirty, nor would the earliest risers. Mary Keyte's burning had been at three in the afternoon on
20
December, but the afternoon wasn't possible for her act of vicarious expiation, the final ceremony of identification which would silence Mary Keyte's troubled voice for ever and give her peace. Three o'clock in the morning would have to do. And Mary Keyte would understand. What was important was to pay this final tribute, to re-enact as closely as she dared those appalling final minutes. The twentieth of December was both the right day and perhaps her last chance. It might well be that Mrs. Rayner would call for her tomorrow. She was ready to go, tired of being ordered about as if she were the least important person at the Manor when, if they knew, she was the most powerful. But soon all servitude would be over. She would be rich and people would be paid to look after her. But first there was this final goodbye to be said, the last time she would speak to Mary Keyte.

It was as well that she had made her plans so far in advance. Following on Robin Boyton's death, the two cottages had been sealed by the police. It would be risky even to visit the cottages after dark, and impossible at any time to leave the Manor without the security team seeing her. But she had acted as soon as Miss Cressett told her that a guest would be arriving at Rose Cottage on the same day as Miss Gradwyn had been booked in for her surgery. It was her job to vacuum or wash the floors, dust and polish and make up the bed before a guest arrived. Everything had come together. Everything had been meant. She even had the wicker basket on wheels to hold the clean linen and to bring back the soiled bed linen and towels for washing, the soap for the shower and washbasin and the plastic bag with her cleaning materials. She could use the basket to bring back two of the bags of kindling from the Rose Cottage shed, a length of old washing line which had been dumped there and two cans of paraffin wrapped in the old newspapers she always carried to spread over newly washed floors. Paraffin, even safely carried, smelled powerfully. But where could she hide them in the Manor? She decided to wrap the cans in two plastic bags and stow them away under the leaves and grasses of the ditch by the hedge. The ditch was deep enough to prevent the cans being seen, and the plastic would keep the tins dry. The firewood and rope she could safely lock away in her one large suitcase under her bed. No one would find them there. She was responsible for cleaning her own room and making her own bed, and everyone at the Manor was punctilious about privacy.

When her watch showed two-forty, she was ready to leave. She put on her darkest coat, a large box of matches already in the pocket, and tied a scarf over her head. Opening the door slowly, she stood for a moment hardly daring to breathe. The house was silent. Now that there was no risk of one of the security team patrolling at night, she could move without fear that watchful eyes and keen ears were on the alert. Only the Bostocks slept in the central block of the Manor and she had no need to pass their door. Carrying the bags of kindling and the curled washing line slung over her shoulder, she moved quietly, step by careful step, along the corridor, down the side stairs to the ground floor, to the west door. As before, she had to stand on tiptoe to ease back the bolt and took her time, careful that no rasp of metal should disturb the silence. Then, carefully, she turned the key, went out into the night and locked the door behind her.

It was a cold night, the stars high, the air faintly luminous, and a few wispy clouds moved over the bright segment of the moon. And now the wind was rising, not steadily but in short gusts like an expelled breath. She moved like a ghost down the lime walk, flitting from trunk to concealing trunk. But she had no real fear of being seen. The west wing was in darkness, and no other windows overlooked the lime walk. As she reached the stone wall and the moon-blanched stones were fully in sight, a blast of wind rippled along the dark hedgerow, setting the bare twigs creaking and the long grasses beyond the circle whispering and swaying. She was sorry that the wind was so erratic. She knew that it would help the fire, but its very unpredictability would be dangerous. This was to be a memorial, not a second sacrifice. She must take care that the fire never got too close. She sucked a finger and held it up, trying to decide the way the wind was blowing, then moved among the stones as quietly as if she feared that someone was lurking behind them, and set the bags of faggots beside the central stone. Then she made her way to the ditch.

It took a few minutes to find the plastic bags with the paraffin cans; for some reason she thought she had left them closer to the stones and the travelling moon, the brief periods of light and dark, was disorientating. She crept along the ditch, crouching low, but her hands encountered only weeds and grasses and the cold slime of the sludge. At last she found what she sought and carried the cans over to the kindling. She should have brought a knife. The first string bag was tougher than she had expected and it took a few minutes of her tugging before it burst open and the wood spilled out.

And now she began to construct a circle of wood inside the stones. It couldn't be too distanced or the ring of fire would be incomplete, or too near in case it caught her. Bending and working methodically, she at last completed the circle to her satisfaction, then, unscrewing the cap and holding the first paraffin can with great care, she bent double and made her way around the circle of kindling, anointing each stick. She found she had poured the paraffin too lavishly, and with the second can was more careful. Anxious to start the fire, and satisfied that the faggots were well doused, she used only half the paraffin.

Taking the washing line, she bound herself to the central stone. This was trickier than she had expected, but at last she discovered that the best plan was to circle the stone twice with the rope, then step into it, raise it along her body and tighten it. It helped that the centre stone, her altar, was taller but smoother and narrower than the others. This done, she tied the rope at the front of her waist, letting the long ends dangle. Taking the matches from her pocket, she stood rigid for a moment, her eyes closed. The wind gusted and then was calm. She said to Mary Keyte, “This is for you. This is in memory of you. This is to tell you I know you were innocent. They're taking me away from you. This is the last time I can visit you. Speak to me.” But tonight there was no answering voice.

She struck a match and threw it towards the circle of wood, but the wind blew out the flame almost as soon as it had been lit. She tried again and again with shaking hands. She was close to sobbing. It wasn't going to work. She would have to get closer to the circle and then run back to the sacrificial stone and tie herself again. But suppose the fire didn't take even then? And as she stared up the avenue, the great trunks of the limes grew and closed in together; their top branches merged and tangled, fracturing the moon. The path narrowed to a cavern, and the west wing, which had been a dark distant shape, dissolved into the greater darkness.

And now she could hear the crowd of villagers arriving. They were jostling down the narrowed lime walk, their distant voices rising to a shout which pounded at her ears.
Burn the witch! Burn the witch! She
killed our cattle. She poisoned our babies. She murdered Lucy Beale. Burn
her! Burn her!
And now they were at the wall. But they didn't climb over. They jostled against it, the crowd growing, gasping mouths like a row of death heads, screaming hatred at her.

And suddenly the shouting stopped. A figure detached itself, came over the wall and moved up to her. A voice she knew said gently and with a note of reproach, “How could you think I would let you do this alone? I knew you wouldn't fail her. It won't work the way you're doing it. I'll help. I've come as the Executioner.”

She hadn't planned it like this. It was to be her act and hers alone. But perhaps it would be good to have a witness, and after all this was a special witness, this was the one who understood, the one she could trust. Now she had someone else's secret, one which gave her power and would make her rich. Perhaps it was right that they should be together. The Executioner selected a slender faggot, brought it over and, shielding it from the wind, lit it and held it high, then moved over to the circle and thrust it among the kindling. Immediately there was a rush of flame, and the fire ran like a living creature, spluttering, crackling and sending out sparks. The night came alive, and now the voices on the other side of the wall rose in crescendo and she experienced a moment of extraordinary triumph, as if the past, hers and Mary Keyte's, were burning away.

The Executioner moved closer to her. Why, she wondered, were the hands so pinkly pale, so translucent? Why the surgical gloves? And then the hands took hold of the end of the washing line and, with one swift movement, curled it round her neck. There was a vicious tug as it tightened. She felt a cold splash on her face. Something was being thrown over her body. The reek of paraffin intensified, its fumes choking her. The Executioner's breath was hot on her face, and the eyes which looked into hers were like veined marbles. The irises seemed to grow so that there was no face, nothing but dark pools in which she saw only a reflection of her own despair. She tried to cry out, but she had no breath, no voice. She fumbled at the knots which bound her, but her hands had no strength.

Barely conscious, she slumped against the rope and waited for death: Mary Keyte's death. And then she heard what sounded like a sob followed by a great cry. It couldn't be her voice; she had no voice. And then the can of paraffin was lifted and flung towards the hedge. She saw an arc of fire, and the hedge exploded into flame.

And now she was alone. Half fainting, she began pulling at the cord round her neck, but there was no strength to lift her arms. The crowd had gone now. The fire was beginning to die. She slumped against her bonds, her legs buckling, and knew nothing more.

Suddenly there were voices, a blaze of torches dazzling her eyes. Someone was vaulting over the stone wall, running to get her, leaping over the dying fire. There were arms round her, a man's arms, and she heard his voice.

“You're all right. You're safe. Sharon, can you understand me? You're safe.”

5

They had heard the sound of the departing car even before they reached the stones. There was no point in making a desperate dash to follow. Sharon had been the top priority. Now Dalgliesh said to Kate, “Look after things here, will you? Get a statement as soon as Chandler-Powell says she's fit. Benton and I will go after Miss Westhall.”

The four security men, alerted by the flames, were coping with the burning hedge, which dampened by the earlier rain was quickly subdued into charred twigs and acrid smoke. Now low cloud slid from the face of the moon, and the night became numinous. The stones, silvered in the moon's aberrant light, shone like spectral tombs, and the figures, which Dalgliesh knew were Helena, Lettie and the Bostocks, became discarnate shapes disappearing into the darkness. He watched while Chandler-Powell, hieratic in his long dressing gown, with Flavia at his side, carried Sharon over the wall and then they, too, disappeared into the lime walk. He was aware of someone who remained and now, suddenly in the moonlight, Marcus Westhall's face seemed a disembodied floating image, the face of a dead man.

Moving up to him, Dalgliesh said, “Where is she likely to go? We have to know. Nothing is served by delay.”

Marcus's voice, when it came, was hoarse. “She'll go to the sea. She loves the sea. She'll go where she likes to swim. Kimmeridge Bay.”

Benton had rapidly pulled on trousers and had struggled into a thick jersey as he ran towards the fire. Now Dalgliesh called out to him. “Do you remember the number of Candace Westhall's car?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Get on to the local traffic division. They'll start the search. Suggest they try Kimmeridge. We'll use the Jag.”

“Right, sir.” Benton was off, running strongly.

But now Marcus had found his voice. He stumbled after Dalgliesh, clumsy as an old man, shouting hoarsely, “I'm coming with you. Wait for me! Wait for me!”

“There's no point. In the end she will be found.”

“I have to come. I need to be there when you find her.”

Dalgliesh wasted no time in argument. Marcus Westhall had a right to be with them and could be helpful in identifying the right stretch of beach. He said, “Get a warm coat, but hurry.”

His car was the fastest, but speed was hardly important, nor was it possible on the winding country road. It could be too late now to get to the sea before she walked to her death, if drowning was what she had in mind. It was impossible to know if her brother was speaking the truth but, remembering his anguished face, Dalgliesh thought that he probably was. Benton took only minutes fetching the Jaguar from the Old Police Cottage and was waiting as Dalgliesh and Westhall reached the road. Without speaking he opened the back door for Westhall to get in, then followed him. Apparently this passenger was too unpredictable to be left alone in the back of a car.

Benton took out his torch and gave directions for their route. The smell of paraffin from Dalgliesh's clothes and hands filled the car. He lowered the window, and the night air, cold and sweet, filled his lungs. The narrow country roads, rising and falling, uncurled before them. On either side, Dorset stretched away, its valleys and hills, the small villages, the stone cottages. There was little traffic in this, the dead of night. All the houses were in darkness.

And now he could smell a change in the air, a freshness which was more a sensation than a smell but to him unmistakable: the salt tang of the sea. The lane narrowed as they descended through the silent village and then on to the quayside at Kimmeridge Bay. Before them the sea shimmered under the stars and the moon. Whenever Dalgliesh was in reach of the sea, he felt himself drawn to it like an animal to a pool of water. Here, down the centuries since man first stood upright on a shore, its immemorial plangency, unfailing, unseeing, uncaring, caught at so many emotions, not least, as now, the awareness of the transience of human life. They moved eastwards to the beach under the looming blackness of the shale cliff, rising dark as coal and tufted at its base with grass and bushes. The slabs of black shale ran out to sea in a pathway of sea-splashed rocks. The waves slid over them, hissing their retreat. In the moonlight they glistened like polished ebony.

They crunched on by the light of their torches, sweeping them over the beach and the causeway of black shale. Marcus Westhall, who had been silent on the journey, seemed now revitalised and plunged on through the pebbled fringe of shoreline as if tireless. They rounded a promontory and were faced by another narrow beach, another stretch of black fissured rocks. They found nothing.

And they could go no further. The beach ended as the cliffs, sloping to the sea, barred their way.

Dalgliesh said, “She's not here. We could try the other beach.”

Westhall's voice, raised against the rhythmic boom of the sea, was a hoarse cry. “She doesn't swim there. It's here she'd come. She's out there somewhere.”

Dalgliesh said calmly, “We'll renew the search in daylight. I think this is where we call a halt.”

But Westhall was again making his way over the rocks, precariously balancing, until he was on the edge of the breaking tide. And there he stood, outlined against the horizon. Glancing at each other, Dalgliesh and Benton leaped carefully over the tide-swept slabs towards him.

Westhall didn't turn. The sea, under a mottled sky in which low clouds were dulling the brightness of starlight and the moon, looked to Dalgliesh like an unending cauldron of dirty bathwater, heaving with soapsuds which drifted into the crevices in the rocks like scum. The tide was running strongly, and he could see that Westhall's trousers were soaking and as he reached his side, a sudden full-bellied wave broke over the legs of the rigid figure, nearly knocking them both from the rock. Dalgliesh grasped his arm, steadying him. He said quietly, “Come away now. She isn't here. There's nothing you can do.”

Without a word, Westhall allowed himself to be helped across the treacherous stretch of shale and gently urged into the car.

They were halfway to the Manor when the radio crackled. It was DC Warren. “We've found the car, sir. She didn't go further than Bag-got's Wood, less than half a mile from the Manor. We're searching the wood now.”

“Was the car open?”

“No, sir, locked. And there's no sign of anything inside.”

“Right. Go ahead and I'll join you.”

It was not a search to which he looked forward. As she had parked the car and hadn't used the exhaust to kill herself, the chances were that this was a hanging. Hanging had always horrified him, and not only because it had been for so long the British method of execution. However mercifully carried out there was something peculiarly degrading in the inhuman stringing up of another human being. He had little doubt now that Candace Westhall had killed herself, but, please God, not that way.

Without turning his head, he said to Westhall, “The local police have found your sister's car. She isn't there. I'll take you back to the Manor now. You need to get dry and changed. Now you must wait. There's absolutely no point in doing anything else.”

There was no reply, but when the gates were opened for them and they drew up at the front door, Westhall allowed himself to be led in by Benton and handed over to the waiting Lettie Frensham. He followed her like an obedient child into the library. There was a pile of blankets and a rug warming before a roaring fire, and brandy and whisky on the table beside a fireside chair.

She said, “I think you'd be better with some of Dean's soup. He has it ready. But now take off your jacket and trousers and wrap these blankets round you. I'll fetch your slippers and dressing gown.”

He said dully, “They're somewhere in the bedroom.”

“I'll find them.”

Docile as a child he did as he was told. The trousers, like a pile of rags, steamed before the leaping flames. He sank back into the chair. He felt like a man coming out of an anaesthetic, surprised to find that he could move, reconciling himself to being alive, wishing that he could relapse into unconsciousness, because that way the pain would stop. But he must have slept in the armchair for a few minutes. Opening his eyes, he saw Lettie beside him. She helped him into his dressing gown and slippers. Soup in a mug appeared before him, hot and strong-tasting, and he found that he could drink it, although he noticed only the taste of sherry.

After a time, during which she sat beside him in silence, he said, “There's something I have to tell you. I shall have to tell Dalgliesh, but I need to say it now. I need to tell you.”

He looked into her face and saw the tension in her eyes, the dawning anxiety over what she might be about to hear.

He said, “I know nothing of Rhoda Gradwyn's or Robin's murders. It isn't that. But I lied to the police. It wasn't because the car was causing problems that I didn't stay with the Greenfields that night. I left to see a friend, Eric. He has a flat close to St. Angela's Hospital where he works. I wanted to break the news that I was going to Africa. I knew it would distress him but I had to try to make him understand.”

She said quietly, “And did he?”

“No, not really. I messed that up as I do everything.”

Lettie touched his hand. “I shouldn't worry the police with that unless you need to or they ask. It won't be important to them now.”

“It is to me.”

There was a silence; then he said, “Please leave me now. I'm all right. I promise I'm all right. I need to be alone. Just let me know when they find her.”

He could be sure that Lettie was the one woman who would understand his need to be left in peace and wouldn't argue. She said, “I'll turn the lights low.” She placed a cushion on a stool. “Lie back and put your feet up. I'll be back in an hour. Try to sleep.”

And then she was gone. But he had no intention of sleeping. Sleep had to be fought off. There was only one place where he needed to be if he was to stop himself from going mad. He had to think. He had to try to understand. He had to accept what his mind told him was true.

He had to be where he found a greater peace and a surer wisdom than he could find here among these dead books and the empty eyes of the busts. He made his way quietly out of the room, closing the door behind him, through the great hall, now in darkness, and to the back of the house, past the kitchen and through the side door into the garden. He felt neither the strength of the wind nor the cold. He passed the old stables, then went through the formal garden to the stone chapel.

As he approached through the dawning light, he saw that there was a dark shape on the stones outside the door. Something had been spilled, something which shouldn't be there. Confused, he knelt down and touched its stickiness with trembling fingers. And then he could smell it and, raising his hands, saw that they were covered with blood. He struggled forward on his knees and, willing himself to stand, managed to raise the latch. The door was bolted. And then he knew. He beat against it, sobbing, calling her name, until his strength gave out and he sank slowly to his knees, his red palms pressed against the unyielding wood.

And it was there, still kneeling in her blood, that the searchers found him twenty minutes later.