Shroud for a Nightingale (6 page)

“It’s one of the Burt twins, isn’t it? What are you doing here? Is anyone else up?”

“No, Sister. At least I don’t think so. I’ve just been to the lavatory.”

“Oh I see. Well, as long as everyone’s all right I thought that the storm might have disturbed you all. I’ve just come back from my ward. One of Mr. Courtney-Briggs’s patients had a relapse and he had to operate urgently.”

“Yes, Sister,” said Nurse Burt, uncertain what else was expected of her. She was surprised that Sister Brumfett should bother to explain her presence to a mere student nurse, and she watched a little uncertainly as the Sister drew her long cloak more firmly around her and stumped briskly down the corridor towards the far stairs. Her own room was on the floor above, immediately next to Matron’s fiat. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, Sister Brumfett turned and seemed about to speak. It was at that moment that Shirley Burt’s door opened slowly, and a tousled red head appeared.

“What’s up?” it inquired sleepily.

Sister Brumfett walked towards them;

“Nothing, Nurse. I’m just on my way back to bed. I’ve come from my ward. And Maureen had to get up to go to the lavatory. There’s nothing to worry about”

Shirley gave no impression that she was or ever had been worried. She now trotted out on to the landing, pulling her dressing-gown around her. Resigned and a little complacent, she said:

“When Maureen wakes up I do too. We’ve always been like that ever since we were babies. You ask Mum!” A little unsteady with sleep but not ungratified that the family theurgy still worked, she closed her bedroom door behind her with the finality of one who, being up, intends to stay up.

“No use trying to get off again in this wind. I’m going to brew some cocoa. Can we bring you up a mug, Sister7 It’d help you to sleep.”

“No thank you, Nurse. I don’t think I shall have any trouble in sleeping. Be as quiet as you can. You don’t want to disturb the others. And don’t get cold.” She turned again towards the stairs. Maureen said: “Fallon’s awake. At least her bedside lamp’s still on.”

The three of them looked down the corridor to where an eye of light from Nurse Fallon’s keyhole pierced the darkness and threw a small luminous shadow on the linenfold paneling opposite.

Shirley said: “We’ll take her a mug then. She’s probably awake and reading. Come on, Maureen! Good night, Sister.”

They shuffled off together down the corridor to the small utility room at the end. After a second’s pause Sister Brumfett, who had been looking steadily after them, her face rigid and expressionless, turned finally towards the stairs and made her way up to bed.

Exactly one hour later but unheard and unrecorded by anyone in Nightingale House, a weakened pane of glass in the conservatory which had rattled spasmodically throughout the night, fell inwards to explode into splinters on the tessellated floor. The wind rushed in through the aperture like a questing animal. Its cold breath rustled the magazines on the wicker tables, lifted the fronds of the palms and sent the fem leaves gently waving. Finally it found the long white cupboard centered under the plant shelves. Early in the evening, the door had been left ajar by the desperate and hurried visitor who had last thrust a hand into the cupboard depths. All night the door had stayed open, motionless on its hinges. But now the wind set it gently swinging to and fro, then as if wearying of the game, finally closed it with a soft, decisive thud.

And everything living under the roof of Nightingale House, slept.

Nurse Dakers was awoken by the whirr of the bedside alarm clock. The faintly luminous dial showed the time as 6.15. Even with the curtains drawn back the room was still completely dark. The square of faint light came, as she knew, not from the door but from the distant lights of the hospital where already the night staff would be taking round the first morning cups of tea. She lay still for a moment, adjusting to her own wakefulness, putting out tentative feelers to the day. She had slept well despite the storm of which she had been only briefly aware. She realized with a spring of joy that she could actually face the day with confidence. The misery and I apprehension of the previous evening, of the previous weeks, seemed to have lifted. It seemed now no more than the effect of tiredness, and temporary depression. She had passed down a tunnel of misery and insecurity since Pearce’s death but this I morning, miraculously, she had come out into daylight again. It was like Christmas morning in childhood. It was the beginning of a summer holiday from school. It was waking refreshed at the end of a febrile illness with the comfortable knowledge that Mummy was there and that all the solaces of convalescence lay ahead. It was familiar life-restored.

The day shone before her. She catalogued its promises and pleasures. In the morning there would be the materia-medica lecture. This was important She had always been weak on drugs and dosages. Then, after the coffee break, Mr. Courtney-Briggs would give his third year surgery seminar. It was a privilege that a surgeon of his eminence should take so much trouble with the student nurse training. She was a little afraid of him, particularly of his sharp staccato questions. But this morning she would be brave and speak up confidently. Then in the afternoon the hospital bus would take the set to the local maternity and child welfare clinic to watch the local authority staff at work. This, too, was important to someone who hoped in time to become a district nurse. She lay for a few moments contemplating this gratifying program then she got out of bed, shuffled her feet into her slippers, struggled into her cheap dressing-gown and made her way along the passage to the students’ utility room.

The Nightingale nurses were called promptly at seven each morning by one of the maids, but most students, accustomed to early waking when on the wards, set their alarm clocks at 6.30 to give themselves time for tea-making and gossip. The early arrivals were already there. The little room was brightly lit, cheerfully domestic, smelling, as always, of tea, boiled milk and detergent. The scene was reassuringly normal. The Burt twins were there, faces still puffy from sleep, each twin stoutly cocooned into a bright red dressing-gown. Maureen was carrying her portable wireless tuned to Radio 2 and was gently jerking hips and shoulders to the rhythm of the B.B.C.“s early morning syncopation. Her twin was setting their two immense mugs on a tray and rummaging in a tin for biscuits. The only other student present was Madeleine Goodale who, clad in an ancient plaid dressing-gown, was watching, teapot in hand, for the first spurt of steam from the kettle. In her mood of optimism and relief, Nurse Dakers could have hugged them all.

“Where’s Fallon this morning?” asked Maureen Burt with no great interest.

Nurse Fallon was a notoriously late riser, but she was usually one of the first to make tea. It was her habit to carry it back to enjoy at leisure in bed, where she would stay until the last possible moment consistent with presenting herself at breakfast on time. But this morning her personal teapot and the matching cup and saucer were still on the cupboard shelf beside the canister of china tea which Fallon preferred to the strong brown brew which the rest of the set considered necessary before they could face the day.

“I’ll give her a call,” suggested Nurse Dakers, happy to be of use and longing to celebrate her release from the strain of the last few weeks by general benevolence.

“Wait a moment, then you can take her a cuppa out of my pot,” suggested Maureen.

“She won’t like Indian tea. I’ll see if she’s awake and just let her know the kettle’s on the boil.”

For a moment it occurred to Nurse Dakers to make Fallon’s tea for her. But the impulse faded. It was not that Fallon was particularly temperamental or unpredictable, but somehow people did not interfere with her personal things nor expect her to share them. She had few possessions but they were expensive, elegant, carefully chosen and so much part of her
persona
that they seemed sacrosanct.

Nurse Dakers almost ran along the passage to Fallon’s room. The door was unlocked. That did not surprise her. Ever since one of the students had been taken ill in the night some years ago and had been too weak to creep across the room to unlock the door, there had been a rule forbidding girls to lock themselves in at night. Since Pearce’s death one or two had taken to turning their keys, and if the Sisters suspected it they said nothing. Perhaps they, too, slept more soundly behind locked doors. But Fallon had not been afraid.

The curtains were closely drawn. The bedside lamp was on but with the adjustable shade tilted so that it threw a pale moon on the far wall and left the bed in shadow. There was a tangle of black hair on the pillow. Nurse Dakers felt along the wall for the light switch and paused before clicking it on. Then she pressed it down very gently as if it were possible softly and gradually to illuminate the room and spare Fallon the first fierce wakening. The room blazed into light She bunked in the unexpected glare. Then she moved very quietly across to the bed. She didn’t scream or faint. She stood absolutely still for a moment looking down at Fallon’s body, and smiling a little as if surprised. She had no doubt that Fallon was dead. The eyes were still wide open but they were cold and opaque, like the eyes of dead fish. Nurse Dakers bent down and stared into them as if willing them into brightness or seeking in vain some trace of her own reflection. Then she slowly turned and left the room, switching off the light and closing the door behind her. She swayed like a sleepwalker along the passage, steadying her hands against the wall.

At first the students didn’t notice her return. Then three pairs of eyes were suddenly fixed on her, three figures stood frozen in a tableau of puzzled inquiry. Nurse Dakers leaned against the door post and opened her mouth soundlessly. The words wouldn’t come. Something seemed to have happened to her throat. Her whole jaw was trembling uncontrollably and her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth. Her eyes pleaded with them. It seemed minutes while they watched her struggle. When the words did come she sounded calm, gently surprised.

“It’s Fallon. She’s dead.”

She smiled like someone waking from a dream, patiently explaining: “Someone’s murdered Fallon.”

The room emptied. She wasn’t aware of their concerted dash down the corridor. She was alone. The kettle was screeching now, the lid rattling under the force of the steam. Carefully she turned down the gas, frowning with concentration. Very slowly, like a child entrusted with a precious task, she took down the canister, the elegant teapot, the matching cup and saucer, and humming gently to herself, made Fallon’s early morning tea.

Chapter Three

STRANGERS IN THE HOUSE

I

“The pathologist is here, sir.”

A detective constable put his cropped head round the bedroom door and raised an interrogative eyebrow.

Chief Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh turned from his ex-animation of the dead girl’s clothes, his six feet two inches uncomfortably trapped between the foot of the bed and the wardrobe door. He looked at his watch. It was eight minutes past ten. Sir Miles Honeyman, as always, had made good time.

“Right, Fenning. Ask him to be good enough to wait for a moment, will you? We’ll be finished in here in a minute. Then some of us can clear out and make room for ram.”

The head disappeared. Dalgliesh closed the wardrobe door and managed to squeeze himself between it and the foot of the bed. Certainly there was no room for a fourth person at present The huge bulk of the finger-print man occupied the space between the bedside table and the window as, bent almost double, be brushed charcoal carefully on to the surface of the whisky bottle, turning it by its cork. Beside the bottle stood a glass plate bearing the dead girl’s prints, the whorls and composites plainly visible.

“Anything there?” asked Dalgliesh.

The print man paused and peered more closely.

“A nice set of prints coming up, sir. They’re hers all right Nothing else, though. It looks as if the chap who sold it gave the bottle the usual wipe over before wrapping. It’ll be interesting to see what we get from the beaker.”

He cast a jealously possessive glance at it as it lay where it had fallen from the girl’s hand, lightly poised in a curve of the counterpane. Not until the last photograph had been taken would it be yielded up for his examination.

He bent again to his task on the bottle. Behind him the Yard photographer maneuvered his tripod and camera—a new Cambo monorail, Dalgliesh noticed—to the right-hand foot of the bed. There was a click, an explosion of light, and the image of the dead girl leapt up at them and lay suspended in air, burning itself on Dalgliesh’s retina. Color and shape were intensified and distorted in that cruel, momentary glare. The long black hair was a tangled wig against the whiteness of the pillows; the glazed eyes were exophthalmic marbles, as if rigor mortis were squeezing them out of their sockets; the skin was very white and smooth, looking repulsive to the touch, an artificial membrane, tough and impermeable as vinyl. Dalgliesh blinked, erasing the image of a witch’s plaything, a grotesque puppet casually tossed against the pillow. When he next looked at her she was again a dead girl on a bed; no more and no less. Twice more the distorted image leapt up at him and lay petrified in air as the photographer took two pictures with the Polaroid Land camera to give Dalgliesh the immediate prints for which he always asked. Then it was over. “That was the last. I’m through, sir,” said the photographer. I’ll let Sir Miles in now.“ He put his head around the door while the print man, grunting with satisfaction, lovingly lifted the drinking beaker from the counterpane with a pair of forceps and set it alongside the whisky bottle.