P James - Shroud for a Nightingale

“Why should I visit the Matron? She wasn’t there. Mary Taylor was in Amsterdam that night”

“But you didn’t know that at the time, did you? Miss Taylor wasn’t accustomed to attending International Conferences. For reasons we can guess she didn’t want her face to be too widely known. This reluctance to undertake public duties was thought becomingly modest in a woman so able and so intelligent She was only asked late on Tuesday to go to Amsterdam to deputize for the Chairman of the Area Nurse Training Committee. Your sessions are on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays. Then, on Wednesday night, you were called to operate on a private patient I don’t suppose that the operating theatre staff, busy with an emergency, thought to mention that the Matron wasn’t in the hospital. Why should they?” He paused.

Courtney-Briggs said: “And why am I supposed to have planned to visit the Matron at midnight? You’re not supposing that I would have been a welcome visitor? You’re not suggesting that she was expecting me?”

“You came to see Irmgard Grobel.”

There was a moment’s silence. Then Courtney-Briggs said:

“How do you know about Irmgard Grobel?”

“From the same person who told you, Mrs. Dettinger.”

Another silence. Then he said with the obstinate finality of a man who knows he won’t be believed:

“Irmgard Grobel is dead.”

“Is she?” asked Dalgliesh. “Didn’t you expect to find her in the Matron’s flat? Wasn’t this your first opportunity to confront her with what you knew? And you must have been looking forward to it The exercise of power is always pleasurable, isn’t it?”

Courtney-Briggs said calmly: “You should know that”

They stood looking at each other in silence. Dalgliesh asked:

“What had you in mind?”

“Nothing. I didn’t connect Grobel with the deaths of Pearce or Fallon. Even if I had, I doubt whether I should have spoken. This hospital needs Mary Taylor. As far as I’m concerned Irmgard Grobel doesn’t exist. She was tried once and found not guilty. That was good enough for me. I’m surgeon, not a moral theologian. I should have kept her secret”

Of course he would, thought Dalgliesh. Its value would be lost to him once the truth were known. This was very special, very important information, gained at some cost and he would use it in his own way. It put Mary Taylor for ever in his power. The Matron who so frequently and irritatingly opposed him; whose power was increasing; who was about to be appointed Director of Nursing Services over all the hospitals in the Group; who influenced the Chairman of the Hospital Management Committee against him. Sir Marcus Cohen. How much influence would she retain with that dedicated Jew once he learned about the Steinhoff Institution? It had become fashionable to forget these things. But would Sir Marcus Cohen forgive?

He thought of Mary Taylor’s words. There are more ways than one of blackmail. Heather Pearce and Ethel Brumfett both knew that. And perhaps the most subtly pleasurable was the blackmail which made no financial demands but enjoyed its secret knowledge under the cloak of generosity, kindness, complicity or moral superiority. Sister Brumfett hadn’t asked much after all, only a room next to her idol; the prestige of being known as the matron’s friend; a companion for her off-duty hours. Poor stupid Pearce had asked only a few shillings a week and a verse or two of scripture. But how they must have relished their power. And how infinitely more gratifying would Courtney-Briggs have found his. No wonder that he had been determined to keep the secret to himself, that he hadn’t welcomed the thought of the Yard descending on Nightingale House.

Dalgliesh said: “We can prove that you flew to Germany last Friday night. And I think I can guess why. It was a quicker and surer way of getting the information you wanted than pestering the Judge Advocate’s Department You probably consulted the newspaper files and the record of the trial. That’s what I would have done. And, no doubt, you have useful contacts. But we can find out where you went and what you did. You can’t slip in and out of the country anonymously, you know.”

Courtney-Briggs said: “I admit that I knew. I admit, too, that I came to Nightingale House to see Mary Taylor on the night Fallon died. But I’ve done nothing illegal, nothing which could put me in jeopardy.”

“I can believe that.”

“Even if I’d spoken earlier I should have been too late to save Pearce. She was dead before Mrs. Dettinger came to see me. I’ve nothing with which to reproach myself.”

He was beginning to defend himself clumsily like a schoolboy. Then they heard the soft footfall and looked round. Mary Taylor had returned. She spoke directly to the surgeon.

“I can let you have the Burt twins. I’m afraid it means the end of this block but there’s no choice. They’ll have to be recalled to the wards.”

Courtney-Briggs said grudgingly: “They’ll do. They’re sensible girls. But what about a Sister?”

“I thought that Sister Rolfe might take over temporarily. But I’m afraid that’s impossible. She’s leaving the John Carpendar.”

“Leaving! But she can’t do that!”

“I don’t see how I can prevent her. But I don’t think I shall be given the opportunity to try.”

“But why is she leaving?” What’s happened?“

“She won’t say. I think something about the police investigation has upset her.”

Courtney-Briggs swung round at Dalgliesh.

“You see! Dalgliesh, I realize that you’re only doing your job, that you were sent here to clear up these girls’ deaths. But, for God’s sake, doesn’t it ever occur to you that your interference makes things a bloody sight worse?”

“Yes,” said Dalgliesh. “And in your job? Does it ever occur to you?”

She went with Courtney-Briggs to the front door. They didn’t linger. She was back in less than a minute, and walking briskly over to the fire, she slipped her cloak from her shoulders and laid it tidily over the back of the sofa. Then, kneeling, she took up a pair of brass tongs and began to build up the fire, coal carefully disposed on coal, each licking flame fed with its gleaming nugget Without looking up at Dalgliesh, she said:

“We were interrupted in our conversation, Superintendent You were accusing me of murder. I have faced that charge once before, but at least the court at Pelsenheim produced some evidence. What evidence have you?”

“None.”

“Nor will you ever find any.”

She spoke without anger or complacency but with an intensity, a quiet finality that had nothing to do with innocence.

Looking down at the gleaming head burnished by the firelight Dalgliesh said:

“But you haven’t denied it. You haven’t lied to me yet and I don’t suppose you’ll trouble to begin now. Why should she have killed herself in that way? She liked her comfort. Why be uncomfortable in death? Suicides seldom are unless they’re too psychotic to care. She had access to plenty of pain-killing drugs. Why not use one of them? Why trouble to creep away to a cold dark garden shed to immolate herself in lonely agony? She wasn’t ‘even fortified by the gratifications of a public show.”

There are precedents.“

“Not many in this country.”

“Perhaps she was too psychotic to care.”

“That will be said of course.”

“She may have realized that it was important not to leave an identifiable body if she wanted to convince you that she was Grobel. Faced with a written confession and a heap of charred bones, why should you bother any further? There was no point in killing herself to protect me if you could confirm her real identity without trouble.”