CHAPTER SIX

'He could have done it,' said Llewellyn. 'He was here alone. He said himself it was a quiet night. He could have slipped out, or even brought the victim into his office, with nobody being any the wiser. Even if he didn't do it, he might have seen who did.'

Llewellyn leaned over the plan of the hospital and pointed with a long, elegant finger. 'I've been checking the layout of the house, and from both his office and the staff lounge you can see over the side-gate. Of course, even with the outside lights, it would be pretty dark, but he could still have seen something or someone.'

'We'll have another word with him, but not just yet,' Rafferty decided. 'If he knows something, it shouldn't be too difficult to get it out of him. We'll have Staff Nurse Estoce in next, and then Charge Nurse Allward. They were both on duty on Friday night. You'll probably find them waiting in the staff lounge if you give it a ring.'

With her flawless skin and graceful movements, Staff Nurse Estoce was quite exquisite, thought Rafferty, but as with so many Oriental girls, she was shy and self-effacing.

Still, she managed to answer their questions clearly enough; at least, until they asked about her duty colleague on the night of the murder, then her eyes became clouded, and Rafferty had to remind himself to concentrate on her answers rather than her face. It didn’t take many more questions before she revealed something interesting.

'You say that Charge Nurse Allward was late back from his early break, Staff. Did he give a reason for that?'

She nodded. 'One of the patients had a bad dream. Charge Nurse Allward settled him and stayed with him till he slept.'

'He didn't ask for your help?' She shook her head. 'So you didn't see the patient at all during this time?'

'No. I checked on him later, of course.'

'And you say Mr Allward returned at 11.45 p.m.?'

'Yes. I noted the time particularly before I went for my own break as I do not like to be late back.'

'Didn't you hear the patient cry out yourself?' Again, she shook her head. 'Why was that?'

She gave a tiny shrug. 'I imagine it was only a little cry and Mr Allward comforted him before he became too upset. I was checking on another patient and spent a little time with him.'

'You didn't notice anything unusual that night? You didn't hear a scream for instance?'

'No. But, in a hospital such as this screams are not so unusual.'

'Have you any idea what the victim might have been doing in the grounds?'

Interestingly, a delicate rose colour tinted her olive skin and her reply was defensive. 'N—no. I couldn't say.'

Couldn't—or wouldn't? ‘You don't seem very certain, Staff,' Rafferty remarked gently. 'The victim's name was Linda Wilks. She was about your age. Perhaps you'd like to think about that and get back to me?'

She nodded once and her eyes looked anxiously at the door, before returning to his face.

Why was it everyone was so anxious to get away from him today? Rafferty mused. First Simon Smythe and now Staff Nurse Estoce. If this kept up he'd have to seriously consider changing his deodorant, which would be a pity, as he still had twenty bottles of the stuff that his ma had got wholesale. At least, she'd said they were wholesale, he remembered uneasily. Staff Nurse Estoce was still staring at him with her great dark eyes, making him feel like a thug and he let her go. It was obvious something was worrying her. What on earth could she be hiding? Was she protecting someone?

'Find out if she's got a boyfriend amongst the staff,' he instructed Llewellyn. 'Let's have Allward in now.'

There was nothing meek or self-effacing about Charge Nurse Allward, Rafferty noted. He couldn't have presented a greater contrast to Simon Smythe or the little Staff Nurse. Allward was in his early thirties and only about five or six years older than the other man, but they might have been light years apart. He was tall and elegant from his glossy, expensively-styled, brown hair to his burnished black shoes. He seemed completely at his ease and he sat on the hard hospital chair with a faintly sardonic air, as though he found it amusing to be interviewed by the police.

'The sergeant said you wished to see me, Inspector?'

'That's right, Sir. Just a few questions.' After going through the previous spiel that he'd used with Smythe, he asked Allward for his movements on the night of the murder.

'As you probably know, I was on duty in the male bedroom block, with Staff Nurse Estoce from 8.45 p.m. till 7.00 a.m.'

Rafferty nodded. 'I understand you were late returning from your 11.15 p.m. break? Fifteen minutes late. Why was that?'

Allward's sardonic expression became more thoughtful at this. He sat up a little straighter, as though realising he should treat the interview more seriously. Perhaps he hadn't expected his loyal little Staff Nurse to mention his lateness, Rafferty mused.

'I was delayed by one of the patients,' Allward explained.

'Which one?'

'Old Mr Tompkinson. His room's at the end of the corridor, near the little cubby-hole where we make the hot drinks.'

'I see. What was the matter with him?'

'Just a bad dream.'

'You didn't need to give him any medication?' He knew that would have to be entered up on the patient's records.

'No. I just got him a drink and settled him down again.' He smiled easily. 'He's a nice old boy. Pathetically grateful for anything you do for him. He and I came here on the same day, so I've always regarded him as one of my special charges.'

'You didn't see anything unusual that night?'

'Depends what you mean by unusual. This is a psychiatric hospital, Inspector,' Allward gently teased.

'Anything out of the ordinary then?'

Allward shook his head. 'No. But then I didn't look out of the windows, if I had I might have seen something, I suppose. I'm afraid I can't help you, Inspector.'

He even managed to look and sound as though he was genuinely sorry not to be of more assistance, which made Rafferty feel an unreasonable irritation. But Allward was far too smooth for his taste, and he too human to keep his feelings completely hidden. Rafferty wondered how it was that Llewellyn's professional composure never seemed to be ruffled by personal antagonisms. The thought added to his irritation.

'The victim's name was Linda Wilks. Did you know her?'

For a moment, he thought he saw a brief flicker of – something – in Allward's eyes, but it had vanished before he could decide whether it had been recognition, fear or surprise at their speed of identification that had caused it.

'I'm afraid I can't help you, Inspector. But, of course, if she was a visitor to one of the female patients, I'd be unlikely to meet her. Perhaps one of the porters would know her?' he suggested helpfully. 'They get to see all the visitors.'

'Surely, Gilbert's told you they didn't know her? That they had no idea what she was doing here?' replied Rafferty sharply. 'Neither has anyone else—or so they say. She's a regular mystery woman. Very strange. She wasn't a member of staff or a patient. She wasn't a visitor—at least not an official visitor, which, given what we've found out about her, leaves me to conclude she had a less than above board reason for coming here. She was a prostitute, Mr Allward,' Rafferty told him bluntly. 'Who do you think might have booked her services that night?'

Allward met his eyes squarely. 'I can't imagine.'

'Try,' suggested Rafferty. 'There were six members of staff on duty that night. One of them yourself, three of the others were women, which would seem to rule them out, and the others were Dr. Smythe and Fred Brown, the night porter. A limited field for your imagination to work in, I think.'

'Are you inviting me to smear a colleague, Inspector? Hardly ethical. Besides, any of the other members of staff could have returned easily enough. The hospital would be a convenient place to take such a woman, I would have thought, away from prying families, especially as most of the patients are away at the moment and there are plenty of empty bedrooms.'

'They've already been exonerated, Sir,' Rafferty told him with satisfaction. But it was clear that Allward wasn't about to confess.

After Allward had gone, Rafferty pulled his coat off the back of the chair and shrugged into it. 'We'll do the rest of the interviews later. Guess who's got the happy task of breaking the news to the dead girl's parents?' He headed for the door but stopped when he heard the swiftly indrawn breath behind him.

'Can't the Met can do that?' Llewellyn asked sharply. 'Surely we're not expected to go all the way to London to break the news. I hate—' He broke off and closed his mouth tightly, as though aware that he'd already said too much.

Surprised at this unexpected outburst, Rafferty eyed Llewellyn with a certain degree of sympathy. Breaking news of sudden death was one of the more unpleasant aspects of police work. Nobody liked it. But he was startled to see the usually controlled Welshman show his distaste so openly.

Llewellyn's pale face flushed and he made an awkward attempt at an explanation 'It's just that, as a child, I had often to accompany my father when he broke the news of sudden death. He was a minister,' he went on in a strange stiff voice. 'He told me it was part of my training for when I went into the ministry myself.' The flush had faded now, leaving his pale face starkly etched with lines of pain. His lips twitched in a ghostly semblance of a smile. 'I've hated having to break such bad news ever since.'

Embarrassed, Rafferty remarked gruffly, 'Bit of a problem that in our line. How have you managed?'

'Wasn't too bad in the little country town where I was stationed before. Most of the sudden deaths were of farmers driving home drunk at the end of market-day and the uniformed branch dealt with them.' He squared his shoulders. 'I suppose I've become a bit rusty, especially since my father died.'

'Look,' said Rafferty diffidently. 'If you'd rather, just this once, I can take a WPC along.' He shuffled his feet awkwardly and avoided Llewellyn's eye. 'Ease you into it gradually, like, especially as this job's likely to be particularly gutty.'

'Thank you for the offer, Sir, but no.' Llewellyn's stern self-control was back in place—just. 'Avoidance is no answer. I'd rather get it over with.'

Rafferty nodded, 'As you like.' He returned to Llewellyn's previous remark, glad to get away from such an uncomfortable topic. 'I didn't know you had a religious vocation, Taff.'

'I didn't.'

'Ah.' Rafferty said no more. If Llewellyn wanted to confide in him, he would do so. Relieved to have discovered a more human side to his sergeant, Rafferty felt the stirring of a little fellow-feeling, and as they went out to the car, he explained, 'The victim rented one of those anonymous and tacky bed-sits in Streatham for her trade. But her family live near here, according to the Met. Only about half a mile from the hospital.'

Llewellyn had brought the car round to the front earlier and now it stood gleaming in the April sunshine. The Welshman seemed to Rafferty to take little pleasure in anything else, but cars appeared to be the joy of his life; this one was certainly cleaned to within an inch of it. He probably offered such ritual cleanliness up as a sacrifice to his dour Welsh god, thought Rafferty and his earlier sympathy dissolved a little. 'I'll drive. Got the car keys?'

Reluctantly, Llewellyn handed them over. Rafferty knew he didn't like anyone driving "his" car—particularly him, whom Llewellyn considered both fast and reckless.

His expression resigned, Llewellyn got in. He visibly winced as Rafferty revved up.

Rafferty reached to take his cigarettes from his pocket. Then he remembered he'd given them up, and instead, he pulled out a bag of boiled sweets, unwrapped one and popped it in his mouth. Glancing at Llewellyn, Rafferty noticed that the Welshman's eyes were still shadowed, even though he kept his gaze stiffly ‘eyes-front’. Anxious about the coming interview, Rafferty surmised, sucking hard on his sweet. That made two of them.

The privet hedge surrounding the Wilks's small front garden was fussily neat and clipped as efficiently as a sergeant-major's moustache, but to Rafferty it had more of the appearance of a green, plastic wall than a living thing. As he advanced up the path, he took in the sparkling white nets draped across the louvre windows of the terraced house, each of their full folds a neat one inch from its neighbour and he sighed. The short back and sides on the hedge had hinted at it, but the curtains confirmed that he and Llewellyn were likely to be regarded by the murdered girl's parents as little better than murderers themselves: murderers of reputation and respectability and pride. He glanced at Llewellyn as he raised the door-knocker and realised the Welshman had reached the same conclusion. His face was stiff, as though it had been dipped in a bucket of Robin's starch.

The door was opened a bare three inches and a woman's face appeared. Rafferty felt a momentary shame at the relief that flooded him when he saw her eyes were red-rimmed with weeping; they must already know, he decided, mystified as to how, but grateful that someone else had broken the bad news to them.

'Who are you? What do you want?'

'Police, Mrs. Wilks,' Rafferty explained in a low voice, holding up his identity card for her to see. He cleared his throat of a sudden frog. 'It's about your daughter, Linda.'

Her head shot up. 'Linda? What's happened? Has she been arrest—' Her voice broke off abruptly. She bit her lip and, with evident reluctance, she opened the door wider. 'You'd best come in.'

Rafferty and Llewellyn exchanged puzzled glances as they followed her past the well-buffed horse-brasses and flower-patterned carpet of the hall. Rafferty concluded they must have had other bad news; something totally unconnected with their murder investigation.

Although it was still bright outside, the curtains were pulled across the windows and the living room was shrouded in gloom. But the curtains were unlined and allowed sufficient filtered light through for Rafferty to confirm his earlier conclusions about the Wilks's respectability from a swift survey of the room. Everything was spotless and fussily neat. No books or newspapers created the usual friendly muddle that filled most people's homes. Each item had its place and remained in it. There were still more flowers here; on the fitted carpet, full-blown pink roses on the faded chintz-covered suite, delicate, tightly-enclosed buds on the wallpaper.

Rafferty felt Llewellyn give a start, when behind them, and so far unnoticed in the gloom, a man's figure rose to his feet. Linda's father, Rafferty guessed and introduced himself and Llewellyn. Like his wife, Mr Wilks didn't seem surprised to see them. What was going on here?

Sidney Wilks was not an impressive man. Short and wiry, under sparse pepper-and-salt hair, his face was brick-red, and a curious selection of expressions passed, one after the other over his features – shame, resentment, anger – and a quickly hidden fear, which Rafferty found even more baffling.

Invited to sit down, they eased themselves gingerly on to the edge of the chintz settee, Rafferty now almost as anxious as his sergeant for the job to be over and done with.

'Well?' Sidney Wilks barked at them suddenly. 'Why don't you get it over with? What's stopping you? Though I don't know why it takes two of you.'

Beside him, Rafferty felt Llewellyn jump and he quickly found his voice in case his sergeant's stern self-control gave way and he said something they'd both regret. 'I'm sorry, it's just that I thought you knew, Mr Wilks,' he began. 'You seemed—'

'Knew? Of course we knew,' Daphne Wilks broke in before Rafferty could continue. 'Why else would we be so upset?' She glared at him, then, slowly, her gaze swung to Llewellyn and her face changed as though she saw something in the Welshman's stiff, white demeanour that suddenly made everything clear to her. All at once her face became ashen; she sat abruptly on the armchair behind her and gazed accusingly at Rafferty. 'You're the one in charge of the murder. It was in the local paper.' Her voice was now no louder than a whisper. 'Oh, my God, no! It's her isn't it? The girl found murdered at that hospital—it's our Linda. That's why you're here. And I thought—' She gave a faint, hysterical laugh. 'Stupid of me. Why else would you come to see us? She is—was of age after all. What concern is it of the parents if a girl decides to pros—?’

'Mother!' Sidney Wilks's sharp voice cut across her words. 'They're not interested in that. That's our business.' He scowled a warning at her before he turned to Rafferty with an apologetic smile. 'I'm sorry. She's not herself. It's her age, you know?'

Rafferty stared at him, conscious that he'd made a terrible blunder. Did Sidney Wilks really imagine they were unaware of their daughter's extra-curricular activities? The way he had shut his wife up, suggested that was exactly what he did think.

Mr Wilks gave his hand-knitted cardigan a tug downwards as if to say, 'Glad I've got that out of the way', before he met Rafferty's eyes once more. 'Was she right? About Linda being the murdered girl?'

Rafferty nodded and mumbled, 'We know what your daughter did, Mr Wilks, there's no point in trying to hide it. I'm sorry.' But Wilks gave every appearance of not hearing him and he lapsed into silence.

'Perhaps these gentlemen would like some tea?' Wilks suggested to his wife, in the voice of a man determined to observe the civilities. His daughter might have been murdered, its tone implied, but that was no reason to forget one's manners. Mrs. Wilks cast a reproachful glance at her husband before going out and shutting the door behind her.

Rafferty found himself watching Wilks with a kind of horrid fascination. Unlike his wife, he didn't seem shocked by his revelation of their daughter's murder. Of course, shock came in many forms, but Sidney Wilks was a shade too accepting, too unemotional and Rafferty wondered if he'd already known that his daughter was dead. But how could he? Unless...? But he was jumping to conclusions again, he chided himself. It might just be that he was one of those men who considered it unmanly to show strong feelings. He was of the generation to think that way. And it seemed likely that Linda would have been the sort of girl to think nothing of disappearing for a few days without a word to her parents. Even so, his manner made Rafferty feel increasingly uncomfortable. He opened his mouth to speak when Wilks's lack of emotion was dispelled in an outburst that was as sudden as it was furious.

'Wanted to be an actress!' His voice scorned such an ambition. Now he seemed to need to talk, to explain feelings he had been keeping pent-up. 'I told her not to be so stupid, as if such jobs were for people like us. Security, I said, that's what you need, my girl. Told her if she persisted no good would come of it, and I was right, wasn't I? No good has come of it.' He sounded satisfied that his prediction had been proved correct. Perhaps he realised how this must appear, for his voice became quieter, more intense. 'I fixed her up with a good job at the power supplier when she left school,' he told them, as though he still didn't understand why his daughter should reject what had been good enough for him for forty years. 'Typing. They were even willing to train her on the ‘phones in their Customer Service Department. But no—that wasn't good enough for Madam Linda. She had ambitions, she told us. Ambitions!'

Mrs. Wilks came back with the tea. Rafferty wasn't surprised that the bone china tea service had been brought out. More roses decorated the matching teapot and crockery. He was beginning to find the flowery theme of the room oppressive; he longed to loosen his tie and fling open the windows.

Mrs. Wilks poured the tea and passed it round. The hot beverage seemed to restore her, for now she began to explain 'We had a row, the night—the night before she was found in that hospital. When I heard about it, I wondered if it could be our Linda. She hadn't come home, but then that wasn't unusual.'

'Used this place like a hotel,' Sidney Wilks interrupted. 'Thought her mother was a launderette and restaurant combined. I told her—'

‘Please Sidney.' Obviously distressed, his wife cut off his flow, before she quietly continued. 'Besides, I didn't want to think about it. I persuaded myself it couldn't be her. I didn't want to face —' Her voice trailed away and Rafferty came to the conclusion that Daphne Wilks would always shy away from unpleasant reality. In this instance, he couldn't really blame her. The death of a child, whatever their age, was more than most parents could come to terms with. 'She died very quickly, Mrs. Wilks,' he told her, in a futile attempt at comfort. 'She couldn't have known anything about it. The – rest – happened after death.'

Mrs. Wilks nodded mechanically, as though she hadn't really taken in what he had told her and she went on as if he'd never spoken. 'After the row, Linda ran out and Sidney went after her.'

'I couldn't catch her,' Sidney Wilks broke in again. 'She'd disappeared by the time I got to the end of the road.'

'I don't know why you never came straight back,' complained his wife. 'When you knew how upset I was.'

'I was upset too,' he defended himself aggressively. 'I wanted to be alone for a while, to think what was best to do. She told us she was moving out permanently,' he explained for Rafferty's benefit. 'She wasn't here much at the best of times. Staying with friends, she used to tell us she was. Anyway, she said she'd fixed up to move into a flat in London with some girlfriends. God knows who they were, she never mentioned any names. Had it all planned and not a word to us.'

'Was that what caused the row?' Llewellyn asked quietly, apparently having got himself back in control.

'No,' replied Mrs. Wilks. 'It was the—other business. You see I found her dia—'

'Mother!' Sidney Wilks’s voice sharpened again. 'They don't need to know about that.' He turned back to the policemen, as though his word settled the matter, but Daphne Wilks had decided to face facts and she overruled her husband.

'It's no use, Sidney,' she told him. 'We can't hide it. Linda must have had a criminal record, don't you see? How do you think they were able to identify her? According to the papers...' She took a shuddering breath. 'Anyway, it might help them find out who did this dreadful thing. I owe her that much. We both do.'

She ignored her husband’s ugly red flush, turned back to the policemen, and said, 'I found her diary, you see. Usually she locked it away, but that evening she must have forgotten. 'I was so stupid,' Daphne Wilks went on. 'At first, I thought she'd written a series of little plays. They were all set out like that, you see. But they were all on the same theme. That was what made me suspicious. She always took a particular case with her when she went up to London. Her "auditioning" gear, she told me it was. I forced it open. She kept it hidden at the back of her wardrobe. No wonder. Inside there were the most—

She stopped for a moment to wipe her reddened nose with a damp handkerchief and then went shakily on. 'All I could think was "why?" What could have made her do this to us?'

Mrs Wilks gave a half-shamed glance at her husband, before she went on. 'Sidney had been in the garage, working on the car, and when I heard her come home, I fetched him so we could confront her together. I was in such a state; I didn't even make sure he washed his hands first. He left a dirty smear on the wallpaper.' Her mouth formed into lines of reproach, as if she believed that, by concentrating on mundane resentments, she could push the horror to the back of her mind. 'I haven't been able to get it ou—'

'Can I see this diary?' Rafferty interrupted before the pair started on mutual recriminations.

'We burnt it,' said Sidney Wilks quickly. But not quite quickly enough, as his wife reached beneath the seat cushion of her armchair and brought out a large and expensive looking calf-skin-bound book and handed it over.

'You promised you'd burn it!' her husband accused.

'I know.' Her head drooped. 'I couldn't.' Slowly, she raised her head and looked at Rafferty. 'We've just got the gas fire, you see,' she explained with an air of apology. 'I'd have had to burn it out in the garden and I kept thinking what the neighbours would say if any of the pages were to blow away.'

Rafferty guessed that what the neighbours would say had largely governed their lives. Sadly, he reflected that the neighbours would now have enough scandal to keep their tongues wagging for many a long day.

Mrs. Wilks was right, he saw, as he flicked through the diary. Linda had set it out like a play or a film script, or as near to them as either of them would recognise. The diary contained Linda Wilks's dreams; the film-script-like layout had helped to clothe the sordid reality of what she was doing in the soft-focus lighting of a film seduction scene. Had she managed to convince herself as well that she was merely acting out a role? He wondered. Had she persuaded herself that should the acting become too brutally real the director would shout "Cut"? He turned back to the first few pages. Slowly, he began to read.

ACT 1 SCENE 1

The scene opens in a book-lined study. We see an elderly man dressed in a school uniform sitting in front of a desk.

CUT TO: A young woman wearing a cape and mortar-board enters. In one hand she is carrying a cane which she hits into the other palm. She walks slowly forward till she is standing in front of the elderly schoolboy.

GIRL: You've been a naughty boy, haven't you, Simpson?

MAN: (Cringes). Yes Miss.

GIRL: Do you know what happens to naughty boys?

She swishes the cane.

MAN: Oh, yes Miss. I know.

The man's face goes pink. Now he seems suddenly excited.

GIRL: Lower your trousers then, Simpson and bend over the desk.

The man does as she says.

GIRL: It's six of the best for you.

Her cape swings open. Underneath she is naked. She gazes at the quivering buttocks of the man and raises her arm—

Rafferty snapped the diary shut and glanced quickly up as though he had been caught doing something dirty. From his brief flick through, the entire diary seemed filled with similar scenes. That one had been quite tame. But others...

'I'll have to take this,' he told them apologetically.

Sidney Wilks hissed at his wife. 'You should have destroyed it, as I said. Now the whole world will know exactly what sort of little trollop your daughter was.'

Rafferty wasn't altogether surprised at the speed with which Wilks distanced his own relationship with the girl. The theory was that tragedy brought people together. It didn't—more often it tore them apart in a manner as savage as the original crime. He'd seen it many times and it never failed to depress him. Grimly, he looked at Wilks as he began to taunt his wife.

'At least when they catch the man who killer her and that's read out in court, the papers won't need to make up anything worse,' he told her, voice spiteful. 'This'll give the neighbours something to talk about all right.'

Mrs Wilks gasped. Her hand clutched at her bosom and the look she gave Rafferty was beseeching. 'Is he right? Will everyone hear all the details of what Linda—what she did? I thought you'd be able to keep it quiet.'

Rafferty looke