Читать книгу Deadlock - Emma Page - Страница 10

The wind had blown itself out in the night. At noon, brilliant yellow sunlight flooded in through the tall windows of the Cannonbridge General Hospital.

The pathologist came out of the mortuary, closing the door on the echoing chill, the clinical smells, gleaming white tiles. Chief Inspector Kelsey waited for him along the corridor. They stood discussing the findings of the autopsy. Anna Conway had died from loss of blood. Both wrists had been neatly slit with a keen-edged instrument.

‘A pocket knife,’ Kelsey confirmed. They had found the open knife in the bath, its blades razor-sharp.

Conway had identified the knife as belonging to him. He had had it for some time, had scarcely ever used it. It was kept with other oddments in a small drawer of the dressing table in the bedroom; the blades had always been very sharp. He clearly recalled drawing his wife’s attention to the fact some weeks ago when he saw her picking up the knife. She had made no comment, had merely replaced the knife in the drawer.

The pathologist went on to say that Anna had ingested a quantity of assorted drugs, a mix of the standard medications she had been prescribed: anti-depressants, sleeping-pills, tranquillizers. A sizeable quantity but by no means a lethal dose, washed down with a milky chocolate drink, strong and sweet. There was nothing else in the stomach.

The effect of the drugs would be to induce a drowsy lethargy, drifting into a deep sleep, from which, in the ordinary way, she would have awakened in due course without ill effects.

Kelsey nodded as he listened. It all squared with what Conway had told them, that Anna had eaten and drunk nothing before he left the house at seven-fifteen yesterday morning. This was in accordance with Anna’s usual practice. Conway regularly left for work while his wife was still in bed – as often as not, still asleep. It had never been his habit to take her a cup of tea or any other kind of hot drink in bed. She had never been accustomed to it, didn’t want it.

Yesterday morning Anna had been woken by the arrival of Garbutt’s car, the sound of voices. Conway told her about the fruit, the present of jam. She had insisted on getting up to thank Garbutt herself.

The pathologist was of the opinion that Anna had died around an hour to an hour and a half after swallowing the drugs and the chocolate drink. The delay had in all probability been deliberate, to allow the medication time to take effect, so that when she did step into the bath she would feel no disabling agitation, would be able to deal calmly enough with the unpleasant business of slitting her wrists.

Kelsey cast his mind back to the estimated time of death given to them by the police doctor summoned to Ferndale. It was scarcely ever possible to be precise in such matters but in the case of Anna Conway it was particularly difficult. The bathroom was heated, the body had lain a considerable time in water at first hot, gradually cooling. The doctor’s best estimate – and it could be no more than a very rough estimate, he strongly emphasized – was that death had occurred between eight and eleven on Monday morning.

The Chief was very much inclined to put the time of death towards the latter rather than the earlier part of this three-hour period. It had been a dark morning. There had been no light on in the bathroom when Garbutt kicked the door in. Anna would surely have switched the light on if she’d gone into the bathroom before nine-thirty or ten. Kelsey couldn’t see a young woman like Anna Conway taking her life in the dark.

It was well after one o’clock when Detective Sergeant Lambert drove the Chief over to Ferndale to give Conway the results of the autopsy. The Chief had eaten nothing since a sketchy breakfast; post-mortems always destroyed his appetite.

He gazed unseeingly out as they drove through the spectacular colours of the autumn landscape. A fair proportion of self-inflicted deaths would appear to be unintentional, the attempt being in the nature of a cry for help, made in the sure confidence of being found in time, dragged back from the brink. But some accident, some chance or whim takes a hand. The person cast all unknowing in the role of rescuer doesn’t behave as expected. He meets a friend, stops for a chat. He is seized by hunger or thirst, he steps into a cafe. Or he merely catches a later bus than usual. The door opens too late, there is no rescue.

Then there was the other group, where the attempt was far removed from any kind of play-acting, very serious indeed, the would-be suicide making absolutely certain of not being found too early, not being dragged back, carefully choosing a time when there was no chance whatever of that door opening.

It seemed to Kelsey that Anna Conway’s death fell unmistakably into that second category.

When they reached Ferndale Kelsey got out of the car and paused before pressing the doorbell. He glanced round the garden. It wore a melancholy appearance: ragged clumps of old perennials, untidy borders. A wheelbarrow half full of clippings was visible over by the shrubbery. On the ground beside it lay a billhook and a pair of shears.

Conway answered their ring at the door. He had been in the kitchen, clearing away the remains of a late lunch. He looked drained and apathetic but in control of himself.

He offered them coffee, asked if they had eaten – it wouldn’t take him many minutes to knock up a few sandwiches. He couldn’t offer them a drink, he didn’t touch alcohol himself, never kept any in the house.

Kelsey declined the offer of sandwiches but would be glad of coffee. Conway carried the tray along to the sitting room. He saw Kelsey’s eye rest on the photograph of Anna on the mantelpiece.

‘That was taken on our honeymoon.’ Conway’s voice strove for composure. ‘We had a week by the sea in February.’ He mentioned a sheltered resort on the south coast. He looked across at the photograph. ‘It was taken in one of those instant photo booths. That was the best one of her, I had it enlarged.’ He handed round the coffee.

As Kelsey gave him the results of the autopsy Conway sat in silence, his head lowered. He looked up when the Chief had finished; distress showed clearly in his face.

‘What time do you believe Anna took the pills?’ His tone was urgent and unsteady. ‘Do you think it was soon after I left the house?’ A terrible thing to have to live with, Sergeant Lambert thought: someone so close to you on the very brink of self-destruction, but you noticed nothing out of the ordinary, you kissed her goodbye and went blithely off for the day, leaving her in that dreadful state of despair, utterly alone.

The Chief did his best to let Conway down gently. ‘There’s no reason to suppose it was soon after you left.’ He explained in greater detail why it was impossible to be exact about timing. ‘It could have been as late as nine-thirty when she took the tablets. She may have gone back to bed after you left. She could have dozed off, had a bad dream, perhaps, or woken in a fit of panic. She could have made her decision on a sudden impulse that you couldn’t possibly have foreseen.’

The Chief shook his head. ‘No way you can get inside someone else’s head, fathom out their thought processes, however close you are to them. It does no good at all to start blaming yourself. There was no reason why you should have been able to guess what was in the wind.’

Conway’s expression lightened fractionally.

‘We’ll let you know when the inquest’s to be held,’ Kelsey went on, adding that in all probability the body would at that time be released for burial.

He asked about Anna’s parents and relatives. Did they live locally? Had they been informed of her death? Was there any way the police could help over that?

‘I’m afraid I don’t know about any relatives. None at all.’ Conway’s voice shook. ‘I don’t even know where Anna came from, where she lived as a child. She wasn’t in touch with any of her family while I knew her. She would never talk about them. I don’t even know if her parents are alive.’

He drew a trembling breath. ‘As far as I could make out, she must have left home a few years back. I’ve no idea what the trouble was, she never spoke of it.’

He looked earnestly across at the Chief. ‘I’m pretty sure the family situation, whatever it was, was at the bottom of her depression. I tried to get her to talk about it, I tried several times. I was sure it would help her, even if she found it painful. But she would never open up about it. She wanted to forget it completely. She was adamant about that.’

‘We may need to get in touch with you again over the next day or two,’ Kelsey said. ‘There are always some points that need clearing up. When are you likely to be at home? What’s the situation about your job?’

Conway told them he had spoken to Zodiac on the phone. They had been very understanding. He looked at Kelsey, his eyes full of pain. ‘I didn’t explain what had happened. All I told them was that my wife had died suddenly. I couldn’t face going into details. They were very kind, they didn’t ask any questions. I asked them not to say anything about it for the present to any of the workforce.’ He drew another shuddering breath. ‘The thought of being asked about it, people being sympathetic—’ He shook his head. ‘It would be more than I could stand right now.’

He had told Zodiac he wouldn’t be working today and that he would probably have to take more time off in the immediate future. But he was anxious to get back to work as soon as possible.

‘I’ve been trying to do a bit of gardening,’ he told Kelsey, ‘but it doesn’t occupy my mind. And being here, on the premises, doesn’t help. Being out at work would be a lot better.’

He closed his eyes briefly. ‘Some kind of normal routine, being out and about all day, that would help me to stop thinking, force me to concentrate on what I was doing.’ And he had a list of appointments, customers expecting him, he never liked letting folk down.

If it was all right with the Chief Inspector he’d like to go back to work in the morning. He would be at home every evening after six, and every weekend, they could always contact him then. If it was thought necessary on any particular day he could always alter his schedule to call in at the Cannonbridge police station.

‘That all sounds very reasonable,’ Kelsey agreed. ‘I’m sure you’re right, work’s by far the best thing for you just now.’ His tone took on a deprecating note. ‘I’m afraid there are one or two questions I must ask you now. Routine questions, they’ve got to be asked in a case like this. I hope you won’t allow them to upset you too much.’

Conway gave a brief acknowledging nod.

‘Had your wife made any similar attempt previously? Or ever talked of making such an attempt?’

Conway shook his head with vigour. ‘She never made any kind of attempt to kill herself. She never threatened it, never even hinted at such a thing. Never once. I never dreamed for one single moment she’d ever contemplate—’ He dropped his head into his hands. Kelsey waited in compassionate silence till he had recovered himself.

‘I’m sorry.’ Conway took out a handkerchief and dabbed at his face. ‘I thought she was so much better,’ he said unsteadily. ‘She seemed so much calmer and brighter. I was so sure she’d be completely better before long. She was so young, she had everything to look forward to.

‘We planned to start a family after we’d found a place of our own, that was something she wanted very much indeed. We went looking at houses a lot when we first came here, then we had to stop when she wasn’t well, it was too much of an effort for her. I hoped we’d be able to start looking again quite soon.’

‘Had your wife made a will?’

Conway nodded. ‘We both made wills when we got married. Very simple and straightforward, leaving everything to each other.’

‘Was her life insured?’

He shook his head. ‘No, it wasn’t, she’d never taken out any insurance on her life. I don’t think it ever occurred to her, it certainly never occurred to me. I took out a fairly substantial term insurance on my own life when I got married, so Anna would be all right if anything happened to me. I’m on the road a good deal, there’s always the risk of an accident.’ He shook his head again. ‘But I never took out any kind of insurance on Anna’s life. I had no reason to.’

Early afternoon somnolence brooded over the neighbourhood when Sergeant Lambert drew up before Dr Peake’s elegant villa. The doctor was expecting them after a phone call from the Chief. He received them in his consulting room; Anna Conway’s file lay on the desk before him.

Anna had first called to see him towards the end of June; she had come alone. It became clear in the course of the visit that she hadn’t told her husband she was consulting him. She was clearly in a distressed state though she was equally clearly exercising a considerable degree of self-control. She complained of a fairly standard assortment of nervous symptoms of varying degrees of severity.

At the end of the visit Dr Peake had asked her if she didn’t think it might be a good idea to bring her husband into the picture, at least to the extent of telling him she was seeking medical help. But she wouldn’t hear of it.

‘I spoke to her about it again the next time she came to see me,’ Peake added. ‘That time she wasn’t quite so decided about it. She said she’d think it over.’ On her third visit she told him she’d spoken to her husband. He’d been very kind and understanding. She seemed very relieved it was out in the open.

Dr Peake had seen her four or five times since then and he had also spoken to her husband more than once when Conway had called in for repeat prescriptions for his wife.

Kelsey asked if he knew anything of Anna’s family or background.

‘I’m afraid I can’t help you there.’ Peake removed his gold-rimmed spectacles and polished them on a snowy handkerchief. ‘She would never talk about her family – except to say that she no longer had anything to do with any of them. I tried to bring the matter up more than once but it upset her so much I thought it best to let it go – for the time being, at any rate.’

He gave Kelsey a direct look. ‘She never confided in me about any personal matter. She hadn’t come here in order to confide in me, she made that very plain. What she wanted was medication to deal with the symptoms that were troubling her.’ He put his spectacles on again.

‘I’m pretty sure from her reaction that it was the break with her family, and whatever had caused the break, that lay behind her anxiety and depression.’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘Of course the attempt to push the whole thing down below the level of conscious thought is counterproductive. It tends to blow the matter up out of all proportion. In the end it can start blotting out everything else.’

He looked reflective. ‘I did suggest psychiatric help but she rejected that out of hand. I particularly thought hypnosis might be useful. I’ve seen excellent results where the patient has been trying to suppress the past, wouldn’t open up, wouldn’t respond to direct questioning.’

‘It would be something from her childhood that Anna was suppressing?’

‘Not necessarily. It might very well have been, but it could also have been something much more recent – or possibly a combination of the two. That’s not uncommon, a disturbed childhood with later anxieties on top of it. In those cases the habit of suppression seems to be formed in childhood, it’s resorted to again, later on, whenever anything traumatic takes place.’ He waved a hand. ‘As she wouldn’t confide in me, all I can do now is make guesses.’

‘How would you describe her personality?’ Kelsey asked.

Peake put the tips of his fingers together. ‘Average intelligence,’ he said judicially. ‘A naïve girl, immature for her age. Over-dependent, always ready to latch on to someone stronger, someone willing to take responsibility for her. A strong craving for security, for love and affection.’

He pursed his lips. ‘It all ties in with this business of suppression, it’s all part of the inability to face unpleasant facts, do something constructive about them, or at any rate, come to terms with them. The attempt to keep pushing them down out of the conscious mind prevents the personality developing, maturing. It interferes with normal healthy growth, emotional and psychological.’

He inclined his head. ‘It doesn’t help the learning process, either. With a youngster of school age you tend to get a pattern of unsatisfactory school reports, general lack of interest, poor concentration, inability to make friends. And there’s often a history of being bullied.’

He had last seen Anna ten days ago when he had called in at Ferndale in passing, one morning. He had found Anna busy with household chores. She told him she felt a good deal better and was looking forward to her holiday. He was very pleased with her progress; she appeared much improved, calmer and more cheerful. No, he had never at any time considered her a suicide risk; there had never been the slightest hint of it. He had always been struck by her great determination to get well.

He sighed and shook his head. ‘It’s easy to be wise after the event. I believe now she was nowhere near as calm and cheerful as she made out, she was doing her best to put a good face on things. I believe she was terrified of going off alone on the cruise, even more terrified that she might have to face a psychiatrist if she came back from her holiday no better. I believe she was struggling very hard to master her fears, to force herself to do everything I had advised, everything her husband was encouraging her to do. She was determined not to let either of us down.’

He put a hand up to his face. ‘It was entirely my idea, sending her off on a cruise. I persuaded poor Conway it would be money well spent.’ He looked old and weary. ‘It was all done with the best will in the world – and with this appalling result.’

He closed his eyes briefly. ‘It doesn’t bear thinking about, the crippling blow it must be for her husband. She thought the world of him and he was devoted to her. I don’t think there’s anything he wouldn’t have done for her.’

He looked across at Kelsey. ‘Men can get very critical of nervy wives, very short and snappy with them, downright abusive, sometimes. Some men walk out altogether. There was never anything like that with Conway, he was always kind and gentle. She was very appreciative, very anxious not to disappoint him. I think she wanted to get better for his sake as much as for her own.’

His look held great sadness. After the best part of a lifetime in medicine he was still deeply moved by the wastefulness of a young death. ‘When one thinks of the total despair she must have felt …’ He drew another sigh. ‘Things can seem very black, very final, to the young.’