“We didn’t hear it. Nor would I expect to. As you saw, it’s by the stairs opposite Sister’s sitting room, but it’s modern and comparatively soundless. Sister Holland will, of course, confirm my story, and I’ve no doubt that Kimberley, when questioned by someone experienced in extracting information from the vulnerable, will admit to hearing our voices now she knows that I’ve spoken to you. And don’t give me too much credit for telling you what I hope will remain confidential. I’d have to be particularly naïve not to notice that, if Rhoda Gradwyn died at about midnight, Flavia and I have given each other an alibi. I may as well be frank. I’ve no wish to be treated differently from the others. But doctors do not commonly murder their patients and if I had it in mind to destroy this place and my reputation, I’d have done it before, not after the operation. I hate having my work wasted.”

Looking at Chandler-Powell’s face, suddenly suffused with an anger and disgust which transformed him, Dalgliesh could believe that those last words, at least, were the truth.

Chapter 11

11

Dalgliesh walked alone into the garden to telephone Rhoda Gradwyn’s mother. It was a call he dreaded. To commiserate in person, as a local woman police officer had already done, was difficult enough. It was a duty no police officer welcomed, and he had done his share of it, hesitating before raising a hand to knock or ring at the door, a door that was invariably immediately opened, and meeting eyes, puzzled, beseeching, hopeful or anguished, with news that would change a life. Some of his colleagues, he knew, would have left this task to Kate. To convey sympathy to a bereaved parent by telephone struck him as maladroit, but he had always felt that the next of kin should know who was the investigating officer in charge of a murder case and should be kept in touch with the progress as far as the operation made this practicable.

A man’s voice answered. It sounded both puzzled and apprehensive, as if the phone were some technically advanced instrument from which no good news could ever be expected. Without identifying himself, he said with obvious relief, “The police, you said? Hold on, please. I’ll fetch my wife.”