A sudden, fearful death - Anne Perry [45]
“I’m sorry.” He meant it. “It was Prudence Barrymore. Did you know her?”
“Yes.” She took a deep, shaky breath, her face pale. “Not well, but I liked her. She had great courage—and great heart. How did it happen?”
“I don’t know. That is what Callandra wants us to find out.”
“Us?” She looked startled. “What about the police? Surely they have called the police?”
“Yes of course they have,” he said tartly. Suddenly all his old contempt for Runcorn boiled up again, and his own resentment that he was no longer on the force with his rank and power and the respect he had worked so long and hard to earn, even had it been laced with fear. “But she doesn’t have any confidence that they will solve it.”
Hester frowned and looked at him carefully.
“Is that all?”
“All? Isn’t it enough?” His voice rose incredulously. “We have no power, no authority, and there are no obvious answers so far.” He stabbed his finger viciously on the chair arm. “We have no right to ask questions, no access to the police information, medical reports, or anything else. What more do you want to provide a challenge?”
“An arrogant and disagreeable colleague,” she said. “Just to make it really difficult!” She stood up and walked over to the window. “Really, there are times when I wonder how you succeeded for so long in the police.” She looked at him. “Why is Callandra so concerned, and why does she doubt that the police will be able to solve it? Isn’t it a little early to be so skeptical?”
He could feel his body tighten with anger, and yet there was also a strange kind of comfort in being with someone so quick to grasp the essential facts—and the nuances that might in the end matter even more. There were times when he loathed Hester, but she never bored him, nor had he ever found her trivial or artificial. Indeed, sometimes to quarrel with her gave him more satisfaction than to be agreeable with someone else.
“No,” he said candidly. “I think she is afraid they may blame a Dr. Beck because he is a foreigner, and it may well be easier than questioning an eminent surgeon or dignitary With luck it may turn out to have been another nurse”—his voice was hard-edged with contempt—“or someone equally socially dispensable, but it may not. And there are no men in the hospital who are not eminent in some way, either as doctors, treasurers, chaplains, or even governors.”
“What does she think I can offer?” Hester frowned, leaning a little against the windowsill. “I know less of the people of the hospital than she does. London is nothing like Scutari! And I was hardly in any hospital here long enough to learn much.” She pulled a rueful face, but he knew the memory of her dismissal still hurt.
“She wishes you to take a position at the Royal Free.” He saw her expression harden and hurried on. “Which she will obtain for you, possibly even as soon as tomorrow. They will require someone to take Nurse Barrymore’s place. From that position of advantage, you might be able to observe much that would be of use, but you are not to indulge in questioning people.”
“Why not?” Her eyebrows shot up. “I can hardly learn a great deal if I don’t.”
“Because you may well end up dead yourself, you fool,” he snapped back. “For Heaven’s sake, use your wits! One outspoken, self-opinionated young woman has already been murdered there. We don’t need a second to prove the point.”
“Thank you for your concern.” She swung around and stared out of the window, her back to him. “I shall be discreet. I did not say so because I had assumed that you would take it for granted, but apparently you did not. I have no desire to be murdered, or even to be dismissed for inquisitiveness. I am perfectly capable of asking questions in such a way that no one realizes my interest is more than casual and quite natural.