Fruiting Bodies Read online

  ‘Was he especially involved in the fundraising or is it hospital policy for consultants to ask their patients for donations?’

  ‘Certainly not.’ Durdle sounded outraged, which made Willow’s mistrust of his tidiness ease a little. ‘The National Health Service is and always will be free at the point of delivery. Anyone who might happen to choose to make a contribution to the hospital’s appeal would of course be received with gratitude, but no patient should ever be made to feel that it was expected. I’m immensely surprised that Mr Ringstead should have done such a thing. I’ve never heard of him doing anything like it before.’

  For the first time he seemed agitated. Willow was pleased that he minded about the principles of the National Health Service as much as she did. But she was also smitten with conscience since Ringstead had never even mentioned the fundraising to her.

  ‘I may have misunderstood him,’ she said quickly. ‘I was concentrating so hard on what would happen during my labour and everything that I probably didn’t even hear what he actually said.’

  ‘I expect that was it.’ Durdle sounded no more relaxed. ‘Of course Mr Ringstead was devoted to his patients and to the hospital, which might have made him say more than he should. He always found it hard to accept that funds must be carefully managed and he could never bring himself to admit that even though medical needs are important they’re not the only ones that matter.’

  By the time he reached the end of his little speech there were distinct sounds of indignation in his well-managed voice. Willow was interested to see that he could not completely hide his dislike of Ringstead even though he was talking to a patient and virtually everyone else in the hospital was still showing signs of grief – or at least regret.

  ‘What other needs could there possibly be in a hospital?’ she asked, watching him closely.

  ‘Several,’ said Durdle, once more sounding in control of his feelings.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Willow. ‘If I’m going to make a donation, I need to know what it’ll be spent on. I mean, I want patients to benefit. That’s why I want my money to go specifically to the obstetrics unit.’

  ‘Believe me, Mrs Worth, patients will definitely benefit, however the money is spent.’ Durdle sighed and then remembered to smile again. ‘But since Mr Ringstead could not always understand that, I’m not surprised that an outsider like yourself should find it difficult, too. You see, as an NHS trust we have to compete for patient referrals. That means that we have to show general practitioners that their patients will have a better time coming to this hospital rather than to, say, St Thomas’s or St George’s or any of the other big teaching hospitals. That’s our chief aim whenever we make changes, and they are always designed to benefit patients.’

  ‘But surely the quickness and efficacy of treatment is likely to be the most attractive aspect of anything you could offer,’ said Willow, forgetting to sound silly in her real interest.

  ‘Yes indeed, but there are other considerations as well.’

  ‘For example?’

  Mr Durdle looked at the clock above his desk and turned to smile widely at Willow once more.

  ‘Well, to take a trivial example, car-parking. It is infinitely easier for patients and their visitors if the hospital can provide them with space for their cars. In the old days only consultants had that, and several of them like Mr Ringstead found it hard to accept that nowadays patients’car-parking is more important than their own.’

  There was enough irritation in his voice to suggest that he and Mr Ringstead had fallen out over the car-parking. Durdle coughed and smiled a cool little smile.

  ‘But that question had been settled long ago. As you probably know the patients’carpark is fully operational.’

  ‘And must be making you money,’ said Willow with a false smile of her own. ‘Since we all have to buy tickets to leave our cars there.’

  ‘And thanks to the Friends of Dowting’s,’ he went on without commenting, ‘we are facing a less difficult future than we seemed to be when the dry rot was first discovered.’

  ‘So Doctor Kimmeridge told me,’ said Willow, thinking that if she were not going to find out anything useful, she might at least do something to boost Kimmeridge’s standing in the hospital. As no more than a business manager, Durdle probably had nothing to do with promotion or recruitment, but Willow had long ago learned that an atmosphere can be created around a person – for good or ill – by the attitude of a very few people.

  Suddenly noticing the surprise on Durdle’s smoothly shaven face, Willow realised that she must be staring at him blankly and hastily rearranged her expression.

  ‘Have you any more questions?’ he asked, taking another, more obvious, look at his clock. ‘If not, I really ought to be getting on with my work, and I suspect that the nurses will be worrying about what’s happened to you.’

  ‘Of course, Mr Durdle. How inconsiderate of me! You’ve been so wonderfully helpful. May I take these leaflets with me so that I can take the time to decide, and perhaps talk it over with my husband, too?’

  Willow thought of adding, ‘men understand these questions of money so much better than we girls,’ but she did not think she would be able to say the words with any degree of credibility.

  ‘And any of the other leaflets that you think would be useful to him,’ she said, going as far as she could.

  ‘There aren’t any others,’ said Durdle coming round his desk to open the door, probably to make sure she really did leave his office. ‘But, do please, take those.’

  Willow glanced towards the shelf with the boxes from which he had taken the grey folder and the photocopy and shrugged, assuming that the others must be filled only with stationery. She thanked him once again and walked back to the ward with the brochure under her arm, adding up the little she had learned and hoping that she had not completely lost whatever knack she had once had of making people talk usefully to her.

  At the entrance to the maternity ward she heard a wailing cry that she knew was Lucinda’s and started to run. When she reached her bay, she saw the curtains drawn back around her bed. Tom was standing by it with Lucinda in his arms, and an expression of helpless desperation on his face. Boiling with guilt, Willow flung the bits of paper on to her bed and cooed reassuring endearments to both her husband and her daughter. Tom sighed in relief and passed Lucinda over.

  Willow sat down on the edge of the bed, fumbling with the buttons at the front of her dress while holding the baby and jiggling her in a soothing fashion that did not soothe her at all. After a moment or two and a lot of frustrated crying from Lucinda, Willow handed the baby back to Tom while she freed herself.

  Eventually, as Willow gritted her teeth to bear the agonising, hiccupping sobs, Lucinda seemed to recognise that she was not being assaulted by the offered nipple and began to suck. Willow and Tom both exhaled in enormous sighs and let their muscles sag in relief.

  ‘Thank heavens,’ said Tom. To Willow’s gratitude, he did not ask her where she had been or why she had not been attending properly to their child. All he said was: ‘Nice Nurse Susan said you’d be back in five minutes and she was right, but it felt like years. You look fantastic, by the way, glowing. Much, much better than I’ve seen you since we came here.’

  ‘Do I?’ said Willow, looking up from Lucinda’s ecstatic face. ‘Good. All’s well, Tom.’

  ‘Yes, it does seem to be. I … Well, you know.’

  He quickly took a bunch of sandwiches out of Mrs Rusham’s picnic box and ate his way through them, while Lucinda absorbed her own nourishment with apparent pleasure. When she had had as much as she wanted and was back asleep in her cot, Willow and Tom sat peacefully talking to each other. She did not admit quite how much time she had spent trying to find out what had happened to Mr Ringstead, but she did ask what the police had discovered.

  ‘Not a great deal as far as I can understand,’ said Tom. ‘Although it looks as though it must have been murder.’

  ‘Why
?’

  ‘First, because the autopsy showed no sign of any heart damage or any kind of seizure that might have made him fall unconscious into the pool and second, because there were marks on the back of his neck – bruises – that suggest he was held down,’ said Tom, quietly, as though his tone might lessen the horror of what he was telling her.

  ‘What sort of marks? Enough to show who could have done it?’

  ‘Not quite enough. Someone with strong hands, not particularly large, with spatulate fingers and very short nails. There are no cuts in the skin, only bruises. Therefore it was someone with nails cut right down as short as possible.’

  ‘Or bitten.’

  ‘As you say. But that hasn’t got them very far yet. Apparently no one who shouldn’t have been up here in this part of the hospital was seen at or near what must have been the crucial time, and none of the staff who belong here was unaccounted for.’

  ‘Although,’ said Willow, leaning back and letting her shoes drop to the floor as she swung her legs up on to the bed, ‘it can’t have taken all that long and doctors and nurses are in and out of the wards and delivery suites all the time, fetching things, and seeing other patients. I don’t actually see how anyone could be sure of who was where precisely when. Do you?’

  ‘Not precisely, no. But whoever did it would have been pretty wet, and …’

  ‘Oh,’ said Willow at once, ‘was there much mess around the pool then?’

  ‘So I understand.’ Tom was beginning to look resigned. Willow pretended not to notice.

  ‘That’s interesting …’

  ‘Will, don’t …’

  ‘Are you about to tell me what I may and may not do, Tom?’ she asked quietly.

  Recognising the danger in her voice, he shook his head.

  ‘Certainly not. What I was going to say was don’t you think it would be better if you left this one to the police? I know you can’t bear to see people thrashing about – oh, dear – fumbling and taking longer than you would to do any kind of job, but this is their job, and just at the moment, yours is … well, Lucinda, don’t you think?’

  Willow was silent, trying to subdue a fountain of angry, hurt, anxious thoughts that rushed up into her brain. After a long moment, she said with a kind of desperation: ‘You’re right, of course, but I panic whenever I think that I’ve got to be different now because of her.’

  Tom came to sit beside them on the bed and put both arms around Willow.

  ‘You’re not and you don’t have to be, but your body has just been through a lot. It must have taken most of your strength; you’re probably still in a great emotional turmoil about it all. I certainly am. I just think … Be careful, that’s all. Please.’

  ‘It’s just that I keep wanting to prove that I’ve still got a brain,’ she said, hating the fact that she sounded so pathetic. ‘And that I’m not about to lose myself in nappies, feeds and mush.’

  ‘You’re not. You just need to give yourself one or two more days to recover. They were telling me before Lucinda started yelling for you that you ought to be able to come home in another couple of days, provided everything’s still okay then.’

  ‘Were they?’ Willow leaned against him. She suddenly felt extraordinarily tired when she thought of the prospect of looking after Lucinda without the nurses there to check that she was doing it properly. Glad of Tom’s physical support, she made herself say: ‘Good.’

  Chapter Seven

  Days Six and Seven

  The following morning Willow was at last questioned by two members of the police investigation team. Glad of the opportunity to find out how much they knew, she invited each woman to take a chair and smiled helpfully.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Worth,’ said the CID officer. ‘I’m Inspector Boscombe and this is Constable Rodwell. As you probably know, we are investigating the death of Alexander Ringstead on the night of the twelfth of May.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Willow, continuing to smile. ‘But I’m afraid I won’t be able to tell you anything much because I was in labour at the time. In fact I think his death was only discovered because he’d disappeared when I started to haemorrhage and they needed him to deal with it.’

  Willow’s smile disappeared as she heard a faint sound of resentment in her own voice. She remembered Sister Lulworth’s exasperating diagnosis of her reaction to the news of Mr Ringstead’s death and felt vaguely ashamed of herself. Holding on to Lucinda more tightly, she wondered, not for the first time, whether her vigorously defended independence and self-sufficiency had been nothing more than a terror that she would not be able to bear being deserted.

  ‘So I understand,’ said the inspector, clearly unaware of Willow’s mental turmoil. ‘What I wanted to ask you was whether you heard, saw, overheard or noticed anything unusual about him or about anyone else here earlier that evening.’

  Her lips moved in what might have passed for a smile, but her eyes did not change. Willow decided she did not like her. Constable Rodwell balanced her notebook on her knee and prepared to write down anything useful Willow might produce in the way of evidence.

  ‘I was preoccupied for most of the time I was here,’ she said, sounding at her most distant and controlled. All her doubts and fears had been pushed aside. ‘I’m not sure that I would have noticed anything unless it was seriously out of the ordinary. As far as I could tell Mr Ringstead was normal: confident, not hurried or distrait in any way, and as kind and funny as always. Tell me, did the autopsy give you any evidence as to exactly how or when he died?’

  Suddenly distracted by a small, infinitely endearing gurgling sound, Willow withdrew her attention completely and gazed down at her daughter. When she looked up again she saw that the inspector was distinctly irritated.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Willow. ‘You were saying?’

  ‘I wasn’t. But the time and causes of Mr Ringstead’s death need not concern you, Mrs Worth. You and your baby are in absolutely no danger.’

  ‘It never crossed my mind that we were,’ said Willow, raising her red eyebrows. ‘But I cared about him and I can hardly bear not knowing what happened to him, you know: whether he was murdered or not.’

  ‘I can see that it would be less upsetting for you if he’d had an accident,’ said the inspector. ‘But I’m afraid I can’t give you any comfort on that score.’

  Having recognised the sense of what Tom had said the previous evening, Willow had been all ready to share the little she had learned or guessed about Ringstead’s life, preoccupations and enemies, but Inspector Boscombe’s air of superiority made her decide not to volunteer anything.

  It was only later, when Willow had recovered from her fit of petulance, that she remembered she did not actually have any real information to pass on. All she had were snippets of gossip, a few vague suspicions and somewhere a list of questions she had not yet asked.

  As the interview proceeded on its stilted way, Willow gave the inspector a full account of everything she could remember from the night of Ringstead’s death. Unable to pinpoint the times when different members of the medical staff had come into the delivery room, Willow did her best to put names to them and at least list the order in which they had appeared.

  Inspector Boscombe asked her to clarify one or two things she had said and then asked a series of questions that seemed to have no bearing on anything Willow thought relevant to the enquiry. She knew that she was being childish in restricting her answers to a simple ‘yes’or ‘no’, but at that moment she did not care. She shook her head as the inspector asked whether there was anything else she wanted to say and then watched the two women leave with a kind of stubbornly angry pleasure that at least they had not got anything out of her.

  Having changed Lucinda’s nappy again, Willow got back into bed and was just starting to write up notes of her meeting with Durdle when she heard the slurred, squeaking noise of someone in trainers crossing the ward. She looked up to see Rob, who raised a floppy hand as soon he saw her watching him. Then he looked away flushing,
as though he did not know what to do with the eye-contact they had established. But he smiled again when he reached her bedside. Willow patted the inky, grimy hand that he had allowed to drop, apparently almost by mistake, on to the pillow near her shoulder and suggested that he say hello to his goddaughter.

  While he was doing that, Willow leaned over the edge of the bed to pull out the new picnic box Tom had brought. Rob finished making his obeisance to Lucinda and inspected Mrs Rusham’s bounty.

  ‘I’m getting hold of some more data on the ambulance crews for you,’ he said thickly through a mouthful of egg sandwich.

  He glanced over his shoulder to make sure that no one else was listening. Both occupants of the beds nearest Willow’s had left with their babies earlier that morning and she had not yet done more than greet the newcomers. One seemed to be asleep and the other was reading. No one showed any interest in Rob or Willow. She looked at him expectantly.

  He swallowed, took another huge bite of sandwich and started chewing. Willow reminded herself that he was a growing boy who needed nourishment, and waited with as much patience as possible. When he had satisfied the most desperate gnawing hunger, he put his becrumbed hands on his knees and started to tell her what he had discovered.

  Worryingly, he told her that he had borrowed ‘from a mate at school’a scanning device that would allow him to listen in to the frequencies used by mobile telephones. He was planning to try to pick up the suspected ambulance-driver’s calls and find out for certain whether there had been any foundation to Mr Ringstead’s suspicions.

  Forgetting all her instinctive questions about how Rob’s friend happened to have a sophisticated listening device and also how it worked and exactly what it could do, Willow decided that she would have to remind Rob that listening in to other people’s telephone calls was illegal. But he was so eager to find out whatever he could about Ringstead’s death and so easily discouraged that she could not bear to sound as though she were belittling his achievement.