He paused by a window to assess the weather for the drive home. The sky was cloudless. A bright crescent moon lay on her back among glittering stars. The wind screamed round the building, tossing trees along the side of the forecourt.
There was no one else in the corridor and he permitted himself a gigantic yawn before moving off again. It had been a very long day. He had been driving back to Cannonbridge alone, shortly before seven, in the happy belief that he would soon be heading for home, when he got a message to go at once to Ferndale. A reported death, his was the nearest car. He had been first on the scene.
He blinked away the grim recollection. His long years in the force had hardened him to a great many things but not to everything. An appalling death for so young a woman. A terrible thing, depression, so much more prevalent nowadays, it seemed, than when he was a young constable, starting out. So much more severe in so many cases, always to be taken very seriously indeed. And the poor husband, Conway, shattered and distraught, but still trying his best to he helpful and cooperative.
Hamlin turned a corner in the corridor. Ahead of him he saw with surprise the light still shining out through the glass-panelled door of the room where Conway had been interviewed. He’d have thought they’d have finished with Conway by now, let him get off home.
He reached the room, halted and looked in through the glass. Conway was alone, sitting at the table, leaning forward in an attitude of studious concentration, gazing intently down at a newspaper folded into a square.
He showed no sign of distress or agitation, he appeared oblivious of his bleak surroundings. He moved his mouth, bit his lip, as if deep in cogitation. From time to time he made a mark on the newspaper with a pen. He put Hamlin in mind of nothing so much as a man at a café table, marking runners on the racing pages.
Hamlin opened the door and stuck his head in. ‘You still here, then?’ he asked on a friendly note.
Conway laid down his newspaper and put the pen away in a breast pocket. He looked up at Hamlin, his face composed but infinitely weary. ‘I’ve finished my statement,’ he said flatly. ‘I’m waiting to see if there’s anything else.’
‘I’ll hang on, then,’ Hamlin offered. ‘I’m off home myself. I can give you a lift. You’re not many minutes further along my own road.’
‘That’s very good of you.’ Conway passed a hand over his eyes.
Footsteps sounded along the corridor. Hamlin turned his head and saw Detective Chief Inspector Kelsey approaching. He stepped smartly to one side of the open door.
The Chief gave him no more than a passing glance as he halted on the threshold. A big, solid man with a freckled face dominated by a large, fleshy nose. Carroty hair, thick and springing, the vibrant colour still untouched by grey. Bright green eyes; a penetrating look, even at this late hour.
‘There’s nothing more tonight,’ the Chief informed Conway. ‘You can get off home.’ He gazed down at him with compassion. Pale and exhausted under the bright light, still with a boyish look.
‘Will you be at home tomorrow?’ Kelsey asked. ‘Around lunchtime?’
Conway stared up at him with a lost air as if tomorrow was a stretch of time he couldn’t begin to envisage. He gave a hesitant nod.
‘We’ll probably be in touch with you then,’ Kelsey told him. ‘We should have the results of the post-mortem.’ Conway gave another slow nod.
‘You’ll want some transport,’ Kelsey added.
Constable Hamlin stepped forward. ‘I can give Mr Conway a lift home. I live out in that direction.’
‘Right,’ Kelsey said. Conway still sat motionless. He wore a poleaxed air as if rising from the table was beyond his powers.
‘Don’t sit up half the night brooding,’ Kelsey advised. ‘Going over things in your brain. Won’t do any good. Try to get some sleep.’ He bade them both good night and went back along the corridor.
Still Conway showed no sign of stirring. Hamlin went into the room and took Conway’s coat from the back of a chair. He held it out.
‘Come on,’ he urged. ‘Let’s be off.’
Conway got slowly to his feet and put his arms into the coat. ‘You’ll want to button it up,’ Hamlin said with a kindly air, as if to a child. ‘It’s bitter out.’ Conway obediently buttoned up the coat, gazed about him, picked up the squared newspaper. He stuffed it into the pocket of his coat.
Hamlin ran an eye over him. He looked fit for nothing. ‘Any friend or relative you could stay the night with?’ he asked. ‘I could give them a ring, explain matters. I don’t mind running you wherever it is.’
Conway shook his head. ‘Very good of you,’ he said heavily, ‘but I’ll be all right, thanks. Got to face it some time.’
During the drive home Conway didn’t speak. As they neared Ferndale he said, ‘No need to drive in.’
Hamlin pulled up by the gate. ‘Sure you’ll be OK?’ he asked as Conway opened the car door. ‘Got something to help you sleep?’
‘I’ll be all right,’ Conway said again. The wind tore at him. The crescent moon shed a pale radiance. Conway plunged through the stormy gusts to the front door.
Hamlin waited till the lights came on inside the bungalow, then he drove off. Poor devil, he thought with a shake of his head. I don’t envy him the night he’s got in front of him.
He went back along the way he had come, to his trim little semi in an outer suburb of Cannonbridge. The house was in darkness, his wife gone to bed. He drove into the garage with a minimum of noise. He got out, turned to close the car door.
Something white caught his eye – the folded newspaper, lying on the floor, half under the passenger seat. He reached over and picked it up.
He switched on the car’s interior light and looked down at the paper. After a moment he raised his eyes and stared ahead, then he looked down again at the newspaper, frowning, pursing his lips.
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