Episode 12 - Visits II

Friday cont.

A phone call to the hospital in an official capacity revealed Kate Crow’s current address. Gary decided to go there himself immediately. He did not want her forewarned. An interview with the Norton brothers could wait.

Gary needed to know what had really happened at the hospital, not least so that he would be armed against the inevitable reactions of the Norton brothers when they appeared or were brought in.

Mia Curlew would accompany him. Working in twos was common practice and advisable. On the drive he told her what it was all about. Mia was sure they were going to have an informative visit.

"That could depend on how guilty our Mrs Crown is," said Gary.

“I won’t butt in unless you ask me to.”

“Do what you think fit, Mia.”

***

Kate Crown lived in a very small semi on the edge of Middlethumpton, right next to a bus stop and in a long terrace of small abodes with tiny gardens. Gary felt a bit mean since Mrs Crown was probably in bed asleep after working all night.

A small, wizened man opened the door.

“Yes?” he said.

Gary showed the man his ID badge. The man jerked and looked alarmed.

“Chief Inspector Hurley, Mr Crown. And this is Sergeant Curlew.”

“Police? Where’s your uniform?”

“Plain clothes division, Mr Crown,” said Gary."

“I’m not Mr Crown,” said the man.

“So who am I speaking to? Mrs Crown lives here, doesn’t she?”

“Yes. She’s my sister. I’m John Smith.  I came to live here after Mr Crown passed on.”

Mia was amused by the thought that there was actually someone named John Smith.

“I’m sorry about Mrs Crown’s loss, Mr Smith.”

“I’m not and neither is Kate. Mr Crown did us a favour by dying and leaving Kate this house.”

Gary thought that continuing the dialogue on the doorstep was not going to get them anywhere.

“We’d like to speak to your sister, Mr Crown,” said Mia.

“She’s asleep,” said Smith backing into the hallway and raising his voice considerably. Gary responded by raising his.

“It can’t be helped. Ask us in and we’ll wait while you get her up.”

“She’s on nights. She’d be cross with me.”

“Get her up, please.”

“We’ve got to talk to her,” pleaded Mia.

Gary and Mia were eventually shown into the parlour.

Kate Crown had heard her brother’s  deliberately raised voice telling Gary repeatedly that his sister would be cross if she didn’t get her rest. She emerged from her bedroom wearing a flannel nightie and looking like someone who had been torn out of a deep sleep.

“What do you want?” she said, squinting at Gary and Mia. “I’m not dressed.”

“We have to talk, Mrs Crown,” said Mia. “Shall I get you a bathrobe?”

“I ‘aven’t got one.”

The woman folded her arms across her plentiful chest.

“I’ll get you my dressing-gown, Kate,” said Mr Smith

“It won’t fit me,” snapped Mrs Crown, who had at least twice the girth of her brother. “Get us some tea, will you Alfred?”

Alfred dutifully disappeared into the kitchen.

“I don’t want him bothered,” she said in a low voice. “He’s not well, you see.”

“He told us his name is John,” said Mia.

“That’s because you ‘re police. He doesn’t like the police.”

"That's not an excuse for giving a false name," said Mia.

"His name is Alfred John Smith, Miss. What's wrong with that?"

"Sorry. Nothing at all," said Mia, anxious not to upset their chances of hearing anything worth hearing from the woman.

“We are here to see you, Mrs Crown, not your brother,” said Gary. ”We won’t keep you up long.”

"Good. I want to go back to bed," she said. "I'm on night duty."

“Tell us about last night, Mrs Crown,” Mia said, pulling the woman gently onto the sofa and taking her hands.

Gary nodded approvingly. Mia was having a calming effect. Kate’s Crown’s facial expression relaxed.

“I was asleep,” she said. “Nothing happens at night and I can’t run around as much these days.”

“Then you should give up night work, Mrs Crown,” said Mia.

“I can’t afford to. My brother needs the pills they have at the hospital. My brother has H.I.V. and a bit of AIDS, you see.”

“Oh.”

“That’s why he looks so old. He isn’t much older than me.”

Considering that Mrs Crown looked ancient though she can’t have been in more than her late fifties, Mia thought that was a bit rich. Kate Crown was not much younger than Grit, Gary’s mother, Mia mused. But they were like chalk and cheese. Where Grit was stylishly dressed and had a big personality, this ageing night nurse looked broken and pathetic. She was stout and walked with difficulty in her ancient carpet slippers. Where Grit dressed in matching satin nightie and negligée, Mrs Crown wore an old-fashioned washed-out flannel nightie and had pulled a hairnet over her curlers. Worry furrows crossed her brow. She had reddened eyes and a quavering voice. Her hands twitched nervously.

Gary and Mia exchanged glances. They felt sorry for her, but they were there to find out what she knew about the two premature deaths, not to empathize.

***

“If you were asleep, you did not see anyone come into the ward, did you?” said Mia.

Mrs Crown shook her head.

“Or perhaps you did see someone but did not want to say who it was over the phone, Mrs Crown,” said Gary and Mia thought he was being premature with such an assumption.

“Phone?”

“It was you I talked to, wasn’t it, Mrs Crown?”

Mrs Crown’s gaze shifted from one side to the other to avoid looking directly at the questioner. It was common practice. Most people know that you can read a lot from the way people use their eyes.

“Did you get paid to take that nap last night, Mrs Crown?” said Gary quietly.

Mrs Crown gripped Mia’s hands. The gesture was like an admission. Gary’s shot in the dark had paid off. Cleo would have been proud of him.

The woman nodded fearfully.

“I don’t know who it was,” she said, “but forty pounds is a lot of money.”

“Where is the money now?” Gary asked.

“It’s in the tea-caddy. It’ll pay for …”

“What?”

“The weekend shopping, Sir,” said the woman.

“Not your brother’s pills?”

“I get them from friends,” she lied.

“Did you see the person who gave you the money?”

Mrs Crown shook her head.

“She came from behind.”

“She?” said Mia.

“She was wearing some kind of scent. Sickly like. Smelt like geraniums.”

“It could have been aftershave, Mrs Crown,” said Gary.

“I’m on a ladies’ ward, Sir.”

Gary did not ponder on that argument.

“Do you know what happened next?” said Mia.

“I drank something. I remember that.”

“What did you drink?”

“V…Vodka - with water.”

“Do you always drink vodka when you are on duty?” said Gary.

“I only have a nip or two when I want a rest,” said Mrs Crown. “It relaxes me and I have to swallow my pills.”

“Pills?”

“Aspirin,” said Mrs Crown.

***

Gary thought the unidentified visitor might have dropped something into the glass. KO drops were tasteless and colourless and quickly poured out. The lights were possibly very dim in the nurse’s room if the woman had gone there for a nap. If there was vodka in the glass, Mrs Crown might have drunk it all. He reflected that Mrs Crown was lucky to be alive. She would not have tasted anything amiss with her drink and she had been drinking before that stranger turned up so that a sleeping drug of any kind would have worked faster.

***

“So you really did go to sleep and only woke up when it got light,” said Gary.

“I’d taken a headache pill,” she said.

“That might have made you sleep longer,” said Gary. A cocktail of aspirin, vodka and KO drops would certainly have knocked her out for hours.

“Would you recognize the person who gave you the money, Mrs Crown?”

“I think so. I’m n…not sure. It was dark. P…probably not. I… I… Perhaps the smell…I’m a poor woman…” Mrs Crown garbled.

“I don’t want the money,” said Gary. “It’s yours, Mrs Crown.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“Did you wake up and hurry into the ward only to find two women dead?” said Mia,  hurrying things along. Mrs Crown could not take much more.

Gary walked to the window and looked out to give her more time to regain some kind of composure.

“Someone screamed,” said the nurse. “That’s what woke me up. A patient screamed that there was a body on the floor.”

“Was that the body of the woman who had died of heart failure?” said Gary.

“Yes.”

“What about the other dead woman, Mrs Crown?” Mia asked.

“In bed. She had a pillow over her face.”

“Did you remove it?”

“I looked at the patient and then put it back.”

Gary could hardly believe what he was hearing. Did Mrs Crown think that was the way to deal with the dead? But at least it made it unlikely that she herself had smothered Eileen Norton. Had she already connected the smothered woman with the stranger who had been and gone? Gary mused that the Sister Goodman had intimated that patients had been smothered before. The police were never informed of those incidents. He wondered what other secrets the hospital cherished.

“What did you do then?” Mia asked.

“I drew curtains round the two beds, told the other patients not to worry and asked them what they wanted for breakfast. Most of the ladies had fortunately recovered enough to be moved or go home, so there were only three patients left for me to wash, not counting the dead ones.”

“Are you quite sure that you don’t know who gave you the money when you were resting, Mrs Crown?” Gary said without approaching thw woman..

“I’m quite sure,” said Mrs Crown.

Mia signalled to Gary to let her deal with Mrs Crown before sitting down again next to her.

“Tell me who visited the patients during the day yesterday,” she said.

Gary wondered how Mrs Crown would react. She was not officially at the hospital during the day.

“I only know from the register because I was at home all day, Miss. The heart patient was too poorly to get visitors. Miss Norton had a visitor in the late afternoon. That’s all I remember from the register.”

“So you only came in for night duty, I expect,” said Mia.

“Yes. One of the other patients told me about some visitors when I came on duty. She was upset because no one had been to see her.”

“Did she know the names of any of the visitors?” Gary asked.

“No. But the patient said one was a friend from Miss Norton's choir.”

That god-damn chorus again, mused Gary.

“Did the patient know her name?”

“I think it was Barbie or something like that. The other patient who saw her said she was a large lady – like a prize fighter – and she smelt funny.”

That must have been Knowles, Gary decided. Was the funny smell  like the geraniums Mrs  Crown had found unpleasant?

“I have only one more question, Mrs Crown,” he said. “Think carefully before you answer.”

“Yes Sir.”

“Is it true that you phoned one or two people to tell them about the dead women?”

Mrs Crown hesitated before admitting that she had wanted to speak to Miss Hartley, but a man had answered the phone.

“That was me. Miss Hartley and I live together,” said Gary. “Why did you want to speak to my wife?”

“I thought she could help me.”

“But you didn’t ask for her,” said Gary.

“I was surprised that a man answered,” said Mrs Crown.

“Surely you don’t think Miss Hartley has no private life,” said Gary and earned himself a stern look from Mia.

“How did you want Miss Hartley to help you?” Mia wanted to know.

Mrs Crown hesitated again – a moment too long for Mia’s liking.

“Tell us, Mrs Crown. We can see that you are troubled,” Mia said in a coaxing voice.

“I meant to ask her about my brother’s pills, Miss.”

“Not to tell her about the dead women?”

“I don’t know why I told the man that.”

“I’m glad you did, Mrs Crown,” said Gary.

“What about the pills?” Mia said.

“I get them from the pharmacy, Miss.”

“But you pay for them, don’t you?”

“Cash, Miss.”

It occurred to Gary that someone was selling pills for his own profit, but he did not pursue that line for the moment. Pill-trading was not a new offence. He would pursue the case later. He would have to, now that HQ had no drugs department.

”I’d got a phone-call,” Mrs Crown said.

“Who from?” Mia asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Anonymous?”

“Yes, Miss.”

“What did the caller want?”

“The caller told me to keep the pills deal to myself,” said Mrs Crown.

Gary wondered if the pill-dealing and the murders were connected.

“Was it a man, Mrs Crown?” said Mia.

“It was all muffled – it gave me the creeps,” said Mrs Crown. “I pay for those pills. I don’t steal them.”

"But someone probably does, Mrs Crown,” said Mia.

“Did you take that phone-call as a personal warning, Mrs Crown?" said Gary.

"The hospital tells us not to call in the police. They make such a fuss."

“What has that got to do with you being warned?” said Mia.

“It could have been the hospital if they had found out what was going on, couldn’t it?” said Gary,

Mrs Crown looked fearful. The hospital would in that case be a member of staff who was running scared of trading in stolen pills.

Mia realized Mrs Crown was frightened of something and did not know what.

“I waited till I was at home so as not to be caught on the telephone.”

***

Gary thought it was all a tangled web. He gestured to Mia that they should leave. He did not think they would get anything more out of Mrs Crown at present and he wanted to talk to Chris about that pill-trading before asking Mrs Crown any more questions about who was selling her the pills.

Mia and Gary went towards the front door. Gary turned to the woman and said

“Just to recap, you slept for a long time, didn't you, Mrs Crown?”

“From about two o’clock. I did a round before that. The patients were all asleep in bed.”

***

It was really appalling. A stranger gets as far as the intensive ward and gets the nurse to take a long break by giving her a knock-out drug, smothers a patient and leaves unnoticed.

***

“I have a favour to ask you, Mrs Crown,” said Gary.

Mrs Crown was clearly relieved that the interview was over.

“I want you to show me those AIDS pills, Mrs Crown.”

“I’ll get them,” she said.

“I’ll go with you, Mrs Crown,” said Mia.

As Gary expected, the pills were in a plain white box. Gary made a show of looking at it, extracting a couple of the pills without Mrs Crown’s knowledge.

“They look all right to me, Mrs Crown. Who sells them to you?”

“I get them when I come on duty, Sir. From a doctor in a white coat.”

“Are they helping your brother, Mrs Crown?”

“They’re keeping him alive, Sir.”

***

It was mid-afternoon before Gary got away from HQ. He and Mia had discussed the interview with Mrs Crown. Mia would write a report, but not publish it just yet.

Gary tried to find out more about Kate Crown’s past, but drew a blank. She had probably got things wrong in the past, but there was nothing in national police records. Gary decided that Cleo should take a look at her before he came to any conclusions. To that end he had spoken to Chris and acquired the equipment necessary for a small blood sample to be obtained from Mrs Crown that day.

***

Gary was gasping for a coffee by the time he got home. He looked exhausted, but Cleo had the sense not to say so. She thought the blood test was a good idea. Any residue of a sleep-inducing drug would probably still be in the blood and would verify the woman’s story as well as opening up the possibility that something strong had been put into her glass and knocked her out.

When the children had been organized with Grit, Roger and Toni, Cleo and Gary drove to Mrs Crown’s house. During the drive, Gary briefed Cleo on his previous meeting with her. Cleo thought Mia had been the right person to go with him. She did not say so, but they both knew that however informal a chat was, it was better not to go alone. It was too easy to get into difficulties, if they were accused indecency, for instance. That had happened often enough, though fortunately not to Gary. But he had been subject to badgering b< females anxious to win him over.

They arrived at Mrs Crown’s house at about four. She was up and about, but she did not look well and her brother wanted her to stay at home.

Kate Crown did not agree.

“They can’t do without me,” she said.

“In the state you’re in, you should be in one of those hospital beds, not running around others,” said her brother.

Alfred John Smith was surprised to see the Inspector again, and even more surprised when Gary introduced Cleo as his personal assistant. They were led into a poky back room filled with a dining table and chairs for eight and overlooking a back garden that needed urgent attention. Mrs Crown resumed her eating. Gary came straight to the point.

“I need a blood sample, Mrs Crown,” he said.

Mrs Crown looked up from the dubious-looking stew she was eating.

“What for? I haven’t done anything,” she said.

“I didn’t think you had, Mrs Crown,” said Gary, “but we need to test for that sleeping drug you may have been given. Then we can use the result as proof that you had nothing to do with the deaths of those patients.”

“You’d like that to happen, wouldn’t you, Mrs Crown?” Cleo added.

Mrs Crown nodded assent.

“Get a clean syringe, Alfred,” she commanded.

Alfred John Smith went to fetch one from the medicine drawer.

“No need, Mr Smith. I brought everything with me,” said Gary to Smith’s receding figure. “I won’t need a lot of blood, Mrs Crown. Just enough to test for that drug.”

With the nurse’s own assistance, which he didn’t need but got anyway, the required amount of blood was drawn out of a vein and a plaster stuck on the place where the needle had entered.

“You did that well, Inspector,” said Mrs Crown.

“We learn how to do that in our police training.”

“Have you ever delivered a baby, Inspector?” she said, now using a conciliatory tone.

“No, but I have witnessed a couple.”

“We have two sets of twins, Mrs Crown,” said Cleo, “and my partner did not faint once, did you, Sweetheart?” she added, looking at Gary.

That amused Mrs Crown.

“Is the inspector your husband?” she asked.

Cleo nodded.

“How did you guess?” said Gary for want of something to add.

“I know a pair of lovers when I see them,” she replied. “You get an eye for them when you’re in my job. They come with flowers and some try to get into bed with the patient. I knew you and that lady cop were not on intimate terms. And now I can see why.”

“But lovers aren’t always married to one another, Mrs Crown,” said Cleo. “I wasn’t married when my husband and I became lovers, but not in a hospital bed.”

“I was still married,” said Gary, joining in with the slightly bawdy dialogue that seemed to lift Mrs Crown’s spirits, “and my ex-wife was carrying on with some Spanish jerk or other.”

“And I married someone else before I realized that this guy was going to hang on to me forever.”

The atmosphere I the room was now almost pally.

“Are you a midwife, Mrs Crown?” Gary said. He was ready to move on after the queasy feeling that had come over him when he saw Mrs Crown’s blood. He thought of the midwife who had sold his twin brother to the highest bidder 42 years previously; then there had been that dreadful case of the midwife in Upper Grumpsfield who sold babies stolen at birth pretty much in the same pattern as that of his brother; and now there was this old woman, laughing at the earthy chit-chat, her dead patients forgotten.

“I was married,” she replied with pursed lips, all signs of merriment gone in a flash.

“What happened?” Cleo asked. She had had the same thoughts as Gary and now looked at Mrs Crown closely. But her thoughts were elsewhere.

“He wore his socks in bed,” she said, bursting into laughter at the memory. He died with them on. He always left his socks on even if we …”

“I’ll let you into a secret, Mrs Crown,” said Cleo hurriedly. “I would not let my husband into my bed with his socks on.”

Mr Smith was looking on, surprised at the spirit in his sister.

Gary wished he was somewhere else since Mrs Crown was looking at him with the eyes of a connoisseur. Nurses saw naked men frequently, of course. Gary was embarrassed at the thought.

“He warms his feet on his duvet now,” Cleo continued, smiling broadly at Gary, then whispered (or my back), which brought tears of merriment to Mrs Crown’s eyes.

Relaxed from the repartee, Mrs Crown related the gruelling details of her final messy midwifery assignments and how she had been allowed to choose night duty or retirement  on a very meagre pension. She had chosen nights because of the money, justifying the easier access to drugs for her brother’s AIDS. Her face clouded over as she talked about her sudden widowhood and now there were these two deaths while she was on duty; deaths that could mess up her life and bring her brother’s to a premature end.

Then to everyone’s surprise Kate Crown started to howl. She did not sob quietly into the floral overall she wore at home, but let loose a series of wails that would have done a professional mourner proud.

Gary went back to looking out of the window, as he had done when Mia took over. Cleo noted the gesture and tried to comfort Mrs Crown.

“I’m going to ring the hospital and say you are sick,” she said.

“They won’t believe you. They’ll say I’m chickening out.”

“They’ll believe me when I tell them I’m calling from the surgery,” she said, winking at Mr Smith.

Alfred had come into the room quietly and wondered about his sister’s temporary merriment. He nodded his approval of Cleo’s proposal.

Cleo went into the hall to phone the hospital and returned with the instruction that Mrs Crown was to take time off until she felt better.

“They just want to get rid of me,” the woman wailed.

“They can’t do that, Mrs Crown. Not while you are ill,” said Gary. “But you can do me a little favour.”

“One hand washes the other, Inspector.”

“Can you attend an identity parade sometime soon?”

“I suppose so,” said Mrs Crown. “But you’ll have to tell me what to do.”

“I’ll get Sergeant Curlew to help you. You liked her, didn’t you, and you’ll be paid for coming.”

***

Gary brought the meeting to a close as soon as he could. He was cheered by the prospect of getting Mrs Crown to attend an identification parade. He left a £20 note on the table, explaining that she could spend it on a taxi to police headquarters and he would drive her home or get a colleague to do so.

After handshakes  all round, Gary and Cleo drove to HQ where he delivered the blood sample personally to Chris for analysis.

“How long will it take?”

“Not long. I know what I’m looking for,” said Chris. “If I find it, I’ll just get the DNA registered and that’s all for now. If there is no foreign substance in the blood you may have a problem with the woman’s innocence.”

“I already have a problem,” said Gary. “Mrs Crown has no witnesses to what went on.”

***

Cleo had waited in the car so that she could  make a few phone-calls in cases not connected with HQ. She also phoned home to check that everything was OK. Gary wasted no time at HQ and was thoughtful all the way to Upper Grumpsfield. He was not surprised when Cleo cut across his musings with some of her own.

“Mrs Crown could have been telling lies the whole time, couldn’t she? Someone who buys drugs that have clearly been stolen is capable of that and other misdeeds,” she reasoned.

“Since she had lived in that house for some years, the nasty experiences she talked about probably happened at Middlethumpton General,” said Gary. “I’ll make enquiries. Someone might remember something.”

“I’d hate her to be on the level of that terrible woman we investigated in that stolen baby case,” said Cleo, “though she is rather awful, isn’t she?”

“To be honest, I don’t think Mrs Crown has the brains for advanced criminal activity, Cleo.”

“You’d be surprised what seemingly simply structured people can do if they are driven to it.”

“I’m not really surprised by anything – except what you do to me, my love.”

“I won’t ask you to explain that.”

“I’m not sure I could.”

***