Scold's Bridle

'But they're so lonely, some of them. We live in a terrible world, Robin. No one has time to listen any more.' She toyed with her pen. 'I went to Mathilda Gillespie's funeral today and her granddaughter asked me why she killed herself. I said I didn't know, and I've been thinking about that ever since. I should know. She was one of my patients. If I'd taken a little more trouble with her, I would know.' She flicked him a sideways glance. 'Wouldn't I?'

He shook his head. 'Don't start down that route, Sarah. It's a dead end. Look, you were one person among many whom she knew and talked to, me included. The responsibility for that old woman wasn't yours alone. I'd argue that it wasn't yours at all, except in a strict medical sense, and nothing you prescribed for her contributed to her death. She died of blood loss.'

'But where do you draw the line between profession and friendship? We laughed a lot. I think I was one of the few people who appreciated her sense of humour, probably because it was so like Jack's. Bitchy, often cruel, but witty. She was a latterday Dorothy Parker.'

'You're being ridiculously sentimental. Mathilda Gillespie was a bitch of the first water, and don't imagine she viewed you as an equal. For years, until she sold off Wing Cottage to raise money, doctors, lawyers and accountants were required to enter by the tradesman's entrance. It used to drive Hugh Hendry mad. He said she was the rudest woman he'd ever met. He couldn't stand her.'

Sarah gave a snort of laughter. 'Probably because she called him Doctor Dolittle. To his face, too. I asked her once if it was by way of a job description and she said: Not entirely. He had a closer affinity with animals than he had with people. He was an ass.'

Robin grinned. 'Hugh was the laziest and the least able doctor I've ever met. I suggested once that we check his medical qualifications because I didn't think he had any, but it's a bit difficult when the bloke in question is the senior partner. We just had to bite the bullet and hang on for his retirement.' He cocked his head on one side. 'So what did she call you, if she called him Dr. Dolittle?'

She held the pen to her lips for a moment and stared past him. There was a haunting disquiet in her dark eyes. 'She was obsessed with that wretched scold's bridle. It was rather unhealthy really, thinking about it. She wanted me to try it on once to see what it felt like.'

'And did you?'

'No.' She fell silent for a moment, then seemed to make up her mind to something. 'She called her arthritis her 'Resident Scold' because it caused her so much nagging pain'-she tapped the pen against her teeth-'and in order to take her mind off it, she used to don the bridle as a sort of counter-irritant. That's what I mean about her unhealthy obsession with it. She wore it as a sort of penance, like a hair shirt. Anyway, when I took her off that rubbish Hendry had been prescribing and got the pain under some sort of manageable control, she took to calling me her little scold's bridle by way of a joke.' She saw his incomprehension. 'Because I'd succeeded in harnessing the Resident Scold,' she explained.

'So what are you saying?'

'I think she was trying to tell me something.'

Robin shook his head. 'Why? Because she was wearing it when she died? It was a symbol, that's all.'

'Of what?'

'Life's illusion. We're all prisoners. Perhaps it was her final joke. My tongue is curbed forever, something like that.' He shrugged. 'Have you told the police?'

'No. I was so shocked when I saw her that I didn't think about it.' She raised her hands in a gesture of helplessness. 'And the pathologist and the policeman latched on to what I said she always called the geraniums inside the beastly thing. Her coronet weeds. It comes from the speech about Ophelia's death and, what with the bath and the nettles, I thought they were probably right. But now I'm not so sure.' Her voice tailed off and she sat staring at her desk.

Robin watched her for several seconds. 'Supposing she was trying to say that her tongue was curbed forever. You realize it has a double meaning?'

'Yes,' said Sarah unhappily, 'that someone else curbed it. But that doesn't make sense. I mean, if Mathilda knew she was going to be murdered she wouldn't have wasted time donning the scold's bridle in the hall when all she had to do was run to the front door and scream her head off. The whole village would have heard her. And the murderer would have taken it off anyway.'

'Perhaps it was the murderer who was saying, 'Her tongue is curbed forever.' '

'But that doesn't make sense either. Why would a murderer advertise that it's murder when he's gone to so much trouble to make it look like suicide?' She rubbed her tired eyes. 'Without the scold's bridle, it would have looked straightforward. With it, it looks anything but. And why the flowers, for God's sake? What were they supposed to tell us?'

'You'll have to talk to the police,' said Robin with sudden decision, reaching for the telephone. 'Dammit, Sarah, who else knew she called you her scold's bridle? Surely it's occurred to you that the message is directed at you.'

'What message?'

'I don't know. A threat, perhaps. You next, Dr. Blakeney.'

She gave a hollow laugh. 'I see it more in terms of a signature.' She traced a line on the desk with her fingertip. 'Like the mark of Zorro on his victims.'

'Oh, Jesus!' said Robin, putting the receiver back. 'Maybe it's wiser not to say anything. Look, it was obviously suicide-you said yourself she was unhealthily obsessed with the damn thing.'

'But I was fond of her.'

'You're fond of everyone, Sarah. It's nothing to be proud of.'

'You sound like Jack.' She retrieved the telephone, dialled Learmouth Police Station and asked for Detective Sergeant Cooper.

Robin watched with gloomy resignation-she had no idea how the tongues would wag if they ever got wind of Mathilda's nickname for her-and wondered disloyally why she had chosen to tell him before anyone else. He had the