was like. That’s one experience you can’t write about until you know.”
“And sometimes not even then. And how long did she continue to provide you with copy?”
The boy seemed unaware of the irony. He said:
“She used to come here about once a fortnight on her day off. We never went out together except to a pub occasionally. She would bring in some food and cook a meal and afterwards we would talk and go to bed.”
“What did you talk about?”
“I suppose I did most of the talking. She didn’t tell me much about herself, only that both her parents had been killed while she was a child and that she had been brought up in Cumberland by an elderly aunt. The aunt is dead now. I don’t think Jo had a very happy childhood. She always wanted to be a nurse but she got TB when she was seventeen. It wasn’t very bad and she spent eighteen months in a sanatorium in Switzerland and was cured. But the doctors advised her not to train as a nurse. So she did a number of other jobs. She was an actress for about three years; but that wasn’t much of a success. Then she was a waitress and a shop assistant for a time. Then she became engaged but nothing came of it. She broke it off.”
“Did she say why?”
“No, except that she found something out about the man which made it impossible to marry him.”
“Did she say what it was or who the man was?”
“No, and I didn’t ask. But I think he may have been some kind of sexual pervert.”
Seeing Dalgliesh’s face he added quickly:
“I don’t really know. She never told me. Most of the things I know about Jo just came up casually in conversation. She never really talked about herself for long. It’s just an idea I have. There was a kind of bitter hopelessness about the way she spoke of her engagement.”
“And after that?”
“Well, apparently she decided that she might as well go back to her original idea of being a nurse. She thought she could get through the medical examination with luck. She chose the John Carpendar Hospital because she wanted to be near London but not actually in it, and thought that a small hospital would be less arduous. She didn’t want her health to break down, I suppose.”
“Did she talk about the hospital?”
“Not much. She seemed happy enough there. But she spared me the intimate details of the bedpan rounds.”
“Do you know whether she had an enemy?”
“She must have had, mustn’t she, if somebody killed her? But she never told me about it. Perhaps she didn’t know.”
“Do these names mean anything to you?”
He went through the names of all the people, students, sisters, surgeon, pharmacist, who had been in Nightingale House the night Josephine Fallon had died.
“I think she mentioned Madeleine Goodale to me. I’ve a feeling they were friendly. And the Courtney-Briggs name seems familiar. But I can’t remember any details.”
“When did you last see her?”
“About three weeks ago. She came on her night off and cooked supper.”
“How did she seem then?”
“She was restless and she wanted to make love rather badly. Then just before she left she said that she wouldn’t see me again. A few days later I got a letter. It merely said, ”I meant what I said. Please don’t try to get in touch. It’s nothing you’ve done so don’t worry. Good-bye and thank you. Jo.“”
Dalgliesh asked if he had kept the letter.
“No. I only keep important papers. I mean, there isn’t room here to hoard letters.”
“And did you try to get in touch with her again?”
“No. She’d asked me not to and there didn’t seem much point in it. I suppose if I’d known about the child I might have done. But I’m not sure. There’s nothing I could have done. I couldn’t have had a child here. Well, you can see that How could I? She wouldn’t want to marry me and I never considered marrying her. I don’t want to marry anyone. But I don’t think she killed herself because of the baby. Not Jo.”
“All right You don’t think she killed herself. Tell me why.”
“She wasn’t the type.”
“Oh, come now! You can do better than that.”
The boy said belligerently: “It’s true enough. I’ve known two people in my life who killed themselves. One was a boy in my last year at school when we were sitting for our G.C.E. The other was a manager of a dry cleaning firm I worked for. I drove the delivery van. Well, in both cases, everyone said all the usual things about how dreadful and how surprising it was. But I wasn’t really surprised. I don’t mean that I was expecting it or anything like that. I just wasn’t really surprised. When I thought about both deaths I could believe that they had actually done it”
“Your sample is too small.”
“Jo wouldn’t kill herself. Why should she?”
“I can think of reasons. She hadn’t made much success of her life so far. She hadn’t any relatives to care about her, and very few friends. She didn’t sleep easily at night, wasn’t really happy. She had at last succeeded in training to be a nurse and was within a few months of her final examination. And then she finds herself pregnant. She knows that her lover won’t want the child, that it’s no use looking to him for comfort or support.”
Dowson cried out in vehement protest:
“She never looked to anyone for comfort or support! That’s what I’m trying to tell you! She slept with me because she wanted to. I’m not responsible for her. I’m not responsible for anyone. Anyone! I’m only responsible for myself. She knew what she was doing. It wasn’t as if she were a young, inexperienced girl who needed kindness and protection.”
“If you believe that the young and innocent need comfort and protection you’re thinking in cliches. And if you begin by thinking in cliches you end by writing them.”
The boy said sullenly: “Maybe. But that’s what I believe.”
Suddenly he got up and went over to the wall. When he came back to the center box Dalgliesh saw that he held a large smooth stone. It fitted snugly into his curved palm, a perfect ovoid. It was a pale gray, flecked like an egg. Dowson let it slide from his hand on to the table where it rocked gently into stillness. Then he sat down again and bent forward, his head in his hands. Together they looked at the stone. Dalgliesh did not speak. Suddenly the boy said:
“She gave it to me. We found it together on the beach at Ventnor, in the Isle of Wright We went there together last October. But of course you know. That must have been how you traced me. Lift it It’s surprisingly heavy.”
Dalgliesh took the stone in his hands. It was satisfying to touch, smooth and cool. He took pleasure in the sea-washed perfection of its shape, in the hard unyielding roundness of it which yet fitted with such gentleness into the palm of his hand.
“I never had a holiday by the sea when I was a boy. Dad died before I was six and the old woman hadn’t the money. So I missed out on the seaside. Jo thought it would be fun to go there together. It was very warm last October. Remember? We took the ferry from Portsmouth and there were only half a dozen people on it besides ourselves. The island was empty too. We could walk from Ventor to St. Catherine’s Lighthouse without meeting a soul. It was warm enough and deserted enough to bathe naked. Jo found this stone. She thought it would do as a paper-weight. I wasn’t going to tear my pocket carrying that weight home but she did. Then, when we got back here, she gave it to me as a keepsake. I wanted her to have it but she said that I’d forget the holiday long before she did. Don’t you see? She knew how to be happy. I’m not sure that I do. But Jo did. If you’re like that you don’t kill yourself. Not when you know how marvelous living can be. Colette knew about that She wrote about ‘a compelling fierce and secret
“Colette was a French writer.”
“I know. And you believe that Josephine Fallon could feel that?”
“I know she could. Not for long. Not often. But when she was happy she was marvelous. If you once know that kind of happiness you don’t kill yourself. While you live there’s a hope it could happen again. So why cut yourself off from the hope of it for ever?”
Dalgliesh said: “You cut yourself off from the misery too. That might seem more important But I think you’re
