Sally and Jen looked briefly at each other. They, thought Gayther, have discussed this and prepared what they are going to say. Sally spoke first.
“He was very quiet, withdrawn and subdued, after the fete, where he’d had a little accident. He said he felt ashamed, although we’re used to it here. Many of them have dementia, most of them downstairs are quite advanced, so it’s an everyday thing for us. Every hour sometimes.”
“Yes,” added Jen. “He started … his wild talk the day after that. Muttering to himself angrily. Shouting incoherently. Now and then the fog would clear and he would whisper things to us … about a man … with staring eyes and velvet gloves … who had come back to kill him … even when he was rational it made no sense. It was like something off the telly, except he doesn’t watch it.”
Sally then spoke further, as if this were all rehearsed carefully, thought Gayther. “I remember the day he died, I was tidying his bedside cabinet and he sat up suddenly, grabbed my arm and squeezed it really hard – so hard it left a bruise. Jen, he said, he always got our names the wrong way round, The Scribbler knows I am here … he is going to come and kill me … you must call the police.”
“And did you?” asked Carrie.
“Do not go gentle into that good night …” Sally replied and then added, “Old age should burn and rave at close of day … Rage, rage against the dying of the light … they often get like that, angry and frightened, as they realise they are … at the end of their days. Paranoid too. Some don’t let go easily.”
Jen spoke next, “I did Google this Scribbler and there were a few things on there about him, a sort of Jack the Ripper figure from Norfolk years and years ago. It seemed so extraordinary and I couldn’t work out the connection with the Reverend Lodge. I wondered, myself, if this Ripper character had confessed his crimes to Mr Lodge and it all eventually came back and haunted him. Perhaps he felt guilty he didn’t go to the police at the time?”
“Did he say who The Scribbler was? Someone on the staff here? Someone who had been at the fete?”
Sally interrupted, “I asked the reverend how he knew this Ripper … Scribbler … and he just turned his head away and wouldn’t speak. It was like talking to a child. He’d either be shouting at you to call the police – ‘Danger! Help! Murder!’ – or, when you tried to have a proper talk to him about it, he just clammed up.”
“I think we decided,” she looked at her colleague and waited for her nodded agreement, “well, we don’t know how he came to hear about it, maybe he read something in a newspaper when he was lucid and it stuck in his mind and he started imagining things. They often do.”
“Tell me, about the residents, physically, mentally?” Carrie asked. “Did Mr Lodge mix much with them … Did they visit each other’s rooms?”
Jen sat on the bed and answered. “No, not that we know of. There are usually about twenty residents, over the two floors. We tend to have those with dementia issues on the ground floor, those with mainly just physical needs … I say ‘just’ … on the top floor. There are stairs at either end, gates too, of course, and a lift at the far end. Mr Lodge would have been moved to the ground floor soon, once a room became available … because he was worsening so much.”
“Did any of the residents fall out … ah, have an argument … with Mr Lodge those last few days?” Carrie queried. “Or visit him unexpectedly … anything out of the ordinary … that might have upset him, disturbed him in some way?”
Sally, sitting down on the bed next to Jen, took over. “No. Generally, they keep themselves to themselves and the ones on the ground floor are not really with us. Their minds are elsewhere. The Reverend Lodge did not mix really, except, well, residents come into the main lounge from time to time when we have an event; a lady brings in her golden retrievers and we have two young girls, Sophie and Frances, who come in to play the piano … and sing and dance to old-time songs … and a chap who does magic tricks and doubles up as Father Christmas in December.”
Gayther, standing quietly by the window, listening to them talk, suddenly cleared his throat and spoke.
“Have there been any new members of staff, around the time that Mr Lodge took fright … or anyone who came in, with their dogs or magic tricks, or any unexpected visitors who stood out that you noticed? Men, rather than women, older men, my sort of age … who might have known the reverend before he came here.”
Sally and Jen looked to each other. “You first,” said one. “No, after you,” replied the other. Sally spoke. “Not really,” she said, “no new patients, anyway. We’ve two new care assistants come in, young girls, to replace the girls who were leaving, Karen and Sue. I’ve not met them yet. Not to talk to properly anyway.”
“There is a new handyman, Alan,” added Jen. “He joined a week or two before the fete because I remember him putting out tables and chairs and wondering who he was.”
“Would he have mixed with Reverend Lodge?” Carrie asked.
Sally shrugged. “It’s possible, they would have both been at the fete. And he … Alan … is here and there, doing bits and pieces as needed. Mostly weeding. Planting bulbs for the spring, things like that. So, yes, I think their paths may have crossed, possibly. I
