Trick of the Mind Read online

  “Oh, she has. Cheerful patients do better and all that.” Bethancourt’s worried eyes belied his smile as his gaze strayed back to Gibbons. “I hadn’t thought,” he said, “that Jack would be out of bed for a while yet.”

  “Oh, no,” the nurse assured him. “We like to get them up and moving as soon as possible. After all, it’s bad enough to be shot in the abdomen—we don’t want him developing any other problems.”

  “Er, no, of course not,” said Bethancourt doubtfully.

  “Do I get a vote?” asked Gibbons hoarsely.

  The nurse shook her head at him as she rose. “I’m afraid not,” she said, not unsympathetically. “I know this probably doesn’t feel right to you, but you’ll have to trust me that it’s for the best.”

  “I’d rather trust a—a—” began Gibbons grumpily, and then foundered as he failed to come up with an example of untrustworthiness.

  “A traitor?” suggested Bethancourt brightly.

  The nurse chuckled. “I’m sure a lot of my patients feel that way,” she said, shaking her head. “But there’s no help for it—I have to look after their welfare before I worry about whether or not they like me.”

  “And I’m sure they’re grateful in the end,” said Bethancourt with a gallant smile.

  “No, they’re not,” muttered Gibbons, but no one took any notice of him.

  “So long as they leave healthy,” said the nurse.

  Bethancourt was still smiling down at her. “I’m Phillip Bethancourt,” he said, holding out his hand. “Friend of the injured.”

  She smiled as she shook his hand. “Alice Pipp,” she said. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of one another,” said Bethancourt, beaming at her as if this would be the highlight of his day. “At least, I take it Jack here will be under your care for a few days.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, glancing at her patient. The shadow that passed over her features as she did so was faint, but Bethancourt noticed it. “A few days at least,” she echoed. “Well, I must be about my rounds. You ring for me, Mr. Gibbons, if you want anything. It was nice meeting you, Mr. Bethancourt.”

  “A delight,” said Bethancourt, looking after her as she left the room, closing the door softly behind her.

  “If you’ve quite finished chatting up my nurse,” said Gibbons coldly.

  “Oh, don’t be silly, Jack,” said Bethancourt, turning to his friend. “How on earth do you expect me to get Cerberus in here if I’m not nice to the staff?”

  “She’s a redhead and she has big breasts,” insisted Gibbons.

  “Her hair color comes out of a bottle,” retorted Bethancourt. “And nobody who dates a fashion model can be said to be fixated on breast size. Besides, I don’t have a particular thing for redheads—just for Marla.”

  “Marla?” asked Gibbons, who had already lost track of what they were talking about. “Is she here?”

  “No—she doesn’t get in until tonight.” Bethancourt considered his seating options, which, with Gibbons occupying the chair, came down to a padded stool on castors. He looked at it disdainfully and sat down on the bed. “So,” he said, “why is your nurse worried about you?”

  “Probably because she’s nearly killed me, getting me out of the bed,” said Gibbons. He squinted at Bethancourt. “There’s an idea,” he added. “You can lift me back in.”

  “No, I couldn’t,” retorted Bethancourt, although privately he wished he might. Gibbons looked pale and unwell to his eye, and not fit to be anywhere but in bed. “Is that a different IV drip they’ve given you?”

  “God knows,” said Gibbons fretfully. “They’ve got so many things running into me and out of me, I hardly know if I’m coming or going. All I know is that this one’s the morphine.” That reminded him of his earlier concern, and he asked, “Phillip, do you think I’m becoming a morphine addict?”

  “What?” said Bethancourt, startled. “No, of course not.”

  “I’ve given myself quite a lot,” confessed Gibbons.

  “I think you’re supposed to,” said Bethancourt. “And you can’t overdose on those machines—they’re programmed not to let you.”

  Overdosing had not occurred to Gibbons and he frowned. “I certainly didn’t mean to do that,” he said. “I don’t want to die. Not now, at least. I’d like to kill that nurse.”

  “Nurse Pipp,” supplied Bethancourt absently. He was eyeing his friend with concern; Gibbons’s speech was a little slurred and he seemed to be having difficulty keeping his eyes open and his thoughts straight. Bethancourt felt quite helpless, and he was not accustomed to that.

  “So have you found out anything?” asked Gibbons.

  “About the case, you mean?”

  “What the devil else would you think I meant?” snapped Gibbons.

  “Sorry, sorry, old man,” said Bethancourt, leaning comfortably back on one elbow. “My thoughts were elsewhere. Let’s see. I’ve met your Colin James, and he very kindly took me round to meet the Colemans.”

  He paused, as Gibbons seemed to be having difficulty assimilating this information.

  “The Colemans,” Gibbons said slowly, rolling the name on his tongue. Just as James’s name seemed to come attached to friendly feelings for which he had no reference, so the Colemans dredged up feelings that could not be explained by the brief encounter he remembered having with them. These feelings, however, were far more ambiguous and in his present fuzzy-minded state, he did not feel up to sorting them out.

  “Davies sent round my report on the interview I had with them,” he offered at last. “It’s in the drawer there if you want to look at it.”

  “That was good of him,” said Bethancourt, moving leisurely off the bed to fetch the report. “Did it ring any bells?”

  “No.” Gibbons shook his head. “It was very odd, reading it. I could recognize it as one of my reports, but I have no memory of writing it. Or of the events I wrote about. It gives one a rather queasy feeling.”

  “I can imagine.” Report in hand, Bethancourt settled himself back on the bed and gave his attention to it while Gibbons tried and failed to find a comfortable position in his chair. Cerberus, who seemed to sense something was wrong with his master’s friend, padded over to lay his head gently on Gibbons’s knee. Gibbons patted him feebly.

  “This,” said Bethancourt, rapidly scanning, “seems to be a record of your interview with Miss Haverford’s solicitor.”

  “Oh, right,” said Gibbons. “Davies sent that one along, too. It’s not very interesting—just a report for the record.”

  “Well,” said Bethancourt, “if I’d read it earlier, I shouldn’t have been so surprised to find out Miss Haverford was broke.”

  “It seems very odd,” agreed Gibbons. “Though I do remember thinking the house wasn’t very well kept up.”

  Bethancourt looked up from the report at once. “You’re remembering things?” he asked.

  Gibbons grimaced. “No, I’m not,” he said, a little shortly. “I was at the house on Monday. It’s Tuesday I can’t remember.”

  “Oh. Yes, of course.” Bethancourt hesitated, decided words of sympathy would not be welcome, and returned to the report. “So,” he said in another moment, “she hadn’t changed her will since the death of her maid.”

  Gibbons moved restlessly. “No, I expect not. But I only vaguely remember the Colemans mentioning the maid on Monday night. That,” he added petulantly, “is why detectives keep notebooks—so that they can refresh their memory of incidental remarks.”

  For an instant Bethancourt did not understand the significance of this remark, but then the light dawned.

  “I’m sure Carmichael will let you have a copy of yours once forensics is done with it,” he offered.

  “Yes, but it’s mine,” burst out Gibbons. “Damn it all, Phillip, I’m not dead. I want my things.”

  “Well, of course you do,” said Bethancourt. “Anybody would. But it’s quite hopeless—you know better than anyon
e that once forensics has got its hands on something, they never let it go.”

  Gibbons merely grunted in a thoroughly dissatisfied way.

  Bethancourt turned back to the report, and then looked up again as a thought occurred to him.

  “Do you want another notebook?” he asked. “I mean, I know you couldn’t look things up in it, but would you like to make notes as you go now? Just to keep track of your thoughts, you know.”

  Gibbons did not answer at once; he seemed to be turning the idea over in his mind.

  “I don’t know,” he said at last with a sigh. “My mind’s so fuzzy and I feel so rotten. But maybe having a notebook like I usually do would help.”

  Bethancourt nodded. “I’ll bring one round tomorrow,” he said, returning to the report.

  “You don’t have to,” said Gibbons, but not as if he meant it.

  “I know that,” replied Bethancourt, laying aside the first report. “Well, the will seems fairly straightforward, particularly as there turned out to be so few assets. Just bequests of particular items to the maid and the neighbors, and this friend—what’s-his-name—Ned Winterbottom, and the residue of the estate goes to the Colemans. Not,” he added, turning to the next report, “that there is any residue.”

  “There was the jewelry,” pointed out Gibbons.

  “Mmm,” said Bethancourt, his attention on the papers in front of him.

  There was silence for a few minutes, while Bethancourt scanned the report and Gibbons closed his eyes and rested his head against the back of the chair.

  “So,” said Bethancourt, “you thought Rob Coleman was ‘personable’ and his wife ‘attractive.’”

  “Which means I couldn’t make her out at all,” translated Gibbons, opening his eyes. He frowned. “I remember what she looked like, from Monday night,” he said, “but I don’t recollect that she said very much, and all I was left with was an impression of her looks. It’s odd, though, that I didn’t do any better the next day, in a longer interview.”

  Bethancourt drew his knees up onto the bed thoughtfully. “She doesn’t give much away, our Mrs. Coleman,” he said. “She just—is. I mean,” he added as Gibbons raised an eyebrow at him, “she doesn’t react very much, and she says even less. ‘Attractive’ describes her very well.”

  “And yet not well enough,” muttered Gibbons, closing his eyes again.

  “Well, no, possibly not,” admitted Bethancourt. “Still, need we describe her very well? Colin James seemed to think it unlikely the Colemans had a hand in the robbery.”

  “It is unlikely,” agreed Gibbons, but he did not open his eyes.

  Bethancourt regarded him from the bed with concern. Gibbons, shifting gingerly in the chair, did not appear to notice his friend’s sudden silence. Bethancourt sat up, swinging his legs off the bed.

  “If you don’t mind,” he said, “I think I’ll just nip out and get a coffee—I think I need a little pick-me-up.”

  “Sure,” said Gibbons, cracking his eyes open. “Are you coming back?”

  “Right back,” Bethancourt assured him. “Cerberus will stay with you.”

  He motioned to the dog, who settled back at Gibbons’s feet, and then he slipped out in search of the red-haired nurse.

  In the corridor, it was apparent that it was meal time for those patients who unlike Gibbons were taking solid food. An unappetizing smell wafted from the cart of covered trays parked outside one doorway, and Bethancourt immediately wished for a cigarette. Instead he turned to the bored-looking uniformed policeman sitting outside Gibbons’s door and said, “Jack doesn’t seem very well today.”

  The policeman glanced back into the room. “No,” he agreed with a sigh. “It’s a pity about the peritonitis, though according to the nurse it’s not unexpected.”

  “Ah,” said Bethancourt. “And what’s peritonitis when it’s at home?”

  “Infection,” said the policeman succinctly. “It can happen when the peritoneum gets contaminated.”

  “Oh.” Bethancourt thought a moment. “I assume ‘peritoneum’ refers to the bowels?”

  “As near as I can make out,” agreed the policeman. “The way the nurse explained it was that when your intestines are perforated, what’s inside them can leak out. And since that’s not supposed to be outside, it can cause an infection.”

  Bethancourt nodded understanding. “It doesn’t sound good,” he said. “I thought they expected him to make a full recovery.”

  “Oh, they still do,” the policeman hastened to reassure him. “This is just—what did they call it?—a complication. He may be in hospital a bit longer, but it’ll be all right in the end. They expect the antibiotics they’re giving him now to make short work of this peritonitis, and the nurse says it’s not a bad case so far.”

  “That sounds a bit better,” said Bethancourt, much relieved. He glanced back at his friend, who was still lying in the chair with his eyes closed. “I expect,” he added, “Jack’s got a fever now, and that’s why he’s so poorly.”

  The policeman nodded. “His temperature went way up this afternoon,” he said, “but I think it’s come down a little now—leastways, Nurse Pipp said it was good enough that the sergeant could get out of bed for a bit.”

  “I see,” said Bethancourt, who still harbored doubts about the wisdom of this. “Well, thanks for filling me in—I was worried. Here, get yourself a pint when you get off duty.”

  “Why, thank you, sir,” said the policeman, pocketing the note Bethancourt slipped him. “I’ll do that.”

  Bethancourt nodded and wandered back into the room. At the sound of his step, Gibbons opened his eyes and smiled weakly. “Where’s the coffee?” he asked.

  “Finished it outside,” said Bethancourt. “I was having your guard tell me how you were today.”

  “Oh?” said Gibbons. “And how am I?”

  “You’ve got peritonitis,” Bethancourt told him.

  “Right,” agreed Gibbons, but not as if it mattered much. “I’d forgotten what they called it this morning, but that was the name. It makes one feel awfully rotten.”

  “I imagine it does,” said Bethancourt, smiling a little at this confidence.

  “Although the pain’s worse,” Gibbons added, frowning as he shifted a little. “I never imagined just sitting up could hurt so badly.”

  Bethancourt gave a sympathetic wince. “You’re young,” he said, trying to sound encouraging. “They say you’ll heal fast—it’s having your stomach muscles torn up that hurts so much.”

  “Thanks for the diagnosis,” said Gibbons dryly.

  “Sorry,” said Bethancourt.

  The door opened behind him and he pivoted to see Gibbons’s parents. His mother, in the lead, looked pleased at first to see her son sitting up, but her expression changed swiftly as she took stock of the pain reflected in Gibbons’s face and the awkward way in which he held himself. Beside her, Mr. Gibbons’s mouth tightened and he laid a hand on his wife’s shoulder.

  Another young woman had accompanied the Gibbonses; Bethancourt did not recognize her, or the two little girls she held by the hand, but assuming them to be family, he politely made his excuses and left them alone.

  Cerberus, released from attendance on the wounded, was extremely eager for his walk. Upon emerging from the hospital, he turned west toward Regent’s Park in a determined and no-nonsense sort of way, and Bethancourt followed behind resignedly, letting the great dog have his way for a moment before calling him back to heel. Hierarchy between master and dog reestablished, Bethancourt paused to light a cigarette, hunching away from the brisk west wind before continuing on their way.

  It had rained while they had been in the hospital, leaving puddles on the pavement and making the turf in the park soggy underfoot. Bethancourt sniffed the wind and decided it would shortly be raining again. He let Cerberus loose and pulled out his mobile to check his messages while the great dog inspected an interesting scent amid the hedges. Both Marla and Spencer Kendrick had rung, leaving almost
identical messages in which they announced their landing at Heathrow, asked after Gibbons, and wanted to know where Bethancourt was.

  He rang Marla back first with the idea of meeting her somewhere for dinner, but she declined the invitation.

  “I’m knackered,” she said. “And it’s a beastly night out in any case. My plans for the evening are to order in some Indian takeaway, and then get into bed early and watch the telly.”

  Bethancourt had to agree the weather was unpleasant, and as the rain started up again, he was beginning to wish for his own warm, comfy flat. He tucked his mobile safely away and stood a moment in the driving rain. He had learned a great deal more about the Haverford case, and admitted to himself he had become rather intrigued by it. But he had not, in all his researching during the day, found anything that might have made Gibbons ring him on Tuesday evening and declare he had “an interesting one on.”

  “But it’s early days yet,” he said to himself, trying to assuage his vague feeling of guilt that he had not come up with the answer. “I did have to catch up to where Jack was with the case before I could expect to see developments from his point of view. Perhaps tomorrow …”

  But there his thoughts trailed off, as he had not the least notion of what he should do tomorrow. He sighed and whistled for his dog.

  “Let’s get home, lad,” he said as Cerberus bounded up and then paused to shake himself vigorously, flinging water over his already drenched master. Bethancourt, accustomed to this performance, was unfazed. “I reckon you want your dinner,” he continued, leading the way back toward the street. “I’m still feeling rather full of lunch, myself. I think an omelette and a salad will suffice for me tonight.”

  When at last they had negotiated their way from north London down to Chelsea, Bethancourt found a package waiting for him, delivered by messenger that evening from Hampstead. Curious, he tore open the envelope and removed a small tract of about fifty pages, complete with colored photographs. It was entitled “A Short History of the St. Michel Jewels,” while the note tucked into the front cover read, “Hope you enjoy. I found it quite fascinating.—CJ.”