Free A Mind to Murder by P. D. James Page B

good three hours tonight and time was getting short. But if she was only trying to convey that she wasn’t in the mood for making love, well, that suited him all right. It suited him most nights if she only knew. He wished that he could take her—since she was so tiresomely insistent on being taken—as simply and quickly as he took a meal, a means of satisfying an appetite that was nothing to be ashamed of but nothing to fuss about either. But that wasn’t Jenny. He hadn’t been as clever as he thought and Jenny was in love. She was hopelessly, passionately and insecurely in love, demanding a constant reassurance, facile tenderness and time-consuming technique which left him exhausted and barely satisfied. She was terrified of becoming pregnant so that the preliminaries to love-making were irritatingly clinical, the aftermath, more often than not, her wild sobbing in his arms. As a painter he was obsessed by her body. He couldn’t think of changing his model now and he couldn’t afford to change. But the price of Jenny was getting too high.
    He was almost untouched by Miss Bolam’s death. He suspected that she had always known just how little work he did for his money. The rest of the staff, deluded by comparing him with that poor fool, Cully, thought they had a paragon of industry and intelligence. But Bolam had been no fool. It was not that he was lazy. One could have an easy life at the Steen—and most people, including some psychiatrists, did—without risking that imputation. Everything required of him was well within his capabilities and he gave no more than was required. Enid Bolam knew that all right, but it worried neither of them. If he went she could only hope to replace him by a porter who did less and did it less efficiently. And he was educated, personable and polite. That had meant a great deal to Miss Bolam. He smiled as he remembered how much it had meant. No, Bolam had never bothered him. But he was less confident about her successor.
    He glanced across the room to where Mrs. Bostock sat alone gracefully relaxed in one of the more comfortable patients’ chairs that he had brought in from the waiting-room. Her head was studiously bent over a book, but Nagle had little doubt that her mind was otherwise occupied. Probably working out her incremental date as A.O., he thought. This murder was a break for her all right. You couldn’t miss compulsive ambition in a woman. They burnt with it. You could almost smell it sizzling their flesh. Underneath that air of calm unflappability she was as restless and nervous as a cat on heat. He sauntered across the room to her and lounged against the wall beside her chair, his arm just brushing her shoulder.
    “Nicely timed for you, isn’t it?” he said.
    She kept her eyes on the page but he knew that she would have to answer. She could never resist defending herself even when defence only made her more vulnerable. She’s like the rest of them, he thought. She can’t keep her bloody mouth shut.
    “I don’t know what you mean, Nagle.”
    “Come off it. I’ve been admiring your performance for the last six months. Yes, Doctor. No, Doctor. Just as you like, Doctor. Of course, I’d like to help, Doctor, but there are certain complications here… You bet there were! She wasn’t giving up without a struggle. And now she’s dead. Very nice for you. They won’t have to look far for their new A.O.”
    “Don’t be impertinent and ridiculous. And why aren’t you helping Mrs. Shorthouse with the coffee?”
    “Because I don’t choose to. You’re not the A.O. yet, remember.”
    “I’ve no doubt the police will be interested in knowing where you were this evening. After all, it was your chisel.”
    “I was out with the post and fetching my evening paper. Disappointing, isn’t it? And I wonder where you were at six-twenty-two.”
    “How do you know she died at six-twenty-two?”
    “I don’t. But Sister saw her going down to the basement at six-twenty and