the law not to report having a knife stuck into you?’
‘I don’t really know,’ Robbie said, ‘but I know it’s mostly against the law to carry a knife like the Fury in a public place, which is what O’Hara did when the two of you took it away with you last night. He could be liable for a fine and six months in jail.’
‘You’re kidding?’
‘No. There are fierce laws now about carrying offensive weapons, and you can’t get anything much more offensive than a Fury.’
‘Forget you ever saw it.’
‘So easy.’
We had cleaned the kitchen the evening before by bundling the body protectors, my shirt, my sweater and Robbie’s medical debris into a trash bag, knotting the top; and we’d taken it with us, casually adding it to the heap of similar bags to one side of Bedford Lodge, from where mountains of rubbish and empty bottles were cleared daily.
Robbie in farewell said again he would tell the nurses it was OK to let me in to see Dorothea, and asked me to phone him back later.
Promising I would, I said goodbye to him and dialled the number of Professor Meredith Derry who, to my relief, could be brought to the phone and who would acquiesce to a half-hour’s worth of knife-expertise, especially if I were paying a consultancy fee.
‘Of course,’ I said heartily. ‘Double, if it can be this evening.’
‘Come when you like,’ the Professor said, and gave me an address and directions.
Dorothea’s grief was as deep and pulverising as I’d feared. The tears flowed the minute she saw me, weak endless silent tears, not howls and sobs of pain, but an intense mourning as much for times past as for present loss.
I put my arm round her for a while and then simply held her hand, and sat there in that fashion until she fumbled for a tissue lying on the bed and weakly blew her nose.
‘Thomas.’
‘Yes, I know. I’m so sorry.’
‘He wanted what was best for me. He was a good son.’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘I didn’t appreciate him enough…’
‘Don’t feel guilty,’ I said.
‘But I do. I can’t help it. I should have let him take me with him as soon as Valentine died.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Stop it, dearest Dorothea. You are not to blame for anything. You mustn’t blame yourself.’
‘But why? Why would anyone want to kill my Paul?’
‘The police will find out.’
‘I can’t bear it.’ The tears came again, preventing speech.
I went out of her room to ask the nurses to give Dorothea a sedative. She had already been given one. No more without a doctor’s say-so, they said.
‘Then get a doctor,’ I told them irritably. ‘Her son’s been murdered. She’s feeling guilty.’
‘Guilty? Why?’
It was too difficult to explain. ‘She will be seriously ill by morning if you don’t do something.’
I went back to Dorothea thinking I’d wasted my breath, but ten minutes later one of the nurses came in brightly and gave her an injection, which almost immediately sent her to sleep.
‘That satisfy you?’ the nurse asked me with a hint of sarcasm.
‘Couldn’t be better.’
I left the hospital and helped my driver find the way to Professor Derry. The driver was on time-and-a-half for evening work and said he was in no hurry at all to take me home.
Professor Derry’s retirement was no gold-plated affair. He lived on the ground floor of a tall house divided horizontally irto flats, himself occupying, it transpired, a study, a bedroom, a bathroom and a screened-off kitchen alcove, all small and heavy-looking in brown wood, all the fading domain of an ancient academic living frugally.
He was white haired, physically stooped and frail, but with eyes and mind in sharp array. He waved me into his study, sat me down on a wooden chair with arms and asked how he could help.
‘I came for information about knives.’
‘Yes, yes,’ he interrupted. ‘You said that on the phone.’
I looked around but could see no phone in his room. There had, however, been one – a pay phone – out in the hallway, shared with the upstairs tenants.
I said, ‘If I show you a drawing of a knife, could you tell me about it?’
‘I can try.’
I took the drawing of the Heath knife out of my jacket pocket and handed it to him folded. He opened it, flattened it out and laid it aside on his desk.
‘I have to tell you,’ he said with many small, rapid lip movements, ‘that I have recently already been consulted about a knife like this.’