1.3 Nurse Wheeler

Post date: 24-Aug-2015 15:39:30

For the start of this story, see My First Murder.......................

Several weeks passed without any breakthrough in the case. It must have been very uncomfortable for the five remaining nurses in the dead girl’s residential group. They were all aware that they were under suspicion and they all knew that one of them was almost certainly a murderer. I felt guilty every time we went back to question them further about their relationships with Susan Parry or to cross-examine their colleagues as to their characters and their movements.

Having been brought up by the National Children’s Home, I always try to support their fund-raising events. So, when the annual Festival of Queens came around I went along to the Town Hall to watch the pageantry. I suppose I’d better explain what the festival was. Each year Sunday school children and Brownie packs used to raise money for the National Children’s home by selling ‘Sunny Smiles’. These were pictures of children who were being cared for by the Home. I don’t think I was ever considered photogenic enough to be one of those depicted in the little booklets that were distributed all over the country. When all the money was in, the collectors used to come together for a show, at which each church and Brownie pack dressed up a little girl as a queen for the day.

I chose a seat near the back where it would be easy to get out if an urgent call were to come through from Paige. Just as the show was starting, who should come in and sit down next to me but Nurse Wheeler? She looked very attractive in what I took to be her Sunday best: a dark red dress beneath a black coat.

I hesitated before addressing her, thinking that the last thing she would want was to have to talk to someone from the police investigation team; but then I thought that it would be worse if she recognised me and thought that I was following her as part of a surveillance operation. So I spoke to her and I was very gratified that she remembered my name. She told me that she was there with the children from the Sunday school at her church. She’d helped with making the costumes for the queen and her two attendants. We watched the procession of queens walking up the aisle and I congratulated Angela on ‘her’ queen’s costume. Then suddenly the conversation took a more sinister turn.

‘It reminds me a bit,’ Angela whispered, ‘of carnival back home. Only there it’s out of doors and rather less restrained.’

‘Well, with the British weather, it’s rather risky doing things out of doors,’ I whispered back, just trying to make conversation. ‘And with the British temperament, you would expect restraint!’

‘So would you say that West Indians are very different from British people?’ Angela asked sharply. It sounded as if I’d hit a nerve, although I couldn’t think why.

‘No – at least I don’t know. I was just joking about the famous British reserve. What are you getting at?’

‘A little while ago,’ Angela said, speaking slowly and in an undertone, ‘I overheard someone saying that West Indians were the sort of people who might very well stab someone to death while they were in bed asleep.’

‘What!’ I shouted out, unable to help myself. Then I saw people turning to look at us and I force myself to whisper again. I took Angie by the hand and insisted on going outside where we could talk properly. I wanted to know who had been saying such ridiculous things. Angie didn’t want to tell me, but I insisted. I was afraid that she might think that I suspected her of killing her friend – or at least that I might be biased in that direction.

‘It was just one of the nursing auxiliaries. I expect she didn’t mean anything by it.’

‘You don’t imagine that the police have that attitude, do you? I mean, surely you must realise that you of all people are not under suspicion?’

‘Because I was on the ward that morning? I thought there was a theory that I might have come back during my lunch break.’

I suddenly realised how much pressure our ongoing investigation must have been having on the nurses in Angie’s group. I tried to reassure her, forgetting for a moment that I shouldn’t be sharing information about the case with anyone outside of the police team.

‘No. We had to consider that possibility, but it doesn’t work. Look – I shouldn’t be telling you this, so you must keep it absolutely to yourself, but the medical evidence shows that she had to have been killed before eleven that morning. And you were on the ward in sight of other staff until half past twelve. So you really are not a suspect.’

I waited for a while to let that sink in before going back to the question of who it was who had suggested that Angie was the murderer.

‘Now, I really wish you’d tell me who it was that made that vile accusation against you.’

But Angie wouldn’t say.

‘No really,’ she insisted, ‘I couldn’t. I’m sure she didn’t mean anything by it. It wouldn’t be fair for her to get into trouble over something that probably lots of other people were saying – or at any rate thinking – people who didn’t get overheard.’

Of course, that only made me see red all the more. I don’t know what she must have thought of me, ranting on the way I did.

‘What do you mean “other people”? Has this sort of thing happened before?’

‘Oh it’s nothing,’ Angie said dismissively, obviously trying to get me to shut up. ‘It’s only natural, I suppose, to be nervous of people who are different.’

‘But you’re not different – not underneath – not in the things that are important! What business have they got saying that you’re different?’

‘Please Peter,’ Angie begged, ‘stop worrying about it. It doesn’t bother me. It’s just one of those things. OK?’

I wasn’t convinced, but I could see that Angie didn’t want to take things any further. It made me angry that I couldn’t go and have it out with the nursing auxiliary – and anyone else who had said similar things – but then I remembered how awkward I felt as a child when one of the teachers heard the other children bullying me over my ginger hair and told them off in front of the whole school. I guessed that Angie was afraid of me making a similar scene. We decided not to go back to the show and went for a walk in Christ Church Meadow instead. Angie told me about her family back in the West Indies; about how she was managing to save a little out of her nurse’s salary to send back to them to help support a brother with cerebral palsy; and about how much she missed her parents and siblings. I became more and more impressed with her as she talked about her family life and her hopes for the future. All too soon, it was time for us to go back to the Town Hall so that she could escort her Sunday school children back home.