by P. D. James
‘It can’t be ruled out. What I have to ask you is whether you have any reason to believe that your sister could have interfered with the fire, I’m not suggesting it was a plot to kill Etienne. But is it possible that she might have planned a suicide which would look like accidental death and then changed her mind?’
‘How can I possibly tell you that, Commander?’
‘It was a very long shot, but I had to ask. If anyone is brought to trial for murder it is a possibility that the defence counsel will certainly put forward.’
She said: ‘It would have saved a great deal of distress for other people if she had troubled to make her death look like an accident, but suicides so seldom do. It is, after all, the supreme act of aggression and what satisfaction is there in aggression if it hurts only oneself? To make suicide look accidental wouldn’t have been so very difficult. I could think of ways, but they don’t include dismantling a gas fire and blocking the flue. I’m not sure that Sonia would have known how to do that. She wasn’t mechanically minded in life; why should she be so in death?’
‘And the note she sent you, that was all? No reason, no explanation?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘No reason, no explanation.’
Dalgliesh went on: ‘It seems to have been assumed that your sister killed herself because Gerard Etienne had told her that she had to go. Does that seem likely to you?’
She didn’t reply, and after a minute he gently persisted. ‘As her sister, as someone who knew her well, does that explanation satisfy you?’
She turned to him and, for the first time, looked him full in the face. ‘Is that question relevant to your inquiry?’
‘It could be. If Miss Clements knew something about Innocent House, or about one of the people who worked there, something so distressing to her that it contributed to her death, that something could also be relevant to the death of Gerard Etienne.’
Again she turned. She said: ‘Is there any question of reopening the manner of my sister’s death?’
‘Formally? None at all. We know how Miss Clements died. I would like to know why, but the verdict of the inquest was correct. Legally that is the end of it.’
They paced in silence. She seemed to be considering a course of action. He was aware of, or perhaps imagined, the muscles taut with tension of the arm which briefly brushed his own. When she spoke her voice was harsh.
‘I can satisfy your curiosity, Commander. My sister died because the two people she cared for most, perhaps the only two people she ever cared for, left her and left her finally. I took my vows the week before she killed herself; Henry Peverell died eight months earlier.’
Until now Kate had been silent. She said: ‘You’re saying that she was in love with Mr Peverell?’
Sister Agnes turned and looked at her as if noticing her presence for the first time. Then she again turned her head and with an almost imperceptible shiver clasped her arms more tightly across her breast. ‘She was his mistress for the last eight years of his life. She called it love. I called it an obsession. I don’t know what he called it. They were never seen together in public. The affair was kept deeply secret at his insistence. The room in which they made love was the one in which she died. I always knew when they had been together. Those were the nights when she stayed late at the office. When she came in I could smell him on her.’
Kate protested: ‘But why the secrecy? What was he afraid of? Neither was married, they were both adults. This was no one’s business but their own.’
‘When I asked that question she had her answers ready, or rather his. She said that he had no wish to marry again, that he wanted to stay faithful to the memory of his wife, that he disliked the idea of his private affairs being the subject of office gossip, that the relationship would distress his daughter. She accepted all the excuses. It was enough for her that he apparently needed what she could provide. It may, of course, have been quite simple, that she was adequate to satisfy a physical need but not sufficiently beautiful or young or rich enough to tempt him to marry her. And for him, I think the secrecy added an additional frisson to the affair. Perhaps this was what he enjoyed, humiliating her, testing the limits of her devotion, stealing up to that drab little room like a Victorian employer pleasuring his parlour-maid. It was not the sinfulness of the relationship which distressed me most, it was the vulgarity.’
He had not expected such openness, such confidence. But, perhaps, it was not so surprising. She must have endured months of self-imposed silence and now, to two strangers whom she need never see again, the pent-up bitterness was released. She said: ‘I am the elder by only eighteen months. We were always very close. He destroyed that. She couldn’t have him and her religion so she chose him. He destroyed the confidence between us. How could there be confidence when each of us despised the other’s God?’
Dalgliesh said: ‘She had no sympathy with your vocation?’
‘She had no understanding of it. Nor had he. He saw it as a retreat from the world and from responsibility, from sexuality and from involvement, and what he believed she believed. She had known for some time, of course, what I had in mind. I suppose that she hoped no one would have me. There are not many communities which welcome middle-aged postulants. A convent isn’t intended as a refuge for the unsuccessful and disillusioned. And she knew, of course, that I had no practical skills to offer. I was – I am – a book-restorer. Reverend Mother still releases me from time to time to work in libraries in London, Oxford and Cambridge, provided that there is a suitable house – I mean a convent – in which I can be lodged. But that work is becoming infrequent. It takes a great deal of time to restore and rebind a valuable book or manuscript, more time than I can be spared for.’
Dalgliesh recalled a visit three years previously to the library at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge when he had been shown the Jerusalem Bible, taken under escort to Westminster Abbey for successive coronations, together with one of the earliest illuminated copies of the New Testament. The recently rebound treasure, lifted lovingly from its special box, had been placed on the padded V-shaped lectern, the pages turned with a wooden spatula to avoid handling. He had looked in wonder across five centuries at the meticulous drawings, still as bright as when the colours had flowed with such gentle precision from the artist’s pen, drawings which, in their beauty and essential humanity, had brought him close to tears.
He said: ‘Your work here is regarded as more important?’
‘It is judged by different criteria. And here my lack of the more commonplace practical skills is no disadvantage. Anyone with a little training can operate a washing machine, wheel patients to the bathroom, give out bedpans. I can’t be sure how long even these services will be required. The priest who is our chaplain here is converting to Roman Catholicism following the decision of the Church of England to ordain women. Half of the sisters want to follow him. The future of St Anne’s as an Anglican order is in doubt.’
They had now walked the length of the three paths and, turning, began the journey again. Sister Agnes said: ‘Henry Peverell wasn’t the only person who came between us in the last years of my sister’s life. There was Eliza Brady. Oh you needn’t trouble to look for her, Commander, she died in 1871. I read about her in a report of an inquest in a Victorian newspaper which I found in a second-hand bookshop in Charing Cross Road and which unhappily I passed over to Sonia. Eliza Brady was thirteen years old. Her father worked for a coal merchant and her mother had died in childbirth. Eliza became the mother to four younger brothers and sisters and the baby. Her father gave evidence at the inquest that Eliza was mother to them all. For fourteen hours a day she worked. She washed, she made the fire, she cooked, she shopped, she cared for the whole of that little family. One morning, when she was drying the baby’s napkins on a guard in front of the fire, she leaned on the guard and it collapsed into the flames. She was horribly burnt and died in agony three days later. The story affected my sister powerfully. She said, “So this is the justice of your so-cal
led loving God. This is how he rewards the innocent and the good. He wasn’t satisfied with killing her. She had to die horribly, slowly and in agony.” My sister became almost obsessed with Eliza Brady. She made her into a kind of cult figure. If she had had a picture of the child she would probably have prayed in front of it, although I don’t know to whom.’
Kate protested: ‘But if she’d wanted a reason to disbelieve in God why go back to the nineteenth century? There are plenty of contemporary tragedies. She’d only got to look at the television or read the newspaper. She’d only got to think of Yugoslavia. Eliza Brady has been dead for over a hundred years.’
Sister Agnes said: ‘That is what I told her, but Sonia replied that justice had nothing to do with time. We shouldn’t allow ourselves to be dominated by time. If God is eternal, then His justice is eternal. And so is His injustice.’
Kate asked: ‘Before your estrangement from your sister, did you often visit Innocent House?’
‘Not often, but I went there occasionally. Actually there was a possibility, months before I decided that I had a vocation, that I might have worked part-time at Innocent House. Jean-Philippe Etienne was very anxious that the archives should be examined and catalogued and apparently he thought I might be a suitable person to do it. The Etiennes have always had an eye for a bargain and he probably guessed that I would work as much for interest as for money. However, Henry Peverell put a stop to that, and, of course, I understood why.’
Dalgliesh asked: ‘You knew Jean-Philippe Etienne?’
‘I got to know all the partners reasonably well. The two old men, Jean-Philippe and Henry, seemed to be almost wilfully hanging on to a power neither seemed able or willing to exercise. Gerard Etienne was obviously the young Turk, the heir apparent. I never got on particularly well with Claudia Etienne but I liked James de Witt. De Witt is an example of a man who lives a good life without the help of religious belief. There are those who are apparently born with a deficiency of original sin. Goodness in them is hardly a merit.’
Dalgliesh said: ‘Surely religious belief isn’t necessary to a good life.’
‘Perhaps not. Belief in religion may not influence behaviour. The practice of religion surely should.’
Kate said: ‘You weren’t, of course, at the last party they held. Did you go to any of the earlier parties? Were the visitors able to wander where they wanted throughout the house?’
‘I only went to two of the parties. They held one in the summer and one in the winter. There was certainly nothing to prevent visitors from wandering round the house. I don’t think many people did. It is hardly courteous to take the opportunity of a party to explore rooms which are generally held to be private. Of course, Innocent House is now mainly offices and perhaps that makes a difference. But the Innocent House parties were fairly formal affairs. The guest list was controlled and Henry Peverell greatly disliked having more than eighty people in the house at one time. Peverell Press has never gone in for the ordinary kind of literary party – too many people invited in case any of their writers are offended at being left out; overcrowded, overheated rooms with guests trying to balance plates of cold food and drink lukewarm inferior white wine while bawling at each other. The majority of guests came by water, so it was fairly easy, I imagine, to repel gatecrashers.’
There was little else to be learned. By common consent they turned at the end of the next path and retraced their steps. In silence they returned with Sister Agnes to the front door, then said their goodbyes without re-entering the convent. She looked at Dalgliesh and Kate with great intensity, holding their eyes, compelling them to a moment of concentrated attention, as if by force of will she could compel them to respect her confidence.
They had hardly turned out of the drive and were waiting at the first red traffic light when Kate’s pent-up resentment burst out.
‘So that’s why the bed was there in the little archives room, why the door had a bolt and lock. My God, what a bastard! Sister Agnes was right, he did sneak up to that room like some Victorian petty despot. He did humiliate her, make use of her. I can imagine what went on up there. The man was a sadist.’
Dalgliesh said quietly: ‘You’ve no evidence for that, Kate.’
‘Why the hell did she put up with it? She was an experienced, well-regarded editor. She could have left.’
‘She was in love with him.’
‘And her sister in love with God. She’s looking for peace. I didn’t get the impression that she’s found it. Even the future of the convent is at risk.’
‘The founder of her religion didn’t promise it. “I came not to send peace but a sword.”’ Glancing at her he saw that the text meant nothing to her. He said: ‘It was a useful visit. We know now why Sonia Clements died and it was nothing – or little – to do with Gerard Etienne’s treatment of her. There is apparently no one living with a motive to avenge her death. We already knew that visitors to Innocent House could wander at will through the house, but it’s useful to have Sister Agnes’s confirmation. And then there’s the interesting piece of information about the archives. According to Sister Agnes it was Henry Peverell who was anxious that she shouldn’t be given the job of working on them. It was only after his death that Jean-Philippe Etienne agreed that Gabriel Dauntsey should undertake the job.’
Kate said: ‘It would have been more interesting if it had been the Etiennes who wanted the archives left undisturbed. It’s obvious why Henry Peverell didn’t want Sonia Clements’ sister working up there. It would have upset his little arrangements with his mistress.’
Dalgliesh said: ‘That’s the obvious explanation, and like most obvious explanations it’s probably the right one. But there might be something else in the archives that Henry Peverell wanted to leave undisturbed, something he either knew or suspected was there. It’s difficult to see, even so, why that should be relevant to Gerard Etienne’s death. As you say, it would have been more interesting if it had been the Etiennes who were insisting that the archives were left undisturbed. Even so, I think we’re going to have to take a look at those papers.’
‘All of them, sir?’
‘If necessary, Kate. All of them.’
43
It was now half past nine on Sunday and Daniel and Robbins were working together at the top of Innocent House searching through the files. They were using the desk and chair in the little archives room. The method Daniel had decided upon was for both of them to work their way along the shelves, pulling out any file which looked hopeful and then taking it into the little archives room for further investigation. It was a discouraging task since neither knew what he was looking for. Daniel had estimated that the task would take weeks with two of them working but they were making better progress than he had expected. If AD’s hunch was right and there were papers which could throw a light on Etienne’s murder someone must surely have consulted them fairly recently. This meant that the very old nineteenth-century files, many of which had obviously been untouched for a hundred years, could safely be ignored, at least for the present. There was no problem about the light; the unshaded overhead bulbs were only a few feet part. But the job was dusty, tiring and boring and he did it without hope.
Soon after half past nine he decided that enough was enough for one night. He was aware of a disinclination to go back to his Bayswater flat, a reluctance so strong that almost any alternative seemed preferable. He had spent as little time in it as possible since Fenella had departed for the States. They had bought their flat together just eighteen months ago and he had known within weeks of their living together that this commitment to a joint mortgage and a shared life had been a mistake.
She had said: ‘We’ll have separate rooms, of course, darling. We both need our privacy.’
Later he was to wonder whether he had actually heard the words. Not only did Fenella not need her privacy, she had no intention of allowing him his, less he thought from wilful denial than from a total lack of understanding of what the word meant. He recalled
too late what should have been a salutary childhood lesson: a friend of his mother’s telling her complacently, ‘We’ve always respected books and learning in our home,’ while her six-year-old son, unrebuked, systematically tore to pieces the pages of Daniel’s copy of Treasure Island. That should surely have taught him that what people believed about themselves seldom bore resemblance to how they behaved in reality. Even so, Fenella had set a record in the irreconcilability of belief and action. The flat was always crowded; friends dropped in, were fed in his kitchen, quarrelled and were reconciled on his sofa, took baths in his bathroom, made international calls on his telephone, raided his refrigerator and drank his beer. The flat was never quiet, the two of them never alone. His bedroom became their shared bedroom, largely because Fenella’s was usually temporarily occupied by a homeless chum. She drew people to her like a lighted doorway. Hers was the attraction of unbreakable good humour. She would probably have captivated his mother if he had ever allowed them to meet, no doubt by immediately promising to convert to Judaism. Fenella was nothing if not obliging.
Her compulsive gregariousness went with an untidiness which had never ceased to amaze him during their eighteen months together and which he could never reconcile with her fussiness about small items of décor. He remembered her holding up against the sitting-room wall three small prints, vertically mounted on a length of ribbon and surmounted by a bow. ‘Just here, darling, or another two inches to the left? What do you think?’
It scarcely seemed to matter when they had a kitchen sink full of unwashed dishes, a bathroom whose door had to be pushed open against the weight of a heap of dirty and malodorous towels, unmade beds and clothes strewn over the bedroom. With this sluttishness over domestic detail went a compulsive need to bathe and to wash her clothes. The flat was perpetually noisy with the thump and whirl of the washing machine and the hiss of the shower.
He recalled how she had announced the end of their relationship: ‘Darling, Terry wants me to join him in New York. Next Thursday, actually. He’s sent a first-class ticket. I didn’t think you’d mind. We haven’t been having a lot of fun together recently, have we? Don’t you think that something fundamental has gone out of the relationship? Something precious we once had has been lost. Don’t you feel that something has just drained away?’