by P. D. James
‘How do I know I can trust you?’
‘I’m asking you to trust us. You have to make up your own mind whether you can. That’s an important decision for you to have to make, but you can’t escape it. Only, don’t lie. I would rather you told us nothing than that you lied.’
This is a high-risk strategy, thought Kate. She hoped that they were not now about to hear how Mrs Summers had warned the children never to trust a policeman. Daisy’s piggy eyes looked straight into Dalgliesh’s. The silence seemed interminable.
Then Daisy said: ‘All right. I’ll tell the truth.’
Dalgliesh’s voice didn’t change. He said: ‘When Inspector Aaron and the WPG came to see you, you told them that you have been spending your evenings in Mrs Carling’s flat to do your homework and have supper with her. Is that true?’
‘Yes. Sometimes I went to sleep in her spare room and sometimes on the couch, and then Auntie Esmé would wake me up and bring me back here before Mummy got home.’
Mrs Reed broke in: ‘Look, the kid was safe here. I always double-locked the door when I left and she had her own keys. And I left a phone number. What was I bloody well supposed to do? Take her with me to the club?’
Dalgliesh ignored her. His eyes were still on Daisy.
‘What did you do together?’
‘I did my homework and sometimes she did some writing, and then we used to watch telly. She let me read her books. She has a lot of books about murders, and she knew all about real-life murders. I used to take my supper in with me and sometimes I would have some of hers.’
‘It sounds as if you had happy evenings together. I expect she was glad of your company.’
‘She didn’t like being alone at night. She said she could hear noises on the stairs and she didn’t feel safe even with the door double-locked. She said that someone who had a second pair of keys could be careless with them and then a murderer could get hold of them and come creeping up the stairs and let himself into the flat. Or, she said, he could be on the roof after dark and let himself down with a rope and get in at the window. Sometimes at night she could hear him tapping against the pane. It was always worse when there was something frightening on the telly. She never liked to watch the telly by herself.’
Poor kid, thought Kate. So these were the vividly imagined horrors from which Daisy, left alone night after night, had taken refuge in Mrs Carling’s flat. What, she wondered, was Esmé Carling escaping from? Boredom, loneliness, her own imagined fears? It was an unlikely friendship, but each had met the other’s need for companionship, a sense of security, the small domestic comforts of a home.
Dalgliesh said: ‘And you told Inspector Aaron and the woman police officer from the Juvenile Bureau that you were in Mrs Carling’s flat from six o’clock on Thursday, the 14th of October, the night Mr Etienne died, until she took you home at about midnight. Was that true?’
Here at last was the crucial question and it seemed to Kate that they waited for it with bated breath. The child still gazed calmly at Dalgliesh. They could hear her mother pulling on her cigarette, but she didn’t speak.
The seconds passed, then Daisy said: ‘No, it wasn’t true. Auntie Esmé asked me to lie for her.’
‘When did she ask you to do that?’
‘On Friday, the day after Mr Etienne was killed, when she met me out of school. She was waiting at the gate. Then she came home with me by bus. We sat upstairs in the bus where there weren’t many people and she told me that the police would be asking where she was and I was to tell them that we had spent the evening and the night together. She said they might think she had killed Mr Etienne because she was a crime writer and knew all about murder and because she was very clever at devising plots. She said the police might try to pin it on her because she had a motive. Everyone at Peverell Press knew that she hated Mr Etienne for turning down her book.’
‘But you didn’t think she’d done it, did you Daisy? Why was that?’
The sharp little eyes still looked into his. ‘You know why.’
‘Yes, and so does Inspector Miskin. But tell us.’
‘If she had done it she would have come here late that night before Mummy was home and asked for the alibi then. She never asked until the body was discovered. And she didn’t know when it was Mr Etienne had died. She said I was to be sure to give an alibi for the whole evening and the night. Auntie said we had to tell the same story because the police would try to catch us out. So I told that Inspector everything that had happened except for what we saw on the television, but it had all happened the night before.’
Dalgliesh said: ‘That’s the most reliable way of fabricating an alibi. Essentially you’re telling the truth so you don’t have to fear that the other person will say something different. Was that your idea?’
‘Yes.’
‘We must hope, Daisy, that you don’t go in for crime in a serious way. Now this is very important and I want you to think hard before you answer any of my questions. Will you do that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did your Aunt Esmé tell you what happened at Innocent House on that Thursday night, the night that Mr Etienne died?’
‘She didn’t tell me very much. She said that she’d been there and seen Mr Etienne but that he was alive when she left. Someone had rung him to go upstairs and he’d told her he wouldn’t be long. But he was long so she got tired of waiting. She said in the end she left.’
‘She left without seeing him again?’
‘That’s what she said. She said she waited and then she got frightened. It’s terrible at Innocent House when all the staff have left and it’s cold and silent. There was a lady who killed herself there and Mrs Carling says that sometimes her ghost walks. So she didn’t wait for Mr Etienne to come back. I asked her if she’d seen the murderer and she said, “No, I didn’t see him. I don’t know who did it, but I know who didn’t do it.”’
‘Did she say who?’
‘No.’
‘Did she tell you whether it was a man or a woman, the person who didn’t do it?’
‘No.’
‘Daisy, did you gain any impression that she was speaking of a man or a woman?’
‘No.’
‘Did she tell you anything else about that night? Try to remember her exact words.’
‘She did say something, but it didn’t make sense, not then. She said, “I heard the voice, but the snake was outside the door. Why was the snake outside the door? And it was a funny time to borrow a vacuum cleaner.” She said it very low, as if she was speaking to herself.’
‘Did you ask her what she meant?’
‘I asked her what kind of snake? Was it a poisonous snake? Did the snake bite Mr Etienne? And she said, “No, it wasn’t a real snake, but maybe it was lethal enough in its way.”’
Dalgliesh said: ‘“I heard the voice, but the snake was outside the door. And it was a funny time to borrow a vacuum cleaner.” Are you sure of those words?’
‘Yes.’
‘She didn’t say his voice or her voice?’
‘No. She said what I told you. I think she wanted to keep some of it secret. She liked secrets and mysteries.’
‘When did she next speak to you about the murder?’
‘The day before yesterday when I was here doing my homework. She said she was going on Thursday night to Innocent House to see somebody. She said, “They’ll have to go on publishing me now. I can make sure of that, anyway.” She said she might want me to give her another alibi but she wasn’t sure yet. I asked her who she was going to see and she said she wouldn’t tell me for the time being, it had to be a secret. I don’t think she was ever going to tell me. I think it was too important to tell anyone. I said, “If you’re going to see the murderer, he might kill you too,” and she said she wasn’t that silly, she wasn’t going to see any murderer. She said, “I don’t know who the murderer is, but I may do after tomorrow night.” She didn’t say anything else.’
Dalgliesh held out his hand a
cross the table and the child clasped it. He said: ‘Thank you, Daisy. You’ve been very helpful. We shall have to ask you to write this down and sign it but not now.’
‘And I won’t be put in care?’
‘I don’t think there’s any chance of that, is there?’ He looked at Mrs Reed who said grimly: ‘That kid goes into care over my dead body.’
She was seeing them out when, apparently on impulse, she slipped out after them and closed the door. Ignoring Kate she spoke directly to Dalgliesh: ‘Mr Mason, he’s Daisy’s headmaster, says she’s clever, I mean really clever.’
‘I think she is, Mrs Reed. You should be proud of her.’
‘He thinks she could get one of them government grants to go to a different school, a boarding school.’
‘What does Daisy think?’
‘She says she wouldn’t mind. She isn’t happy at the school where she is. I think she’d like to go but she doesn’t like to say so.’
Kate felt a spurt of mild irritation. They needed to get on. There was Mrs Carling’s flat to examine and the literary agent was expected at 11.30.
But Dalgliesh showed no sign of impatience. He said: ‘Why don’t you and Daisy talk it over at length with Mr Mason? Daisy has to be the one to decide.’
Mrs Reed still lingered, looking at him as if there was something else she needed to hear, some reassurance that only he could give.
He said: ‘You mustn’t think that it’s necessarily wrong for Daisy because it happens to be convenient for you. It could be the right thing for both of you.’
‘Thank you, thank you,’ she whispered and slipped back into the flat.
51
Mrs Carling’s flat was one floor down and at the front of the building. The heavy mahogany door was fitted with a keyhole and with two security locks, a Banham and an Ingersoll. The keys turned easily and Dalgliesh pushed open the door against the shifting weight of a pile of post. The hall smelled musty and was very dark. He felt for the light switch and pressed it down to reveal at a glance the simple layout of the flat, a narrow hall with two doors facing him and one at each end. He bent down to pick up the assorted envelopes and saw that they were merely circulars, with two obvious bills and an envelope which exhorted Mrs Carling to open it immediately and win the chance of half a million. There was also a sheet of folded paper with a message in a laborious hand. ‘Sorry I can’t come tomorrow. Have to go to clinic with Tracey on account of high blood pressure. Hope to see you next Friday. Mrs Darlene Morgan.’
Dalgliesh opened the door immediately ahead and switched on the light. They found themselves in the sitting-room. The two windows overlooking the street were close-shut, the curtains of red velvet half-drawn. At this height there was no risk of prying eyes, even from the top deck of buses but the bottom halves of both windows were curtained in a patterned net. The main artificial light came from an inverted glass bowl painted with a faint design of butterflies which hung from a central rose on the ceiling, the glass spotted with the black shrivelled bodies of trapped flies. There were three table lamps with pink-fringed shades, one on a small table beside a fireside chair, one on a square table set between the two windows and the third on a huge roll-top desk against the left-hand wall. As if desperate for light and air, Kate drew back the curtains and pushed open one of the windows then went round the room and switched on all the lights. They breathed the cool air which gave the illusion of country freshness, and looked round at a room they could at last see clearly.
The immediate impression, emphasized by the pink glow of the lamps, was of a cushioned, old-fashioned cosiness which was the more appealing because the owner had made no concessions to popular contemporary taste. The room could have been furnished in the 1930s and left virtually undisturbed. Most of the pieces looked as if they had been inherited: the roll-top desk which held her portable typewriter, the four mahogany dining chairs of discordant shape and age, an Edwardian glass-fronted cabinet in which assorted china objects and part of a tea service had been piled and stacked rather than arranged, two faded rugs so inappropriately placed that Dalgliesh suspected they were concealing holes in the carpet. Only the sofa and two matching armchairs which surrounded the fireplace were comparatively new, furnished with plump cushions and covered in linen patterned with pale pink and yellow roses. The fireplace itself looked original, an ornate contrivance in grey marble with a heavy overmantel, the grate surrounded by a double row of ornamental tiles, of flowers, fruits and birds. At each end of the mantelshelf two collared Staffordshire dogs with golden chains stared with bright-eyed intensity at the opposite wall. Ranged between them was a clutter of ornaments; a George VI and Queen Elizabeth coronation mug, a black japanned box, two diminutive brass candlesticks, a modern porcelain figure of a crinolined woman holding a lap-dog, a cut-glass vase containing a bunch of imitation primroses. Behind the ornaments were two coloured photographs. One looked as if it had been taken at a prize-giving; Esmé Carling stood pointing an imitation gun, surrounded by grinning faces. In the second she was at a book signing. The picture had obviously been carefully posed. A purchaser stood expectantly at her side, head unnaturally bent to get it in the picture, while Mrs Carling, pen raised from the page, smiled beguilingly into the camera. Kate briefly studied it, trying to superimpose on the square marsupial features, the small mouth and slightly hooked nose, that appallingly drowned and violated face which was the first glimpse she had had of Esmé Carling.
Dalgliesh could understand the attraction this homely soft-cushioned room had held for Daisy. On this broad sofa she had read, watched television, briefly slept before being half-carried back to her own room. Here was a refuge from the terror of her imaginings in simulated terror, neatly contained within the covers of books, sanitized, fictionalized, to be tasted, shared, put aside, no more real than and as easily turned off as the dancing flames of the artificial log fire. There had been security here, companionship and, yes, love of a kind if love was the meeting of mutual need. He glanced at the books. The shelves held paperback copies of crime and detective stories, but he noticed that few of the writers were living. Mrs Carling’s taste was for women writers of the Golden Age. They all looked well-read. Below them was a shelf of real-life crime: books on the Wallace case, on Jack the Ripper, on the more famous Victorian murders, Adelaide Bartlett and Constance Kent. The lower shelves held leather-bound and gold-titled copies of her own works, an extravagance, Dalgliesh thought, unlikely to have been subsidized by Peverell Press. The sight of this harmless vanity depressed him, evoking a spasm of pity. Who would inherit this accumulated record of a life lived by murder and ended by murder? On what shelf in drawing-room, bedroom or lavatory would they find an honoured or tolerated place? Or would they be bought as a job-lot by some second-hand bookseller and priced as a set, their value enhanced by the horror and appalling appropriateness of her death? Surveying the titles so reminiscent of the 1930s, of village policemen cycling to the scene of the murder, tugging their forelocks to the gentry, of autopsies undertaken by eccentric general practitioners after evening surgery and unlikely denouements in the library, he took them out and glanced at them at random. Death by Dancing, apparently set in the world of formation ballroom competitions, Cruising to Murder, Death by Drowning, The Mistletoe Murders. He replaced them carefully feeling no condescension. Why should he? He told himself that she had probably given pleasure to more people with her mysteries than he had with his poetry. And if the pleasure was different in kind, who was to say that one was inferior to the other? She had at least respected the English language and used it as well as lay in her power. In an age rapidly becoming illiterate that was something. For thirty years she had purveyed the fantasy of murder, the acceptable face of violence, the controllable terror. He hoped that when she had come at last face to face with reality the encounter had been brief and merciful.
Kate had moved into the kitchen. He joined her and together they surveyed the mess. The sink was piled with dirty crockery, the unwashed frying pan was
on the stove, and the waste bin was spilling its tins and squashed cartons on to the grimy floor. Kate said: ‘She wouldn’t have wanted us to find it looking like this. Tough on her that her Mrs Morgan couldn’t come this morning.’
Glancing at her he saw the flush rise from her throat and knew that the remark had suddenly struck her as irrational and foolish and that she wished it unspoken.
But their minds had moved in tandem. ‘Lord, let me know mine end, and the number of my days: that I may be certified how long I have to live.’ Surely few people could pray that prayer with any sincerity. The best one could hope for or want was enough time to tidy away the personal debris, consign one’s secrets to the flames or the dustbin and leave the kitchen tidy.
For a couple of seconds, even as he opened the drawers and cupboards, he was back in that Norfolk graveyard hearing his father’s voice, an instantaneous image powerful in its intensity and bringing with it the smell of cut hay, newly turned Norfolk earth, of the intoxication of lilies. The parishioners liked the rector’s son to be present at village funerals and during the school holidays he always attended, finding a village burial more of an interest than an imposition, sharing the funeral tea afterwards, trying to contain his boyish hunger, while the mourners pressed on him the traditional cooked ham and rich fruit-cake, and murmured their thanks.
‘Good of you to come, Mr Adam. Dad would have appreciated it. He was very fond of you, was Dad.’
His mouth sticky with cake, murmuring the expected lie: ‘I was very fond of him, Mrs Hodgkin.’
He would stand there watching while old Goodfellow the sexton and the undertaker’s men tilted the coffin into that neatly accommodating pit, hearing the soft thud of Norfolk earth on the lid, listening to his father’s grave, scholarly voice as the breeze lifted his greying hair and billowed his surplice. And he would picture the man or woman he had known, the shrouded body encased in padded imitation silk, more ostentatiously bedded than it had ever been in life, arid would picture every stage of its dissolution: the rotting shroud, the slowly decaying flesh, the final falling-in of the coffin-lid on the denuded bones, and had never from childhood been able to believe that magnificent proclamation of immortality. ‘And though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.’