Original Sin

by P. D. James

  For a few seconds there was a horrified silence. Six pairs of eyes glanced quickly at Emma then looked away. She sat very still, then suddenly stumbled to her feet and hurled the coffee cup across the room into the sink where it smashed spectacularly. Then she gave a high wail, burst into tears and rushed out of the room. Amy gave a little cry and wiped a splash of hot coffee from her cheek.

  Maggie was shocked. ‘You shouldn’t have said that, Mandy. That was cruel. Emma’s ill. She can’t help it.’

  ‘Of course she can help it. She only does it to upset other people. And she started the row. She called me the Typist of Death. I’m not bad luck. It’s not my fault I found them.’

  Amy looked at Maggie: ‘D’you think I ought to go to her?’

  ‘Better leave her alone. You know how she is. She’s upset because Miss Claudia has taken over Blackie as her PA instead of her. She’s already told Miss Claudia that she wants to leave at the end of the week. If you ask me I think she’s plain scared. I’m not sure that I blame her.’

  Torn between angry self-justification and a remorse which was the more disagreeable because she suffered from it so rarely, Mandy felt that she too would enjoy the relief of hurling crockery across the room and bursting into tears. What was happening to them all, to Innocent House, to herself? Was this what violent death did to people? She had expected the day to be pleasantly exciting, filled with comfortable gossip and speculation, herself at the heart of all the interest. Instead it had been hell from the start.

  The door opened and Miss Etienne appeared. She said coldly: ‘Maggie, Amy and Mandy, there’s work to be done. If you’ve no intention of doing it, it would be better if you said so frankly and went home.’

  55

  Dalgliesh had said that he wanted to see all the partners in the boardroom at three o’clock and that Miss Blackett should be with them. None of them made any objection either to the summons or to her proposed presence. They had handed over the clothes they had been wearing when Esmé Carling’s body was found without argument or question. But then, thought Kate, they were all intelligent people; they hadn’t needed to ask why. None of them had requested the presence of a solicitor, and she wondered whether they feared that this might look suspiciously premature, had confidence in their ability to look after their own interests, or were fortified by the knowledge of their innocence.

  She and Dalgliesh sat one side of the table with the partners and Miss Blackett facing them. At their last meeting in the boardroom after Gerard Etienne’s death she had been aware of a mixture of emotions emanating from them: curiosity, shock, grief and apprehension. Now all she could smell was fear. It was like a contagion. It seemed that they infected each other, and even the air of the room. Only Miss Blackett showed it outwardly. Dauntsey looked very old and sat with the resignation of a geriatric patient awaiting admission. De Witt had seated himself close to Frances Peverell. His eyes were watchful under the heavy lids. Miss Blackett sat forward in her chair with the quivering intentness of a trapped animal. Her face was very white but from time to time hectic blotches spread over her cheeks and forehead like the visitation of a disease. Frances Peverell’s face was taut and she ran her tongue over her lips. On her other side Claudia Etienne was outwardly the most composed. She looked as elegant as always and Kate saw that her make-up had been applied with care and wondered whether this was a gesture of defiance or a small but gallant attempt to impose normality on the psychological chaos of Innocent House.

  Dalgliesh had laid on the table Esmé Carling’s final message. It was now enclosed in a plastic cover. He read it through, his voice almost expressionless. No one spoke. Then, without commenting on it, he said quietly: ‘We now believe that Mrs Carling came to Innocent House on the evening of Mr Etienne’s death.’

  Claudia’s voice was sharp: ‘Esmé came here? Why?’

  ‘Presumably to see your brother. Is that so improbable? She had learned only the previous day that her new novel had been rejected by Peverell Press. She had tried to see Mr Etienne first thing that morning but had been refused access to him by Miss Blackett.’

  Blackie cried: ‘But he was in the partners’ meeting! No one interrupts the partners’ meeting! I was specifically told not even to put through urgent telephone calls.’

  Claudia’s voice was impatient: ‘No one’s blaming you, Blackie. Of course you were right not to admit the woman.’

  As if there had been no interruption, Dalgliesh continued: ‘She went straight from this office to Liverpool Street and her signing at Cambridge only to find that someone from here had sent a fax cancelling it. Was it likely that she would go quietly home and do nothing? You all knew her. Wasn’t it much more likely that she would come here and make another attempt to confront Mr Etienne with her grievances, arriving at a time when she expected to find him alone, unprotected by his secretary? It seems to have been generally known that he worked late on Thursdays.’

  De Witt said: ‘But you must surely have checked, asked her where she was that evening? If you seriously suspect that Gerard was murdered, then Esmé Carling had to be among the suspects.’

  ‘We did check. She provided a very convincing alibi, a child who claimed to have spent the hours from 6.30 to midnight with her in her flat. Her name is Daisy and she has now told us everything she knows. Mrs Carling persuaded her to provide her alibi for that night and admitted that she had been in Innocent House.’

  Claudia said: ‘And now you’re condescending to tell us. Well that makes a change, Commander. It’s time we were told something positive. Gerard was my brother. You’ve been suggesting from the first that his death wasn’t an accident and you seem no nearer to explaining how or why he died.’

  De Witt said quietly: ‘Don’t be naïve, Claudia. The Commander isn’t confiding in us out of consideration for your sisterly feelings. He’s telling us that the child, Daisy, has been questioned and has told everything she knows so there’s no point in anyone trying to trace her, suborn her, bribe her or silence her in any way.’

  The implication of his words was plain and was so appalling that Kate half expected a chorus of outraged protestations. None came. Claudia flushed deeply and looked as if she were about to remonstrate, then thought better of it. The rest of the partners froze into silence, apparently unwilling to meet each other’s eyes. It was as if the remark had opened vistas of conjecture so unwelcome and horrifying that they were best left unexplored.

  Dauntsey said, his voice a little too carefully controlled: ‘So you have one suspect who is known to have been here, and probably at the relevant time. If she had nothing to hide, why didn’t she come forward?’

  De Witt added: ‘And it’s odd when you come to think of it that she’s been so silent since. I don’t suppose you were expecting a letter of condolence, Claudia, but I’d have expected some word, perhaps a fresh attempt to get us to accept the novel.’

  Frances said: ‘She probably thought it was tactful to wait a little. It would look pretty callous if she began badgering us so soon after Gerard’s death.’

  De Witt added: ‘It would certainly have been the least propitious time to try to get us to change our mind.’

  Claudia said sharply: ‘We wouldn’t have changed our mind. Gerard was right, it’s a bad book. It wouldn’t have done our reputation any good, or hers either for that matter.’

  Frances said: ‘But we could have rejected it with more kindness, seen her, tried to explain to her.’

  Claudia turned on her. ‘For God’s sake, Frances, don’t start reopening all that old argument. What good would it have done? Rejection is rejection. She would have resented the decision even if it had been broken to her over champagne and lobster thermidor at Claridge’s.’

  Dauntsey seemed to have been pursuing his private line of thought. He said: ‘I don’t see how Esmé Carling could have had anything to do with Gerard’s death, but I suppose it’s possible she was responsible for putting the snake round his neck. That would seem rather more her style.�
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  Claudia said: ‘You mean she found the body and decided to add a personal comment, as it were?’

  Dauntsey went on: ‘But then it’s hardly likely, is it? Gerard must have been alive when she arrived here. Presumably he let her in.’

  Claudia said: ‘Not necessarily. He could have left the front door open or ajar that night. It’s unlike Gerard to be careless about security, but it’s not impossible. She could somehow have gained access after he was dead.’

  De Witt said: ‘Even if she did, why should she go up to the little archives room?’

  They seemed, for the moment, to have forgotten the presence of Dalgliesh and Kate.

  Frances said: ‘To look for him.’

  Dauntsey said: ‘But wouldn’t she be more likely to wait for him in his office? She would have known that he was somewhere in the building. His jacket was still slung over the back of his chair. Sooner or later he’d be back. And then there’s the snake. Would she have known where to find it?’

  Having demolished his case, Dauntsey sank again into silence. Claudia glanced from partner to partner as if inviting silent assent to what she proposed to say. Then she looked full at Dalgliesh.

  ‘I can see that this new information that Esmé Carling was in Innocent House on the night Gerard died does put her suicide in a different light. But however she died, the partners couldn’t have been concerned. All of us can account for our movements.’

  Kate thought: she doesn’t want to use the word alibi.

  Claudia went on: ‘I was with my fiancé, Frances and James were together, Gabriel was with Sydney Bartrum.’ She turned to him, her voice suddenly hard: ‘Brave of you, Gabriel, to walk to the Sailor’s Return alone so soon after your mugging.’

  ‘I have walked alone in my capital city for over sixty years. One mugging isn’t going to stop me.’

  ‘And it was convenient that you happened to be leaving just as Esmé’s taxi was arriving.’

  De Witt said quietly: ‘Fortuitous, Claudia, not convenient.’

  But Claudia was looking at Dauntsey as if he were a stranger: ‘And the pub may be able to confirm when you and Sydney arrived. But it is, of course, about the busiest on the river and with the longest bar, as well as access from the river walk, and you arrived separately. I doubt whether they’ll be able to be precise even if anyone remembers two particular customers. You didn’t draw attention to yourselves, I suppose?’

  Dauntsey said quietly: ‘That was not our intention in going there.’

  ‘Why did you? I didn’t know you used the Sailor’s Return. I shouldn’t have thought it was your choice of watering hole. Altogether too raucous. And I hadn’t realized that you and Sydney were drinking pals.’

  It was, thought Kate, as if they were suddenly conducting a private war. She heard Frances’s soft anguished cry: ‘Oh don’t, please don’t!’

  De Witt said: ‘Is your alibi any more reliable, Claudia?’

  She turned on him. ‘Or yours, come to that. Are you saying that Frances wouldn’t lie for you?’

  ‘She might. I don’t know. As it happens she isn’t required to. We were together from seven o’clock.’

  Claudia said: ‘Noticing nothing, seeing nothing, hearing nothing. Totally occupied with each other.’ Before de Witt could reply she went on: ‘It’s odd, isn’t it, how momentous events begin with something quite small. If someone hadn’t sent that fax cancelling Esmé’s signing she might not have come back here that night, wouldn’t have seen what she did see, might not have died.’

  Blackie could bear it no longer, their barely concealed antipathy, and now this horror. She leapt up and cried: ‘Stop it, please stop it! And it isn’t true. She killed herself. Mandy found her. Mandy saw. You know she killed herself. The fax has nothing to do with it.’

  Claudia said sharply: ‘Of course she killed herself. Any other idea is wishful thinking on the part of the police. Why accept suicide when you can go for the more exciting option? And that fax may have been the last straw for Esmé. Whoever sent it bears a heavy responsibility.’

  She was gazing fixedly at Blackie, and the heads of the others turned as if Claudia had pulled on an invisible string.

  Claudia suddenly said: ‘It was you! I thought so. It was you, Blackie! You sent it!’

  They watched appalled as Blackie’s mouth slowly and silently opened. For what seemed minutes rather than seconds she held her breath, and then she burst into uncontrollable sobbing. Claudia got up from her seat and took her by the shoulders. For a second it looked as if she were going to shake her.

  ‘And what about the rest of the mischief? What about the altered proofs, the stolen artwork? Was that you too?’

  ‘No! No, I swear it. Just the fax. Nothing else. Only that one. She was so unkind about Mr Peverell. She said terrible things. It isn’t true he thought I was a nuisance. He cared about me. He relied on me. Oh God, I wish I were dead like him.’

  She stumbled to her feet and, still howling, blundered to the door, holding out a hand before her like a blind woman feeling for her way. Frances half rose and de Witt was already on his feet when Claudia grasped his arm.

  ‘For God’s sake leave her alone, James. We don’t all welcome your shoulder to cry on. Some of us prefer to bear our own misery.’

  James flushed and immediately sat down.

  Dalgliesh said: ‘I think we had better stop now. When Miss Blackett is calmer Inspector Miskin will talk to her.’

  De Witt said: ‘Congratulations, Commander. It was clever of you to get us to do your job for you. It would have been kinder to have questioned Blackie in private but that would have taken longer, wouldn’t it, and might have been less successful.’

  Dalgliesh said: ‘A woman has died and it is my job to discover how and why. I’m afraid that kindness isn’t my first priority.’

  Frances said, almost in tears, looking across at de Witt: ‘Poor Blackie! Oh my God, oh poor Blackie! What are they going to do with her?’

  It was Claudia who replied. ‘Inspector Miskin will comfort her and then Dalgliesh will grill her. Or, if she’s lucky, the other way round. You needn’t worry about Blackie. Sending that fax isn’t a hanging matter, it isn’t even an indictable offence.’ She turned violently and spoke to Dauntsey. ‘Gabriel, I’m sorry. I’m so terribly sorry. I’m sorry, sorry. I don’t know what came over me. My God, we’ve got to stand together.’ When he didn’t reply, she said almost beseechingly: ‘You don’t think it was murder, do you? Esmé’s death, I’m saying. You don’t think someone killed her?’

  Dauntsey said quietly: ‘You’ve heard the Commander read that message she wrote for us. Did that really sound to you like a suicide note?’

  56

  Mr Winston Johnson was large, black, amiable, apparently unworried by the ambience of a police station and philosophical about losing possible fares by the necessity to call in at Wapping. His voice was a deep attractive bass but its accent was pure Cockney. When Daniel apologized for the need to encroach on his working time he said: ‘Don’t reckon I’ve lost much. Picked up a fare wanting Canary Wharf on the way here. A couple of American tourists. Good tippers too. That’s why I’m a bit late.’

  Daniel passed over a photograph of Esmé Carling. ‘This is the fare we’re interested in. Thursday night to Innocent Walk. Recognize her?’

  Mr Johnson took the photograph in his left hand. ‘That’s right. Hailed me at Hammersmith Bridge at about half past six. Said she wanted to be at number ten Innocent Walk by 7.30. No problem there. It wasn’t going to take the best part of an hour, not unless the traffic was extra bad or we’d had a bomb alert and your chaps had closed down one of the roads. We made good time.’

  ‘You mean you got there before 7.30.’

  ‘Would’ve done, but she tapped the glass when we got to the Tower and said she didn’t want to be early. Asked me to kill time. I asked her where she’d like to go and she said, “Anywhere, so long as we get to Innocent Walk at 7.30.” So I took her as far as the I
sle of Dogs and drove round a bit, then came back down The Highway. It put a few bob on the fare but I reckon that wasn’t her worry. Eighteen pounds in all that cost her, and she gave a tip.’

  ‘How did you approach Innocent Walk?’

  ‘Left off The Highway down Garnet Street, then right off Wapping Wall.’

  ‘Did you see anyone in particular?’

  ‘Anyone in particular? There were one or two chaps around but I can’t say I noticed anyone particular. Watching the road, wasn’t I?’

  ‘Did Mrs Carling speak to you on the journey?’

  ‘Only what I told you, that she didn’t want to get to Innocent Walk until half past seven, so would I drive around, like.’

  ‘And you’re sure she wanted number 10 Innocent Walk, not Innocent House.’

  ‘Number 10 is what she asked for and number 10 is where I dropped her. By the iron gates at the end of Innocent Passage. Seemed to me she was anxious not to go further down Innocent Walk. She tapped on the window as soon as I turned into it and said that’s as far as she wanted.’

  ‘Did you see whether the gate into Innocent Passage was open?’

  ‘It wasn’t standing open. That’s not to say it was locked.’

  Daniel asked, knowing what the answer would be but needing to get it on record, ‘She didn’t mention why she was going to Innocent Walk, whether she was meeting anyone, for example?’

  ‘Wasn’t my business, was it, Guv?’

  ‘Maybe not, but fares do chat occasionally.’

  ‘A darned sight too much, some of them. But this one didn’t. Just sat there clutching her bloody great shoulder-bag.’

  Another photograph was passed over. ‘This shoulder-bag?’

  ‘Could be. Looks like it. Mind you, I couldn’t swear to it.’

  ‘Did the bag look full, as if she was carrying something heavy or bulky?’