Cover Her Face

by P. D. James

  Here was the backwash of the shopping centre, the women walking home with their laden baskets, the few smaller gown shops and hairdressers with pseudo-French names over the converted front-room windows. After a few minutes they turned again into a quiet street where a row of identical houses stretched as far as the eye could see. Although they were identical in structure, however, they were very different in appearance for hardly two of the small front gardens were alike.

  All were carefully sown and tended. A few householders had expressed their individuality with monkey-puzzle trees, coy stone gnomes fishing from basins or spurious rock gardens, but the majority had contented themselves by creating a little show of color and fragrance which shamed the dull nonentity of the house behind. The curtains showed signs of careful if misguided choosing and of frequent washing, and were supplemented by additional half-curtains of draped lace or net which were carefully drawn against the curiosity of a vulgar world.

  Windermere Crescent had the respectable look of a street that is a cut above its neighbours and whose inhabitants are determined to maintain that superiority.

  This then had been the home of Sally Jupp who had fallen so lamentably from its standards. The car drew in to the kerb at the gate of number 17 and Mrs. Proctor clutched her black shapeless handbag to her chest and began to fumble at the door.

  "Let me," said Deborah, and leaned across her to release the catch. Mrs. Proctor extricated herself and began her profuse thanks which Deborah cut short.

  "Please don't. We were very. glad to come. I wonder if I might bother you for a glass of water before we leave. It's silly, I know, but driving is so thirst-making in this heat. Really only water. I hardly ever drink anything else."

  "Don't you, by God!" thought Felix as the two women disappeared into the house.

  He wondered what Deborah was up to now and hoped that the wait wouldn't be too long. Mrs. Proctor had been offered no choice about inviting her benefactor into the house. She could hardly have brought a glass of water out to the car.

  Nevertheless Felix was certain that she had not welcomed the intrusion. She had glanced anxiously up the road before they went in and he guessed that the time was getting dangerously late and that she was desperately anxious that the car should be gone before her husband came home.

  Some of the anxiety she had shown when they first met her in the churchyard had returned. He felt a momentary spasm of irritation with Deborah. The exercise was unlikely to be useful and it was a shame to worry that pathetic little woman.

  Deborah, untouched by such nice refinement of feeling, was being shown into the front room. A schoolgirl was arranging her music on the piano in evident preparation for her practice but was bundled out of the room with a hasty injunction to 'Fetch a glass of water, dear' spoken in the falsely bright tone often used by parents in the presence of strangers. The child went out rather reluctantly Deborah thought and not without giving her a long and deliberate stare. She was a remarkably plain child, but the likeness to her dead cousin was unmistakable. Mrs. Proctor had not introduced her and Deborah wondered whether this was an oversight due to nervousness or a deliberate wish to keep the child in ignorance of her mother's afternoon's activities. If so, presumably some story would be concocted to explain the visit, although Mrs. Proctor had not struck her as possessing much inventive faculty.

  They sat down in opposite armchairs, each with its embroidered chair-back of a crinolined and bonneted female gathering hollyhocks and its plump unsullied cushions. This was obviously the best room, used only for entertaining or for piano practice. It had the faint musty smell compounded of wax polish, new furniture and seldom-opened windows. On the piano were two photographs of young girls in ballet dresses, their graceless bodies bent into unnatural and angular poses and their faces set into determined smiles beneath the wreaths of artificial roses. One of them was the child who had just left the room. The other was Sally. It was strange how, even at that age, the same family colouring and similar bone structure should have produced in one an essential distinction and in the other a heavy plainness that held little promise for the future. Mrs. Proctor saw the direction of her glance.

  "Yes," she said, "we did everything for her. Everything. There was never any difference made. She had piano lessons, too, the same as Beryl although she never had Beryl's gift. But we always treated them alike. It's a dreadful thing that it's all ended like this. That other photo is the group we had took after Beryl* s christening. That's me and Mr. Proctor with the baby and Sally. She was a pretty little thing then, but it didn't last."

  Deborah moved over to the photograph.

  The group had been stiffly posed in heavy carved chairs and against a contrived background of draped curtains which made the photograph look older than it was. Mrs. Proctor, younger and more buxom, held her child awkwardly and looked ill at ease in her new clothes.

  Sally looked sulky. The husband was posed behind them, his gloved hands leaning proprietorially on the backs of the chairs. There was something unnatural in his stance, but his face gave nothing away.

  Deborah looked at him carefully.

  Somewhere she was certain that she had seen that face before, but the recognition was tenuous and unsatisfactory. It was, after all, an unremarkable face and the photograph was more than ten years old.

  She turned away from the photograph with a sense of disappointment. It had told her very little and she hardly knew what else she had expected to gain from it.

  Beryl Proctor came back with the glass of water, one of the best glasses carried on a small papiermache tray. No introductions were made and Deborah was conscious as she drank that both of them wished her away. Suddenly she wished nothing more herself than to be out of the house and free of them. Her coming in had been an incomprehensible impulse. It had been prompted partly by boredom, partly by hope and very largely by curiosity. Sally dead had become more interesting than Sally alive and she had wanted to see from what sort of home Sally had been rejected.

  That curiosity now seemed presumption and her entry into the house an intrusion which she did not want to prolong.

  She said her "good-byes" and rejoined Felix. He took the wheel and they did not speak until the town was behind them and the car was shaking free of the suburban tentacles and climbing into the country.

  "Well," said Felix at last, "was the exercise in detection worth while? Are you sure you want to go on with it?"

  "Why not?"

  "Only that you might discover facts. I don't believe that she was promiscuous.

  I don't want safety at the price of blackening the poor little devil's reputation further now that she isn't here to defend herself."

  "I think you are right about her," said Felix. "But I don't advise you to make the inspector a present of your opinion. Let him make his own psychological assessment of Sally. The whole case may run into the sand if we keep our heads cool and our mouths shut. The Sommeil is the greatest danger. The hiding of that bottle makes the two things seem connected. Even so, the drug was put into your drinking-mug. It could have been put there by anyone."

  "Even by me."

  "Even by you. It could have been put there by Sally. She may have taken the mug to annoy you. I think she did. But she may have put the drug in her cocoa for no more sinister reason that the desire for a good night. It wasn't a lethal dose."

  "In which case, why was the bottle hidden?"

  "Let us say that it was hidden either by someone who erroneously believed that the drugging and the murder were connected and who wanted to conceal that fact, or by someone who knew that they weren't but who wanted to implicate the family.

  As your stake marked the hiding-place we may assume that such a person specifically wished to implicate you. That's a pleasant thought for you to be going on with."

  They were cresting the hill above Little Chadfleet now. Below them lay the village and there was a glimpse of the tall grey chimneys of Martingale above the trees.

  With the return home
the oppression and fear which the drive had only partially relieved fell like a black cloud.

  "If they never solve this crime," said

  Deborah, "can you really imagine us living on happily at Martingale? Don't you ever feel that you must know the truth? Do you honestly never convince yourself that Stephen did it, or I?"

  "You? Not with those hands and finger-nails. Didn't you notice that very considerable force was used and that her neck was bruised, but not scratched?

  Stephen is a possibility. So are Catherine and your mother and Martha. So am I.

  The superfluity of suspects is our greatest protection. Let Dalgleish take his pick. As for not living on at Martingale with an unsolved crime hanging over you - I imagine that the house has seen its share of violence in the past three hundred years. Not all your ancestors lived such well-regulated lives even if their deaths were with benefit of clergy. In two hundred years the death of Sally Jupp will be one of the legends told on All-Hallows to frighten your great grandchildren. And if you really can't stand Martingale there will always be Greenwich. I won't bore you with that again, but you know what I feel."

  His voice was almost expressionless. His hands lay lightly on the wheel and his eyes still looked at the road ahead with easy and unstrained concentration. He must have known what she was thinking for he said:

  "Don't let it worry you. I shan't complicate things more than I can help. I just don't want any of those beefy types you run around with to misunderstand my interest."

  "Would you want me, Felix, if I were running away?"

  "Isn't that being melodramatic? What else have most of us been doing for the last ten years? But if you want marriage as an escape from Martingale you may yet find the sacrifice unnecessary. As we left Canningbury we passed Dalgleish and one of his minions on the way in. My guess is that they were on the same errand. Your instinct about Proctor may not have been so far wrong after all."

  They garaged the car in silence and passed into the coolness of the hall.

  Catherine Bowers was mounting the stairs.

  She was carrying a linen-covered tray and the white nylon overall which she usually wore when nursing Simon Maxie looked cool, efficient and not unbecoming. It is never agreeable to see another person competently and publicly performing duties which conscience suggests are one's own and Deborah was honest enough to recognize the reason for her spasm of irritation. She tried to hide it by an unusual burst of confidence.

  "Wasn't the funeral awful, Catherine?

  I'm terribly sorry that Felix and I ran off like that. We drove Mrs. Proctor home. I had a sudden urge to fix the murder on the wicked uncle."

  Catherine was unimpressed.

  "I asked the inspector about the uncle when he questioned me for the second time. He said that the police are satisfied that Mr. Proctor couldn't have killed Sally. He didn't explain why. I should leave the job to him. Goodness knows there's enough work here."

  She went on her way. Looking after her, Deborah said:

  "I may be uncharitable, but if anyone at Martingale killed Sally I should prefer it to have been Catherine."

  "It isn't likely, though, is it?" said

  Felix. ‹(I can't see her capable of murder."

  "And the rest of us are? Even

  Mother?"

  "She particularly, I think, if she felt it were necessary."

  "I don't believe it," said Deborah. "But even if it were true, can you see her saying nothing while police overrun Martingale and people like Miss Liddell and Derek Pullen are suspected?"

  "No," replied Felix. "No, I can't see that."

  Chapter Seven

  Rose Cottage on the Nessingford Road was a late eighteenth century labourer's cottage with enough superficial charm and antiquity to tempt the passing motorist to an opinion that something could be made of it. In the Pullens" hands something had, a replica of a thousand urban council houses. A large plaster model of an Alsatian dog occupied all the window space in the front room. Behind it the lace curtains were elegantly draped and tied with blue ribbon. The front door opened straight into the living-room. Here the Pullens' enthusiasm for modern decor had outrun discretion and the result was curiously irritating and bizarre. One wall was papered with a design of pink stars against a blue background. The opposite wall was painted in matching pink. The chairs were covered with blue striped material obviously carefully chosen to tone with the paper. The haircord carpet was a pale pink and had suffered from the inevitable comings and goings of muddy feet. Nothing was clean, nothing made to last, nothing was simple or honest.

  Dalgleish found it all profoundly depressing.

  Derek Pullen and his mother were at home. Mrs. Pullen showed none of the normal reactions to the arrival of police officers engaged in a murder investigation, but greeted them with a spate of welcoming miscellanea, as if she stayed at home specially to receive them and had long awaited their arrival. The phrases tumbled against one another. Delighted to see them… her brother a police constable… perhaps they had heard of him… Joe Pullen over at Barkingway… always better to tell the truth to the police… not that there's anything to tell… poor Mrs. Maxie… couldn't hardly believe it when Miss Liddell told her… come home and told Derek and he didn't believe it neither… not the sort of girl a decent man would want… very proud the Maxies were… a girl like that asked for trouble. As she spoke the pale eyes wavered over Dalgleish's face but with little comprehension. In the background stood her son, braced to the inevitable.

  So Pullen had known about the engagement late on Saturday night although, as the police had already ascertained, he had spent the evening at the Theatre Royal, Stratford, with a party from his office and had not been at the fete.

  Dalgleish had difficulty in persuading the voluble Mrs. Pullen to retire to her kitchen and leave the boy to answer for himself but he was helped by Pullen's fretful insistence that she should leave them alone. He had obviously been expecting the visit. When Dalgleish and Martin were announced he had risen from his chair and faced them with the pathetic courage of a man whose meager reserves have scarcely carried him through the waiting period. Dalgleish dealt with him gently. He might have been speaking to a son. Martin had seen this technique in use before. It was a cinch with the nervous, emotional types, especially if they were burdened with guilt. Guilt, thought Martin, was a funny thing. This boy, now, had probably done nothing worse than meet Sally Jupp for a bit of kiss and cuddle but he wouldn't feel at peace until he'd spilt the beans to someone. On the other hand he might be a murderer. If he were, then fear would keep his mouth shut for a little longer. But in the end he'd crack. Before long he would see in Dalgleish, patient, uncensorious and omnipotent, the father confessor whom his conscience craved. Then it would be difficult for the shorthand writer to catch up with the spate of self-accusation and guilt. It was a man's own mind which betrayed him in the end and Dalgleish knew that better than most. There were times when Sergeant Martin, not the most sensitive of men, felt that a detective's job was not a pretty one.

  But, so far, Pullen was standing up well to the questioning. He admitted that he had walked past Martingale late on Saturday night. He was studying for an examination and liked to get some air before going to bed. He often went for a late walk. His mother could confirm that.

  He took the Venezuelan envelope found in Sally's room, pushed a pair of bent spectacles up on his forehead and peered short-sightedly at the scribbled dates.

  Quietly he admitted that the writing was his. The envelope had come from a pen friend in South America. He had used it to jot down the times when he could meet Sally Jupp. He couldn't remember when he had given it to her but the dates referred to their meetings last month.

  "She used to lock her door and then come down the stack-pipe to you, didn't she?" asked Dalgleish. "You needn't be afraid of breaking her confidence. We found her palm-marks on the pipe. What did you do when you had those meetings?"

  "We went for walks in the garden once or twice. Mostly we
sat in the old stable block opposite her room and talked." He must have fancied that he saw incredulity in Dalgleish's face for he flushed and said defensively:

  "We didn't make love if that's what you're thinking. I suppose all policeman have to cultivate dirty minds but she wasn't like that."

  "What was she like?" asked Dalgleish gently. "What did you talk about?"

  "Anything. Everything really. I think she was lonely for someone her own age.

  She wasn't happy when she was at St. Mary's but there were the other girls to have a laugh with. She was a wonderful mimic. I could almost hear Miss Liddell talking. She talked about her home too.

  Her parents were killed in the war.

  Everything would have been different for her if they had lived. Her father was a university don and she would have had a different kind of home from her aunt's.

  Cultured and… well, different."

  Dalgleish thought that Sally Jupp had been a young woman who enjoyed exercising imagination and in Derek Pullen she had at least found a credulous listener.

  But there was more in these meetings than Pullen was choosing to say. The girl had been using him for something. But for what?

  "You looked after her child for her, didn't you, when she went up to London on the Thursday before she died?"

  It was a complete shot in the dark but Pullen did not even seem surprised that he knew.

  "Yes, I did. I work in a local government office and I can take a day's leave now and then. Sally said that she wanted to go up to town and I didn't see why she shouldn't. I expect she wanted to see a flick or go shopping. Other mothers can."

  "It seems strange that Sally didn't leave her child at Martingale if she wanted to go up to London. Mrs. Bultitaft would probably have been willing to look after him occasionally. All this secrecy was surely rather unnecessary."