by P. D. James
“If she was she didn’t weep on my shoulder. But, then, mine is hardly the shoulder she would have chosen.”
“And you have no idea who killed her?”
“None.”
There was a pause; then Rickards asked: “Did you like her?”
“No.”
For a moment Rickards was nonplussed. It was a question which he frequently asked in murder investigations and usually to some effect. Few suspects would admit to disliking the victim without blundering into an attempt at explanation or justification. After a moment’s silence, during which it was obvious that Lessingham had no intention of amplifying his statement, he asked: “Why not, Mr. Lessingham?”
“There aren’t many people I actually like as opposed to tolerate, and she didn’t happen to be one of them. There was no particular reason. Does there have to be? You and your sergeant may not like each other, for all I know. It doesn’t mean that either of you is planning murder. And, talking about murder, which is why I assume I’m here, I have an alibi for Sunday night. Perhaps I had better give it to you now. I have a thirty-foot sailing boat berthed at Blakeney. I went out with her on the morning tide and stayed out until nearly ten at night. I have a witness to my departure, Ed Wilkinson, who berths his fishing smack next to my boat, but no witness to my return. There was enough wind in the morning to sail, and then I anchored, caught a couple of cod and some whiting and cooked them for lunch. I had food, wine, books and my radio. There was nothing else I needed. It may not be the most satisfactory of alibis, but it has the merit of simplicity and truth.”
Oliphant asked: “You had a dinghy with you?”
“I had my inflatable dinghy on the cabin roof. And, at the risk of exciting you, I have to say that I also carried my collapsible bicycle. But I didn’t put ashore either at Larksoken headland or anywhere else, not even for the purpose of murdering Hilary Robarts.”
Rickards asked: “Did you see Miss Robarts at any time during your trip? Were you in sight of the beach where she died?”
“I didn’t go that far south. And I saw no one, dead or alive.”
Oliphant asked: “Do you make a habit of sailing alone at the weekend?”
“I don’t make a habit of anything. I used to sail with a friend. Now I sail alone.”
Rickards asked him next about Blaney’s portrait of Miss Robarts. He admitted that he had seen it. George Jago, the publican of the Local Hero at Lydsett, had put it up for a week in the bar, apparently at Blaney’s request. He had no idea where Blaney normally kept it, and he had neither stolen it nor destroyed it. If anyone had, he thought it was probably Robarts herself.
Oliphant said: “And thrown it through her own window?”
Lessingham said: “You think she would have been more likely to slash it and chuck it through Blaney’s? I agree. But, whoever slashed it, it wasn’t Blaney.”
Oliphant asked: “How can you be so sure?”
“Because a creative artist, whether he’s a painter or a scientist, doesn’t destroy his best work.”
Oliphant said: “Miss Mair’s dinner party—you gave your fellow guests a description of the Whistler’s methods, including information we had specifically asked you not to divulge.”
Lessingham said coolly: “One could hardly arrive two hours late for a dinner party without some explanation, and mine was, after all, unusual. I thought they were entitled to a vicarious thrill. Apart from that, to keep silent would have needed more self-control than I was capable of at the time. Murdered and mutilated bodies are your trade, of course. Those of us who have chosen less exciting jobs tend to find them distressing. I knew I could trust my fellow guests not to talk to the press, and as far as I know none of them did. Anyway, why ask me what happened on the Thursday night? Adam Dalgliesh was a guest at the dinner party, so you have a more experienced and no doubt, from your point of view, a more reliable witness. I won’t say a police spy: that would be unfair.”
Rickards spoke for the first time in minutes. He said: “It would also be inaccurate and offensive.”
Lessingham turned on him with a cool, “Exactly. That’s why I haven’t used the word. And now, if you’ve no more questions, I have a power station to run.”
6
It was after midday before the interviews at the power station were completed and Rickards and Oliphant were ready to leave for Martyr’s Cottage. They left Gary Price to cope with the enquiry forms and arranged to pick him up after the interview with Alice Mair, which Rickards felt might be more fruitful with two officers rather than one. Alice Mair received them calmly at the door with no apparent sign either of anxiety or of curiosity, glanced perfunctorily at their identity cards and invited them in. They might, Rickards thought, have been technicians arriving later than expected to repair the television set. And they were, he saw, expected to interview her in the kitchen. At first it struck him as an odd choice but then, looking round, he supposed you could hardly call it a kitchen: more like an office, sitting room and kitchen combined. Its size surprised him and he found himself wondering irrelevantly whether she had knocked down a wall to provide such overgenerous working space. He wondered, too, what Susie would think of it and decided that she would find it unsettling. Susie liked her house to be clearly defined by function; the kitchen was for working, the dining room for eating, the lounge for watching television and the bedroom for sleeping and, once a week, for making love. He and Oliphant sat in two cushioned, high-backed wicker chairs on each side of the fireplace. His was extremely comfortable, gently containing his long limbs. Miss Mair took the chair at her desk and swivelled it round to face him.
“My brother, of course, gave me the news of the murder as soon as he got home last night. I can’t help you about Hilary Robarts’s death, I’m afraid. I was at home the whole of yesterday evening and saw and heard nothing. But I can tell you a little about her portrait. Would you and Sergeant Oliphant care for coffee?”
Rickards would have cared; he found himself unexpectedly thirsty; but he declined for both of them. The invitation had sounded perfunctory, and he hadn’t missed her quick glance towards the desktop stacked with orderly piles of printed pages and a typewritten manuscript. It looked as if they had interrupted her in the business of proofreading. Well, if she was busy, so was he. And he found himself irritated—unreasonably, he felt—by her self-possession. He hadn’t expected to find her in hysterics or under sedation for grief. The victim wasn’t her next-of-kin. But the woman had worked closely with Alex Mair, had been a guest at Martyr’s Cottage, had, according to Dalgliesh, dined there only four days ago. It was disconcerting to find that Alice Mair could sit quietly correcting proofs, a job which surely required concentrated attention. The killing of Robarts had taken considerable nerve. His suspicion of her was hardly serious; he didn’t really see this as a woman’s crime. But he let suspicion enter his mind like a barb and lodge there. A remarkable woman, he thought. Perhaps this interview was going to be more productive than he had expected.
He asked: “You keep house for your brother, Miss Mair?”
“No, I keep house for myself. My brother happens to live here when he is in Norfolk, which naturally is for most of the week. He could hardly administer Larksoken Power Station from his flat in London. If I’m at home and cook dinner, he usually shares it. I take the view that it would be unreasonable to demand that he make himself an omelette merely to affirm the principle of shared domestic responsibilities. But I don’t see what relevance my housekeeping arrangements have to Hilary Robarts’s murder. Could we, perhaps, get on to what happened last night?”
They were interrupted. There was a knock at the door and, without an apology, Alice Mair got up and went through to the hall. They heard a lighter, feminine voice, and a woman followed her into the kitchen. Miss Mair introduced her as Mrs. Dennison from the Old Rectory. She was a pretty, gentle-looking woman, conventionally dressed in a tweed skirt and twin set, and was obviously distressed. Rickards approved both of her appearance and of the
distress. This was how he expected a woman to look and behave after a particularly brutal murder. The two men had got up at her entrance, and she took Oliphant’s chair while he moved one for himself from the kitchen table.
She turned to Rickards impulsively: “I’m sorry, I’m interrupting, but I felt I had to get out of the house. This is appalling news, Inspector. Are you absolutely certain that it couldn’t have been the Whistler?”
Rickards said: “Not this time, madam.”
Alice Mair said: “The timing’s wrong. I told you that when I rang early this morning, Meg. The police wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t. It couldn’t have been the Whistler.”
“I know that’s what you said. But I couldn’t help hoping that there’d been a mistake, that he’d killed her and then himself, that Hilary Robarts was his last victim.”
Rickards said: “In a sense she was, Mrs. Dennison.”
Alice Mair said calmly: “I think it’s called a copycat murder. There’s more than one psychopath in the world, and that kind of madness can be infectious, apparently.”
“Of course, but how horrible! Having started, will he too go on, like the Whistler did, death after death, no one feeling safe?”
Rickards said: “I shouldn’t let that worry you, Mrs. Dennison.”
She turned to him almost fiercely. “But of course it worries me! It must worry us all. We’ve lived so long with the horror of the Whistler. It’s appalling to think that it’s started all over again.”
Alice Mair got up. “You need coffee, Meg. Chief Inspector Rickards and Sergeant Oliphant have declined, but I think we need it.”
Rickards wasn’t going to let her get away with that. He said firmly: “If you’re making it, Miss Mair, I think I’ll change my mind. I’d be glad of a coffee. You too no doubt, Sergeant.”
And now, he thought, there’ll be a further delay while she grinds beans and no one can talk above the noise. Why can’t she just pour boiling water on coffee grains like everyone else?
But the coffee, when it did come, was excellent, and he found it unexpectedly comforting. Mrs. Dennison took her mug in her hands and cradled it like a child at bedtime. Then she put it down on the hearth and turned to Rickards.
“Look, perhaps you’d rather I went. I’ll just have my coffee and then go back to the rectory. If you want to talk to me I’ll be there for the rest of the day.”
Miss Mair said: “You may as well stay and hear what happened last night. It has its points of interest.” She turned to Rickards. “As I told you, I was here the whole of the evening, from half past five. My brother left for the power station shortly after seven-thirty, and I settled down to work on my proofs. I switched on the answerphone to avoid interruptions.”
Rickards asked: “And you didn’t leave the cottage for any purpose during the whole of the evening?”
“Not until after half past nine, when I left for the Blaneys’. But perhaps I could tell the story in sequence, Chief Inspector. At about ten past eight I switched off the machine, thinking that there might be an important call for my brother. It was then I heard George Jago’s message that the Whistler was dead.”
“You didn’t ring anyone else to let them know?”
“I knew that wasn’t necessary. Jago runs his own information service. He’d make sure that everyone knew. I came back into the kitchen and worked on my proofs until about half past nine. Then I thought that I’d collect Hilary Robarts’s portrait from Ryan Blaney. I’d promised to drop it in at the gallery in Norwich on my way to London, and I wanted to make an early start next morning. I tend to be a little obsessive about time and didn’t want to go even a short distance out of my way. I rang Scudder’s Cottage to let him know that I was collecting the portrait, but the number was engaged. I tried several times and then got out the car and drove over. I must have been there within fifteen minutes. I’d written a note to him to slip through the door telling him that I’d taken the picture as arranged.”
“Wasn’t that a little unusual, Miss Mair? Why not knock at the cottage and collect it from him personally?”
“Because he had taken the trouble to tell me when I first saw it precisely where it was kept and where I could find the light switch to the left of the door. I took that as a reasonable indication that he didn’t expect, or indeed want, to be disturbed by a call at the cottage. Mr. Dalgliesh was with me at the time.”
“But that was odd, wasn’t it? He must have thought it was a good portrait. He wouldn’t wish to exhibit it otherwise. You’d think he’d want to hand it over personally.”
“Would you? It didn’t strike me that way. He’s an extremely private man, more so since the death of his wife. He doesn’t welcome visitors, particularly not women who might cast a critical eye on the tidiness of the cottage and the state of the children. I could understand that. I wouldn’t have welcomed it myself.”
“So you went straight to his painting shed? Where is that?”
“About thirty yards to the left of the cottage. It’s a small wooden shack. I imagine that it was originally a wash house or a smoking shed. I shone my torch on the path to the door, although that was hardly necessary. The moonlight was exceptionally bright. It was unlocked. And if you’re now about to say that that, too, was odd, you don’t understand life on the headland. We’re very remote here and we get into the habit of leaving doors unlocked. I don’t think it would ever occur to him to lock his painting shed. I switched on the light to the left of the door and saw that the picture wasn’t where I expected.”
“Could you describe exactly what happened. The details, please, as far as you can recall them.”
“We’re talking about yesterday night, Chief Inspector. It isn’t difficult to recall the details. I left the light on in the shed and knocked on the front door of the cottage. There were lights on, downstairs only, but the curtains were drawn. I had to wait for about a minute before he came. He half-opened the door but didn’t invite me in. I said, ‘Good evening, Ryan.’ He just nodded, but didn’t reply. There was a strong smell of whisky. Then I said, ‘I’ve come to collect the portrait, but it isn’t in the shed, or if it is I haven’t found it.’ Then he said, his speech rather slurred, ‘It’s to the left of the door, wrapped in cardboard and brown paper. A brown-paper parcel, Sellotaped.’ I said, ‘Not now.’ He didn’t reply but came out to me, leaving the door open. We went to the shed together.”
“Was he walking steadily?”
“He was very far from steady, but he could certainly keep on his feet. When I said he smelt of drink and his voice was slurred, I didn’t mean that he was totally incapable. But I got the impression that he had spent the evening in fairly continuous drinking. He stood in the doorway of the shed with me at his shoulder. He didn’t speak for about half a minute. Then all he said was ‘Yes, it’s gone.’”
“How did he sound?” As she didn’t reply he asked patiently, “Was he shocked? Angry? Surprised? Or too drunk to care?”
“I heard the question, Chief Inspector. Hadn’t you better ask him how he felt? I’m only competent to describe what he looked like, what he said and what he did.”
“What did he do?”
“He turned and beat his clenched hands against the lintel of the door. Then he rested his head against the wood for a minute. It seemed at the time a histrionic gesture, but I imagine that it was perfectly genuine.”
“And then?”
“I said to him, ‘Hadn’t we better telephone the police? We could do it from here if your telephone is working. I’ve been trying to get through to you, but it’s always engaged.’ He didn’t reply and I followed him back to the cottage. He didn’t invite me in, but I stood in the doorway. He went over to the recess under the stairs and then said: ‘The receiver isn’t properly on. That’s why you couldn’t get through.’ I said again, ‘Why not telephone the police now? The sooner the theft is reported the better.’ He turned to me and just said, ‘Tomorrow. Tomorrow.’ Then he went back to his chair. I persisted. I said,
‘Shall I ring, Ryan, or will you? This really is important.’ He said, ‘I will. Tomorrow. Good night.’ That seemed a clear indication to me that he wanted to be alone, so I left.”
“And during this visit you saw no one other than Mr. Blaney. The children weren’t up, for example?”
“I took it the children were in bed. I neither saw nor heard them.”
“And you didn’t discuss the Whistler’s death?”
“I assumed George Jago had telephoned Mr. Blaney, probably before he rang me. And what was there to discuss? Neither Ryan nor I was in a mood for doorstep chatting.”
But it was, thought Rickards, a curious reticence on both their parts. Had she been so anxious to get away and he to see her go? Or, for one of them, had an event more traumatic than a missing portrait driven even the Whistler temporarily out of mind?
There was a vital question Rickards needed to ask. The implications were obvious and she was far too intelligent a woman not to see them.
“Miss Mair, from what you saw of Mr. Blaney that night, do you think he could have driven a car?”
“Impossible. And he hadn’t a car to drive. He has a small van, but it has just failed its MOT.”
“Or ridden a bicycle?”
“I suppose he could have tried, but he’d have been in a ditch within minutes.”
Rickards’s mind was already busy with calculations. He wouldn’t get the results of the autopsy until Wednesday, but if Hilary Robarts had taken her swim, as was her custom, immediately after the headlines to the main news, which on Sundays was at nine-ten, then she must have died at about half past nine. At 9.45 or a little later, according to Alice Mair, Ryan Blaney was in his cottage and drunk. By no stretch of the imagination could he have committed a singularly ingenious murder, requiring a steady hand, nerves and the capacity to plan, and been back in his cottage by 9.45. If Alice Mair was telling the truth, she had given Blaney an alibi. He, on the other hand, would certainly be unable to give one to her.