by P. D. James
Sometimes he thought: We can’t be as ordinary, as dull as we seem, and wondered if it were some defect in himself which diminished them all so that he invested them with his own inadequacy, his own pessimism. Sometimes, too, he would take from the bureau drawer the family photograph album, which seemed to document their ordinariness: his parents stiffly posed against the rail of Cromer Promenade and at Whipsnade Zoo, himself ridiculous in cap and gown at his degree ceremony. Only one held any real interest for him, the sepia studio photograph of his great-grandfather in the First World War, perched sideways on an artificial wall with, beside him, a huge aspidistra in a Benares jar. He would gaze intensely across seventy-four years at that gentle-faced, vulnerable boy who looked, in the ill-fitting, high-buttoned serge and the grotesquely overlarge cap, more like an orphaned poor-law child than a soldier. He must have been under twenty when it was taken. And he had survived Passchendaele, the Ypres Salient, and had been discharged wounded and gassed early in 1918 with strength enough at least to father a son, but of little else. That life, he told himself, could not have been ordinary. His great-grandfather had survived four years of horror with courage, endurance and a stoical acceptance of what his God or luck had dealt him. But if not ordinary, the life seemed now of absolutely no importance to anyone. It had preserved a family, that was all. And how much did that matter? But now it struck him that his father’s life had held a not-dissimilar stoicism. You couldn’t, perhaps, equate fifty years with Hobbs and Wainwright with four years in France, but both had required that same dignified and stoical acceptance. He wished that he could talk to his father about his great-grandfather, about his father’s early life. But it never seemed possible, and he knew that what held him back was less an inhibiting shyness than the fear that, even if he broke through this strange barrier of reticence and inarticulateness, there would be nothing there. And yet it surely hadn’t always been like that. He remembered the Christmas of 1968, when his father had bought him his first science book, The Wonder Book of Science for Children. On Christmas morning they had sat for hours together, slowly turning the pages while his father first read and then explained. He still had the book. He still occasionally looked at the diagrams. “How television works,” “What happens when we are X-rayed,” “Newton and the apple,” “The marvel of modern ships.” And his father had said, “I would have liked to have been a scientist if things had been different.” It was the only time in his life that his father had given any indication that there could have been for him, for them, a fuller, a different life. But things had not been different, and now he knew that they never would be. He thought, “We need, all of us, to be in control of our lives, and we shrink them until they’re small and mean enough so that we can feel in control.”
Only once had the routine of their predictable days been interrupted by an event which was unexpected, dramatic. Shortly after his sixteenth birthday his father had taken the family Morris and had disappeared. Three days later he was found, sitting in the car on the top of Beachy Head, looking out to sea. It had been called a nervous breakdown due to overwork, and Mr. Wainwright had given him two weeks’ holiday. His father had never explained what had happened, colluding in the official view that it had been a temporary amnesia. Neither of his parents had ever referred to it again.
Their flat was on the fourth and top floor of a rectangular modern block. The sitting room at the front had a glass door giving onto a narrow balcony sufficient to hold two chairs. The kitchen was small but had a flap which could be lifted to provide a table just large enough for the three of them to eat at it. There were only two bedrooms, his parents’ at the front and his own, much smaller, giving a view of the car-park, the row of breeze-block garages and the town. The sitting room had a wall-mounted gas fire to augment the background central heating and, after they had moved in, his parents had surrounded this with a false mantelshelf on which his mother could display the small treasures brought from the Clapham home. He remembered the morning when they had viewed the flat, his mother stepping out onto the balcony and saying, “Look, Father, it’s just like being on the deck of a liner,” and turning almost with animation, as if remembering that store of old movie magazines she kept, the pictures of befurred film stars on the gangplanks, the ship festooned with streamers and flags, hearing in imagination the hoots of the pilot boat, the band playing on the quay. And indeed his parents had, from the start, seen the flat as a glamorous change from their small, terraced house. In summer they would move the two easy chairs so that they faced the window and the sea. In winter they reversed them and huddled round the gas fire. But neither the winter gales, nor the uncomfortable heat when summer beat on the glass, ever drew from either of them a word of regret for the old life.
They had sold their car when his father retired, and the single-car garage was used to house Jonathan’s second-hand Ford Fiesta. He garaged it and swung back the door. Locking it, he thought how very private the flats were. Nearly all of them were occupied by retired couples whose routine seemed to be to walk during the morning, meet their friends for afternoon tea and be home before 7.00. By the time he returned from work, the block was quiet and the rear curtains drawn. He wondered if Caroline had guessed or had known just how private his comings and goings could be. Outside the flat he hesitated for a moment, key in hand, wishing he could postpone the moment of meeting. But any longer wait would seem unnatural: they must have been listening for the lift.
His mother almost ran towards him.
“It’s terrible, isn’t it. That poor girl. Dad and I heard it on the local radio. But at least they found the Whistler. That’s one worry over. He’ll not go on killing again after her.”
He said: “They think that he died before Miss Robarts did, so that it may not have been the Whistler.”
“But of course it was the Whistler. She died in the same way, didn’t she? Who else would it be?”
“That’s what the police are trying to find out. They’ve been at the station all morning. They didn’t get round to seeing me until nearly twelve.”
“What did they want to see you for? They can’t think you had anything to do with it?”
“Of course not, Mother. They’re interviewing everyone, everyone who knew her, that is. Anyway, I have an alibi.”
“An alibi? What alibi? Why would you want an alibi?”
“I don’t want one, but as it happens I have one. I went to supper last night with a girl from the station.”
Immediately her face brightened, pleasure at the news momentarily eclipsing the horror of the murder. She said: “Who invited you, then, Jonathan?”
“A girl at the station. I told you.”
“Well, I know it’s a girl. What kind of girl? Why don’t you bring her home? You know that this is your home just as much as it is Dad’s and mine. You can always bring your friends here. Why not ask her to tea next Saturday or Sunday? I’d have everything very nice, your granny’s best tea-service, I wouldn’t let you down.”
Torn with a dreadful pity, he said: “Perhaps I will one day, Mum. It’s a bit early yet.”
“I don’t see how it can be too early to meet your friends. It’s as well you were with her if they’re looking for alibis. What time did you get home, then?”
“About quarter to eleven.”
“Well, that’s not so very late. You look tired. It must have been a shock for everyone at Larksoken, a girl you knew, Administrative Officer, too, so it said on the radio.”
Jonathan said: “Yes, it has been a shock. I suppose that’s why I don’t feel very hungry. I’d like to wait a little bit before supper.”
“It’s all ready, Jonathan. Lamb chops. They’re half-cooked already. I’ve only got to slip them under the grill. And the vegetables are cooked. It’s only going to spoil.”
“All right, I won’t be more than five minutes.”
He hung his jacket in the hall, then went into his own room and lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. The thought of food nauseated hi
m, but he had said five minutes and if he lay there much longer she would be knocking at the door. She always knocked, but very gently, two distinct, discreet taps, like an assignation. What, he wondered, did she fear she might find him doing if she came in unannounced? He made himself sit up and swung his legs over the side of the bed but was immediately seized by nausea and weakness, which made him fear for a moment that he was actually going to faint. But he recognized it for what it was: a mixture of tiredness, fear and sheer misery.
And yet so far it hadn’t been too bad. There had been three of them, Chief Inspector Rickards; a thickset, serious-faced young man who had been introduced as Detective Sergeant Oliphant; and a younger man in the corner apparently taking notes whom no one had bothered to introduce. The small interviewing room attached to the Medical Physics Department had been set aside for them, and they had been sitting side-by-side at a small table, both in plain clothes. The room, as always, smelt faintly of disinfectant. He had never understood why, since no clinical procedures were carried out there. Two white coats still hung behind the door, and someone had left a tray of test tubes on top of the filing cabinet, adding to the air of inadvertence and amateurism. It had all been very low-key, very matter-of-fact. He felt that he was being processed, one of the dozens who had known her or claimed to have known her and who had passed through this or a similar door to answer the same questions. Almost he expected them to ask him to roll up his sleeve and to feel the prick of a needle. He knew that the probing, if there was to be probing, would come later. But he had been surprised at his own initial lack of fear. He had somehow assumed that the police were endowed with an almost supernatural power to sniff out lying, that he would walk into that room bearing an all-too-visible load of guilt, prevarication and conspiracy to defeat the ends of justice.
At their request, he gave his name and address. The sergeant wrote it down. Then he said almost wearily: “If you could tell us, please, where you were yesterday between six and ten-thirty.”
He remembered thinking, “Why six and ten-thirty?” She had been found on the beach. She liked to swim most nights just after the nine o’clock news; everyone knew that—at least, everyone who knew her. And the news on Sunday was at 9.10. And then he remembered that they would know exactly when she had been found. There wouldn’t have been time yet for the autopsy report. Perhaps they were still uncertain about the time of death, or were playing it safe. Six to 10.30. But 9.00 or shortly after was surely the relevant time. He was surprised that he could work it out so clearly.
He said: “I was at home with my parents until after dinner—after the one o’clock meal, I mean. Then I drove over to spend the evening with my girlfriend, Miss Caroline Amphlett. I was with her until just after ten-thirty. She lives in a bungalow outside Holt. She’s PA to the Director, Dr. Mair.”
“We know where she lives, sir. And we know who she is. Did anyone see you arrive or leave?”
“I don’t think so. The bungalow is very isolated, and there weren’t many cars on the road. I think someone in the flats may have seen me leave.”
“And you spent the evening doing what?”
The officer in the corner wasn’t writing now, only looking, but he didn’t seem curious, not even interested, just slightly bored.
“Caroline cooked supper and I helped. She had some homemade soup already made and heated that. We had mushroom omelettes, fruit, cheese, wine. After dinner we chatted. Then we went to bed and made love.”
“I don’t think we need go into the more intimate parts of the evening, sir. How long have you and Miss Amphlett been friends?”
“About three months.”
“And when was this evening together planned?”
“A few days before. I can’t remember exactly when.”
“And when did you get home, sir?”
“Just after ten-forty-five.” He added, “I’ve no witnesses to that, I’m afraid. My parents were away for the night, visiting my married sister at Ipswich.”
“Did you know they would be away when you and Miss Amphlett planned your evening together?”
“Yes. They always visit my sister on the last Sunday of the month. But it wouldn’t have made any difference. I mean, I’m twenty-eight. I live with them but I don’t have to give them an account of my movements.”
The sergeant looked at him and said: “Free, white and twenty-eight,” as if he were noting it down. Jonathan had blushed and thought, “That was a mistake. Don’t try to be clever, don’t explain, just answer their questions.”
The Chief Inspector said: “Thank you, sir, that will be all for now.”
As he reached the door he heard Rickards’s voice.
“She wasn’t very nice to you, was she, Miss Robarts, about that local radio programme you took part in, My Religion and My Job? Did you hear it, Sergeant?”
The sergeant said stolidly: “No, sir, I didn’t hear it. Can’t think how I came to miss it. Very fascinating, I’m sure.”
He turned and faced them. He said: “She wasn’t very kind about it. I’m a Christian. You don’t expect it always to be easy.”
Rickards said: “‘Blessed are ye when men revile and persecute you for the gospel’s sake.’ A bit of persecution, was there? Oh well, things could be worse. At least you don’t get thrown to the lions any more.”
The sergeant seemed to think that it was very funny.
He wondered, for the first time, how they could have known about Hilary’s mild persecution of him over the programme. For some reason his brief, rather pathetic notoriety, his affirmation of faith had outraged her. Someone at the station must have mentioned it to the police. After all, they had interviewed plenty of people before they got round to him.
But surely it was over now. He had given the police his alibi, his and hers, and there was no reason why they should be questioned again. He must put the whole thing out of his mind. But he knew that this wouldn’t be possible. And now, remembering Caroline’s story, he was struck with its inconsistencies. Why had she chosen to park the car on an isolated part of the road, down a cart-track under the trees? Why had she chosen to drive with Remus to the headland when there were plenty of walks nearer home? He could have understood it if she had wanted to let the dog run on the beach and splash into the sea, but according to her they hadn’t gone down to the beach. And what proof was there that she hadn’t reached the cliffs until ten o’clock, half an hour after Hilary Robarts was thought to have died?
Then there was that story about her mother. He found that he just didn’t believe it, hadn’t believed it when she had first told him, and he believed it even less now. But that, surely, was something he might be able to check. There were private detectives, firms in London who could carry out this kind of enquiry. The thought both appalled and excited him. The idea that he might actually get in touch with those kind of people, might pay them money to spy on her, astounded him by its audacity. It wasn’t something she would expect him to do, that anyone would expect him to do; but why shouldn’t he? He had enough money to pay. There was nothing shameful in the enquiry. But first he must find out her date of birth. That shouldn’t be difficult. He knew Shirley Coles, the junior clerk in the Establishment Division. Sometimes he even thought that she liked him. She wouldn’t let him see Caroline’s personnel file, but she might be willing to look up a harmless piece of information. He could say that he wanted to give Caroline a birthday present and had a feeling that the date was getting close. Then, with her name and date of birth, surely her parents could be traced. It should be possible to know whether her mother was alive, where she was living, her financial circumstances. There would be a copy of the London Yellow Pages in the library where private-detective firms would be listed. He didn’t want to do it by letter, but he could telephone with a preliminary enquiry. If necessary he could take a day’s leave and go up to London. He thought: I’ve got to know. If this is a lie, then everything is a lie: the walk on the cliffs, everything she said to me, even her love.
He heard the two knocks on the door. To his horror he found that he was crying, not noisily but with a silent welling-forth of tears which no effort could control. He called out, “I’m coming. I’m coming.” Then he went over to the washbasin and began bathing his face. Looking up, he saw himself in the mirror. It seemed to him that fear and tiredness and a sickness of spirit which lay too deep for healing had stripped away all his pathetic pretences, that the face which had at least been ordinary, familiar, had become as disgusting to him as it must be to her. He stared at his image and saw it through her eyes: the dull brown hair with the clinging specks of scurf which daily shampooing seemed only to exacerbate; the eyes red-rimmed, a little too close together; the damp, pale forehead on which the acne pustules stood out like the stigmata of sexual shame. He thought: She doesn’t love me and she never has loved me. She chose me for two reasons: because she knew I loved her and because she thought I was too stupid to discover the truth. But I’m not stupid and I shall discover it. And he would begin with the smallest lie, the one about her mother. And what of his own lies, the lie to his parents, the false alibi to the police? And that greatest lie of all. “I’m a Christian. You don’t expect it always to be easy.” He wasn’t a Christian any more and perhaps he never had been. His conversion had been no more than the need to be accepted, taken seriously, befriended by that little coterie of earnest proselytizers who had at least valued him for himself. But it wasn’t true. None of it was true. In one day he had learned that the two most important things in his life, his religion and his love, were delusions.
The two knocks on the door were more insistent this time. His mother called: “Jonathan, are you all right? The chops are getting overcooked.”
“It’s all right, Mother. I’m coming.”