Devices and Desires

by P. D. James

  8

  On Thursday morning Dalgliesh drove to Lydsett to shop at the village store. His aunt had shopped locally for most of her main provisions and he continued the practice, partly, he knew, to assuage a nagging guilt about having a second home, however temporary. The villagers did not on the whole resent weekenders, despite the fact that their cottages remained empty for most of the year and their contribution to village life was minimal, but preferred them not to arrive with their car boots loaded with provisions from Harrods or Fortnum and Mason.

  And patronizing the Brysons in their corner shop entailed no particular sacrifice. It was an unpretentious village store with a clanging bell on the door which, as the sepia photographs of the Victorian village showed, had hardly altered externally in the last 120 years. Inside, however, the last four years had seen more changes than in the whole of its history. Whether because of the growth of holiday homes or the more sophisticated tastes of the villagers, it now offered fresh pasta, a variety of French as well as English cheeses, the more expensive brands of jams, marmalade and mustard and a well-stocked delicatessen, while a notice proclaimed that fresh croissants were delivered daily.

  As he drew up in the side street, Dalgliesh had to manoeuvre past an old and heavily built bicycle with a large wicker basket which was propped against the kerb, and as he entered he saw that Ryan Blaney was just completing his purchases. Mrs. Bryson was ringing up and bagging three large brown loaves, packets of sugar, cartons of milk and an assortment of tins. Blaney gave Dalgliesh a glance from his bloodshot eyes, a curt nod, and was gone. He was still without his van, thought Dalgliesh, watching him load his basket with the contents of one carrier and hang the other two on the handlebars. Mrs. Bryson turned on Dalgliesh her welcoming smile but did not comment. She was too prudent a shopkeeper to get a reputation as a gossip or to become too openly involved in local controversies, but it seemed to Dalgliesh that the air was heavy with her unspoken sympathy for Blaney, and, as a policeman, he felt obscurely that she held him partly responsible, although he was unsure precisely why and for what. Rickards or his men must have questioned the villagers about the headlanders, Ryan Blaney in particular. Perhaps they had been less than tactful.

  Five minutes later he stopped to open the gate barring entry to the headland. On the other side a tramp was sitting on the bank which separated the narrow road from the reed-enclosed dike. He was bearded and wearing a checked tweed cap beneath which two neat plaits of strong grey hair bound with a rubber band fell almost to his shoulders. He was eating an apple, slicing it with a short-handled knife and throwing the sections into his mouth. His long legs, clad in thick corduroy trousers, were stretched out widely in front of him, almost as if he were deliberately displaying a pair of black, white and grey trainers, their obvious newness in stark contrast to the rest of his clothes. Dalgliesh closed the gate, then walked over to him and looked down into a pair of bright and intelligent eyes set in a drawn and weatherbeaten face. If this was a tramp, the keenness of that first glance, his air of confident self-sufficiency and the cleanliness of his white rather delicate hands made him an unusual one. But he was surely too encumbered to be a casual hiker. His khaki coat looked like army surplus and was bound with a wide leather belt from which was suspended by string an enamel mug, a small saucepan and a frying pan. A small but tightly packed backpack lay on the verge beside him.

  Dalgliesh said: “Good morning. I’m sorry if I seem impertinent, but where did you get those shoes?”

  The voice that answered him was educated, a little pedantic, a voice, he thought, that might have once belonged to a schoolmaster.

  “You are not, I hope, about to claim ownership. I shall regret it if our acquaintanceship, although no doubt destined to be brief, should begin with a dispute about property.”

  “No, they’re not mine. I was wondering how long they’ve been yours.”

  The man finished his apple. He threw the core over his shoulder into the ditch, cleaned the blade of his clasp-knife on the grass and pushed it with care deep into his pocket. He said: “May I ask if this enquiry arrives from—forgive me—an inordinate and reprehensible curiosity, an unnatural suspicion of a fellow mortal or a desire to purchase a similar pair for yourself. If the last, I am afraid I am unable to help you.”

  “None of these things. But the enquiry is important. I’m not being either presumptuous or suspicious.”

  “Nor, sir, are you being particularly candid or explicit. My name, incidentally, is Jonah.”

  “Mine is Adam Dalgliesh.”

  “Then, Adam Dalgliesh, give me one good reason why I should answer your question and you shall have an answer.”

  Dalgliesh paused for a moment. There was, he supposed, a theoretical possibility that here before him was the murderer of Hilary Robarts, but he did not for a moment believe it. Rickards had telephoned him the previous evening to inform him that the Bumbles were no longer in the jumble chest, obviously feeling that he owed Dalgliesh this brief report. But that did not mean that the tramp had taken them, nor did it prove that the two pairs were the same. He said: “On Sunday night a girl was strangled here on the beach. If you recently found, or were given, those shoes, or were wearing them on the headland last Sunday, the police will need to know. They have found a distinct footprint. It is important to identify it if only to eliminate the wearer from their enquiries.”

  “Well, that at least is explicit. You talk like a policeman. I should be sorry to hear that you are one.”

  “This isn’t my case. But I am a policeman, and I know that the local CID are looking for a pair of Bumble trainers.”

  “And these, I take it, are Bumble trainers. I had thought of them as shoes.”

  “They don’t have a label except under the tongue. That’s the firm’s sales gimmick. Bumbles are supposed to be recognizable without a blatant display of the name. But if these are Bumbles, there will be a yellow bee on each heel.”

  Jonah didn’t reply, but with a sudden vigorous movement swung both feet into the air, held them for a couple of seconds, then dropped them again.

  Neither spoke for a few moments; then Jonah said: “You are telling me that I now have on my feet the shoes of a murderer?”

  “Possibly, but only possibly, these are the shoes he was wearing when the girl was killed. You see their importance?”

  “I shall no doubt be made to see it, by you or another of your kind.”

  “Have you heard of the Norfolk Whistler?”

  “Is it a bird?”

  “A mass murderer.”

  “And these shoes are his?”

  “He’s dead. This latest killing was made to look as if he were responsible. Are you telling me you haven’t even heard of him?”

  “I sometimes see a newspaper when I need paper for other, more earthy purposes. There are plenty to pick up from the waste bins. I seldom read them. They reinforce my conviction that the world is not for me. I seem to have missed your murdering Whistler.” He paused, then added: “What now am I expected to do? I take it that I am in your hands.”

  Dalgliesh said: “As I said, it isn’t my case. I’m from the Metropolitan Police. But if you wouldn’t mind coming home with me, I could telephone the officer in charge. It isn’t far. I live in Larksoken Mill, on the headland. And if you care to exchange these trainers for a pair of my shoes, it seems the least I can offer. We’re about the same height. There should be a pair to fit you.”

  Jonah got to his feet with surprising agility. As they walked to the car Dalgliesh said: “I’ve really no right to question you, but satisfy my curiosity. How did you come by them?”

  “They were bestowed on me—inadvertently, I might say—sometime on Sunday night. I had arrived on the headland after dark and made my way to my usual night shelter in these parts. It’s the half-buried concrete bunker near the cliff. A ‘pillbox,’ I think it’s called. I expect you know it.”

  “I know it. Not a particularly salubrious place to spend the night, I shou
ld have thought.”

  “I have known better, certainly. But it has the advantage of privacy. The headland is off the usual route for fellow wayfarers. I usually visit once a year and stay for a day or two. The pillbox is completely weatherproof, and as the slit window faces the sea I can light a small fire without fear of discovery. I push the rubbish to one side and ignore it. It is a policy I would recommend to you.”

  “Did you go straight there?”

  “No. As is my custom, I called at the Old Rectory. The elderly couple who live there are usually very obliging in allowing me to use their tap. I wanted to fill up my water bottle. As it happens, there was no one at home. There were lights on in the lower windows, but no one responded to the bell.”

  “What time would this be, do you remember?”

  “I have no watch and I take little account of time between sunset and sunrise. But I did notice that St. Andrew’s Church clock in the village showed eight-thirty as I passed. I was probably at the Old Rectory by nine-fifteen, or shortly afterwards.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I knew that there was an outside tap close to the garage. I took the liberty of filling my bottle without permission. They would hardly, I think, begrudge me clean water.”

  “Did you see a car?”

  “There was one standing in the drive. The garage was open but, as I have said, I saw no human beings. I then went straight to the shelter. I was by then exceedingly tired. I drank some of the water, ate a crust of bread and some cheese and fell asleep. The shoes were thrown in through the door of the bunker sometime during the night.”

  Dalgliesh said: “Thrown in rather than placed?”

  “I imagine so. Anyone who actually entered the bunker must have seen me. It is surely more likely that they were thrown in. There is a wayside pulpit at a church in Ipswich. Last week it said: ‘God gives every bird his worm, but He does not throw it into the nest.’ On this occasion, apparently, He did.”

  “And they hit you without waking you? They’re heavy shoes.”

  “As I have said, you talk like a policeman. I had walked twenty miles on the Sunday. I have an easy conscience and I sleep sound. If they had fallen on my face, I have no doubt they would have wakened me. As it was, I found them next morning when I woke up.”

  “Neatly placed?”

  “Not at all. What happened was that I woke and turned over from my left side onto my back. I felt something hard beneath me and lit a match. The lump was one of the shoes. The other I found near my foot.”

  “They weren’t tied together?”

  “Had they been tied, my dear sir, it would hardly have been possible for me to find one near the small of my back and the other at my feet.”

  “And you weren’t curious? After all, the trainers were practically new, hardly the kind of shoe anyone would chuck away.”

  “Naturally I was curious. But, unlike members of your profession, I am not obsessed by the need to find explanations. It did not occur to me that I had a responsibility to find the owner or take the shoes into the nearest police station. I doubt whether they would have thanked me for my trouble. I took gratefully what fate or God had provided. My old shoes were nearing the end of their usefulness. You will find them in the pillbox.”

  “And you put on these.”

  “Not immediately. They were too damp. I waited until they were dry.”

  “Damp in parts or all over?”

  “Damp all over. Someone had washed them very thoroughly, probably by holding them under a tap.”

  “Or by walking into the sea.”

  “I smelt them. It was not sea water.”

  “Could you tell?”

  “My dear sir, I have the use of my senses. My nose is particularly keen. I can tell the difference between sea and tap water. I can tell you what county I’m in by the smell of the earth.”

  They had turned left at the crossroads, and the soaring white sails of the mill were in sight. They sat in companionable silence for a few moments.

  Then Jonah said: “You have, perhaps, a right to know what manner of man you are inviting under your roof. I am, sir, a modern remittance man. I know that originally my kind were banished to the colonies, but they are a little more discriminating now and, in any case, banishment from the smells and colours of the English countryside would not have suited me. My brother, a model of civil rectitude and a prominent member of his community, transfers a thousand pounds per annum from his bank account into mine, providing I never embarrass him by intruding on his presence. The interdict, I may say, extends to the town of which he is mayor, but since he and his fellow planners have long destroyed whatever character it once possessed, I have deleted it from my itinerary without regret. He is indefatigable in good works, and you could say that I am among the recipients of his charity. He has been honoured by Her Majesty. An OBE merely, but he has, I am sure, hope of higher things.”

  Dalgliesh said: “Your brother seems to be getting off rather lightly.”

  “You yourself would willingly pay more to ensure my perpetual absence?”

  “Not at all. It’s just that I assume that the thousand pounds is to enable you to keep yourself, and I was wondering how you managed to do it. One thousand pounds as an annual bribe could be considered generous; as a living allowance it’s surely inadequate.”

  “To do him justice, my brother would willingly make an annual increase in line with the Retail Price Index. He has an almost obsessive sense of bureaucratic propriety. But I have told him that twenty pounds a week is more than adequate. I have no house, no rent, no rates, no heating, no lighting, no telephone, no car. I pollute neither my own body nor the environment. A man who cannot feed himself on nearly three pounds a day must either be lacking in initiative or be the slave of inordinate desires. An Indian peasant would regard it as luxury.”

  “An Indian peasant would have less problem in keeping warm. The winters must be trying.”

  “A hard winter is, indeed, a discipline in endurance. Not that I complain. I am always healthiest in winter. And matches are cheap. I have never learned those Boy Scout tricks with a magnifying glass and rubbed sticks. Happily I know half a dozen farmers who are willing to let me sleep in their barns. They know that I don’t smoke, that I am tidy, that I shall be gone by the morning. But one should never tres-pass on kindness. Human kindness is like a defective tap: the first gush may be impressive, but the stream soon dries up. I have my annual routine and that, too, reassures them. In a farmhouse twenty miles north of here they will be saying soon, ‘Isn’t this the time of year that Jonah drops in?’ They greet me with relief rather than tolerance. If I am still alive, then so are they. And I never beg. An offer to pay is far more efficacious. ‘Could you sell me a couple of eggs and half a pint of milk,’ spoken at the farm door—provided the cash is proffered—will usually produce six eggs and a full pint. Not necessarily of the freshest, but one must not expect too much of human generosity.”

  Dalgliesh said: “What about books?”

  “Ah, there, sir, you have hit on a difficulty. Classics I can read in public libraries, although it is sometimes a little irritating to have to break off when it is time to move on. Otherwise I depend on second-hand paperbacks from market stalls. One or two stallholders allow you to exchange the book or get your money back at the second visit. It is a remarkably cheap form of public lending library. As for clothes, there are jumble sales, Oxfam and those useful shops that deal in army surplus. I save from my allowance for a new ex-army winter coat every three years.”

  Dalgliesh said: “How long have you been living this life?”

  “Nearly twenty years now, sir. Most tramps are pitiful, because they are the slaves of their own passions, usually drink. A man who is free of all human desires except to eat, sleep and walk is truly free.”

  Dalgliesh said: “Not entirely. You have a bank account, apparently, and you rely on that thousand pounds.”

  “True. You think I would be freer if I didn’t
take it?”

  “More independent, perhaps. You might have to work.”

  “I cannot work; to beg I am ashamed. Luckily the Lord has tempered the wind to His shorn lamb. I should be sorry to do my brother out of the satisfaction of his benevolence. True, I have a bank account to receive my annual subsidy, and to that extent I conform. But since my income depends on my separation from my brother, it would hardly be possible to receive the money personally, and my cheque book and accompanying plastic card have a most gratifying effect on the police when, as occasionally happens, they take a presumptuous interest in my doings. I had no idea that a plastic card was such a guarantee of respectability.”

  Dalgliesh asked: “No luxuries? No other needs? Drink? Women?”

  “If by women you mean sex, then the answer is no. I am escaping, sir, from drink and sex.”

  “Then you are on the run from something. I could argue that a man on the run is never entirely free.”

  “And I could ask you, sir, from what you are escaping on this isolated headland. If from the violence of your job, you have been singularly unlucky.”

  “And now that same violence has touched your life. I’m sorry.”

  “You needn’t be. A man who lives with nature is used to violence and is companionable with death. There is more violence in an English hedgerow than in the meanest streets of a great city.”

  When they reached the mill Dalgliesh telephoned Rickards. He wasn’t at the incident room, but Oliphant was and said that he would immediately drive over. Then Dalgliesh took Jonah upstairs to look over the half-dozen pairs of shoes he had with him at the mill. There was no problem over fit, but Jonah tried them all on and examined each shoe minutely before making his choice. Dalgliesh was tempted to say that a life of simplicity and self-abnegation hadn’t spoilt his guest’s eye for good leather. With some regret he saw his favourite and most expensive pair chosen.