by P. D. James
“Nor do I believe it. Do you suppose the police will try to pin it on them?”
Alice’s voice was cool. “I shouldn’t think so. Isn’t that rather a dramatic idea? And why should they? Chief Inspector Rickards strikes me as an honest and conscientious officer, if not particularly intelligent.”
“Well, it’s convenient for them, isn’t it? Two suspects dead. The case closed. No more deaths.”
“Were they suspects? You seem to be more in Rickards’s confidence than I am.”
“They didn’t have alibis. The man at Larksoken Caroline was supposed to be engaged to—Jonathan Reeves, isn’t it?—apparently he’s confessed that they weren’t together that night. Caroline forced him to lie. Most of the staff at Larksoken know that now. And it’s all over the village, of course. George Jago rang to tell me.”
“So they didn’t have alibis. Nor did other people—you, for example. Not having an alibi isn’t proof of guilt. Nor did I, incidentally. I was at home all that evening, but I doubt whether I could prove it.”
And this at last was the moment which had filled Meg’s thoughts since the murder, the moment of truth which she had dreaded. She said through dry unyielding lips: “But you weren’t at home, were you? You told Chief Inspector Rickards that you were when I was here sitting in this kitchen on the Monday morning, but it wasn’t true.”
There was a moment’s silence. Then Alice said calmly: “Is that what you’ve come to say?”
“I know that it can be explained. It’s ridiculous even to ask. It’s just that I’ve had it on my mind for so long. And you are my friend. A friend should be able to ask. There should be honesty, confidence, trust.”
“Ask what? Do you have to talk like a marriage guidance counsellor?”
“Ask why you told the police you were here at nine o’clock. You weren’t. I was. After the Copleys left, I had a sudden need to see you. I tried to telephone but got only the answerphone. I didn’t leave a message; there was no point. I walked down. The cottage was empty. The light was on in the sitting room and the kitchen, and the door was locked. I called out for you. The record player was on, very loud. The cottage was filled with triumphant music. But there was no one here.”
Alice sat in silence for a moment. Then she said calmly: “I went for a walk to enjoy the moonlight. I didn’t expect a casual caller. There are never casual callers except you, and I thought that you were in Norwich. But I took the obvious precaution against an intruder, I locked the door. How did you get in?”
“With your key. You can’t have forgotten, Alice. You gave me a key a year ago. I’ve had it ever since.”
Alice looked at her, and Meg saw in her face the dawning of memory, chagrin, even, before she turned briefly away, the beginning of a rueful smile. She said: “But I had forgotten; completely. How extraordinary! It might not have worried me, even if I had remembered. After all, I thought you were in Norwich. But I didn’t remember. We’ve got so many keys to the cottage, some here, some in London. But you never reminded me that you had one.”
“I did once, early on, and you told me to keep it. Like a fool I thought that the key meant something: trust, friendship, a sign that Martyr’s Cottage was always open to me. You told me that I might one day need to use it.”
And now Alice did laugh aloud. She said: “And you did need to use it. How ironic. But it isn’t like you to come in uninvited, not while I wasn’t here. You never have before.”
“But I didn’t know you weren’t here. The lights were on and I rang and I could hear the music. When I rang the third time and you still didn’t come, I was afraid that you might be ill, unable to summon help. So I unlocked the door. I walked into a surge of wonderful sound. I recognized it, Mozart’s Symphony in G minor. It was Martin’s favourite. What an extraordinary tape to choose.”
“I didn’t choose it. I just turned on the player. What do you think I should have chosen? A requiem mass to mark the passing of a soul I don’t believe in?”
Meg went on as if she hadn’t heard: “I walked through to the kitchen. The light was on here too. It was the first time I’d been in this room on my own. And suddenly I felt like a stranger. I felt that nothing in it had anything to do with me. I felt that I had no right here. That’s why I went away without leaving you any message.”
Alice said sadly: “You were quite right. You had no right here. And you needed to see me so badly that you walked alone over the headland before you knew that the Whistler was dead?”
“I didn’t walk in fear. The headland is so deserted. There’s nowhere anyone can lurk, and I knew when I reached Martyr’s Cottage I’d be with you.”
“No, you’re not easily frightened, are you? Are you frightened now?”
“Not of you but of myself. I’m frightened of what I’m thinking.”
“So the cottage was empty. What else is there? Obviously there is something else.”
Meg said: “That message on your answerphone—if you’d really received it at ten past eight, you would have telephoned Norwich station and left a message for me to ring back. You knew how much the Copleys disliked the thought of going to their daughter. No one else on the headland knew that. The Copleys never spoke of it, nor did I, not to anyone except you. You would have rung, Alice. There could have been an announcement over the station loudspeaker and I could have driven them home. You would have thought of that.”
Alice said: “One lie to Rickards, which could have been a matter of convenience, a wish to avoid trouble, and one instance of insensitive neglect. Is that all?”
“The knife. The middle knife in your block. It wasn’t here. It meant nothing at the time, of course, but the block looked odd. I was so used to seeing the five carefully graded knives, each in its sheath. It’s back now. It was back when I called in on the Monday after the murder. But it wasn’t here on the Sunday night.”
She wanted to cry out: “You can’t be going to use it! Alice, don’t use it!” Instead she made herself go on, trying to keep her voice calm, trying not to plead for reassurance, understanding.
“And next morning, when you telephoned to say that Hilary was dead, I didn’t say anything about my visit. I didn’t know what to believe. It wasn’t that I suspected you; that would have been impossible for me, it still is. But I needed time to think. It was late morning before I could bring myself to come to you.”
“And then you found me here with Chief Inspector Rickards and heard me lying. And you saw that the knife was back in the block. But you didn’t speak then and you haven’t spoken since, not even, I presume, to Adam Dalgliesh.”
It was a shrewd thrust. Meg said: “I’ve told no one. How could I? Not until we’d spoken. I knew that you must have had what seemed to you a good reason for lying.”
“And then, I suppose, slowly, perhaps unwillingly, you began to realize what that reason might be?”
“I didn’t think you’d murdered Hilary. It sounds fantastic, ludicrous even to speak those words, to think of suspecting you. But the knife was missing and you weren’t here. You did lie and I couldn’t understand why. I still can’t. I wonder who it is you’re shielding. And sometimes—forgive me, Alice—sometimes I wonder whether you were there when he killed her, kept guard, stood there watching, might even have helped him by cutting off her hair.”
Alice sat so still that the long-fingered hands resting in her lap, the folds of her shift, might have been carved in stone. She said: “I didn’t help anyone—and no one helped me. There were only two people on that beach, Hilary Robarts and I. I planned it alone and I did it alone.”
For a moment they sat in silence. Meg felt a great coldness. She heard the words and she knew that they were true. Had she, perhaps, always known? She thought: “I shall never be with her in this kitchen again, never again find the peace and security which I found in this room.” And there fell into her mind an incongruous memory: herself sitting quietly in the same chair and watching while Alice made short pastry, sieving the flour onto a marble slab, adding the squa
res of soft butter, breaking in the egg, her long fingers delicately dabbling the mixture, drawing in the flour, lightly forming the glistening ball of dough. Meg said: “They were your hands. Your hands tightening the belt round her throat, your hands cutting off her hair, your hands slicing that L into her forehead. You planned it alone and you did it alone.”
Alice said: “It took courage, but perhaps less than you would imagine. And she died very quickly, very easily. We shall be lucky to go with so little pain. She hadn’t even time to feel terror. She had an easier death than most of us can look forward to. And as for what followed, that didn’t matter. Not to her. Not even much to me. She was dead. It’s what you do to the living that takes the strong emotions, courage, hatred and love.”
She was silent for a moment; then she said: “In your eagerness to prove me a murderess, don’t confuse suspicion with proof. You can’t prove any of this. All right, you say the knife was missing, but that’s only your word against mine. And if it was missing, I could say that I went for a short walk on the headland and the murderer saw his chance.”
“And put it back afterwards? He wouldn’t even know that it was there.”
“Of course he would. Everyone knows that I’m a cook, and a cook has sharp knives. And why shouldn’t he put it back?”
“But how would he get in? The door was locked.”
“There’s only your word for that. I shall say that I left it open. People on the headland usually do.”
Meg wanted to cry out: “Don’t, Alice. Don’t begin planning more lies. Let there at least be truth between us.” She said: “And the portrait, the smashed window, was that you too?”
“Of course.”
“But why? Why all that complication?”
“Because it was necessary. While I was waiting for Hilary to come out of the sea, I glimpsed Theresa Blaney. She suddenly appeared on the very edge of the cliff, by the abbey ruins. She was only there for a moment, and then she disappeared. But I saw her. She was unmistakable in the moonlight.”
“But if she didn’t see you, if she wasn’t there when you … when Hilary died …”
“Don’t you see? It meant that her father wouldn’t have an alibi. She has always struck me as a truthful child, and she has had a strict religious upbringing. Once she told the police that she was out on the headland that night, Ryan would be in terrible danger. And even if she had sense enough to lie, for how long could she keep it up? The police would be gentle questioning her. Rickards isn’t a brute. But a truthful child would find it difficult to lie convincingly. When I got back here after the murder I played back the message on the answerphone. It occurred to me that Alex might change his plans and telephone. And it was then, too late, that I got George Jago’s message. I knew that the murder could no longer be pinned on the Whistler. I had to give Ryan Blaney an alibi. So I tried to ring him to say that I’d collect the picture. When I couldn’t get through I knew I had to call at Scudder’s Cottage, and as quickly as possible.”
“You could just have collected the portrait, knocked at the door to say what you’d done, seen him then. That would be proof enough that he was at home.”
“But it would have looked too deliberate, too contrived. Ryan had made it plain that he didn’t want to be disturbed, that I was merely to collect the portrait. He made that very clear. And Adam Dalgliesh was with me when he said it. Not any casual caller, but Scotland Yard’s most intelligent detective. No, I had to have a valid excuse to knock and speak to Ryan.”
“So you put the portrait in the boot of your car and told him that it wasn’t in the shed?” It seemed to Meg extraordinary that horror could briefly be subsumed by curiosity, by the need to know. They might have been discussing complicated arrangements for a picnic.
Alice said: “Exactly. He was hardly likely to think that it was I who had taken it only a minute earlier. It was convenient, of course, that he was half-drunk. Not as drunk as I described to Rickards, but obviously incapable of killing Robarts and getting back to Scudder’s Cottage by a quarter to ten.”
“Not even in the van or on his bicycle?”
“The van was out of commission, and he couldn’t have stayed on the bicycle. Besides, I would have passed him cycling home. My evidence meant that Ryan would be safe even if Theresa confessed that she’d left the cottage. After I left him, I drove back over a deserted headland. I stopped briefly below the pillbox and threw the shoes inside. I had no way of burning them except on an open fire where I had burnt the paper and string from the wrapped portrait, but I had an idea that burning rubber could leave some trace and a persistent smell. I didn’t expect the police to search for them, because I didn’t believe they would find a print. But even if they did, there would be nothing to link those particular shoes with the murder. I washed them thoroughly under the outside tap before I disposed of them. Ideally, I could have returned them to the jumble box, but I daren’t wait, and that night I knew that, with you gone to Norwich, the back door would be locked.”
“And then you threw the picture through Hilary’s window?”
“I had to get rid of it somehow. That way it looked like a deliberate act of vandalism and hatred, and there were plenty of possible suspects for that, not all of them on the headland. It complicated matters even further, and it was one more piece of evidence to help Ryan. No one would believe that he would deliberately destroy his own work. But it had a double purpose: I wanted to get into Thyme Cottage. I smashed enough of the window to get through.”
“But that was terribly dangerous. You might have cut yourself, got a sliver of glass on your shoes. And they were your own shoes then; you had disposed of the Bumbles.”
“I examined the soles very thoroughly. And I was particularly careful where I trod. She had left the downstairs lights on, so I didn’t have to use my torch.”
“But why? What were you looking for? What did you hope to find?”
“Nothing. I wanted to get rid of the belt. I curled it very carefully and put it in the drawer in her bedroom among her belts, stockings, handkerchiefs, socks.”
“But if the police examined it, it wouldn’t have her prints on it.”
“Nor would it have mine. I was still wearing my gloves. And why should they examine it? One would assume that the murderer had used his own belt and had taken it away again. The least likely hiding place for the killer to choose would be the victim’s own cottage. That’s why I chose it. And even if they did decide to examine every belt and dog lead on the headland, I doubt whether they’d get any useful prints from half an inch of leather which dozens of hands must have touched.”
Meg said bitterly: “You took a lot of trouble to give Ryan an alibi. What about the other innocent suspects? They were all at risk; they still are. Didn’t you think of them?”
“I only cared about one other, Alex, and he had the best alibi of all. He would go through security to get into the station, and again when he left.”
Meg said: “I was thinking of Neil Pascoe, Amy, Miles Lessingham, even myself.”
“None of you is a parent responsible for four motherless children. I thought it very unlikely that Lessingham wouldn’t be able to provide an alibi, and if he couldn’t there was no real evidence against him. How could there be? He didn’t do it. But I have a feeling that he guesses who did. Lessingham isn’t a fool. But even if he knows, he’ll never tell. Neil Pascoe and Amy could give each other an alibi, and you, my dear Meg, do you really see yourself as a serious suspect?”
“I felt like one. When Rickards was questioning me it was like being back in that staff room at school, facing those cold, accusing faces, knowing I’d already been judged and found guilty, wondering if perhaps I wasn’t guilty.”
“The possible distress of innocent suspects, even you, was very low on my list of priorities.”
“And now you’ll let them blame the murder on Caroline and Amy, both dead and both innocent?”
“Innocent? Of that, of course. Perhaps you’re right and the
police will find it convenient to assume they did it, one of them or together in collusion. From Rickards’s point of view it’s better to have two dead suspects than no arrest. And it can’t hurt them now. The dead are beyond harm, the harm they do and the harm that is done to them.”
“But it’s wrong and it’s unjust.”
“Meg, they are dead. Dead. It can’t matter. ‘Injustice’ is a word, and they have passed beyond the power of words. They don’t exist. And life is unjust. If you feel called upon to do something about injustice, concentrate on injustice to the living. Alex had a right to that job.”
“And Hilary Robarts, hadn’t she a right to life? I know that she wasn’t likable, or even very happy. There’s no immediate family to mourn, apparently. She doesn’t leave young children. But you’ve taken from her what no one can ever give back. She didn’t deserve to die. Perhaps none of us does, not like that. We don’t even hang the Whistler now. We’ve learned something since Tyburn, since Agnes Poley’s burning. Nothing Hilary Robarts did deserved death.”
“I’m not arguing that she deserved to die. It doesn’t matter whether she was happy, or childless, or even much use to anyone but herself. What I’m saying is that I wanted her dead.”
“That seems to me so evil that it’s beyond my understanding. Alice, what you did was a dreadful sin.”
Alice laughed. The sound was so full-throated, almost happy, as if the amusement were genuine. “Meg, you continue to astonish me. You use words which are no longer in the general vocabulary—not even in the Church’s, so I’m told. The implications of that simple little word are outside my comprehension. But if you want to see this in theological terms, then think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He wrote: ‘We have at times to be willing to be guilty.’ Well, I’m willing to be guilty.”
“To be guilty, yes. But not to feel guilt. That must make it easier.”
“Oh, but I do feel it. I’ve been made to feel guilty from childhood. And if at the heart of your being you feel that you’ve no right even to exist, then one more cause of guilt hardly matters.”