Death of an Expert Witness

by P. D. James

  “Stella always underrated herself. She may have thought that I’d forget her in time, but the money and the security would go on forever. She may even have thought that it was bad for me to be living with her—that the money would somehow set me free. She once said something very like that.”

  Dalgliesh looked across at the slim, upright figure, sitting, hands folded in her lap, opposite to him in the high-winged chair. He fixed his eyes on her face. Then he said quietly: “But there isn’t going to be any money. The life-assurance policy had a suicide clause. If Miss Mawson did kill herself, then you get nothing.”

  She hadn’t known. He could be certain of that at least. The news surprised her, but it didn’t shock. This was no murderess balked of her spoils.

  She smiled and said gently: “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters to this investigation. I’ve read one of your friend’s novels. Miss Mawson was a highly intelligent writer, which means that she was an intelligent woman. Her heart wasn’t strong and her life-assurance premiums weren’t cheap. It can’t have been easy to meet them. Do you really think that she didn’t know the terms of her policy?”

  “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “Miss Mawson knew, or thought she knew, who had killed Dr. Lorrimer, didn’t she?”

  “Yes. She said so. But she didn’t tell me who it was.”

  “Not even whether it was a man or a woman?”

  She thought. “No, nothing. Only that she knew. I’m not sure that she said that, not in so many words. But when I asked her, she didn’t deny it.”

  She paused, and then went on with more animation: “You’re thinking that she went out to meet the murderer, aren’t you? That she tried to blackmail him? But Stella wouldn’t do that! Only a fool would run into that kind of danger, and she wasn’t a fool. You said so yourself. She wouldn’t voluntarily have gone alone to face a killer, not for any money. No sane woman would.”

  “Even if the murderer were a woman?”

  “Not alone and at night. Star was so small and fragile, and her heart wasn’t strong. When I put my arms round her it was like holding a bird.” She looked into the fire and said, almost wonderingly: “I shall never see her again. Never. She sat in this chair and pulled on her boots, just as she always did. I never offered to go with her in the evenings. I knew that she needed to be alone. It was all so ordinary, until she got to the door. And then I was frightened. I begged her not to go. And I shall never see her again. She won’t ever speak again, not to me, not to anyone. She’ll never write another word. I don’t believe it yet. I know that it must be true or you wouldn’t be here, but I still don’t believe it. How shall I bear it when I do?”

  Dalgliesh said: “Miss Foley, we have to know if she went out on the night Dr. Lorrimer was killed.”

  She looked up at him. “I know what you’re trying to make me do. If I say that she did go out, then the case is finished for you, isn’t it? It’s all nicely tied up; means, motive, opportunity. He was her ex-husband and she hated him because of the will. She went to try to persuade him to help us with money. When he refused, she seized the first weapon to hand and struck him down.”

  Dalgliesh said: “He may have let her into the Laboratory, although it’s unlikely. But how did she get out?”

  “You’ll say that I took the keys from Dr. Howarth’s security safe and lent them to her. Then I put them back next morning.”

  “Did you?”

  She shook her head.

  “You could only have done that if you and Inspector Blakelock were in this together. And what reason has he for wishing Dr. Lorrimer dead? When his only child was killed by a hit-and-run driver, the evidence of the forensic scientist helped secure an acquittal. But that was ten years ago, and the scientist wasn’t Dr. Lorrimer. When Miss Pridmore told me about the child we checked. That evidence was to do with paint particles, the job of a forensic chemist, not a biologist. Are you telling me that Inspector Blakelock lied when he said that the keys were in the security cupboard?”

  “He didn’t lie. The keys were there.”

  “Then any case we might seek to build against Miss Mawson weakens, doesn’t it? Could anyone really believe that she climbed out of a third-floor window? You must believe that we’re here to find the truth, not to fabricate an easy solution.”

  But she was right, thought Massingham. Once Angela Foley had admitted that her friend had left Sprogg’s Cottage that night, it would be difficult to bring home the crime to anyone else. The solution she had propounded was neat enough and, whoever was brought to trial for Lorrimer’s murder, the defence would make the most of it. He watched his chief’s face.

  Dalgliesh said: “I agree that no sane woman would go out alone at night to meet a murderer. That’s why I don’t think she did. She thought she knew who had killed Edwin Lorrimer, and if she did have an assignation last night, it wasn’t with him. Miss Foley, please look at me. You must trust me. I don’t know yet whether your friend killed herself or was killed. But if I’m to discover the truth, I’ll have to know whether she went out the night Dr. Lorrimer died.”

  She said dully: “We were together all the evening. We told you.” There was a silence. It seemed to Massingham to last for minutes. Then the wood fire flared and there was a crack like a pistol shot. A log rolled out on the hearth. Dalgliesh knelt and with the tongs eased it back into place. The silence went on. Then she said: “Please tell me the truth first. Do you think Star was murdered?”

  “I can’t be sure. I may never be able to prove it. But yes, I do.”

  She said: “Star did go out that night. She was out from half past eight until about half past nine. She didn’t tell me where she’d been, and she was perfectly ordinary, perfectly composed, when she got home. She said nothing, but she did go out.”

  She said at last: “I’d like you to go now, please.”

  “I think you should have someone with you.”

  “I’m not a child. I don’t want Mrs. Swaffield or the district nurse or any of the village do-gooders. And I don’t need a policewoman. I haven’t committed a crime, so you’ve no right to force yourselves on me. I’ve told you everything I know. You’ve locked her desk, so no one can get at Stella’s things. I shan’t do anything foolish—that’s the expression people use when they’re trying to ask tactfully if you’re planning to kill yourself, isn’t it? Well, I’m not. I’m all right now. I just want to be left alone.”

  Dalgliesh said: “I’m afraid we shall need to force ourselves on you later again.”

  “Later is better than now.” She wasn’t trying to be offensive. It was a simple statement of fact. She got up stiffly and walked towards the door, her head held rigidly high as if only the body’s discipline could hold intact the fragile integrity of the mind. Dalgliesh and Massingham exchanged glances. She was right. They couldn’t force comfort or company where neither was wanted. They had no legal authority either to stay or to compel her to leave. And there were things to do.

  She went over to the window and watched from behind the curtains as the car rounded Sprogg’s Green and accelerated towards the village. Then she ran into the hall and dragged out the telephone directory from its shelf. It took only a few seconds of feverishly leafing to find the number she wanted. She dialled, waited and then spoke. Replacing the receiver she went back into the sitting room. Slowly, with ceremony, she lifted the French sword from the wall and stood very still, holding out her arms, the weapon resting across her palms. After a few seconds she curled her left hand round the scabbard, and with her right slowly and deliberately withdrew the blade. Then she took her stand just inside the sitting-room door, naked sword in her hand, and measured the room with her eyes, regarding the disposition of furniture and objects, intent as a stranger calculating her chances in some coming trial.

  After a few minutes she moved into the study, and again stood silently surveying the room. There was a Victorian button-backed chair beside the fireplace. She dragged it to the study do
or and hid the naked sword behind it, the tip resting against the floor; then slid the scabbard under the chair. Satisfied that neither could be seen she returned to the sitting room. She took her seat beside the fire and sat motionless, waiting for the sound of the approaching car.

  3

  If Claire Easterbrook was surprised, on her arrival at the Laboratory just before nine o’clock, to be asked by Inspector Blakelock to see Commander Dalgliesh immediately, she concealed it. She changed first into her white coat, but otherwise did not delay in obeying the summons more than was strictly necessary to assert her independence. When she went into the Director’s office, she saw the two detectives, the dark head and the red, quietly conferring together at the window almost, she thought, as if their business was ordinary, their presence unremarkable. There was an alien file on Dr. Howarth’s desk, and a plan of the Laboratory and an Ordnance Survey map of the village laid open on the conference table, but otherwise the room seemed unchanged.

  Dalgliesh moved to the desk and said: “Good morning, Miss Easterbrook. You heard what happened last night?”

  “No. Should I have? I was at the theatre after dinner, so people couldn’t reach me, and I’ve spoken to no one but Inspector Blakelock. He hasn’t told me anything.”

  “Stella Mawson, Miss Foley’s friend, was found hanged in the chapel.”

  She frowned as if the news were personally offensive, and said with no more than polite interest: “I see. I don’t think I’ve met her. Oh yes, I remember. She was at the concert in the chapel. Grey-haired, with remarkable eyes. What happened? Did she kill herself?”

  “That’s one of two possibilities. It’s unlikely to have been an accident.”

  “Who found her?”

  “Miss Pridmore.”

  She said with surprising gentleness: “Poor child.”

  Dalgliesh opened the file, picked up two transparent exhibit envelopes, and said: “I’d like you to have a look at these four hairs urgently for me. There’s no time to get them to the Met Lab. I want to know, if possible, if the dark hairs came from the same head.”

  “It’s easier to say whether they don’t. I can have a look under the microscope but I doubt whether I can help you. Hair identification is never easy, and I can’t hope to do much with only three samples. Apart from microscopic examination, we’d normally use mass spectrometry to try to identify differences in the trace elements, but even that isn’t possible with three hairs. If these were submitted to me, I’d have to say that I couldn’t give an opinion.”

  Dalgliesh said: “I’d be grateful, all the same, if you’d take a look. It’s just a hunch, and I want to know whether it’s worth following up.”

  Massingham said: “I’d like to watch, if you don’t mind.”

  She gazed at him. “Would it make any difference if I did?” Then minutes later she lifted her head from the comparison microscope and said: “If we’re talking of hunches, mine, for what it’s worth, is that they came from different heads. The cuticle, cortex and medulla are all significantly different. But I think they’re both male. Look for yourself.”

  Massingham bent his head to the eyepiece. He saw what looked like the sections of two logs, patterned and grained. And beside them were two other logs, their barks shredded.

  But he could see that they were different logs, and that they came from different trees. He said: “Thank you. I’ll let Mr. Dalgliesh know.”

  4

  There was nothing he could put between himself and that shining, razor-sharp blade. He thought wryly that a bullet would have been worse; but then he wondered. To use a gun at least required some skill, a preliminary aim. A bullet could go anywhere, and if her first shot was wide he could at least have ensured that she got no second chance. But she had three feet of cold steel in her hand and, in this confined space, she had only to lunge or slash and he would be cut to the bone. He knew now why she had shown him into the study. There was no room here to manoeuvre; no object within his range of sight which he could seize and hurl. And he knew that he mustn’t look round, must keep his eyes firmly and without fear on her face. He tried to keep his voice calm, reasonable; one nervous smile, one hint of hostility or provocation and it might be too late to argue. He said: “Look, don’t you think we ought to talk about this? You’ve got the wrong man, believe me.”

  She said: “Read that note. The one on the desk behind you. Read it out loud.”

  He didn’t dare turn his head, but reached back and fumbled on the desk. His hand encountered a single sheet of paper. He read: “You’d better check on the cannabis exhibits when Detective Inspector Doyle’s around. How do you think he managed to afford his house?”

  “Well?”

  “Where did you get this?”

  “From Edwin Lorrimer’s desk. Stella found it and gave it to me. You killed her because she knew, because she tried to blackmail you. She arranged to meet you last night in the Wren chapel and you strangled her.”

  He could have laughed at the irony of it, but he knew that laughter would be fatal. And at least they were talking. The longer she waited, the greater his chances.

  “Are you saying that your friend thought that I killed Edwin Lorrimer?”

  “She knew you didn’t. She was out walking the night he died and I think she saw someone she recognized leaving the Laboratory. She knew that it wasn’t you. She wouldn’t have risked meeting you alone if she’d thought that you were the murderer. Mr. Dalgliesh explained that to me. She went to the chapel thinking that she was safe, that she could come to some arrangement with you. But you killed her. That’s why I’m going to kill you. Stella hated the thought of shutting people away in prison. I can’t bear the thought of her murderer ever being free. Ten years in exchange for Stella’s life. Why should you be alive when she’s dead?”

  He had no doubt that she meant what she said. He had dealt with people pushed over the brink of endurance into madness, had seen before that look of dedicated fanaticism. He stood very still, poised on the soles of his feet, waiting for the first instinctive tightening of the muscles before she struck. He tried to keep his voice low, calm, with no trace of facetiousness.

  “That’s a reasonable point of view. Don’t think that I’m against it. I’ve never understood why people are squeamish about killing a convicted murderer instantaneously and resigned to killing him slowly over twenty years. But at least they have been convicted. There’s the little matter of a trial. No execution without due process. And believe me, Miss Foley, you’ve got the wrong man. I didn’t kill Lorrimer, and luckily for me I can prove it.”

  “I don’t care about Edwin Lorrimer. I only care about Stella. And you killed her.”

  “I didn’t even know that she was dead. But if she was killed yesterday any time between half past three and half past seven, then I’m in the clear. I’ve got the best possible alibi. I was at Guy’s Marsh Police Station most of the time being interrogated by the Yard. And when Dalgliesh and Massingham left, I was there for another two hours. Ring them. Ask anyone. Look, you can lock me away in a cupboard—somewhere I can’t escape—while you telephone Guy’s Marsh. For God’s sake, you don’t want to make a mistake, do you? You know me. Do you want to kill me, messily, horribly, while the real murderer escapes? An unofficial execution is one thing; murder’s another.”

  He thought that the hand holding the sword lost some of its tension. But there was no change in the taut, white face. She said: “And the note.”

  “I know who sent the note—my wife. She wanted me to leave the Force, and she knew that there’d be nothing like a little official harassment to push me into resigning. I had a spot of trouble with the Force about two years ago. The disciplinary committee exonerated me, but I damn nearly resigned then. Can’t you recognize feminine spite when you see it? That note proves nothing except that she wanted me disgraced and out of the Force.”

  “But you have been stealing cannabis, substituting an inert substance?”

  “Ah, that’s a different
question. But you’re not killing me for that. You won’t be able to prove it, you know. The last batch of cannabis exhibits I was concerned with had a destruction authorization from the court. I helped burn them myself. Just in time, luckily; the incinerator broke down immediately afterwards.”

  “And the court exhibits you burned, were they cannabis?”

  “Some of them were. But you’ll never prove I made the substitution, even if you decide to make use of that note, not now. But what does it matter? I’m out of the Force. Look, you know that I’ve been working on the clunch pit murder. Do you really suppose that I’d have been sitting at home at this time of day, free to drive over here as soon as you rang me merely to satisfy my curiosity, if I were on a murder case, if I hadn’t been suspended or resigned? I may not be a shining example of probity to the Force, but I’m not a murderer, and I can prove it. Ring Dalgliesh and ask him.”

  There was no doubt about it now, her grip on the sword had relaxed. She stood there, very still, no longer looking at him, but with her gaze fixed out of the window. Her face didn’t change, but he saw that she was crying. The tears were streaming out of the tight little eyes to roll unimpeded down her cheeks. He moved quietly forward and took the sword from her unresisting hand. He placed an arm on her shoulders. She didn’t flinch. He said: “Look, you’ve had a shock. You shouldn’t have been left here on your own. Isn’t it time we had a cup of tea? Show me where the kitchen is and I’ll make it. Or better still, have you anything stronger?”

  She said dully: “There’s whisky, but we keep that for Stella. I don’t drink it.”

  “Well, you’re going to drink it now. It’ll do you good. And, by God, I need it. And then you’d better sit down quietly and tell me all about it.”

  She said: “But if it wasn’t you, who did kill Stella?”

  “My guess is, the same person who killed Lorrimer. A couple of murderers loose in one small community is too much of a coincidence. But look, you’ve got to let the police know about that note. It can’t hurt me, not now, and it might help them. If your friend found one incriminating piece of information in Lorrimer’s desk, then she may have found another. She didn’t use that note. She probably knew how little it was worth. But what about the information she did use?”