The Black Tower

by P. D. James

  She spoke as if Wilfred, faced with the Jordan river, had neither liked the look of the water nor had confidence in his boat.

  Dalgliesh had already asked Julius Court about Anstey’s religious allegiance and had received a different and, he suspected, a more accurate explanation. He recalled their conversation on the patio before they had rejoined Henry; Julius’s amused voice: “Father O’Malley, who was supposed to be instructing Wilfred, made it plain that his church would in future proclaim on a number of matters that Wilfred had seen as coming within his personal jurisdiction. It occurred to dear Wilfred that he was on the point of joining a very large organization and one which thought that, as a convert, he was receiving rather than bestowing benefit. In the end, after what I have no doubt was a gratifying struggle, he decided to remain in a more accommodating fold.”

  “Despite the miracle?” Dalgliesh had asked.

  “Despite the miracle. Father O’Malley is a rationalist. He admits the existence of miracles but prefers the evidence to be submitted to the proper authorities for thorough examination. After a seemly delay the Church in her wisdom will then pronounce. To go about proclaiming that one has been the recipient of special grace smacks to him of presumption. Worse, I suspect he thinks it in poor taste. He’s a fastidious man, is Father O’Malley. He and Wilfred don’t really get on. I’m afraid that Father O’Malley has lost his church a convert.”

  “But the pilgrimages to Lourdes still go on?” Dalgliesh had asked.

  “Oh, yes. Twice a year regularly. I don’t go. I used to when I first came here but it isn’t, in the contemporary idiom, exactly my scene. But I usually make it my business to provide a slap-up tea to welcome them all back.”

  Dalgliesh, his mind recalled to the present, was aware that his back was beginning to ache. He straightened up just as the clock on the mantelshelf struck the three-quarters. A charred log tumbled from the grate shooting up a final cascade of sparks. Mrs. Hammitt took it as a signal that it was time to go. Dalgliesh insisted first on washing up the coffee mugs and she followed him into the little kitchen.

  “It has been a pleasant hour, Commander, but I doubt whether we shall repeat it. I’m not one of those neighbours who keep dropping in. Thank God I can stand my own company. Unlike poor Maggie, I have resources. And I’ll say one thing for Michael Baddeley, he did keep himself to himself.”

  “Nurse Rainer tells me that you persuaded him of the advantages of cremation.”

  “Did she say that? Well, I daresay she’s right. I may have mentioned it to Michael. I strongly disapprove of wasting good ground to bury putrifying bodies. As far as I remember, the old man didn’t care what happened to him as long as he ended up in consecrated earth with the proper words said over him. Very sensible. My view entirely. And Wilfred certainly didn’t object to the cremation. He and Dot Moxon agreed with me absolutely. Helen protested over the extra trouble, but what she didn’t like was having to get a second doctor’s signature. Thought it cast some kind of aspersion on dear Eric’s clinical judgement, I suppose.”

  “But surely no one was suggesting that Dr. Hewson’s diagnosis was wrong?”

  “Of course not! Michael died of a heart attack, and even Eric was competent to recognize that, I should hope. No, don’t bother to see me home, I’ve got my torch. And if there’s anything you need at any time, just knock on the wall.”

  “But would you hear? You didn’t hear Father Baddeley.”

  “Naturally not, since he didn’t knock. And after about nine-thirty I wasn’t really listening for him. You see, I thought someone had already visited to settle him for the night.”

  The darkness outside was cool and restless, a black mist, sweet-tasting and smelling of the sea, not the mere absence of light but a positive, mysterious force. Dalgliesh manoeuvred the trolley over the doorstep. Walking beside Millicent down the short path, and steadying the trolley with one hand, he asked with careful uninterest:

  “Did you hear someone, then?”

  “Saw, not heard. Or so I thought. I was thinking of making myself a hot drink and I wondered whether Michael would like one. But when I opened my front door to call in and ask, I thought I saw a figure in a cloak disappearing into the darkness. As Michael’s light was off—I could see that the cottage was completely dark—naturally I didn’t disturb him. I know now that I was mistaken. Either that or I’m going potty. It wouldn’t be difficult in this place. Apparently no one did visit him and now they’ve all got a bad conscience about it. I can see how I was deceived. It was a night like this. Just a slight breeze but the darkness seeming to move and form itself into shapes. And I heard nothing, not even a footfall. Just a glimpse of a bent head, hooded and a cloak swirling into the darkness.”

  “And this was at about nine-thirty?”

  “Or a little later. Perhaps it was about the time he died. A fanciful person could frighten herself imagining that she’d seen his ghost. That was what Jennie Pegram actually suggested when I told them at Toynton Grange. Ridiculous girl!”

  They had almost reached the door of Faith Cottage. She hesitated and then said as if on impulse, and, he thought, with some embarrassment:

  “They tell me that you’re worried about the broken lock of Michael’s bureau. Well, it was all right the night before he came back from hospital. I found I’d run out of envelopes and I had an urgent letter to write. I thought that he wouldn’t mind if I took a look in the bureau. It was locked then.”

  Dalgliesh said:

  “And broken when your brother looked for the will shortly after the body was found.”

  “So he says, Commander. So he says.”

  “But you have no proof that he broke it?”

  “I’ve no proof that anyone did. The cottage was full of people running in and out. Wilfred, the Hewsons, Helen, Dot, Philby, even Julius when he arrived from London; the place was like a wake. All I know is that the bureau was locked at nine o’clock on the night before Michael died. And I’ve no doubt that Wilfred was keen to get his eyes on that will and see if Michael really had left Toynton Grange all he possessed. And I do know that Michael didn’t break the lock himself.”

  “How, Mrs. Hammitt?”

  “Because I found the key, just after lunch on the day he died. In the place where, presumably, he always kept it—that old tea tin on the second shelf of the food cupboard. I didn’t think he’d mind my having any little bits of food he’d left. I slipped it into my pocket in case it got lost when Dot cleared the cottage. After all, that old bureau desk is quite valuable and the lock ought to be repaired. As a matter of fact, if Michael hadn’t left it to Grace in his will, I would have moved it into here and looked after it properly.”

  “So you still have the key?”

  “Of course. No one has ever bothered about it but you. But, as you seem so interested you may as well take it.”

  She dug her hand into the pocket of her skirt and he felt the cold metal pressed into his palm. She had opened the door of her cottage now and had reached for the light switch. In the sudden glare he blinked, and then saw it clearly, a small silver key, delicate as filigree, but tied now with thin string to a red plastic clothes peg, the red so bright that, for a dazzled second, it looked as if his palm were stained with blood.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Act of Malice

  I

  WHEN HE LOOKED BACK on his first weekend in Dorset, Dalgliesh saw it as a series of pictures, so different from the later images of violence and death that he could almost believe that his life at Toynton Head had been lived on two levels and at different periods of time. These early and gentle pictures, unlike the later harsh black and white stills from some crude horror film, were suffused with colour and feeling and smell. He saw himself plunging through the sea-washed shingle of Chesil Bank, his ears loud with bird cries and the grating thunder of the tide to where Portland reared its dark rocks against the sky; climbing the great earthworks of Maiden Castle and standing, a solitary windblown figure, where four thous
and years of human history were encompassed in numinous contours of moulded earth; eating a late tea in Judge Jeffrey’s lodgings in Dorchester as the mellow autumn afternoon faded into dusk; driving through the night between a falling tangle of golden bracken and high untrimmed hedgerows to where the stone-walled pub waited with lighted windows on some remote village green.

  And then, late at night when there could be small risk of a visitor from Toynton Grange disturbing him, he would drive back to Hope Cottage to the familiar and welcoming smell of books and a wood fire. Somewhat to his surprise, Millicent Hammitt was faithful to her promise not to disturb him after that first visit. He soon guessed why; she was a television addict. As he sat drinking his wine and sorting Father Baddeley’s books, he could hear through the chimney breast the faint and not disagreeable sounds of her nightly entertainment; the sudden access of a half familiar advertising jingle; the antiphonal mutter of voices; the bark of gun shots; feminine screams; the blaring fanfare to the late night film.

  He had a sense of living in a limbo between the old life and the new, excused by convalescence from the responsibility of immediate decision, from any exertion which he found disagreeable. And he found the thought of Toynton Grange and its inmates disagreeable. He had taken what action he could. Now he was waiting on events. Once, looking at Father Baddeley’s empty and shabby chair, he was reminded irreverently of the fabled excuse of the distinguished atheist philosopher, ushered after death to his astonishment into the presence of God.

  “But Lord, you didn’t provide sufficient evidence.”

  If Father Baddeley wanted him to act he would have to provide more tangible clues than a missing diary and a broken lock.

  He was expecting no letters except Bill Moriarty’s reply since he had left instructions that none were to be forwarded. And he intended to collect Bill’s letter himself from the postbox. But it arrived on the Monday, at least a day earlier than he had thought possible. He had spent the morning in the cottage and hadn’t walked to the postbox until after his lunch at two-thirty when he had taken back his milk bottles for collection.

  The postbox contained the one letter, a plain envelope with a W.C. postmark; the address was typed but his rank omitted. Moriarty had been careful. But as he slipped his thumb under the flap, Dalgliesh wondered if he himself had been careful enough. There was no obvious sign that the letter had been opened; the flap was intact. But the glue was suspiciously weak, and the flap slid open a little too easily under the pressure of his thumb. And the postbox was otherwise empty. Someone, probably Philby, must already have collected the Toynton Grange post. It was odd that he hadn’t delivered this letter at Hope Cottage. Perhaps he should have used a poste restante in Toynton village or Wareham. The thought that he had been careless irritated him. The truth is, he thought, that I don’t know what, if anything, I’m investigating, and I only spasmodically care. I haven’t the stomach to do the job properly or the will and courage to leave it alone. He was in the mood to find Bill’s prose style more than usually irritating.

  “Nice to see your elegant handwriting again. There’s general relief here that the reports of your impending decease were exaggerated. We’re keeping the wreath contributions for a celebration party. But what are you doing anyway gum-shoeing in Dorset among such a questionable group of weirdies? If you pine for work there’s plenty here. However, here’s the gen.

  “Two of your little lot have records. You know, apparently, something about Philby. Two convictions for GBH in 1967 and 1969, four for theft in 1970 and a miscellany of earlier misdemeanours. The only extraordinary thing about Philby’s criminal history is the leniency with which judges have sentenced him. Looking at his CRO I’m not altogether surprised. They probably felt that it was unjust to punish too harshly a man who was following the only career for which physiognomy and talents had fitted him. I did manage to have a word with ‘the open door’ about him. They admit his faults, but say that he is capable, given affection, of a ferocious loyalty. Watch out that he doesn’t take a fancy to you.

  “Millicent Hammitt was convicted twice for shoplifting by the Cheltenham Magistrates in 1966 and 1968. In the first case there was the usual defence of menopausal difficulties, and she was fined. She was lucky to escape so easily the second time. But that was a couple of months after her husband, a retired army major, had died and the court were sympathetic. They were probably influenced too, by Wilfred Anstey’s assurances that she was coming to live with him at Toynton Grange and would be under his eye. There’s been no trouble since so I assume that Anstey’s surveillance has been effective, the local shopkeepers more accommodating, or Mrs. Hammitt more skilful in lifting the goods.

  “That’s all the official gen. The rest of them are clean, at least as far as the CRO is concerned. But if you’re looking for an interesting villain—and I hardly suppose that Adam Dalgliesh is wasting his talents on Albert Philby—then may I recommend Julius Court? I got a line on him from a man I know who works at the FCO. Court is a bright grammar school boy from Southsea who entered the foreign service after university equipped with all the usual elegant appurtenances but rather short on cash. He was at the Paris Embassy in 1970 when he gave evidence in the notorious murder trial when Alain Michonnet was accused of murdering Poitaud the racing driver. You may remember the case. There was a fair amount of publicity in the English press. It was pretty clear cut, and the French police were salivating happily at the thought of nailing Michonnet. He’s the son of Theo d’Estier Michonnet who owns a chemical manufacturing plant near Marseilles and they’ve had their eyes on père and fils for quite a time. But Court gave his chum an alibi. The odd thing was that they weren’t really chums—Michonnet is aggressively heterosexual as the media make only too boringly plain—and the horrid word blackmail was hissed round the Embassy. No one believed Court’s story; but no one could shake it. My informant thinks that Court’s motive was nothing more sinister than a desire to amuse himself and to get his superiors twisting their knickers. If that was his motive he certainly succeeded. Eight months later his godfather conveniently died leaving him £30,000 and he chucked the service. He’s said to have been rather clever with his investments. Anyway, that’s all water under the bridge. Nothing is known to his discredit as they say, except, perhaps, a tendency to be a little too accommodating to his friends. But I give you the story for what it’s worth.”

  Dalgliesh folded the letter and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. He wondered how much, if any, of either story was known at Toynton Grange. Julius Court was unlikely to worry. His past was his own affair; he was independent of Wilfred’s suffocating hold. But Millicent Hammitt had a double weight of gratitude. Who else except Wilfred knew, he wondered, about those two discreditable and pathetic incidents? How much would she care if the story became generally known at Toynton Grange? He wished again that he had used a poste restante.

  A car was approaching. He looked up. The Mercedes, driven very fast, was coming down the coast road. Julius stepped on the brakes and the car rocked to a stop, its front bumper inches from the gate. He wrenched himself out and began tugging at the gate, calling out to Dalgliesh.

  “The black tower’s on fire! I saw the smoke from the coast road. Have you a rake at Hope Cottage?”

  Dalgliesh put his shoulder to the gate.

  “I don’t think so. There’s no garden. But I found a yard broom—a besom—in the shed.”

  “Better than nothing. D’you mind coming? It may take the two of us.”

  Dalgliesh slipped quickly into the car. They left the gate open. Julius drove to Hope Cottage with little regard for the car springs or his passenger’s comfort. He opened the boot while Dalgliesh ran to the yard shed. There among the paraphernalia of past occupants was the remembered besom, two empty sacks, and, surprisingly, an old shepherd’s crook. He threw them into the capacious boot. Julius had already turned the car and the engine was running. Dalgliesh got in beside him and the Mercedes leapt forward.

  As they swun
g on to the coast road Dalgliesh asked:

  “Is anyone there do you know? Anstey?”

  “Could be. That’s the worry. He’s the only one who goes there now. And I can’t see otherwise how the fire started. We can get closest to the tower this way, but it means foot slogging it over the headland. I didn’t try when I first spotted the smoke. It’s no use without something to tackle the fire.”

  His voice was tight, the knuckles on the wheel shone white. In the driving mirror Dalgliesh saw that the irises of his eyes were large and bright. The triangular scar above the right eye, normally almost invisible, had deepened and darkened. Above it he could see the insistent beat of the temple pulse. He glanced at the speedometer; they were doing over a hundred but the Mercedes, beautifully handled, held the narrow road easily. Suddenly the road twisted and rose and they caught a glimpse of the tower. The broken panes in the slitted windows below the cupola were belching puffballs of greyish smoke like miniature cannon fire. They tumbled merrily over the headland until the wind shook them into shredded dusters of cloud. The effect was absurd and picturesque, as innocuous as a child’s entertainment. And then the road dipped and the tower was lost to view.

  The coast road, wide enough only for a single car, was bounded to the seaward by a drystone wall. Julius was sure of his way. He had swung the car to the left even before Dalgliesh noticed the narrow gap, gateless but still bounded by two rotting posts. The car bumped to a standstill in a deep hollow to the right of the entry. Dalgliesh seized the crook and sacks and Julius the broom. Thus ridiculously lumbered, they began running across the headland.