by C. P. Snow
‘I think I ought to congratulate you or whoever else it is on their imagination.’
‘You’d better think before you go any farther.’ For once Briers let authority emerge. ‘Our information is solid. You were also responsible for passing money from the fund to Lady Ashbrook in her lifetime.’
Just then, Briers made his single mistake of the night. Up to now, he had been a shade more positive than the information would have supported. It wasn’t a bluff, but perhaps half a bluff. Perryman hadn’t challenged him. So far it had gone easier than Briers expected, as easy as he could have hoped. He went on, with what he thought was certain knowledge: ‘You were the Comptroller, weren’t you?’
‘The what?’
‘The Comptroller.’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean.’
‘Shall I spell it? C-o-m-p-t-r-o-l-l-e-r.’
‘No one’s ever called me that in my life. It seems to me a very silly word.’
Briers knew, had known for instants past, that he had made a mistake. This wasn’t like Perryman’s other protest. The incredulity, the ignorance were total. It was only later that Briers understood the origins of the mistake. It was oddly mechanical. In O’Brien’s office, before and after the old lawyer’s death, there had been talk about the control of funds. There was someone in London to whom money was transferred. They weren’t allowed to know his name. He had better be called the Comptroller. So, by a piece of inadvertence, had Susan and Loseby. There was a tag of paper, with an inscription typewritten, inserted in one of Loseby’s payments, and they adopted the title. The American and English detectives had picked up the term. Perryman had never heard of it.
It was a piece of carelessness. Briers was blaming himself. As a rule he checked his references. It gave Perryman confidence back, and a share of the initiative. He had enough assertion, affected it might be, or even disdainful, to break into the questioning. Briers was just lighting another cigarette.
‘Forgive me, Chief Superintendent,’ said Perryman, ‘but aren’t you smoking too much?’
Briers looked blank-faced, at a loss.
When he replied, he said: ‘I dare say I am.’
‘If I were your medical adviser, I should want to have your lungs examined. Regularly.’
Briers said: ‘Well, you’re not, are you?’
Perryman went on: ‘That might be unfortunate for you.’
Briers said: ‘We’ll wait and see, shall we? We all have to die some time.’
That was accompanied by the grim policeman’s smile which Humphrey would have recognised. It would have been grimmer if the end of this interrogation could have been the gallows. In retrospect, Briers felt some respect for Perryman’s nerve. It might have been the kind of nerve that some patients showed – as by a perverse irony Perryman himself had seen them – when mortally anxious in a medical examination; and, to get on terms of moral equality, enquired with concern about some symptom in the doctor’s own health.
‘We’d better get on,’ said Briers, with a shade of roughness that he hadn’t let enter before. ‘There’s a lot to do.’ He went on: ‘Yes, we know that you passed money after the old lady’s death, and before. You can’t hide that business any longer. We’re going to know it all.’
They weren’t able to know it all, but, as the night went on, they came to know more. Much of what they pieced together came to be near the truth. Not everything. Perryman was prepared, apparently even gratified, to explain. It had been a harmless, friendly, benevolent service.
‘We can leave that to the tax boys,’ Briers remarked, but without emphasis. It was possible, perhaps probable, he was deciding, that Perryman didn’t know the whole story. Certainly he couldn’t have known it from the beginning. That went back thirty years, to the end of the war, long before he had heard of Lady Ashbrook. However, he had met O’Brien and he admitted it.
‘Lady Ashbrook didn’t trust many people, did she?’ Briers said.
‘I should say not.’
‘She did trust him?’
‘And she was right. She was right.’ Perryman went on with unusual emotion: ‘He was a good man.’
It was a curious tribute, spoken as though by an authority.
At eight o’clock more cups of tea. Towards nine, a plate heaped with sandwiches. Perryman ate more than his share, either through strain or appetite.
For the present, Briers was not letting Perryman loose from the financial dealings. Who had thought out the method? Perryman didn’t know. That was probably genuine. Nothing had ever been put on paper. There the detectives had guessed right. Silence. Simplicity. That was the way to do any secret job, Briers was thinking. Humphrey would have agreed. It was the experienced who knew better than to try anything complex.
The method was working years before Perryman became Lady Ashbrook’s doctor, he said.
On the whole, the detectives’ reconstruction had again not been far from the truth. When O’Brien had his stroke, the difficulties were sharpened. He was immobile. There was no enquiry-proof method of getting money, messages, instructions, to Lady Ashbrook. This had not been foreseen as clearly, or as far back, as the police had imagined. That was an old story, Briers thought; one often over-estimated the other side. Lady Ashbrook and O’Brien didn’t seem capable of thinking of another recourse; there was no help for it, they had to find a third party. She might not like it, but she had to find someone she could trust in England. That was how Perryman had been invoked.
‘When was that?’ Perryman gave the exact date, June 1968. ‘Why did she turn to you?’
‘She had been my patient for several years. She trusted me.’
‘That was lucky for you, wasn’t it?’ Suddenly Briers shot out the question.
Perryman didn’t show a flicker of surprise, resentment, worry, didn’t alter his tone of voice. Instead he spoke with an aura of satisfaction.
‘Also she liked me,’ he said.
It didn’t need that expression to tell Briers that the man was vain, more than normally vain. But there was an effect which Briers, for the moment, couldn’t place or understand.
He said: ‘Sexually, you mean?’
Perryman replied, still with satisfaction: ‘Oh, between any man and woman, when there’s genuine liking, there’s bound to be some kind of sexual attraction. Of course, she was in her seventies, but as a doctor, let me tell you, sexual feeling doesn’t disappear with age.’
Briers broke out, control for an instant snapping: ‘Christ, man, you needn’t tell a policeman that.’
Unperturbed, Perryman continued: ‘Yes, there could have been a sexual element. We all realise that elderly women often make a cult of their doctor. But not with her. This was different. Nothing came of it, naturally. If one had been in a different capacity, it would have been possible–’
‘I dare say, I dare say.’ Briers got back to business. How did the money reach Perryman? How was it picked up? As Humphrey had said, that was one of the oldest problems in security jobs. Briers wasn’t certain that he was getting the full answers, but it wasn’t material, and he let it go.
‘You didn’t do any picking up yourself?’ Briers asked.
‘Certainly not. That would have defeated the object of the exercise.’
‘Why?’ But Briers knew this was the obvious truth.
‘I happen to be reasonably recognisable, I should have thought.’
Briers gave a side glance to his colleagues. They had foreseen questions about how Lady Ashbrook got her money. It might seem primitive, but it had worked.
Perryman had been Lady Ashbrook’s agent, he said. That was what in a satisfied tone he called himself. He said with scorn that neither he nor she would have imagined calling him a comptroller. She left the distribution of the money to him, both before and after her death.
‘She told me what she wished. As I said, she trusted me.’
‘Yes, we heard that. And after her death – did she tell you about that, too?’
�
�She did.’
‘Who was to get anything?’
‘Loseby, that goes without saying. The main share. One or two others. None of them knew there was anything coming. This has to be kept dead secret, of course. In fact, I haven’t worked out a way to get it round–’
‘Anyway, you needn’t trouble yourself about that now,’ said Briers with emollient politeness.
Perryman wasn’t outfaced. With equal emollience, with mocking politeness, he said: ‘And you needn’t trouble yourselves about those people. They weren’t given the slightest expectations. And the sums would have been very small, at the most a few hundred pounds.’
‘This was all arranged in conversation?’ By now, Briers took that for granted.
‘That was the whole point. Completely uncheckable.’
‘Completely.’
Then Perryman added, as though willing to help: ‘There was one person who had further expectations. That was Lord Loseby.’
‘I think I should tell you straight away,’ Briers remarked without stress or inflection, ‘that for our purposes we are not interested in Lord Loseby.’
Poised and unaffected, voice slightly more haughty, Perryman replied: ‘I suppose that I have to assume you know your job, Chief Superintendent?’
‘Perhaps it might be easier if you do.’ With the same civility, Briers went on: ‘Well, I think that’s as far as we need go about the financial question. I don’t know whether you agree, George…,’ he turned to Flamson.
‘We’ve got quite a lot, chief. We know where to get some more.’
‘You see, Doctor, that’s all going to be a present for the tax boys, as I said. My guess is that they won’t worry about Lady Ashbrook’s income. That wouldn’t be worth time and trouble. But they will have to worry about the estate duties.’
There was a spell of silence, not long, a kind of deliberate doldrums. Then Briers said across the table: ‘How much money is there left of that American fund?’
‘I just don’t know.’
‘I can’t take that.’
‘It happens to be the hard truth.’
As though imitating Briers, Perryman was also deliberately quiet for an interval. He went on, pleased to be prosaic: ‘The other two were good at keeping their mouths shut.’
‘You must have a very good idea.’ Briers was showing an edge of temper.
‘I have told you, no.’
‘We can clear that up in our own time.’ Briers went on: ‘Perhaps you can tell me something else. How much did you stand to get out of the business yourself?’
Perryman stared past him, eyes distended.
‘How much?’
‘I was trying to think. The old lady discussed that with me, of course. She didn’t want me to be out of pocket. It took a certain amount of time, and it was a responsibility, naturally. So she suggested that I was entitled to a small commission. Lady Ashbrook used to mention sums of two or three thousand, that’s what an agent might reasonably expect.’
‘Not much,’ Flamson interjected.
‘She was careful with her money. O’Brien was careful with it, too. I was just doing a friendly service, that’s all.’
‘There’s no proof of any of this, of course?’ Briers said.
‘There can’t be.’
‘Then when she died? What did she tell you to keep for yourself?’
‘Oh, nothing very grand. Loseby was to get £20,000 in dribs and drabs. The other gifts didn’t matter. And I might have another agent’s fee from what was left.’
‘And you’ve told us that you’ve no idea what that might come to.’
‘None at all. I didn’t imagine it would make much difference to me.’
‘Of course you didn’t.’ Without changing his tone, Briers went on: ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to drop all that. We shouldn’t be wasting our time here on a piece of tax fiddling, you know.’
‘What should we be wasting our time on, then?’ Deliberately Perryman looked at his watch. It was after ten. The interview had been going on for four hours.
Briers said: ‘There is a matter of murder.’ Voices told little, faces less. A tape recording, a photograph, would have shown no more open emotion than if they had been talking about the National Theatre.
37
‘I needn’t tell you what all this is in aid of, need I?’ Briers was speaking carefully and slowly. ‘It’s the murder we want to ask you about. I don’t have to tell you that.’
‘I can’t pretend to be absolutely astonished.’ Perryman said it with superior, condescending, as it were benevolent, sarcasm.
‘I don’t have to tell you why we’ve been paying all this attention to the money. I can leave that thought with you, just for now.’
Briers pressed out a cigarette end. The ashtray was littered with stubs. He relaxed into silence. Then, as though at ease, not insistently, he said: ‘What about yourself? You could have killed her, couldn’t you?’
‘I’m not sure what that means.’ Perryman’s calm hadn’t broken.
‘Perhaps you will be sure. Sooner or later. You can’t give us any account of your movements that night. I know, that could happen to anyone. But, for all you have told us, you could have been in that house. Agreed?’
‘I can’t prove that I wasn’t. Agreed. In theory I could have been.’
‘I said before, that could apply to others. But you had access to her, didn’t you? You had your own front-door key!’
‘I thought I’d made it plain,’ Perryman threw back his head, ‘that I was a close friend.’
‘You were also her doctor. That puts you in a special position. That could give you certain advantages, couldn’t it?’
‘I don’t know what that means.’
‘I think you do. It ought to be clear. You’re an intelligent man. If it’s a question of killing an old lady, a doctor has certain advantages. Particularly if she happens to be his patient. She’s used to him, isn’t she, she’s used to his hands?’
‘In theory that would be true.’
‘You have good hands, Doctor.’ They were tented in front of Perryman’s chest, long-fingered with filbert nails, firm strong thumbs.
‘So I’ve been told.’
‘And you’d have another advantage. You’d know exactly where to put those hands, without fuss. Of course, you’d have had to explain beforehand why you were wearing gloves. But that would be no trouble to a smooth talker. You could have been treating another patient with an infection earlier on that night.’
Perryman smiled. ‘Yes, a doctor could have done all that. I really do congratulate you on your imagination. Yes, it could have happened, in theory. The only trouble is that it didn’t.’
To that last flick Briers paid no notice. He went on. ‘There’s one thing about that murder that we still don’t quite understand. A doctor would have known that he’d killed her, of course. Then why would he smash her skull in? Unnecessary. Risky. He was lucky not to collect some blood. Unless he did, and took precautions we haven’t traced so far. Anyway, if he’d thought twice, he wouldn’t have done it. He wouldn’t have picked up that hammer. Naturally, we know better than anyone that a man often goes mad after he’s killed someone. There are more nasty reminders of that than we reckon to talk about. But we didn’t find any this time. Never mind, it mightn’t have been a fit of madness. Maybe an attempt to make it look like a killing by a brute, just a dumb thief. The same with the way the room was left. That was a bit of make believe; we saw that as soon as we walked in.’
‘Another effort of your imagination, I take it,’ Perryman commented.
Briers switched away. Abruptly he said: ‘In the summer, you must have thought that the old lady was going to die soon?’
‘Not so positively as that.’ Perryman’s reply was sharp, competent, less measured than when he was under direct attack. ‘My clinical judgment was that it was rather more likely than not. My clinical judgment turned out wrong.’
‘If it had been right, she wo
uld have been dead by now. And you would have been coping with the dispositions just as you are at present.’
‘That must be true.’
‘And, as there had been no murder, no one would have thought twice about it. The money would have come in according to plan?’
‘Naturally.’
‘But since your judgment didn’t prove right she might have lived for years?’
‘She could have done.’
‘And that was a reason for impatience?’ Without stress, Briers was switching back.
‘It could have been. It could have been,’ said Perryman. ‘On someone’s part.’
‘It must have been a shock to hear that she was going to survive.’
‘If someone was impatient, it might have been.’ Perryman didn’t change his tone. ‘I saw no sign of it. I suppose I didn’t have the right acquaintances.’
Briers said, as though brooding: ‘If you had been able to do anything to help her survive – you being her doctor, of course – you’d have done it, wouldn’t you?’
‘Naturally.’
‘Whatever else you were thinking about?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Professional duty is a very strange thing. You’d agree with that, wouldn’t you?’
That exchange had for an instant brought a touch of sympathy between them, which on and off had been latent much of the night. Not liking, for there was none, on Briers’ side; something more like revulsion. There was also a feeling more surreptitious and closer than liking. He knew that he would get no farther that night. They passed into long passages of repetition, the money dealings, the way the murder could have been done. Briers wasn’t dissatisfied. He had to subdue optimism, the optimism he warned others against. This man wouldn’t break, but was going to give. Briers suddenly remarked across the table that they had had enough for one day, some of his colleagues would be ready to ask more questions in the morning, and said a polite goodnight.
A little later, the background squad assembled like a team wishing to have an inquest on the day’s play. They could see that Briers was forgetting the tiredness of one who had been exuding energy for hours. They were counting on the time when they had the case to their credit, another job cleaned up. They had a bottle of whisky on the table in the Murder Room, and someone said: ‘It’s going to be all right, isn’t it, guv?’ That wasn’t a question. There was collective well-being in the air. Briers, who had sometimes suffered from his own hopes, said: ‘I’ll believe that when I see it. I’ll believe that when I see the jury coming down for us.’