Margaret Lewis recalled him abruptly to the present as she said, ‘This is where the hypodermic was found.’ She had opened the mirrored door on a white wooden medicine cabinet which was fastened to the wall above the washbasin. It was an unexceptional enough place, with bottles and packets laid out neatly on two shelves. Lambert contrasted this order with the profuse untidiness of his own smaller cabinet at home, where medicaments threatened to spill forth each time the door was opened. But probably the doors of this cabinet were never opened.
He said, ‘Presumably this bathroom has been scarcely used since Mr Craven died?’
‘Not at all. So far as I am aware.’ She added the rider with a sudden abhorrence, aware that if she was to be believed, some other presence had been here. A malign one.
‘So that the syringe could have been there since the time of Mr Craven’s death?’
‘No. I cleaned the whole of the bedroom and this bathroom myself on the day after the funeral.’ They could see her doing it, the last act of obeisance to the master she had served so well. Or the last rites in the successful dispatch of her victim.
‘That included this cabinet?’
‘Yes.’ She spoke as if she resented the implication that she could be so slipshod a housekeeper. ‘I cleared out all the medicaments that were no longer of any use: mostly Mr Craven’s heart drugs. The ones you see there are the proprietary general ones for various minor ailments which might still be of use to others.’ She paused while their eyes roamed automatically over the shelves, confirming that this was in fact the case. Then she said, with unexpected contempt, ‘Do you really think that if I were a murderer I should be stupid enough to leave a hypodermic with traces of arsenic here?’
There was a long pause, in which the only discernible sound was Margaret Lewis’s agitated breathing. Hook thought for a moment that his chief was not going to reply to what he might dismiss as a rhetorical question; he could not know that his mind was running on to an entirely different issue. Eventually Lambert said, ‘No, Mrs Lewis, since you ask me, I can hardly believe that you would. But the implication of the find is that if not you, then someone else was indeed very stupid, or very careless. Yet everything else about this killing points to someone both far-seeing and well organised. If we accept for the moment that the syringe was not here when you cleared the cabinet after Edmund Craven’s funeral, we have to get some idea when it might have been put there. Are we to assume that this cupboard has not been used since the murder?’
‘I suppose so. I haven’t cleaned this area at all since then. Mrs Gordon, who comes in to clean, has vacuumed and dusted the bedroom and cleaned this bathroom from time to time, but she would have no need to open the medicine cabinet. You could check with her, but I doubt whether she has even opened the doors.’
‘One of our team will check that in due course, Mrs Lewis. In the meantime, can we assume that, as far as you know, that syringe could have been put into this cabinet at any time in the last thirteen months?’
‘Yes. At any rate—’ Her head jerked up, not more than three feet from the face of the man who was questioning her. It was too close for her to conceal the fear which started suddenly into her pupils. At that moment, neither he nor she was certain whether he had led her here directly or not. In the spotless, old-fashioned bathroom, Hook was aware of a moment of crisis in a setting that seemed hardly appropriate.
Lambert said, ‘The syringe and the jar are evidence, Mrs Lewis. For what it is worth, they may still prove significant evidence, though perhaps not in the way that might at first have been indicated. But it is our duty to consider all evidence. On our first visit here, you saw fit to conceal one important piece of evidence from us: the fact of your son’s presence here at the time of the murder.’
They watched the firm shoulders sag beneath the smooth grey wool of her jacket. Her head dropped forward, nodding twice in acknowledgement. Hook, wishing that the human mind could be more easily disciplined, noted inconsequentially that there were no darker roots to the ash-blond hair.
‘How long was it after the murder before your son moved out?’ said Lambert quietly.
‘About two months.’ Her eyes were fixed so unblinkingly on Bert Hook’s shoes that he wanted to explain that they had been soiled only by the journey up that long, snow-covered path.
‘So this cabinet was no doubt in use for at least as long as that,’ said Lambert, looking again at the contents in a gesture which made his words a statement rather than a question.
In this dim room, where the frosted glass filtered what light entered through the small window, her blue eyes looked almost black. They were wide with fear, for he had come unexpectedly to the area where she was most susceptible. Her low voice broke for an instant as she said uncertainly, ‘I suppose it could have been.’
Lambert did not look back at her. He said, ‘I said just now that we have to consider all evidence that is put before us. I have to tell you that we have been told that your son was seen with his hand in this cabinet a week before Edmund Craven’s death.’
Hook thought she was going to fall. She staggered a little with the shock, almost lost her balance. Then she half-recovered and sat on the edge of the bath. Bert was glad she had not ended the moment sitting on the lid of the lavatory, removing what dignity remained from the little cameo. Lambert studied her intently in her distress; Hook, watching him in profile, realised just how ruthlessly single-minded this man could be. It was akin to those instants where wives see something new and hate worthy in husbands they thought they had explored and accepted. Then the moment passed and the Superintendent said gruffly, ‘Perhaps we could go somewhere where we could all sit down.’
If she was grateful for the relief, she did not show it. Like one in shock, she led them out on to the landing and back towards the top of the stairs. After a few yards, she stopped so suddenly that they would have walked into her if they had been closer. Perhaps she felt too weak to descend the stairs. She half-turned towards Lambert with a tiny, mirthless smile, then opened a door to her right and led them into what they quickly perceived to be her own bedroom. She motioned them towards an elegant mahogany dual seat by the window, on which they deposited their large forms in gingerly unison; with its slender walnut legs and arms and its delicate tapestry seat, it hardly seemed designed for substantial police posteriors. Perched thus, they must have made an incongruous sight, but Margaret Lewis seemed not to notice it as she composed herself more naturally in the wicker chair by the wardrobe. Hook tried not to let his eyes dwell too obviously upon the big double bed behind her, with its duvet and soft blue pillow-slips; they were almost the first modern things they had registered in the house.
She had not uttered a word since the Superintendent’s revelation about her son and the medicine cabinet. Hook wondered if the hypodermic was connected with him: he had not taken him for one who gambled with drugs, but few policemen would not consider the possibility nowadays. He was startled when she said, ‘Walter Miller must have told you that. He didn’t like Andrew any more than Edmund did.’ It was the first time that day that they had heard her refer to her former employer by his first name. Even now, it might be no more than the association in her mind of the two old friends. She had recovered at least a measure of control; her voice was cold and even.
Lambert was cool enough himself as he replied, ‘It is the duty of everyone to help the police in any way he can, Mrs Lewis. Mr Miller was doing no more than stating what he had seen. If you had not attempted to conceal your son’s presence from us, Mr Miller’s statement might have appeared less sensational.’ He was less interested in rebuking her than making sure that she was perfectly honest now.
She said, ‘No one round here had much time for Andrew. He did one or two foolish things when he was younger, but he was never vicious. Now he’s trying desperately to pull things round and make his way in the world, but no one will give him a chance.’ Suddenly she was weeping, almost silently, her eyes fixed on the carpet between the
m, her shoulders racked with the emotion.
Lambert studied her clinically. He left her to cry for a full minute, waiting to see if the extremes of emotion would produce any further revelation. He had seen men as well as women weep under interrogation more often than the public would suppose, so that the sight affected him less than it would have done at one time. Like a surgeon exploring a symptom, he said, ‘Either you or he are going to tell us what Andrew was doing at that medicine cabinet, Mrs Lewis.’
When she looked up, Hook was shocked by her ravaged face. He realised yet again how the most raw and vulnerable area for almost all of humanity is its children. Her voice was still unsteady with tears as she said aghast, ‘I can’t tell you that, Superintendent. Andrew would never forgive me.’
Lambert said gently, ‘I think he would, Mrs Lewis, in these circumstances. There is little alternative. You must see that unless we get another convincing explanation, the one Mr Miller was suggesting is going to seem the obvious one.’ He should not have acknowledged the source of the story, but she had guessed it so quickly that it could scarcely matter now.
She said, ‘Will you let me explain to Andrew before you see him again?’ Lambert nodded to Hook, preferring that his sergeant should offer the reassurance.
Hook said, ‘There is nothing to stop you contacting him as soon as we leave here. No doubt he has told you of our interview with him at the police station near his home.’
She looked up, gratitude shining now through her exhaustion. ‘Yes. He said you were kind to him.’ Her surprise at the notion came through in her tone, and she gave a little, quickly suppressed giggle which showed how near she was to hysteria. She wiped her face with a now sodden handkerchief, studied it for a second, and said, ‘Women’s handkerchiefs are not designed to cope with their emotions!’ The little joke was an acknowledgement that she was going to talk; all three of them relaxed a little.
‘Andrew used that cabinet for his own medicine, Superintendent. Until the last days of Mr Craven’s illness, when other people were around rather more, only I went there to get Edmund’s medicine. On the odd day when I wasn’t there, I left his medicine ready by his bed. So it was a safe place for Andrew to keep his own prescriptions.’
Lambert tried not to sound too eager as he brought her back to the core of the matter. ‘But why should Andrew wish to keep his treatment a secret?’
She gave him a bitter smile. ‘Andrew has not had too many good breaks from life. He had no father, and he was physically a bit of a weakling as a youngster. He had a bad time at school, and when he left he got in with the wrong set for a time—I think you’ve heard something about that from him. He was almost twenty when he was diagnosed as epileptic. It was a great shock to both of us. The treatment has been effective, though—I can’t think he was doing anything very wrong in trying to conceal it.’ Her inflection made it an appeal.
Hook said, ‘But why try to conceal it? Epilepsy isn’t pleasant to contend with, I know, but it doesn’t carry the social stigma it used to…’ For a moment he was back in the home thirty years ago, sharing the distress of the boy who had had frequent fits, frightened that he would swallow his tongue before anyone could come.
Margaret Lewis looked at him almost affectionately. ‘It wasn’t the stigma, Sergeant Hook.’ As previously in this investigation, Bert was absurdly pleased to hear his name remembered: the women at least in the case seemed highly civilised. ‘You may have gathered that Andrew is rather keen on cars. As a matter of fact, he’s very good with them.’ For an instant, her pride in him shone through. Then she went on soberly, ‘It seemed to be the only thing he had going for him. He was doing quite well in Burnham before all this blew up. He moved there partly because it was easier to conceal his affliction in a new place.’
Hook said, ‘Was it really so important to hide it?’
She looked at him impatiently: she was near the end of her personal resources now. ‘If you want to work with cars you need a driving licence. Epilepsy is one of the things that can deprive you of that. Andrew was in danger of losing the one thing in his life that he cared about; the one thing in which he could make a living. Do you wonder that he was anxious to conceal his illness?’
She was too occupied with her son and the unfairness of life even to study their reactions in the silence which followed. They weighed her explanation of Andrew Lewis’s presence in Edmund Craven’s bathroom a week before the old man’s death. It made sense of an incident that had previously admitted only a sinister explanation, though of course it did not mean the young man could not have committed the murder. He had had a better opportunity than most, and Craven’s hatred of him and the threat to his mother’s inheritance gave him motive enough.
Lambert eventually said, ‘And where do you keep your supply of cold cream, Mrs Lewis?’
In a more aggressive tone, it would have made her feel that the screw was being turned even more tightly upon her. As it was, she took it that her explanation of her son’s actions had been accepted. She gave them a tight little smile, acknowledging that she had known that they must come to this. She walked over to the small dressing-table; they could see her face composing itself in the single wide, bevelled mirror. Then she bent to the lowest of the three drawers on the right of its central recess. When she opened it, they saw a jewellery case, two small bottles of perfume, an unopened packet of lace-edged linen handkerchiefs, lipsticks, blusher, eyeshadow. And a jar identical to the one which lay in its plastic bag in the murder room at CID. She picked it up and gazed at it for a moment, then put it carefully back in its allotted place. The drawer was as neat as everything else about the room and its occupier.
Lambert studied the contents with her for a moment, then said, ‘How often do you use this drawer?’
‘Not very often. I keep the jewellery and the perfume for special occasions. There don’t seem to be many of those nowadays.’ Her smile began by being bitter, then in a second transformed itself into an expression half happy and half embarrassed. ‘I keep my presents from Andrew in that drawer.’ Then her face resumed again the strain and fatigue they had seen earlier, as she thought about the discovery of that other jar. ‘I feel—violated,’ she said.
It was a sentiment they both heard often enough after houses had been burgled. Ironically, this time something had been added, rather than removed, from one of the secret places of a woman’s life—assuming that the woman could be believed. Lambert said, ‘We understand that. Tell me, would it not be more usual for a woman to keep her cold cream on top of the dressing-table?’ He gestured vaguely at the surface beneath the mirror, where they could see every reaction on a face that looked more lined than they had ever seen it before.
That face now registered surprise, even the beginnings of alarm as she thought her word was being questioned. ‘Probably it would. I got used to putting everything away when I shared a room with other nurses years ago. I suppose I’ve kept the habit; it never occurred to me before. Perhaps it’s something to do with never having a home of my own. One learns that it is necessary to be tidy.’ There was a trace even through her fatigue of an irony which was curiously attractive. Then the dark eyes studied them as she said wearily, ‘Does it matter?’
‘I rather think it does.’ It meant that her choice of brands was not observable by a casual observer whenever her door was ajar. That made it more likely that the jar which had been found was actually hers. Or that it had been planted by someone with intimate knowledge of her habits. ‘How long is it since you last used anything else in that drawer?’
She thought. ‘A week. I got some perfume out last Wednesday morning—’ She stopped abruptly: it was the morning of their first visit to Tall Timbers after the exhumation. So she had prepared herself carefully to receive the representatives of the law: Lambert remembered how she had known about the exhumation and presumed that it meant there had been foul play.
He gave no sign that he had made the connection. ‘Thank you. If you are correct in your suppos
ition that both the jar and the syringe were placed in the house, they were almost certainly deposited together. Which would mean that they have been planted in the last week. More precisely, in the thirty-six hours between Wednesday morning and their discovery by the scene of crime team.’
She was not sure whether he was accepting her story or pointing out how unlikely it was that such things could have happened in so short a time. In truth, he was thinking aloud, happy to pin down definite facts in a case that had so often denied them to him. He said hopefully, ‘Were you in the house throughout those thirty-six hours?’
The pale brow furrowed in concentration. Then, unwillingly, she said, ‘I went out about four o’clock on that Wednesday afternoon; I didn’t get back until almost midnight, I’m afraid.’
Damn! thought both men in the room together. But Lambert’s voice was professionally even as he said, ‘The scene of crime boys would be there until about six.’ This time, there had seemed no particular urgency about their work, so that they had been permitted to resume the next morning: another irony. ‘May I ask where you were during the evening, Mrs Lewis?’
Hook wondered as he watched the emotions flashing across the mobile features if they were about to discover a liaison she had wished to conceal: surely this woman was too attractive not to have a companion waiting ardently for her somewhere? But she said in a low voice, ‘I went to see Andrew. I wanted to discuss things with him, but I didn’t want him coming here.’
‘You have your own car?’
‘Yes. David gave it to me when he took his father’s big car away.’ An unexpected thoughtfulness and generosity from a man of whom they had heard little that was creditable. Or an obligation which had to be met? Their calling and experience encouraged the cynical questioning of generosity.
Lambert sighed; he thought he knew the answer he was going to get now. ‘Who to your knowledge has a key to Tall Timbers, apart from yourself?’
Bring Forth Your Dead Page 15