“It’s very flimsy and totally conjectural.”
“And when they come back to Anchorage and book into the hotel they’re nominally staying at, they find among the mail Lydia’s letter with all the family news. And among the news she says casually: ‘There are two boys from the village that I’ve got interested in . . . .’ And they both wonder how long Robert will remain her heir.”
• • •
The editor was still droning on, having conspicuously failed to edit his own speech.
Ted Bellingham thought: my first funeral. I’d have expected it would have been Grandma Bellingham or one of the uncles or aunts—someone I didn’t care much about. But I did care about Lydia Perceval. Whatever her faults, whatever she would have done if she’d lived, I did care about her. Things are never going to be the same again, not quite the same. In a way I’ve grown up. . . . And things between me and Colin are never going to be the same.
Colin Bellingham thought: that must be the cousin who gets the loot. Lucky bugger! Look at that phoney eyes-fixed-on-a-distant-prospect look. I wonder if he’s homosexual. A lot of these explorers and loners are. Perhaps it might be worth while going up to talk to him afterwards. . . .
“Above all,” said the editor, who seemed to be responding to some sign from the undertakers at the back of the chapel, “Lydia was a perfectionist. Her life, like her books, had clarity and shape. It is that shape which was so hideously destroyed by the person who killed her.”
Is he here today? all but one of the congregation wondered.
• • •
“What have you done so far?” asked Mike Oddie, after considering for some moments.
“I rang a friend in a travel office in Leeds,” said Charlie. “She said anyone flying from Anchorage to Britain would almost certainly come via Seattle. She gave me the names of the airlines who ran direct or near-direct flights from Seattle to Britain that weekend. I figured that he might use a false name on an internal U.S. flight, but unless he had a false passport already prepared he’d use his own name on the inter-continental one.”
“You’ve contacted the airlines?”
“Yes, I’m just waiting for them to ring back. They were all very helpful. Apparently with computers it’s a relatively straightforward thing to check.”
Oddie shook his head.
“Of course, it doesn’t prove anything, even if he did fly back that weekend.”
“It would be interesting though, wouldn’t it? You’d expect him to enjoy a few days resting, a bit of hotel luxury, maybe have a girl lined up like Robert Loxton.”
“Maybe. On the other hand maybe the two couldn’t stand each other by the end of the four months, and all this Walter Denning wanted was to put a distance between himself and Robert Loxton. Or maybe these endurance freaks don’t think like the rest of us—that would figure . . . I wonder if these two really were regular partners. What had they done together before?”
“Who would know?” Charlie pondered. “Robert Loxton is a York-shireman. The Yorkshire Post may have monitored his activities more closely than a national paper would.”
“I hope you’d have phrased that differently if you’d been talking to one of their reporters,” said Oddie, slipping over to the office’s second desk. “They think they are a national newspaper. I’ll ring Frank Wiggins. He’s a good friend, and he’ll get any info he doesn’t have to hand. I’ll use this phone so as to leave that one free for your airline.”
And in fact while he was talking to Frank Wiggins at the Yorkshire Post Charlie’s phone rang, and he saw the young man taking down details with a smile of intense satisfaction on his face.
• • •
When Thea had asked Dorothy Eccles to organise the music she had stressed that Lydia had not been a Christian. This had put Dorothy in a quandary, because she felt that the congregation (she had imagined something very much larger than had actually assembled) should have something to sing. How else could one pay tribute to the dead one? And when it came down to it there wasn’t much else a mass of people could sing except hymns. After all, they did that even at the Cup Final.
In the end she compromised and chose “Jerusalem.” She reasoned that it was Blake, that the words were wonderfully evocative, and nobody was quite sure what they meant, except that they didn’t mean what the Women’s Institutes thought they meant.
And so it was with Blake and Parry that the funeral service ended. Molly Kegan had borne up through everything else, had even felt spasms of irritation at the fatuities of the clergyman and the prosiness of the editor. But music got to her, as music so often does. The straggly vocalism of the congregation singing of bows of burning gold brought tears to her eyes, then racking sobs that forced her to sit down and hide her face in her hands.
Thea wondered to see it. Her sister was genuinely mourned.
• • •
“Stop looking like a cat who’s knocked over the cream jug,” said Oddie as he put the phone down. “Give me the details.”
“He travelled by Continental, leaving Seattle Saturday at one P.M. and arriving at Heathrow on Sunday morning at seven twenty.”
“Right. We have our man back in Britain in plenty of time for the murder. Frank Wiggins is pretty sure Walter Denning is a regular partner of Loxton’s. He remembers an expedition to Antarctica to monitor ecological damage. He says it was sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society.”
“Could you ring them?”
“I’m just wondering what would be the right approach.”
They both pondered.
“They’ll know about Lydia’s murder, and they’ll know Robert Loxton’s connection with her,” Charlie said slowly. “It’s been in all the papers. Couldn’t you just say you’re checking his alibi?”
“Not a bad idea. Get me the number, will you?”
A minute later Mike was talking to the Secretary of the Society.
“This is the West Yorkshire Police. I’m investigating the murder of Lydia Perceval, the writer.”
“Oh really?” said a cool, genteel voice. “Awful business. Hers was one of the better books on T. E. Lawrence.”
“I’m sure it was. Now, purely as a formality I’m having to check the alibi of Robert Loxton, who’s the heir. He was in Alaska at the time.”
“I believe so. Not one of our expeditions.”
“No, but he was with a man called Walter Denning, who’d been with him on one of your expeditions in the past.”
“The Antarctic one. Nineteen eighty-four. Yes, I remember him. He was in and out of here quite a bit during the preparations for the survey. Man of few words, but very capable.”
“Do you have an address for him?”
Oddie wondered whether the man would ask why he couldn’t get it from Robert Loxton, but he didn’t.
“I must have him on my files here somewhere. . . . Oh yes. He’s got a flat in Kensington. 23 Museum Gardens, SW3.”
“Thank you. You’re most kind. Pure formality, of course.”
“Loxton will be well set up, we hear?”
“There is a fairly considerable estate.”
“Maybe he’ll be able to do that Gobi Desert trip he’s been trying to get finance for for years.”
“Maybe he will.”
As he rang off he saw that Charlie was already on his phone. Charlie had been in the uniformed branch at Scotland Yard for two years, and there was nothing you could teach him about checking people and their cars.
“Yes, Walter Denning, of 23 Museum Gardens, London SW3. . . . Fiesta, registration number F462 EGS. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed.”
CHAPTER 19
IT was not until three weeks later, when both of them had gone on to other and less interesting cases, that Mike Oddie and Charlie Peace were able to get together over a drink and really talk about the people in the case. They got two pints and two doorstep beef sandwiches at the Flying Fox, a seedy pub ten minutes from the West Yorkshire Police Headquarters in Leeds, Charlie wondering
under his breath to Mike why barmaids in real pubs were frowsty and dim, and totally unlike the barmaids in soaps. They took their drinks over to a table in a lonely corner of the saloon bar and settled down for a good natter.
“The forensic case against Denning is watertight,” said Oddie. “I doubt we could have got him on the young people’s evidence, because their identification of the car could have been pulled to pieces in court. But with forensic matching the strands of rope on his gloves to those in Lydia Perceval’s throat—not to mention the earth in the tread of his car tyres—then there isn’t much defending counsel can argue, in my opinion.”
“No . . . Funny about cases based on forensic evidence,” said Charlie, stretching his long legs out under the table. “They don’t somehow satisfy, do they? Why is that, do you think?”
“Because Forensic always behave as if they are infallible, and their evidence unquestionable?” suggested Mike. “As if the dingo baby case had never happened, not to mention the Birmingham Six.”
“Maybe . . . and maybe because the forensic case always leaves so many questions unanswered, I think.”
“It ignores the human side?”
“Right. That’s exactly it. Means you don’t even have to ask questions like why on earth Denning kept his gloves.”
Mike supped deep in his beer.
“Arrogance?”
“Either that or a subconscious wish to be caught.”
“I didn’t see any sign of that. I never met a suspect who stood up for his rights better. That stubborn refusal to answer my questions without a solicitor present—a lot of people try it, but I’ve never seen it done so successfully.”
“Didn’t you feel he was in a way impressive?”
“Yes, I did. More so than Loxton.”
“They’re different types, aren’t they?” suggested Charlie, setting down his glass. “In Loxton there’s always this trace of Enid Blyton: Two Go Adventuring Again.”
“Right. He’s an adventurer, while Denning is—what should we call him?—an explorer, perhaps.”
“That classic look with the eyes fixed on some distant object nobody else can see. Loxton tries it, but he has it. Makes the partnership between them difficult to understand.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Oddie. “They had more than enough in common to make it quite understandable. If you want to put it in old-fashioned terms (terms my wife would strongly object to) you could say that Denning was the male side of the partnership, Loxton the female. I don’t mean that sexually, of course.”
“Of course not. Denning the doer, Loxton the player, Denning the adult, Loxton the child. That makes it understandable that it should be Denning who goes off and does the murder, even though he’s not the one who directly benefits.”
“It was the essence of the plan that the murderer had to be the one who didn’t benefit at all.”
“True . . . Do you think we have a case against Robert Loxton that will stick?”
“Don’t you?”
“I suppose so,” said Charlie, but with a dubious expression on his face. “The two of them thinking up the plan while they were out there on the frozen wastes, and putting it into execution as soon as they got back to civilisation—that’s a nice, neat case that will appeal to a jury.”
“That was your idea in the first place. And there’s nothing wrong with a nice, neat case that will appeal to a jury. What worries you about it?”
“Just the fact that there is an equally good alternative scenario.”
“Which is?”
Charlie Peace spread out his hands.
“Pretty much Robert Loxton’s account of things. That they sat in their bivouac planning to murder Lydia in jest. The theatrical ‘perfect murder’ which never is. People do that, you know: schoolkids plan to kill a teacher they hate; nurses think up ways to murder matron.”
“Husbands plan to kill wives, and wives husbands. Oh, I know. I’ve done it myself in my time.”
“But just as a joke, an exercise . . . a feat of mental gymnastics. And that’s how Robert Loxton saw it: a piece of ‘if only we could’ that would ensure one big, last feat of exploration and endurance. So when they got back to Anchorage they’re relaxing in the Hilton Hotel and Robert reads out Lydia’s letter, which was waiting for them.”
“That was a brilliant guess on your part.”
“Compliment accepted. What Lydia actually said was: ‘There are two boys in the village, boys whose mother seems to be sick, whom I’m seeing a lot of, so it’s quite like old times. They remind me so much of Gavin and poor Maurice.’ ”
“Wasn’t that an interesting formulation?” Oddie said. “Gavin died a hero, so it’s Maurice, who didn’t live up to her plans for him, who is ‘poor’—a poor fish, in her eyes.”
“Right. So he reads out the letter, and they laugh, and Robert says ‘Better get the job done quickly before she changes her will.’ And then he goes off to his Karen and it’s only after he’s gone back to the hotel two or three times that he realizes Denning is no longer there, and then he starts to wonder. . . .”
“Doesn’t that scenario raise all sorts of questions about the character of Walter Denning?” asked Oddie. “He strings along with Loxton’s joke all the time they are out there on Mount McKinley, then acts on it for real as soon as they get back to base.”
“I think every scenario we’ve considered raises questions about the character of Walter Denning,” said Charlie.
“Fair enough. Let’s have another pint. My current case of a compulsive shoplifter is not nearly as fascinating as the murder of Lydia Perceval.”
When he got back to the table with two fresh pints Oddie said:
“Don’t you think the truth probably lies somewhere between the two—as the truth so often, messily and unsatisfactorily, does? That they did talk about Lydia’s murder together, always as a joke, but that Robert knew his companion, knew his compulsive wish to get this Gobi Desert expedition off the ground, and always half hoped that he’d take it seriously and go off and do it?”
“That would make us feel better about a jail sentence for him,” agreed Charlie. “But there again: a jail sentence for ‘half hoping’ something?”
“He may well get off,” Oddie pointed out. “He’ll certainly have a good counsel. Denning may say something to back his story up.”
“Denning saying anything of substance would be a red-letter day,” grumbled Charlie. “After all the hours and hours of questioning them and sitting in on your questioning them I feel I know Loxton. I don’t feel I know Denning at all.”
“That’s often the case with these explorers—compulsive loners who in a sense want to hide themselves. Often they turn out to be very odd people—Burton was, Stanley was. Odd, and rather unpleasant. But to their contemporaries they seemed to be unfathomable mysteries.”
“Why did he strangle her?” asked Charlie.
“It’s rather a neat method of murder,” said Oddie. “No bullet for the ballistics people, no messy blood.”
“But so chancy.”
“Not so very, for someone as fit as Denning.”
“There’s a sort of physical assertion about it—do you think that’s why it was chosen?”
“Maybe. He is proud of his physical fitness—did you notice that? Not conceited, like the bodybuilding freaks, but quietly pleased to be in peak condition.”
“Even for someone in peak condition, even when the victim is a not-young woman, even then strangling is a dodgy business. . . . It’s almost as if he wanted a slow way, wanted Lydia to suffer, wanted her to know what was happening to her and recognise him.”
“That’s nonsense. She didn’t know him. She got it all wrong, because she saw the beard and thought, rather uncertainly, that it must be Robert. But aren’t you overlooking the obvious explanation?”
“What’s that?”
“That he’s something of a sadist. Lawrence was a masochist who had himself beaten. Stanley liked having his blacks flogged.
A slow sort of death for his victim would appeal more to a sadist than a quick bullet.”
“Maybe,” Charlie sighed. The human dimension in this case was troubling him. “I certainly didn’t get any feeling of a sadist. But then, as I say, I didn’t get the feel of anything . . . I can imagine myself giving evidence in the witness box and looking across at the dock, looking into those eyes. And I’ll think: I don’t really know you. And he’ll know I don’t, and it’ll be a sort of victory. He’ll know I’m ending the case only half understanding.”
“That’s the name of the game,” said Oddie. “Most police work leaves you half understanding.”
They finished up their pints and went back to their work of half understanding.
• • •
Thea Hoddle was writing a letter. She had been wanting to write it for months but now with Andy back at school and the first chill of autumn meaning a coal fire in the living room, now she really intended to do it. To try. Probably there was no way it could be done, but. . . .
She fetched a little Victorian desk-top that went on her lap, something she had inherited from a mother she had been very fond of, put pad and pen in front of her, then sat thinking. Then slowly, painfully, she began to write.
Dear Mr Denning,
You will be surprised to get a letter from me. Or perhaps not—perhaps you have been wondering whether you would? I have been wanting to write ever since I saw the picture of you and Robert being taken into the magistrate’s hearing. I still find the killing of my sister disturbing and shocking, but sometimes I look into my heart and know that it was something I could have done myself, wanted often to do. We all have more cruelty in us than we acknowledge, I think. When Lydia took our children from us she did it with cruelty: she couldn’t just take them—she wanted her supremacy acknowledged, she wanted our supplanting to be visible to all. I never did forgive her for that.
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