Doomed to Die

by Dorothy Simpson

  Lineham led the way. He flung open the studio door and Thanet stopped dead, momentarily overwhelmed by the impression of light, space and visual richness. He had been seeking an imprint of Perdita’s personality and here, at last, he had found it.

  This room had been built along the back of the house, facing north, and was flooded with the clear, flat light so necessary to the serious artist. The wall facing the garden was glass from floor to ceiling and huge skylights had been set into the sloping roof. Along the back wall of white-painted brick hung panels of material, some plain, some richly textured and patterned in brilliant colours. Beneath them ran a long wooden bench cluttered in places with a diversity of objects doubtless used by Perdita in her paintings: curiously shaped pieces of wood, shells, pots and vases of all sizes and descriptions, fans, feathers, pebbles and stones, even pieces of bleached bones, including a skull. At intervals, in cleared spaces, a still life had been set up. Along one of the side walls were racks holding finished paintings and sheets of watercolour paper, and along the other, shelves stacked with reference books, sketchbooks, notepads, jars of pencils and brushes, paints, all the paraphernalia of the working artist. Draped over a chaise-longue was a dazzling variety of shawls, scarves and pieces of fabric. There were two easels, one freestanding and the other a large adjustable table model set up on a worktable at right angles to the tall windows. Thanet crossed to look at the painting taped to it.

  Perdita had been working on another night-time landscape, a powerful disturbing work of rich, sombre hues. Distorted shadows were cast by the moon which floated behind the stark, silhouetted branches of trees and in the foreground was a tangle of undergrowth which only partly concealed the bleached bones of some long-dead animal.

  ‘Wow!’ Lineham brought Thanet out of his absorption with a jolt. The sergeant was standing in the middle of the studio, revolving slowly. ‘Some place, eh?’ He crossed to peer over Thanet’s shoulder. ‘Wouldn’t like to hang that on my wall.’

  ‘She was good, though, wasn’t she?’

  ‘I’m no judge of that, I’m afraid. But she certainly didn’t lack for equipment.’

  Thanet thumbed through some of the numbered sketchbooks ranged along the shelves. Book after book was filled with pencil drawings and watercolour sketches, some bold and rapidly executed, some fragmentary, some meticulously detailed, and covering every conceivable subject. It was obvious that to Perdita a pencil or a paintbrush in the hand had been almost an extension of her body. Thanet shook his head, sighed. What a waste of talent. And how desperate she must have been to get away, to have left all this behind her.

  ‘Don’t seem to be any personal papers here,’ said Lineham.

  ‘Depends what you mean by personal.’

  ‘Letters, documents, that sort of stuff.’

  ‘Wait a minute.’

  Thanet had spotted something. Covered by one of the vivid shawls which Perdita had loved, a futuristic design of whorls, squiggles and geometric shapes, was what Thanet had taken to be a table and now realised was a filing cabinet. But if they had hoped for personal revelations they were disappointed. It merely contained a drawer of indexed photographs and immaculately kept business records: receipts, details of sales, exhibitions, letters from galleries and from Perdita’s accountant. Having seen the power of her work Thanet was not surprised to see how successful she had become. She would certainly have been able to support herself, and Thanet wondered if Master in fact realised that by providing her with this elaborate cage and encouraging her to develop her gift he had unwittingly handed her the means to escape from him.

  ‘Look at this! Two thousand quid!’ Lineham was holding a receipt in his hand, looking dazed. ‘She was getting two thousand quid for one painting!’

  ‘Frankly, having seen her work, I’m not surprised. Don’t look so astounded, Mike. People will pay, you know, for a fine work of art.’

  Lineham was still shaking his head. ‘But two thousand pounds … How can anyone afford that sort of money – and for a modern artist. I mean, it’s such a risk, isn’t it?’

  ‘Depends on whether you’re acquiring the painting as an investment or simply because you like it. Anyway, I don’t think there’s anything more to see here. It’s gone two. We’d better get a move on, if we’re going to be in time for our appointment with Mrs Swain.’

  There was still no sign of either Master or his mother and they let themselves quietly out of the house.

  They stopped at the telephone box in the village for Thanet to ring the hospital. No change in his mother-in-law’s condition.

  As he got back into the car Lineham said, ‘I’ve been thinking … What you said, about someone truly wanting her dead, what about Mr Master’s mother? She certainly seems glad to see the back of her.’

  ‘Mrs Master senior doesn’t seem to be shedding any tears, I agree. But what motive could she have had? After all, Perdita was gone. She’d left her husband and no doubt her mother-in-law was delighted. But why bother to kill her?’

  ‘To make sure she didn’t change her mind, come back?’

  ‘A bit thin, Mike.’

  ‘Maybe, for a normal person. But Mrs Master is obsessive as far as her son is concerned and as you’re always pointing out, people with obsessions don’t behave normally.’

  ‘I can’t see that she’d have had any reason to go and see her.’

  ‘She did know where young Mrs Master was. She admitted it.’

  Thanet was shaking his head. ‘I still think she’d have left well alone. I think she’d have been well satisfied just to know that Perdita was out of the picture. If there’d been any positive indication that Perdita was considering coming back, now, well, that would be different. But Master says that when he talked to his wife on Monday evening she was still determined not to do so. And I really can’t see that he’d have any reason to lie about that, quite the reverse. I’d be much more inclined to think he was lying if he was trying to pretend that everything was all right between them.’

  ‘True … Unless, of course, he was trying to protect his mother.’

  ‘If she’d killed his wife! I should think he’d have been much more likely to turn on her with his bare hands! No, you’re pushing this too far, Mike.’

  ‘I was only going by what you said, about whoever killed her truly wanting her dead!’

  ‘I know. I just don’t think there’s any point in pursuing this line of thought for the moment. If something turns up to make me change my mind, fair enough, we’ll reconsider.’

  The traffic was thickening and slowing down as they approached the section of the A20 where the new M20 motorway was being constructed. Alongside the old road excavations and earthworks disfigured the landscape, with their attendant turmoil of trucks, diggers, cranes and workers’ caravans.

  ‘What a mess!’ murmured Thanet.

  ‘The A20’ll be much quieter when it’s finished.’ Lineham was a great fan of motorways.

  Thanet merely grunted. He hated what was happening to Kent. Along with most of the other inhabitants of the county he bitterly resented the fact that the so-called garden of England was being turned into a through road to Europe. The Channel Tunnel was a blight on the county. For miles inland the coastal areas had been devastated to provide approach roads and loading depots, the M20 motorway link had laid waste a great swathe of countryside, and the dreaded High-Speed Rail Link was the worst threat of all. In order to match the High-Speed Link through France, where relatively uninhabited countryside made construction far easier, British Rail was intending to slice through ancient Kentish villages with a total disregard for history, tradition or the lives of the people who lived in them. Property values close to the proposed route had slumped and many had found their houses unsaleable. Driven to desperation, the placid inhabitants of Kent had taken drastic measures. There had been protests, marches, petitions to Parliament, they had even burnt an effigy of the Chairman of British Rail, all apparently to little avail. But lately there had been whi
spers: the cost of the Link had soared and it could prove too expensive an undertaking. Thanet fervently hoped that this would prove to be the case.

  He glanced at his watch. Twenty past two. They were going to be late. At a snail’s pace they crawled through Lenham then on past Harrietsham. Then came a glimpse of the battlements of Leeds Castle before they arrived at Hollingbourne corner. Here the traffic became virtually stationary as at the double roundabouts two lanes reduced to one. By now it was twenty to three.

  Lineham thrummed his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘Come on, come on.’

  Thanet could sympathise. He too hated being late. ‘No point in getting worked up about it, Mike. There’s nothing we can do.’

  At last they reached the Maidstone turn-off and were clear of the congestion. A couple of miles further on they turned right to the TVS Studios.

  ‘Ever been here before, Mike?’ said Thanet as the barrier was raised and they drove in.

  Lineham shook his head. ‘Nope. I must admit, I’m quite looking forward to it.’

  TVS, which serves the densely populated South East, is an immensely successful Independent Television company. The modern building which houses its Maidstone studios has been built in the former grounds of a small country house, Vinters Park.

  ‘Don’t suppose we’ll see much of it, Mike. We’re hardly likely to get a guided tour.’

  Thanet was right. Perhaps in retaliation for their lateness Ms Edge/Swain made them wait fifteen minutes in the foyer before she arrived. She then led them a short distance along a corridor before turning into a small room furnished with a low round coffee table and a few chairs.

  When they were seated she glanced at her watch. ‘Right, Inspector. How can I help you?’

  A clear message. I’m a busy woman. Don’t waste my time.

  Thanet had already apologised for being late, though she had not. He had no intention of being pressured or rushed through this interview.

  ‘As I’ve no doubt you’ve gathered, we are investigating the murder of Mrs Perdita Master.’

  Her lips compressed and the muscles along her jawbone tightened as she clenched her teeth. She was a complete contrast to Perdita, tall and heavily-built with straight blond hair cut very short and a broad, high-cheekboned, almost Slavic face which seemed incomprehensibly familiar to Thanet. He was sure he had never actually met her before or seen her on the box. She was wearing brown corduroy trousers, chestnut-brown leather boots and a beautiful mohair sweater in an abstract design of browns, neutrals and black – one of her husband’s creations, Thanet assumed.

  He wondered how she had felt about her husband’s bombshell on Saturday night. Or perhaps it hadn’t been a bombshell at all, maybe she had already known about the affair, or at least suspected it. Did she love her husband? he wondered. Perhaps she hadn’t cared. She would at least have been able to support herself, jobs in television were notoriously well paid. But if she had cared, yes, she would be a formidable opponent. Capable of murder, to hold on to what she wanted?

  He looked again at the firm, square jaw, the pugnacious blue eyes. Thanet could see what Harrow had meant by ‘high-powered’. He could well imagine that many people would find her intimidating.

  However, she wasn’t going to intimidate him.

  ‘I’ll come straight to the point, Mrs Swain. We have been to see your husband and he has been very frank with us. He has told us that he and Mrs Master were having an affair, and that on Saturday night he informed you that he was going to leave you, for her.’

  She picked up the huge soft brown leather shoulder bag that she had deposited on the floor beside her chair, opened it and took out a packet of cheroots. Taking her time, she lit one and exhaled slowly, leaning back in her chair and blowing the smoke towards the ceiling. She smiled. ‘My, we don’t pack our punches, do we, Inspector. Are you saying that I am suspected of killing my rival?’

  ‘That might be putting it a little too strongly. But clearly, you have a motive and therefore we have to consider the possibility.’

  She took another puff, exhaled again. Then, suddenly, she leaned forward. ‘Let me make my position quite clear, Inspector. Frankly, I’m glad that Perdita is dead. I never did care for her, I can’t stand that boneless, helpless little woman type and she was always the same, even at school. Men like it, of course.’ She rolled her eyes, cast them up to heaven in mock despair. ‘They really go for it, and my husband was no exception. He thought I didn’t know what was going on, but he was mistaken. I’m not blind and I’d seen it coming, for months.’

  Briefly, her composure slipped and Thanet glimpsed the pain behind the façade. So she had cared. Deeply. His interest quickened.

  ‘But, Inspector, and believe me, it’s a very big “but”, I did not kill her. I knew that in the end, you see, my husband wouldn’t have had the …’

  Guts? supplied Thanet.

  ‘He wouldn’t have been able to bring himself to leave. He enjoys his little comforts and I earn far more than he does. When he’d got around to the nitty-gritty, he’d have worked out that he couldn’t afford to leave me and continue living in the style to which he has become accustomed.’

  Thanet sensed rather than saw Lineham shift on the seat beside him. What had discomforted the sergeant? The note of contempt in Mrs Swain’s voice, when she spoke of her husband? Thanet knew that Louise, Lineham’s wife, could be pretty scathing at times. Was Lineham going to find himself in the position of identifying with yet another suspect?

  ‘I’m not so sure of that, Mrs Swain. Mrs Master had become pretty successful, you know.’

  She waved her hand and a worm of ash fell on the carpet. She put out her foot and rubbed it in. ‘She may have sold a painting or two. But it’s a pretty precarious living.’

  Thanet was amused to find himself indignant on Perdita Master’s behalf, had to restrain himself from arguing with Mrs Swain. Was she genuinely ignorant of Perdita’s success? he wondered, or was she deliberately misrepresenting the facts? Perhaps it was simply wishful thinking on her part.

  ‘Just now you said, “Even at school”, Mrs Swain. You were at school with Mrs Master?’

  ‘We both went to Sturrenden High.’

  Of course, that was why Mrs Swain looked familiar!

  Thanet’s brain had produced a fleeting, vivid image: a group of girls walking along the pavement outside Sturrenden High, chattering, laughing and casting sidelong glances at the boys hanging around on the opposite side of the road hoping for just such a glimpse as this. In those days approaches to members of the opposite sex had been much more hesitant, tentative. She had always been in the same group, had stood out because she was a good head taller than the rest. Her hair had been glamorously long, then, had swung to and fro like a golden bell as she walked, a magnet to the boys’ attention. He suddenly realised that there was a rich vein of information he had not yet tapped – Joan. She, too, had been at Sturrenden High, and although she was a year or two older than Perdita and this woman, she might well know something about them. And about Vanessa Broxton too. Joan had been in bed when he got home last night and this morning there had been no opportunity to talk before the phone call about her mother took precedence over everything else. He hadn’t even told Joan the name of the murder victim.

  ‘So you know Mrs Broxton, too.’

  She blew smoke again. ‘Naturally. Cosy, isn’t it? We were all in the same form.’

  ‘Friends?’

  She grimaced, shook her head. ‘No. Vanessa was too much of a swot, and Perdita … Well, Perdita was always a bit of an outsider.’

  ‘Why was that, d’you think?’

  She shrugged. ‘How should I know?’

  There was a knock at the door and a girl put her head around it. ‘Oh, sorry.’ She withdrew.

  ‘If she was an outsider, she must have been different. In what way?’

  Another shrug. ‘She always seemed to live in a world of her own. You felt that half the time she didn’t really see you even
if you were standing bang in front of her. As if you were invisible or something. And who likes to feel invisible? No, she just didn’t seem very interested in having friends, doing things with other people. She was always stuck in a corner by herself, drawing.’ Briefly, a reminiscent smile touched her lips. ‘She used to do some pretty good caricatures of the staff, I remember.’

  ‘But this didn’t make her any more popular?’

  Mrs Swain shook her head emphatically. ‘I told you, she just wasn’t interested.’

  ‘Unusual, in a teenager.’

  ‘And of course,’ said Mrs Swain, blowing a smoke ring and watching Thanet with a glint in her eye, ‘she was pretty, well, for want of a better word, retarded.’

  ‘Retarded?’ Thanet’s eyebrows rose. Then he realised that her choice of word had been deliberate. She had wanted to jolt, to shock.

  ‘Don’t look so astonished, Inspector. I don’t mean mentally. Sexually.’

  ‘She just wasn’t interested in boys?’

  ‘Exactly. Pretty rare, in an adolescent, wouldn’t you say? Of course, to begin with she was a late developer. Small, skinny. She was in the fifth form before her periods started. We all knew, because she was never excused gym. We used to joke about it.’

  And pretty cruel such teasing could be, Thanet thought.

  ‘We’d all had boobs for years before Perdita began to sprout them. And then, suddenly, we realised that the boys were sniffing around her. We could never understand the attraction.’ She smiled, a slow, lazy, almost seductive smile. ‘A mystery, isn’t it? S. A.?’

  ‘Sex appeal?’

  Again the smile, with a hint of appraisal as well as amusement in it as she glanced at Lineham, who always seemed to emanate a prudish disapproval when sex was openly discussed, even after all his years in the force. ‘Don’t you like talking about sex, Sergeant? That must make life difficult for you.’ She raised her arms above her head and stretched, her heavy breasts lifting beneath the soft, caressing surface of her sweater. ‘Me, I find it highly stimulating.’

  Lineham, apparently impassive, made a note and Thanet read it, out of the corner of his eye.