“I am not the least interested in my antecedents, dear boy: only in yours.”
“Just what have you got there?” I ask, suddenly both fearful and annoyed. I hear my voice rise an octave. An elderly woman who has been scribbling in biro on a newspaper looks up.
“Keep your voice down, darling, we don’t want to bandy our business about so that everyone can hear, do we? All I have here are a few newspaper clippings that my friend Marjorie obtained for me. She works in the BBC archives, you know.” He nods affably at the elderly woman, who is still staring, and she looks away, burying herself in her crossword again. “There’s nothing at all here that isn’t in the public domain, and no reason on earth why you should get upset.” He has gathered the papers into a sheaf as he speaks, and is now holding them aloft at arm’s length away from me, as if I am a dog trying to pilfer the best fillet steak that he has bought for his supper. The gesture infuriates me. I keep my temper with some difficulty.
“All right,” I say as evenly as I can. “I can see that they’re newspaper clippings, as you say, and not private papers. Nevertheless, would you mind telling me what they’re about?”
Peter sniggered. “Well, the trial, of course. What else would they be about? How often have members of your family got their names into the national press? What did you expect them to be about?”
“You mean Tirzah’s trial?”
“Yes. Of course. You aren’t going to surprise me now by telling me that you come from a family of many felons, and that I might have had the pick of half a dozen trials?”
“I won’t say that you have no right to do this, because as you have just pointed out, technically speaking you have. But would you mind telling me why you are doing it? Of what possible interest can her trial be to you? And why have you brought all this stuff with you now, when we’re supposed to be on holiday? Did you think that I would enjoy sitting here and watching you read it?”
“Well, I didn’t expect you to be as upset as you clearly are, and I do apologise for that,” Peter says smoothly and in a voice devoid of contrition. He is watching me carefully, his eyes viscous and very black. “I actually have your best interests at heart. There are too many mysteries attached to your grandmother’s death and I intend to get to the bottom of it.”
I flush. “I don’t know what you mean by ‘mysteries’, or ‘getting to the bottom of it’. It was all very straightforward at the time. Horrible, of course, but straightforward. There was no doubt that my mother committed the crime and she did not at any stage try to say that she was innocent.”
“Yes, yes, I know that, my dear Hedley. Don’t forget that I have been reading the accounts of the trial myself. In fact, she said neither that she was innocent, nor that she was guilty. She said very little. Other people said a great deal, though. For example, there were several witnesses who testified that she had had a good relationship with your grandmother, and that in fact she got on better with her than with her own mother. From your own recollections as a young man – delicious thought! – would you say that that was true?”
I shrug. “She certainly didn’t have the kind of disagreements with my grandmother that she had with my father. In general, they seemed to get on – as far as my mother ever did get on with people. I wouldn’t say that she and my grandmother were on intimate terms – I doubt if my mother would have confided in her – but I don’t remember there being any friction between them. Why do you ask?”
“You read crime thrillers sometimes, don’t you?”
“Yes – you know I do.”
“So what is the Plod who’s sent to solve the murder always on the look-out for?”
“It depends on the novel. Fingerprints. Incriminating evidence. Circumstantial evidence. Motive.”
“Ah, motive! Quite right. What do you suppose your mother’s motive was? Why would she have killed your grandmother?”
“The judge decided that she was a psychopath. Psychopaths do things like that.”
“I know what the judge said; and I know what psychopaths do. It remains to be proved that your mother is one; opinion seems to be divided about that. But a bright psychopath – and I do your mother the honour of assuming that if she is a psychopath, she is an intelligent one – is usually quite cunning about not getting caught, at least not until he or she has a good few murders under his or her belt. He or she tends to kill people and get away with it, perhaps because they value their freedom, perhaps so that they can go on killing. In fact, from my study of the subject, I would say that they usually choose someone with whom they are only slenderly connected, with the express purpose of not getting caught. Killing one’s own mother-in-law when one’s family are gathered under the same roof would not seem to apply, would it?”
He eyes me narrowly. I feel my face flush and then grow pale. I don’t answer him.
“So,” he continues, “unless Tirzah is a stupid psychopath, which we have discounted, there are two possible explanations of the motive. One is that the murder of your grandmother was not a psychopathic act at all, but motivated by the extreme irritation that most of us feel when confronted with the company of our relatives for any period of time – in fact, one marvels that a domestic murder does not break out in every town on every day of the week. A crime of passion, in fact. Or indeed, a crime with some other motive – to keep Doris quiet, for example.”
I nod. “But the evidence does not support that hypothesis.” I manage to formulate the words, knowing that he expects something from me and hope that because I am echoing his own view I shall not be required to engage in debate.
“Precisely,” he says. He is still watching me intently, gauging my reaction, evidently waiting for me to elaborate. I swallow.
“You said that there were two possible explanations. What is the other one – in your view?”
“The other one, darling, is that Doris Atkins was indeed killed by a psychopath – or just possibly a family member acting under extreme irritation or fear of being found out about something – but that that person was not Tirzah. Which would have three further consequences: the first, that Tirzah is innocent; the second, that the actual killer, if he or she is not dead, is still at large; and the third, that almost certainly it is someone that you know.”
My brain scrambles to a mush. I think that I might pass out. I open my mouth again, but I have no idea what I can or should say. But Peter has relaxed his extreme scrutiny of my face as he gets carried away by the ingenuity of his own deductions. He holds up a finger.
“Ah, yes, I know what you are going to say: that there are sticking-points in my argument. The first and most obvious one is that Tirzah herself, not, I think you will agree, a woman known for her generosity of spirit or fellow feeling and therefore unlikely to be moved to take the rap for someone else, never asserted her innocence of the charge of murder. But she did not say that she was guilty, either. She simply refused to say anything that would establish that she was guilty or otherwise. The second is that everyone else involved – the other occupants of the house, the police, the shrinks – seemed to agree that Tirzah was the murderess. Even the character witnesses, friends or colleagues who could have testified in support of her, agreed that she had it in her to murder. So, if they were wrong, and assuming that they weren’t all party to a giant conspiracy to victimise her, what were all of these people overlooking? It must have been something so obvious that it was staring them in the face, and yet they missed it. What could it have been?”
I feel the pressure on me relax. I even give a short laugh.
“I have no idea, Peter, but I am certain that you are going to tell me.”
“Ah, that is where you are wrong, dear boy. I am afraid that this is as far as I have reached with my sleuthing. I am unable to draw any further conclusions: and, most disappointingly, there is also a piece in my jigsaw that I can’t make to fit at all.”
I grow wary again.
“Oh?” I say, trying to indicate that I feel that the subject is becoming rather tedious now.
“It’s that comment of Tirzah’s. She made it two or three times, in her initial statement to the police, and later to her counsel. It was quoted in court and she was asked what she meant by it, but she did not answer.”
“You mean the so-called ‘garden excuse’?”
“Yes – I thought you would be with me there. It was so well-documented in the press that you could hardly have missed it – and of course, you may have heard it repeated yourself, at the trial – did you? Did you attend the trial?”
I don’t answer. Peter darts me several looks, and then quotes thoughtfully:
“‘She was too fond of gardening.’ A gnomic utterance. A bit like ‘she should have died hereafter’. But what do you suppose it could have meant? I’m assuming that it did mean something. As we’ve agreed, Tirzah was essentially truthful, and not given to flights of fancy. So why did she make this comment? Was it a mistake, a giveaway remark that she would later regret – hence her refusal to expand on it – or a clue, if people would only try to interpret it?”
I shrug.
“Do you know what I should really appreciate?” Peter is dangerously alert again. His gaze bores right through me. I shake my head and try to be flippant. But I have recovered enough to emulate Peter’s own urbanity.
“You can’t expect me to second-guess your desires, dearest. You are far too complex. Indulge me and tell me what it is. I will do my best to oblige.”
Peter throws back his head and laughs his refined whinny.
“Excellent! That is what I like best about you, Hedley – your subservience. It becomes you well, just as accepting the dominant role becomes me even better. I should really like to hear your account of the day that your grandmother died. You were there, weren’t you?”
“I – I wasn’t in the house at the time. I didn’t see her die. I only saw the body afterwards.”
“That will do. Just your memory of it, your own observations as exactly as you can, with any hearsay or subsequent speculation removed, if your memory is acute enough.”
“I will try. But I don’t understand what use it will be. I wasn’t a witness – not to the murder; and I wasn’t called as a witness in court.”
“I know. Odd, isn’t it? Exceedingly odd that there were three people in the house at the time of Doris Atkins’ death besides your mother – Doris’s own mother and her brother Colin, your sister Bryony and, then, shortly after the event, yourself – and none of you was asked for a statement, let alone called as a witness. The main witness relied on by both the prosecution and the defence was your father – who, by his own account, did not arrive home until well after Doris was dead. Correct?”
I nod.
“Peculiar, isn’t it? But you will indulge me?”
I make no sound or gesture; Peter interprets this as assent.
“Good. Excellent. But first of all we shall have lunch – a proper lunch, in the buffet car, where they serve proper meals with claret. This is a real train, dear boy, not a travesty of one that serves food in cardboard boxes. Come along, now. I have made a reservation for the buffet car and I see that we are five minutes late already.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
It was inevitable when Tim and Juliet finally met Dorothy Atkins that they should feel a sense of anti-climax. Mrs. Meredith had suggested that they should first see her through the internal observation window before she introduced them. They peered through the clouded glass and saw an elderly woman seated in one of the curious stiff high-backed chairs that are an inescapable feature of residential homes. As she was sitting down, it was difficult to estimate her height, but Tim guessed that she was taller than average, which when she was young would have been exceptionally tall for a woman. She was stooping over a coffee table on which a newspaper had been spread. Her clothes were dowdy and unfashionable: she was wearing a crimplene skirt of a curious yellow ochre hue, and a lemon-yellow high-necked blouse with a ruffle. Her rather skimpy long grey hair had been caught with grips into an indifferent ‘French roll’. The skirt was quite short – it had ridden up to show her knees – and her legs, which were encased in thickish tights, were lumpy, with fat calves and virtually no tapering to the ankles. Rather incongruously, her feet were shod in scarlet leather moccasins.
She riffled through her newspaper for a while, studiedly nonchalant, and then gave a quick sideways glance at their window. “She knows, or suspects, that you are watching,” said Mrs. Meredith. “Time to meet her properly now.”
She led the way across the polished parquet floor, the crepe soles of her flat black lace-up shoes squeaking slightly as she went. Tim and Juliet followed in single file, and Tim saw that to an acute observer they would have presented rather a comic spectacle, trouping along as if they were part of a song-and-dance routine or some other frivolous activity. However, none of the old ladies whose chairs they passed, marooned like small islands in a brown parquet sea, bothered to look up and watch them. Most appeared to be dozing. There were no old gentlemen present, at least not in this part of the vast room.
As they approached Dorothy Atkins, she seemed to be entirely engrossed in the newspaper. Mrs. Meredith waited for Tim and Juliet to catch up with her, and then tapped Dorothy gently on the shoulder. She gave a little start. It was almost too theatrical.
“Hello, Matron,” she said, emphasising the second syllable of the first word and looking up to smile beatifically into Mrs. Meredith’s face. Her eyes were blank of emotion, however. Mrs. Meredith was clearly ill-at-ease.
“T-Tirzah,” she said, almost stammering. “Here are your visitors.”
Tirzah craned her neck so that she could look past Mrs. Meredith. Her hazel eyes met Tim’s jade-coloured ones. She held out her hand.
“Pleased to meet you,” she said. She did not ask his name. Her voice was characterised by its low monotone and flat Lincolnshire vowels.
“Pleased to meet you, too,” he said, taking her hand and shaking it reverently. Her own was quite slender, but long-fingered and surprisingly rough to the touch. “My name is Tim Yates. I am an inspector from South Lincolnshire police.”
“Tirzah.” she said. She stared at him for a long minute. “That’s the name I always go by now. My guess is that you are familiar with my history, so I won’t take the trouble to retell it. Sit down, if you want to.” She made an all-inclusive gesture at the other two chairs that had been pulled up to her table. Tim took the one immediately opposite her. She either did not see or deliberately ignored Juliet Armstrong, whom Tim also had forgotten until she slid noiselessly into the other chair. He hesitated and cleared his throat. He wondered why the woman made him so nervous: why she had evidently made Mrs. Meredith nervous, too. Glancing round, he saw that Mrs. Meredith had strayed away to talk to an old lady swaddled in tartan blankets who had been parked in a wheelchair on the other side of the room. Perhaps she had forgotten her promise – threat? – to stay with them.
“This is DC Juliet Armstrong,” he said, after what seemed like a very long pause. Tirzah inclined her head graciously, but did not offer Juliet her hand.
While she was bowing to Juliet, Tim took the opportunity to inspect her profile more closely. On previous occasions when he had come face to face with a suspected or convicted killer, he had played a kind of game with himself, and he tried it again now. Was there anything in Dorothy Atkins’ physiognomy that marked her out as a murderer, from his own experience of them?
Her face was long and sallow, the skin more brown than olive. It was an unattractive colour, but its texture was pretty good for a woman of her age, though her cheeks sagged and loose skin hung in a fold on her neck. Her hair was rather greasy, and combed straight back from her forehead in an unattractively severe style. She wore cameo earrings in ears that looked grubby, but that might just have been an effect of her sallowness.
The hazel eyes were deep-set and small, topped by heavy untidy brows that made them seem yet smaller, but they were watchful. There was a large patch of darker brown skin on her high forehead. The residue of an old wound, perhaps? He realised that she had turned away from Juliet and was observing him with a look of amusement that could easily have turned into a sneer.
“It is a disorder of the skin pigmentation, Inspector. One of the hazards of growing old.” Embarrassed, Tim looked away.
She clapped her hand on his suddenly, so that he almost cried out in alarm.
“Aren’t you going to tell me why you’ve come?”
“Yes, of course.” He made himself refrain from recoiling. It was taking her a long time to remove her hand. Juliet leaned forward to help him out.
“Mrs. Atkins, do you remember that when you still lived at home your son Hedley was going for a while out with a girl called Kathryn Sheppard?”
She snatched the hand away, slightly grazing his skin with her thick talon of a thumbnail. She looked thoughtful. Was it an act?
“Tirzah”, she said. “Please call me Tirzah. Now, what was the question?” She sounded confused, but shot Juliet a look of wicked alertness.
“Do you remember that your son once had a girlfriend called Kathryn Sheppard?”
There was a long pause.
”Not exactly,” she said at length, and with studied caution. “I remember Kathryn Sheppard, but I don’t think she was Hedley’s friend. She was someone else’s friend.”
Tim didn’t know how to respond to this cryptic utterance, but Juliet persevered.
“Whose friend? Can you remember?”
The swarthy brow clouded. She seemed to be struggling with her memory. She put her hand to her temple.
“I don’t think I do remember, exactly. It was another girl. A pretty girl. She was very slender.”
“Did you know this girl?”
“I’m sure I did.” She put both hands to her forehead. “Now, who could it have been?”
In the Family Page 17