The Murder Room

by P. D. James

  She said, “Were you all right in the church? Did you like it?”

  He shrugged. “It was OK. Weird. They’ve got the same joss-sticks we’ve got in the squat.”

  “You mean the incense?”

  “One of the girls in the squat, Mamie, used to light the joss-sticks and then we sat in the dark and she’d get in touch with the dead.”

  “She couldn’t do that, Ryan. We can’t speak to the dead.”

  “Well, she could. She spoke to my dad. She told me things she wouldn’t have known if she hadn’t spoken to Dad.”

  “But she lived with you in the squat, Ryan. She must have known things about you and about your family. And some things she told you were probably lucky guesses.”

  “No,” he said. “She spoke to my dad. Can I go back for another shake?”

  There was no problem in hailing a taxi for the return journey. It was only then that Ryan asked about the murder. She gave him the facts as simply as she could, not dwelling on the horror of the discovery and giving him none of the details.

  She said, “We have a team from New Scotland Yard investigating, Commander Dalgliesh and three assistants. They’ll want to talk to you, Ryan. Obviously you must answer their questions honestly. We all need to get this terrible mystery cleared up.”

  “And the Major? He’s OK, you said?”

  “Yes. He’s fine. The head wound bled a lot but it really wasn’t serious. But it could’ve been, Ryan. Why on earth did you lose your temper like that?”

  “He gave me aggravation, didn’t he?”

  He turned to stare resolutely out the window and Tally thought it prudent to say nothing more. She was surprised that he showed so little curiosity about Dr. Neville’s death. But the press accounts, so far, had been short and ambiguous. He was probably too concerned about his attack on the Major to care about Dr. Neville.

  She paid off the taxi, horrified at the total cost, and again added an extra pound as tip. The driver seemed satisfied. She and Ryan ducked under the barrier and walked in silence to the house.

  Inspector Tarrant and Sergeant Benton-Smith were coming out of the museum. The Inspector said, “So you found Ryan, Mrs. Clutton. Jolly good. We’ve some questions for you, young man. The Sergeant and I are off to the station. You better come with us. It won’t take long.”

  Tally said quickly, “Couldn’t you talk to Ryan in the cottage? I could leave you alone in the sitting-room.” She nearly committed the folly of offering him coffee as an inducement.

  Ryan’s eyes shifted from her to the Inspector. “Are you arresting me then?”

  “No, just taking you to the station for a chat. We’ve got some things to clear up. You can call it helping the police with their inquiries.”

  Ryan found some spirit. “Oh yeah? I know what that means. I want a brief.”

  “You’re not a juvenile, are you?”

  The Inspector’s voice was suddenly sharp. Tally guessed that dealing with juveniles would be difficult and time-consuming. It wasn’t a prospect the police would relish.

  “No. I’m nearly eighteen.”

  “That’s a relief. You can have a brief if you want one. We’ve got ‘em on call. Or you could phone a friend.”

  “All right. I’ll phone the Major.”

  “That forgiving chap? OK, you can ring him from the station.”

  Ryan departed with them willingly enough, even with a slight swagger. Tally suspected that he was prepared to enjoy his period of notoriety. She could understand why the police hadn’t wanted to question him in the cottage. Even if she left them alone, she would be too close for comfort. She was involved in this mystery, possibly even a suspect. They wanted to talk to Ryan in complete privacy. With a sinking of the heart she had no doubt they would get from him what they wanted.

  17

  Kate wasn’t surprised that Dalgliesh was to go with her to interview David Wilkins. It was after all necessary; only AD could identify him. Wilkins had been in the museum the week before the Dupayne murder and had admitted to a grievance against the museum. However unlikely a suspect, he had to be seen. And one never knew what part of an investigation AD might decide to take a personal hand in. He was, after all, a poet with a writer’s interest in the fabric of other lives. His poetry was a mystery to her. The man who had produced A Case to Answer and Other Poems bore no relation to the senior detective she served under with a passionate commitment. She could recognize some of his moods, feared his occasional if quiet criticism, rejoiced to know that she was a valued member of his team, but she didn’t know him. And she had long learned first to discipline, and finally to put aside, any hope of his love. Someone else, she suspected, now had that. She, Kate, had always believed in limiting ambition to what was achievable. She told herself that if AD were to be lucky in love, she would be glad for him, but she was surprised and a little disturbed by the vehement resentment she felt against Emma Lavenham. Couldn’t the woman see what she was doing to him?

  They walked the last fifty yards in silence through the thin drizzle. Goldthorpe Road was a terrace of late Victorian stuccoed houses running off the north end of Ladbroke Grove. No doubt these solid monuments to nineteenth-century domestic aspirations would one day be acquired, upgraded, converted into expensive flats and priced out of reach of all but two salaried professionals with an eye for a street on its way up. But now decades of neglect had sunk the terrace into decrepitude. The cracked walls were grimed with years of London dirt, the stucco had fallen in lumps from the porticoes, revealing the bricks beneath, and paint was flaking from the front doors. It didn’t need the racks of doorbells to see that this was a street of multi-occupancy, but it was strangely, even ominously, quiet as if the inhabitants, aware of some impending contagion, had stolen away in the night.

  The Wilkinses’ flat, 15A, was in the basement. Thin curtains, drooping in the middle, hung from the single window. The latch on the iron gate was broken and the gate kept shut by a wire clothes hanger twisted into a loop. Dalgliesh raised this and he and Kate went down the stone steps to the basement area. Some effort had been made to sweep it but there was still a moist heap of debris—cigarette packets, fragments of newspaper, crumpled brown bags and a filthy handkerchief—blown into the corner by the wind. The door was to the left where the pavement arched over the area, making the entry invisible from the road. The number 15A was crudely painted in white on the wall and Kate saw that there were two locks, a Yale and a security one below. Beside the door was a green plastic pot containing a geranium. The stem was woody, the few leaves were dry and brown and the single pink flower on its etiolated stem was as small as a daisy. How, Kate wondered, could anyone have expected it to flourish without sun?

  Their arrival had been noticed. Glancing to her right, Kate saw the edge of the curtains twitch. She rang and they waited. Looking at Dalgliesh, Kate saw that he was gazing upwards at the railings, his face expressionless. The street lamp shining through the shafts of drizzle picked out the taut line of the jaw and planes of the face. Oh God, she thought, he looks tired to death.

  There was still no reply, and after a minute she rang again. This time the door was cautiously opened. Above the chain a pair of frightened eyes met hers.

  Kate said, “Is Mr. David Wilkins at home? We want to have a word with him. We’re from the police.”

  She had tried to sound unfrightening while realizing that the effort was futile. A visit from the police is seldom good news and in this street it was probably a harbinger of catastrophe.

  The chain was still in place. The girl’s voice said, “Is it about the rent? Davie’s seeing to it. He’s not here now, he’s at the chemist’s picking up his prescription.”

  Kate said, “It’s nothing to do with the rent. We’re making inquiries about a case and we think Mr. Wilkins may be able to help us with some information.”

  And that was hardly more reassuring. Everyone knew what was meant by helping the police with their inquiries. The gap in the door widened until th
e chain was stretched to its full extent.

  Dalgliesh turned and said, “Are you Mrs. Michelle Wilkins?” She nodded and he went on, “We won’t keep your husband long. We’re not even sure that he can help us but we have to try. If he’s expected back soon, perhaps we could wait.”

  Of course we could wait, thought Kate. Inside or outside, we could wait. But why this pussyfooting?

  And now the chain was removed. They saw a thin young woman who looked little more than sixteen. The strands of light brown hair hung each side of a pale narrow face in which the anxious eyes looked into Kate’s for a moment of mute appeal. She was wearing the ubiquitous blue jeans, grubby trainers and a man’s pullover. She didn’t speak and they followed her down a narrow passage, easing their way past a folding pram. Ahead a door to the bathroom was open giving a view of an old-fashioned WC with a high cistern and hanging chain. At the base of the wash-basin there was a heap of towels and linen pushed against the wall.

  Michelle Wilkins stood back and motioned them through to a door on the right. The narrow room ran the whole width of the house. There were two doors in the rear wall, both standing wide open. One led to a cluttered kitchen, the other to what was obviously the bedroom. A railed cot and a double divan took up almost the whole space under the single window. The bed was unmade, the pillows ruffled and the duvet slipping off to expose a rumpled undersheet.

  The sitting-room was furnished only with a square table with four upright wooden chairs, a battered sofa covered with a throw in Indian cotton, a pine chest of drawers and a large television set beside the gas fire. Kate, in her years with the Met, had been in grubbier, more depressing rooms. They seldom worried her, but now she felt what she so rarely did, a moment of discomfort, even of embarrassment. What would she feel if the police arrived unannounced, requesting or demanding admission to her flat? It would be immaculate, why shouldn’t it be? There was no one there to make it untidy but herself. Even so, the intrusion would be insupportable. She and Dalgliesh needed to be here, but it was still an intrusion.

  Michelle Wilkins closed the door to the bedroom then made a gesture which could have been an invitation towards the sofa. Dalgliesh sat, but Kate moved over to the table. Set in its centre was a Moses basket holding a plump, pink-cheeked baby. Kate thought that it must be a girl. She was wearing a short frilled dress in pink cotton with an embroidered bib of daisies and a white knitted cardigan. In contrast to the rest of the room, everything about her was clean. Her head with its moss of milk-white hair rested on a pristine pillow; the blanket, now drawn aside, was spotless, and the dress looked as if it had been recently ironed. It seemed extraordinary that a girl so fragile could have produced this cheerfully robust baby. Two strong legs separated by a bunch of nappy were vigorously kicking. Then the child lay quietly, holding up hands like starfish and focusing on the moving fingers as if gradually realizing that they belonged to her. After a few aborted efforts she managed to insert a thumb into her mouth and quietly began sucking.

  Michelle Wilkins moved over to the table, and Kate and she looked down at the baby together. Kate asked, “How old is she?”

  “Four months. She’s Rebecca, but Davie and I call her Becky.”

  Kate said, “I don’t know much about babies but she looks very forward for her age.”

  “Oh she is, she is. She can arch her back very strongly and she can sit up. If Davie and I hold her upright you can see her trying to stand.”

  Kate’s thoughts were in a mild emotional confusion. What was she expected to feel? Unhappy awareness of that much-discussed inexorable ticking away of the years, each one after thirty making it less likely that she would ever be a mother? Wasn’t that the dilemma facing all successful professional women? So why didn’t she feel it? And was this only a temporary reluctance? Would the time come when she would be overcome by a need, physical or psychological, to bear a child, to know that something of herself would survive her death, a craving which might become so imperative and overwhelming that she would be driven to some modern humiliating expedient to get her wish? The thought horrified her. Surely not. Illegitimate, brought up by an elderly grandmother, she had never known her mother. She thought, I shouldn’t know how to begin. I’d be hopeless. You can’t give what you’ve never had. But what were the responsibilities of her job, even at its most demanding, compared to this: to bring another human being into the world, to be responsible for her until she was eighteen, never to be free of caring and worrying until you died? And yet the girl beside her was happily coping. Kate thought, There’s a world of experience I know nothing about. Suddenly and with sadness she felt herself diminished.

  Dalgliesh said, “Your husband visited the Dupayne Museum fairly regularly, didn’t he? We met while I was there ten days ago. We were both looking at the same painting. Did you often go with him?”

  The girl bent suddenly over the cot and began fussing with the blanket. Her lank hair fell forward, obscuring her face. She seemed not even to hear. Then she said, “I did go once. That was about three months ago. Davie hadn’t a job at the time so he was let in free, but the woman at the desk said I had to pay because I wasn’t on job-seekers’ allowance. It’s £5, so we couldn’t afford it. I told Davie to go in on his own, but he wouldn’t. Then a man arrived and came over to the desk to ask what was wrong. The woman there called him Dr. Dupayne so he must have been something to do with the museum. He told her she had to let me in. He said, ‘What do you expect this visitor to do, wait outside in the rain with her baby?’ Then he told me to leave my bag where the coats are hung, just inside the door, and take Becky in with me.”

  Kate said, “I don’t suppose that made the woman on the desk very happy.”

  Michelle’s face brightened. “No it didn’t. She went red and looked daggers after Dr. Dupayne. We were glad to get away from her and look at the pictures.”

  Dalgliesh said, “One particular picture?”

  “Yes. It’s one that belonged to Davie’s grandad. That’s why Davie likes to go and see it.”

  It was then that they heard the creak of the gate and the clatter of feet on the steps. Michelle Wilkins vanished silently through the door. They could hear the low mutter of voices in the passage. David Wilkins came in and stood for a moment irresolute in the doorway as if it were he who was the visitor. His wife moved close to him and Kate saw their hands touch and then clasp.

  Dalgliesh got up. He said, “I’m Commander Dalgliesh and this is Inspector Miskin from the Metropolitan Police. We’re sorry to come without warning. We won’t keep you long. Hadn’t we all better sit down?”

  With their hands still clasped, husband and wife moved to the sofa. Dalgliesh and Kate sat at the table. The baby, who had been gently gurgling, now let out a sudden cry. Michelle rushed to the table and picked her up. Holding her against her shoulder, she moved back to the sofa. Husband and wife gave all their attention to Rebecca.

  The boy said, “Is she hungry?”

  “You get the bottle, Davie.”

  Kate saw that nothing more could be done until Rebecca had been fed. The bottle was produced with extraordinary speed. Michelle Wilkins cradled her child who began lustily munching on the teat. There was no sound but this vigorous feeding. The room had suddenly become domestic and very peaceful. It seemed ludicrous to talk about murder.

  Dalgliesh said, “You’ve probably guessed that we want to talk about the Dupayne Museum. I expect you know that Dr. Neville Dupayne has been murdered.”

  The boy nodded but didn’t speak. He had huddled close to his wife and both kept their gaze on the child.

  Dalgliesh said, “We’re talking to as many people as possible who either worked at the Dupayne or visited regularly. I’m sure you understand why. First I have to ask where you were and what you were doing last Friday between, say, five o’clock and seven.”

  Michelle Wilkins looked up. She said, “You were at the doctor’s, Davie.” She turned to Dalgliesh. “The evening surgery starts at quarter past five and Da
vie’s appointment was for quarter to six. Not that he gets seen then, but he always gets there in good time, don’t you, Davie?”

  Kate asked, “When were you seen?”

  David said, “About twenty past six. I didn’t wait long really.”

  “Is the surgery close to here?”

  “It’s in St. Charles Square. Not far really.”

  His wife said encouragingly, “You’ve got your appointment card, haven’t you, Davie? Show them the card.”

  David fumbled in his trouser pocket, produced it and handed it to Kate. It was crumpled and bore a long list of appointments. Undoubtedly the boy was due at the surgery on the previous Friday evening. It would be a matter of minutes only to verify that he had actually attended. She noted the details and gave back the card.

  Michelle said, “Davie gets bad asthma and his heart isn’t very strong. That’s why he can’t always work. Sometimes he’s on sick pay and sometimes on job-seekers’ allowance. He started a new job last Monday, didn’t you, Davie? Now we’ve got this place everything should be better.”

  Dalgliesh said, “Tell me about the picture. You said your grandfather owned it. How did it come to be in the Dupayne Museum?”

  Kate wondered why Dalgliesh was going on with the interview. They had got what they wanted. She had never thought David Wilkins a likely suspect, but nor had Dalgliesh, so why not leave now? But so far from resenting the question, the boy seemed eager to talk.

  “It belonged to my grandad. He had a little village shop in Cheddington, that’s in Suffolk near Halesworth. He did all right until the supermarkets came and then the business fell off. But before that he bought the Nash picture. It was in the sale at a local house and he and my grandma went round to bid for a couple of easy chairs. Grandad took to the picture and got it. There wasn’t much local interest because people thought it was so gloomy and there weren’t any other paintings in the sale so I don’t suppose people knew about it. But Max Dupayne knew about it, only he got there too late. He tried to persuade Grandad to sell it to him but Grandad wouldn’t. He said, ‘If ever you want to sell I’ll be interested, only you may not get the price I’m offering you now. It’s not a valuable picture but I fancy it.’ But Grandad fancied it too. You see, his dad—that’s my great-grandad—was killed in the 1914–18 war at Passchendaele, and I think he wanted this as a kind of memorial. It hung in their living-room until the shop finally failed and they moved into a house in Lowestoft. Then things got bad for them. Anyway Max Dupayne must have kept in touch, for he arrived one day to ask about the picture and said again that he wanted to buy it. Grandad had got into debt so he had to agree.”