The Murder Room

by P. D. James

  Piers said, “Voice before face? That’s odd. And how can she be so sure? She only saw him bending over her for a few seconds and under a dim street lamp.”

  Dalgliesh said, “Whatever the sequence of her thought processes, whether what determined the identification was appearance, voice or both, she is adamant it was Martlesham who knocked her down last Friday night.”

  Kate asked, “What do we know about him, sir? He’s some kind of philanthropist, isn’t he? I’ve read about him taking clothes, food and medical supplies to where they’re most needed. Didn’t he go to Bosnia driving a truck himself? There was something about it in the broadsheets. Tally Clutton may have seen his photograph.”

  Piers went over to take Who’s Who from the bookcase and brought it over to the table. He said, “It’s a hereditary title, isn’t it? Which means he was one of the hereditaries elected to remain in the House after that first botched reform, so he must have proved his worth. Didn’t someone refer to him as the conscience of the cross-benchers?”

  Dalgliesh said, “Hardly. Aren’t the cross-benchers a conscience in themselves? You’re right about the philanthropy, Kate. He set up that scheme whereby the rich lend money to those who can’t get credit. It’s similar to the local credit unions but the loans are interest-free.”

  Piers was reading aloud from Who’s Who. “Charles Montague Seagrove Martlesham. Quite a late peerage, created 1836. Born third October 1955, educated usual places, succeeded 1972. His father died young, apparently. Married a general’s daughter. No children. So far conforms to type. Hobbies—music, travel. Address—The Old Rectory, Martlesham, Suffolk. No ancestral house it seems. Trustee of an impressive number of charities. And this is the man we are about to suggest is guilty of a double murder. Should be interesting.”

  Dalgliesh said, “Contain your excitement, Piers. The old objections still apply. Why should a man fleeing from the scene of a particularly hideous murder stop to check that he hasn’t hurt an elderly woman knocked off her bicycle?”

  Kate asked, “Will you warn him, sir?”

  “I’ll tell him I want to see him in connection with a current murder investigation. If he feels the need to bring his lawyer with him, that’s his decision. At this stage I don’t think he will.” He seated himself at his desk. “He’s probably still at the House. I’ll write a note asking him to see me as soon as possible. Benton-Smith can deliver it and escort him here. Martlesham’s almost certainly got some kind of London address and we could go there if he prefers, but I think he’ll come back with Benton.”

  Kate walked over to the window and waited while Dalgliesh wrote. She said, “He’s an unlikely murderer, sir.”

  “So are all the others—Marcus Dupayne, Caroline Dupayne, Muriel Godby, Tally Clutton, Mrs. Faraday, Mrs. Strickland, James Calder-Hale, Ryan Archer. One of them is a double murderer. After we’ve heard from Lord Martlesham we might be closer to knowing which.”

  Kate turned and looked at him. “But you know already, don’t you, sir?”

  “So I think do we all. But knowing and proving are two different things, Kate.”

  Kate knew that he wouldn’t speak the name until they were ready to make an arrest. Vulcan would remain Vulcan. And she thought she knew why. As a young detective constable, Dalgliesh had been involved in a murder investigation which had gone badly wrong. An innocent man had been arrested and convicted. As a new DC he had not been responsible for the mistake, but he had learned from it. For AD the greatest danger in a criminal investigation, particularly for murder, remained the same. It was the too easy fixing on a prime suspect, the concentration of effort to prove him guilty to the neglect of other lines of inquiry, and the inevitable corruption of judgement which made the team unable to contemplate that they might be wrong. A second principle was the need to avoid a premature arrest which would vitiate the success both of the investigation and of the subsequent court proceedings. The exception was the need to protect a third person. And surely, thought Kate, with this second murder Vulcan was no longer a danger. And it couldn’t be long now. Sooner than she had thought possible, the end was in sight.

  After Benton-Smith had left for the House of Lords, Dalgliesh sat for a minute in silence. Kate waited, then he said, “I want you to drive to Swathling’s now, Kate, and bring back Caroline Dupayne. She’s not under arrest, but I think you’ll find that she’ll come, and it will be at our convenience, not hers.” Then, seeing Kate’s look of surprise, he said, “I may be taking a chance, but I’m confident that Tally Clutton’s identification is right. And whatever Martlesham has to tell us, I have a strong feeling that it will be concerned with Caroline Dupayne and her private flat at the museum. If I’m wrong and there’s no connection, I’ll try to reach you on your mobile before you get to Richmond.”

  2

  Lord Martlesham arrived at the Yard within thirty minutes and was escorted up to Dalgliesh’s office. He came in, composed but very pale, and seemed at first uncertain whether he was expected to shake hands. They sat opposite each other at the table in front of the window. Looking across at the bleached features, Dalgliesh had no doubt that Lord Martlesham knew why he had been summoned. The formality of his reception, the fact that he had been shown into this bleakly functional room, the bare expanse of pale wood between them, made their own statement. This was no social call and it was obvious that he had never supposed that it was. Looking at him, Dalgliesh could understand why Tally Clutton had found him attractive. His was one of those rare faces for which neither the word “handsome” or “beautiful” is entirely appropriate, but which show with a guileless vulnerability the essential nature of the man.

  Without preamble, Dalgliesh said, “Mrs. Tallulah Clutton, the housekeeper at the Dupayne Museum, has this afternoon recognized you as the motorist who knocked her off her bicycle at about six twenty-five on Friday the first of November. On that night two people were murdered at the museum, Dr. Neville Dupayne and Miss Celia Mellock. I have to ask you whether you were there and what you were doing.”

  Lord Martlesham had been holding his hands in his lap. Now he raised them and clasped them on the table-top. The veins stood out like dark cords and the knuckles shone, white marbles under the taut skin. He said, “Mrs. Clutton is right. I was there and I did knock her down. I hope she wasn’t more hurt than I thought. She did say she was all right.”

  “She was only bruised. Why didn’t you come forward earlier?”

  “Because I hoped this moment would never happen. I was doing nothing illegal but I didn’t want my movements to be known. That’s why I hurried away.”

  “But later, when you knew about the first murder, you must have realized that your evidence was material, that you had a duty to come forward.”

  “Yes, I think I did know that. I also knew I had nothing to do with the murder. I didn’t even know that the fire was deliberate. If I thought anything it was that someone had lit a bonfire and it had got out of control. I convinced myself that coming forward would only complicate the investigation and cause embarrassment to myself and to others. When I learned this morning of the second death, things became more complicated. I decided that I would still keep silent, but if I were identified, then I would tell the truth. I didn’t see this as obstructing the course of justice. I knew I had nothing to do with either death. I’m not trying to defend myself, just explaining how it happened. It seemed unnecessary to come forward after Dr. Dupayne’s murder, and that decision affected what I did subsequently. With every passing hour it was more difficult to do what I accept was right.”

  “So why were you there?”

  “If you’d asked me that question after Dupayne’s death, I would have told you that I was using the museum to get off the road and rest, and then I woke and realized I was late for an appointment and needed to hurry. I’m not a practised liar and I doubt whether it would have been convincing, but I think it might have been worth a try. Or, of course, I could have challenged Mrs. Clutton’s identification. It would ha
ve been her word against mine. But the second death has changed all that. I knew Celia Mellock. I went to the museum that night to meet her.”

  There was a silence. Dalgliesh said, “And did you?”

  “No. She wasn’t there. We were to meet in the car-park behind the laurel bushes to the right of the house. The time arranged was six-fifteen, the earliest I could manage. Even so, I was late. Her car wasn’t there. I tried ringing her on her mobile, but there was no reply. I decided that she had never intended to be there, or had got tired of waiting, so I drove away. I wasn’t expecting to meet anyone and I was driving faster than I should have been. Hence the accident.”

  “What were your relations with Miss Mellock?”

  “We had briefly been lovers. I wanted to break off the association and she didn’t. It was as brutal as that. But she seemed to accept that it had to end. It should never have begun. But she asked me to meet her for the last time at the museum. It was our usual place of assignation, in the car-park. It’s utterly deserted there at night. We’d never felt at risk of discovery. Even if we’d been seen, we weren’t doing anything illegal.”

  Again there was a silence. Martlesham had been looking down at his hands. Now he shifted them again and re-placed them in his lap.

  Dalgliesh said, “You said you were here to tell the truth, but that isn’t the truth, is it? Celia Mellock was found dead in the Murder Room of the museum. We believe she was killed in that room. Have you any idea how she got into the museum?”

  Martlesham looked hunched in his chair. Without looking up, he said, “No, none. Couldn’t she have arrived earlier in the day, perhaps to meet someone else, and then hidden herself—in the basement archive room, say—and been trapped there, perhaps with her killer, when the doors were locked at five o’clock?”

  “How do you know about the archive room and that the doors of the museum are locked at five?”

  “I’ve been there. I mean, I’ve visited.”

  “You’re not the first person to put that forward as an explanation. I find that an interesting coincidence. But there’s another way Celia Mellock could have got into the Murder Room, isn’t there? Through the door from Caroline Dupayne’s flat. Isn’t that where you and she had arranged to meet?”

  And now Lord Martlesham lifted his head and met Dalgliesh’s eyes. It was a look of utter despair. He said, “I didn’t kill her. I didn’t love her and I never told her I did. Our affair was a folly and I did her harm. She thought she’d found in me what she needed—father, lover, friend, support, security. I gave her none of these things. She wouldn’t be dead if it weren’t for me, but I didn’t kill her and I don’t know who did.”

  Dalgliesh said, “Why the Dupayne Museum? And you didn’t make love in the car-park, did you? Why on earth should you have sex in discomfort when you had her flat and the whole of London available to you? I’m suggesting to you that you met in Caroline Dupayne’s flat. I shall ask Miss Dupayne for her explanation, but now I’d like yours. Have you been in touch with Miss Dupayne since Celia Mellock died?”

  He said, “Yes, I phoned her when the news broke. I told her what I would say to you if I were identified. She was derisive. She said I’d never get away with it. She wasn’t worried. She sounded harshly, almost cynically, amused. But I told her that, if pressed, I would have to come out with the whole truth.”

  Dalgliesh asked almost gently, “And what is the whole truth, Lord Martlesham?”

  “Yes, I suppose I’d better tell you. We did meet occasionally in the flat over the museum. Caroline Dupayne got two sets of keys for us.”

  Dalgliesh asked, “Although Celia had a flat of her own?”

  “I did go there once, yes. It was only once. I didn’t feel secure and Celia didn’t like using her flat.”

  “How long have you been an intimate friend of Caroline Dupayne?”

  Lord Martlesham said unhappily, “I wouldn’t say that we were intimate.”

  “But you must be, surely. She’s a very private woman, yet she lends you her flat and hands out keys to you and to Celia Mellock. Miss Dupayne told me that she had never met Celia since the girl left Swathling’s College in 2001. Are you saying that she’s lying?”

  And now Martlesham looked up. He paused and said with a brief rueful smile, “No, she isn’t lying. I’m not very good at this, am I? Not much of a match for a skilled interrogator.”

  “We’re not playing games, Lord Martlesham. Celia Mellock is dead. So is Neville Dupayne. Did you know him, intimately or otherwise?”

  “I’ve never met him. I hadn’t heard of him until I read of his murder.”

  “So we go back to my question. What is the truth, Lord Martlesham?”

  And now, at last, he was ready to speak. There was a carafe of water and a glass on the table. He tried to pour a glass but his hands were shaking. Piers leaned over and poured it for him. They waited while Lord Martlesham drank slowly, but when at last he began speaking his voice was steady.

  “We were both members of a club which meets in Caroline Dupayne’s flat. It’s called the 96 Club. We go there for sex. I think it was founded by her husband but I’m not sure. Everything is secret about it, even the membership. We can introduce one other member, and that’s the only other person whose identity we know. The meetings are arranged on the Internet and the website is encrypted. We went there for that one reason, to enjoy sex. Sex with one woman, two, group sex, it didn’t matter. It was—or seemed—so joyous, so free of anxiety. Everything fell away. The problems we can’t avoid, the ones we impose on ourselves, the occasional blackness of despair when you realize that the England you knew, the England my father fought for, is dying and you’re dying with it, the knowledge that your life is based on a lie. I don’t suppose I can make you understand. No one was being exploited or used, no one was doing it for money, no one was under-age or vulnerable, no one had to pretend. We were like children—naughty children, if you like. But there was a kind of innocence there.”

  Dalgliesh didn’t speak. The flat, of course, had been ideal. The concealed entrance to the drive, the trees and bushes, the space for parking, the separate entrance to the flat, the total privacy. He asked, “How did Celia Mellock become a member?”

  “Not through me. I don’t know. That’s what I’ve been trying to explain. It was the whole point of the club. No one knows except the member who first brought her.”

  “And you have no idea who that was?”

  “None. We broke all the rules, Celia and I. She fell in love. The 96 Club doesn’t cater for that dangerous indulgence. We met for sex outside the club and that is forbidden. We used the museum for a private meeting. That, too, is against the rules.”

  Dalgliesh said, “I find it strange that Celia Mellock was taken on. She was nineteen. You can hardly expect discretion from a girl of that age. Had she the maturity or the sexual sophistication to deal with that kind of setup? Wasn’t she seen as a risk? And was it precisely because she was a risk that she had to die?”

  This time the protest was vehement. “No! No, it wasn’t that kind of club. None of them ever felt at risk.”

  No, thought Dalgliesh, probably they didn’t. It wasn’t only the convenience of the flat, the sophistication of the arrangements and the mutual trust that made them feel secure. These were men and women who were used to power and the manipulation of power, who would never willingly believe that they could be in danger.

  He said, “Celia was two months pregnant. Could she have believed that she was carrying your child?”

  “She may have believed that. Perhaps that’s why she wanted to see me urgently. But I couldn’t have made her pregnant. I can’t make any woman pregnant. I had a bad attack of mumps when I was an adolescent. I can never father a child.”

  The look he gave Dalgliesh was full of pain. He said, “I think that fact has influenced my attitude to sex. I’m not making excuses, but the purpose of sex is procreation. If that isn’t possible, never could be possible, then somehow the sexual a
ct ceases to be important except as a necessary relief. That’s all I asked of the 96 Club, a necessary relief.”

  Dalgliesh didn’t reply. They sat for a moment in silence, then Lord Martlesham said, “There are words and actions which define a man. Once spoken, once done, there is no possible excuse or justification, no acceptable explanation. They tell you, this is what you are. You can’t pretend any longer. Now you know. They stand unalterable and unforgettable.”

  Dalgliesh said, “But not necessarily unforgivable.”

  “Not forgivable by other people who get to know. Not forgivable by oneself. Maybe forgivable by God but as someone said, C’est son métier. I had such a moment when I drove away from that fire. I knew it wasn’t a bonfire. How could it be? I knew that someone could be at risk, someone who might be saved. I panicked and I drove away.”

  “You stopped to make sure Mrs. Clutton was all right.”

  “Are you putting that forward in mitigation, Commander?”

  “No, merely stating it as a fact.”

  There was silence. Dalgliesh asked, “Before you drove away, did you enter Miss Dupayne’s flat?”

  “Only to unlock the door. The hall was in darkness and the lift was on the ground floor.”

  “You’re quite sure of that? The lift had been brought down to the ground floor?”

  “Quite sure. That convinced me that Celia wasn’t in the flat.”

  After another silence Martlesham said, “Like a sleepwalker, I seem to have followed a path others have set out for me. I founded a charity because I saw a need and a way to meet it. It was obvious really. Thousands of people driven to financial despair, even suicide, because they can’t get credit except from sharks who set out to exploit them. But the ones who need money most are those who can’t get it. And there are thousands of people with money to spare—not much, just pocket money to them—who are prepared to provide funds at a moment’s notice, interest-free but with a guarantee that they will get the capital back. And it works. We organize it with volunteers. Hardly any of the money goes on administration and gradually, because people are grateful, they start treating you as if you’re some kind of secular saint. They need to believe that goodness is possible, that not everyone is driven by greed. They long for a virtuous hero. I never believed I was good, but I did believe I was doing good. I made the speeches, the appeals, expected of me. And now I’ve been shown the truth about myself, what I really am, and it appals me. It can’t be concealed, I suppose? Not for my sake, but I’m thinking of Celia’s parents. Nothing could be worse than her death but I wish they could be spared some of the truth. Will they have to be told about the club? And there’s my wife. I know it’s rather late to be thinking of her but she isn’t well and I should like to spare her pain.”