A Certain Justice

by P. D. James

  He asked: “So what have we got? Kate?”

  Kate wasted no time on preliminaries but got straight to the murder. “Venetia Aldridge was last seen alive by the Senior Clerk, Harry Naughton, just before six-thirty, when he took up a brief received by messenger and a copy of the Evening Standard. She was alive at seven-forty-five, when her housekeeper, Mrs. Buckley, spoke to her to complain that Octavia Cummins had demanded that a vegetarian meal should be cooked for her. So she died after seven-forty-five, probably at about eight or soon after. When Mrs. Buckley spoke to her, Aldridge had someone with her. Obviously that person could be the killer. If so, it was either someone from Chambers or a man or woman Miss Aldridge had herself let in and had no reason to fear. No one from Chambers admits to being with her at seven-forty-five. Everyone claims to have left by then. Desmond Ulrick was the last out, he says just after seven-fifteen.”

  Piers spread out the map of the Temple on the table. He said: “If she died at eight, or thereabouts, the murderer must have been in the Temple before then. All the unmanned gates are closed at eight, so either Aldridge let him or her in or he or she was already in the Temple when the gates were locked. The Tudor Street entrance has a boom barrier and is manned twenty-four hours a day. No one got in there after eight. The Strand entrance, through the Wren Gate into Middle Temple Lane, is temporarily closed for reconstruction. That still leaves five possible gates, the most likely being the one from Devereux Court through the Judges’ Gate, which most members of Chambers use. But we’ve checked that they’re all secure by eight o’clock. He or she would have needed a key. I refuse to go on saying ‘he or she.’ What are we going to call this murderer? I suggest MOAB—murderer of Aldridge, barrister.”

  Dalgliesh said: “How do we see the actual murder?”

  Kate went on: “The murderer forced Aldridge back against the wall, bruising the back of her head, and stuck in the knife straight to the heart. Either he was lucky or he knew his anatomy. Afterwards he dragged the body across the carpet—there are heel marks in the pile—and put her in the chair. Her cardigan must have been unbuttoned when the knife went in. He buttoned it up, concealing the slit in her shirt, almost as if he was trying to make her look comfortably tidy. I find that odd, sir. He couldn’t have hoped to make this look a natural death. He wrapped the knife in the coloured section of the Evening Standard, then probably took it down to the basement washroom to wash it, tearing up the paper and flushing the pieces down the lavatory. Before leaving, he put the knife in the bottom drawer of Valerie Caldwell’s filing cabinet. At some time he, or someone else, took the full-bottomed wig from the tin in the clerk’s office and the pouch of blood from Mr. Ulrick’s refrigerator and decorated the body. If that was done by the killer, then we have a restricted list of suspects. The murderer knew where to find the knife, the wig and the blood, and the blood was only put in the refrigerator on Monday morning.”

  Piers said impatiently: “Look, it’s obvious, surely, that the killer and the prankster are the same person. Why bother otherwise to drag the body and put it in the chair? Why not just let it drop to the ground and lie there? After all, the office was empty. She wasn’t going to be found till next morning. There was no point in making it look as if she were sitting alive in the chair. He did it specifically so that he could decorate her with the wig and the blood. He was making a statement. MOAB killed Aldridge because of her job. The quarrel wasn’t with the woman, it was with the lawyer. That ought to give us a lead on motive.”

  Dalgliesh said: “Unless that’s precisely what we’re intended to believe. Why was she killed near the door?”

  “She could have been replacing a file in the cabinet to the left of the door, or showing the visitor out. On impulse he seizes the knife and lunges at her as she turns round. If so, it wasn’t a member of Chambers. She wouldn’t be showing out a colleague.”

  Kate objected: “She might in certain circumstances. They quarrel, she yells ‘Get out of my room’ and flings open the door. OK, that kind of dramatic outburst doesn’t tie in with what we’re told about her but it’s perfectly possible. After all, she’d been in an odd mood recently.”

  “So who are our main suspects, assuming that the killer and the prankster are one and the same?”

  Kate referred to her notebook. “There are twenty remaining members of Chambers. The City have done most of the alibi checking for us. All, of course, have keys to Chambers, but it looks as if sixteen are in the clear. We’ve got the names and addresses here. Three are on circuit, four work out of London at the Salisbury Annexe, the two international lawyers are in Brussels, five work from home and can account for their time from six-thirty onwards, one is ill in St. Thomas’s Hospital and one is in Canada visiting his daughter who’s given birth to his first grandchild. We’ll have to do some further checking on three of them to see if the alibis will hold. One of the pupils, Rupert Price-Maskell, has just got engaged and was at a dinner to celebrate from seven-thirty. The Connaught. As two of the guests were High Court judges and one a member of the Bar Council we can take it Price-Maskell’s in the clear. Another pupil, Jonathan Skollard, is on circuit with his pupil-master. I haven’t been able to see the third, Catherine Beddington, she’s down with some bug or other. Oh, and the two assistant clerks are in the clear. One of the clerks at Lord Collingford’s Chambers had his stag-night yesterday at a pub in the Earls Court Road. They were with him by seven-thirty and the party didn’t break up until eleven.”

  Dalgliesh said: “So, if we’re thinking at present of those people who had keys to Chambers, were there on Wednesday and knew where to lay hands on the wig and the blood, it brings us down to the Senior Clerk, Harold Naughton; the cleaner, Janet Carpenter; and four of the barristers: the Head of Chambers, Hubert St. John Langton; Drysdale Laud, Simon Costello and Desmond Ulrick. Your priority tomorrow is to check more closely on their movements after seven-thirty. And you’d better check what time the Savoy has its interval, how long it lasts and whether Drysdale Laud could get to Chambers, kill Aldridge and be back in his seat before the play started again. Find out if he had a seat at the end of a row, and, if possible, who was next to him. Ulrick says he went home first to dump his briefcase and was at Rules for dinner by eight-fifteen. Check that with the restaurant and ask whether they remember if he had a briefcase with him, either at the table or checked in. And you need to see Catherine Beddington if she’s well enough to be interviewed.”

  Kate asked: “What about Mark Rawlstone, sir?”

  “At present we’ve no factual evidence to link him to the murder. I think we can take it he was at the House by eight-fifteen. He’d hardly persuade four constituents to lie for him and he wouldn’t have given us their names if he wasn’t confident they’d confirm his story. But have a word with the policeman on the gate to the Members’ Entrance. He’ll probably remember whether Rawlstone came by cab or was walking and, if so, from which direction. There’s not much they miss. And there’s something else you might fit in tomorrow if there’s time. I had another look at Miss Aldridge’s blue books before I left Chambers. Her notes on the Ashe case were instructive. It’s extraordinary what trouble she took to know as much as possible about the defendant. Obviously she held the eccentric view for a lawyer that most cases are lost because of inadequacies in the defence. It makes a pleasant change. I’m not surprised that she was appalled by the engagement between Ashe and her daughter; she knew too much about that young man for any mother’s peace of mind. And I was looking at her last case. GBH. Brian Cartwright. Apparently Miss Aldridge was in an odd mood when she returned from the Bailey to Chambers on Monday. It seems unlikely that Ashe and her daughter actually turned up at the Bailey to inform her of their engagement, so it’s possible that something else happened. It’s a long shot but it’s worth seeing Cartwright to find out if anything happened at the end of the case. His address is in the blue book. And I’d like to know more about Janet Carpenter. The domestic agency may be able to help. We need to interview Miss
Elkington anyway. After all, she and her cleaning women have keys to Chambers. And try Harry Naughton again. A night’s sleep may have cleared his mind. It would be helpful if he could produce someone—anyone—who saw him on that journey home.”

  Kate said: “I’ve been thinking of the dagger. Why put it in that filing drawer? Hardly hidden, was it? If we hadn’t found it pretty quickly, Valerie Caldwell would.”

  Dalgliesh said: “He dropped it in the most convenient place on his way out. He had a choice, leave it in Chambers or take it away. If he left it he’d have to wipe it clean of prints. If he took it away, perhaps with the idea of dropping it in the Thames, we’d still know that it was the weapon. There was no point in trying to conceal it effectively. That would take time, and he didn’t have time. Mrs. Carpenter was expected at eight-thirty.”

  “So you think he knew when Mrs. Carpenter would arrive?”

  “Oh yes,” said Dalgliesh. “I think Piers’s MOAB knew that.”

  Piers hadn’t spoken for some minutes. Now he said: “Harry Naughton’s the prime suspect for me, sir. He knew about the blood, he knew where to find the wig, he admits that no one saw him leave Chambers or arrive at his home station. And then there’s his extraordinary behaviour this morning. He’s done that journey from Buckhurst Hill for—how long?—nearly forty years and he’s always walked straight down Chancery Lane and into Chambers. So why does he suddenly find it necessary to go walkabout?”

  “He said he had personal matters to think about?”

  “Come off it, Kate. He’d had the whole journey from Buckhurst Hill to do his thinking. Isn’t it possible that he just couldn’t face going into Chambers? He knew damned well what was waiting for him. His behaviour this morning was totally irrational.”

  Kate said: “But people don’t always behave rationally. And why pick on him? Are you saying that you can’t believe a senior barrister would be guilty of murder?”

  “Of course I’m not, Kate. That’s bloody silly.”

  Dalgliesh said: “I think we’ll call it a day. I shan’t be in London for the first part of tomorrow. I’m going down to Dorset to see Venetia Aldridge’s ex-husband and his wife. Aldridge seems to have called on Drysdale Laud for help about her daughter’s engagement without success. Perhaps she tried Luke Cummins. In any case, they have to be seen.”

  Piers said: “An agreeable part of the country and it looks as if you’re going to have a pleasant day for it, sir. I believe there’s an interesting little chapel of ease at Wareham which you could probably find time to visit. And, of course, sir, you could take in Salisbury Cathedral.” He glanced smilingly at Kate, his good humour apparently restored.

  Dalgliesh said: “You could take in Westminster Cathedral on the way to Miss Elkington’s Agency. What a pity you’ll be too busy to find time for a quick prayer.”

  “What should I be praying for, sir?”

  “Humility, Piers, humility. Well, shall we call it a day?”

  14

  It was just after midnight, time for Kate’s invariable last ritual of the day. She tugged on the warmer of her two dressing gowns, poured herself a modest whisky and unlocked the door to the balcony overlooking the Thames. Below her the river was empty of traffic, a heaving black waste of water quicksilvered with light. She had two views from her flat, one from the balcony which overlooked the huge shining pencil of Canary Wharf and the glittering glass-and-concrete city of Docklands, and this, her favourite, the river view. This was a moment she normally savoured, standing glass in hand, her head resting against the gritty brickwork, smelling the sea-freshness brought up with the tide, star-gazing on clear nights, feeling at one with the throb of the never-sleeping city and yet lifted up and apart from it, a privileged spectator, secure in her own inviolate world.

  But tonight was different. Tonight there was no sense of contentment. Something, she knew, was wrong and she had to set it right, since it threatened both her private world and her job. It wasn’t the job itself; that still held its fascination, still compelled her loyalty and her dedication. She had experienced the worst and the best of policing in London and was still able to feel something of her initial idealism, could still be convinced the job was worth doing. So why this unrest? The striving hadn’t ceased. She was still ambitious for promotion when the opportunity came. So much had been achieved: senior rank; a prestigious job with a boss she liked and admired; this flat, her car, more money than she had ever before earned. It was as if she had reached some staging-post in which she could relax and look at the journey travelled, taking pleasure in the difficulties surmounted and finding strength for the challenges to come. Instead there was this nagging unrest, this sense of something which in the hard years she had been able to put out of mind, but which now must be faced and come to terms with.

  She was missing Daniel, of course. He hadn’t been in touch since he had left the Met, and she had no idea where he was, what he was doing. Piers Tarrant had taken his place, burdened with her resentment, a resentment which wasn’t any easier to cope with because she knew it was unjust.

  She had asked: “Why theology? Were you training to be a priest?”

  “Good God no! Me a priest?”

  “If you’re not intending to go into the Church, what’s the point of it? D’you find it useful?”

  “Well, I didn’t read it to find it useful. Actually, it’s a very good training for a police officer. You cease to be surprised by the unbelievable. Theology isn’t so very different from criminal law. Both rest on a complicated system of philosophical thought which hasn’t much to do with reality. I read it because it was an easier way of getting into Oxford than choosing history or PPE, which were my other options.”

  She didn’t ask what he meant by PPE but she resented it that he obviously thought she knew. She wondered whether she was jealous of Piers, not sexually jealous, which would be demeaning and ridiculous, but jealous of that unstressed camaraderie which he had with Dalgliesh and from which she felt that she, as a woman, was subtly excluded. Both men were perfectly correct towards her and towards each other. There wasn’t anything definite to which she could point the finger, but the whole sense of being a team had gone. And she suspected that, for Piers, nothing was of overwhelming importance, nothing could be taken seriously because, for him, life was a private joke, one presumably shared between him and his God. She suspected that he found something risible, even slightly ridiculous, in the traditions, the conventions, the hierarchy of policing. She sensed, too, that this was a view which AD with part of his mind understood, even if he didn’t share it. But she couldn’t live her life like that, couldn’t be lighthearted about her career. She had worked too hard at it, sacrificed too much for it, used it to climb out of that old life as an illegitimate motherless child in an inner-city high-rise flat. Was that at the heart of her present discontent—was she beginning for the first time to feel disadvantaged, educationally and socially? But she put that resolutely out of her mind. She had never given way to that insidious and destructive contagion of envy and resentment. She still lived by that old quotation, remembered but never identified:

  What matters it what went before or after?

  Now with myself I will begin and end.

  But three days earlier, before the Aldridge case broke, she had gone back to the estate, to Ellison Fairweather Buildings, and, rejecting the lift, had climbed the concrete flights of stairs to the seventh floor, as she so often had in childhood when the vandalized lift had been out of use, doggedly mounting behind her complaining grandmother, listening to the old woman’s laboured wheezings, laden with their shopping. The door of Number 78 was pale blue now, not the green she had remembered. She didn’t knock. She had no wish to see inside even if the present owners were willing to admit her. Instead, after a moment’s thought, she rang the bell at Number 79. The Cleghorns would be at home; with George’s emphysema, they rarely risked finding the lift wouldn’t work.

  It was Enid who had opened the door, her broad face sh
owing neither welcome nor surprise. She said: “So you’ve come back. George, it’s Kate, Kate Miskin.” And then, ungrudgingly, since hospitality must be offered, “I’ll put on the kettle.”

  The flat was smaller than she remembered, but, then, it would be. She was used to her double sitting-room above the Thames. And it was more cluttered. The television set was the largest she had seen. The shelf to the left of the fireplace was heavy with videos. There was a modern sound system. The sofa and two chairs were obviously new. George and Enid were managing nicely on their two pensions and her carer’s allowance. It wasn’t lack of money which made their lives hell.

  Over the tea Enid said: “You know who controls this estate, don’t you?”

  “Yes, the children.”

  “The kids, the bloody kids. Complain to the police or the council and you get a brick through your window. Tell ‘em off and like as not you get an earful of foul language and burning rags through the letter-box next day. What are your lot doing about it?”

  “It’s difficult, Enid. You can’t bring people to law without evidence.”

  “Law? Don’t talk to me about law. What has the law ever done for us? Thirty million or so spent trying to nail that Kevin Maxwell, and the lawyers getting fat on it. And that last murder case you got mixed up in must have cost plenty.”

  Kate said: “It would be exactly the same if someone was murdered on the estate. Murder gets priority.”

  “So you’re waiting for someone to get murdered? You won’t have to wait long the way things are going.”

  “Haven’t you a community policeman on the estate? There used to be one.”

  “Poor sod! He does his best but the kids laugh at him. What you want here is some dads on the estate who’ll do a bit of clipping round the ears and bring out the strap now and again to keep the boys in order. But there aren’t any dads. Poke the girl, breed the kid and be off, that’s young men today. Not that the girls want them around, and who’s to blame them? Better be on the welfare than get a bloody nose every Saturday when the old man’s team doesn’t win.”