by J M Gregson
‘We always talk to the people who discover the body in cases of sudden death. I know you spoke to Detective-Inspector Rushton briefly last night. We may need to duplicate some of that conversation. It shouldn’t take long. I’m sorry if your holiday plans have been disrupted.’
‘It isn’t just a vacation,’ Harben corrected him automatically. ‘We’re hoping to live in this area. That’s why we were looking at Lydon Hall last night.’
Lambert nodded. ‘You had an appointment to do so?’
‘Yes. For nine o’clock.’
‘You’re sure of the time?’
‘Yes. I changed it. Originally it was eight-thirty, but we had another property to look at near Hereford, and I knew we couldn’t make the Hall much before nine.’
‘How did you change the time of the appointment, Mr Harben?’
Harben looked at his wife. ‘Margaret did it.’
Margaret Harben came in quickly. ‘That’s right. I used the car phone.’
‘Can you recall what time that would be?’ Lambert was calm and impassive, watching the faces before him as carefully as if they had been suspects; it was Hook who was noting down the detail of the replies.
‘Oh, I should think about two-thirty yesterday afternoon. It was after lunch and before we got to Worcester. Is it important?’ She was just a little tetchy, resenting this level of questioning about a routine death. The whole business had upset her rather more than she cared to admit, even to herself. As one who had not come face to face with this sort of death before, she was shaken by the thought of the chasm of despair which must open up before a suicide. Yet she also resented Stanley Freeman’s decision to end his days with such an unwarranted intrusion into her life. She had fallen in love with Lydon Hall, and felt it had made a favourable impression on her hard-headed husband. Freeman’s death had spoiled that. She might never live there now, and she blamed the man she had never met for his untimely and ill-chosen death. It might be unworthy and petty in her, but that thought only increased her irritation.
‘Probably not,’ said Lambert, with a smile which disconcerted her even further by its suggestion that he knew all about her resentment against the dead man. ‘But it could be. We shall need to check all the facts around the case, set each person’s recollections against those of others, see if there are significant differences. We have to start somewhere, so we begin with you and your husband as the discoverers of the body.’
Henry T. Harben was fascinated by this initiation into British police procedure, but felt he had been silent long enough.
‘I’m impressed by this attention to detail, Superintendent, but isn’t it just a little over the top? I guess your English thoroughness is just great, but I can’t see the New York police spending this kind of time and resources on a routine suicide.’ His smile emphasized that on this occasion at least common sense was on the side of the New World.
‘Oh, I think they might – once they realized that someone had been trying to dress up murder as suicide!’ said Lambert with an answering smile. He tried to be sorry for structuring his revelation into a small drama, but in truth such little pleasures were small compensation for the many hours of dull fact-finding which were the normal lot of the CID. He was gratified by the widening eyes of the Harbens. Into Margaret’s face there gradually seeped distress, as she struggled to come to terms with the fact that the scene still printed upon her memory from last night embodied not just the self-destruction of an unhappy man but some other, more evil presence as well. She tried the easiest option first.
‘Maybe the law says it’s murder. But most of us wouldn’t think of someone who assisted an EXIT suicide as a murderer. More as a compassionate and courageous final friend in need, I’d say.’
Harben looked sharply sideways at his wife. Perhaps it was a side of her he had not seen before; perhaps he had merely not heard of an organization designed to facilitate this kind of death. His grey hair was dishevelled a little now, where he had run a hand through it; he looked older, as if prosperity had suddenly lost its proficiency to keep time at bay.
Lambert glanced at the inscrutable Hook, as he usually did when he was about to reveal more than he should. He said quietly, ‘I’m afraid all the indications are of a different sort of killing, Mrs Harben.’ He reached into his inside pocket for the single sheet of paper which would make it official in her mind, picked out and read to her the phrases he already knew by heart. ‘This is the preliminary post-mortem report. “Death was by asphyxiation. It is unlikely that this could have been voluntary asphyxiation. The plastic bag which was the instrument of death appears to have been held around the neck. Abrasions on the wrists and bruising on the upper left arm are commensurate with the restraining of the arms from the rear at the time of death… A meal of chicken, chips and peas had been eaten some two hours before death. A quantity of whisky approximating to five single measures had been consumed in the period immediately before death.”’
He looked through the rest of the notes, deliberately low-key. ‘There are other details, principally about the time of death, but I think that thanks to your evidence we can already be more precise than the pathologist in this respect. The post-mortem report will all be dressed in more cautious medical language for the inquest, but the gist of it is what I’ve told you.’
He paused and watched a process he had seen many times before; the reality of villainy seeping into the minds of the innocent. The thoughts of Henry and Margaret Harben were back in Lydon Hall at sunset, its loveliness clouded now with the presence of evil. While they had strolled in elation around the gracious house which might have become their home, a murderer’s victim had lain within and the murderer himself had been nearby, had possibly even watched their movements. Lambert, familiar with this moment, could almost follow the thought processes. It was time to resume routine.
‘Do you know what time you arrived at the Hall? As exactly as possible, please.’
‘It must have been just a minute or so before nine. We parked at the gates. A church clock struck as we walked round the side of the house.’ This was Henry Harben, pouring out facts as if they were an assertion of innocence.
‘Did either of you see anyone anywhere around the house?’
Margaret Harben gave a little shudder of repugnance before she replied, for the implication of the question was clear enough.
‘No one.’
‘You realize the importance of this. When you went to the rear of the house, how far into the grounds did you go?’
They looked at each other. Henry Harben’s baritone drawl was strangely reassuring as he said, ‘We strolled along the terrace and looked at the rose gardens.’
‘You didn’t go any further back, towards the woods behind?’
‘No. We were waiting for Stanley Freeman to arrive. We didn’t go into the arboretum.’ Lambert was surprised at his use of the technical word, then realized it would have been on the particulars of the Hall put out in the agent’s brochure.
‘You caught no sign of any human movement as you looked at the woods?’
‘No. Did the killer go that way?’
‘I’ve no idea. We have reason to think, though, that someone may have been in the arboretum at the time of the murder.’ Inwardly, Lambert cringed as he always did at the jargon of his trade, but he could not deny the usefulness of these circumlocutions at times.
‘You mean that while we were finding the body, the murderer might have been watching our every move from out there?’ Margaret Harben was white with the notion. Sometimes witnesses enjoyed the vicarious horror of such melodrama, from a safe retrospect; she seemed merely shaken at the thought of how near evil had been to them while they walked in innocent survey.
‘It’s possible. It’s also possible that someone as guiltless as you was around rather earlier, and saw more. If so, we’d obviously like to locate that person.’
Harben put his hand over his wife’s, where it gripped the arm of the chair. ‘We didn’t see anyone,
Superintendent.’
‘Let’s concentrate on the house, then. How did you enter the house?’
‘The French window wasn’t locked.’ Margaret Harben was defensive with an English respect for private property. ‘It wasn’t even latched. It opened when I touched it.’
‘You went straight into the drawing-room?’
‘We thought Freeman must be in the house,’ said Harben.
‘And he was. In a manner of speaking,’ said Lambert. ‘Did you find him immediately?’
‘As soon as I put the light on. Until then, we thought the room was empty.’ Margaret Harben was tight-lipped with the memory of the moment.
‘Did you go any further into the house?’
‘No.’
‘You’re sure of that? You didn’t go beyond the door of the drawing-room?’
‘No. Is it important?’
Lambert ignored the question for a moment. ‘Where did you phone from?’
‘From the car. I have a phone in the Rolls. We went back there,’ said Harben.
‘And you rang the police?’
‘There was no hurry about an ambulance. I used to be a nurse, remember,’ said Margaret Harben. Lambert, who could scarcely be expected to remember what he had never been told, was familiar with this assumption of omniscience among those he questioned.
‘Did you go back to the Hall after you’d dialled 999?’
They looked at each other. ‘No. We sat in the car at the gates until your policemen arrived. Is it important?’ Harben’s impatient tone implied that it was not.
‘It could be. Someone could have been in the house, anywhere beyond that drawing-room door, when you discovered the body.’
‘The murderer could still have been there.’ Margaret Harben’s face etched the sickly excitement of the thought.
‘It’s possible. The uniformed men searched the house when they arrived, as part of the normal routine, and found no one.’
‘But we were at the gates until they came. We would have seen anyone leave.’ This was Harben. He was anxious to dismiss the material for nightmares from his wife’s mind, though Lambert judged that now she was enjoying the frisson of a danger that was past.
‘By orthodox means, yes. But of course anyone could have left the house from the rear and disappeared through the arboretum.’
He was right: Margaret Harben was hugging to herself her involvement in what she now saw as a melodrama rather than a sad suicide. She was at this moment more determined than ever to buy Lydon Hall, suddenly impatient to be alone with her husband to sound his feelings in the matter, yet reluctant to relinquish her involvement in the inquiry. ‘What else do you want to know?’ she said.
‘You’ll have realized by now that I’m trying to assemble every known fact surrounding the death of Stanley Freeman, from yourself and others. The hope is that one or more of those facts will eventually emerge as significant. We’ve covered your arrival at the house, your discovery of the body, and the period between that moment and the arrival of the police. All that remains is the period immediately before that. In driving to visit the Hall, did you see or hear anything significant in the area?’
He did not need to issue the usual injunctions to take time and think carefully; these witnesses were anxious to be of help. There was quite a pause before Margaret Harben said reluctantly, ‘I don’t think so.’
Lambert waited, letting the dubious recall of the subconscious have its final chance. Unexpectedly, it was Henry T. Harben who spoke, his transatlantic tones suddenly sharpened with the thrill of his recall.
‘We passed a car. Going far too fast. On a bend.’
‘How near to the house?’ Lambert was professionally matter-of-fact.
‘Half a mile, perhaps.’
‘Make and model?’
‘I couldn’t be certain of either. It came out of the sun. I was glad enough to miss it.’
‘Colour?’
‘Blue?’ He looked at his wife, who nodded her agreement.
‘Did you see the driver?’
The Harbens looked at each other, intense with concentration, then shook their heads in simultaneous frustration. Henry said, ‘The windscreen was right against the sun. In any case, I was fighting to avoid a collision.’
The four people in the room looked at each other, revolving the single thought. Perhaps only the murderer’s desperate speed in departure had preserved his anonymity. Or hers.
Chapter 7
Denise Freeman rolled on to her back and stretched a slim brown arm to pick up her watch from the bedside table. ‘One o’clock. Time you were going,’ she said to her lover.
He stretched his feet to the end of the bed in heavy, post-coital lassitude, and tried to pretend everything was as it had always been. ‘Five minutes,’ he said with a satisfied smile. In truth, it had not been as satisfactory as they had expected: Simon Hapgood knew that as well as Denise.
She looked down at the small aureole of yellow hair around his head as he sank it back into the silken pillow. His eyes were closed, his face smooth-skinned and relaxed, the small, attractive smile fixed upon the quiet lips. His lovemaking had been as urgent, as fierce, as uncomplicated as ever. And she had responded as always, fitting her passion to his violence, surging to a climax without needing any refinement of technique from him. That brief moment of concerted frenzy had been as successful as ever.
Yet this time it had been only a moment. They had been as awkward before it as they had been that first time many months ago. The words which normally came so easily to her had had to be framed by deliberate thought, and that had made the speaking of them a self-conscious exercise. They had kissed briefly, peremptorily even, with none of the slow, exploratory excitement of lovers secure in their attraction. And today she had found within her mouth the sour taste of death.
On the second day after his death, Stanley Freeman had inhibited them as he never had in life. She had been conscious as she never had before of making love in Stanley’s house with another man. A younger man. A lover not so very different from what Stanley had been once: she had never had that thought before. Perhaps her conscience, if her feelings could be dignified as anything so worthy, should have been more active when her husband was alive. The thought did not help her now.
‘I’ve got to move,’ she said. She rolled her legs over the side of the bed and reached for her towel robe: with a lover twelve years your junior, it was important he should not have a detailed view of sagging curves as they disappeared towards the shower. For the first time she could remember, she was not reluctant to leave him.
Simon Hapgood listened to the soothing hiss of the shower and wondered why he too felt so deflated today. He was too self-centred to allow that Stanley Freeman, a man he had both disliked and despised, could have troubled him so much more in death than in life. Of course, the fact of his death had changed the situation; that was indisputable. The lines were bound to be re-drawn, and as yet he was not sure how. Would Denise expect him now to marry her? What had been a passionate, breathtaking affair of stolen hours and uncertain future had now no barriers to prevent it becoming permanent.
Would he, indeed, want to marry Denise? He had never thought about it until now. He could certainly use all this: he looked round the bedroom, with its quality built-in furniture, its cut-glass chandelier and wall lights with their suggestion of fin-de-siècle sensualities, its brass-handled mahogany door to the en suite bathroom where his mistress was showering. He stretched his limbs indulgently against the silk sheets. Opulently fitted, he would call it if he were describing the house for the market: and that’s what his life would be if he married Denise. He had already discarded any notion that she might not be delighted to marry him.
He tried to analyse his feelings for Denise Freeman, without much success. He was not given to self-analysis, the result being too often depressing, and he found it difficult to be objective. He felt a strong but nevertheless shallow affection for Denise; it was probably as much as he
had felt for anyone in an unsatisfactory life. Was it more than sexual desire and gratification? She had been kind, understanding, experienced, and his own bedroom performance had blossomed as a result. Under her patient hand, he had almost said. He looked at the long mirrors of the wardrobe doors and smiled at his tousled hair and flushed face.
In the bathroom, Denise Freeman towelled herself vigorously, rubbing away the introspective depression that had preceded and followed their lovemaking. As she brushed the long black hair which now hung straight and free over her shoulders, Simon would not have been flattered by her thoughts. He would indeed have been disturbed. For Denise was pondering upon just when and how she should dispense with him.
It had been a satisfactory affair. When Stanley was alive, it had combined excitement, danger, and a sexual gratification she had long since ceased to find in her marriage. Simon Hapgood was rather splendidly handsome in an effete sort of way. That he was a fairly junior employee of her husband’s added an extra frisson to the relationship; it also made the affair easier to conduct for one of her organizational skills, for she could be aware of the appointments and working arrangements of both parties. Stolen hours of lust (she was still not sure how much more than that was involved) were much more successful when the threat of discovery and embarrassing confrontations remained small. Under her competent supervision, the boundaries had been clear and the affair manageable. Now that the lines had been obliterated, she would have to draw new ones. That was only to be expected. What she had not taken into accuunt was this belated and wholly unexpected feeling of guilt, this soft-centred regret for her dead husband, this self-recrimination about the golden early years of her marriage and the missed opportunities of later times.