She nodded.
“It’s possible, I suppose,” Thanet said. Though even if that were so, he reflected, and Susan really wouldn’t have minded too much if her father found out, Chris wouldn’t have been aware of the fact. If Carrie had tried a spot of blackmail he might well have felt it his duty to protect Susan. But, to the extent of killing for her? Frankly, Thanet doubted it. And as far as long-term blackmail was concerned, a young motor mechanic certainly wouldn’t have been able to come up with the kind of sums Carrie had been amassing. Perhaps—perish the thought!—she had had more than one victim?
“Where did Miss Birch see Susan and your brother together?” he asked softly.
Jenny shook her head, a fierce little shake as if repudiating both the question and the necessity of answering it.
“Oh come on,” Thanet said. “She did, didn’t she?” And then, when Jenny still said nothing, “Remember what I said just now,” he said gently, “about being frank with us? And just remember this, too: to solve a crime like this we need every scrap of information we can collect, every bit of help we can get. If your brother is innocent, you may be helping to clear him by telling us everything you know, even if on the face of it the information seems to incriminate him. Now, where did Miss Birch see them together?”
She hesitated a moment longer and then, with an air of resignation, said, “In Sturrenden.”
“Exactly where? Do you know?”
“Catching the last bus home.”
“This happened more than once?”
“Every week.”
“On Thursday evenings, I presume?”
“Yes, but how did you …?”
“It figures,” Thanet said.
So, he thought, as he thanked Jenny for her help and left, while Mrs Birch thought that her daughter was innocently engaged in cleaning the church, Carrie had been living it up in Sturrenden.
It was still raining hard. Turning up his collar against the relentless downpour, Thanet hurried down the lane and crossed the road towards the Pitmans’ bungalow. With his hand on the gate, however, he hesitated. He didn’t feel quite ready to talk to old Mr Pitman yet. He’d like a few minutes in which to assimilate what he had learned this morning. There was only one place to go: the car.
What could Carrie have been doing in Sturrenden every Thursday evening? he wondered, staring through the streaming windscreen at the blurred outline of the church. Briefly, he had a wild fantasy of Carrie dressed up in some of those glamorous clothes, blonde wig gleaming, soliciting on the pavements of Sturrenden or besporting herself on the floor of the town’s one and only dancehall. Don’t be ridiculous, he told himself. You’re letting your imagination run away with you. But was he? If anyone had told him what he would find in Carrie’s attic he would have laughed at him. And wouldn’t prostitution explain away that hoard of cash?
He caught a glimpse of himself in the car mirror. He was grinning like an idiot. Just wait till Lineham hears this one, he thought. He’ll think I’ve flipped!
All the same, could it be possible? Carrie would only have had to put her gear into an old carrier bag and change her clothes in a ladies’ lavatory somewhere in the town and she’d be all set. He’d heard Joan say that nowadays any woman could be attractive if she took enough trouble over her appearance, and miracles could be achieved with make-up. The old, conventional ideas of prettiness were gone forever. Nevertheless, it required a superhuman leap of the imagination to transform poor duck-like Carrie into the swan appropriate to those glamorous clothes.
Nonetheless, it had happened—if not in public, then at least in the privacy of Carrie’s bedroom. Thanet was convinced of that. He pictured her waiting until she was certain that her mother’s sleeping pill had taken effect and then stealthily setting up the step-ladder, taking the carrier bags down from the loft and emptying them of their contents, gloating over the quality and texture of satin, silk and lace, cashmere and lawn, standing in front of the mirror and holding the dresses up against her body one by one, selecting, discarding, making her final choice and then, finally, dressing up, preening in front of her transformed image.…
Suppose that for a while this secret satisfaction had been enough for her, but that there had come a time when she wanted to test out this other, glamorous self in the world outside, emerge from her chrysalis as the butterfly she might have felt herself truly to be.…
A knocking at the car window aroused him from his reverie. Lineham was peering in, his face distorted like that of a drowned man under water by the rain-washed glass.
Thanet wound down the window.
“You all right, sir?” Lineham was frowning anxiously.
“Think somebody’d bumped me off?” said Thanet with a grin. “No such luck, I’m afraid. I was merely engaging in the noblest activity known to man. Thought,” he explained to Lineham’s blank look. “Stand back, will you, I’m coming out.”
He leaned across to take his torch from the glove compartment, then wound up the window and got out of the car.
“Come on,” he said, anticipation filling him with boyish glee, “I’ve got something to show you.”
11
“I’ve come to throw myself on your mercy,” Thanet said.
“Really?” Old Robert Pitman’s eyes sparkled. “You give me an agreeable sense of power, Inspector, an unfamiliar sensation for me these days, needless to say. Sit down and tell me more.”
Thanet sat. He and Lineham had spent the lunch hour chewing over Thanet’s find. Lineham’s reaction to Carrie’s cache had been most gratifying. Together he and Thanet had climbed up into the loft and searched it thoroughly; it had occured to Thanet that if Carrie had indeed been indulging in a spot of blackmail she might possibly have hidden away evidence of some kind up there. But they had found only dust and cobwebs. Now, he was determined to tap the reservoir of Robert Pitman’s knowledge. He settled back comfortably into his chair.
“A murder investigation is a fascinating affair,” he said discursively. “I’m not talking about gang warfare or terrorist activity, of course, or about the random killing for gain. Domestic murder is something quite different.”
The old man’s attention was fully engaged, Thanet was pleased to see. Robert Pitman was sitting quite still, his eyes fixed unwaveringly upon his visitor’s face.
“So often,” Thanet continued, “we find that it has been committed by the victim’s nearest and dearest—husband, wife, son, brother and so on. But sometimes, as in this case, the victim’s closest relation could not possibly be responsible. Quite apart from the fact that Mrs Birch had everything to lose in terms of physical comfort by her daughter’s death, as you know she had to have a foot amputated some years ago and it would have been quite impossible for her to have dragged her daughter’s body as far as that privy.
“So then, of course, we have to look a little further afield, widen the area of investigation. And I always find that it helps enormously to understand the victim himself—or, as in this case, herself. Somewhere in his or her character there always seems to be some quality which has—how shall I put it?—interacted with the character of the murderer in such a way as to provoke him to violence. It may be something which other people would find merely irritating. We all vary so much in our reactions to other people’s quirks. But the murderer, on one particular occasion, finds that quality truly intolerable, so intolerable that he cannot endure its continued existence. So he destroys it.” Thanet glanced at the old man, who was still listening with rapt attention. “I’m sure you can see where I’m going,” he said.
“Fascinating,” said the old man. He settled back deeper into his pillows and folded his swollen hands together gently, as if every tiny movement was painful. “So you want to pick my brains about Carrie,” he said.
“Who better?” Thanet said. “You’ve known her nearly all her life.”
Robert Pitman nodded gently, then his eyes went out of focus and he seemed to withdraw into himself, gazing away perhaps down the
long corridor of time which led to himself as a vigorous young schoolmaster, and Carrie as the scrawny, unprepossessing child he had described the last time Thanet had come to see him.
Thanet sat still, relaxed, legs stretched out before him, hands clasped loosely in his lap, prepared to wait as long as was necessary.
Finally the old man stirred and his gaze returned to Thanet.
“Bowed but not broken,” he said.
Thanet raised his eyebrows.
“That’s how I’d describe Carrie.” Mr Pitman hesitated. “I told you before, she was a little mouse of a creature, unobtrusive, always creeping about so you’d hardly notice she was there. And yet, somehow, you always did.”
“What do you mean?”
The old man sighed. “I don’t like talking like this, you know. There’s always that ‘mustn’t speak ill of the dead’ feeling. Which is perhaps why I was less than frank with you last time. But I do see that such an attitude can be highly obstructive. Someone, after all, has been killed, and you have to try to find out who did it. All the same, that doesn’t alter my feelings.”
“I can understand that,” said Thanet.
“I know,” Mr Pitman said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be talking to you like this.” He sighed again, looked down at his hands. “The truth of the matter, I suppose, is that I couldn’t stand the woman.” He cast a quick, shamefaced glance at Thanet.
Thanet’s immediate feeling was one of profound relief. At last a crack had opened up in that wall of silence. But he said nothing.
“There was something disconcerting about her,” Mr Pitman went on. “I’ve been thinking about her a lot since it happened, of course, trying to work out what it was. And I’ve come to the conclusion that she had, as it were, gone underground. It’s very difficult to explain what I mean, exactly. You see, there she was, the quiet, cowed little woman I’ve described to you and yet underneath you felt that she was, well, not exactly laughing at you, but gloating in some way. And although up here,” the old man painfully lifted his hand to point at his forehead, “you knew you ought to feel sorry for her because of what she had to put up with from that awful mother of hers, down here,” and the hand crept down to lie gently against the old man’s heart, “you felt quite differently about her. Perhaps I’m not putting this very clearly, but you seemed to react to her on two different levels simultaneously, and the result was that you felt very confused about her. Or at least, I did.” He stopped, his eyes begging Thanet for understanding.
“Yes. Yes, I see,” Thanet said slowly. “I do see, exactly what you mean.” He paused, thinking. “So when you said, ‘bowed but not broken’, you meant that although on the surface she had apparently given in completely to her mother’s, what shall I call it, tyranny, underneath there was something rebellious that had never quite been subdued.”
“Yes. That’s exactly right. That’s what I meant by ‘gone underground’.” The old man appeared more relaxed now. “Occasionally you’d catch a glimpse of it in her eyes, just as one might catch sight fleetingly of a wild animal in the jungle. One second it’s there, the next it’s gone, and you’re left wondering if you really saw it at all.”
“But you really do feel that as far as Carrie was concerned, it was there?”
“Oh yes. It was there all right.”
“And was it ever more than a feeling on your part? I mean, did you ever see any evidence that this hidden self of Carrie’s ever surfaced?”
“Ah, there speaks the policeman! Give me evidence, sir, he says. Oh, I’m sorry, Inspector, I suppose that wasn’t really fair. After all, you are a policeman, and evidence you must have.”
“Evidence would be useful,” Thanet said with a grin. “It always is. But make no mistake about it, Mr Pitman, what you have just told me is immensely valuable to my understanding of the case.”
“Good.” The old man beamed. “Excellent, in fact. I can feel I haven’t bared my soul in vain.”
“But it would be useful …”
“… if I could also produce something a little more concrete. Yes. Well, I suppose I might as well go the whole hog and tell you the worst. To put it bluntly, Carrie was a snooper of the first water.”
“Ahhh …” It was a long exhalation of satisfaction. So that was why everybody had been so reticent about Carrie. Together with the effect that she had had on people, which Mr Pitman had just described … Yes. Thanet was experiencing a steady beat of excitement. “You caught her at it?”
“Hardly.” Mr Pitman grimaced down at the inert body beneath the neatly folded sheets. “Though always, when she was dusting in here, I had the feeling she didn’t miss a thing. But Marion was sure of it. Oh, it was only little things—a letter replaced the wrong way around in an envelope, things slightly displaced in drawers, that sort of thing—but after a while Marion got into the habit of making sure she never left lying around anything she wouldn’t want Carrie to know about.”
“But why go on employing her, if you were so sure that she was snooping?”
The old man lifted his hands in a hopeless gesture. “What alternative did we have, with me like this? It’s not easy to find someone reliable, to do Carrie’s job. And she was at least that. Marion often talked of giving up her work, staying at home permanently to look after me. And if it had just been the money, well that wouldn’t have mattered so much. It’s nice to have it, of course, but we don’t have expensive tastes and we could easily have retrenched a bit. But I was dead against it. It’s bad enough for me to know what sort of limitations I put on Marion’s life as it is, without having to feel I’d cut her off completely from any personal satisfaction. She loves her work, you know, she’s really devoted to those children. So we decided we’d grin and bear it.” The old man gave Thanet a rueful grin. “Not the ideal situation, but there we are.”
“I can see that,” Thanet said with sympathy. “Do you think,” he went on, carefully, “that she would ever have been tempted to use anything she might have learned in that way?”
The old man’s eyes narrowed. “Blackmail, you mean? Now there’s a thought.…” He considered. “I just don’t know,” he said at last. “But if so …”
“Exactly,” Thanet said. “And I don’t need to ask you to keep that idea under your hat.”
“No, but … I’ve often asked myself what she got out of it, why she did it. And I came to the conclusion that it was the sense of power it gave her. To know people’s secrets, and think they didn’t know she knew.”
“Nasty.”
“Quite.” The old man’s tone was dry.
“I don’t suppose you happen to know where she went on Thursday evenings?” Thanet asked casually.
“To clean the church I think. Why?”
“Just wondered.” So old Mr Pitman didn’t know everything that went on in the neighbourhood.
“Well,” Thanet said, standing up and walking to the window, “it looks as though it’s stopped raining at last.” The unbroken mass of grey cloud which had earlier obscured the sun was beginning to break up, and a little wind was teasing the shrubs in the front garden. As Thanet watched, some forsythia blossom drifted down on to the bare brown earth in the border against the low front wall.
He turned away from the window, went to pick up his raincoat. He still had to ask the most delicate question of all. He liked the old man, didn’t want to upset him, but it had to be put. If Mr Pitman thought him insensitive, it couldn’t be helped.
“Your daughter never wanted to marry?” he inquired, in as casual a tone as possible.
He could see at once that he had underestimated the old boy. The blue eyes sharpened at once.
“Come now Inspector,” the old man said. “I know you better than that. What are you getting at?”
Thanet gave a rueful smile. “Just a rather unpleasant rumour I heard, that’s all,” he confessed. “I didn’t want to mention it, but I have to check up, you understand.”
“Stop pussy-footing,” said the old man testily. �
�What was it?”
“That your daughter is having an affair with Mr Ingram next door.”
Mr Pitman’s reaction took Thanet completely by surprise. The old man threw back his head and laughed. Thanet’s eyes narrowed. Did he hear the unmistakable timbre of relief there?
“With that jackass? Credit her with more sense, Inspector, for heaven’s sake!”
“I should think he could be very attractive to women,” Thanet said stiffly.
“To some women, maybe. But not, I’m afraid, to Marion. And I can guess where the rumour came from. The delectable Joy has been at it again. Don’t look so surprised, Inspector. We do live next door to them, you know. And in the summer you’d be surprised what floats in through my open windows. I’m afraid, to put it crudely, she gives him hell.”
“Jealous,” Thanet said.
“That poor fellow”, Pitman continued, “has been accused of having affairs with just about every woman under the age of fifty in this village. And with a lot more besides.”
“I’ll be off then,” Thanet said. “Thank you for your help. And don’t forget.”
“I know,” said the old man, laying one misshapen forefinger against his lips. “Mum’s the word. Oh, Inspector,” he added as Thanet turned towards the door, “there is just one thing.”
Thanet waited, one hand on the doorknob.
“Have you talked to Marion since yesterday morning?”
“Not properly, no.”
“Only, she said that you’d been asking about Carrie’s routine and that she’d forgotten to mention that whenever Major Selby was away, Carrie used to pop in to the Selbys’ house morning and evening.”
“What for, do you know?”
The old man shook his head. “No idea. To be frank, I’ve often wondered, myself. All I know is that the length of time she stayed there used to vary enormously. Sometimes it would be a matter of minutes, sometimes as much as an hour.”
“Really?” Thanet was intrigued.
“And that she had a key to let herself in on such occasions.”
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