by P. D. James
Henry James, he remembered, had said of his approaching death, “So here it is at last, the distinguished thing!” If Berowne had thought in these terms, then this was an incongruous place in which to receive so honoured a visitation. The room was about twelve feet square and lit by a fluorescent tube running almost the full length of the ceiling. The only natural light came from two high curved windows. They were covered outside by a protective mesh which looked like chicken wire on which the dirt of decades had accumulated, so that the panes were honeycombs of greenish grime. The furniture, too, looked as if it had been gradually acquired over the years: gifts, rejects, the unregarded remnants of long-forgotten jumble sales. Opposite the door and set under the windows was an ancient oak desk with three right-hand drawers, one without handles. On its top was a simple oak cross, a much used blotter in a leather pad, and an old-fashioned black telephone, the receiver off the rest and lying on its side.
Massingham said:
“Looks as if he took it off. Who wants the telephone to ring just when he’s concentrating on slitting his jugular?”
“Or his killer was taking no chances on the bodies being discovered too soon. If Father Barnes took it into his head to ring and got no reply, he’d probably come round to see if Berowne was all right. If he continued to get the engaged sound, he’d probably assume that Berowne was having an evening of telephoning and let it go.”
“We might get a palm print, sir.”
“Unlikely, John. If this is murder, we’re not dealing with a fool.”
He continued his exploration. With his gloved hands, he pulled open the top drawer and found a stack of white writing paper, of cheap quality, headed with the name of the church, and a box of envelopes. Apart from these, the desk held nothing of interest. Against the left-hand wall was an assortment of canvas and metal chairs neatly stacked, presumably for the occasional use of the parochial church council. Beside them was a five-drawer metal filing cabinet, and next to it a small glass-fronted bookcase. He slipped the catch and saw that it contained an assortment of old prayer books, missals, devotional pamphlets, and a pile of booklets about the history of the church. There were only two easy chairs, one set on each side of the fireplace: a compact brown chair in torn leather with a patchwork cushion, and a grubby, more modern chair with fitted pads. One of the stacked chairs had been uprighted. A white towel hung over its back and on the seat rested a brown canvas bag, its zip open. Massingham rummaged gently inside and said:
“A pair of pyjamas, a spare pair of socks, and a table napkin wrapped round half a sliced loaf, wholemeal, and a piece of cheese. Roquefort, by the look of it. And there’s an apple. A Cox, if that’s relevant.”
“Hardly. Is that all, John?”
“Yes, sir. No wine. Whatever he thought he was doing here, it doesn’t look like an assignation, not with a woman anyway. And why choose this place with the whole of London open to him? Bed too narrow. No comfort.”
“Whatever he was looking for, I don’t think it was comfort.”
Dalgliesh had moved over to the fireplace, a plain wooden overmantel with an iron surround patterned with grapes and convolvulus set in the middle of the right-hand wall. It must, he thought, have been decades since a fire was lit in it for warmth. In front of the grate was a tall electric fire with artificial coals, a high curved back and a triple set of burners. He moved it gently forward and saw that the grate had, in fact, been recently used; someone had tried to burn a diary. It lay open in the fire-basket, its leaves curled and blackened. Some pages had apparently been torn out and separately burnt; the brittle fragments of black ash had floated down to lie on top of the debris under the grate, old twisted match ends, coal dust, carpet fluff, the accumulated grit of years. The blue cover of the diary with the year clearly printed had been more resistant to the flames; one corner only was slightly scorched. Whoever had burnt it had evidently been in a hurry, unless, of course, he had been concerned only to destroy certain pages. Dalgliesh made no attempt to touch it. This was a job for Ferris, the scene-of-crime officer, already hovering impatiently in the passage. The Ferret was never happy when anyone other than himself was examining a scene of crime and it seemed to Dalgliesh that his impatience to get on with the job came through the wall as a palpable force. He crouched low and peered into the debris under the grate. Among the fragments of blackened paper he saw a used safety match, the unburnt half of the stem clean and white as if it had only recently been struck. He said:
“He could have used this to burn the diary. But, if so, where is the box? Have a look in the jacket pockets, will you, John.”
Massingham walked over to Berowne’s jacket hanging on a hook at the back of the door and felt in the two outer and one inner pockets. He said:
“A wallet, sir, a Parker fountain pen and a set of keys. No lighter and no matches.”
And there were none, either, visible in the room.
With mounting excitement which neither betrayed, they moved over to the desk and peered intently at the blotter. It, too, must have been there for years. The pink blotting paper tattered at the edges was marked with a criss-cross of different inks blodged with faded blots. It wasn’t, thought Dalgliesh, surprising; most people now use ball-points rather than ink. But peering more closely he could see that someone had recently been writing with a fountain pen. Superimposed on the older markings were more recent blottings, a pattern of broken lines and half curves in black ink extending over some six inches of the blotter. Their newness was obvious. He went over to Berowne’s jacket and brought out the fountain pen. It was elegantly slim, one of the newest models, and filled, he saw, with black ink. It should be possible for the lab to match the ink even if the letters couldn’t be deciphered. But if Berowne had been writing and had blotted the paper at the desk, where was it now? Had he himself disposed of it, torn it up, flushed it down the lavatory, burnt it among the debris of the diary pages? Or had someone else found it, perhaps even come specifically to find it, and either destroyed it or taken it away?
Lastly, he and Massingham passed through the open door to the right of the fireplace, careful not to brush against Harry’s body, and explored the kitchen. There was a gas boiler, comparatively modern, mounted above a deep square porcelain sink much stained and with a clean but crumpled tea towel hanging on a hook beside it. Dalgliesh peeled off his gloves and felt the towel. It was slightly damp, not in patches but all over, as if it had been soaked in water then wrung out and left to dry through the night. He handed it to Massingham, who took off his own gloves and ran it through his hand. He said:
“Even if the murderer was naked, or half-naked, he would have needed to wash his hands and arms. He could have used this. Berowne’s towel is presumably the one hanging on the chair, and that looked dry enough.”
Massingham went out to check while Dalgliesh continued his exploration. On the right was a cupboard with a Formica top, brown with tea stains, on which stood one large kettle, one smaller more modern kettle and two teapots. There was also a chipped enamel mug, stained almost black inside and smelling of spirits. Opening the cupboard he saw that it held a collection of unmatched crockery and two folded clean tea towels, both dry, and on the bottom shelf an assortment of flower vases, a battered cane basket containing folded dusters, and tins of metal and furniture polish. Here presumably Miss Wharton and her fellow helpers would arrange the flowers, wash out their dusters, refresh themselves with tea.
Attached to the pipe of the gas boiler by a brass chain was a box of safety matches in a brass holder, similar to the one chained to the candlestand, hinged at the top to allow insertion of a fresh box. There had been a similar holder and brass chain in the parish room of his father’s Norfolk church, but he couldn’t remember seeing one since. They were clumsy to use, the striking surface barely adequate. It was difficult to believe that the boxes had been removed, then replaced, and even more difficult to credit that a match from either of the chained boxes had been struck, then carried lit and precarious
ly flickering into the Little Vestry and used to burn the diary.
Massingham was back beside him. He said:
“The towel next door is perfectly dry and only slightly dirtied. It looks as if Berowne could have washed his hands when he arrived and that’s all. It’s odd that he didn’t leave it in here, except that there’s nowhere convenient to hang it. Odder, though, that the killer, assuming there is a killer, didn’t use it to dry himself rather than the smaller tea towel.”
Dalgliesh said:
“If he remembered to take it out with him to the kitchen. If he didn’t, he’d hardly want to go back for it. Too much blood, too much risk of leaving a clue. Better to use what he found to hand.”
It was apparent that the kitchen was the only room with water and a sink; hand washing as well as washing up must be done here, if at all. Above the sink was a mirror composed of glass tiles stuck to the wall, and under it a simple glass shelf. Upon this was a sponge bag, its zip open, containing a toothbrush and a tube of paste, a dry face flannel and a used bar of soap. Beside this was a more interesting find, a narrow leather case with the initials PSB stamped on it in faded gold. With his gloved hands Dalgliesh lifted the lid and found what he had expected to see, the twin to the cut-throat razor lying so incriminatingly close to Berowne’s right hand. On the satin lining of the lid was a sticker with the maker’s name in old-fashioned twirls, P. J. Bellingham, and the Jermyn Street address. Bellingham, the most expensive and prestigious barber in London and supplier still of razors to those clients who had never adjusted to the shaving habits of the twentieth century.
There was nothing of apparent interest in the lavatory, and they made their way into the robing vestry. It was obvious that this was where Harry Mack had settled himself for the night. What looked like an old army blanket, frayed at the edges and stiff with dirt, had been loosely spread in a corner, its fumous stink mingling with the smell of incense to produce an incongruous amalgam of piety and squalor. Beside it was an overturned bottle, a length of grubby cord and a sheet of newspaper on which lay a crust of brown loaf, the core of an apple and some crumbs of cheese. Massingham picked them up and rubbed them between his palms and thumbs and sniffed. He said:
“Roquefort, sir. Hardly a cheese which Harry would have provided for himself.”
There was no evidence that Berowne had started his own meal—that in itself might be of some help in deciding on the approximate time of death—but he had apparently either cajoled Harry into the church with the promise of a meal or, more likely, had supplied an obvious and immediate need before he was ready for his own share of the supper.
The vestry itself was so familiar from childhood memories that Dalgliesh could have taken one quick glance, shut his eyes and spoken aloud an inventory of high church piety: the packets of incense on top of the cupboard; the incense holder and censer; the crucifix; and behind the faded red serge curtain, the lace-trimmed vestments and the short starched supplices of the choir. But now his mind was on Harry Mack. What had roused him from his half-drunken sleep: a scream, the sound of a quarrel, a falling body? But could he have heard it from this room? As if echoing his thoughts, Massingham said:
“He could have been roused by thirst, gone to the kitchen for a drink of water and stumbled into the crime. That enamel mug looked as if it might be his. Father Barnes will know whether it belongs to the church and with luck there may be prints. Or he could have gone to the lavatory, but I doubt whether he would have heard anything from there.”
And, thought Dalgliesh, he was unlikely to have gone afterwards into the kitchen to wash. Massingham was probably right. Harry had settled himself for the night and then felt the need for a drink of water. But for that fatal thirst, he might still be quietly sleeping.
Outside in the passage Ferris was prancing gently on his toes like a runner limbering for a race.
Massingham said:
“The blotter, the enamel mug, the tea towel and the diary are all important and there’s what looks like a recently struck match in the grate; we need that. But we shall want all the debris in the fireplace and the S-bends in the pipes. The probability is that the murderer washed himself in the kitchen.”
None of it really needed saying, least of all to Charlie Ferris. He was the most expert of the Met’s scene-of-crime officers and the one Dalgliesh always hoped would be available when he began a new case. It was inevitable that he should be nicknamed the Ferret, although seldom in his hearing. He was very small, sandy-haired, sharp-featured and with his sense of smell so well developed that it was rumoured that he had sniffed out a suicide in Epping Forest even before the animal predators got to it. In his spare time he sang in one of the most famous of London’s amateur choirs. Dalgliesh, who had heard him at a police concert, never ceased to be surprised that so narrow a chest and so slight a frame could produce such a powerful organ-toned bass. He was fanatical about his job and had even designed the most appropriate clothes for searching: white shorts and a sweat shirt, a plastic swimming cap tight fitting to prevent the spilling of hairs, latex gloves as fine as a surgeon’s and rubber bathing shoes over his bare feet. His creed was that no murderer ever left the scene of crime without leaving some physical evidence of his crime behind him. If it was there, Ferris would find it.
There were voices in the passage. The photographer and fingerprint officers had arrived. Dalgliesh could hear George Matthews’s booming voice cursing the traffic in the Harrow Road and Sergeant Robins’s quieter answer. Someone laughed. They were neither callous nor particularly insensitive, but neither were they undertakers, required to assume a professional reverence in the face of death. The forensic biologist hadn’t yet arrived. Some of the most distinguished scientists at the Metropolitan Laboratory were women, and Dalgliesh, recognizing in himself an old-fashioned sensitivity which he certainly wouldn’t have confessed to them, was always glad when it was possible to remove the more horrific bodies before they arrived to track and photograph the bloodstains and supervise the collection of samples. He left Massingham to greet and brief the new arrivals. It was time to talk to Father Barnes. But first he wanted a word with Darren before the boy was driven home.
six
Sergeant Robins said:
“He’d have been gone by now, sir, but the little devil’s been playing us up. We couldn’t get an address out of him, and when he did come up with one it was wrong, a non-existent road. Could have been a bloody waste of time. I think he’s telling the truth now, but I had to threaten him with the Juvenile Bureau, the Welfare and God knows what before he did. And then he tried to give us the slip and run off. I was lucky to grab him.”
Miss Wharton had already been driven back to Crowhurst Gardens by a woman police constable, there to be solaced no doubt with tea and sympathy. She had made gallant efforts to pull herself together but had still been confused about the precise sequence of events between arriving at the church and the moment when she had pushed open the door of the Little Vestry. The important fact for the police to ascertain was whether she or Darren had actually entered the room, with the risk that the scene had been contaminated. Both were adamant that they had not. Beyond this there was little of importance which she could tell, and Dalgliesh had briefly heard her story and let her go.
But it was irritating that Darren was still with them. If he needed to be questioned again it was right that it should be at home and with his parents present. Dalgliesh knew that his present insouciance in the face of death was no guarantee that the horror hadn’t touched him. It wasn’t always an obvious trauma which disturbed a child the most. And it was odd that the boy was so resistant to being driven home. Normally, a ride in a car, even a police car, would be something of a treat for a child, particularly now that a gratifying crowd was beginning to collect to witness his notoriety, drawn by the yards of white tape which sealed off the whole of the south part of the church and by the police cars and the unmistakable black and sinister mortuary van parked between the church wall and the canal
. Dalgliesh went up to the car and opened the door. He said:
“I’m Commander Dalgliesh. It’s time we got you home, Darren. Your mother will be worried.” And surely the boy should be at school. The term must have started. But that, thank God, was hardly his concern.
Darren, looking small and extremely disgruntled, was slumped in the front left-hand seat. He was an odd-looking child with an engaging monkey-like face, pale under the rash of freckles, snub-nosed and bright-eyed beneath the spiked, almost colourless lashes. He and Sergeant Robins had obviously tried each other’s patience to the limits, but he cheered up at the sight of Dalgliesh and enquired with childish belligerence:
“You the boss man round here?”
A little disconcerted, Dalgliesh replied cautiously:
“You could say that.”
Darren looked round with bright suspicious eyes, then said:
“She never did it, Miss Wharton. She’s innercent.”
Dalgliesh said, seriously:
“No, we didn’t think she did. You see, it needed more strength than an elderly lady or a boy could have. You’re both in the clear.”