by P. D. James
The bereaved mother had received him alone, presumably by choice. The widow had thought it prudent to be solaced and protected by her doctor and her lawyer. Lady Ursula briefly introduced them, then immediately went out, and Dalgliesh and Kate were left to walk alone across the carpet to a scene which looked as contrived as a tableau. Barbara Berowne was sitting in a high-backed armchair to the right of the fire. Opposite her, and leaning forward in his chair, was her lawyer, Anthony Farrell. Standing beside her with his hand on her wrist was her doctor, George Piggott. It was he who spoke first:
“I’ll leave you now, Lady Berowne, but I’ll look in again this evening, about six o’clock if that is convenient, and we’ll try to do something to help you sleep tonight. If you need me earlier, get Miss Matlock to ring. Try to eat a little supper if you can. Get her to make you something light. You won’t feel like food, I know, but I want you to try. Will you?”
She nodded and held out her hand. He held it for a moment, then turned his gaze on Dalgliesh, shifted his eyes and muttered:
“Appalling, appalling.”
As Dalgliesh made no response, he said:
“I think Lady Berowne is strong enough to talk to you now, Commander, but I hope it won’t take long.”
He spoke like an amateur actor in a murder play, predictable dialogue predictably delivered. It surprised Dalgliesh that a doctor, presumably not unused to tragedy, should be more ill at ease than his patient. When he reached the door, Dalgliesh asked quietly:
“Were you also Sir Paul’s physician?”
“Yes, but only recently. He was a private patient of Dr. Gillespie, who died last year. Sir Paul and Lady Berowne then registered with me under the National Health Service. I now have his medical records, but he has never consulted me professionally. He was a very healthy man.”
So part of the unease was explained. Here was no old and valued family physician but an overworked local general practitioner, understandably anxious to get back to a crowded surgery or his round of visits, perhaps unhappily aware that the situation required a social skill and concentrated attention which he hadn’t the time to give, but trying, not very convincingly, to play the part of a family friend in a drawing room which he probably had not entered until that moment. Dalgliesh wondered whether Paul Berowne’s decision to register as a National Health patient had been a matter of political expedience, conviction or economy, or of all three. There was a rectangle of faded wallpaper above the carved marble fireplace. It was half-obscured by a not particularly distinguished family portrait, but Dalgliesh suspected that a more valuable oil had once hung there. Barbara Berowne said:
“Please sit down, Commander.”
She waved vaguely towards a sofa set against the wall. It was inconveniently placed and looked too insubstantial for use, but Kate went over to it, sat down and unobtrusively took out her notebook. Dalgliesh walked over to one of the upright chairs, carried it across to the fireplace and set it down to the right of Anthony Farrell. He said:
“We are sorry to have to bother you at a time like this, Lady Berowne, but I’m sure you’ll understand that it is necessary.”
But Barbara Berowne was gazing after Dr. Piggott. She said resentfully:
“What a funny little man! Paul and I only registered with him last June. His hands are sweaty.”
She gave a little moue of distaste and rubbed her fingers stiffly together. Dalgliesh said:
“Do you feel able to answer some questions?”
She looked across at Farrell rather like a child expecting guidance. He said in his smooth professional voice:
“I’m afraid, my dear Barbara, that in a murder investigation the usual civilized conventions have to go. Delay is a luxury the police can’t afford. I know that the Commander will make it as short as possible, and you’ll be brave and make it as easy for him as you can.”
Before she had a chance to reply, he said to Dalgliesh:
“I’m here as Lady Berowne’s friend as well as her lawyer. The firm has looked after the family for three generations. I had a great personal regard for Sir Paul. I’ve lost a friend as well as a client. That’s partly why I’m here. Lady Berowne is very much alone. Her mother and stepfather are both in California.”
Dalgliesh wondered what Farrell would say if he replied: “But her mother-in-law is only a couple of floors away.” He wondered if the implication of their separateness at a time when the family would naturally seek support, if not comfort, from each other was lost on them, or on Farrell, or whether they were so used to living their lives under one roof but apart that even in a moment of high tragedy neither could cross the psychological barrier represented by that caged lift, those two floors.
Barbara Berowne turned her remarkable violet-blue eyes on Dalgliesh and he was for a second disconcerted. After the first fleeting glimmer of curiosity the glance was deadened, almost lifeless, as if he were looking into coloured contact lenses. Perhaps after a lifetime of seeing the effect of her gaze she no longer needed to animate it with any expression other than a casual interest. He had known that she was beautiful, how he couldn’t remember, probably it was an accumulation of casually dropped comments when her husband was talked of, of press photographs. But it wasn’t a beauty to stir his heart. It would have given him pleasure to sit unnoticed and look at her as he might at a picture, to note with dispassionate admiration the delicate, perfectly curved arch above the slanting eyes, at the curve of the upper lip, the shadowed hollow between the cheekbone and the jaw, the rise of the slim throat. He could look and admire and leave without regret. For him this blond loveliness was too exquisite, too orthodox, too perfect. What he loved was a more individual and eccentric beauty, vulnerability allied to intelligence. He doubted whether Barbara Berowne was intelligent, but he didn’t underrate her. Nothing in police work was more dangerous than to make superficial judgements about human beings. But he wondered briefly whether here now was a woman for whom a man would kill. He had known three such women in his career; none would have been described as beautiful.
She was sitting in her chair with a still, relaxed elegance. Above her skirt of light grey, finely pleated wool, she wore a silk shirt of pale blue with a grey cashmere cardigan slung loosely over her shoulders. Her only jewellery was a couple of gold chains and small gold stud earrings. Her hair, with its strands of pale and darker corn yellow, was drawn back and hung over her shoulder in a single thick plait fastened at the end with a tortoiseshell clamp. Nothing, he thought, could have been more discreetly fitting. Black, particularly in so recent a widow, would have been ostentatious, theatrical, even vulgar. This gentle arrangement of grey and blue was entirely appropriate. Kate had, he knew, arrived with her news before Lady Berowne had dressed. She had been told that her husband was dead with his throat cut, and she had still been able to take trouble with her dressing. And why not? He was too old a hand to assume grief wasn’t genuine because it was appropriately clad. There were women whose self-respect demanded perpetual attention to detail no matter how violent events, others for whom it was a matter of confidence, of routine, or of defiance. In a man such punctiliousness was normally regarded as commendable. Why not, then, in a woman? Or was it merely that her appearance had for over twenty years been the major preoccupation of her life and she couldn’t change that habit merely because someone had slit her husband’s throat? But he couldn’t help noticing the details, the intricate buckle at the side of the shoes, the lipstick meticulously applied and precisely matching the pink of her nail varnish, the trace of eye shadow. Her hands at least had been steady. When she spoke her voice was high and, to him, unpleasing. It would, he thought, easily degenerate into a childish whine. She said:
“Of course I want to help, but I don’t know how I can. I mean, it’s all so incredible. Who could have wanted to kill Paul? He hadn’t any enemies. Everyone liked him. He was very popular.”
The banal, inadequate tribute in that high, slightly jarring tone must have struck even her as gauche. There
was a short silence which Farrell thought it prudent to break. He said:
“Lady Berowne is, of course, deeply shocked. We were hoping, Commander, that you would be able to give us more information than we have at present. We gather that the weapon was some kind of knife and that there were injuries to the throat.”
And that, thought Dalgliesh, was as tactful a way of saying that Sir Paul’s throat had been slit as even the most skilled lawyer could devise. He said:
“Both Sir Paul and the tramp were apparently killed in the same way.”
“Was the weapon at the scene?”
“A possible weapon was at the scene. They may both have been killed with Sir Paul’s razor.”
“And that was left by the murderer in the room?”
“We found it there, yes.”
The implication of Dalgliesh’s careful words wasn’t lost on Farrell. For his part he wouldn’t use the word “suicide,” but it lay between them with all its implications. Farrell went on:
“And the church door. Had that been forced?”
“It was unlocked when Miss Wharton, the church worker, found the bodies this morning.”
“So anyone could have got in and someone, presumably, did?”
“Certainly. You will understand that the investigation is still in its early stages. We can be sure of nothing until we have the result of the autopsy and the forensic reports.”
“Of course. I ask because Lady Berowne prefers to know the facts, or as many of them as are available. And she has a right, of course, to be kept fully informed.”
Dalgliesh made no reply, nor did he need to; they understood each other perfectly. Farrell would be polite, studiously so, but not affable. His carefully controlled demeanour, so much a part of his professional life that it no longer seemed assumed, was saying: We’re both professionals with something of a reputation in our jobs. We both know what we’re about. You will excuse a certain lack of amiability, but we may be required to be on different sides.
The truth was that they were already on different sides and both knew it. It was as if Farrell emanated an ambiguous ectoplasm which folded Barbara Berowne in its comforting aura, saying: Here I am, I’m on your side, leave this to me. There’s nothing to worry about. It came to Dalgliesh as a subtle, masculine understanding, close to conspiracy, from which she was excluded. He did it very well.
His city firm of Torrington, Farrell and Penge, with its many ramifications, had enjoyed an unsullied legal reputation for over two hundred years. Its criminal department had represented some of the most ingenious villains in London. Some were holidaying in their Riviera villas, some on their yachts. Very few were behind bars. Dalgliesh had a sudden picture of a prison van which two days previously he had driven past on his way to the Yard, of the row of anonymous, hostile eyes gazing out through the slots as if they were expecting to see nothing more. The ability to pay for a couple of hours of Farrell’s time at a crucial stage of their misfortunes would have made all the difference.
Barbara Berowne said peevishly:
“I don’t see why I have to be bothered. Paul didn’t even tell me he was going to spend the night in that church. Dossing down with a tramp. I mean, it was all so silly.”
Dalgliesh said:
“When did you last see him?”
“At about nine fifteen yesterday morning. He came up to see me just before Mattie brought up my breakfast tray. He didn’t stay long. About fifteen minutes.”
“How did he seem, Lady Berowne?”
“He seemed himself. He didn’t say very much. He never did. I think I told him how I was going to spend the day.”
“And how was that?”
“I had a hair appointment at Michael and John in Bond Street at eleven. Then I lunched in Knightsbridge with an old school friend and we did some shopping in Harvey Nichols. I got home here at teatime and by then he’d left. I never saw him after nine fifteen.”
“And, as far as you know, he didn’t return to the house?”
“I don’t think so, but I wouldn’t have seen him anyway. After I got back I changed and then took a taxi to Pembroke Lodge. That’s my cousin’s nursing home in Hampstead. He’s an obstetrician, Mr. Stephen Lampart. I was with him until midnight, when he brought me home. We drove to Cookham to have dinner at the Black Swan. We left Pembroke Lodge at seven forty and drove straight to the Black Swan, I mean, we didn’t stop on the way.”
It was, he thought, remarkably pat. He had expected her to come out with an alibi sooner or later, but hardly so soon and in such detail. He asked:
“And when you last saw Sir Paul at breakfast time, he didn’t tell you how he proposed to spend the day?”
“No. But couldn’t you look in his diary? He keeps it in his desk drawer in the study.”
“We found part of his diary in the vestry. It had been burnt.”
He was watching her face closely as he spoke. The blue eyes flickered, grew wary, but he could have sworn that this was news to her. She turned again to Farrell:
“But this is extraordinary! Why should Paul burn his diary?”
Dalgliesh said:
“We don’t know that he did. But the diary was there in the grate. A number of pages were burnt and the final page torn in half.”
Farrell’s eyes met Dalgliesh’s. Neither spoke. Then Dalgliesh said:
“So we need to try to establish his movements some other way. I had hoped you might be able to help.”
“But does it matter? I mean, if someone broke in and killed him, how does it help to know that he went to the estate agent a few hours earlier?”
“And did he?”
“He said he had an appointment.”
“Did he say with which one?”
“No, and I didn’t ask. I suppose God told him to sell the house. I don’t think He told him which estate agent to use.”
The words were as shocking as an indecency. Dalgliesh felt Farrell’s dismayed surprise as clearly as if the man had gasped. He could detect neither bitterness nor irony in that high, slightly petulant voice. She could have been a mischievous child, daring in the presence of adults to say the unpardonable thing and half-surprised by her own temerity. Anthony Farrell decided that the time had come to intervene. He said smoothly:
“I myself was expecting to see Sir Paul yesterday afternoon. He had made an appointment at two thirty with me and two of my colleagues on the financial side of the firm to discuss certain arrangements made necessary, I understand, by his decision to give up his parliamentary career. But he rang yesterday shortly before ten to cancel the appointment and to make a new appointment for the same time today. I hadn’t myself arrived at the office when he telephoned, but he left a message with my clerk. If you are able to prove that his death was murder, then I naturally accept that every detail of his affairs will properly come under scrutiny. Both Lady Ursula and Lady Berowne would wish that they should.”
He might be a pompous ass, thought Dalgliesh, but he was no fool. He knew or guessed that most of these questions were premature. He was prepared to allow them, but he could stop them when he chose. Barbara Berowne turned on him her remarkable eyes.
“But there isn’t anything to discuss. Paul left everything to me. He told me he had after we were married. The house too. It’s quite straightforward. I’m his widow. It’s all mine—well, nearly all.”
Farrell said smoothly:
“Perfectly straightforward, my dear. But it’s hardly necessary to discuss it now.”
Dalgliesh took from his wallet a copy of the poison pen letter and handed it to her.
He said:
“I expect you saw this.”
She shook her head and gave it to Farrell, who read it, taking his time, his face expressionless. If he had seen it before, he certainly wasn’t admitting to the knowledge.
He said:
“That on the face of it is a malicious and possibly actionable attack on Sir Paul’s character.”
“It may have nothing to do with
his death but, obviously, we should like to clear it out of the way.”
He turned again to Barbara Berowne.
“Are you sure that your husband didn’t show it to you?”
“No, why should he? Paul didn’t believe in worrying me with things I couldn’t do anything about. Isn’t it the usual kind of poison pen letter? I mean, politicians get them all the time.”
“You mean, this wasn’t unusual, that your husband had received similar communications?”
“No, I don’t know, I don’t think he did. He never said so. I meant that anyone in public—”
Farrell broke in, smoothly professional:
“Lady Berowne means, of course, that anyone in public life and particularly in politics has to expect a certain amount of this kind of malice and unpleasantness.”
Dalgliesh said:
“But not quite as specific as this, surely. There was a subsequent article, obviously based on this, in the Paternoster Review. Did you see that, Lady Berowne?”
She shook her head.
Farrell said:
“I suppose this has to be relevant, but do we need to talk about it now?”
Dalgliesh said:
“Not if Lady Berowne finds it too distressing.”
The implication was plain and Farrell didn’t like it. His client helped him. She turned to him with a look in which appeal, surprise and distress were beautifully mingled.
“But I don’t understand. I’ve told the Commander all I know. I’ve tried to help, but how can I? I don’t know anything about Diana Travers. Miss Matlock, Mattie, looks after the house. I think this girl answered an advertisement and Mattie took her on.”
Dalgliesh said:
“Wasn’t that rather unusual for these days? Young people don’t often want to do housework.”
“Mattie said that she was an actress who only wanted to work a few hours each week. It suited her.”
“Did Miss Matlock consult you before taking on the girl?”