by P. D. James
“Miss Matlock has answered all your enquiries, Commander. Should you propose to continue badgering her, then I think we shall have to arrange for my solicitor to be present.”
He said coldly:
“That, of course, is her right, Lady Ursula. And we’re not here to badger either you or her.”
“In that case, Mattie, perhaps you will show the Commander and Chief Inspector Massingham out.”
They were driving down Victoria Street when the telephone rang. Massingham answered it, listened, then handed the receiver to Dalgliesh.
“It’s Kate, sir. I detect a note of girlish enthusiasm. Can’t wait until we get back, apparently. But I think she’d like to tell you herself.”
Kate’s voice, like her enthusiasm, was under control, but Dalgliesh, too, couldn’t miss the note of heady optimism. She said:
“Something interesting has turned up, sir. Hearne and Collingwood rang ten minutes ago with Millicent Gentle’s address. She’s moved since they last published her and hadn’t told them where, so it took a little time to trace her. She’s at Riverside Cottage, Coldham Lane, near Cookham. I’ve looked at the ordnance survey. Coldham Lane runs almost opposite the Black Swan. Sir, she must have handed Sir Paul her book on August seventh.”
“It seems likely. Have you a telephone number?”
“Yes, sir. The firm wouldn’t give me either the address or the number until they’d rung her and checked that she agreed.”
“Ring her then, Kate. Ask if she’ll see us as early as possible tomorrow morning.”
He replaced the receiver. Massingham said:
“The clue of the romantic novelist. I can’t wait to meet the author of A Rose by Twilight. Do you want me to go to Cookham, sir?”
“No, John. I’ll go.”
At the Yard entrance he got out of the Rover, leaving Massingham to garage it, then hesitated and strode off vigorously to St. James’s Park. The office was too claustrophobic to contain this sudden surge of irrational optimism. He needed to walk free and alone. It had been a hellish day, beginning in Gilmartin’s office with peevish ill-temper, ending in Campden Hill Square with unprovable lies. But now the vexations and frustrations fell from his shoulders.
He thought: Tomorrow I shall know exactly what happened at the Black Swan on the night of seventh August. And when I know that, I shall know why Paul Berowne had to die. I may not yet be able to prove it. But I shall know.
six
Brian Nichols, recently promoted Assistant Commissioner, resented Dalgliesh and found this dislike the more irritating because he wasn’t sure that it was justified. After twenty-five years of policing, he regarded even his antipathies with a judicial eye; he liked to be confident that the case against the accused would stand up in court. With Dalgliesh he wasn’t sure. Nichols was the senior in rank, but this gave him small satisfaction when he knew that Dalgliesh could have outstripped him had he chosen. This lack of concern about promotion, which Dalgliesh never condescended to justify, he saw as a subtle criticism of his own more ambitious preoccupations. He deplored the poetry, not on principle, but because it had conferred prestige and, therefore, couldn’t be regarded as a harmless hobby like fishing, gardening or woodwork. A policeman, in his view, should be satisfied with policing. An added grievance was that Dalgliesh chose most of his friends from outside the force, and those fellow officers he consorted with weren’t always of an appropriate rank. In a junior officer that would have been regarded as a dangerous idiosyncrasy, and in a senior it had the taint of disloyalty. And to compound these delinquencies, he dressed too well. He was standing now with easy assurance, looking out of the window, wearing a suit in a subtle brown tweed which Nichols had seen him wearing for the last four years. It bore the unmistakable stamp of an excellent tailor, probably, thought Nichols, the firm his grandfather had patronized. Nichols, who enjoyed buying clothes, sometimes with more enthusiasm than discrimination, felt that it was becoming in a man to own rather more suits and those not so well tailored. Finally, whenever he was with Dalgliesh, he felt inexplicably that he ought perhaps to shave off his moustache and would find his hand moving involuntarily to his upper lip, as if to reassure himself that the moustache was still a respectable appendage. This impulse, irrational, almost neurotic, irritated him profoundly.
Both men knew that Dalgliesh needn’t be here in Nichols’s tenth-floor office, that the casual suggestion that the AC should be put in the picture was no more than an invitation, not a command. With the new squad officially set up Dalgliesh would, in future, report direct to the Commissioner. But for now Nichols could claim a legitimate interest. It was his Department, after all, which had provided most of the men for Dalgliesh’s supporting team. And with the Commissioner temporarily away at a conference, he could argue that he had a right at least to a brief progress report. But, irrationally, part of him wished that Dalgliesh had objected, had given him the excuse for one of those departmental wrangles which he provoked when the job offered less excitement than his restless spirit craved, and which he was adept at winning.
While Nichols looked through the file on the case, Dalgliesh gazed out eastward over the city. He had seen many capitals from a similar height, all different. When he looked down on Manhattan from his hotel bedroom, its spectacular soaring beauty always seemed to him precarious, even doomed. Images would rise from films seen in his boyhood, prehistoric monsters towering above the skyscrapers to claw them down, a vast tidal wave from the Atlantic obliterating the skyline, the light-spangled city darkening into the final holocaust. But London, laid out beneath him under a low ceiling of silver-grey cloud, looked eternal, rooted, domestic. He saw the panorama, of which he never tired, in terms of painting. Sometimes it had the softness and immediacy of watercolour; sometimes, in high summer, when the park burgeoned with greenness, it had the rich texture of oil. This morning it was a steel engraving, hard-edged, grey, one-dimensional.
He turned away from the window with reluctance. Nichols had closed the file but was swivelling his chair and moving his body restlessly as if to emphasize the comparative informality of the proceedings. Dalgliesh moved over and took a seat opposite him. He gave a concise summary of his investigation as far as it had gone, and Nichols listened with a show of disciplined patience, still swivelling, his eyes on the ceiling. Then he said:
“All right, Adam, you’ve convinced me that Berowne was murdered. But then I’m not the one who has to be convinced. But what have you got by way of direct evidence? One small smudge of blood under a fold of Harry Mack’s coat.”
“And a matching stain on the coat pocket. Berowne’s blood. He died first. There’s no room for doubt. It’s identifiable by every known test. We can prove that it’s identical with his blood.”
“But not how it got there. You know what defending counsel will argue if it ever gets to court. One of your chaps carried it there on his shoes. Or the boy did, the one who found the body. Or that spinster—what’s her name—Edith Wharton.”
“Emily Wharton. We examined their shoes and I’m confident neither went into the Little Vestry. And, even if they had, it’s difficult to see how they could have left a smudge of Berowne’s blood under Harry’s coat.”
“It’s a very convenient smudge from your point of view. From the family’s too, I suppose. But without it there’s nothing to suggest that this isn’t exactly what it first appeared—murder followed by suicide. A politician, prominent, successful, has some kind of religious conversion, quasi-mystical experience, call it what you will. He throws over his job, his career, possibly his family. Then, don’t ask me how or why, he discovers that it’s all a chimera.” Nichols repeated the word as if to reassure himself of the pronunciation. Dalgliesh wondered where he had come across it. Then he went on:
“Why did Berowne go back to that church, incidentally? Do you know?”
“Possibly because of a new complication to do with his marriage. I think his wife told him that morning that she was pregnant.”
&
nbsp; “There you are then. He was already having doubts. He goes back, faces the reality of what he’s given up. There’s nothing ahead but failure, humiliation, ridicule. He decides to end it then and there. He has the means to hand. While he’s making his preparations, burning his diary, Harry comes in and tries to stop him. Result? Two bodies instead of one.”
“That assumes he didn’t know Harry Mack was there. I think he did, he let him in. That’s hardly the action of a man contemplating suicide.”
“You’ve no proof that he let him in. None that would satisfy a jury.”
“Berowne gave Harry part of his supper, wholemeal bread, Roquefort cheese, an apple. It’s on the file. You aren’t suggesting that Harry Mack bought his own Roquefort? He couldn’t have surprised Berowne. He’d been in the church for some time before Berowne died. He was bedded down in the larger vestry. There’s physical evidence, hair, fibres from his coat, apart from the crumbs of food. And he wasn’t in the vestry or in the church when Father Barnes locked up after Evensong.”
Nichols said:
“He thinks he locked up. Would he swear in the witness box that he turned the key in the south door, that he’d searched every pew? And why should he search? He wasn’t expecting a murder. There are plenty of places where Harry, or a murderer for that matter, could have concealed himself. The church was dark presumably, a dim religious light.”
The AC had this habit of spattering his conversation with the odd half-quotation. Dalgliesh could never decide whether he knew that he was doing it or whether the words swam into his consciousness from some half-forgotten pool of schoolroom lore. Now he heard him say:
“How well did you know Berowne personally?”
“I saw him a couple of times across a committee room table. We travelled together to the conference on sentencing. He asked to see me once in his office. We walked through St. James’s Park to the House together. I liked him, but I’m not obsessed with him. I don’t identify with him more than anyone does with any victim. This isn’t a personal crusade. But I admit to a perfectly reasonable objection to seeing him branded as the brutal murderer of a man who died after he did.”
Nichols said:
“On the evidence of one small smudge of blood?”
“What other evidence do we need?”
“To the fact of murder, none. As I said, you don’t have to convince me. But I don’t see how you’re going to get any further unless you find one irrefutable piece of evidence linking one of your suspects to the scene of the crime.” Nichols added: “Sooner rather than later.”
“The Commissioner is getting complaints, I suppose.”
“The usual thing, two dead bodies, two throats severed, a murderer at large. Why aren’t we arresting this dangerous lunatic instead of examining the cars, clothes and houses of respectable citizens? Did you find any traces on the suspects’ clothes, by the way?”
It was ironic, thought Dalgliesh, but not surprising: the new division set up to investigate serious crimes with sensitive undertones already accused of crass insensitivity. And he knew where the criticisms would have come from. He said:
“No, but I didn’t expect any. This killer was naked or nearly naked. He had the means of washing himself to hand. Three passers-by heard the water gushing away shortly after eight.”
“Berowne washing his own hands before supper?”
“If so, he was doing it very thoroughly.”
“But his left hand, the unbloodied one, was clean when you found him?”
“Yes.”
“There you are then.”
Dalgliesh said:
“Berowne’s towel was hanging over a chair in the vestry. I think his murderer dried himself with the tea towel in the kitchen. It was still slightly damp, not in places but all over, when I touched it. And he was killed with one of his own razors. Berowne had two, Bellinghams, in a case by the washbasin. A casual intruder, or Harry Mack for that matter, wouldn’t have known they were there, probably wouldn’t even have recognized the case for what it was.”
“And what’s a Bellingham, for God’s sake? Why couldn’t the man use a Gillette or an electric razor like the rest of us? OK, so it was someone who knew he shaved with a cut-throat, knew he’d be at the church that night, had access to the Campden Hill Square house to collect the matches and the diary. You know who best fits that list of requirements? Berowne himself. And all you’ve got against the suicide theory is one smudge of blood.”
Dalgliesh was beginning to think that those four monosyllables would haunt him to the end of the case. He said:
“You’re not suggesting, I suppose, that Berowne half-cut his throat, staggered over to Harry to murder him, dripping blood in the act, then staggered back again to the other end of the room to make the third and final cut in his own throat?”
“No, but defence counsel might. And Doc Kynaston hasn’t entirely ruled it out. You and I have known more ingenious defences succeed.”
Dalgliesh said:
“He wrote something while he was in that vestry. The lab can’t identify the words, although they think it possible that he signed his name. The ink on the blotter is the same as the ink in his pen.”
“So he wrote a suicide note.”
“Possibly, but where is it now?”
The AC said:
“He burnt it with the diary. All right, I know what you’re going to say, Adam. Is it likely a suicide would burn a note once written? Well, it’s not impossible. He could have been dissatisfied with what he’d said. Inadequate words, too trite, let it go. After all, the action speaks for itself. Not every suicide goes documented into that good night.”
A flicker of pleased surprise passed over his face as if he were gratified at the aptness of the allusion but would rather like to be able to remember where it came from. Dalgliesh said:
“There’s one thing he could have written which it’s unlikely he would have blotted immediately, and that is something that another person might well wish to destroy.”
Nichols was sometimes a little slow in grasping the point, but he was never afraid to take his time. He took it now. Then he said:
“That would need three signatures, of course. It’s an interesting theory, and it would certainly strengthen the motive for at least two of your suspects. But, again, there’s no proof. We get back to that all the time. It’s an ingenious edifice you’ve built up, Adam, I’m half-convinced by it. But what we need is solid, physical evidence.” He added: “You could say it’s like the Church, an ingenious edifice erected on an unproved supposition, logical within its terms, but only valid if one can accept the basic premise, the existence of God.”
He seemed pleased with the analogy. Dalgliesh doubted if it was his own. He watched while the AC skimmed over the remaining pages of the file almost dismissively. Closing the file, he said:
“Pity that you haven’t been able to trace Berowne’s movements after he left 62 Campden Hill Square. He seems to have walked into thin air.”
“Not altogether. We know that he went to Westertons, the estate agents, in Kensington High Street and saw one of their negotiators, Simon Follett-Briggs. He asked someone from the firm to visit the next day to inspect and value the house. Again, hardly the action of a man contemplating suicide. Follett-Briggs says that he was as unconcerned as if he were giving them instructions to sell a forty-thousand one-bedroom basement flat. He did tactfully express his regrets that the family should be selling a house they’d lived in since it was first built. Berowne replied that they’d had it for a hundred and fifty years; it was time someone else had a turn. He didn’t want to discuss it, only to ensure that someone came next morning to carry out the valuation. It was a short interview. He was away by eleven thirty. After that, we haven’t been able to trace him. But he could have walked in one of the parks or by the river. His shoes were muddied and subsequently washed and scraped clean.”
“Cleaned where?”
“Exactly. It suggests that he could have returned hom
e, but no one admits to having seen him. He might escape notice if he slipped quickly in and out, but hardly if he stopped long enough to clean his shoes. And Father Barnes is certain that he arrived at the church by six. We’ve seven hours to account for.”
“You saw this Follett-Briggs? Extraordinary names these fellows have. He must be feeling pretty sick. That would have been quite a commission. He might get it yet, I suppose, if the widow decides to sell.”
Dalgliesh didn’t reply.
“Did Follett-Briggs say what he expected it to fetch?”
He could, thought Dalgliesh, have been speaking of a second-hand car.
“He wouldn’t commit himself, of course. He hasn’t inspected the house and he took the view that Berowne’s instructions no longer held. But under a little tactful pressure he did murmur that he would expect to get in excess of a million. That’s excluding the contents, of course.”
“And it all goes to the widow?”
“It goes to the widow.”
“But the widow has an alibi. So has the widow’s lover. So, as far as I can see, has every other suspect in the case.”
As he picked up his file and moved to the door, the AC’s voice pursued him like a plea.
“Just one piece of physical evidence, Adam. That’s what we need. And for God’s sake, try to get it before we have to call the next press conference.”
seven
Sarah Berowne found the postcard on the hall table on Monday morning. It was a card from the British Museum of a bronze cat wearing earrings, with Ivor’s message written in his cramped upright hand. “Have tried to ring you but no luck. Hope you’re feeling better. Any chance of dinner next Tuesday?”
So he was still using their code. He kept ready a small collection of postcards from the main London museums and galleries. Any mention of telephoning meant a proposal to meet, and this message, deciphered, asked her to be near the postcard gallery of the British Museum on Tuesday next. The time varied with the day. On Tuesdays the assignation was always for three o’clock. Like similar messages, this assumed that she could make it. If not, she was expected to ring back to say that dinner was impossible. But he had always taken it for granted that she would cancel all other engagements when the cards arrived. A message sent in this way was always urgent.