by P. D. James
“I think you must be Miss Millicent Gentle. If so, we’re on our way to see you. We telephoned from Scotland Yard this morning. This is Inspector Kate Miskin, and my name is Adam Dalgliesh.”
He looked down at a face round and crumpled like an overstored apple. The striped russet cheeks were hard balls under small eyes which, when she smiled up at him, creased into narrow slits, then opened to reveal irises as brightly brown as polished pebbles. She was wearing a shapeless pair of brown slacks and a padded sleeveless jerkin in faded red over a jumper matted with age. Drawn well down over her head was a pixie cap in knitted green and red stripes and with earflaps each ending in a pigtail of plaited wool, decorated with a red bobble. She had an air of slightly battered puckishness like an elderly garden gnome which has weathered too many winters. But when she spoke her voice was deep and resonant, one of the most beautiful female voices he had ever heard.
“I am expecting you, of course, Commander, but not for another half hour. How pleasant to meet you so unexpectedly. I would row you across, but with Makepeace it would mean one at a time and that would be rather slow. I’m afraid it’s five miles by road, but perhaps you have a car.”
“We have a car.”
“Of course, you would have, being police officers. How silly of me. Then I’ll be waiting for you. I’ve just rowed across with my letters. Mr. Higgins lets me put them on the hall table to be posted with his. My postbox is a two-mile walk. It’s very kind of him considering that he doesn’t really like my cottage. I’m afraid he considers it rather an eyesore. You can’t miss the road. Take the first left marked Frolight, then over the humpbacked bridge, then left again at Mr. Roland’s farm—there’s a sign with a Friesian cow on it—then you’ll see a track leading to the river and my cottage. As you can see, you can’t really miss it. Oh, and you’ll have some coffee, I hope.”
“Thank you, we should like that.”
“I thought you might. That’s partly why I rowed over. Mr. Higgins is kind about selling me an extra pint of milk. It’s about Sir Paul Berowne, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Miss Gentle, it’s about Sir Paul.”
“I thought it might be when you telephoned and said you were police. That dear good man. I shall see you both then in about ten minutes.”
They watched her for a moment as she limped briskly towards the Black Swan, the dog lurching at her heels, then turned and made their way slowly back to the car park. They followed her instructions without difficulty, but Dalgliesh drove slowly, knowing them to be still ahead of their appointment and wanting to give Miss Gentle time to row back and be waiting for them. Gentle was, apparently, her real name, not a pseudonym; it had seemed almost too appropriate for a romantic novelist. Driving with irritating slowness, he was aware of Kate’s controlled impatience at his side. But ten minutes later they left the side road and turned up the rough track to the cottage.
It ran across an unhedged field and would, thought Dalgliesh, be little more than an impassable quagmire in the worst of winter. The bungalow looked more substantial than it had from a distance. A flower bed, now in its shaggy autumnal decrepitude, bordered the cinder path to the side steps beneath which he could glimpse cans, presumably of paraffin, stacked under a tarpaulin. Behind the bungalow was a vegetable patch: stunted cabbages, and the scarred stems of brussels sprouts, bulbous onions, broken-leaved, and the last of the runner beans, whose dying swatches hung from their poles like rags. The river smell was stronger here, and he could picture the scene in winter, the cold mist rising from the water, the soggy fields, the single mud track to a desolate country road.
But when Miss Gentle opened the door to them and smilingly stepped aside, they walked into cheerfulness and light. From the wide sitting room windows it was possible to imagine oneself on a ship with nothing in view but the white veranda rail and the sheen of the river. Despite an incongruous wrought-iron stove, the room was indeed more typical of a cottage than a riverside shack. One wall, papered with an incongruous design of rosebuds and robins, was almost covered with pictures: dated watercolours of country scenes, twin engravings of Winchester and Wells Cathedrals, four early-Victorian fashion plates mounted in one frame, an embroidered picture in wool and silk of the angel greeting the Apostles at the empty tomb, a couple of rather good miniature portraits in oval frames. The far wall was covered with books, some of them, Dalgliesh noticed, Miss Gentle’s own, still pristine in their jackets. On each side of the stove was an easy chair and between them a gate-legged table on which a jug of milk and three flowered cups and saucers had already been placed. Miss Gentle, helped by Kate, drew up a small rocking chair for her second guest. Makepeace, having ambled with his mistress to greet them, slumped down in front of the empty stove and heaved a malodorous sigh.
Miss Gentle brought in the coffee almost immediately. The kettle had been on the boil, she had only to pour the water over the grains. Taking his first sip, Dalgliesh had a moment’s compunction. He had forgotten how inconvenient it was for the solitary to be faced with unexpected visitors. That row across to the Black Swan had, he suspected, been more for the milk than to get the letters posted. He said gently:
“You know, of course, that Sir Paul Berowne is dead.”
“Yes, I know. He was murdered, and that’s why you’re here. How did you find me?”
Dalgliesh explained about the finding of her book. He said:
“Anything that happened to him during the last weeks of his life is important to us. That’s why we’d like you to tell us exactly what happened on the night of August seventh. You did see him?”
“Oh, yes, I saw him. It was then I gave him the book.” She put down her cup and gave a little shiver as if she were suddenly cold. Then she settled down to tell her story as if they were children round the nursery fire.
“I really get on very well with Mr. Higgins. Of course, he would like to buy the cottage and pull it down, but I’ve said that he can have first refusal from my executors when I’m dead. We have our little joke about it. And the Black Swan is really very respectably run. A nice type of customer, very quiet. But on that night they weren’t. I was trying to work and it got very irritating. Young people shouting and screaming. So I went out to the bank and I could just see that there were four of them in a punt. They were rocking very dangerously and two of them were standing up and trying to change places. Apart from the noise, they were behaving very foolishly. I tried to ring Mr. Higgins but my telephone was out of order. So Makepeace and I rowed across. I made for my usual spot—it would have been most imprudent to row up to them and remonstrate, I’m not as strong as I used to be. As I turned the boat to draw up to the bank, I saw the other two men.”
“Did you know who they were?”
“Not at the time. It was, of course, dark by then. There was only the reflected light coming over the hedge from the car park. Afterwards I knew one of them, Sir Paul Berowne.”
“What were they doing?”
“Fighting.” Miss Gentle spoke the words without the least disapproval, almost, Dalgliesh thought, with a note of surprise that he should have needed to ask. Her tone implied that fighting on a riverbank and partly in the dark was an activity to be expected of two gentlemen who had nothing better to do. She said:
“They didn’t notice me, of course. Only my head was above the level of the bank. I was afraid Makepeace would bark, but I told him not to and he was really very controlled, although I could see that he wanted to jump out and join in. I rather wondered if I ought to intervene myself, but I decided it would be undignified and really quite ineffective. And it was obviously a private fight. I mean, it didn’t look like an unprovoked attack, which I feel one has a duty to try to put a stop to. The second man looked much shorter than Sir Paul, which made it rather unfair in a way. But then he was the younger, so that redressed the balance. They were getting on very well without me or Makepeace.”
Dalgliesh couldn’t resist a glance at Makepeace, steaming in somnolent calm. It seemed unlikely that
he could have raised the energy for a bark, let alone a bite. He asked:
“Who won?”
“Oh, Sir Paul. He landed what I think is called a hook to the jaw. It looked very satisfying. The younger man fell, then Sir Paul picked him up by the collar of his coat and his trousers, very like a puppy, and threw him into the river. He made quite a splash. ‘My goodness,’ I said to Makepeace, ‘what an extraordinary evening we’re having!’”
Dalgliesh thought that the scene was beginning to resemble a chapter from one of Miss Gentle’s own genre. He said:
“What happened next?”
“Sir Paul waded into the river and fished him out. I expect he didn’t actually want him to drown. Perhaps he didn’t know whether he could swim. Then he threw him down on the grass, said something which I couldn’t hear and walked upstream towards me. As he drew alongside, I popped up my head. I said: ‘Good evening. I don’t suppose you remember me, but we met last June at the Hertfordshire Conservative fête. I was visiting a niece. I’m Millicent Gentle.’”
“What did he do?”
“He came over, squatted down by the dinghy and shook hands. He was quite unflustered, not in the least disconcerted. He was dripping wet, of course, and his cheek was bleeding. It looked like a scratch. But he was as self-possessed as he had been when we’d met at the Conservative fête. I said: ‘I saw the fight. You haven’t killed him, have you?’ He said: ‘No, I haven’t killed him. I only wanted to.’ Then he apologized and I said there was really no need. He was beginning to shiver—it really wasn’t warm enough to be standing around in wet clothes—so I suggested he should come back to the cottage and dry off. He said: ‘That’s very kind of you, but I think I ought first to move the car.’ I knew what he meant, of course. It would be better if he left the Black Swan before anyone saw him or knew that he was there. Politicians have to be so careful. I suggested that he park it somewhere at the side of the road and I’d wait for him a little further upstream until he came back. He could have driven round, of course, but it would have been five miles or more and he really was very cold. He disappeared and I waited. It wasn’t long. He was back in less than five minutes.”
“And what happened to the other man?”
“I didn’t wait to see. I knew he’d be all right. He wasn’t alone, you see. He had a girl with him.”
“A girl? Are you sure?”
“Oh yes, quite sure. She came out of the bushes and watched when Sir Paul threw him into the river. I couldn’t have missed her. She was quite naked.”
“Could you recognize her?” Without being asked, Kate opened her shoulder bag and handed over the photograph.
Miss Gentle said:
“Isn’t that the girl who drowned? It’s possible it was the same one, but I didn’t see her face clearly. The light was very poor, as I’ve said, and they must have been forty yards away.”
“What did she do?”
“She laughed. It was most extraordinary. Peal on peal of laughter. When Sir Paul waded in to help him out, she sat on the bank, quite naked, and roared with laughter. One ought not to laugh at another’s misfortune, but he really did look very funny. The scene was quite bizarre. Two men stumbling out of the river and a naked girl sitting on the bank and laughing. She had rather an infectious laugh, full-throated, joyous. Ringing across the water, it didn’t sound malicious. But I suppose it must have been.”
“And what was happening to the party in the punt?”
“They were paddling back upstream towards the Black Swan. Perhaps they were beginning to feel a little frightened. The river is so black at night and so strange, almost sinister. I’m used to it now, I feel at home with it. But I think they wanted to get back to the lights and the warmth.”
“So the last you saw of the man and the girl they were together on the bank and you began rowing quietly downstream without being noticed?”
“Yes. The river bends just slightly there and the rushes are taller at the water edge. They were quickly out of sight. I sat quietly and waited until Sir Paul appeared.”
“From what direction?”
“Walking upstream, the same direction as I had been rowing. He’d come through the car park, you see.”
“Still out of earshot and sight of the boy and girl?”
“Well, out of sight, but I could still hear her laughing as we rowed across. I had to go carefully. With Makepeace and a passenger, we were very low in the water.”
The picture of the two of them in that bucket of a dinghy with Makepeace rigid at the prow was ridiculous but endearing. Dalgliesh wanted to laugh. It wasn’t an impulse he had expected to feel in the middle of any murder investigation, least of all this one, and he was grateful. He asked:
“The girl, for how long was she laughing?”
“Until we were almost on the opposite bank. And then, suddenly, the laughing stopped.”
“Did you hear anything at that moment, a cry, a splash?”
“Nothing. But then, if she had dived cleanly in, there wouldn’t have been much of a splash. And I don’t think I would have heard it above the noise of the oars.”
“What happened then, Miss Gentle?”
“First Sir Paul asked if he could use the telephone to make a local call. He didn’t say to where and, naturally, I didn’t ask. I left him here and went into the kitchen so that he could feel quite private. Then I suggested that he ought to have a hot bath. I switched on the electric wall heater in the bathroom and lit all my paraffin stoves. It didn’t seem a time for economy. And I gave him some disinfectant for his face. I don’t think I mentioned that the boy had scratched him quite badly on his cheek. Not a very masculine way to fight, I thought. Then, while he was in the bathroom, I dried his clothes in the spin dryer. I haven’t got a washing machine. Well, I don’t really need one, just being on my own. I can even manage the sheets, now that we have drip dry. But I don’t think I could manage without my spin dryer. Oh, and I handed him my father’s old dressing gown to wear while the clothes were drying. It’s all wool and beautifully warm. They don’t make that quality now. When he came out of the bathroom I thought how handsome he looked in it. We settled down in front of the fire and I made some hot cocoa. Being a gentleman, I thought, he might prefer something stronger, and I offered my elderberry wine. He said he’d rather have the cocoa. Well, he didn’t actually say he preferred the cocoa. He would have liked to taste the wine, he was sure it was excellent, but he thought a hot drink might be better. I quite agreed. There’s really nothing quite as comforting as good strong cocoa when one is famished with cold. I made it with all milk. I had ordered an extra pint because I planned to have cauliflower cheese for supper. Wasn’t that lucky?”
Dalgliesh said:
“Very lucky. Have you spoken of this to any other person?”
“No one. I wouldn’t have spoken to you if you hadn’t telephoned and he hadn’t been dead.”
“Did he ask for your silence?”
“Oh, no, he wouldn’t have done that. He wasn’t that kind of man, and he knew that I wouldn’t tell. You know when you can trust a person about something like that, don’t you find? If you can, why ask? If you can’t, there’s no point in asking.”
“Please continue to say nothing, Miss Gentle. It could be important.”
She nodded but didn’t speak. He asked, wondering why it should matter so, why he needed so urgently to know:
“What did you talk about?”
“Not about the fight, at least not very much. I said: ‘I expect it was about a woman, wasn’t it?’ And he said it was.”
“The woman who laughed, the naked girl?”
“I don’t think so. I’m not sure why, but I don’t think so. I’ve a feeling it was rather more complicated than that. And I don’t think he would have fought in front of her, not if he’d known she was there. But then, I don’t suppose he did know. She must have concealed herself in the bushes when she saw him coming.”
He thought he knew why Berowne had been on t
he riverbank. He had arrived to join the dinner party, to greet his wife and his wife’s lover, to take part in a civilized charade, the complaisant husband, stock figure of farce. And then he had heard the murmur of running water, had smelt, as had Dalgliesh, that strong nostalgic river smell with its promise of a few moments of solitude and peace. So he had hesitated, then walked through the gate in the hedge from the car park to the riverbank. Such a small thing, a simple impulse obeyed, and it had led him to that blood-boltered vestry.
And it must have been then that Swayne, perhaps pulling his shirt over his head, had stepped out of the bushes to confront him like the personification of everything he despised in his own life, in himself. Had he challenged Swayne about Theresa Nolan, or did he already know? Was that one other secret that the girl had confided to him in that final letter, the name of her lover?
Dalgliesh asked again, gently insistent:
“What did you talk about, Miss Gentle?”
“Mainly about my work, my books. He was really very interested in how I started writing, where I got my ideas. Of course, I haven’t published anything for six years now. My kind of fiction isn’t very fashionable. Dear Mr. Hearne, always so kind, so helpful, explained it to me. Romantic fiction is more realistic now. I’m afraid I’m too old-fashioned. But I can’t change. People are sometimes a little unkind about romantic novelists, I know, but we’re just like other writers. You can only write what you need to write. And I’m very lucky. I have my health, my old age pension, my home and Makepeace for company. And I still keep writing. The next book may be the lucky one.”