A Taste for Death

by P. D. James

  Dalgliesh turned to Barbara Berowne.

  “Could your brother have got hold of it? Did he know the combination of the safe?”

  “Of course he didn’t. Why should Dicco want it? Paul got rid of it. He told me. He thought it was dangerous. He threw it away. He threw it in the river.”

  Lady Ursula spoke as if her daughter-in-law were not present.

  “I think you can assume that Dominic Swayne knows the combination of the safe. My son changed it three days before he died. He had the habit of noting the new combination in pencil on the last page of his diary until he was sure that he and I had memorized it. His practice was to circle the digits on next year’s calendar. That was the page which I think you showed me, Commander, had been torn out.”

  seven

  It was nearly five o’clock by the time he had bought the chisel, the strongest the shop had on display. There hadn’t in the end been time to get to a Woolworth’s, but he had told himself that it didn’t matter and bought the chisel in a hardware shop off the Harrow Road. The assistant might remember him, but then, who was going to ask? The theft would be seen as an unimportant break-in. And afterwards he would throw the chisel in the canal. Without the chisel to match with the marks on the edge of the box, how could they possibly link him with the crime? It was too long for his jacket pocket, so he placed it with the gun in the canvas bag. It amused him to carry over his shoulder that innocuous commonplace bag, to feel the weight of the gun and the chisel bumping against his side. He had no fear of being stopped. Who would want to stop him, a respectably dressed young man walking quietly home at the end of the day? But the assurance was more deeply rooted. He walked the drab streets head high, invincible, and could have laughed aloud at the grey, stupid faces, staring ahead as they passed him, or bent to the ground as if instinctively searching the pavement in the hope of finding a dropped coin. They were corralled in their hopeless lives, endlessly trudging the same bare perimeters, slaves of routine and convention. He alone had had the courage to break free. He was a king among men, a free spirit. And in a few hours he would be on his way to Spain to the sun. No one could stop him. The police had nothing to justify holding him, and now the only physical evidence linking him with the scene of crime was within his reach. He had enough money to last for the next two months and then he would write to Barbie. The time wasn’t ripe to tell her yet, but one day he would tell her and it had to be soon. The need to tell someone was becoming an obsession. He had nearly confided in that pathetic spinster over drinks at the St. Ermin’s Hotel. Afterwards he had been almost frightened by that urge to confess, to have someone marvel at his brilliance, his courage. He would tell Barbie. It was Barbie who had a right to know. He would tell her that she owed her money, her freedom, her future to him. She would know how to be grateful.

  The afternoon was so dark now that it could have been night, the sky thick and furred as a blanket, the air heavy to breathe and with the sharp metallic taste of the coming storm. Just as he turned the corner of the road and saw the church, it broke. The air and sky glittered with the first flash of lightning, then almost at once there came the crack of thunder. Two large drops stained the pavement in front of him and the rain sheeted down. He ran into the shelter of the church porch, laughing aloud. Even the weather was on his side; the main approach road to the church had been empty, and now he looked out from the porch into a wash of rain. Already the terraced houses seemed to shiver behind a curtain of water. From the glistening road spurts rose like fountains and the gutters ran and gurgled in torrents.

  Gently he turned the great iron handle of the door. It was unlocked, slightly ajar. But he had expected to find it open. With part of his mind he believed that churches, buildings of sanctuary and superstition, were always left open for their worshippers. But nothing could surprise him, nothing could go wrong. The door squeaked as he closed it behind him and stepped into the sweet-smelling quietness.

  The church was larger than he had imagined, so cold that he shuddered and so still that he thought for a second that he heard an animal panting before he realized that it was his own breath. There was no artificial light except for a single chandelier and a lamp in a small side chapel where a crimson glow stained the air. Two rows of candles burning before the statue of the Madonna gusted in the draught from the closing door. There was a locked box attached to the branching candleholder, but he knew that it wasn’t this that he sought. He had questioned the boy carefully. The box containing the button was at the west end of the church in front of the iron ornamental grille. But he didn’t hurry. He moved into the middle of the nave facing the altar and spread his arms wide as if to take possession of the vast emptiness, the holiness, the sweet-smelling air. In front of him the mosaics of the apse gleamed richly gold, and turning to look up at the clerestory, he could see in the half-light the ranks of painted figures, one-dimensional, harmlessly sentimental as cut-outs from a child’s picture book. The rainwater ran down his hair to wash over his face, and he laughed as he tasted its sweetness on his tongue. A small pool gathered at his feet. Then slowly, almost ceremoniously, he paced down the nave to the candleholder in front of the grille.

  There was a padlock on the box, but it was only small, and the box itself more fragile than he had expected. He inserted the chisel under the lid and heaved. At first it resisted, and then he could hear the gentle splinter of the wood and the gap widened. He gave one more heave and suddenly the padlock sprang apart with a crack so loud that it echoed through the church like a pistol shot. Almost at once it was answered by a crack of thunder. The gods, he thought, are applauding me.

  And then he was aware of a dark shadow moving up to him and heard a voice, quietly untroubled, gently authoritative.

  “If you’re looking for the button, my son, you’ve come too late. The police have found it.”

  eight

  Last night Father Barnes had dreamed again the same dream which had visited him on the night of the murder. It had been terrible—terrible on first waking and no less terrible when he thought about it later—and like all nightmares, it had left him feeling that it had been no aberration but was firmly lodged in his subconscious, powered with its own terrible reality, crouched ready to return. The dream had been a Technicolor horror. He had been watching a procession, not part of it but standing on the edge of the pavement, alone, disregarded. At its head was Father Donovan in his richest chasuble, prancing in front of the processional cross while the congregation streamed out of his church behind him: laughing faces, bodies leaping and steaming, the clash of the steel drums. David, he thought, leaping before the Ark of the Lord. And then came the sacrament borne high under a canopy. But when he drew close, he saw that it wasn’t a proper canopy but the faded, grubby carpet from the Little Vestry of St. Matthew’s, its fringe swaying as the poles lurched, and what they were carrying wasn’t the sacrament but Berowne’s body, pink and naked like a stuck pig with its gaping throat.

  He had woken up calling out, fumbling for the bedside lamp. Night after night the nightmare had returned and then, last Sunday, mysteriously, he had been free of it and for three blessed nights his sleep had been deep and undisturbed. As he turned to lock the dark and empty church after Dalgliesh and Miss Wharton had left he found himself praying that it wouldn’t revisit him tonight.

  He glanced at his wristwatch. It was only quarter past five, but the evening was as dark as midnight. And when he reached the edge of the porch the rain began falling. First came a flash of thunder, so loud that it seemed to shake the church. He thought how unmistakable and how eerie it was, that unearthly sound, something between a growl and an explosion. No wonder, he thought, men have always feared it, like the anger of God. And then, immediately, came the rain spilling from the porch roof in a solid wall of water. It would be ridiculous to set out for the vicarage through such a storm. He would be soaking wet in seconds. If he hadn’t insisted on staying on for a few minutes after Dalgliesh had left to enter the candle money in his petty
-cash register, he could probably have had a lift home. The Commander was dropping Miss Wharton at her flat on his way to the Yard. But now there was nothing for it but to wait.

  And then he remembered Bert Poulson’s umbrella. Bert, who sang tenor in the choir, had left it in the bell room after Sunday’s Mass. He could borrow it. He went back into the church, leaving the north door ajar, unlocked the door in the grille and made his way into the bell room. The umbrella was still there. Then it occurred to him that he ought, perhaps, to leave a note on the peg. Bert might turn up early on Sunday and begin agitating when he found it was missing; he was that sort of man. Father Barnes went into the Little Vestry and, taking a sheet of paper from the desk drawer, wrote: “Mr. Poulson’s umbrella is at the vicarage.”

  He had hardly finished writing and was putting his pen back in his pocket when he heard the sound. It was a loud crack and it was very close. Instinctively he moved out of the Little Vestry and into the passage. Behind the grille was a young man, fair-haired, chisel in hand. And the collection box gaped open.

  And then Father Barnes knew. He knew both who it was and why he was here. He remembered Dalgliesh’s words: “No one will be at risk once he knows that we’ve found the button.” But for one second, no more, he felt fear, an overwhelming, incapacitating terror which rendered him speechless. And then it passed, leaving him cold and faint but perfectly clear-headed. What he felt now was an immense calm, a sense that there was nothing he could do and nothing he need fear. Everything was taken care of. He walked forward as firmly as if he were greeting a new member of his congregation and knew that his face showed the same conscious, sentimental concern. His voice was perfectly steady. He said:

  “If you’re looking for the button, my son, you’ve come too late. The police have found it.”

  The blue eyes blazed into his. Water was flowing like tears over the young face. It looked suddenly like the face of a desolate and terrified child, the mouth, half-open, gaped at him, speechless. And then he heard a groan and saw with disbelieving eyes the two hands stretched towards him, shaking; and in the hands was a gun. He heard himself say: “No, oh no, please!” and knew that he wasn’t pleading for pity because there was none. It was a last impotent cry against the inescapable. And even as he made it he felt a thud and his body leaped. It was only seconds later as he hit the ground that he heard the gunshot.

  Someone was bleeding over the tiles of the nave. He wondered where it was coming from, this steadily spreading stain. Extra cleaning, he thought. Difficult to get off. Miss Wharton and her ladies wouldn’t be pleased. The red stream crept, viscous as oil, between the tiles. Like that TV advert, liquid engineering. Somewhere someone was groaning. It was a horrible noise, very loud. They really ought to stop. And then he thought: This is my blood, this is me bleeding. I’m going to die. There was no fear, but only a moment of dreadful weakness, followed by a nausea more terrible than any physical sensation he had ever experienced. But then that, too, passed. He thought: If this is dying, it is not so very difficult. He knew there were words he ought to say, but he wasn’t sure he could remember them and it didn’t matter. He thought: I must let go, just let go. After that thought there was no other.

  He was unconscious when at last the blood stopped flowing. He was beyond hearing when almost an hour later the door was pushed slowly open and the heavy footsteps of a police officer moved down the nave towards him.

  nine

  From the moment she walked into the casualty department and saw her grandmother, Kate had known that there was no longer any choice. The old lady had been sitting on a chair against the wall, a red hospital blanket around her shoulders, and had a pad of gauze taped to her forehead. She had looked very small and frightened, her face greyer and more wizened than ever before, her anxious eyes fixed on the entrance door. Kate was reminded of a stray dog brought into the Notting Hill nick and awaiting transfer to the Battersea Dogs’ Home which had sat tied by a string to a bench and had gazed quivering at the door with just such an intensity of longing. As she walked up to her, it seemed that she was seeing her grandmother with shocked eyes as if they had been parted for months. The tell-tale signs of deterioration, of the draining away of strength and self-respect, that she had either ignored or pretended not to see were suddenly all too plain: the hair, which her grandmother had always tried to dye back to its original red, now hanging in vertical stripes of white, grey and a curious orange each side of the sunken cheeks; the blotched hands thin as talons; the ridged nails on which the remnants of polish, months old, clung like dried blood; the eyes still sharp, but glittering now with the first glint of paranoia; the sour smell of unwashed clothes, unwashed flesh.

  Without touching her, Kate sat beside her on the vacant chair. She thought: I mustn’t make her ask, not now, not when it has become so important. At least I can spare her that humiliation. Where did I get my own pride if not from her? She said:

  “It’s all right, Gran. You’re coming home with me.” There had been no hesitation and no choice. She couldn’t look into those eyes and see for the first time real fear, real despair and still say no. She had left her side only for a few minutes to speak to the staff nurse and confirm that it was all right for her to leave. Then she had led her, docile as a child, to the car, driven her to the flat and put her to bed. After all the scheming and agonizing, the self-justification, the determination that she and her grandmother would never again live under the same roof, it had been as simple and inevitable as that.

  The next day had been hectic for both of them. By the time Kate had seen the local CID, driven her grandmother back to her flat and packed a case with Mrs. Miskin’s clothes and the odd collection of possessions from which she couldn’t bear to be parted, left notes for the neighbours to explain what had happened and spoken to the social service department and the housing office, it was mid-afternoon. Then on their arrival back at Charles Shannon House there had been tea to make, drawers and a cupboard to clear for her grandmother’s things, her own painting gear to be stowed away in the corner. God knows, she thought, when I’ll be able to use that again.

  It was after six before she was free to set off to the Notting Hill Gate supermarket to shop for enough food to leave ready for the next few days. She only hoped that she would be able to get back to work the next morning, that her grandmother would be well enough to be left. She had insisted on accompanying Kate and had stood up well to the day’s exertions. But now she was looking tired, and Kate was filled with a desperate worry that she might refuse to be left next morning. She had struck her head and bruised her right arm when the youths had jumped on her. But they had been content to grab her purse without kicking in her teeth, and the physical damage was superficial. Her head and arm had been X-rayed; the hospital were satisfied that she was fit to be at home if there was someone to keep an eye on her. Well, there was someone to keep an eye on her, the only person in the world she had left.

  Pushing her trolley along the aisles at the supermarket, Kate marvelled at the amount of additional food which one other person made necessary. She needed no list. These were the familiar items demanded by her grandmother which she had shopped for every week. As she placed them in the basket she could still hear the echo of that old confident, disgruntled voice in her ears. Ginger biscuits (“not those soft ones, I like them hard for dipping”), tinned salmon (“red, mind you, I can’t be doing with that pink muck”), tinned pears (“at least you can get your teeth into them”), custard powder, packets of cut ham (“keeps fresher that way and you can see what you’re getting”), the strongest-tasting teabags (“I wouldn’t bath a newt in that stuff you bought last week”). But this afternoon had been different. Since coming to the flat she had sat without complaint, a pitiable, tired, docile old woman. Even her expected criticism of Kate’s latest painting—“I don’t know why you want to stick that thing on the wall, looks like a kid’s drawing”—had sounded more like a ritual objection, an attempt to revive her old bravado, than genuine out
rage. She had let Kate set off for the shops with nothing but a sudden deepening of fear in the faded eyes and an anxious:

  “You’ll not be long then?”

  “Not long, Gran. Just off to the supermarket at Notting Hill Gate.”

  Then, as Kate reached the door, she called her back and raised her small gallant pennant of pride:

  “I’m not asking to be kept. I’ve got me pension.”

  “I know, Gran. There’s no problem.”

  Manoeuvring her trolley down the aisles stacked with tinned fruit, she thought: I don’t seem to need a supernatural religion. Whatever happened to Paul Berowne in that church vestry, it’s as closed to me as painting is to the blind. Nothing is more important to me than my job. But I can’t make the law the basis of my personal morality. There has to be something more if I’m to live at ease with myself.

  And it seemed to her that she had made a discovery about herself and about her job which was of immense importance, and she smiled that it should have happened while she was hesitating between two brands of tinned pears in a Notting Hill Gate supermarket. Odd, too, that it should have happened during this particular case. If she was still with the squad at the end of the enquiry she would like to say to AD: “Thank you for having me on the case, for choosing me. I’ve learnt something about the job and myself.” But immediately she realized that it wouldn’t be possible. The words would be too revealing, too confiding, the sort of girlish enthusiasm she wouldn’t be able to recall afterwards without a flush of shame. And then she thought: For God’s sake, why not? He’s not going to demote me, and it’s the truth. I shouldn’t be saying it to embarrass him or impress him or for any other reason except that it’s true and I need to say it. She knew that she was over-defensive, probably she always would be. Those early years couldn’t be wiped out and they couldn’t be forgotten. But surely she could let down one small drawbridge without yielding the whole fortress. And would it matter so much if it was yielded?