A Certain Justice (26 page)

The room, thought Kate, was indeed homely, if over-cluttered. The substantial desk at which Mrs. Buckley’s husband must have written his sermons, the display cabinet crammed with patterned china, the small polished table crowded with family photographs in silver frames, the glass-fronted bookcase of leather volumes and the row of rather anaemic water-colours provided, even for her, a stranger, a sense of continuity and security, of a life which had known love. The single divan bed placed against the wall with a small shelf and a wall-mounted light above it, was covered by a patchwork quilt in faded silks.

Looking at Dalgliesh’s grave face, at the long fingers curled round the coffee mug, Kate thought: He’s perfectly at ease here. He’s known women like this all his life. They understand each other.

He asked: “You have been happy here?”

“Contented rather than happy. I had hopes of evening classes, but it isn’t really possible for an elderly woman to go out alone at night. My husband started his ministry in London but I hadn’t realized how much has changed. But I do get to a matinée occasionally, and there are the galleries and the museums, and I’m close to St Joseph’s and Father Michael is very kind.”

“And Miss Aldridge. You liked her?”

“I respected her. She could be a little frightening at times, a little impatient. If she gave an instruction she didn’t like to have to repeat it. She was very efficient herself and she expected it in others. But she was very fair, very considerate. A little remote, but, then, she advertised for a housekeeper, not a companion.”

Dalgliesh said: “That call to her yesterday evening. Forgive me, but you are sure about the time?”

“Quite sure. I made it at seven-forty-five. I looked at my watch.”

“Could you tell us about it, why you made it, what exactly was said?”

She was silent for a moment, and when she spoke it was with a pathetic dignity. “Octavia was quite right in what she said. It was to complain about her. Miss Aldridge disliked my telephoning her at Chambers unless it was really urgent, and that’s why I hesitated. But Octavia and that young man, her fiancé, came up from the basement flat and demanded that I cook them dinner. She isn’t a vegetarian but she decided that it had to be a vegetarian meal. The arrangement is that Octavia looks after herself in the flat. Of course, normally I wouldn’t mind helping out, but she was very peremptory. I thought that if I gave way once she would expect me to cook for her on demand. So I came up from the kitchen into Miss Aldridge’s study and telephoned Chambers, and explained the problem as briefly as I could. Miss Aldridge said, ‘If she wants vegetables, cook her vegetables. I’ll talk to her and sort it out when I get home. That will be in about an hour’s time. I’ll get my own dinner. I can’t discuss it now, I have someone with me.’ ”

“And that was all?”

“And that was all. She sounded very impatient, but she never liked me to ring Chambers, and of course it wasn’t a good time when she had someone with her. I went down to the basement kitchen and cooked a thick onion tart for them. It’s one of Delia Smith’s recipes and Miss Aldridge always liked it. But of course I had to make the pastry first and it’s best to leave the dough in the fridge for half an hour while you prepare the filling, so it isn’t a quick meal. Then afterwards they wanted pancakes with apricot jam. I made these after they’d had the onion tart, and served the pancakes straight from the pan.”

Kate asked: “So you can be absolutely certain that both of them were in the flat the whole of the time from quarter to eight, when you made the call, until you went up to bed at about ten-thirty?”

“Oh absolutely sure. I was constantly in and out of their sitting-room, serving or clearing the plates. Both of them were under my eyes, so to speak, the whole evening. It wasn’t very pleasant. I think Octavia was trying to show off in front of the young man. I didn’t go downstairs again after I’d left them and come up here. I thought that Miss Aldridge would come up if she wanted to discuss anything that evening. I sat in my dressing-gown until after eleven in case she wanted me, and then I went to bed. In the morning I went in with her tea and found that the bed hadn’t been slept in. That’s when I rang Chambers again.”

Dalgliesh said: “We need to know as much about her as possible. What about dinner parties? Did her friends come here often?”

“Not very often. She really lived a very private life. Mr. Laud came about once every month or six weeks. They liked to go to exhibitions or the theatre together. I usually cooked them a light meal before they went and he brought her home, but I don’t think he stayed for more than a drink. And sometimes they went out to dinner together.”

“And was there anyone else, anyone perhaps who stayed for more than a drink?”

She flushed and seemed reluctant to reply. Then she said: “Miss Aldridge is dead. It seems terrible even to discuss her, and more terrible to gossip about her life. We ought to protect the dead.”

Dalgliesh said gently: “In a murder investigation to protect the dead can often mean endangering the living. I’m not here to judge her, I’ve no right. But I do need to know about her. I do need the facts.”

There was a little silence, then Mrs. Buckley said: “There was another visitor. He didn’t come very often but I think he did occasionally stay the night. It was Mr. Rawlstone, Mr. Mark Rawlstone. He’s an MP.”

Dalgliesh asked her when she had last seen him.

“It must be two or three months ago, perhaps more. Time passes so quickly, doesn’t it? I can’t really remember. But of course he may have come more recently, perhaps one night after I’d gone to my room. He was always gone early in the morning.”

Before they left Dalgliesh asked: “What are you thinking of doing now, Mrs. Buckley? Staying on here?”

“Mr. Farnham, that very pleasant solicitor, suggested that I should take my time. His firm and Miss Aldridge’s bank are the executors, so I suppose they’ll be paying me for the time being. I don’t think Octavia will want me to stay on — in fact, I’m sure she won’t. But someone ought to be in the house with her and I suppose I’m better than nobody. She’s spoken to her father but she doesn’t want to see him. I don’t think I can leave her even if she does resent me. But it’s all so dreadful at the moment that I can’t really think clearly.”

Dalgliesh said: “Of course not. It’s been an appalling shock for you. You’ve been very helpful, Mrs. Buckley. If there is anything else that comes to mind, please get in touch. This is the number. And if you find the media intrusive, let me know and I’ll arrange some protection for you. I’m afraid you may be under siege when the news breaks.”

She sat for a moment in silence. Then she said: “I hope you won’t mind my asking. I hope you won’t think it’s vulgar curiosity. But can you tell me how Miss Aldridge died? I don’t mean the details. I would just like to know that it was quick and that she didn’t suffer.”

Dalgliesh said gently: “It was quick and she didn’t suffer.”

“And there wasn’t a lot of blood? I know it’s silly but I keep on seeing blood.”

“No,” said Dalgliesh. “There wasn’t any blood.”

She thanked them quietly and saw them to the door, then stood at the top of the steps watching as they got into the car. Then, as they drove off, she raised her hand in a pathetic gesture of farewell, as if she were waving away a friend.

J
ust after one o’clock Valerie Caldwell was told by the police that they had finished questioning her for the present, and Mr. Langton suggested that I she should go home. A message would be put on the answerphone to say that Chambers were closed for the day. She was glad of the chance to get away from a place in which everything familiar and comfortable now seemed strange, threatening and subtly different. It seemed to her that the people she worked with, liked and thought liked her, were suddenly suspicious strangers. Perhaps, she thought, they all felt the same. Perhaps this was what murder did, even to the innocent.

There was a problem about leaving so early. Her mother, who suffered from agoraphobia, complicated by depression since Kenny’s imprisonment, would be worried if she arrived home in the afternoon without prior explanation. She would be worried still more on hearing the reason for it; even so, it was better to telephone in advance. To her relief it was her grandmother who answered. There was no knowing how Gran would take the news, but at least she’d be calm about it. Gran could break it to her mother, Valerie hoped tactfully, before she got home.

She said: “Tell Mummy I’ll be home early. Someone broke into Chambers last night and killed Miss Aldridge. Stabbed to death. Yes, I’m all right, Gran. It’s nothing to do with the rest of Chambers but we’re closing for the day.”

There was a brief silence while Gran took in the news, then she said: “Murdered, was she? Oh well, I can’t say I’m surprised. Always mixed up with criminals, getting them off. I expect one she didn’t get off has come out of prison and done for her. Your ma won’t like it. She’ll want you to leave that place, get a job locally.”

“Gran, don’t let her start all that again. Just tell her I’m all right and I’ll be back early.”

As usual she had brought sandwiches for her lunch, but she didn’t want to eat them at her desk. Even to be seen with food was a desecration. So she walked down Middle Temple Lane, turned west and into Embankment Gardens and sat on a seat facing the river. She wasn’t hungry, but there were sparrows who were. She watched their jerky peckings and sudden aggressive flurries, dropping an occasional crumb to the smaller, less assertive birds who were always too late for the pickings. But her mind was elsewhere.

She had told them too much, she realized that now. It had been the good-looking young detective and the woman officer who had interviewed her, and she had sensed that they were quietly sympathetic. But that of course had been deliberate. They had set out to get her confidence, and they had succeeded. And it had been a relief to talk to someone unconnected with Chambers about what had happened to Kenny, even if they were police officers. She had poured it all out.

Her brother had been arrested for selling drugs. But he hadn’t been dealing, not like real drug barons, not like the people one read about in the papers. He hadn’t got a job at present, but he shared a house with friends in North London and they smoked pot at their parties. Kenny said that everyone did. But it was Kenny who brought the drug, enough for the whole evening. And then the others paid him for their share. That was what everyone did. It was the cheapest way to get pot. But he had been caught and, desperate, she had asked Miss Aldridge for help. Perhaps she had asked at a bad time. She knew now that it hadn’t been wise, hadn’t even been right. Her cheeks burned as she remembered the response, the coldness in her voice, the contempt in her eyes.

“I don’t propose to startle the North London Magistrate’s Court by turning up complete with a junior to save your brother from his folly. Get him a good solicitor.”

And Kenny had been found guilty and sentenced to six months.

The woman detective, Inspector Miskin, had said: “That’s unusual for a first offence. He’d done it before, hadn’t he?”

Yes, she admitted, he had done it before. But only once and in the same way. And what use was it sending him to prison? It had only made him bitter. He wouldn’t have gone to prison if Miss Aldridge had defended him. She got people off who were far worse than Kenny — murderers, rapists, people accused of major fraud. Nothing happened to them. Kenny hadn’t hurt anyone, hadn’t cheated anyone. He was kind and gentle. He couldn’t even stamp on an insect. Now he was in prison and her mother couldn’t visit because of the agoraphobia, and Gran mustn’t be told because Gran always criticized her mum about how she’d brought up her children.

The two detectives hadn’t argued with her, hadn’t criticized any more than they had been openly sympathetic. But somehow she had told them other things, things that weren’t her business which they didn’t need to know. She had confided about the gossip in Chambers over Mr. Langton’s successor, about the rumour that Miss Aldridge was interested, the changes she might make.

Inspector Miskin had asked, “How do you know this?”

But of course she knew it. Chambers was a hotbed of gossip. People spoke in front of her. Gossip permeated the very air as if by a mysterious process of osmosis. She had told them about her friendship with the Naughtons. It was Harry Naughton, the Senior Clerk, who had got her the job. She and her mother and Gran lived close to him and his family, and she went to the same church. She had been looking for a job when the vacancy came up in Chambers and he had recommended her. At first she had been only the junior typist, but when Miss Justin retired after thirty years, she had been invited to take over her job and her own had been filled by a temp. The last temp hadn’t been satisfactory, so, for the past two weeks, she had been managing on her own. She was still on trial, but she hoped her appointment as Chambers secretary would be confirmed at the next Chambers meeting.

It was Inspector Miskin who had asked: “If Miss Aldridge had been appointed Head of Chambers, would she have suggested you as secretary?”

“Oh no, I don’t think so. Not after what happened. And I think she wanted to replace Harry with a practice manager, and if that happened the new practice manager would probably want a say in how the staff were organized.”

She was amazed now how much she had confided to them. But there were two things she hadn’t told them.

At the end she had said, trying not to cry, trying to retain some shreds of dignity: “I hated her for not helping Kenny. Or perhaps it was because she was so contemptuous about it — contemptuous to me. Now I feel awful because I did hate her and she’s dead. But I didn’t kill her. I couldn’t.”

Inspector Miskin had said: “We have reason to believe that Miss Aldridge was alive at a quarter to eight. You say you were home by seven-thirty. If your mother and grandmother confirm that, then you can’t have killed her. Don’t worry.”

So they had never really suspected her. Then why so long in questioning? Why had they bothered? She thought she knew the answer and her cheeks burned.