A Taste for Death (32 page)

haven't studied the inquest report.'

Dalgliesh said:

'Did Winifred ask whether Paul Berowne had been there that evening?'

'Yes, she did, with as much tact as she's capable of. Apparently he was expected. He had some business that prevented him joining the party for dinner but he said that he would try to get there in time for coffee. Just before ten there was a telephone Call to say that he had been

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delayed and couldn't make it. The interesting thing is that

he was there.., at least his car was.'

'How did Winifred discover that?'

'Well, I must say, by a great deal of cleverness and even more good luck. You know the car park at the Black Swan presumably?'

Dalgliesh said:

'No, I've never been there. It's a pleasure to come. Tell

me.'

'Well, the proprietor dislikes the sound of cars arriving and leaving and I don't blame him, so the park is about fifty yards from the restaurant and surrounded by a high beech hedge. They haven't got valet parking, presumably that would be too expensive. People just have to walk the fifty yards and if it's raining they drop their guests at the door first. So the car park is secluded and reasonably pri-vate. Even so, the doorman does keep an eye on it from time to time and it occurred to Winifred that Berowne would hardly leave his car there if he were actually tele-phoning to say that he couldn't arrive. After all, any of the party might have taken it into their heads to leave soon afterwards and would have recognized it. So she made some further inquiries further down the lane. There's a kind of lay-by just before you reach the A3 opposite a farm cottage

lying a little back from the road. She inquired there.' Dalgliesh asked: 'On what pretext?'

'Oh she just said that she was a private inquiry agent trying to trace a stolen car. People will answer almost anything as long as you ask with sufficient assurance. You

should know that, my dear Adam.'

Dalgliesh said:

'And she struck lucky.'

'Indeed she did. A boy, he's fourteen, was doing his homework upstairs in his front bedroom in the cottage and saw a black Rover parked. Being a boy he was naturally interested. He was quite definite about the make. It was there from about ten o'clock and was still there when he went to bed.'

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'Did he get the number?'

'No, that would htve meant going out of the house, of course, and he wasn't sufficiently intrigued to take that kind of trouble. Whtt interested him was that there was only one man in the car. He parked it, locked it, and walked off towards the Black Swan. It's not unusual to have cars parked there, but they're usually courting couples and they stay in the car.'

'Was he able to give a description?'

'Only a very general one, but as far as it went it corres-ponded more or less with Berowne. I'm satisfied myself that it was his car and that he was there. But I admit there's no proof. It Was ten at night when the boy glimpsed him and there rte rto lights in the lane. I couldn't be certain that he was at the Black Swan when Diana Travers drowned and as you'll have noticed from my piece, I very carefully didn't say that he was.'

'Did you check it with your lawyers before you printed it?'

'Indeed I did. They weren't exactly happy but they had to admit that it wasn't libellous. After all, it was purely factual. Our gossip always is.'

And gossip, thought Dalgliesh, was like any other commodity in the marketplace. You only received it if you had something of value to give. And Ackroyd, one of London's most notorious gossips, had a reputation for accuracy and value. He collected small titbits of in-formation as other naen hoarded screws and nails. They might not be wantect for the job on hand but sooner or later they would COme in useful. And he liked the sense of power which gossip gave him. Perhaps it reduced for him the vast amorphous City to manageable proportions, a few hundred people who counted in his world and who gave him the illusion of living in a private village, intimate but diverse and not unexciting. And he wasn't vicious. He liked people and he enjoyed pleasing his friends. Ackroyd crouched spider-like in his study and spun his web of mild intrigue. It was important to him that at least one thread connected him to a senior police officer as others, rather

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stronger, did to the parliamentary lobby, the theatre, Harley Street, the Bar. Almost certainly he would have tapped his sources, ready to offer Dalgliesh a small bonus of information. Dalgliesh thought it was time he fished for it. He said:

'What do you know of Stephen Lampart?'

'Not a great deal, since nature has mercifully spared me the experience of childbirth. Two dear friends had their babies at his place in Hampstead, Pembroke Lodge. Everything went very well; an heir to a dukedom and a future merchant banker, both safely delivered and both boys, which, after a succession of girls, was what was

wanted. He's reputedly a good gynaecologist.'

'What about women?'

'Dear Adam, how prurient you are: Being a gynaeco-logist must present particular temptations. Women after all are so ready to show their gratitude in the only way some of the poor dears know. But he protects himself, and not only where his sex life is concerned. There was a libel case eight years ago. You may remember it. A journalist, Mickey Case, was so ill-advised as to suggest that Lampart had carried out an illegal abortion at Pembroke Lodge. Things were a little less liberal in those days. Lampart sued and got exemplary damages. It ruined Mickey. There's not been a hint of scandal since. There's nothing like a reputation for being litigious to save you from slander. It is occasionally rumoured that he and Barbara Berowne are rather more than cousins but I don't think anyone has actual proof. They've been remarkably dis-creet, and Barbara Berowne, of course, played the part of the MP's adoring and beautiful wife to perfection when called upon to do so, which wasn't very often. Berowne was never a social chap. A small dinner party occasionally, the usual mild constituency beanfeasts, fund raising and so on. But otherwise, she wasn't required to exhibit herself in that particular role inconveniently often. The odd thing about Lampart is that he spends his life delivering babies but he dislikes children intensely. But then I rather agree with him. Up to four weeks they're quite enchanting. After

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that all one can say in favour of children is that they eventually grow up. He took his own Precautions against procreation. He's had a vasectomy.'

'How on earth did you get to know that, Conrad?' 'My dear boy, it isn't a secret. People used to boast about it. When he first had it done he used to wear one of those revolting ties advertising the fact. A little vulgar, I admit, but then there is a streak of vulgarity in Lampart. He keeps it under better control now, the vulgarity ! mean. The tie is folded away in a drawer along, no doubt, with other mementos from his past.'

And this indeed was a bonus, thought Dalgliesh. If Barbara Berowne were pregnant and Lampart wasn't the father, then who was? If it were Berowne himself and he had known of the fact, would he have been more or less likely to have killed himself?. A jury would probably think less likely. To Dalgliesh, who had never believed the suicide theory, this wasn't particularly relevant. But it would be highly relevant to the prosecution if he caught

his man and the case came to trial.

Ackroyd said:

'How did you get on with the formidable Lady Ursula? Had you met her before?'

'No. In my life, I don't often meet th daughter of an earl. Until now I haven't met one in my job either. What should I think of her? You tell me.'

'What everyone wants to know about her - everyone of her generation, anyway - is why she married Sir Henry. Now I happen to know the answer. I've thought it out all on my own. You may think my theory is obvious but it's none the worse for that. It explains why so many beautiful

� women choose such ordinary men. It's because a beautiful woman - and I'm talking about beauty, not just prettiness - is so ambivalent about her beauty. With part of her mind she knows it's the most important thing about her. Well, of course, it is. But with another part she distrusts it. all, she knows how transitory it is. She has to watch

one she doesn't possess. So when Lady Ursula got

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tired of all the importunate young men badgering and

praising her she chose dear old Henry who had loved her devotedly for years, would obviously continue to love her until he died, and seemed not to notice that he'd got himself the most admired beauty in England. Apparently it worked out very well. She gave him two sons and was faithful to him, well, more or less. And now, poor dear, she's left with nothing. Her father's title became extinct when her only brother was killed in 1917. And now this. Unless, of course, Barbara Berowne is pregnant with an

heir which, on the face of it, seems unlikely.'

Dalgliesh asked:

'Isn't that the least important part of the tragedy, the extinction of the baronetcy?'

'Not necessarily. A title, particularly an old one, confers a comforting sense of family continuity, almost a kind of personal immortality. Lose it and you really begin to under-stand that all flesh is grass. I'll give you a word of advice, my dear Adam. Never underestimate Lady Ursula Be-rowne.'

Dalgliesh said:

'I'm in no danger of that. Did you ever meet Paul Be-rowne?'

'Never. I knew his brother, but not well. We met whet he was first engaged to Barbara Swayne. Hugo was an anachronism, more like a First World War hero than modern soldier. You half-expected to see him slapping his cane against khaki breeches, carrying a sword. You expect his kind to get killed. They're born for it. If they didn't, what on earth would they do with themselves i old age? He was very much the favourite son, of course. He was the kind of man his mother understood, was brought up with, that mixture of physical beauty, reck-lessness and charm. I began to get interested in Paul Bc-rowne when we decided to do that short feature, but 1 admit that most of my information about him is second hand. Part of Paul Berowne's private tragedy, admittedly a small one viewed sub specie aeternitatis, was neatly summed up by Jane Austen. "His temper might, perhaps,

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be a little soured by finding, like many others of his sex, that through some unaccountable bias in favour of beauty he was the husband of a very silly woman." Pride and Prejudice, Mr Bennet.'

'Sense and Sensibility, Mr Palmer. And when one meets Barbara Berowne the bias doesn't seem so very unaccount-able.'

'Sense and Sensibility? Are you sure? Anyway, I'm glad that I'm immune to that particular enthralment and the urge for possession that seems inseparable from it. Beauty suborns the critical faculty. God knows what Berowne thought he was getting, apart from a load of guilt. Probably the Holy Grail.'

All in all, thought Dalgliesh, the visit to St John's Wood had been even more fruitful than he had hoped. He took his time over finishing his tea. He owed his hostess at least the appearance of a decent civility and he had no par-ticular wish to hurry away. Soothed by Nellie Ackroyd's solicitous attention, comfortably ensconced in a gently rocking button-backed armchair whose arms and headrest seemed precisely designed to suit his body, and with his eyes soothed by the distant sheen of the canal seen through the light-filled conservatory, he had to make an effort to rouse himself to make his farewells and set off to drive back to the Yard, pick up Kate Miskin and take her with him to interview Berowne's only child.

5

Melvin Johns hadn't intended to make love. He had met Tracy at their usual place, the gate leading to the towpath, and they had walked together, her arm tucked under his, her thin body hugging against him until they came to their secret place, the patch of flattened grass behind the thick elderberries, the straight, dead stump of tree. And it had happened, as he knew it would. The brief, unsatisfactory

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spasm and what went before were no different than they had always been. The potent smell of loam and dead leaves, the soft earth under his feet, her eager body straining under his, the smell of her armpits, her fingers scratching at his scalp, the scrape of the bark of the tree against his cheek, the gleam of the canal seen through a thicket of leaves. All over. But afterwards the depression that always followed was worse than he had ever known. He wanted to sink into the earth and groan aloud. She whispered:

'Darling, we have to go to the police. We must tell them what we saw.'

'It wasn't anything. Just a car parked outside the church.'

'Outside the vestry door. Outside where it happened. The same night. And we know the time, about seven o'clock. It couM be the murderer's car.'

'It isn't likely he'd be driving a black Rover, and it isn't as if we noticed the number, even.'

'But we have to tell. If they never find who did it, if he kills again, we'd never forgive ourselves.'

The note of unctuous self-righteousness nauseated him. How was it, he wondered, that he'd never noticed before that perpetual whine in her voice. He said hopelessly:

'You said your dad would kill us if he knew we'd been meeting. The lies, telling him you were at evening classes. You said he'd kill us.'

'But, darling, it's different now. He'll understand that. And we can get engaged. We'll tell them all that we were engaged.'

Of course, he thought, suddenly enlightened. Dad, that respectable lay preacher, wouldn't mind as long as there was no scandal. Dad would enjoy the pubIicity, the seT:se of importance. They would have to marry. Dad, Mur, Tracy herself, would ensure that. It was as if his life suddenly revealed to him in a slow unwinding ree.! hopelessness, picture succeeding picture down the escapable years. Moving into her parents' small ho',': where else could they afford to live? Waiting for a coup' 'i!

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flat. The first baby crying in the night. Her whinifig, accusing voice. The slow death, even of desire. A man was dead, an ex-minister, a man he had never known, never seen, whose life and his had never until this moment touched. Someone, his murderer or an innocent motorist, had parked his Rover outside the church. The police would catch the killer, if there was a killer, and he would go to prison for life and in ten years he would be let out, free again. But he was only 21 and his life sentence would end only with his death. And what had he done to deserve his punishment? Such a little sin compared with murder. He almost groaned aloud with the injustice of it.