A Taste for Death (46 page)

Six forty-five. If this were a Friday he would have arrived by now, timing his entrance to ensure that there was no one in the hall to see him. There would be the one long ring, the two short peals on the bell which were his signal. And then the bell rang, one long insistent peal. She thought she heard a second and then a third, but that might have been her imagination. For one miraculo second, no more, she thought that he had come, that it all been an idiotic mistake. She called: 'Paul, Paul darling!' and almost flung herself against the door. Al{ then her mind took hold of reality and she knew the trutl. The receiver slid through her moist hands and almost and her lips were so dry that she could hear them crackin,. She whispered:

'Who is it?' The answering voice was high, a femti, voice. It said:

'Could I come up? I'm Barbara Berowne.'

She pressed the button almost without thinking and heard the burr of the released lock, the click of the dor as it closed. It was too late now to change her mind, but she knew that there had been no choice. In her preset desperate loneliness she would have sent no one awty. And this encounter had been inevitable. Ever since her affair with Paul had started she had wanted to see his wife, and now she was going to see her. She opened the door and stood waiting, listening for the whine of the lift,

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the muted footfalls on the carpet, as she had once waited for his.

She came down the corridor, light-footed, casually elegant, golden, her scent, subtle and elusive, seeming to precede her and then waste itself on the air. She was wear-ing a coat of cream broadcloth, its wide arms and shoulders pleated, the sleeves fashioned in some finer and differently textured cloth. Her black leather boots looked as soft as her black gloves and she carried a shoulder bag on a slim strap. She was hatless, the corn coloured hair with its streaks of paler gold twisted at the back into a long roil. It surprised Carole that she could notice the details, could actually wonder about the material of the coat sleeves, speculate where it had been bought, how much it had cost.

As she came in it seemed to Carole that the blue eyes looked round the room with a frank, faintly contemptuous appraisal. She said in a voice which she knew must sound forced and ungracious:

'Please sit down. Would you like something to drink? Coffee, sherry, some wine?'

She, herself, moved over to Paul's chair. It seemed to her impossible that his wife should sit where she had been used to seeing him. They faced each other a few yards apart. Barbara Berowne looked down at the carpet as if satisfying herself that it was clean before placing her bag at her feet. She said:

'No thank you. I can't stay long. I have to get back. We've got some people coming, some of Paul's colleagues. They want to talk about the memorial service. We shan't have it until the police discover who killed him, but these things have to be settled weeks in advance if one wants St Margaret's. Apparently they don't think he really qualifies for the Abbey, poor darling. You'll come, of course; to the memorial service I mean. There will be so many people there that you won't be noticed. I mean you needn't feel embarrassed about me.'

'No, I've never felt embarrassed about you.'

'I think it's all rather gruesome actually. I don't think Paul would have wanted all that fuss. But the constituency

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seemed to feel that we ought to have a memorial service. After all, he was a Minister. The cremation will be private. I don't think you ought to go to that anyway, do you? It will be just the family and really intimate friends.'

Intimate friends. Suddenly she wanted to laugh aloud. She said:

'Is that why you're here? To tell me about the funeral arrangements?'

'I thought Paul would want you to know. After all, we both loved him in our different ways. We're both con cerned to safeguard his reputation.'

She said:

'There's nothing you can teach me about safeguarding his reputation. How did you know where to find me?'

'Oh I've known where to find you for months. A cousin of mine employed a private detective. It wasn't very diffi-cult, just a matter of following Paul's car on a Friday evening. And then he eliminated all the couples in this block, all the old women and all the single men. That left you.'

She had drawn offher black gloves and had lain them on her knee. Now she was smoothing them out, finger by finger, with pink tipped hands. She said without looking up:

'I'm not here to make trouble for you. After all we're in this together. I'm here to help.'

'We aren't in anything together. We never have been. And what do you mean by help? Are you offering me money?'

The eyes looked up, and Carole thought she detected a flicker of anxiety, as if the question needed to be taken seriously.

'Not really. I mean, I didn't think you were actually in need. Did Paul buy this flat for you? It's rather cramped, isn't it? Still, it's quite pleasant if you don't mind living in a suburb. I'm afraid he hasn't mentioned you in his will. That's another thing I thought you ought to know, in case you were wondering.'

Carole said, her voice over-loud and harsh even to her own ears:

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'This flat is mine. The deposit was paid by me, the mortgage is paid with my money. Not that it's any of your business. But if you have a conscience about me, forget it. There's nothing I want from you or from anyone else connected with Paul. Women who prefer to be kept by men all their lives can never get it into their heads that

some of us like to pay our own way.'

'Did you have any choice?'

Speechless, she heard the high, childish voice con-tinuing:

'After all, you've always been discreet. I admire you for that. It can't have been easy only seeing him when he hadn't anything better to do.'

The amazing thing was that the insult wasn't deliberate. She was capable of being intentionally offensive, of course, but this had been a casual remark born of an egotism so insensitive that she spoke what she thought, not wanting particularly to wound, but incapable of caring whether she wounded or not. Carole thought: Paul, how could you have married her? How could you have been taken in? She's stupid, third-rate, spiteful, insensitive, mean minded.

Is beauty really so important?

She said:

'If that's all you've come to say, perhaps you'll go. You've seen me. You know what I look like. You've seen the flat. This is the chair he used to sit in. That's the table he used for his drink. If you want I can show you the bed we made love on.'

'I know what he came for.'

She wanted to cry out 'Oh no you don't. You know nothing about him. I was as happy lying with him on that bed as I've ever been or ever shall be. But that wasn't what he came for.' She had believed, still believed, that only with her had he been wholly at peace. He had lived his over-busy life neatly compartmentalized; the Campden Hill Square house, the House of Commons, his ministerial suite at the department, his constituency headquarters. Only in this high, ordinary, suburban flat did the disparate elements fuse together and he could be a whole person,

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uniquely himself. When he had come in and sat opposite her, had dropped his briefcase at his feet and smiled at her she had watched with joy, time and time again, the taut face soften and relax, become already smooth as if they had just made love. There were things about his private life which she knew he had held back from her, not con-sciously or out of lack of trust, but because, when they were together, they had no longer seemed important. But he had never held back himself.

Barbara Berowne was admiring her engagement ring, holding out her hand and moving it slowly in front of her face; the huge diamond in its setting of sapphires twinkled and flashed. She gave a secretive reminiscent smile then looked across at Carole and said:

'There's one other thing which you might as well kmw.

I'm having a baby.'

Carole cried:

'It isn't true! You're lying! You can't be!'

The blue eyes widened.

'Of course it's true. It isn't something you can lie aboxt, not for long anyway. I mean the truth will be obvious to

the whole world in a couple of months.'

'It isn't his child!'

She thought: I'm shouting, screaming at her. I must !cep calm. O God, help me not to believe.

And now Barbara Berowne actually laughed.

'Of course it's his child. He always wanted an heir, didn't you know that? Look, you may as well accept it. The only other man I've slept with since my marriage is sterile. He's had a vasectomy. I'm going to have Paul's son.'

'Fie wouldn't have done it. You couldn't have made him do it.'

'But he did. There is one thing you can always mk' a man do. That is if he likes women at all. Haven't you found that out? You're not pregnant, too, are you?'

Carole buried her face in her hands. She whisperet:

'I thought I ought to be sure.' She giggled. 'That would have been a complication, wouldn't it?'

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Suddenly all control was gone. There was nothing left but naked anger, naked shame. She heard herself bawling like a shrew.

'Get out! Get out of my flat!'

Even in the middle of her anguish and fury she didn't miss the sudden flicker of fear in the blue eyes. She saw it with a spurt of pleasure and triumph. So she wasn't in-violate after all, she could be frightened. But the knowledge was vaguely unwelcome; it made Barbara Berowne vul-nerable, more human. Now she got up almost gracelessly, bent to pick up her shoulder bag by the strap, then scampered to the door ungainly as a child. Only when Carole had opened it and stood aside to let her out did she turn and speak.

'I'm sorry you've taken it like this. I think you're being rather silly. After all, I was his wife, I'm the injured party.'

And then she was hurrying down the corridor. Carole called after her:

'The injured party! My God that's good. The injured party!'

She closed the door and leaned against it. Sickness heaved at her stomach. She rushed to the bathroom, spewed into the basin grasping the taps for support. And then came anger, cleansing, almost exhilarating. Between fury and grief she wanted to fling her head back and howl like an animal. She groped her way back into the sitting room and felt for her own chair like a blind woman, then sat gazing at his empty seat, willing herself to calm. When she had herself under control, she fetched her handbag and took out the card with the Scotland Yard extension she had been asked to telephone.

It was Sunday, but someone would be on duty. Even if she couldn't speak to Inspector Miskin now, she could leave a message, ask that she be rung back. It couldn't wait until tomorrow. She had to commit herself irrevo-cably, and now.

A male voice answered, one she didn't recognize. She gave her name and asked for Inspector Miskin.

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She said:

'It's urgent. It's about the Berowne murder.'

There was a delay of only seconds before the Inspector answered. Although she had only heard the voice once before, it came to her with a shock of recognition. She said:

'This is Carole Washburn. I want to see you. There's

something I've decided to tell you.'

'We'll come round now.'

'Not here. I don't want you to come here, not ever again. I'll meet you tomorrow morning. Nine o'clock. The formal garden in Holland Park, the one near the Orangery. Do you know it?'

'Yes, I know it. We'll be there.'

'I don't want Commander Dalgliesh. I don't want any male officer. Just you. I won't talk to anyone else.'

There was a pause, then the voice spoke again, un-surprised, accepting:

'Nine o'clock tomorrow. The garden, Holland Park. I'll be on my own. Can you give me any idea what it's about?' ;

'It's about the death of Theresa Nolan. Goodbye.' Then she replaced the receiver and leaned her forehead against the cold stickiness of the metal. She felt empty, light-headed, shaken by her heartbeats. She wondered what she would feel, how she could go on living when she was capable of knowing what she had done. She wanted to cry aloud: 'My darling, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.' But she had made her decision. There was no going back now. And it seemed to her that there still hung in the room the fugitive scent of Barbara Berowne's perfume, like the taint of betrayal, and that the air of her flat would never be free of it.

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Book Five

Rhesus Positive

Miles Gilmartin of Special Branch was protected from the importunities of casual visitors and the attention of the ill-intentioned by a series of checks and counterchecks which to Dalgliesh, waiting in thwarted anger and impatience while each was negotiated, seemed more childishly in-genious than necessary or effective. It wasn't a game he was in the mood to play. By the time he was finally ushered into Gilmartin's office by a PA who irritatingly combined exceptional beauty with an obvious consciousness of her unique privilege in serving the great man, Dalgliesh was beyond considerations of prudence or discretion. Bill Duxbury was with Gilmartin and they hardly got beyond the few preliminary courtesies before anger found its relief in words.

'We're supposed to be on the same side, if you people acknowledge any side but your own. Paul Berowne was murdered. If I can't get cooperation from you, where can

I expect to get it?'

Gilmartin said:

'I can understand a certain resentment that we didn't tell you earlier that Travers was one of our operatives...'

'Operatives. You make it sound as if she were on a production line. And you didn't tell me. I had to discover it for myself. Oh, I can see the fascination of your world. It reminds me of my prep school. We had our little secrets, our code words, initiation ceremonies. But when the hell are you people going to grow up? All right, I know it's necessary, some of it anyway, and for some of the time. But you make it into an obsession. Secrecy for its own sake, the whole vast paper-ridden bureaucracy of spying. No woder your kind of organization breeds its own traitors. In the meantime I'm investigating an actual murder :nd it would help if you stopped playing games