A Taste for Death (50 page)

triumph out of her voice.

'She came, sir. There's no new physical evidence but

she has strengthened one of the s '

you'll want to go to Hampstead.,uspect s motives. I think He said:

'Where are you ringing from? Your flat?' 'Yes, sir.'

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'I'll be there in about half an hour.'

But it was less than that when the bell of the entry-phone rang. He said:

'I'm parked further up Lansdowne Road. Could you come down now?'

He didn't suggest that he should come up, and she hadn't expected it. No senior officer was more scrupulous in respecting the privacy of his subordinates. She told herself that in him it hardly counted for virtue. He w too scrupulously careful to protect his own. Going dow,: in the lift it occurred to her that the more she learned Berowne the more alike he seemed to Dalgliesh. She felt a spurt of irritation against both of them. Here waiting fi-r her was a man who might also cause that extremity ,i' grief for a woman unwise enough to love him. She to]ti herself that she was glad that she had that temptation : least well under control.

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Stephen Lampart said:

'It isn't true. Theresa Nolan was psychologicall2. turbed; or, if you prefer bluntness, mad enough herself. Nothing she wrote before that act counts as rdiat evidence, even if you have this alleged letter, which I assume you haven't. I mean, if it were actually in your possession you'd be flourishing it in my face, surely. What you're relying on is third-hand information. We both know what that's worth in a court of law, or anywhere else for that matter.'

Dalgliesh said:

'Are you telling me that the girl's story is untrue?' 'Let's be charitable and say mistaken. She was lonely, guilt-ridden, particularly about sex, depressed, losing touch with reality. There's a psychiatrist's report on her medical file which, stripped of its jargon, says pr,-. iely

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that. Or you can argue that she was deliberately lying, she or Berowne. Neither was a particularly reliable witness. Both, as it happens, are dead. If this is meant to give me a motive, it's absurd. It's also close to slander and I know

how to deal with that.'

Dalgliesh said:

'As you knew how to deal with libel. A police officer, carrying out a murder investigation, isn't so easily ruined.'

'Not financially, perhaps. The courts are so ridiculously indulgent to the police.'

The nurse who had received them at Pembroke Lodge had said, 'Mr Lampart has just finished operating, if you would come this way,' and they had been shown into a room adjacent to the theatre. Lampart had joined them almost at once, pulling offhis green operating cap, peeling off his gloves. The room was small, clinical, seeming full of rushing water and the sound of feet passing in the room next door, of confident voices above the unconscious body of the patient. It was a temporary place, a room for quick clinical exchanges not for confidences. Dalgliesh wondered if the ploy had been deliberate, a way of demonstrating the subtle power of his professional status, of reminding the police that there was more than one kind of author-ity. Dalgliesh didn't think that Lampart had dreaded the interview, even if he had thought it prudent to face it on his own territory. He hadn't shown the least sign of apprehension. After all, he had enjoyed power, one kind of power, long enough to have acquired the self-assertive hubris of success. A man who had developed the confidence of a successful obstetrician certainly had the confidence to confront an investigating officer of the

Metropoiitan Police.

Now }e said:

'I did?t kill Berowne. Even if I were capable of a par-ticularly brutal and bloody murder, I certainly wouldn't take lerowne's wife with me and expect her to wait in the car while I slit her husband's throat. As for this other nonsense, even if it were true that I aborted healthy. foetuses because they weren't the sex the mother wanted,

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how do you propose to prove it? The operations were done here. The pathological reports are on the medical records. There's nothing incriminating on any file in this building. And even if there were, you wouldn't have access to it, not without a great deal of trouble. I have strong feelings about the sanctity of medical records. So what can you do? Start interviewing a succession of patients in the hope of tricking or bullying one of them into an indiscretion? And how would you track them down without my cooperation? Your allegation is ridiculous, Commander.'

Dalgliesh said:

'But Paul Berowne believed it. He got rid of his sh in Pembroke Lodge after Theresa Nolan's death. I tlik he spoke to you. I don't know what he said to you but I can guess. You could trust him to keep silent at that tiv.e, but after his experience in that church, his conversion, whatever it was, could you trust his silence then?'

He wondered whether he had been wise to show his hand so soon and so clearly. But the doubt was moment-ary. Lampart had to be confronted by the new evidence, tenuous as it might be. He had to be given the right to reply. And if it were irrelevant, the sooner it was cleared

out of the way, the better.

Lampart said:

'It wasn't like that. We never spoke. And, assuming that he did believe it, he would have been in a somewhat in-vidious position, rather more invidious than you realize. He wanted a son but he certainly didn't want another daughter. Nor incidentally, did Barbara. Barbara might be willing to bear him an heir, if only to consolidate her position. She saw that as part of the bargain. But nine months' discomfort to produce another daughter for him to resent, despise and ignore was asking rather too much of a woman, particularly one who dislikes and fears the thought of childbirth. Assuming the story is true, you could say that Berowne found himself in a curious position, morally anyway. He couldn't stomach the means but suspect he wasn't entirely displeased with the ends. ihat

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has never been a particularly dignified moral stance, not in my book. Barbara had one miscarriage - a female -eight months after their marriage. Do you suppose he grieved over that? No wonder the poor devil was in a mess psychologically. No wonder he took a razor to his throat. What you've discovered, Commander, if true, is an added reason for suicide, not a motive for murder.'

Lampart took down his jacket from a peg, then opened the door for Dalgliesh and Kate with a smiling courtesy that was almost insulting. Then he led the way to his pri-vate drawing room, shut the door and motioned them to-wards the easy chairs before the fire. Sitting opposite he leaned forward, legs apart, and almost thrust his face at Dalgliesh. Dalgliesh could see the handsome features mag-nified, the pores of the skin glistening with sweat as if he were still in the heat of the theatre, the taut muscles strain-ing at the neck, the smudge of tiredness under the eyes and the threads of scarlet around the irises, the flecks of dandruff at the roots of the undisciplined forelock. It was still a comparatively young face, but the signs of ageing were there and he could suddenly see how Lampart would look in another thirty years; the skin speckled and bleached, the bones less firmly fleshed, the macho confidence soured into the cynicism of old age. But now his voice was strong and harsh and the aggression came over to Dalgliesh, powerful as a force.

'I'll be frank with you, Commander, more frank than I would probably think prudent if what you're saying were true. If I had aborted those unwanted foetuses, it wouldn't be giving me a single pang of what you would probably call conscience. Two hundred years ago, anaesthesia in childbirth was regarded as immoral. Less than a hundred years ago birth control was virtually illegal. A woman has a right to choose whether she bears a child. I happen to think she also has a right to choose which sex. An .Unwanted child is usually a nuisance to itself, to society, to t parents. And a two-month foetus isn't a hum

t s a � � an bein

comphcated collection of tissue. You probably dog'

personally believe that the child has a soul before birth, at

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birth, or after birth. Poet or no poet, you're not the kind of man who sees visions and hears voices in church vestries. I'm not a religious man. I was born with my share of neuroses, but not that one. But what surprises me about those who claim to have faith is that they seem to think that we can find out scientific facts behind God's back. That first myth, the Garden of Eden, is remarkably per-sistent. We always feel we haven't a right to knowledge or that, when we get it, we haven't the right to use it. In my book we've the fight to do anything we can to make human life more agreeable, safer, less full of pain.'

His voice grated and there was a gleam in the grey eyes uncomfortably close to fanaticism. He could, thought Dalgiiesh, have been a seventeenth-century religious

mercenary reciting his credo with drawn sword. Dalgliesh said, mildly:

'Provided, presumably, we don't hurt other people ad the act isn't illegal.'

'Provided we don't hurt other people. Yes, I'd acctt that� Getting rid of an unwanted foetus hurts no oe. Either abortion is never justified or it's justified on grounds which the mother happens to think important. The wrog sex is as good a reason as any. I've more respect for those Christians who oppose abortion on any grounds than lbr those ingenious compromisers who want life on their own terms and a good conscience at the same time. At least the

former are consistent.

Dalgliesh said:

'The law is consistent. Indiscriminate abortion is n-lawful.'

'Oh, but this would have been highly discriminatory. All right, I know what you mean. But the law has no place w}en

it comes to private morality, sexual or otherwise.' Dalgliesh said:

'Where else is it supposed to operate?'

He got up and Lampart saw them out, deferential, smiling, confident. Except for perfunctory courtesies, neither spoke another word.

In the car Kate said:

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'It was practically a confession, sir. He didn't even bother to deny it.'

'No. But it isn't one he'd ever make on paper or which we could use in court. And it was a confession to medical malpractice, not murder. And he's right, of course. It would be the devil to prove.'

'But it gives him a double motive. His affair with Lady Berowne and the fact that Berowne might have felt he had a duty to expose him. Under all that bluff and arrogance, he must know that he's as vulnerable to scandal as any other doctor. Even a rumour wouldn't have done him any good. And coming from someone of Berowne's standing, it

would have been taken seriously.'

Dalgliesh said:

'Oh, yes, Lampart has got it all - means, motive, op-portunity, knowledge, and the arrogance to think he can get away with it. But I accept one thing he told us. He wouldn't have taken Barbara Berowne with him into that vestry and I can't see her agreeing to be left alone in a car parked in a not particularly salubrious area of Pad-dington whatever the excuse. And, always, we get back to the timing. The night porter saw them leaving Pembroke Lodge together. Higgins saw them arriving at the Black Swan. Unless one or both are lying Lampart has to be in the clear.'

And then he thought: Unless we've been misled by that gush of water from the waste pipe. Unless we've got the time of death totally wrong. If Berowne had died at the earliest time Dr Kynaston had thought possible, say seven o'clock, what happened to Lampart's alibi then? He had claimed to be at Pembroke Lodge with his mistress, but there had to be more ways than one of leaving the Lodge and rettrning unseen. But someone had been in the church kitchen at eight o'clock; unless, of course, the water had been left deliberately running. But by whom? Someone who had come earlier, at seven o'clock, someone who had arrived in a black Rover? If Berowne had died at seven o'clock, there were suspects other than Stephen Lampart. But what possible purpose would be served by leaving the

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tap running? There was, of course, always the possibility that it had been left on by accident. But if that were the case, then how and when had it been turned off?.

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Lady Ursula's friends had expressed their condolences with flowers and her sitting room was incongruously festive with long stemmed thornless roses, carnations and imported boughs of white lilac which looked like plastic artefacts sprayed with scent. The flowers had been less arranged than stuck into a variety of vases placed around the ro for convenience rather than effect. By her side on rosewood table was a small cut glass bowl of freesias. Tb scent, sweet and unmistakable, came up to Dalgliesh as !e neared her chair. She made no attempt to rise, but he!ct out her hand and he took it. It felt cold and dry and was no responsive pressure. She was sitting, as always, upright, wearing an ankle-length black wrapover with above it a high-necked blouse in fine grey wool. 1 only jewellery was a double chain in old gold and rings; the long fingers resting on the arms of her clt:ir were laden with great flashing stones so that the bl:e-corded hands with their parchment skin seemed alw 3st too frail to hold the weight of gold.

She motioned Dalgliesh to the opposite chair. Wlcn he had seated himself and Massingham had found a plce on a small sofa set against the wall, she said:

'Father Barnes called here this morning. Perhaps thought he had a duty to bring me spiritual comfort. Or was he apologizing for the use made of his vestry? He could hardly suppose I thought it was his fault. If he intended to offer spiritual consolation I'm afraid he found me a dis-appointing mourner. He's a curious man. I found him rather unintelligent, commonplace. Was that your opiniox?'

Dalgliesh said:

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'I wouldn't describe him as commonplace, but it's diffi-cult to see him influencing your son.'

'He seemed to me a man who had long ago given up the expectation of influencing anyone. Perhaps he has lost his faith. Isn't that fashionable in the Church today? But why should that distress him? The world is full of people who have lost faith; politicians who have lost faith in politics, social workers who have lost faith in social work, schoolteachers who have lost faith in teaching and, for all I know, policemen who have lost faith in policing and poets who have lost faith in poetry. It's a condition of faith that it gets lost from time to time, or at least mislaid. And why doesn't he get his cassock cleaned? It is a cassock, isn't it? There were what I assumed were egg stains on the