A Taste for Death (53 page)

its attitude, evoked too strongly a modern horror; the pictures and newsreels of the dead at Belsen. She thought: Even when we're here he never asks what I think, what feel, what I'd like most to see. She said:

'Let's go to the Duveen Gallery. I want to look at the Parthenon screen.'

They moved slowly away. As they paced, their eyes on the open guidebook, she said:

'Diana Travers. You told me that she wasn't put into Campden Hill Square to spy on Daddy's private life. You said it was only his job you were interested in, finding out what was in the new Police Tactical Options Manual. I must have' been naive. I can't think why I believed yot. But that's what you told me.'

'I don't need to have a cell member polishing the Berowne family silver to discover what's in the Tactical Options Manual. And she wasn't put there to spy on his private life, not primarily. I put her there to make think she had a job to do, that she was trusted. It kept her occupied while I decided what to do about her.'

'What do:you mean, do about her? She was a member of the cell. She replaced Rose when Rose went back to Ireland.'

'She thought she was a member, but she wasn't. Therds no reason why you shouldn't know. After all, she's dead. Diana Travers was a Special Branch spy.'

He had trained her not to look at him when they xere talking but to keep her eyes on the exhibits, the gui book or straight ahead. She gazed straight ahead now. said:

'Why didn't you tell us?'

'Four of you were told, not the whole cell. I don't the cell everything.'

She had, of course, known that his membership of Workers' Revolutionary Campaign was a cover for Cell of Thirteen. But even the cell, apparently, had been a cover for his private inner cabinet. Like a Rus: n doll, you unscrewed one deceit to find another nest xg within it. There were only four people whom he tru:

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completely, confided in, consulted, and she hadn't been among them. Had he ever trusted her, she wondered, even from the beginning? She said:

'That first time, when you rang me nearly four years ago and asked me to take photographs of Brixton, was that all part ora plan to recruit me, to get the daughter of a Tory MP into the WRC?'

'Partly. I knew where your political sympathies lay. I guessed you wouldn't exactly welcome your father's second marriage. It seemed a propitious time to make an ap-proach. Afterwards, my interest became, well, more per-sonal.'

'But was there ever love?'

He frowned. She knew how much he hated any intrusion of the personal, the sentimental. He said:

'There was, there still is, great liking, respect, physicat attraction. You can call that love if you want to use the word.'

'What do you call it, Ivor?'

'I call it liking, respect, physical attraction.'

They had moved into the Duveen Gallery. Above them pranced the horses on the Parthenon frieze, the naked riders with their flying cloaks, the chariots, the musicians, the elders and maidens approaching the seated gods and goddesses. But she looked up at this marvel with unseeing eyes. She thought: I need to know, I need to know everything. I have to face the truth. She said:

'And it was you who sent that poison pen note to Daddy and to the Paternoster Review? Doesn't it seem rather petty even to you, the people's revolutionary, the great cam-paigner against oppression, prophet of the new Jerusalem, reduced to gossip, slander, to childish spite? What did you

think you were doing?'

He said:

'Making a little mild mischief.'

'Is that what you call it - helping to discredit decent men? And not only my father. Most of them on your own side, men who've given years to the Labour movement, a cause you're supposed to support.'

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'Decency doesn't come into it. This is a war. Wars may be fought by decent men but they're not won by them.'

A small group of visitors had drifted up. They moved away and walked slowly down the side of the gallery. He said:

'If you're in the job of organizing a revolutionary group, even a small one, and they're going to have to wait for real action, real power, then you must keep them occupied, keen, give them the illusion that they're achieving some-thing. Talk isn't enough. There has to be action. It's partly a matter of training for the future, partly of keeping up morale.'

She said:

'From now on you're going to have to do it without me.'

'I realize that. I knew that after Dalgliesh had seen yot But I expect you to stay on, at least nominally, until this murder inquiry is over. I don't want to say anything , the others while Dalgliesh is nosing around. Then you join the Labour Party. You'll be happier there. Or SDP, of course. Take your choice, there's no difference.

the time you're forty you'll be a Tory anyway.'

She said:

'And you still trust me? You've told me all this know; that I want to get out?'

'Of course. I know you. You've inherited your lath pride. You wouldn't want people saying that your lo chucked you so you took your revenge by betraying h You wouldn't want your friends, your grandmother e to know that you've conspired against your father. can say I rely on your bourgeois decencies. But there i. 't much ora risk. The cell will be dissolved, re-formed, n ,t elsewhere. That's necessary now anyway.'

She thought: That's another aspect of the revolution struggle, getting to know people's decencies and u: g them against them. She said:

'Daddy, there's something I've learned about him, so thing I didn't realize until he died. He tried to be goo suppose those words don't mean anything to you.'

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'They mean something. I'm not sure what exactly you expect them to mean. I suppose he tried to behave so that he wasn't made uncomfortable by too much guilt. We all do. Given his politics and lifestyle that can't have been

easy. Perhaps in the end he gave up trying.'

She said:

'I wasn't talking about politics. It had nothing to do with politics. I know you think everything has, but there

is another view. There is a world elsewhere.'

'I hope you'll be happy in it.'

They were moving out of the gallery now and she knew that this was the last time they would be there together. It surprised her how little she cared. She said:

'But Diana Travers; you said you put her into Campden Hill Square until you decided what to do with her. What did you do? Drown her?'

And now for the first time she saw that he was angry. 'Don't be melodramatic.'

'But it was convenient for you, wasn't it?'

'Oh yes, and not only for me. There's someone else who had a much stronger motive for getting rid of her. Your father.'

Forgetting the need for secrecy, she almost cried:

'Daddy? But he wasn't there! He was expected, but he never arrived.'

'Oh, but he was there. I followed him that night. You could call it an exercise in surveillance. I drove behind him all the way to the Black Swan and watched him turn into the drive. And if you should decide to talk to Dal-gliesh, who seems for some reason to induce in you the need for sentimental girlish confidences, then that is one piece of information that I shall feel it necessary to pass

OI1. '

'But you can't, can you? Not without admitting that you were there, too. If it's a question of motive, Dalgliesh might think there's not a lot to choose between you. And you're alive; he's dead.'

'But unlike your father, I have an alibi. A genuine one this time. I drove straight back to London, to a meeting of

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senior social workers at the town hall. I'm in the clear. But is he? His memory is unsavoury enough as it is. D'you want another scandal linked to his name? Isn't poor Harry Mack enough for you? Think about that if you're tempted to make an anonymous call to Special Branch.'

8

Tuesday morning couldn't have heralded a better day il a drive out of London. The sunlight was fitful but sr-prisingly strong and the sky was a high ethereal blue abc, the scudding clouds. Dalgliesh drove fast, but almost in silence. Kate had expected that they would drive straig-t to Riverside Cottage but the road passed the Black S;,n and when they reached it Dalgliesh stopped the c appeared to think, then turned into the drive. He said:

'We'll have a beer. I'd like to walk along the river, vi the cottage from this bank. It's Higgins's property, mos' it anyway. We'd better let him know we're here.'

They left the Rover in the car park, which was emi v except for a Jaguar, a BMW, and a couple of Fords, ,1 made their way to the entrance hall. Henry greeted th with impassive courtesy as if unsure whether he ' expected to recognize them and, in reply to Dalglie question, told them that Monsieur was in London. bar was empty except for a quartet of businessmen �-spiratorially bent over their whiskies. The barman, faced above his white starched jacket and bow tie, set, cd them with a notable brew of real ale which the Black Sv. an took some pride in obtaining, then began industrio'lY washing glasses and rearranging his bar as if hoping th:,t a show of busyness might inhibit Dalgliesh from asking any questions. Dalgliesh wondered by what extraordinary alchemy Henry had managed to signal their identities. They carried their beer to the chairs each side of txe log fire, drank in companionable silence, then returnei " the

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car park and passed through the gate in the hedge to the riverbank.

It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life. The rich colours of grass and earth were intensified by the mellow light of a sun almost warm enough for spring and the air was a sweet evocation of all Dalgliesh's boyhood autumns; woodsmoke, ripe apples, the last sheaves of harvest, and the strong sea-smelling breeze of flowing water. The Thames was running strongly, under a quickening breeze. It flattened the grasses fringing the river edge and eddied the stream into the little gullies which fretted the bank. Under a surface iridescent in blues and greens, on which the light moved and changed as if on coloured glass, the blade-like weeds 'streamed and undulated. Beyond the clumps of willows on the far bank, a herd of Friesians were peacefully grazing.

Opposite and about twenty yards downstream he could see a bungalow, little more than a large white shack on stilts, which he guessed must be their destination. And he knew too, as he had known walking under the trees of St James's Park, that here he would find the clue he sought., But he :.s in no hurry. Like a child postponing the moment of assured satisfaction he was glad that they were early, grateful for this small hiatus of calm. And suddenly he ex-perienced a minute of tingling happiness so unexpected and so keen that he almost held his breath as if he could halt time. They came to him so rarely now, these moments of intense physical joy, and he had never before experienced one in the middle of a murder investigation. The moment passed and he heard his own sigh. Breaking the mood with a commonplace, he said:

'I suppose that must be Riverside Cottage.'

'I think so, sir. Shall I get the map?'

'No. We shall find out soon enough. We'd better get

But he still lingered feeling the wind lift his hair and grateful fbr another minute of peace. He was grateful, too, that Kate Miskin could share it with him without the need

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to speak and without making him feel ihat her silence was a conscious discipline. He had chosen her because he needed a woman in his team and she was the best avail-able. The choice had been partly rational, partly in-stinctive, and he was beginning to realize just how well his instinct had served him. It would have been dishonest to say that there was no hint of sexuality between them. In his experience there nearly always was, however re-pudiated or unacknowledged, between any reasonably attractive heterosexual couple who worked closely to-gether. He wouldn't have chosen her if he had found her disturbingly attractive, but the attraction was there and he wasn't immune to it. But despite this pinprick of sexuality,, perhaps because of it, he found her surprisingly restful to work with. She had an instinctive knowledge of what he wanted; she knew when to be silent; she wasn't over-deferential. He suspected that with part of her mind she saw his vulnerabilities more clearly, understood him better, and was more judgemental than were any of }lis male subordinates. She had none of Massingham's ruth-lessness, but she wasn't in the least sentimental. But then in his experience, women police officers seldom were.

He took a final look at the bungalow. If he had walked along the riverbank on that first visit to the Black Swan, as he had been tempted to do, he would have viewed its pathetic pretensions with an incurious and disparaging eye. But now as its fragile walls seemed to shimmer in the slight haze from the river it held for him an infinite and disturbing promise. It was built about thirty yards from the water's edge with a wide veranda, a central stack and to the left, upstream, a small landing stage. He thought he could see a patch of broken earth with clumps of mauve and white, perhaps a patch of Michaelmas daisies. Some attempt had been made at a garden. From a distance the bungalow looked well-maintained, the white paintwork gleaming. But even so, it had a summer look;,tempc?:ry, a little ramshackle. Higgins, he thought, would h:ctly relish having it in full view of his lawns.

As they looked, the dumpy figure of a woman can ,c.t

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of the side door and made her way to the landing stage, a

dog trotting at her heels. She lowered herself into a

dinghy, leaned over to cast off and began rowing pur posefully across the river towards the Black Swan, hump backed over the oars, the dog sitting bolt-upright in the

prow. As the dinghy crawled closer they could see that he

was a cross between a poodle and some kind of terrier

with a woolly body and an anxious, amiable face almost

entirely obscured by hair. They watched as the woman

bent and rose over the dipping oars, making slow progress

against a current that was bearing her downstream away

from them. When the dinghy finally bumped the bank,

Dalgliesh and Kate walked up to her. Bending down, he