A Taste for Death (55 page)

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might be better. I quite agreed. There's really nothing quite as comforting as good strong cocoa when one is famished with cold. I made it with all milk. I had ordered an extra pint because I planned to have cauliflower cheese for

supper. Wasn't that lucky?'

Dalgliesh said:

'Very lucky. Have you spoken of this to any other person?'

'No one. I wouldn't have spoken to you if you hadn't

telephoned and he hadn't been dead.'

'Did he ask for your silence?'

'Oh, no, he wouldn't have done that. He wasn't that

kind of man, and he knew that I wouldn't tell. You know when you can trust a person about something like that, don't you find? If you can, why ask? If you can't, there's go point in asking.'

'Please continue to say nothing, Miss Gentle. It could be important.'

She nodded but didn't speak. He asked, wondering why

it should matter so, why he needed so urgently to know: 'What did you talk about?'

'Not about the fight, at least not very much. I said: "I expect it was about a woman, wasn't it?" And he said it

was.'

'The woman who laughed, the naked girl?'

'I don't think so. I'm not sure why, but I don't think so. I've a feeling it was rather more complicated than that. And I don't think he would have fought in front of her, not i pounds e'd known she was there. But then, I don't suppose he did know. She must have concealed herself in the bushes when she saw him coming.'

He thought he knew why Berowne had been on the riverbank. He had arrived to join the dinner party, to greet his wife and his wife's lover, to take part in a civilized charade, the complaisant husband, stock figure of farce. And then he had heard the murmur of running water, had smelt, as had Dalgliesh, that strong nostalgic river Smell with its promise of a few moments of solitude and peace. So he had hesitated, then walked through the gate

in the hedge from the car park to the riverbank. Such a small thing, a simple impulse obeyed, and it had led him to that blood-boltered vestry.

And it must have been then that SwaYne, perhaps pulling his shirt over his head, had stepped out of the bushes to confront him like the personification of every-thing he despised in his own life, in himself. Had he challenged Swayne about Theresa Nolan, or did he already know? Was that one other secret that the girl had

confided to him in that final letter, the name of her lover? Dalgliesh asked again, gently insistent: 'What did you talk about, Miss Gentle?'

'Mainly about my work, my books. He was really very interested in how I started writing, where I got my ideas. Of course, I haven't published anything for six years now. My kind of fiction isn't very fashionable. Dear Mr Hearne, always so kind, so helpful, explained it to me. Romantic fiction is more realistic now. I'm afraid I'm too old-fashioned. But I can't change. People are sometimes a little unkind about romantic novelists, I know, but we're just like other writers. You can only write what you need write. And I'm very lucky. I have my health, my old-a, pension, my home, and Makepeace for company. Ant!

still keep writing. The next book may be the lucky one Dalgliesh asked:

'How long did Sir Paul stay?'

'Oh, for hours, until nearly midnight. But I don't thi that he was being polite. I think he was happy here. � sat and talked and I made scrambled eggs when we: hungry. There was enough milk for that but not, ofcou for the cauliflower cheese. At one point he said: "No in the word knows where I am at this moment, no single soul. No one can get at me." He said it as if I ! given him something precious. He sat in that chair, one you're in now and he looked so comfortable in fath old dressing gown and so at home. You're very like h Commander. I don't mean your features. He was fair. you're so dark. But you are like him; the way you sit, y hands, the way you walk, even your voice a little.'

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* ' 1 i ' cup and got up. Kate looked at

as

tt too and picked up her shoulder

bag. Dalgliesh heard himself thanking Miss Gentle for the

coffee, emphasizing the need for silence, explaining that

they would like a written statement and that a police car

would call and take her to New Scotland Yard, if that

were convenient. They had reached the door when Kate

asked, on impulse:

'And when he left you that night, that was the last time you saw him?'

'Oh no. I saw him on the afternoon of his death. I thought you knew.'

Dalgliesh said gently:

'But Miss Gentle, how could we have known?'

'I thought he would have told someone where he was going. Is it important?'

'Very important, Miss Gentle. We've been trying to trace his movements that afternoon. Tell us what happened.'

'There isn't much to tell. He arrived, quite un-expectedly, just before three o'clock. I remember that I was listening to Woman's Hour on Radio Four. He was on foot and he was carrying a bag. He must have walked the four miles from the station but he seemed surprised when I pointed out how far it was..He said he had felt like a walk along the river. ! asked him if he'd had any lunch and he said he had some cheese in his bag and that would do. He must have been famished. Luckily I'd made myself a beef stew for lunch and there was some over so I made him come in and he ate that and then we had coffee to-gether. He didn't talk very much. I don't think he'd come to talk. Then he left his bag with me and set off for his walk. He came back about four-thirty and I made tea. His shoes were very dirty - the river meadows have been so waterlogged this summer - so I gave him my shoe cleaning box and he sat outside on the steps and cleaned them. Then he took up his bag, said goodbye and was on his way. It was as simple as that.'

As simple as that, thought Dalgliesh. The lost hours

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accounted for, the wedge of mud on his shoe explained. He had gone, not to his mistress but to a woman whom he had seen only once before in his life, who asked no ques-tions, made no demands, who had given him those re-membered moments of peace. He had wanted to spend those few hours where no one in the world knew where to find him. And he must have gone straight from Paddington to St Matthew's Church. They would have to check the times of the trains, how long the whole journey was likely to have taken. But whether or not Lady Ursula was lying, it seemed highly unlikely that Berowne could have called in at his house, collected his diary, and still arrived at the 'church by six.

Looking back at the dosing door, Kate said:

'I know an old lady who, in her place, would say: "No one wants my books, I'm poor, I'm lame, and I live in a damp cottage with only a dog for company." She says: "I've got my health, my pension, my home, Makepeace for company, and I go on writing."'

Dalgliesh wondered who it was she had in mind. There was a bitterness in her voice which was new to him. Then he remembered that there was an elderly grandmother somewhere in the picture, and wondered. It was the first time that she had ever hinted at a private life. Before he could answer she went on:

'So that explains why Higgins said that Swayne's clothes were dripping wet. It was a night in August, after all. If he'd been swimming naked and then pulled on his clothes after the drowning, why should they be dripping?' She added:

'It's a new motive, sir, a double motive. Swayne must have hated him. The thrashing, the humiliation, thrown into the river and dragged out like a dog, and in front of the girl.'

Dalgliesh said:

'Oh, yes, Swayne must have hated him.'

So he had it at last, the motive not only for murder but for this particular murder with its mixture of planning and impulse, its brutality, its over-ingenuity, the cleverness

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which hadn't quite been clever enough. It was there before him in its pettiness, its arrogance, its essential inadequacy, but in all its terrible strength. He recognized the mind behind it. He had met it before, the mind of a killer who isn't content merely to take a life, who avenges humiliation with humiliation, who cannot bear the searing knowledge that his enemy breathes the same air, who wants his victim not only dead but disgraced, the mind of a man who has felt despised and inferior all his life but who will never feel inferior again. And if his instinct were right and Dominic

$wayne were his man, then to get him he would have to

'break a vulnerable, lonely and obstinate woman. He shivered and turned up the collar of his coat. The sunlight was fading over the meadows but the wind was freshening and there came from the river a smell, dank and ominous, like the first breath of winter. He heard Kate's voice:

'Do you think we'll be able to break his alibi, sir, by any method we're allowed to use?'

Dalgliesh roused himself and strode to the car.

'We must try, Inspector, we must try.'

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Book Six

Mortal Consequences

When Father Barnes had first told Miss Wharton of Susan Kendrick's suggestion that she might like to spend a day or so with them in the Nottingham vicarage until the fuss had died down, she had accepted with gratitude and relief. It was agreed that she would travel to Nottingham immedi-ately after the inquest and that Father Barnes would himself go by tube with her to King's Cross to carry her one case and see her off. The whole plan had seemed like an answer to a prayer. The half-lubricous respect with which she was now treated by the McGraths who seemed to regard her as a prize exhibit, bolstering their esteem in the road, she found more terrifying than their previous antagonism. It would be a relief to get away from their avid eyes and endless questions.

The inquest had been less of an ordeal than she had feared. Only evidence of identity and of the finding of the bodies had been briefly taken, before, at the request of the police, the proceedings were adjourned. The coroner had treated Miss Wharton with grave consideration and her time in the witness box had been so brief that she was hardly aware of standing there before she was released. Her anxiously searching eyes had failed to see Darren. She had a confused recollection of being introduced to a numb�-' of strangers including a fair-haired young man who said that he was Sir Paul's brother-in-law. No one else from the family was present, although there were a number of sombre-suited men who Father Barnes told her were iwyers. He himself, resplendent in a new cassock and bir,'tta, had been extraordinarily at ease. He had shep-her'lect her with a proprietorial arm, past the photo-grl)}�-s, had greeted members of the congregration with an as.,rance she had never before seen in him, and had seemed quite at ease with the police. Miss Wharton, for one a?i3alled moment, found herself thinking that the rnudc.; seemed to have done him good.

She had known after the first day at St Crispin's that

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the visit wasn't going to be a success. Susan Kendrick was heavily pregnant with her first child but her energy was undiminished and every minute of her day seemed occupied either with parish or domestic concerns or with her part-time physiotherapy clinic at the local hospital. The rambling inner-city vicarage was never empty and, except for Father Kendrick's study, never peaceful. Miss Wharton was constantly introduced to people whose names she couldn't quite catch, and whose functions in the parish she never divined. Where the murders were concerned, her hostess was dutifully sympathetic but obviously took the view that it was unreasonable for anyone to be lastingly distressed by dead bodies, however unpleasant their ends, and that dwelling on the experie ' was at best self-indulgent and at worst morbid. But Wharton had reached the stage when it would have helpful to talk, and she was missing Darren with a which was becoming desperate, wondering where he what was happening to him, whether he was happy.

She had expressed her pleasure at the coming baby ltt nervousness had made her sound coy and her words t sounded gUShingly sentimental even to her own e Confronted with Susan's robust common sense about i pregnancy she had been made to feel an absurd old m She had offered to help in the parish, but her hoste inability to find a job suitable to her abilities had drai her confidence further. She had begun t6 creep about vicarage like the church mouse they probably thought � resembled. After a couple of days she had nervously s gested that she ought to be thinking of home, and no, had made any attempt to dissuade her.

But on the morning of departure she had brought he to confide in Susan her worries about Darren, and 1 e her hostess had been helpful. Local bureaucracy held terrors for her. She had known wh'om to ring, ho discover the number, and had spoken to the unknc voice at the end of the line in the accents of conspirato mutually acknowledged authority. She had made the from her husband's study with Miss Wharton seatec

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ithe chair conveniently placed for those seeking the vicar's During the telephone conversation, she had felt the unworthy recipient of patient professional concern, vaguely conscious that she would have done better had she been an unmarried mother or a delinquent, preferably both, and had been black.

Afterwards Susan Kendrick had given her the verdict. She couldn't see Darren at present; his social worker felt that it wasn't at all desirable. He had been taken before the Juvenile Court and a supervision order made. They were hoping to arrange a programme of intermediate treatment for him, but until this was satisfactorily under way they didn't think it wise for him to see Miss Wharton. It might only provoke unfortunate memories. He had been very reluctant to talk about the murders, and his social worker felt that when he was ready to do so it should be with someone suitably qualified in social work skills who could work through the trauma with him. He'll hate it all, thought Miss Wharton. He never did like interference.

Lying in bed on her first night at home, wakeful, as she so often was now, she came to a decision. She would go to Scotland Yard and ask the police to help. Surely they would have some authority, or at least some influence, over Darren's social worker. They had always been kind and helpful to her. They would be able to reassure the local authority that she could be trusted with Darren. The decision brought a measure of peace to her troubled mind and she fell asleep.