Death of an Expert Witness (36 page)

“I told you yesterday. I know of only one. It’s kept on a board in the Chief Liaison Officer’s room.”

“And that’s the one at present in the lock?”

Howarth did not turn his head. He said: “If it’s got the Laboratory plastic tab—yes.”

“Do you know if it was handed out to anyone today?”

“No. That’s hardly the sort of detail Blakelock would worry me with.”

Dalgliesh turned to Domenica Schofield: “And that’s the one, presumably, that you borrowed to get extra keys cut when you decided to use the chapel for your meetings with Lorrimer. How many keys?”

She said calmly: “Two. One you found on his body. This is the second.” She took it from her jacket pocket and held it out in the palm of her hand in a gesture of dismissive contempt. For a moment it appeared that she was about to tilt her palm and let it clatter on the floor.

“You don’t deny that you came here?”

“Why should I? It’s not illegal. We were both of age, in our right minds, and free. Not even adultery; merely fornication. You seem fascinated by my sex life, Commander, even in the middle of your more normal preoccupations. Aren’t you afraid it’s becoming rather an obsession?”

Dalgliesh’s voice didn’t change. He went on: “And you didn’t ask for the key back when you broke with Lorrimer?”

“Again, why should I? I didn’t need it. It wasn’t an engagement ring.”

Howarth hadn’t looked at his half-sister during this exchange. Suddenly he said harshly: “Who found her?”

“Brenda Pridmore. She’s been taken home. Dr. Greene is with her now.”

Domenica Schofield’s voice was surprisingly gentle: “Poor
child. She seems to be making a habit of finding bodies, doesn’t she? Now that we’ve explained to you about the keys, is there anything else you want us for tonight?”

“Only to ask you both where you’ve been since six o’clock.”

Howarth said: “I left Hoggatt’s at about a quarter to six and I’ve been at home ever since. My sister’s been out driving alone since seven o’clock. She likes to do that occasionally.”

Domenica Schofield said: “I’m not sure if I can give you the precise route, but I did stop at an agreeable pub at Whittlesford for a drink and a meal shortly before eight o’clock. They’ll probably remember me. I’m fairly well known there. Why? Are you telling us that this is murder?”

“It’s an unexplained death.”

“And a suspicious one, presumably. But haven’t you considered that she might have murdered Lorrimer and then taken her own life?”

“Can you give me one good reason why she should have?”

She laughed softly. “Murdered Edwin? For the best and commonest of reasons, or so I’ve always read. Because she was once married to him. Hadn’t you discovered that for yourself, Commander?”

“How did you know?”

“Because he told me. I’m probably the only person in the world he ever did tell. He said the marriage wasn’t consummated and they got an annulment within two years. I suppose that’s why he never brought his bride home. It’s an embarrassing business, showing off one’s new wife to one’s parents and the village, particularly when she isn’t a wife at all and one suspects that she never will be. I don’t think his parents ever did know, so it’s really not so surprising if you didn’t. But then, one expects you to ferret out everything about people’s private concerns.”

Before Dalgliesh could reply, their ears caught, simultaneously, the hurried footfall on the stone step, and Angela Foley stood inside the door. She was flushed with running. Looking wildly from face to face, her body heaving, she gasped: “Where is she? Where’s Star?” Dalgliesh moved forward, but she backed away as if terrified that he might touch her. She said: “Those men. Under the trees. Men with a torch. They’re wheeling something. What is it? What have you done with Star?”

Without looking at her half-brother, Domenica Schofield put out her hand. His reached out to meet it. They didn’t move closer together, but stood, distanced, rigidly linked by those clasped hands. Dalgliesh said: “I’m sorry, Miss Foley. Your friend is dead.”

Four pairs of eyes watched as her own eyes turned, first to the blue loops of cord dangling from Dalgliesh’s hand, then to the twin hooks, lastly to the wooden chair now tidily placed against the wall. She whispered: “Oh no! Oh no!” Massingham moved to take her arm, but she shook free. She threw back her head like a howling animal and wailed: “Star! Star!” Before Massingham could restrain her she had run from the chapel and they could hear her wild, despairing cry borne back to them on the light wind.

Massingham ran after her. She was silent now, weaving through the trees, running fast. But he caught up with her easily before she reached the two distant figures with their dreadful burden. At first she fought madly; but suddenly, she collapsed in his arms and he was able to lift her and carry her to the car.

When he got back to the chapel, thirty minutes later, Dalgliesh was sitting quietly in one of the stalls, apparently engrossed with the Book of Common Prayer. He put it down and said: “How is she?”

“Dr. Greene’s given her a sedative. He’s arranged for the district nurse to stay the night. There’s no one else he could think of. It looks as if neither she nor Brenda Pridmore will be fit to be questioned before morning.”

He looked at the small heap of numbered cards on the seat beside Dalgliesh. His chief said: “I found them at the bottom of the chest. I suppose we can test these and those in the board for fingerprints. But we know what we shall find.”

Massingham asked: “Did you believe Mrs. Schofield’s story that Lorrimer and Stella Mawson were married?”

“Oh yes, I think so. Why lie when the facts can be so easily checked? And it explains so much: that extraordinary change of will; even the outburst when he was talking to Bradley. The first sexual failure must have gone deep. Even after all these years he couldn’t bear to think that she might benefit even indirectly from his will. Or was it the thought that unlike him, she had found happiness—and found it with a woman—that he found so insupportable?”

Massingham said: “So she and Angela Foley get nothing. But that’s not a reason for killing herself. And why here, of all places?”

Dalgliesh got to his feet. “I don’t think she did kill herself. This was murder.”

They were at Bowlem’s Farm before first light. Mrs. Pridmore had begun her baking early. Already two large earthenware bowls covered with humped linen stood on the kitchen table, and the whole cottage was redolent with the warm, fecund smell of yeast. When Dalgliesh and Massingham arrived Dr. Greene, a squat broad-shouldered man with the face of a benevolent toad, was folding his stethoscope into the depths of an old-fashioned Gladstone bag. It was less than twelve hours since Dalgliesh and he had last met, since, as police surgeon, he had been the first doctor to be called to Stella Mawson’s body. He had examined it briefly and then pronounced: “Is she dead? Answer: yes. Cause of death? Answer: hanging. Time of death? About one hour ago. Now you’d better call in the expert and he’ll explain to you why the first question is the only one he’s at present competent to answer.”

Now he wasted no time on civilities or questions but nodded briefly to the two detectives and continued talking to Mrs. Pridmore. “The lass is fine. She’s had a nasty shock but nothing that a good night’s sleep hasn’t put right. She’s young
and healthy, and it’ll take more than a couple of corpses to turn her into a neurotic wreck, if that’s what you’re frightened of. My family has been doctoring yours for three generations and there’s none of you gone off your heads yet.” He nodded to Dalgliesh. “You can go up now.”

Arthur Pridmore was standing beside his wife, his hand gripping her shoulder. No one had introduced him to Dalgliesh; nor was there need. He said: “She hasn’t faced the worst yet, has she? This is the second body. What do you think life in the village will be like for her if these two deaths aren’t solved?”

Dr. Greene was impatient. He snapped shut his bag. “Good grief, man, no one’s going to suspect Brenda! She’s lived here all her life. I brought her into the world.”

“That’s no protection against slander, though, is it? I’m not saying they’ll accuse her. But you know the fens. Folk here can be superstitious, unforgetting and unforgiving. There’s such a thing as being tainted with bad luck.”

“Not for your pretty Brenda, there isn’t. She’ll be the local heroine, most likely. Shake off this morbid nonsense, Arthur. And come out to the car with me. I want a word about that business at the Parochial Church Council.” They went out together.

Mrs. Pridmore looked up at Dalgliesh. He thought that she had been crying. She said: “And now you’re going to question her, make her talk about it, raking it all up again.”

“Don’t worry,” said Dalgliesh gently, “talking about it will help.”

She made no move to accompany them upstairs, a tact for which Dalgliesh was grateful. He could hardly have objected, particularly as there hadn’t been time to get a policewoman, but he had an idea that Brenda would be both more relaxed and more communicative in her mother’s absence. She called out happily to his knock. The little bedroom with its low beams and its curtains drawn against the morning darkness was full of light
and colour, and she was sitting up in bed fresh and bright-eyed, her aureole of hair tumbling around her shoulders. Dalgliesh wondered anew at the resilience of youth. Massingham, halted suddenly in the doorway, thought that she ought to be in the Uffizi, her feet floating above a meadow of spring flowers, the whole sunlit landscape of Italy stretching behind her into infinity.

It was still very much a schoolgirl’s room. There were two shelves of schoolbooks, another with a collection of dolls in national costumes, and a cork board with cut-outs from the Sunday supplements and photographs of her friends. There was a wicker chair beside the bed holding a large teddy bear. Dalgliesh removed it and placed it on the bed beside her, then sat down.

He said: “How are you feeling? Better?”

She leaned impulsively towards him. The sleeve of her cream dressing jacket fell over the freckled arm. She said: “I’m so glad you’ve come. No one wants to talk about it. They can’t realize that I’ve got to talk about it sometime and it’s much better now while it’s fresh in my mind. It was you who found me, wasn’t it? I remember being picked up—rather like Marianne Dashwood in
Sense and Sensibility
—and the nice tweedy smell of your jacket. But I can’t remember anything after that. I do remember ringing the bell, though.”

“That was clever of you. We were parked in Hoggatt’s drive and heard it, otherwise it might have been hours before the body was found.”

“It wasn’t clever really. It was just panic. I suppose you realize what happened? I got a puncture in my bike and decided to walk home through the new Lab. Then I got rather lost and panicked. I started thinking about Dr. Lorrimer’s murderer and imagining that he was lying in wait for me. I even imagined that he might have punctured the tyres on purpose. It seems silly now, but it didn’t then.”

Dalgliesh said: “We’ve examined the bicycle. There was a lorry-load of grit passing the Lab during the afternoon and some of the load was shed. You had a sharp flint in each tyre. But it was a perfectly natural fear. Can you remember whether there really was someone in the building?”

“Not really. I didn’t see anyone and I think I imagined most of the sounds I heard. What really frightened me was an owl. Then I got out of the building and rushed in a panic across a field straight towards the chapel.”

“Did you get the impression that anyone might be there alive in the chapel?”

“Well, there aren’t any pillars to hide behind. It’s a funny chapel, isn’t it? Not really a holy place. Perhaps it hasn’t been prayed in enough. I’ve only been there once before when Dr. Howarth and three of the staff from the Lab gave a concert, so I know what it’s like. Do you mean he could have been crouched down in one of the stalls watching me? It’s a horrible idea.”

“It is rather. But now that you’re safe, could you bear to think about it?”

“I can now you’re here.” She paused. “I don’t think he was. I didn’t see anyone, and I don’t think I heard anyone. But I was so terrified that I probably wouldn’t have noticed. All I could see was this bundle of clothes strung up on the wall, and then the face drooping down at me.”

He didn’t need to warn her of the importance of his next question.

“Can you remember where you found the chair, its exact position?”

“It was lying overturned just to the right of the body as if she had kicked it away. I think it had fallen backwards, but it might have been on its side.”

“But you’re quite sure that it had fallen?”

“Quite sure. I remember turning it upright so that I could stand on it to reach the bell-rope.” She looked at him, bright-eyed. “I shouldn’t have done that, should I? Now you won’t be able to tell whether any marks or soil on the seat came from my shoes or hers. Was that why Inspector Massingham took away my shoes last night? Mummy told me.”

“Yes, that’s why.” The chair would be tested for prints, then sent for examination to the Metropolitan Laboratory. But this murder, if it were murder, had been premeditated. Dalgliesh doubted whether, this time, the killer would have made any mistakes.

Brenda said: “One thing has struck me, though. It’s odd, isn’t it, that the light was on?”

“That’s another thing that I wanted to ask you. You’re quite sure that the chapel was lit? You didn’t switch on the light yourself?”

“I’m quite sure I didn’t. I saw the lights gleaming through the trees. Rather like the City of God, you know. It would have been more sensible to have run for the road once I’d got clear of the new building. But suddenly I saw the shape of the chapel and the light shining faintly through the windows, and I ran towards it almost by instinct.”

“I expect it was by instinct. Your ancestors did the same. Only they would have run for sanctuary to St. Nicholas’s.”

“I’ve been thinking about the lights ever since I woke up. It looks like suicide, doesn’t it? I don’t suppose people kill themselves in the dark. I know I wouldn’t. I can’t imagine killing myself at all unless I was desperately ill and lonely and in terrible pain, or someone was torturing me to make me give them vital information. But if I did, I wouldn’t switch the lights off. I’d want to see my last of the light before I went into the darkness, wouldn’t you? But murderers always want to delay
discovery of the body, don’t they? So why didn’t he turn off the light and lock the door?”