Original Sin (38 page)

Kate said: 'We'd like a statement, Lady Lucinda. Perhaps you

could call in at Wapping Police Station as soon as convenient.'

'With my solicitor?'

'If you prefer it, or think it necessary.'

'i don't suppose it is. Mummy said that I might need a solicitor to watch my interests at the inquest, if it came out about the broken engagement, but I don't think I have any interests now, not if Gerard died before he got my letter.'

She got to her feet and shook hands formally with both Kate and Daniel but made no move towards Claudia Etienne. But at the door she turned and it was to Claudia that she spoke.

'He never bothered to make love to me when we were engaged so I don't think the marriage would have been much fun for either of us, do you?' Daniel suspected that, had neither police officer been present, she would have used a coarser expression. She added, 'Oh, you'd better have this,' and laid a key on the coffee table. 'I don't suppose I shall see this flat again.'

She went out closing the door firmly, and a second later they heard the front door close with equal finality.

Claudia said: 'Gerard was a romantic. He divided women into those you have affairs with and those you marry. Most men get over that sexual illusion before they're twenty-one. He was probably reacting against too many sexual conquests made too easily. I wonder how long that marriage would have lasted. Well, there's one dis-illusionment he's been spared. Will you be much longer?'

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Kate said: 'Not much longer now.'

Minutes later they were ready to go. Daniel's last picture of Claudia Etienne was of a tall figure standing and looking Out over the balcony at the darkening spires of the city. She answered their goodbyes without turning her head and they left her to the silence and emptiness of the flat, quietly closing the doors behind them.

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Leaving Hillgate Street, Daniel and Kate had picked up the car at Notting Hill Gate Police Station and driven the short distance to Declan Cartwright's shop. It was open, and in the front room an elderly bearded man, wearing a skull-cap and a long black coat, verdigrised with age, was showing a customer a Victorian writing desk, his skeleton-yellow fingers caressing the marquetry on the lid. He was apparently too occupied to hear their entrance even with the clang of the bell, but the customer turned, and the old man looked round.

Kate said: 'Mr Simon? We have an appointment to see Mr Declan Cartwright.'

Even before she could take out her warrant card, he said, 'He's in the back. Straight through. He's in the back', and turned quickly again to the writing desk, his hands shaking so violently that the fingers clattered on the lid. Kate wondered what it was in his past that had produced such fear of authority, such terror of the police.

They made their way through the shop, down three steps, and into a kind of conservatory at the back. Among a clutter of miscellaneous objects Declan Cartwright was conferring with a customer. He was large, very swarthy and wearing a coat with an astrakhan collar topped with a rakish trilby, and was studying a cameo through an eyeglass. Kate could only assume that a man who chose to look so like a caricature of a crook would hardly dare actually to be one. As soon as they appeared, Cartwright said: 'Charlie, why don't you buy yourself a drink and think it over? Come back in about half an hour. This is the fuzz arriving. I've got myself mixed up in a murder. Don't look so worried, I didn't do it. It's just that I have to give an alibi for someone who might have done.'

The customer, with a glance at Kate and Daniel, made a nonchalant exit.

Kate again took out her warrant card, but Declan waved it aside. Fhat's all right, don't bother. I can recognize the police when I see them.'

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He must, she thought, have been an exceptionally pretty child and there was still something childlike in the gamin face with its cluster of undisciplined curls above the high forehead, the huge eyes and the beautifully formed but petulant mo.uth. But there was a very adult sexuality in the appraisal he gave both her and Daniel. She felt Daniel stiffen at her side and thought: 'Not his type, and certainly not mine.'

Like Farlow, he answered their questions with a half-mocking insouciance, but there was an essential difference. With Farlow they had been aware of an intelligence and a force still dominating the pathetically emaciated body. Declan Cartwright was both weak and frightened, as frightened as old Simon had been but for a different reason. His voice was brittle, his hands restless and his attempts at banter as unconvincing as his accent. He said: 'My fiancee told me that you would be coming. I don't suppose you're here to look at antiques but I've got some nice little pieces of Staffordshire just come in. All legally acquired. I could do you a very good price if you don't think that would be suborning the police in the execution of their duty.'

Kate asked: 'You and Miss Etienne are engaged to be married?' 'I'm engaged to her, but I'm not sure if she's engaged to me. You'll have to ask her. With Claudia being engaged is a fluctuating state. It rather depends on how she's feeling at the time. But we were engaged - at least I think we were - when we went on the river on Thursday night.'

q/Vhen did you arrange this trip?'

'Quite a time ago, actually. On the night of Sonia Clements' funeral. You've heard about Sonia Clements, of course.'

Kate said: 'A bit odd, wasn't it, to arrange a river trip so far in advance?'

'Claudia likes to arrange things a week or so ahead. She's a very well-organized woman. Actually there was a reason. Thursday the fourteenth of October was the morning of the partners' meeting. She was going to tell me all about it.'

'And did she tell you all about it?'

'Well she told me that the partners were going to sell Innocent House and move downstream to Docklands and that they were going to sack someone, the accountant I think. I can't remember the details. It was all rather boring.'

Daniel said: 'Hardly worth the trouble of a river trip.'

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'Oh, but there are other things you can do on the river than discuss business, even if the cabin is a little cramped. Those great steel hoods of the Thames barrier are very erotic. You two should borrow a police launch. You might surprise yourselves.'

Kate said: 'When did you begin the trip and when did it end?'

'It began at six-thirty when the launch came back from Charing Cross and we took over. It ended at about ten-thirty when we got back to Innocent House and Claudia drove me home. I suppose we got back here at about eleven o'clock. As I expect she told you, she didn't leave here until two o'clock.'

Daniel said: 'I suppose Mr Simon will be able to confirm that? Or doesn't he live here?'

'Actually, I'm afraid he won't. Sorry about that. The poor old darling is getting dreadfully deaf. We always creep up the stairs so as not to disturb him but it's a totally unnecessary precaution. Actually, he might be able to confirm when we arrived. He could have had his door ajar. He sleeps more soundly when he knows the boy is home and safely tucked up. But I doubt whether he heard anything after that.'

Kate said: 'You didn't take your own car, then, to Innocent House?' 'I don't drive, Inspector. I deplore the pollution caused by motor cars and I don't add to it. Isn't that public-spirited of me? There's also the fact that when I tried to learn I found the whole experience so terrifying that I had to keep my eyes permanently closed, and none of the instructors would take me on. I went to Innocent House by tube. Very tedious. I took the Circle Line from Notting Hill Gate to Tower Hill and then picked up a cab. It's easier to go by the Central Line to Liverpool Street and take a cab from there but, in fact, I didn't, if it's of the slightest importance.'

Kate asked him for details of the evening and was unsurprised when he confirmed Claudia Etienne's account.

Daniel said: 'So you were together the whole evening from six-thirty until the early hours of the morning?'

'That's right, Sergeant - you are a sergeant, aren't you? If not, I'm so sorry. It's just that you look so very like a sergeant. We were together from six-thirty until about two in the morning. I don't suppose you're interested in what we were doing between, say, eleven o'clock and two. If you are, you'd better ask Miss Etienne. She'll be able to give an account suitable for your chaste ears. I

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suppose you'll be wanting all this in the form of a statement?'

It gave Kate considerable satisfaction to say that they would indeed and that he could come to Wapping Police Station t make it.

Under questioning by Kate so gentle and patient that it seemed only to increase his terror, Mr Simon confirmed that he had heard them come in at eleven. He had been listening for Declan because he always slept more soundly knowing that there was someone in the house. That was partly why he had suggested to Mr Cartwright that he should live on the premises. But once he had heard the door, he had settled to sleep. He wouldn't have heard if either of them had subsequently gone out.

Unlocking the car, Kate said: 'Shit scared, wasn't he? Cartwright I mean. D'you think he's a rogue or a fool or both, or just a pretty boy with a taste for baubles? What on earth does an intelligent woman like Claudia Etienne see in him?'

'Oh come on, Kate. Since when has intelligence had anything to do with sex? I'm not sure they aren't incompatible, sex and intelligence I mean.'

'hey aren't for me. Intelligence turns me on.'

'Yes I know.'

'What do you mean?' she asked sharply.

'Nothing. I find I do best with pretty, good natured, obliging women who aren't very bright.'

'Like most of your sex. You should try to train yourself out of it. How much do you think that alibi's worth?'

'About as much as Rupert Farlow's. Cartwright and Claudia Etienne could have killed Etienne, taken the launch straight over to Greenwich pier and easily been in the restaurant by eight. There's not a lot of traffic on the river after dark, the chances of anyone seeing them aren't great. Another boring job of checking.'

Kate said: 'He has a motive - both of them have. If Claudia Etienne is fool enough to marry him he'll be getting a wealthy wife.'

Daniel said: 'Do you think he's got the bottle to kill anyone?'

'It didn't need much bottle, did it? All he had to do was entice Etienne into that killing room. He didn't have to stab or bludgeon or strangle. He didn't even have to face his victim.'

'One of them would have had to go back later and do that business with the snake. That would have taken some guts. I can't see Claudia Etienne doing that, not to her brother.'

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'Oh I don't know. If she was prepared to kill him, why balk at desecrating the body? Do you want to drive or shall I?' While Kate took the wheel, Daniel telephoned Wapping. It was apparent that there was news. Replacing the receiver after a few minutes, he said: 'The lab report is in. I've just heard the blood analysis from Robbins in boring detail. There was a blood saturation of 73 per cent. He probably died pretty quickly. Seven-thirty seems about fight for the time of death. You get dizziness and headache at 30 per cent, incoordination and mental confusion at 4�per cent, exhaustion at 50 per cent and unconsciousness at 60 per cent. Weakness may come on suddenly because of muscular suboxia.' Kate asked: 'Anything on the rubble blocking the flue?' 'It came from the chimney. It's the same stuff. But we expected that.' Kate said: 'We already know that the gas fire isn't defective and we've got no significant prints. What about the window cord?' 'That's rather more difficult. The likelihood is that it was deliberately frayed with some bluntish implement and over a period of time, but they can't be zoo per cent sure. The fibres were crushed and broken, not cut. The rest of the cord was old and in parts weak, but they could see no reason why it should have snapped at that point unless it had been deliberately interfered with. Oh, and there's one other finding. There was a minute stain of mucus on the head of the snake. That means that it was rammed into the mouth immediately or very soon after the sharp object was removed.'

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On Sunday 27 October Dalgliesh decided to take Kate with him to interview Sonia Clements' sister, Sister Agnes, at her Brighton convent. He would have preferred to go alone, but a convent, even an Anglican one, and even for the son of a rector with High Church tendencies, was unfamiliar ground, to be approached with circum-spection. Without a woman as chaperon he might not be permitted to see Sister Agnes except in the presence of the Mother Superior or another nun. He wasn't sure what he expected to get from the visit but his instinct, which he sometimes distrusted but had learned not to ignore, told him that there was something to be learned. The two deaths, so very different, were linked by more than that bare upper room in which one person had chosen to die, the other had fought to live. Sonia Clements had worked at Peverell Press for twenty-four years; it was Gerard Etienne who had sacked her. Was that ruthless decision a sufficient reason for the suicide? And if not, why had she chosen to die? Who, if anyone, might have been tempted to avenge that death?

The weather held. An early mist lifted to promise another day of mellow if fitful sunshine. Even the London air held something of the sweetness of the summer and a light breeze dragged tatters of thin cloud across an azure sky. Making his tedious and circuitous way through the suburbs of South London with Kate at his side, Dalglieh, with the return of a boyish longing for the sight and sound of the sea, found himself hoping that the convent would be situated on the coast. They spoke little on the journey. Dalgliesh preferred to drive in silence and Kate could tolerate even taciturnity without the need to chat. It was, he reflected, not the least of her virtues. He had called for her at her new flat but had waited in the Jaguar for her to appear rather than taking the lift and ringing her doorbell when she might have felt an obligation to invite him in. He valued his own privacy too much to risk invading hers. She had appeared precisely on time as he had expected. She looked different and he realized how seldom he saw her wearing a skirt. He smiled inwardly, wondering whether she had