A Taste for Death (29 page)

Lampart turned his gaze from Kate to Dalgliesh.

'! see. I'm sorry if ! sounded uncooperative but I know absolutely nothing of the Travers girl except that she worked at Campden Hill Square as a part-time domestic and that she was at the Black Swan on the night of the birthday party. Theresa Nolan came here from Campden Hill Square where she'd been nursing Lady Ursula who was laid low with sciatica. I understand they got her from a nursing agency. When Lady Ursula no longer needed a night nurse, she suggested to the girl that she apply here. She had a midwifery qualification. She was perfectly satisfactory. She must have got pregnant when she was working at Campden Hill Square. But I didn't ask by whom and I don't think she ever said.'

Dalgliesh said:

'Did it occur to you that the child could have been Sir Paul Berowne's?'

'Yes. It occurred to me. I imagine it occurred to quite a number of people.' He said no more and Dalgliesh didn't press him. He asked:

'What happened when she discovered she was preg~ nant?'

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'She came to me and said that she couldn't face having a baby and wanted a termination. I referred her to a psychia-trist and left him to make the necessary arrangements.'

'Did you think that the girl's condition at the time, I mean her mental condition, was such that she was likely to qualify legally for an abortion?'

'I didn't examine her. I didn't discuss it with her. And it wasn't a medical decision I was qualified to make. As I said, I referred her to a psychiatric colleague. I told her that she could have leave with pay until a decision was made. She only came back here for a week after the opera-tion. And the rest you know.'

Suddenly he got to his feet and began restlessly pacing. Then he turned to Dalgliesh.

'I've given some thought to this business of Paul Be-rowne. Man is an animal and he lives most at ease with himself and the world when he remembers that. Admit-tedly he's the cleverest and most dangerous of animals, but he's still an animal. The philosophers, and poets too, for all I know, make it all too complicated. It isn't. Our basic needs are pretty straightforward - food, shelter, warmth, sex, Prestige, in that order. The happiest people go after them and are satisfied with them. Berowne wasn't. God knows what unattainable intangibles he thought he'd

a right to. Eternal life, probably.'

Dalgliesh said:

'So you believe the probability is that he killed himself?. 'I haven't enough evidence. But let's say that if yo. finally decide it was suicide, then I for one won't be sur-prised.'

'And the tramp? There were two deaths.'

'That's more difficult. Did he kill Paul or did Paul ki! him? Obviously the family won't want to believe the latte Lady Ursula will never accept that explanation, whatev:

the final verdict.'

'But you...'

'Oh, I feel that ifa man has sufficient violence in him slit his own throat, he's certainly capable of slitting a-other's. And now, perhaps you'll excuse me,' he glanced

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at Kate, 'both of you. I have a patient waiting. I'll call in at the Yard between eight and nine thirty and sign my statement.' He added, rising: 'Perhaps by then I shall manage to think of something else to help you. But don't be too sanguine.' He made it sound like a threat.

2

There was an almost unbroken stream of traffic past the front gate and Kate had to wait for over a minute before it was safe to filter in. She thought: I wonder just how he does it. The interview was all there in her notebook in her neat, unorthodox shorthand but she had the gift of almost perfect verbal recall and she could have typed most of it out without reference to the hieroglyphics. She let her mind slide over each question and response and she still couldn't see where AD had been so clever.

He had said very little, his questions short and some-times apparently unrelated to the line of inquiry. But Lampart, and that after all was the intention, had been seduced into saying a great deal too much. And all that guff about the male mid-life crisis, popular psychology which you could have sent to you in a plain envelope if you wrote to the agony aunties inquiring what was wrong with your old man. He could be right, of course. But, after all, medically speaking, varieties of the male menopause weren't Stephen Lampart's field. He'd been asked for his opinion and he'd given it, but you'd expect a man as fond of his own voice as he was to be even more forthcoming about the psychological problems of pregnancy and abortion. But when it came to Theresa Nolan, what had they got? A brush off, the keep offsigns clearly posted. He hadn't even wanted to think about her, let alone talk about her. And it wasn't just because she, Kate, had been the one to do the questioning and had done it with that un-deferential over-politeness which she had known would be

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more offensive to his vanity than rudeness or open antagon-ism. She had hoped that, with luck, it might goad him into an indiscretion, but it wouldn't have worked if there had been nothing to conceal. She heard AD's voice:

'That touching detail, about Sir Paul saving his life. Did you believe it?'

'No, sir. Not as he told it. I think something of the sort probably happened. He went overboard and his friend yanked him back. He wouldn't have mentioned it if there weren't some corroboration. But I think he was really saying, "Look, I might have pinched his wife but I wouldn't have killed him, would I? He saved my life."' She added: 'It wasn't very subtle the way he fingered Garrod.' She glanced at him quickly. He smiled with wry distaste as he sometimes did when a colleague used an

Americanism. But he let it pass, merely saying:

'Nothing about him was subtle.'

Suddenly she felt a surge of optimism, heady, intoxi-cating and dangerously close to the euphoria which always came when a case was going well but which she had learned to distrust and subdue. If this goes all right, if we get him, whoever he is, and we will, then I'm on my way. I'm really on my way. But the elation went deeper than mere ambition or the satisfaction of a test passed, a job well done. She had enjoyed herself. Every minute of her brief confrontation with that self-satisfied poseur had been deeply pleasurable. She thought of her first months with the CID, the plugging, conscientious, door-to-door in-quiries which had made up her day, the pathetic victim the even more pathetic villains. How much more satisfying? was this sophisticated manhunt; the knowledge that thc? were up against a killer with the intelligence to think and plan, who wasn't an ignorant, feckless victim of circum-stance or passion. She had learned facial control long before she had joined the police. She drove carefully, her face calmly set on the road ahead. But something of what she was feeling must have communicated itself to her companion. He said:

'Did you enjoy yourself, Inspector?' The question and

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the rare use of her rank jolted her but she decided to answer it honestly, knowing that she had no option. She had done her homework. She knew his reputation, and when colleagues had spoken about him she had made it her business to listen. They had said: 'He's a bastard, but a just bastard.' She knew that there were some in-adequacies he could forgive and some foibles he could toler-ate. But dishonesty wasn't among them. She said:

'Yes, sir. I liked the sense of being in control, that we were getting somewhere.' Then she added, knowing as she spoke that this was dangerous territory, but hell, she thought, why should he get away with it:

'Was the question meant as a criticism, sir?'

'No. No one joins the police without getting some en-joyment out of exercising power. No one joins the murder squad who hasn't a taste for death. The danger begins when the pleasure becomes an end in itself. That's when it's time to think about another job.'

She wanted to ask: 'Have you ever thought of another job, sir?' But she knew the temptation was illusory. There were some senior officers of whom one could ask that question after a couple of whiskies in the senior officers' mess, but he wasn't among them. She remembered the moment when she had told Alan that Dalgliesh had chosen her for the new squad. He had said, smiling: 'So isn't it about time you tried reading his verse?' and she had replied: 'I'd better come to terms with the man before I try coming to terms with his poetry.' She wasn't sure that she had succeeded. Now she said:

'Mr Lampart spoke about razor slashing. We deliber-ately didn't tell him how Sir Paul died. So why should he

have mentioned a razor?'

Dalgliesh said:

'Reasonably enough. He was an old friend, one of the people who would know how Berowne shaved. He must have guessed what weapon was used. It's interesting that he couldn't bring himself to ask us outright if it was. In-cidentally, we'll have to check that timing fairly quickly. It's a job for Saunders, I think. He'd better make three

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runs, the same time, the same make of car, the same night of the week, and, with luck, the same weather conditions. And we'll need to know everything possible about Pembroke Lodge. Who owns the freehold, who holds shares, how the business operates, what its reputation is.' She couldn't make

a written note ofhis instructions. But then, she didn't need to. She said: 'Yes, sir.' Dalgliesh went on:

'He had the means, he had the knowledge, he had the motive. I don't think he wanted marriage with the lady but he certainly didn't want an impoverished mistress who might begin thinking in terms of divorce. But if he wanted Berowne dead, and dead before he threw away his money on some half-baked scheme for housing derelicts, he didn't need to slit his throat. He's a doctor. There are more subtle methods. This murderer didn't kill merely from ex-pediency. There had been hatred in that room. Hate isn't an easy emotion to hide. I didn't see it in Stephen Lam-part. Arrogance, aggression, sexual jealousy of the man in possession. But not hate.'

Kate had never lacked courage and she didn't now. After all, he'd selected her for the team. Presumably he thought her opinion worth having. He wasn't looking for a female subordinate to massage his ego. She said:

'But couldn't it have been expediency rather than hate, sir? Killing without arousing suspicion isn't easy even for a doctor. He wasn't Sir Paul's general practitioner. And this, if he could pull it off, would be the perfect murder, one that isn't even suspected as murder. It was Harry Mack who did for him. Without that second killing, wouldn't we

have taken it at its face value.., suicide?'

Dalgliesh said:

'Followed by the usual euphemistic verdict "while the balance of his mind was disturbed". Perhaps. If he hadn't made the mistake of taking away the matches and of half-burning the diary. That was an unnecessary refinement. In some ways, the clue of that half-burned match is the most interesting in the case.'

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Suddenly she felt at ease with him, almost com-panionable. She was no longer thinking of the impression she might be making but of the case. She did what she would have done with Massingham. With her eyes fixed on the road ahead, she thought it through aloud:

'Once the killer decided to burn the diary, he'd know he needed to take the matches with him to the church. Berowne didn't smoke so there wouldn't be a lighter on the body. Obviously, he'd be unwise to risk using his own lighter if he had one, and he couldn't be sure he'd find matches in the vestry. And when he did, they were chained and it was easier and quicker to use the box he'd brought with him. Time was vital. So we get back to someone who knew Sir Paul, knew his habits, knew where he was on Tuesday night but who wasn't familiar with the church. But he'd hardly be carrying the diary in his hand when he arrived. So he was wearing a jacket or coat with largish pockets. Or he had a bag of some kind, a carder, a tote

bag, a briefcase, a medical bag.'

Dalgliesh said:

'Or he could have carried it folded inside an evening paper.'

Kate went on:

'He rings. Sir Paul lets him in. He asks to go to the washroom. He leaves his bag there together with the matches and the diary. He strips. Perhaps he strips naked. Then it's back to the Little Vestry. But this is getting bizarre, sir. His victim isn't going to sit there quietly waiting for it. Not confronted by a man, stark naked with an open razor in his hand. Paul Berowne wasn't old or sick or weak. He would have defended himself. It couldn't have happened that way.'

'Concentrate on the matches.'

'But he must have been naked when he killed. Naked to the waist anyway. He must have known that it would be a bloody business. He couldn't have risked getting his clothes splashed. But of course! He knocks out his victim first. Then he goes for the razor, strips, does the fancy bit. Then back to the washroom. He has a quick but thorough

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sluice down and gets back into his clothes. Then, last of all, he burns the diary. That way he can be sure there's no blood on the cover or in the grate. It must have happened in that order. Finally, perhaps a matter of habit, he slips the matchbox in his jacket pocket. That suggests he was used to carrying matches. A smoker, perhaps. It must have given him a shock when he put his hands in his pocket later and found them and realized that he should have left them at the scene. Why didn't he go back? Too late,

perhaps. Or perhaps he couldn't face the shambles.' Dalgliesh said:

'Or he knew that a second visit would add to the risk of being seen, of leaving some trace of himself in the vestry. But let's assume that the killer took his own box away on purpose. What does that suggest?'

'That the box he used could be traced to him. But that's unlikely, surely. He'd use an ordinary brand, one of a million similar boxes. And he couldn't have known that we'd find that half-burnt match. Perhaps he took it away because it was a box someone might miss. Perhaps he always planned to return it. And that means he didn't go to the church from his own home. Logically, he came from Campden Hill Square, where he'd helped himself both to the diary and to the box of matches. But if so, if the matchbox came from Berowne's own home, why not leave it at the scene? Even if the box were traced, it would only lead us back to Berowne himself. So we get back to a simple mistake. A matter of habit. He slipped the box into his pocket.'