A Taste for Death (9 page)
Authors: P D James
'What about yesterday night? When did he ask you if he could come back?'
'In the morning. He rang shortly after nine. I said I'd be in any time after six that evening and he came for the key precisely on the hour.'
'Are you sure of the time, Father?'
'Oh yes, I was watching the six o'clock news. It had
only just started when he rang the bell.'
'And again, no explanation?'
'No. He was carrying the same grip. I think he came by bus or underground or walked. I didn't see a car. I handed him the key at the door, the same key. He thanked me and left. I didn't come to the church that night, I had no reason to. The next I knew was when the boy came for me and told me that there were two dead bodies in the Little
Vestry. You know the rest.'
Dalgliesh said:
'Tell me about Harry Mack.'
The change of subject was obviously welcome and Father Barnes was voluble on the subject of Harry. Poor Harry was a problem for St Matthew's. For some reason, no one knew why, he had for the last four months taken to sleeping in the south porch. He usually bedded down on newspapers and covered himself with an old blanket which he sometimes left in the porch, ready for the next night, and sometimes took away, rolled into a long wad and tied around his stomach with string. Father Barnes, when he found the blanket, hadn't liked to remove it. After all, it was Harry's only covering. But it wasn't really convenient to have the porch used as a shelter or as a storage for Harry's odd and rather smelly belongings. The Parochial Church Council had actually discussed whether they ought to install railings and a gate, but that had seemed un
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charitable and there were more important things to spend their money on. They had difficulty in meeting their diocesan quota as it was. They had all tried to help Harry, but he wasn't easy. He was known at the Way-farers' Refuge in Cosway Street in St Marylebone, an excellent place, where he usually got a midday meal and medical attention for minor ailments when he needed it. He was a little too fond of drink and would occasionally get into fights. St Matthew's had liaised with the Refuge about Harry but they hadn't known what to suggest. They had tried to persuade Harry to have a bed in their dormitory but he wouldn't agree. He couldn't bear the intimate contact with other people. He wouldn't even eat his dinner at the refuge. He'd put it between slabs of bread then take it away to eat in the streets. The porch was his place, snug, south-facing, out of public
view.
Dalgliesh said:
'So he's not likely to have knocked on the door yesterday evening and asked Sir Paul to let him in.'
'Oh no, Harry wouldn't have done that.'
But somehow he had got in. Perhaps he'd already settled down under his blanket when Berowne arrived. Berowne had asked him in out of the cold to share his meal. But how had he persuaded Harry? He asked Father Barnes what he thought.
'It must have happened that way, I suppose. Harry could already have been here in the porch. He usually
' dosses down fairly early. And it was unexpectedly cold last night for September. But it's very odd. There must have been something about Sir Paul that gave him confidence. He wouldn't have done it for most people. Even the warden at the Refuge, so experienced with the city's derelicts, couldn't persuade Harry to spend the night there. But they only have the dormitory, of course. It was sleeping or eating with other people Harry couldn't stand.'
And here, thought Dalgliesh, he had had the larger vestry to himself. It could have been the assurance of that
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privacy and, perhaps, the promise of food which had persuaded him in from the cold. He asked:
'When were you last here in the church, Father? I'm talking about yesterday.'
'From four thirty till about quarter past five, when I read Evensong in the Lady Chapel.'
'And when you locked up after you, how certain could you be that there was no one here, perhaps hidden?
Obviously you didn't search the church. Why should you? But if someone were hiding here, would you have been
likely to have seen him?'
'I think so. You see how it is. We've no high pews, only
the chair's. There's nowhere he could have hidden.' Dalgliesh said:
'Perhaps under the altar, the high altar or in the Lady Chapel? Or in the pulpit?'
'Under the altar? It's a horrible thought, sacrilege. But how could he have got in? I found the church locked when I arrived at four thirty.'
'And no one had collected the keys during the day, not
even the churchwardens?'
'No one.'
And Miss Wharton had assured the police that her key hadn't left her handbag. He said:
'Could anyone have got in during Evensong? Perhaps while you were praying? Were you alone in the Lady Chapel?'
'Yes. I came in by the south door as usual and locked both it and the door in the grille after me. Then I unlocked the main door. That would be the natural way in for any stranger wanting to attend a service. My people know that I always unlock the main door for Evensong and it's very heavy. It squeaks dreadfully. We're always meaning to oil it. I don't think anyone could have entered without my hearing.'
'Did you tell any other person that Sir Paul was spending the night here yesterday?'
'Oh no. There wasn't anyone to tell. And I wouldn't have said anything. He didn't ask for secrecy; he didn't
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ask for anything. But I don't think he would have liked another person to know. No one else knew anything about him, not until this morning.'
Dalgiiesh went on to question him about the blotter and the spent match. Father Barnes said that the Little Vestry had last been used two days ago on Monday the sixteenth when the Parochial Church Council had met as usual at five thirty, immediately after Evensong. He had presided, sitting at the desk, but hadn't used the blotter. He always wrote with a biro. He hadn't been aware of any recent marks but, then, he wasn't very clever at noticing that kind of detail. He was sure that the match couldn't have been left there by anyone in the PCC. Only George Capstick smoked and he used a pipe which he lit with a lighter. But he hadn't been at the PCC because of recovering, still, from the flu. People had
remarked how pleasant it was not to be enveloped in smoke. Dalgliesh said:
'These are small details and probably of no importance. But I would be grateful if you would keep them to yourself. And I'd like you to have a look at the blotter and see whether you can remember what it looked like on Monday. And we've found a rather dirty enamel mug. It
would be helpful to know if that belonged to Harry.' Seeing Father Barnes's face, he added:
'You won't need to go back into the Little Vestry. When the photographer has finished we'll bring out the items to you. And then I expect you'll be glad to get back to the Vicarage. We shall need a statement later, but that can wait.'
They sat for a minute in silence as if what had passed between them needed to be assimilated in peace. So here, thought Dalgliesh, lay the secret of Berowne's quixotic decision to give up his job. It had been something more profound, less explicable, than disillusionment, mid-life restlessness, the fear ora threatened scandal. Whatever had happened to him on that first night in St Matthew's vestry had led him, the next day, to change the whole direction of his life. Had it also led him to his death?
As they both got up they heard the clang of the grille
door. Inspector Miskin was walking down the aisle. When she came up to them she said:
'The pathologist has arrived, sir.'
7
Lady Ursula Berowne sat immobile in her sitting room on the fourth floor of 62 Campden Hill Square and gazed out over the top boughs of the plane trees as if at some far distant unseeable vista. It seemed to her that her mind was like an overfilled glass which only she could hold steady. One jerk, one shudder, one small loss of control and it would spill over into a chaos so terrible that it could only end in death. It was strange, she thought, that her physical response to shock should be the same now as it had been after Hugo was killed, so that to her present grief was added a grief for him as keen, as new as when she had first heard that he was dead. And the physical symptoms had been the tame; a raging thirst, her body parched and shrivelled, her mouth dry and sour as if infected with her
� own breath. Mattie had brewed her pot after pot of strong coffee which she had gulped down scalding hot, black, unaware of its oversweetness. Afterwards she had said:
'I would like something to eat, something salty. Anchovy toast.' She had thought: I'm like a woman pregnant with grief, subject to odd fancies.
But that was over now. Mattie had wanted to put a shawl over her shoulders, but she had shrugged it off and demanded to be left alone. She thought: There is a world outside this body, this pain. I shall take hold of it again. I shall survive. I must survive. Seven years, ten at the most, that's all I need. Now she waited, husbanding strength for the first of many visitors. But this was someone she herself had summoned. There were things which had to be said to him and there might not be much time.
Shortly after eleven she heard the doorbell ting, then
the groaning of the lift and a soft clatter as the grille door closed. The door of her sitting room opened and Stephen Lampart came quietly in.
It seemed to her important that she should meet him standing. But she couldn't restrain the grimace of pain as her arthritic hip took the weight and she knew that the hand grasping the knob of her cane was trembling. Immedi ately he was at her side. He said:.
'Oh no. Please, you mustn't.'
With one firm hand on her arm he solicitously helped her back into the chair. She disliked casual touching, the assumption of acquaintances or strangers that her disable-ment entitled them to handle her, as if her body were a despised encumbrance which it was proper gently to push and pull into place. She wanted to shrug off his firm, pro-prietorial grasp but managed to resist. But she couldn't prevent the tightening of her muscles at his touch and she knew that he hadn't missed this instinctive revulsion. When he had settled her, gently and with professional competence, he seated himself in the chair opposite. They were separated by a low table. A circle of polished rose-wood established his dominance; strength against weakness, youth against age, doctor and subservient patient. Except that she wasn't his patient. He said:
'I believe you're waiting for a hip replacement.' It was Barbara, of course, who had told him, but he wouldn't be the first one to mention her name.
'Yes, I'm on the list of the orthopaedic hospital.'
'Forgive me, but why not go private? Aren't you suffer-ing unnecessarily?'
It was, she thought, an almost indecently incongruous remark with which to begin a visit of condolence; or was this his way of confronting her grief and stoicism by taking refuge on professional ground, the only one on which he
felt confident and could speak with authority?
She said:
'I prefer to be treated as a National Health patient. I en-joy my privileges but that is one I don't happen to want.'
He smiled gently, humouring a child.
'It seems a little masochistic.'
'Possibly. But I haven't called you here for a professional opinion.'
'Which as an obstetrician I wouldn't, in any case, be competent to give. Lady Ursula, this news about Paul is horrifying, unbelievable. Shouldn't you have sent for your own doctor? Or a friend? You should have someone with
you. It's wrong for you to be alone at a time like this.' She said:
'I have Mattie if I need the usual palliatives, coffee, alcohol, warmth. At 82, the few people one might wish to see are all dead. I have outlived both my sons. That is the worst thing that can happen to a human being. I have to endure it. But I don't have to talk about it.' She could have added: 'least of all with you' and it seemed to her that the words, unspoken, hung on the air between them. He was for a moment silent as if considering them, accepting their justice. Then he said:
'I would, of course, have called on you later even if you' hadn't telephoned. But I wasn't sure that you'd want to see anyone so soon. You got my letter?'
He must have written it as soon as Barbara had tele-phoned the news and had sent it round by one of his nurses who, in a hurry to get home after night duty, hadn't even stopped to hand it in but had slipped it through the letter box. He had used all the obvious adjectives. He hadn't needed a thesaurus to decide on the appropriate response. Murder, after all, was appalling, terrible, horrific, un-believable, an outrage. But the letter, a social obligation too promptly performed, had lacked conviction. And he should have known better than to have his secretary type it. But that, she thought, was typical. Scrape away the carefully acquired patina of professional success, prestige, orthodox good manners, and the real man was there; ambitious, a little vulgar, sensitive only when sensitivity paid. But much of this, she knew, was prejudice and prejudice was dangerous. She must be careful to betray it as little as possible if the interview were to go the way she wanted. And it was hardly fair to criticize the letter.
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Dictating condolences to the mother of a murdered husband whom you've been cuckolding for the last three years would take more than his limited social vocabulary.
She hadn't seen him for nearly three months and she was struck anew by his good looks. He had been an attrac-tive youth, tall, rather ungainly, with a thatch of black hair. But now the gangling figure had been smoothed and tailored by success, he carried his height with easy assur-ance and the grey eyes - which he knew so well how to use - held a basic wariness. His hair, frosted now with grey, was still thick with an unruliness that expensive cutting still hadn't completely disciplined. It added to his attractiveness, hinting at an untamed individuality which was far removed from .the tedium of conventional male good looks.
He leaned forward and looked across at her intently, his grey eyes softened with sympathy. She found herself re-senting his easy assumption of professional concern. But he did it very well. She almost expected him to say, 'We did all we could, all that was humanly possible.' Then she told herself that the concern could be genuine. She had to resist the temptation to underrate him, to stereotype him as the handsome, experienced seducer of cheap fiction. Whatever he was, he wasn't as uncomplicated as that. No human being could be. And he was, after all, acknowledged as a fine gynaecologist. He worked hard, he knew his job.