An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (19 page)

She almost cried out with triumph as she ran through the
gardens and turned the Mini again towards Cambridge. She hadn’t thought out the implications of this discovery, or even whether her arguments were valid. But at least she had something to do, at least she had a lead. She drove fast, desperate to get to the city before the post office closed. There, she seemed to remember, it was possible to get a copy of the Executive Council’s list of local doctors. It was handed over. And now for a telephone. She knew only one house in Cambridge where there was a chance of being left in peace to telephone for up to an hour. She drove to 57 Norwich Street.

Sophie and Davie were at home playing chess in the sitting room, fair head and dark almost touching over the board. They showed no surprise at Cordelia’s plea to use the telephone for a series of calls.

“I’ll pay, of course. I’ll make a note of how many.”

“You’ll want the room to yourself, I expect?” said Sophie. “We’ll finish the game in the garden, Davie.”

Blessedly incurious they carried the chessboard with care through the kitchen and set it up on the garden table. Cordelia drew a chair to the table and settled down with her list. It was formidably long. There was no clue where to begin but perhaps those doctors with group practices and addresses near the centre of the city would be the best bet. She would start with them, ticking off their names after each call. She remembered another reported pearl of the Superintendent’s wisdom: “Detection requires a patient persistence which amounts to obstinacy.” She thought of him as she dialled the first number. What an intolerably demanding and irritating boss he must have been! But he was almost certainly old now—forty-five at least. He had probably eased up a bit by now.

But an hour’s obstinacy was unfruitful. Her calls were invariably answered; one advantage of ringing a doctor’s
surgery was that the telephone was at least manned. But the replies, given politely, curtly or in tones of harassed haste by a variety of respondents from the doctors themselves to obliging daily women prepared to convey a message, were the same. Sir Ronald Callender was not a patient of this practice. Cordelia repeated her formula. “I’m so sorry to have troubled you. I must have misheard the name.”

But after nearly seventy minutes of patient dialling she struck lucky. The doctor’s wife answered.

“I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong practice. Dr. Venables looks after Sir Ronald Callender’s household.”

This was luck indeed! Dr. Venables wasn’t on her preliminary list and she wouldn’t have reached the V’s for at least another hour. She ran her finger down the names and dialled for the last time.

It was Dr. Venables’ nurse who answered. Cordelia spoke her prepared piece: “I’m ringing for Miss Leaming from Garforth House. I’m sorry to trouble you but could you please remind us of Sir Ronald Callender’s blood group? He wants to know it before the Helsinki Conference next month.”

“Just a minute, please.” There was a brief wait; the sound of footsteps returning.

“Sir Ronald is Group A. I should make a careful note of it if I were you. His son had to ring a month or so ago with the same enquiry.”

“Thank you! Thank you! I’ll be careful to make a note.” Cordelia decided to take a risk. “I’m new here, assisting Miss Leaming, and she did tell me to note it down last time but stupidly I forgot. If she should happen to call, please don’t tell her that I had to trouble you again.”

The voice laughed, indulgent to the inefficiency of the young. After all, it wasn’t likely to inconvenience her much.

“Don’t worry, I shan’t tell her. I’m glad she’s got herself some help at last. Everyone’s well, I hope?”

“Oh, yes! Everyone’s fine.”

Cordelia put down the receiver. She looked out of the window and saw that Sophie and Davie were just finishing their game and were putting the pieces back in the box. She had just finished in time. She knew the answer to her query but she still had to verify it. The information was too important to leave to her own vague recollection of the Mendelian rules of inheritance gleaned from the chapter on blood and identity in Bernie’s book on forensic medicine. Davie would know, of course. The quickest way would be to ask him now. But she couldn’t ask Davie. It would mean going back to the public library, and she would have to hurry if she were to be there before it closed.

But she got there just in time. The librarian, who by now had got used to seeing her, was as helpful as ever. The necessary reference book was quickly produced. Cordelia verified what she had already known. A man and wife both of whose bloods were A could not produce a B group child.

Cordelia was very tired by the time she got back to the cottage. So much had happened during one day; so much had been discovered. It seemed impossible that less than twelve hours previously she had started out on her search for Nanny Pilbeam with only a vague hope that the woman, if she could be found, might provide a clue to Mark Callender’s personality, might tell her something about his formative years. She was exhilarated by the success of the day, restless with excitement, but too mentally exhausted to tease out the tangle of conjecture which lay knotted at the back of her mind. At present the facts were disordered; there was no clear pattern, no theory which would at once explain the mystery of Mark’s
birth, Isabelle’s terror, Hugo and Sophie’s secret knowledge, Miss Markland’s obsessive interest in the cottage, Sergeant Maskell’s almost reluctant suspicions, the oddities and unexplained inconsistencies which surrounded Mark’s death.

She busied herself about the cottage with the energy of mental overtiredness. She washed the kitchen floor, laid a fire on top of the heap of ash in case the next evening should be chilly, weeded the back flower patch, then made herself a mushroom omelette and ate it sitting, as he must have done, at the simple table. Last of all, she fetched the gun from its hiding place and set it on the table beside the bed. She locked the back door carefully and drew the curtains across the window, checking once more that the seals were intact. But she didn’t balance a saucepan on the top of her door. Tonight that particular precaution seemed childish and unnecessary. She lit her bedside candle then went to the window to choose a book. The night was balmy and windless; the flame of the candle burnt steadily in the still air. Outside, darkness had not yet fallen but the garden was very quiet, the peace broken only by the distant crescendo of a car on the main road or the cry of a night bird. And then, seen dimly through the gloaming, she glimpsed a figure at the gate. It was Miss Markland. The woman hesitated, hand on the latch, as if wondering whether to enter the garden. Cordelia slipped to one side, back pressed against the wall. The shadowy figure was so still that it seemed as if she sensed a watching presence and had frozen like an animal surprised. Then, after two minutes, she moved away and was lost among the trees of the orchard. Cordelia relaxed, took a copy of
The Warden
from Mark’s row of books, and wriggled into her sleeping bag. Half an hour later, she blew out the candle and stretched her body comfortably for the slow, acquiescent descent into sleep.

She stirred in the early hours and was instantly awake, eyes wide open in the half-darkness. Time lay suspended; the still air was expectant as if the day had been taken by surprise. She could hear the ticking of her wristwatch on the bedside table and could see beside it the crooked, comforting outline of the pistol, the black cylinder of her torch. She lay and listened to the night. One lived so seldom in these still hours, the time most often slept or dreamt away, that one came to them tentative and unpractised like a creature newly born. She wasn’t aware of fear, only of an all-embracing peace, a gentle lassitude. Her breathing filled the room, and the still, uncontaminated air seemed to be breathing in unity with her.

Suddenly, she realized what had woken her. Visitors were coming to the cottage. She must subconsciously in some brief phase of uneasy sleep have recognized the sound of a car. Now there was the whine of the gate, the rustle of feet, furtive as an animal in undergrowth, a faint, broken murmur of voices. She wriggled out of her sleeping bag and stole to the window. Mark hadn’t attempted to clean the glass of the front windows; perhaps he hadn’t had time, perhaps he welcomed their occluding dirt. Cordelia rubbed her fingers with desperate haste against the gritty accretion of years. But, at last, she felt the cold, smooth glass. It squeaked with the friction of her fingers, high and thin like an animal’s squeal so that she thought the noise must betray her. She peered through the narrow strip of clear pane into the garden below.

The Renault was almost hidden by the high hedge but she could see the front of the bonnet gleaming by the gate and the two pools of light from the side lamps shining like twin moons on the lane. Isabelle was wearing something long and clinging; her pale figure trembled like a wave against the dark of the hedge. Hugo was only a black shadow at her side. But then
he turned and Cordelia saw the flash of a white shirtfront. They were both in evening dress. They came together quietly up the path and conferred briefly at the front door, then moved towards the corner of the cottage.

Snatching up her torch, Cordelia rushed on silent, naked feet down the stairs and threw herself across the sitting room to unlock the back door. The key turned easily and silently. Hardly daring to breathe she retreated back into the shadows at the foot of the stairs. She was just in time. The door opened, letting in a shaft of paler light. She heard Hugo’s voice: “Just a minute, I’ll strike a match.”

The match flared, illuminating in a gentle, momentary light the two grave anticipatory faces, Isabelle’s immense and terrified eyes. Then it went out. She heard Hugo’s muttered curse followed by the scratch of the second match striking against the box. This time he held it high. It shone on the table, on the mute accusing hook; on the silent watcher at the foot of the stairs. Hugo gasped; his hand jerked and the match went out. Immediately, Isabelle began to scream.

Hugo’s voice was sharp. “What the hell—”

Cordelia switched on her torch and came forward.

“It’s only me; Cordelia.”

But Isabelle was beyond hearing. The screams rang out with such piercing intensity that Cordelia half feared that the Marklands must hear. The sound was inhuman, the shriek of animal terror. It was cut short by the swing of Hugo’s arm; the sound of a slap, a gasp. It was succeeded by a second of absolute silence, then Isabelle collapsed against Hugo, sobbing quietly.

He turned harshly on Cordelia: “What the hell did you do that for?”

“Do what?”

“You terrified her, lurking there. What are you doing here anyway?”

“I could ask you that.”

“We came to collect the Antonello which Isabelle lent to Mark when she came to supper with him, and to cure her of a certain morbid obsession with this place. We’ve been to the Pitt Club Ball. It seemed a good idea to call here on our way home. Obviously, it was a bloody stupid idea. Is there any drink in the cottage?”

“Only beer.”

“Oh God, Cordelia, there would be! She needs something stronger.”

“There isn’t anything stronger, but I’ll make coffee. You set a light to the fire. It’s laid.”

She stood the torch upright on the table and lit the table lamp, turning the wick low, then helped Isabelle into one of the fireside chairs.

The girl was trembling. Cordelia fetched one of Mark’s heavy sweaters and placed it round her shoulders. The kindling began to flame under Hugo’s careful hands. Cordelia went into the kitchen to make coffee, laying her torch on its side at the edge of the windowsill so that it shone on the oil stove. She lit the stronger of the two burners and took from the shelf a brown earthenware jug, the two blue-rimmed mugs and a cup for herself. A second and chipped cup held the sugar. It took only a couple of minutes to boil half a kettle of water and to pour it over the coffee grains. She could hear Hugo’s voice from the sitting room, low, urgent, consolatory, interposed with Isabelle’s monosyllabic replies. Without waiting for the coffee to brew she placed it on the only tray, a bent tin one patterned with a chipped picture of Edinburgh Castle, and carried it into the sitting room, setting it down in the
hearth. The faggots spluttered and blazed, shooting out a falling shower of bright sparks which patterned Isabelle’s dress with stars. Then a stouter brand caught flame and the fire glowed with a stronger, more mellow, heart.

As she bent forward to stir the coffee Cordelia saw a small beetle scurrying in desperate haste along the ridges of one of the small logs. She picked up a twig from the kindling still in the hearth and held it out as a way of escape. But it confused the beetle still more. It turned in panic and raced back towards the flame, then doubled in its tracks and fell finally into a split in the wood. Cordelia wondered whether it briefly comprehended its dreadful end. Putting a match to a fire was such a trivial act to cause such agony, such terror.

She handed Isabelle and Hugo their mugs and took her own. The comforting smell of fresh coffee mingled with the resinous tang of the burning wood. The fire threw long shadows over the tiled floor and the oil lamp cast its gentle glow over their faces. Surely, thought Cordelia, no murder suspects could have been interrogated in a cosier setting. Even Isabelle had lost her fears. Whether it was the reassurance of Hugo’s arm across her shoulders, the stimulus of the coffee or the homely warmth and crackle of the fire, she seemed almost at ease.

Cordelia said to Hugo: “You said that Isabelle was morbidly obsessed by this place. Why should she be?”

“Isabelle’s very sensitive; she isn’t tough like you.”

Cordelia privately thought that all beautiful women were tough—how else could they survive?—and that Isabelle’s fibres could compare well for resilience with her own. But nothing would be gained by challenging Hugo’s illusions. Beauty was fragile, transitory, vulnerable. Isabelle’s sensitivities must be protected. The toughies could look after themselves. She said:
“According to you, she’s only been here once before. I know that Mark Callender died in this room, but you hardly expect me to believe that she’s grieving over Mark. There’s something that both of you know and it would be better if you told me now. If you don’t I shall have to report to Sir Ronald Callender that Isabelle, your sister and you are somehow concerned in his son’s death and it will be up to him to decide whether to call in the police. I can’t see Isabelle standing up to even the mildest police questioning, can you?”