Death of an Expert Witness (18 page)

In reply to Dalgliesh’s questioning he described his movements since leaving his house in Ely to come to the Laboratory. His account of the finding of the body tallied with that of Brenda Pridmore. As soon as he had seen her face as she came down the stairs he had realized that something was wrong and he dashed up to the Biology Lab without waiting for her to speak. The door had been open and the light on. He described the position of the body as precisely as if its rigid contours were imprinted on the mind’s retina. He had known
at once that Lorrimer was dead. He hadn’t touched the body except, instinctively, to slip his hand into the pocket of the white coat and feel that the keys were there.

Dalgliesh asked: “When you arrived at the Laboratory this morning you waited for Miss Pridmore to catch you up before coming in. Why was that?”

“I saw her coming round the side of the building after having put her bicycle away, and it seemed courteous to wait, sir. And it saved me having to re-open the door to her.”

“And you found the three locks and the internal security system in good order?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you make a routine check of the Laboratory as soon as you arrive?”

“No, sir. Of course if I found that any of the locks or the security panel had been tampered with I should check at once. But everything was in order.”

“You said earlier that the telephone call from Mr. Lorrimer senior was a surprise to you. Didn’t you notice Dr. Lorrimer’s car when you arrived this morning?”

“No, sir. The senior scientific staff use the end garage.”

“Why did you send Miss Pridmore to see if Dr. Lorrimer was here?”

“I didn’t, sir. She slipped under the counter before I could stop her.”

“So you sensed that something was wrong?”

“Not really, sir. I didn’t expect her to find him. But I think it did briefly occur to me that he might have been taken ill.”

“What sort of a man was Dr. Lorrimer, Inspector?”

“He was the Senior Biologist, sir.”

“I know. I’m asking you what he was like as a man and a colleague.”

“I didn’t really know him well, sir. He wasn’t one for lingering at the reception desk to chat. But I got on all right with him. He was a good forensic scientist.”

“I’ve been told that he took an interest in Brenda Pridmore. Didn’t that mean that he occasionally lingered at the desk?”

“Not for more than a few minutes, sir. He liked to have a word with the girl from time to time. Everyone does. It’s nice to have a young thing about the Lab. She’s pretty and hard working and enthusiastic, and I think Dr. Lorrimer wanted to encourage her.”

“No more than that, Inspector?”

Blakelock said solidly: “No, sir.”

Dalgliesh then asked him about his movements on the previous evening. He said that he and his wife had bought tickets for the village concert, although his wife was reluctant to go because of a bad headache. She suffered from sinus headaches which were occasionally disabling. But they had attended for the first half of the programme and, because her headache was worse, had left at the interval. He had driven back to Ely, arriving home about a quarter to nine. He and his wife lived in a modern bungalow on the outskirts of the city with no near neighbours and he thought it unlikely that anyone would have noticed their return.

Dalgliesh said: “There seems to have been a general reluctance on the part of everyone to stay for the second part of the programme. Why did you bother to go when you knew your wife was unwell?”

“Dr. MacIntyre—he’s the former Director, sir—liked the Laboratory staff to take part in village activities, and Chief Inspector Martin feels the same. So I’d got the tickets and my wife thought we might as well use them. She hoped that the concert might help her to forget her headache. But the first half was rather rowdy and, in fact, it got worse.”

“Did you go home and fetch her, or did she meet you here?”

“She came out earlier in the afternoon by the bus, sir, and spent the afternoon with Mrs. Dean, wife of the Minister at the chapel. She’s an old friend. I went round to collect my wife when I left work at six o’clock. We had a fish and chip supper there before the concert.”

“That’s your normal time for leaving?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And who locks up the Laboratory if the scientists are working after your time for leaving?”

“I always check who’s left, sir. If there are junior staff working then I have to stay until they’re finished. But that isn’t usual. Dr. Howarth has a set of keys and would check the alarm system and lock up if he worked late.”

“Did Dr. Lorrimer normally work after you had left?”

“About three or four evenings a week, sir. But I had no anxiety about Dr. Lorrimer locking up. He was very conscientious.”

“Would he let anyone into the Laboratory if he were alone?”

“No, sir, not unless they were members of the staff, or of the police force, maybe. But it would have to be an officer he knew. He wouldn’t let anyone in who hadn’t got proper business here. Dr. Lorrimer was very particular about unauthorized people coming into the Laboratory.”

“Was that why he tried forcibly to remove Miss Kerrison the day before yesterday?”

Inspector Blakelock did not lose his composure. He said: “I wouldn’t describe it as a forcible removal, sir. He didn’t lay hands on the girl.”

“Would you describe to me exactly what did happen, Inspector?”

“Miss Kerrison and her small brother came to meet their father. Dr. Kerrison was lecturing that morning to the Inspector’s
training course. I suggested to Miss Kerrison that she sit down on the chair and wait, but Dr. Lorrimer came down the stairs at that moment to see if the mallet had arrived for examination. He saw the children and asked rather peremptorily what they were doing there. He said that a forensic science lab wasn’t a place for children. Miss Kerrison said that she didn’t intend to leave, so he walked towards her as if he intended to put her out. He looked very white, very strange, I thought. He didn’t lay a hand on her but I think she was frightened that he was going to. I believe she’s very highly strung, sir. She started screeching and screaming ‘I hate you. I hate you.’ Dr. Lorrimer turned and went back up the stairs and Brenda tried to comfort the girl.”

“And Miss Kerrison and her small brother left without waiting for their father?”

“Yes, sir. Dr. Kerrison came down about fifteen minutes later and I told him that the children had come for him but had left.”

“You said nothing about the incident?”

“No, sir.”

“Was this typical of Dr. Lorrimer’s behaviour?”

“No, sir. But he hadn’t been looking well in recent weeks. I think he’s been under some strain.”

“And you’ve no idea what kind of strain?”

“No, sir.”

“Had he enemies?”

“Not to my knowledge, sir.”

“So you’ve no idea who might have wanted him dead?”

“No, sir.”

“After the discovery of Dr. Lorrimer’s body, Dr. Howarth sent you with Miss Foley to check that his bunch of keys were in the security cupboard. Will you describe exactly what you and she did?”

“Miss Foley opened the cupboard. She and the Director are the only two people who know the combination.”

“And you watched?”

“Yes, sir, but I can’t remember the figures. I watched her twisting and setting the dial.”

“And then?”

“She took out the metal cash box and opened it. It wasn’t locked. The keys were inside.”

“You were watching her closely all the time, Inspector? Are you absolutely sure that Miss Foley couldn’t have replaced the keys in the box without your seeing?”

“No, sir. That would have been quite impossible.”

“One last thing, Inspector. When you went up to the body Miss Pridmore was here alone. She told me that she’s virtually certain that no one could have slipped out of the Laboratory during that time. Have you considered that possibility?”

“That he might have been here all night, sir? Yes. But he wasn’t hiding in the Chief Liaison Officer’s room because I would have seen him when I went to turn off the internal alarm. That’s the room closest to the front door. I suppose he could have been in the Director’s office, but I don’t see how he could have crossed the hall and opened the door without Miss Pridmore noticing even if she were in a state of shock. It isn’t as if the door were ajar. He’d have had to turn the Yale lock.”

“And you are absolutely certain that your own set of keys never left your possession last night?”

“I’m certain, sir.”

“Thank you, Inspector. That’s all for the present. Would you please ask Mr. Middlemass to come in?”

The Document Examiner strolled into the office with easy assurance, arranged his long body without invitation in Howarth’s armchair, crossed his right ankle over his left knee and raised an interrogatory eyebrow at Dalgliesh like a visitor expecting nothing from his host but boredom, but politely determined not to show it. He was wearing dark-brown corduroy slacks, a fawn turtle-necked sweater in fine wool and bright purple socks with leather slip-on shoes. The effect was of a dégagé informality, but Dalgliesh noticed that the slacks were tailored, the sweater cashmere, and the shoes handmade. He glanced down at Middlemass’s statement of his movements since seven o’clock the previous evening. Unlike the efforts of his colleagues, it was written with a pen, not a Biro, in a fine, high, italic script, which succeeded in being both decorative and virtually illegible. It was not the kind of hand he had expected. He said: “Before we get down to this, could you tell me about your quarrel with Lorrimer?”

“My version of it, you mean, as opposed to Mrs. Bidwell’s?”

“The truth, as opposed to speculation.”

“It wasn’t a particularly edifying episode, and I can’t say I’m proud of it. But it wasn’t important. I’d just started on the clunch pit murder case when I heard Lorrimer coming out of the washroom. I had a private matter I wanted a word about so I called him in. We talked, quarrelled, he struck out at me and I reacted with a punch to his nose. It bled spectacularly over my overall. I apologized. He left.”

“What was the quarrel about? A woman?”

“Well, hardly, Commander, not with Lorrimer. I think Lorrimer knew that there were two sexes but I doubt whether he approved of the arrangement. It was a small private matter, something which happened a couple of years ago. Nothing to do with this Lab.”

“So we have the picture of your settling down to work on an exhibit from a murder case, an important exhibit since you chose to examine it yourself. You are not, however, so absorbed in this task that you can’t listen to footsteps passing the door and identify those of Lorrimer. It seems to you a convenient moment to call him in and discuss something which happened two years ago, something which you’ve apparently been content to forget in the interim, but which now so incenses you both that you end by trying to knock each other down.”

“Put like that, it sounds eccentric.”

“Put like that, it sounds absurd.”

“I suppose it was absurd in a way. It was about a cousin of my wife’s, Peter Ennalls. He left school with two ‘A’ levels in science and seemed keen on coming into the Service. He came to me for advice and I told him how to go about it. He ended up as an SO under Lorrimer in the Southern Lab. It wasn’t a success. I don’t suppose it was entirely Lorrimer’s fault, but he hasn’t got the gift of managing young staff. Ennalls ended up with a failed career, a broken engagement and what is
euphemistically described as a nervous breakdown. He drowned himself. We heard rumours about what had happened at the Southern. It’s a small service and these things get around. I didn’t really know the boy; my wife was fond of him.

“I’m not blaming Lorrimer for Peter’s death. A suicide is always ultimately responsible for his own destruction. But my wife believes that Lorrimer could have done more to help him. I telephoned her after lunch yesterday to explain that I’d be late home and our conversation reminded me that I’d always meant to speak to Lorrimer about Peter. By coincidence I heard his footsteps. So I called him in with the result that Mrs. Bidwell has no doubt graphically described. Mrs. Bidwell, I don’t doubt, detects a woman at the bottom of any male quarrel. And if she did talk about a woman or a telephone call, then the woman was my wife and the telephone call was the one I’ve told you about.”

It sounded plausible, thought Dalgliesh. It might even be the truth. The Peter Ennalls story would have to be checked. It was just another chore when they were already hard-pressed and the truth of it was hardly in doubt. But Middlemass had spoken in the present tense: “Lorrimer hasn’t got the gift of managing junior staff.” Were there, perhaps, junior staff closer to home who had suffered at his hands? But he decided to leave it for now. Paul Middlemass was an intelligent man. Before he made a more formal statement he would have time to ponder about the effect on his career of putting his signature to a lie.

Dalgliesh said: “According to this statement you were playing the part of a hobby-horse for the morris-dancers at yesterday evening’s village concert. Despite this, you say you can’t give the name of anyone who could vouch for you. Presumably both the dancers and the audience could see the hobby-horse
galumphing around, but not you inside it. But wasn’t anyone there when you arrived at the hall, or when you left?”

“No one who saw me to recognize me. It’s a nuisance but it can’t be helped. It happened rather oddly. I’m not a morris-dancer. I don’t normally go in for these rustic rites and village concerts aren’t my idea of entertainment. It was the Senior Liaison Officer’s show, Chief Inspector Martin, but he had the chance of this USA visit unexpectedly and asked me to deputize. We’re about the same size and I suppose he thought that the outfit would fit me. He needed someone fairly broad in the shoulders and strong enough to take the weight of the head: I owed him a favour—he had a tactful word with one of his mates on highway patrol when I was caught speeding a month ago—so I couldn’t very well not oblige.

“I went to a rehearsal last week and all it amounted to was, as you say, galumphing round the dancers after they’d done their stuff, snapping my jaws at the audience, frisking my tail and generally making a fool of myself. That hardly seemed to matter since no one could recognize me. I’d no intention of spending the whole evening at the concert, so I asked Bob Gotobed, he’s the leader of the troupe, to give me a ring from the hall about fifteen minutes before we were due to go on. We were scheduled to appear after the interval and they reckoned that that would be about eight-thirty. The concert, as you’ve probably been told, started at seven-thirty.”