Devices and Desires (12 page)

Mrs. Dennison looked up from her plate a little flushed and said: “I’m always suspicious of the excuse that a sin is justified if it’s done to benefit someone we love. We may think so, but it’s usually to benefit ourselves. I might dread the thought of having to look after an Alzheimer’s patient. When we advocate euthanasia is it to stop pain or to prevent our own distress at having to watch it? To conceive a child deliberately in order to kill it to make use of its tissue, the idea is absolutely repugnant.”

Alex Mair said: “I could argue that what you are killing isn’t a child and that repugnance at an act isn’t evidence of its immorality.”

Dalgliesh said: “But isn’t it? Doesn’t Mrs. Dennison’s natural repugnance tell us something about the morality of the act?”

She gave him a brief, grateful smile and went on: “And isn’t this use of a foetus particularly dangerous? It could lead to the poor of the world conceiving children and selling the foetuses to help the rich. Already, I believe, there’s a black market in human organs. Do you think a multimillionaire who needs a heart-lung transplant ever goes without?”

Alex Mair smiled. “As long as you aren’t arguing that we should deliberately suppress knowledge or reject scientific progress just because the discoveries can be abused. If there are abuses, legislate against them.”

Meg protested: “But you make it sound so easy. If all we had to do was to legislate against social evils, Mr. Dalgliesh would be out of work, for one.”

“It isn’t easy but it has to be attempted. That’s what being human means, surely, using our intelligence to make choices.”

Alice Mair got up from the table. She said: “Well, it’s time to make a choice now on a somewhat different level. Which of
you would like coffee and what kind? There’s a table and chairs in the courtyard. I thought we could switch on the yard lights and have it outside.”

They moved through to the drawing room, and Alice Mair opened the French windows leading to the patio. Immediately the sonorous booming of the sea flowed into and took possession of the room like a vibrating and irresistible force. But once they had stepped out into the cool air, paradoxically, the noise seemed muted, the sea no more than a distant roar. The patio was bounded on the road side by a high flint wall which, to the south and east, curved to little more than four feet to give an unimpeded view across the headland to the sea. The coffee tray was carried out by Alex Mair within minutes and, cups in hand, the little party wandered aimlessly among the terra-cotta pots like strangers reluctant to be introduced or like actors on a stage set, self-absorbed, pondering their lines, waiting for the rehearsal to begin.

They were without coats and the warmth of the night had proved illusory. They had turned as if by common consent to go back into the cottage when the lights of a car, driven fast, came over the southern rise of the road. As it approached its speed slackened.

Mair said: “Lessingham’s Porsche.”

No one spoke. They watched silently as the car was driven at speed off the road to brake violently on the turf of the headland. As if conforming to some pre-arranged ceremony, they grouped themselves into a semi-circle with Alex Mair a little to the front, like a formal welcoming party but one bracing itself for trouble rather than expecting pleasure from the approaching guest. Dalgliesh was aware of the heightening tension; small individual tremors of anxiety which shivered on the still, sea-scented air, unified and focused on the car door and on the tall figure
which unwound from the driver’s seat, leapt easily over the low stone wall and walked deliberately across the courtyard towards them. Lessingham ignored Mair and moved straight to Alice. He took her hand and gently kissed it, a theatrical gesture which Dalgliesh felt had taken her by surprise and which the others had watched with an unnaturally critical attention.

Lessingham said gently: “My apologies, Alice. Too late for dinner, I know, but not, I hope, for a drink. And, God, do I need one.”

“Where have you been? We waited dinner for forty minutes.” It was Hilary Robarts who asked the obvious question, sounding as accusatory as a peevish wife. Lessingham kept his eye on Alice. He said: “I’ve been considering how best to answer that question for the last twenty minutes. There are a number of interesting and dramatic possibilities. I could say that I’ve been helping the police with their enquiries. Or that I’ve been involved in a murder. Or that there was a little unpleasantness on the road. Actually it was all three. The Whistler has killed again. I found the body.”

Hilary Robarts said sharply: “How do you mean, found? Where?”

Again Lessingham ignored her. He said to Alice Mair: “Could I have that drink? Then I’ll give you all the gory details. After unsettling your seating plan and delaying dinner for forty minutes, that’s the least I owe you.”

As they moved back into the drawing room, Alex Mair introduced Dalgliesh. Lessingham gave him one sharp glance. They shook hands. The palm which momentarily touched his was moist and very cold. Alex Mair said easily: “Why didn’t you ring? We would have kept some food for you.”

The question, conventionally domestic, sounded irrelevant, but Lessingham answered it. “Do you know, I actually
forgot. Not all the time, of course, but it honestly didn’t cross my mind until the police had finished questioning me, and then the moment didn’t seem opportune. They were perfectly civil, but I sensed that my private engagements had a pretty low priority. Incidentally, you get absolutely no credit from the police for finding a body for them. Their attitude is, rather, ‘Thank you very much, sir, very nasty, I’m sure. Sorry you’ve been troubled. But we’ll take over now. Just go home and try to forget all about it.’ I have a feeling that that isn’t going to be so easy.”

Back in the drawing room Alex Mair threw a couple of thin logs onto the glowing embers and went to get the drinks. Lessingham had refused whisky but had asked for wine. “But don’t waste your best claret on me, Alex. This is purely medicinal.” Almost imperceptibly they edged their chairs closer. Lessingham began his story deliberately, pausing at times to take gulps of the wine. It seemed to Dalgliesh that he was subtly altered since his arrival, had become charged with a power both mysterious and oddly familiar. He thought: He has acquired the mystique of the story-teller, and, glancing at the ring of fire-lit and intent faces, he was suddenly reminded of his first village school, of the children clustered round Miss Douglas at three o’clock on a Friday afternoon for the half-hour of story-time, and felt a pang of pain and regret for those lost days of innocence and love. He was surprised that the memory should have come back so keenly and at such a moment. But this was to be a very different story, and one unsuited to the ears of children.

Lessingham said: “I had an appointment with my dentist in Norwich at five o’clock and then briefly visited a friend in the Close. So I drove here from Norwich, not from my cottage. I’d just turned right off the B1150 at Fairstead when
I nearly crashed into the back of this unlit car skewed across the road. I thought it was a damn silly place to park if someone wanted to take a leak in the bushes. Then it crossed my mind that there could have been an accident. And the right-hand door was open; that seemed a bit odd. So I drew into the side and went to take a look. There was no one about. I’m not sure why I walked into the trees. A kind of instinct, I suppose. It was too dark to see anything and I wondered whether to call out. Then I felt a fool and decided to leave it and mind my own business. And it was then that I almost tripped over her.”

He took another gulp of the wine. “I still couldn’t see anything, of course, but I knelt down and groped about with my hands. And it was then that I touched flesh. I think I touched her thigh, I can’t be sure. But flesh, even dead flesh, is unmistakable. So I went back to the car and got my torch. I shone it on her feet and then slowly up her body to her face. And then, of course, I saw. I knew it was the Whistler.”

Meg Dennison asked gently: “Was it very terrible?”

He must have heard in her voice what she obviously felt, not prurience but sympathy, an understanding that he needed to talk. He looked at her for a moment as if seeing her for the first time, then paused, giving the question serious thought.

“More shocking than terrible. Looking back, my emotions were complicated, a mixture of horror, disbelief and, well, shame. I felt like a voyeur. The dead, after all, are at such a disadvantage. She looked grotesque, a little ridiculous, with thin clumps of hair sticking out of her mouth as if she were munching. Horrible, of course, but silly at the same time. I had an almost irresistible impulse to giggle. I know it was only a reaction to shock, but it was hardly admirable. And the whole scene was so, well, banal. If you had asked me to describe one
of the Whistler’s victims, that’s exactly how I should have seen her. You expect reality to be different from imaginings.”

Alice Mair said: “Perhaps because the imaginings are usually worse.”

Meg Dennison said quietly: “You must have been terrified. I know I should have been. Alone and in darkness with such horror.”

He shifted his body towards her and spoke as if it were important that she, of all those present, should understand.

“No, not terrified, that was the surprising part. I was frightened, of course, but only for a second or two. After all, I didn’t imagine he’d wait around. He’d had his kicks. He isn’t interested in men anyway. I found myself thinking the ordinary, commonplace thoughts: I mustn’t touch anything. I mustn’t destroy the evidence. I’ve got to get the police. Then, walking back to the car, I started rehearsing what I’d say to them, almost as if I were concocting my story. I tried to explain why it was that I went into the bushes, tried to make it sound reasonable.”

Alex Mair said: “What was there to justify? You did what you did. It sounds reasonable enough to me. The car was a danger slewed across the road. It would have been irresponsible just to drive on.”

“It seemed to need a lot of explaining, then and later. Perhaps because all the subsequent police sentences began with ‘why.’ You get morbidly sensitive to your own motives. It’s almost as if you have to convince yourself that you didn’t do it.”

Hilary Robarts said impatiently: “But the body—when you first went back for the torch and saw her, you were certain she was dead?”

“Oh yes, I knew she was dead.”

“How could you have known? It could have been very recent. Why didn’t you at least try to resuscitate her, give her
the kiss of life? It would have been worth overcoming your natural repugnance.”

Dalgliesh heard Meg Dennison make a small sound between a gasp and a groan. Lessingham looked at Hilary and said coolly: “It would have been if there had been the slightest point in it. I knew she was dead, let’s leave it at that. But don’t worry, if I ever find you
in extremis
I’ll endeavour to overcome my natural repugnance.”

Hilary relaxed and gave a little self-satisfied smile, as if gratified to have stung him into a cheap retort. Her voice was more natural as she said: “I’m surprised you weren’t treated as a suspect. After all, you were the first on the scene, and this is the second time you’ve been—well, almost—in at the death. It’s becoming a habit.”

The last words were spoken almost under her breath, but her eyes were fixed on Lessingham’s face. He met her glance and said, with equal quietness: “But there’s a difference, isn’t there? I had to watch Toby die, remember? And this time no one will even try to pretend that it isn’t murder.”

The fire gave a sudden crackle, and the top log rolled over and fell into the hearth. Mair, his face flushed, kicked it viciously back. Hilary Robarts, perfectly calm, turned to Dalgliesh.

“But I’m right, aren’t I? Don’t the police usually suspect the person who finds the body?”

He said quietly: “Not necessarily.”

Lessingham had placed the bottle of claret on the hearth. Now he leaned down and carefully refilled his glass. He said: “They might have suspected me, I suppose, but for a number of lucky circumstances. I was obviously out on my lawful occasions. I have an alibi for at least two of the previous killings. From their point of view I was depressingly free of blood. I suppose they could see I was in a mild state of shock.
And there was no sign of the ligature which strangled her, nor of the knife.”

Hilary said sharply: “What knife? The Whistler’s a strangler. Everyone knows that’s how he kills.”

“Oh, I didn’t mention that, did I? She was strangled all right, or I suppose she was. I didn’t keep the torchlight on her face longer than was necessary. But he marks his victims, apart from stuffing their mouths with hair. Pubic hair, incidentally. I saw that all right. There was the letter
L
cut into her forehead. Quite unmistakable. A detective constable who was talking to me later told me that it’s one of the Whistler’s trademarks. He thought that the
L
could stand for ‘Larksoken’ and that the Whistler might be making some kind of statement about nuclear power, a protest perhaps.”

Alex Mair said sharply: “That’s nonsense.” Then added more calmly: “There’s been nothing on television or in the papers about any cut on the victim’s foreheads.”

“The police are keeping it quiet, or trying to. It’s the kind of detail they can use to sort out the false confessions. There have been half a dozen of those already, apparently. There’s been nothing in the media about the hair either, but that piece of unpleasantness seems to be generally known. After all, I’m not the only one to have found a body. People do talk.”

Hilary Robarts said: “Nothing has been written or said, as far as I know, about it being pubic hair.”

“No, the police are keeping that quiet too, and it’s hardly the sort of detail you print in a family newspaper. Not that it’s so very surprising. He isn’t a rapist, but there was bound to be some sexual element.”

It was one of the details which Rickards had told Dalgliesh the previous evening but one, he felt, which Lessingham could well have kept to himself, particularly at a mixed dinner
party. He was a little surprised at his sudden sensitivity. Perhaps it was his glance at Meg Dennison’s ravaged face. And then his ears caught a faint sound. He looked across to the open door of the dining room and glimpsed the slim figure of Theresa Blaney standing in the shadows. He wondered how much of Lessingham’s account she had heard. However little, it would have been too much. He said, hardly aware of the severity in his voice: “Didn’t Chief Inspector Rickards ask you to keep this information confidential?”