Devices and Desires (52 page)

But all that would have to wait. He could at least make a start with the housework. The room’s air of dull pretentiousness was partly due, he realized, to dirt. It looked like an uncleaned hotel room in which no one took pride because no guest was expected and those few who came wouldn’t care. He realized now that he should have kept on Mrs. Adcock, who came in to clean for three hours every Wednesday. But she had only worked for them in the last two months of Susie’s pregnancy. He had hardly met her, and he disliked the thought of handing over house keys to a comparative stranger, more from his love of privacy than from any lack of trust. So, despite Susie’s misgivings, he had paid Mrs. Adcock a retainer and had said that he could cope. Now he added his supper things to a load of crockery in the dishwasher and took a duster from those neatly folded in the drawer. Dust lay heavy on every surface. In the sitting room he drew the duster along the windowsill and saw with wonder the black line of grimed dirt.

He moved next to the hall. The cyclamen on the table beside the telephone had unaccountably wilted, despite his hurried daily watering, perhaps because of it. He was standing, duster in hand, wondering whether to throw it out or whether rescue was possible, when his ears caught the crunch of wheels on the gravel. He opened the door, then flung it wide with such force that it swung back and the latch clicked. Then he was at the taxi door, gently receiving the swollen figure into his arms.

“My darling, oh, my darling, why didn’t you ring?”

She leaned against him. He saw with compassion the white, transparent skin, the smudges under her eyes. He seemed to feel even beneath the thick tweed of her coat the stirring of his child.

“I didn’t wait. Mummy had only gone up the road to see Mrs. Blenkinsop. I just had time to ring for a taxi and leave her a note. I had to come. You’re not cross?”

“Oh, my love, my darling. Are you all right?”

“Only tired.” She laughed. “Darling, you’ve let the door close. You’ll have to use my key.”

He took her handbag from her, rummaged for the key and her purse, paid the driver, who had placed her one case by the door. His hands were shaking so that he could hardly fit the key in the lock. He half-lifted her over the threshold and lowered her onto the hall chair.

“Sit there a moment, darling, while I see to the case.”

“Terry, the cyclamen is dead. You’ve over-watered it.”

“No, I haven’t. It died missing you.”

She laughed. The sound was strong, a happy, contented peal. He wanted to lift her up into his arms and shout aloud. Suddenly serious, she said: “Has Mummy phoned?”

“Not yet, but she will.”

And then, as if on cue, the telephone rang. He snatched it up. This time, awaiting the sound of his mother-in-law’s voice, he was totally without fear, without anxiety. By that one magnificent affirming action Susie had placed them both for ever beyond her mother’s destructive reach. He felt that he had been lifted out of misery as if by a huge wave and set for ever with his feet firmly on a rock. There was a second in which he saw Susie’s look of anxiety, so acute that it was a spasm of pain, and then she got clumsily to her feet
and leaned against him, slipping her hand into his. But the caller wasn’t Mrs. Cartwright.

Oliphant said: “Jonathan Reeves has rung headquarters, sir, and they’ve put him on to me. He says that Caroline Amphlett and Amy Camm have gone boating together. They’ve been gone three hours now, and the mist is getting thicker.”

“Then why did he ring the police? He should have got on to the Coast Guard.”

“I’ve already done that, sir. That wasn’t really why he phoned. He and Amphlett didn’t spend last Sunday evening together. She was on the headland. He wanted to tell us that Amphlett lied. So did he.”

“I don’t suppose they’re the only ones. We’ll pull them in first thing tomorrow morning and hear their explanations. I’ve no doubt she’ll come up with one.”

Oliphant said stolidly: “But why should she lie if she’s got nothing to hide? And it isn’t just the false alibi. Reeves says that their love affair was only pretence, that she only pretended to care for him to cover up her lesbian affair with Camm. I reckon the two women were in it together, sir. Amphlett must have known that Robarts swam at night. All the staff at Larksoken knew that. And she worked closely with Mair, none closer. She’s his PA. He could have told her all the details of that dinner party, how the Whistler operated. There’d be no problem in getting hold of the Bumbles. Camm knew about the jumble box even if Amphlett didn’t. Her kid had clothes from it.”

Rickards said: “There’d be no trouble in getting hold of the shoes. There might be trouble in wearing them. Neither woman is tall.”

Oliphant dismissed what he probably felt was a puerile objection. He said: “But they would have had no time to try
them on. Better to grab a pair too large than too small, a soft shoe rather than unyielding leather. And Camm’s got a motive, sir. A double motive. She threatened Robarts after her kid was pushed over. We’ve got Mrs. Jago’s evidence of their quarrel. And if Camm wanted to stay on in the caravan, close to her lover, it was important to put a stop to Robarts’s libel action against Pascoe. And Camm almost certainly knew exactly where Robarts took her nightly swim. If Amphlett didn’t tell her, Pascoe probably did. He admitted to us that he used to sneak out occasionally to spy on her. Dirty-minded little devil. And there’s another thing. Camm has a dog lead, remember. So has Amphlett, come to that. Reeves said that she was exercising her dog on the headland Sunday night.”

“There were no paw marks at the scene, Sergeant. Don’t let’s get too excited. She might have been at the scene, but the dog wasn’t.”

“Kept in the car, sir. Maybe she didn’t have him with her, but I reckon she used the lead. There’s another thing. Those two wineglasses in Thyme Cottage. I reckon Caroline Amphlett was with Robarts before she went for that last swim. She’s Mair’s PA. Robarts would have let her in without question. It all adds up, sir. It’s a water-tight case, sir.”

Rickards thought that it was as water-tight as a sieve. But Oliphant was right. There was a case, even if there wasn’t as yet a scintilla of proof. He mustn’t let his feelings about the man cloud his judgement. And one fact was depressingly obvious. If he arrested another suspect, this theory, for all the lack of firm evidence, would be a gift to any defence counsel.

He said: “Ingenious, but it’s totally circumstantial. Anyway, it can wait until tomorrow. There’s nothing we can do tonight.”

“We ought to see Reeves, sir. He may change his story before morning.”

“You see him. And let me know when Camm and Amphlett get back. I’ll see you at Hoveton at eight. We’ll pull them in then. And I don’t want them questioned, either of them, until I see them tomorrow. Is that understood?”

“Yes sir. Good night, sir.”

When he had replaced the receiver, Susie said: “If you think you ought to go, darling, don’t worry about me. I’ll be all right now I’m home.”

“It’s not urgent. Oliphant can cope. He likes being in charge. Let’s make him a happy Jumbo.”

“But I don’t want to be a trouble to you, darling. Mummy thought that life would be better for you with me away.”

He turned and took her in his arms. He felt his own tears warm on her face. He said: “Life is never better for me when you’re away.”

The bodies were washed up two days later, two miles south of Hunstanton, or enough of them to make identification certain. On the Monday morning a retired tax officer, exercising his dalmatian dog on the beach, saw the animal sniffing round what looked like a white slab of lard entwined with seaweed, rolling and gliding at the edge of the tide. As he drew close the object was sucked back by the receding wave, then taken up by the next surge and flung at his feet, and he found himself gazing in incredulous horror at the torso of a woman neatly severed at the waist. For a second he stood petrified, staring down as the tide boiled in the empty socket of the left eye and swayed the flattened breasts. Then he turned away and was violently sick before shambling like a drunkard up the shingle of the beach, dragging the dog by its collar.

The body of Caroline Amphlett, unmutilated, was washed up on the same tide together with planks from the boat and part of the roof of the cabin. They were found by Daft Billy, a harmless and amiable beachcomber, on one of his regular sorties. It was the wood which first caught his eye, and he
dragged the planks ashore with squeals of glee. Then, his prize secure, he turned his puzzled attention to the drowned girl. It was not the first body he had found in forty years of beachcombing and he knew what he must do, whom he must tell. First he placed his hands under the arms and pulled the body out of the reach of the tide. Then, moaning softly, as if mourning his clumsiness, her lack of response, he knelt beside her and, pulling off his jacket, spread it over the torn rags of her shirt and slacks.

“Comfy?” he asked. “Comfy?”

Then, putting out his hand, he carefully moved the strands of hair out of her eyes and, rocking himself gently, began crooning to her as he might to a child.

Dalgliesh made three visits on foot to the caravan after lunch on Thursday, but on no occasion was Neil Pascoe at home. He was unwilling to telephone to check whether the man had returned. He could think of no valid excuse for wanting to see him, and it seemed best to make the visit part of a walk, as if the decision to call at the caravan were merely an impulse. In one sense he supposed it could be a visit of condolence, but he had only known Amy Camm by sight and that excuse seemed to him dishonest as well as unconvincing. Shortly after five o’clock, when the light was beginning to fade, he tried again. This time the door of the caravan was wide open, but there was no sign of Pascoe. While he stood hesitating, a billow of smoke rose from above the edge of the cliff, followed by a brief flash of flame, and the air was suddenly filled with the acrid smell of bonfire.

From the edge of the cliff he looked down on an extraordinary scene. Pascoe had built a fireplace of large stones and chunks of concrete and had lit a fire of brushwood, onto which he was emptying papers, box files, cartons, bottles and what
looked like an assortment of clothes. The pile awaiting burning was caged down against the strengthening wind by the bars of Timmy’s cot; that too, no doubt, destined for the flames. A soiled mattress lay curled to one side like a makeshift and ineffectual windbreak. Pascoe, wearing only a pair of grubby shorts, was working like a demented demon, his eyes white saucers in his blackened face, his arms and naked chest glistening with sweat. As Dalgliesh slithered down the sandy slope of the cliff and moved up to the fire, he nodded a brief acknowledgement of his presence, then began dragging a small, scuffed suitcase from under the cot bars with desperate haste. Then he sprang up and balanced himself on the wide rim of the fireplace, his legs wide apart. In the ruddy glow of the flames his whole body gleamed, seeming for a moment transparent, as if it were lit from within, and the great dollops of sweat ran from his shoulders like blood. With a shout he swung the case high over the fire and wrenched it open. The baby clothes fell in a brightly coloured shower, and the flames leapt like living tongues to snatch at the woollen garments in mid-air, spinning them into briefly burning torches before they fell blackened into the heart of the fire. Pascoe stood for a moment breathing heavily, then sprang down with a cry half-exultant, half-despairing. Dalgliesh could understand and partly shared his exultation in this tumultuous juxtaposition of wind, fire and water. With each gust the tongues of flame roared and hissed so that he saw through a shimmering haze of heat the veins of the tumbling waves stained as if with blood. As Pascoe emptied into the fire yet another box file of papers, the charred fragments rose and danced like frantic birds, blew gently against Dalgliesh’s face and settled over the dry stones of the upper shingle like a black contagion. He could feel his eyes prickling with the smoke.

He called out: “Aren’t you polluting the beach?”

Pascoe turned to him and spoke for the first time, shouting above the roar of the fire.

“What does it matter? We’re polluting the whole bloody planet.”

Dalgliesh shouted back: “Shove some shingle on it and leave it until tomorrow. It’s too windy for a bonfire this evening.”

He had expected Pascoe to ignore him, but to his surprise the words seemed to recall his companion to reality. The exultation and vigour seemed to drain out of him. He looked at the fire and said dully: “I suppose you’re right.”

There were a spade and a rusty shovel thrown down by the pile of rubbish. Together the two men scooped up a mixture of shingle and sand and flung it onto the flames. When the last red tongue had died with an angry hiss, Pascoe turned and began scrunching his way up the beach towards the cliff. Dalgliesh followed. The question he had half-feared—“Are you here on purpose? Why do you want to see me?”—was unspoken and apparently unthought.

In the caravan Pascoe kicked the door shut and slumped down at the table. He said: “Want a beer? Or there’s tea. I’m out of coffee.”

“Nothing, thanks.”

Dalgliesh sat and watched as Pascoe groped his way over to the refrigerator. Returning to the table, he wrenched open the seal, threw back his head and poured the beer down his throat in an almost continuous stream. Then he slumped forward, silent, still clutching the tin. Neither spoke and it seemed to Dalgliesh that his companion hardly knew that he was still there. It was dark in the caravan, and Pascoe’s face across the two feet of wood was an indistinguishable oval in which the whites of the eyes gleamed unnaturally bright. Then he stumbled to his feet murmuring something about matches, and a few
seconds later there was a scrape and hiss and his hands stretched towards the oil lamp on the table. In its strengthening glow his face, beneath the dirt and smudges of smoke, looked drained and haggard, the eyes dulled with pain. The wind was shaking the caravan, not roughly but with a regular gentle sway, as if it were being rocked by an unseen hand. The sliding door of the end compartment was open and Dalgliesh could see, on the narrow bed, a pile of female clothes topped with a jumble of tubes, jars and bottles. Apart from this, the caravan looked tidy but denuded, less a home than a temporary, ill-equipped refuge but holding still the unmistakable milky and faecal smell of a child. The absence of Timmy and his dead mother filled the caravan as it did both their minds.