Stephanie (25 page)

‘So be it …' The telephone clicked. ‘That's all right, I was just checking … There are one or two things I might add, old friend. First, you are likely to be the object of further attention from the media. “Mr Locke, how do you react to the murder of your late daughter's boyfriend?” et cetera, et cetera.'

‘I shall be strictly not available for comment.'

‘And another matter, rather more serious than the media. When it once becomes established that Colton and Apostoleris did not kill each other in some drunken quarrel, the group to which they were attached – the gang, if one wants to be melodramatic – may put two and two together and come to the conclusion that the police may also come to but have no proof of – that you had a finger in Colton's death, somehow. In which event there might be an attempt at reprisal.'

‘Oh, come, this isn't Brooklyn.'

‘Maybe I've lived myself too long in a nasty and brutish world where assassination is just another branch of politics. But do have a chain put on your door. Have you a gun?'

‘No. There's a lad in the village shoots the rabbits for me.'

‘I can let you have something. Better to be on the safe side. You've no licence, I suppose? We'll have to forget that for the moment. I'll bring it over probably Friday.'

‘Come to dinner.'

‘I might do that. Evelyn's not back for a couple of weeks yet … All things considered, I think this
will
blow over.'

‘I'm not sure that I want it to.'

‘Never mind that. Consider first the police. Unless we are desperately unlucky they will be hard put to pin anything conclusive on you, apart from motive. Nobody was killed by a gun. Your age and lameness almost rule you out where one man has a broken larynx and the other a broken back. I'm a much fitter man than you, and I don't think
I
could have done it! And second …'

‘Second what?'

‘We don't know who heads this group that Colton and Apostoleris belong to, but my feeling is they will probably do nothing which will attract more attention to themselves. This is not one rival gang feuding with another. If, as you suspect, all was not as it seemed about Stephanie's death, they will do nothing more if you do nothing more.'

‘I don't at all feel like doing nothing more.'

‘I'd strongly advise you to lie very quiet until the results of what you
have
done are cleared up! Merciful Christ, we have enough problems on our hands!'

‘I still think Arun Jiva was involved in Stephanie's death. He was the last person to see her alive, and in view of what Humphrey Arden told me …'

‘It's still all speculation.'

‘Maybe I should have held Errol Colton over a slow fire.'

‘Something like that. Oh, one other thing. You remember Anne Vincent, the girl who found – the body?'

‘Of course.'

‘She had a breakdown after the inquest, you'll remember. Cut tutorials and went home.'

‘Yes, I tried to see her that week, but they told me she'd left.'

‘She was obviously very attached to Stephanie, and the whole thing greatly upset her. She's been with her parents in north Lancashire, but the doctor there says she can come back, so she's returning Saturday. The only reason I mention this is that her father is coming with her and has asked to see me. If he has anything to say bearing on the case I'll let you know when we meet.'

During that morning and afternoon James spent most of his time indoors, letting Mary protect him from telephone calls and would-be interviewers. He sat in his wheelchair and tried to read, but mainly allowed his mind to range at random over the last few days and hours. Once or twice he took the two photographs he had retained of Errol's collection and studied them. They were both photographs of the same house but there was no means of identification. Except the tall pencil trees.

Then he took out the photograph he had found in Arun Jiva's room. It still badly upset him. It occurred to him that he had never seen his daughter naked since she was two. Now he saw her, a beautiful young woman, slender, finely formed, youthful, sexually exciting. The man standing beside her, mercifully partly screened by a chair, was the man he had killed last night. James wondered who had taken the photograph; Stephanie would not have stood like that before some waiter. No doubt, since Errol was a photographic expert, he had a camera which operated itself and gave you time to walk into the picture.

Of course he knew Stephanie was not a virgin. It was just the visual presentation of it that hurt him – and that it had been in the possession of Arun Jiva. Stephanie would surely never have given it to Jiva. Had Jiva then picked it up in her flat, the night he took her home, the night he said he had not gone in with her?

Several times James had the impulse to burn the picture; each time he held back, thinking that somehow it might provide a clue to the mystery of her death.

Unnumbered times he had read her last and only letter from India, which poignantly – almost obscenely – had arrived a week after her death.

Dear Daddy,

Well, here we are in darkest Goa, and with a little more detail than I sent you in the p.c. from Bombay.

In fact, although we are miles from what passes for civilisation, we are in a super hotel with pretty nearly all mod cons and a view where every prospect pleases.

I came to India intending to enjoy myself but with all my defences raised to resist the oh-so-romantic pull of the Far East. The spiel of travel agents was not for me: I knew all about the other side of the picture, the poverty, the beggars, the dust and the dirt. And that's all true enough! But in the short time I have been here India has really got to me. Hard to put it into words. Of course one is impressed by the obvious things, the Taj Mahal, Fatehpur Sikri etc., which we visited from Delhi; but I think it is the people I have found so delightful, and the presence of a civilisation that's far older than ours – and different – but I believe has many of the same values. (This is prosy and pretentious, so I'll shut up.)

We are now at the hotel whose paper I'm writing on, but we are actually staying at the Hermitage, which consists of a group of about twenty handsome villas – or bungalows: one might as well use the word in its country of origin – put up last year as an extension to the hotel, and the first guests were the heads of a Commonwealth Conference held in Delhi last year, and they came to Fort Aguada to take a few days' rest and relaxation after their
labours
! I have been shown the visitors' book with the signatures of the potentates. Margaret Thatcher of course – strong bold signature as I suppose you'd expect! Mr Muldoon of New Zealand, Daniel Arap Moi of Kenya, Indira Gandhi for India etc. I notice that the Canadian PM has written his commendation in French – rather pretentious, I would have thought. And I never knew that places like Western Samoa and the Solomon Islands were in the Commonwealth!

The gardens here are just being made; many of the top bungalows are quite bare, but we have a lower one where the trees and shrubs are already grown. I met Mr Mandelkar, the head gardener, yesterday, and had a long chat. Although the Latin names are the same, thank goodness, the things we can grow they don't and the things they grow we can't, so apart from hibiscus and bougainvillaea there isn't much common ground. I've admired four types of ficus – especially
religiosa
which has some sort of a legend attached to it – gorgeous casuarina, tall ashokas, bamboos 30 feet high, jacaranda and all kinds of palms. I expect
you
would know them all!

There are 30 gardeners here. When I exclaimed at the number it was pointed out to me that for half the year no rain
ever
falls, so watering has to go on every day!

Certainly there is no sign of rain at present; since I came to India I have not seen a cloud. Errol, whom you
must
meet soon, is very considerate and very generous but also amusingly eccentric. He buzzes around leaving me often – but quite pleasantly – to my own devices. His company is developing tourism in India, but his hobby is photography, and I'm rapidly becoming the most photographed girl in the subcontinent. (Though I'm usually the human interest not the main subject.) He tells me he is hoping to get a show in the West End shortly. An opportunity for us all to meet?

Have you ever had papaya with lime? Or prawn curry with peppers? Or lassi? They're not all that exciting but they certainly make a change!

Longing to see you as soon as I get home.

Ever lovingly,

Stephanie

As he put the letter away James again looked at the date: 14 April. Her letter carried no hint of strain or reservation. He knew her extrovert nature too well to suppose she could dissemble even in a letter. On 14 April and up to that date all had been fine. Whatever had happened between her and Errol had happened after. Did it help to know that? It would greatly help to know what.

That evening he said to Mary Aldershot: ‘It's lucky you didn't marry me.'

She smiled at him over the top of the glasses she now used for reading. ‘It would never have done.'

‘That's nonsense, the way you're looking at it. But it would never have done to be married to a killer who carries his criminal instincts into his old age.'

‘Not old age,' she said, ‘ and not criminal instincts, if I may correct you, Mr James.'

She used the ‘mister' this time mockingly. Since Stephanie's death her complete concern for him, partly hidden by a spiky independence, had been clear enough.

‘On consideration,' she said, ‘perhaps it would have been better if I'd married you. A wife, you know, can't testify against her husband.'

James rubbed his hand. ‘ D'you know, over this affair I feel an utter louse, but all for the wrong reasons. I'm humiliated and angry that I have involved three innocent people – three of you counting Henry's servant – in a very nasty crime by making them accessories after the fact. I have more unease over that than over the crime itself.'

‘You shouldn't have.'

‘I know I shouldn't have. The self-disgust at my having involved the three of you in this should indeed be great, but it should be overwhelmed by bitterness and remorse at having committed the crime. It isn't. I ask myself why this is not so, and all the answers so far have been unpleasant.'

She put down the evening paper. ‘Get you a drink?'

‘I can't allow myself to escape from the situation in a haze of whisky. Listen to me for a moment.'

‘I
am
listening.'

‘In my life, as far as I know, and not counting people who as a result of my efforts got themselves blown up, I have actually killed only four people. Two Germans, and two last night.'

‘It was wartime–'

‘Exactly. And killing during time of war makes one a hero. Look at all those goddamned medals! Last night I found myself being painfully frogmarched towards the stairs by a man who was going to enjoy kicking me out. I lost my temper and threw him over the banisters. Then I went back into the room and killed the man who was responsible – in one way or another – for Stephanie's death. This was not a momentary lapse of self-control, this was quite deliberate. Quite deliberate. You understand, woman: where is your sense of horror?'

‘He tried to kill you!'

‘Yes. He fired and missed. So I grabbed hold of him. He didn't stand a chance then. But I could just have squeezed his throat until he passed out. Instead of that I hit him where I knew it would be lethal.'

‘It was instinctive, of course,' Mary said. ‘An instinct of your training.'

‘I suppose,' James said, ‘the Christian doctrine of Redemption shows Christ as suffering for the guilt of the world and therefore allowing mankind off the hook and able to perceive a reason for His suffering. In other words you don't get what you deserve,
He
gets what you deserve. In this way a sort of justice is done and an equilibrium achieved. What am I trying to say? That one of the basic human needs is to achieve that equilibrium. Yet one of the other basic human needs is to know satisfaction when a man gets what is coming to him. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. Is it because I've taken the law – and the Lord – into my own hands that I have to struggle with myself and prick myself into feeling a sense of remorse? Would I be more at ease with myself if Errol had been killed by a thunderbolt? Hardly. Even if I were a practising Catholic I don't think I could confess to something about which I feel so little remorse.'

‘
I
think,' Mary Aldershot said, ‘that remorse is bound up with love. If you hurt the people you care for or who care for you – or neglect them and something goes wrong … I hope – I pray – I shall never have to kill anything bigger than a spider; but if I did kill someone so undeserving as Errol Colton I should feel less about it than if I neglected a child, betrayed a lover, deserted a family …'

There was silence.

Mary said: ‘ Sorry, my dear. I got carried away. I wasn't thinking in personal terms …'

‘Say no more.'

The paper rustled. Mary rubbed an eye. ‘Anyway, there's nothing new in the paper, beyond what they said on the radio. It's still the same line …'

‘Perhaps the tabloids tomorrow will waken things up.'

The superintendent said: ‘Are you at present still allowing the media to go on that assumption?'

‘Yes, sir,' said Foulsham. ‘But I don't think we can carry on very much beyond tomorrow with that story.'

‘A quarrel is ruled out?'

‘Not a quarrel. But two deaths – there is no way, after Forensic's report, that we can suppose these two men killed each other. This man Angelo Smith died of a broken back, but before that he received a blow on the upper lip and a second one below the left ear which would have knocked him out cold. Errol Colton died of a fracture of the larynx caused again almost certainly by a single blow. His body – Colton's body – was moved after his death – dragged towards the door.'