The Murder Room (24 page)

Kate busied herself with directory inquiries, then phoned the hospital. There was a delay of some minutes in getting through to the extension she needed. The conversation lasted only a minute with Kate doing most of the listening.

Holding her hand over the mouthpiece, she said to Dalgliesh, “Dr. Dupayne's PA is a Mrs. Angela Faraday. She works on Saturday mornings but the clinic will be over by quarter past one. She'll be working alone in her office between then and two o'clock. She can see you any time then. Apparently she doesn't take a lunch-break except for sandwiches in her office.”

“Thank her, Kate, and say I'll be there at half-past one.”

The appointment made and the call ended, Kate said, “It's an interesting coincidence her having the same name as the volunteer gardener at the museum. That is, if it is a coincidence. Faraday's not a common name.”

Dalgliesh said, “If it isn't a coincidence and they are related, it opens up a number of interesting possibilities. In the meantime, let's see what the Kensington flat has to tell us.”

Within half an hour they were parked and at the door. All the bell pushes were numbered but not named, except for flat number thirteen, which bore the label
PORTER
. He arrived within half a minute of Kate's pressing the bell, still putting on his uniform jacket. They saw a stockily built, sad-eyed man with a heavy moustache who reminded Kate of a walrus. He gave a surname which was long, intricate and which sounded Polish. Although taciturn, he was not disobliging and answered their questions slowly but readily enough. He must, surely, have heard of Neville Dupayne's death but he made no mention of it and nor did Dalgliesh. Kate thought that this careful joint reticence gave the conversation a somewhat surreal quality. He said, in answer to their questions, that Dr. Dupayne was a very quiet gentleman. He rarely saw him and couldn't remember when they had last spoken. If Dr. Dupayne had any visitors he had never seen them. He kept two keys to each of the flats in his office. On request, he handed over the keys to number eleven without demur, merely requesting a receipt.

But their examination was unrewarding. The flat, which faced Kensington High Street, had the impersonal over-tidiness of an apartment made ready for prospective tenants to view. The air smelt a little stale; even at this height Dupayne had taken the precaution of closing or locking all the windows before leaving for the weekend. Making a preliminary tour of the sitting-room and two bedrooms, Dalgliesh thought he had never seen a victim's house so outwardly unrevealing of a private life. The windows were fitted with wooden slatted blinds as if the owner feared that even to choose curtains would be to risk betraying a personal choice. There were no pictures on the painted white walls. The bookcase held about a dozen medical tomes, but otherwise Dupayne's reading was chiefly confined to biographies, autobiographies and history. His main leisure interest was, apparently, listening to music. The equipment was modern and the cabinet of CDs showed a preference for the classics and New Orleans jazz.

Leaving Kate to examine the bedrooms, Dalgliesh settled himself at the desk. Here, as he had expected, all the papers were in meticulous order. He saw that regularly recurring bills were paid by standing order, the easiest and most trouble-free method. His garage bill was sent to him quarterly and paid within days. His portfolio showed a capital of just over £200,000 prudently invested. The bank statements, filed in a leather folder, showed no large payments in or significant withdrawals. He gave regularly and generously to charities, mainly ones concerned with mental health. The only entries of interest were those on his credit-card statements where, every week, a bill was paid to a country inn or hotel. The locations were widely different and the amounts not large. It would, of course, be perfectly possible to find out whether the expenditure had been for Dupayne alone or for two people, but Dalgliesh was inclined to wait. It was still possible that the truth could be discovered in other ways.

Kate came back from the bedroom. She said, “The spare room bed is made up, but there's no evidence anyone has recently stayed here. I think Sarah Dupayne was right, sir. He has had a woman in the flat. In the bottom drawer there's a folded linen bathrobe and three pairs of pants. They're washed but not ironed. In the bathroom cabinet there's a deodorant of a kind used mostly by women, and a glass with a spare toothbrush.”

Dalgliesh said, “They could have belonged to his daughter.”

Kate had worked too long with him to be easily embarrassed, but now she coloured and there was a trace of it in her voice. She said, “I don't think the pants belonged to his daughter. Why pants but no night-dress or bedroom slippers? I think if a lover was coming here and she liked being undressed by him, she'd probably bring clean pants with her. The bathrobe in the bottom drawer is too small for a man and his own is hanging on the bathroom door.”

Dalgliesh said, “If a lover was his fellow traveller every Friday, I wonder where they met, whether he called for her or she came to the Dupayne and waited for him there? It seems unlikely. There would be the risk of someone working late and seeing her. At present it's all conjecture. Let's see what his PA can tell us. I'll drop you at the Dupayne, Kate. I'd like to see Angela Faraday on my own.”

10

Piers knew why Dalgliesh had chosen him and Benton-Smith to interview Stan Carter at the garage. Dalgliesh's attitude to a car was that it was a vehicle designed to transport him from one place to another. He required it to be reliable, fast, comfortable and agreeable to the eye. His present Jaguar fulfilled these criteria. Beyond that he saw no reason for discussion of its merits or cogitation about what new models might be worth a test drive. Car talk bored him. Piers, who seldom drove in town and liked to walk from his City flat to New Scotland Yard, shared his boss's attitude but combined it with a lively interest in models and performance. If car chat would encourage Stan Carter to be forthcoming, then Piers could supply it.

Duncan's Garage occupied the corner of a side road where Highgate merges into Islington. A high wall of grey London brick, smudged where largely ineffectual efforts had been made to remove graffiti, was broken by a double gate fitted with a padlock. Both gates were open. Inside to the right was a small office. A young woman with improbably yellow hair caught up with a large plastic clasp like a cockscomb was seated at the computer, a thickset man in a black leather jacket bending over her to study the screen. He straightened up at Piers's knock and opened the door.

Flipping open his wallet, Piers said, “Police. Are you the manager?”

“So the boss tells me.”

“We'd like to speak to Mr. Stanley Carter. Is he here?”

Without bothering to look at the identification, the man jerked his head towards the rear of the garage. “Back there. He's working.”

Piers said, “So are we. We won't keep him long.”

The manager went back to the computer screen, shutting the door. Piers and Benton-Smith skirted a BMW and a VW Golf, presumably belonging to the staff since both were recent models. Beyond them the space opened up into a large workshop with walls of white-painted brick and a high pitched roof. At the back a wooden platform had been erected to provide an upper storey, with a ladder to the right giving access. The front of the platform was decorated with a row of gleaming radiators like the captured trophies of battle. The left-hand wall was fitted with steel racks and everywhere—sometimes hung on hooks and labelled but more often in a jumble that suggested organized chaos—were the tools of the trade. The room gave the impression familiar to Piers from visits to similar workplaces, of every item being hoarded in case it should later be found to be of use, a place where Carter could no doubt lay his hands on anything wanted. Ranged on the floor were oxy-acetylene gas cylinders, tins of paint and paint thinner, crumpled petrol cans and a heavy press, while above the racks hung spanners, jump leads, fan belts, welding masks and rows of paint guns. The garage was lit by two long fluorescent tubes. The air, which was cold, smelt of paint and faintly of oil. It was empty and silent, except for a low tapping from under a 1940s grey Alvis on the ramp. Piers crouched down and called, “Mr. Carter?”

The tapping stopped. Two legs slid out and then a body, clad in dirty overalls and a thick high-necked jumper. Stan Carter got to his feet, took a rag from his centre pocket, then slowly rubbed his hands, paying attention to each finger, meanwhile regarding the officers with a steady, untroubled gaze. Satisfied with the redistribution of oil on his fingers, he shook hands firmly first with Piers, then with Benton-Smith, then rubbed his palms on his trouser legs as if to rid them of contamination. They were facing a small, wiry man with a tonsured head, a thick fringe of grey hair cut very short in a regular line above a high forehead. His nose was long and sharp and there was a pallor over the cheekbones typical of a man whose working life was spent indoors. He could have been taken for a monk, but there was nothing contemplative about those keen and watchful eyes. Despite his height he held himself very upright.

Piers thought, Ex-Army. He made the introductions, then said, “We're here to ask you about Dr. Neville Dupayne. You know he's dead?”

“I know. Murdered, I'm thinking. You wouldn't be here otherwise.”

“We know you serviced his E-type. Could you tell us how long you've been doing that, what the procedure is?”

“Twelve years come April. He drives it, I look after it. Always the same routine. He collects it at six every Friday evening from his lock-up at the museum and comes back late Sunday or by seven-thirty Monday morning.”

“And leaves it here?”

“He usually drives it straight back to the lock-up. That's as far as I know. Most weeks I go there on the Monday or Tuesday and bring it here for servicing, clean and polish, check the oil and water, fill her up with petrol, do anything necessary. He liked that car to be spotless.”

“What happened when he brought it straight here?”

“Nothing happened. He'd leave it for servicing. He knows I'm here by seven-thirty so if there was anything he wanted to tell me about the car he'd come here first then take a cab to the museum.”

“If Dr. Dupayne drove the car back here, did you talk about his weekend, where he'd been, for example?”

“He wasn't one for talking except about the car. Might say a word or two, discussing the weather he'd had, maybe.”

Benton-Smith said, “When did you last see him?”

“Two weeks ago on Monday. He brought the car here just after seven-thirty.”

“How did he seem? Depressed?”

“No more depressed than anyone else on a wet Monday morning.”

Benton-Smith asked, “Drove fast, did he?”

“I wasn't there to see. Fast enough I reckon. No point in driving an E-type if you want to hang around.”

Benton-Smith said, “I was wondering how far he got. It would give us an idea where he went. He didn't say, I suppose?”

“No. Not my business where he went. You asked me that before.”

Piers said, “But you must have noted the mileage.”

“I might do that. She'd be due for her full service every three thousand miles. Not much to do usually. Balancing the carburettors took a bit of time, but she was a good car. Running very sweetly the whole time I had charge of her.”

Piers said, “Launched in 1961, wasn't it? I don't think Jaguar made a more beautiful car.”

Carter said, “She wasn't perfect. Some drivers found her heavy and not everyone liked her body, but Dr. Dupayne did. He was powerfully fond of that car. If he had to go I reckon he'd be glad enough that the Jag and he went together.”

Ignoring this surprising outburst of sentimentality, Piers asked, “What about the mileage?”

“Seldom under a hundred miles in a weekend. More often a hundred and fifty to two hundred. Sometimes a good bit more. That would be when he returned on the Monday, more than likely.”

Piers said, “And he was alone?”

“How should I know? I never saw anyone with him.”

Benton-Smith said impatiently, “Come off it, Mr. Carter, you must have had some idea whether he had a companion. Week after week, servicing the car, cleaning it. There's always some evidence left sooner or later. A different smell even.”

Carter regarded him steadily. “What kind of smell? Chicken vindaloo and chips? Usually he drove with the roof down, all weathers except rain.” He added with a trace of sullenness, “I never saw anyone and I never smelt anything out of the usual. What business of mine who he drove with?”

Piers said, “What about the keys? If you collected the car from the museum on Mondays or Tuesdays you must have had keys both to the Jag and to the lock-up garage.”

“That's right. Kept in the office in the key cupboard.”

“Is the key cupboard locked?”

“Mostly, with the key in the desk drawer. Might be kept in the lock, likely as not if Sharon or Mr. Morgan was in the office.”

Benton-Smith said, “So other people could get their hands on it?”

“Don't see how. There's always someone here and the gates are padlocked at seven o'clock. If I'm working after that I get in by the door round the corner with my own key. There's a doorbell. Dr. Dupayne knew where to find me. Anyway, the car keys aren't named. We know which is which, but I don't see how anyone else can.”

He turned and looked towards the Alvis in a clear indication that he was a busy man who had said all that was necessary. Piers thanked him and gave him his card, asking him to get in touch if he later remembered anything relevant he hadn't mentioned.

In the office Bill Morgan confirmed the information about the keys more obligingly than Piers had expected, showed them the key cupboard and, taking the key from the right-hand drawer to his desk, locked and unlocked it several times as if to demonstrate the ease with which it worked. They saw the usual row of hooks, none of them labelled.