The Murder Room (51 page)

She had to catch the six-fifteen train and Adam was to meet her at three minutes past seven at King's Cross. She had dreaded the telephone call to say that he couldn't make it, but he hadn't rung. Her taxi had been ordered for five-thirty, early enough to allow for heavy traffic. Her case was packed ready. Folding her night-dress and dressing-gown, she had smiled, thinking that Clara, if watching her, would have said she was packing for a honeymoon. She wrenched her mind away from the mental picture of his tall dark figure waiting for her at the barrier, and said, “Is anything worrying you?”

The eyes looked into hers. “The other students think I'm here because I went to a comprehensive school. They think the government paid money to Cambridge to take me. That's why I'm here, not because I'm clever.”

Emma's voice was sharp. “Has anyone said this to you?”

“No, no one. They haven't said anything but that's what they believe. It's in the newspapers. They know it's happening.”

Emma leaned forward and said, “It doesn't happen here in this college and it didn't happen with you. Shirley, it's just not true. Listen to me, this is important. The government doesn't tell Cambridge how to select its students. If it did, if any government did, Cambridge wouldn't take any notice. We have no motive for selecting anyone except on the basis of intelligence and potential. You're here because you deserve to be.”

Shirley's voice was so low that Emma had to strain to hear her. “I don't feel I am.”

“Think about it, Shirley. Scholarship is international and highly competitive. If Cambridge is to hold its place in the world, we need to select the best. You're here on your merits. We want to have you and we want you to be happy here.”

“The others seem so confident. Some of them knew each other before they came up. They've got friends here. Cambridge isn't strange to them, they know what to do, they're together. Everything's strange to me. I feel that I don't belong here. It was a mistake coming to Cambridge, that's what some of Mum's friends back home told me. They said I wouldn't fit in.”

“They were wrong. It does help, coming up with friends. But some of the students who seem so confident have much the same worries as you. The first term at university is never easy. All over England now new students are feeling the same uncertainties. When we are unhappy we always believe that no one else could ever feel the same. But they do. It's part of being human.”

“You can't feel like that, Dr. Lavenham.”

“Of course I can, sometimes. And I do. Have you joined any societies?”

“Not yet. There are so many. I'm not sure where I'd fit in.”

“Why not join one in which you're really interested. Don't just do it to meet people and make friends. Choose something you'll enjoy, perhaps something new. You will meet people and you will make friends.”

The girl nodded and whispered something which might have been “I'll try.” Emma was worried. This was the kind of problem brought to her by students which caused the most anxiety. At what stage, if any, ought she to advise that they ask for professional counselling or psychiatric help? To miss the signs of serious distress could be disastrous. But to overreact could destroy the very confidence she was trying to build up. Was Shirley desperate? She didn't think so. She hoped that she was judging rightly. But there was other help she could offer and which she knew was needed.

She said gently, “When we first come up, it's sometimes difficult to know how to work most effectively, how to make the best use of our time. It's easy to waste it by working hard on inessentials and neglecting what is important. Writing academic essays takes a lot of practice. I'm out of Cambridge this Saturday and Sunday but we can have a talk about it on Monday, if you feel it would be helpful.”

“Oh it would, Dr. Lavenham, it would. Thank you.”

“Shall we say six o'clock then?”

The girl nodded and got up to go. At the door she turned to whisper a final thank you, then disappeared. Emma looked at her watch. It was time to put on her coat, pick up her case and go down to await the taxi. She was on Cambridge station before she realized that she had left her mobile in her room in College. Perhaps, she thought, this had been less an oversight than a subconscious dread of hearing it ring on the journey. Now she could travel in peace.

13

At last Dalgliesh was ready to leave. His PA put her head round the door. “It's the Home Office, Mr. Dalgliesh. The Minister would like to see you. His private office rang. It's urgent.”

When a call came on a Friday afternoon it usually was. Dalgliesh said, “You told them I'm leaving for the weekend almost immediately?”

“I did tell them. The private office said it was lucky they caught you in time. It's important. Mr. Harkness has been called as well.”

So Harkness would be there. Who else? Dalgliesh wondered. Even while dragging on his coat he looked at his watch. Five minutes to cut through St. James's Park underground station and to get to Queen Anne's Gate. Probably the usual delay with the lift. At least he was well known and, with his pass, wouldn't get held up by security. So, six minutes in total, if he were lucky, before he was in the Minister's room. He wasted no time checking whether Harkness had already left, and ran for the lift.

It was seven minutes exactly before he was shown to the private office and into the Minister's room. He saw that Harkness was already there, as was the Permanent Under-Secretary of State, Bruno Denholm from MI6 and the PUSS from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, a suave, young-looking middle-aged official whose air of calm detachment made it plain that he held merely a watching brief. All present were used to this kind of urgent summons and practised in reducing the unexpected and unwelcome to the manageable and innocuous. Even so, he was aware of an air of unease, almost of embarrassment.

The Minister waved a hand and made brief and largely unnecessary introductions. He was a man who had adopted good manners, particularly to officers, as a working policy. Dalgliesh reflected that on the whole it served him well. It had at least the merit of originality. But now his offer of sherry—“Unless you gentlemen think it too early; there's tea or coffee if preferred”—and his scrupulous attention to their seating seemed wilful delaying tactics and Harkness's acceptance of the sherry, apparently on behalf of them all, an indulgence amounting to incipient alcoholism. God, would they never get started? The sherry was poured—excellent and very dry—and they seated themselves at the table. There was a folder in front of the Minister. He opened it and Dalgliesh saw that it held his report on the Dupayne Museum murders.

The Minister said, “Congratulations, Commander. A sensitive case solved speedily and efficiently. It raises again the question of whether we shouldn't extend the Special Investigation Squad to cover the whole country. I'm thinking particularly of recent distressing child abduction and murders. A national squad with particular expertise could have an advantage in these notorious cases. I imagine you have views on the suggestion.”

Dalgliesh could have retorted that the question wasn't new and that views on it, his included, were already known. He said, carefully restraining his impatience, “The advantages are obvious if the investigation needs to cover the whole country rather than clearly being a local crime. But there are objections. We risk losing local knowledge and contact with the local community which can be important in any investigation. There's the problem of liaison and co-operation with the force primarily concerned, and there could be a loss of morale if the more challenging cases are reserved for a squad which can be seen as privileged both in recruitment and facilities. What we need is an improvement in the training of all detectives including those at DC level. The public are beginning to lose confidence in the ability of the police to solve local crime.”

The Minister said, “And that, of course, is what your committee is at present considering, the recruitment and training of the detective force. I'm wondering if there could be an advantage in our taking on this wider issue, the creation of a national squad.”

Dalgliesh didn't point out that it wasn't his committee, merely one on which he served. He said, “The chairman would probably agree to a late extension of the terms of reference if that's what the Secretary of State wants. If it had been included from the beginning we might have had a rather different membership. There are problems in coopting members at this late stage.”

“But in future it could be taken on board?”

“Certainly, if Sir Desmond is happy.”

But this reiteration of an old issue had, Dalgliesh realized, been only a preliminary. Now the Minister turned his attention to the report on the murders. He said, “Your report makes it plain that the private club—or perhaps I should say the meetings of friends of Miss Caroline Dupayne—was not responsible either for the death of Dr. Neville Dupayne or of Celia Mellock.”

Dalgliesh said, “There was only one person responsible, Muriel Godby.”

“Exactly, and that being so, it seems unnecessary to distress her mother further by any reference publicly as to why the girl was at the museum.”

Dalgliesh reflected that an ability to believe that all people were less intelligent and more naÏve than oneself was a useful quality in a professional politician, but it wasn't one he was prepared to accept. He said, “This hasn't anything to do with Lady Holstead, has it? She and her second husband were well aware of her daughter's lifestyle. Who exactly are we protecting here, sir?”

He was tempted mischievously to suggest some names but resisted. Harkness's sense of humour was rudimentary and the Minister's untested.

The Minister looked across at the official from the FCO. He said, “A foreign national, an important man and a good friend of this country, has sought an assurance that certain private matters will remain private.”

Dalgliesh said, “But isn't he being unnecessarily worried? I thought only two sins attract opprobrium in the national press: paedophilia and racism.”

“Not in his country.”

The Minister took over quickly. “Before we give that assurance, there are details on which I need to be satisfied, particularly that there will be no interference with the course of justice. That doesn't need saying. But justice surely doesn't demand the stigmatizing of the innocent.”

Dalgliesh said, “I hope my report is clear, Minister.”

“Both clear and detailed. Perhaps I expressed myself clumsily. I should have said that I would like to have your assurance about certain matters. This club, the one run by Miss Dupayne, I take it that this was a purely private club held on private premises, that no members were under the age of sixteen and that no money was involved. What they were doing may have been reprehensible in some eyes, but it wasn't illegal.”

Dalgliesh said, “Miss Dupayne wasn't running a bawdy house and no member of her club was concerned with the death either of Neville Dupayne or Celia Mellock. The girl wouldn't have died if she hadn't been in the Murder Room at a particular time and she wouldn't have been there if she hadn't been a member of the 96 Club but, as I have said, only one person was responsible for her death: Muriel Godby.”

The Minister frowned. He had been meticulous in omitting the name of the club. He said, “There's no doubt about that?”

“No, Minister. We have her confession. Apart from that, we would have made an arrest this morning. Tallulah Clutton recognized her assailant before she lost consciousness. The bloodstained iron bar was found in Godby's car. The blood has yet to be analysed but there's no doubt that it's Clutton's.”

The Minister said, “Exactly. But to return to the activities in Miss Dupayne's flat. You suggest that the girl, who had an arrangement with Lord Martlesham to meet him that evening, did in fact go to the flat, entered the Murder Room by unbolting the door, motivated perhaps by curiosity and by the fact that entry to the museum that way had been specifically forbidden, and saw from an eastern window Muriel Godby washing her hands under the garden tap. Godby looked up and glimpsed her at the window, entered the museum, strangled her victim who was unable to escape to the flat through the closed handleless door, and put the body in the trunk. She was certainly powerful enough to do this. She then entered the flat by the outside door to which she had a key, switched off any lights in the flat, finally brought down the lift to the ground floor and left. Lord Martlesham arrived almost immediately afterwards. The absence of Celia Mellock's car which was being serviced, the absence of a light in the hall and the fact that the lift was on the ground floor persuaded him that the girl had not kept the appointment. Then he saw the flames from the garage fire, panicked and drove off. The following morning Godby, arriving early as usual, had time and opportunity to break off the stems from the pot of African violets in Calder-Hale's office and strew them on the body. The object, of course, was to make the second murder look like a copycat killing. She also re-locked and bolted the door from the flat into the Murder Room and checked that Mellock had left no incriminating evidence there of her presence. Neither that nor the ploy with the African violets could have been done immediately after the murder. Once the fire became visible she had to get away, and quickly, before the alarm was raised. I can see why Godby needed to take the handbag. It was important that the key to the flat wasn't found on Mellock's body. Quicker to grab the bag than to waste time searching for the key. There are, of course, ancillary details but that is the nub of the case.”

He looked up with the satisfied smile of a man who has again demonstrated his ability to master a brief.

Dalgliesh said, “That's how the case presented itself to me. From the beginning I believed the two murders were connected. This view was confirmed when we had the evidence set out in my report that the trunk was empty at four o'clock on that Friday. That two completely unconnected murders should be committed at the same time and in the same place beggars belief.”