To Perish in Penzance (10 page)

“We'll need to let the SOCOs finish. The last thing they need is someone contaminating a crime scene, if in fact it is a crime scene.”

“Well, I think we're operating on that assumption, aren't we?” I retorted. “Anyway, I didn't mean now. They ought to be finished in a day or two, and then I'd like to take another look. With a good, big flashlight along. There may be nothing for us to see, but I'd feel better about it. Even if I get stupid and can't go in myself, you can, and you're a trained observer. Who knows, there might be something that would ring bells for you, from the old case.”

“A bell would have to be extraordinarily resonant to sound for thirty years. Very well, add it to the list.”

I looked at my pad. “Only three items, but they each involve an awful lot of time and work. I think we need to get started. Oh, by the way, did the police get my pictures developed?”

Alan smiled. “Yes.”

“And?”

“Colin was polite about them.”

“Oh, dear. That bad, huh?” I began to giggle at the look on Alan's face. The giggles turned into snorts and then, I'm sorry to say, to hiccups.

It's amazing how inebriated I can become on tea.

W
HEN
we got back to the hotel, a detective was just coming in the door with Mrs. Crosby. We looked at each other in some alarm and Alan took the detective aside to have a word.

“Has she been to the morgue already?” I asked anxiously when he returned to me. “I really didn't want her to have to face that alone. How is she?”

“Doing fairly well, considering. The chap interviewed her here first, and she said much the same thing she told you, apparently. Then he took her for the formal identification. He did ask if she wanted someone with her, but she refused. She seems to have stood it as well as could be expected. She'll rest now. By the way, when they get the interview transcribed, they'll probably want you to have a look at it. It might be just as well if you were to write down all you remember of what she said.”

“Heavens, Alan! You know how easily I forget things.”

“Then you'd best do it now, before any more of it gets away.”

So I spent the next hour noting down in my little notebook the main points, at least, of that extraordinary conversation with Mrs. Crosby. When I had finished, the thing was so crossed out and interlined as to be indecipherable, so I copied it neatly and handed it to Alan.

“There. That's the best I can do. Your memory is a lot better than mine. Can you think of anything I told you that I've forgotten to write down?”

He read it carefully. “No, it seems reasonably complete. Here, take a look at this.”

He handed me what he'd been working on while I'd been racking my brains. It consisted of two lists on several sheets of hotel stationery. Alan's handwriting is neat, very English, and almost impossible for me to read.

I studied it for a minute or two, shook my head, and handed it back to him with a grin. “You'd better just tell me, dear.”

“Ah, yes, your peculiar inability to read perfectly legible writing. Very well, then. I've been engaging in your favorite habit of making lists.”

“I could tell that much. Give me some credit.”

He ignored that. “I've listed, you see, the steps the police will be taking. Then I've made a separate list of things we might usefully do, either dogging their footsteps or launching out on our own.”

“Sounds reasonable. If anyone ought to know what the police are up to, it's you.”

“One would hope. The procedure is absolutely cut and dried, you know, once they decide it's murder they're dealing with. HOLMES and all that.”

HOLMES stands for Home Office Large Major Enquiry System. The first time Alan told me about it, I meekly asked if “Large” and “Major” weren't somewhat redundant, and got him to admit that one of the adjectives was thrown in at the last minute. He wouldn't tell me which, but I doubted anyone had ever contemplated HOLES. No. HOMES would have worked all right, though, so I strongly suspected that someone with a sense of humor had added “Large” purely for the sake of the delightful acronym.

At any rate, I'd known for some time that HOLMES laid down procedures to be followed in the investigation of any major crime, including exactly what information was to be entered into the nationwide computer database, and how. The standardized methods have made it much easier to track criminals who repeat themselves, as well as those on the run, and if followed properly, they ensure that details aren't lost or forgotten, details that might make all the difference in eventually nailing the villain.

But I'd never known exactly what the specific procedures were, so I listened carefully as Alan spelled them out for me.

“Good grief, Alan,” I said when he'd finished, “it sounds only slightly more complicated than organizing D day.”

“Certainly it often felt that way to me. The paperwork is unending.”

“But, with such a lot being done by the police, what on earth can we contribute?” I had never been made to feel such a rank amateur. The police operated a well-oiled machine. I could see no reason why they should want the assistance of a complete outsider. Alan, yes, possibly. He knew the ropes, knew the area, had all the sharpened instincts of a top-ranking policeman.

But a retired American schoolteacher?

He put an arm around me. “All that cumbersome mechanism exists only to manage the data, coordinate efforts. Somebody has to gather that data. Somebody has to make those efforts. And the fact is that in the great majority of cases that require investigation, the crucial piece of information doesn't come as a direct result of the patient plodding. People start to talk, you see. One person tells another about the case, and it gets passed on, and on, and the rumors and innuendos stew in the community, and eventually an idea floats to the surface, a memory of something that seemed odd at the time, and someone goes to the police with it.”

“Yes?” I said, frowning.

“Our job is to keep that pot stewing.”

“So we talk to people.”

“That's always been the beginning of police work, you know. The physical evidence, forensics procedures, all that sort of thing, they're usually a matter of proving what the police already suspect. We have to make a case, you know, a watertight one that will stand up in court.”

“The cigar ash, the footprint. Or nowadays, the microfibers, the DNA sample.”

“All Sherlock's bag of tricks, brought up to date. But we know where to go looking for the cigar that deposited the ash or the coat that matches the fibers because we've talked to people, and they've said they saw X behaving suspiciously at the crime scene.”

“Except that it usually isn't quite that simple.”

Alan sighed. “Almost never, in fact. But we have to try. Hence, the second list, our tasks.”

It was quite a lot shorter than the first. I tried again to read it. “‘Mrs. Crosby.' Yes, of course, we'll be talking to her right along.”

“And the important thing to remember is the verb.”

I frowned and cocked my head.

“‘Talking' to her. Not interviewing her, not questioning her, or not a lot. Just talking, or listening, actually. Let her talk about Lexa and Lexa's mother. You'd be surprised what might come out.”

“Right. Then—what's this?”

Alan looked. “‘Lexa's room.' We'll want to look it over. Yes, I know what you're about to say, and of course the police will have examined it already. But we'll look it over as people who knew her, at least slightly, and we'll take Mrs. Crosby with us. Not to question, again, but simply to let her talk.”

“That'll be very hard for her.”

“Of course. But the crying will be good for her, I imagine, and she might just mention something—”

“Okay, I get the idea. Then—is this—oh, I see. ‘Boleigh.' No, don't tell me. She went to his party. She talked to people. Mr. Boleigh might know who, might be able to tell us something about them. And even though the police will have been there ahead of us, you might get more out of him because he's known you for years.”

“And because I won't be asking a lot of questions.”

I sat back and began to laugh. “Alan, I love it. You've just set down, very precisely and formally, exactly the sort of thing I've been doing for ages. Going out and talking to people. It's the only way I ever ‘get my man.'”

“You see,” he said, dropping a kiss on the top of my head, “I'm learning to be an amateur detective.”

There were more entries on the list. I made out a few of them, something that looked like “Polwhill” and “Pen” something.

“Polwhistle,” Alan said in response to my questioning look. “The rector of St. Martha's, remember?”

“I didn't ever catch his name. And the other?”

“Pendeen. The Lord Mayor.”

“‘By Tre, Pol, and Pen/Ye shall know Cornishmen,'” I recited. “I read that once in some old English mystery, but I didn't think it would still be true.”

“Oh, Cornwall doesn't change much. There've been a lot of outlanders moving in, of course, and many of the old Cornish names never did have the traditional prefixes. Cardinnis, for example, the superintendent. His family are Cornish down to their boots. But you still find Tre, Pol, and Pen everywhere hereabouts.”

I shook my head admiringly. “There'll always be an England. Alan, your father must not have been a Cornishman originally. Or is Nesbitt one of those other Cornish names that don't fit the pattern? It doesn't sound like it, somehow.”

“No, you're quite right. Father was born in Kent, not too far from Sherebury, actually. He was a hop farmer. But Mother was Cornish—Trethewey, so that ought to keep you happy—and she missed the sea. Father was besotted with her, couldn't deny her anything, so they moved back to Newlyn, her old home, shortly after they married. Father had to learn the new trade, but he became a very good fisherman.”

He fell silent then, remembering, and I thought ruefully about the vast things I would never know about my husband or my adopted country. There are some things that are in the blood, sprung from the home soil, things that an outsider can never, never truly understand.

I stood and stretched. “I don't know about you, love, but I could use a drink. It's been a trying day.”

“And you accuse the English of understatement. Our two hearts beat as one, my dear. After you.”

We didn't talk much about the murder over drinks or later, as we poked at our dinner. Nor did we eat much. Not only had we had a hearty tea, but I, at least, was suddenly very tired, and so full of our problem I had little room for food.

“I hope Mrs. Crosby's finally taken a sedative,” I said with a sigh as I pushed away my plate.

“I doubt she'll sleep much in any case.”

“No. Poor woman. She doesn't deserve this.”

“Only a monster could deserve what's happened to her. Twice. Her best friend and then that friend's daughter.”

“It's the old question, isn't it? Why are such things allowed? Why is there such evil?”

He shook his head wearily. “There's never a satisfactory answer, Dorothy. One can read the books and talk to the preachers, and the answer still comes down to ‘We don't know.' Perhaps, one day, the other side of the great divide, we will. Meanwhile, all we can do is try our best to combat evil, try never to give in to it ourselves.”

“That's what you've done all your life, isn't it?”

“I've tried. I've often failed.”

I looked at him anxiously. “You're not blaming yourself over the old case again, are you? Because—”

“No, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the number of times when I've given in to anger, to hatred. The number of times I've wanted to take a murderer, or a child rapist, or a wife beater, or even a stupid, arrogant little twit of a drugs dealer, take them in my own two hands and beat their heads against the wall, or choke them senseless, or—” He broke off. His voice had remained low, but his hands were clenched into tight fists. They were shaking.

He took a deep breath. “I'm sorry, my dear. I've frightened you.”

“No—well, not exactly.” I lifted my wineglass and took a hefty swig. “You don't often show that side.”

“I've tried never to bring it home with me. I'm not proud of it. I've never let that anger loose, not quite, but it's there. And every time it rises to the surface, I know I'm no better than the devils I've spent my life putting behind bars. I've wanted to hurt them just as badly as they hurt other people, and that's not justice, Dorothy. That's revenge.”

“But you didn't do it!” I leaned across the table, intent. “That's the difference between you and them, between any person of integrity and any criminal. You wanted to do harm, but you didn't. The restraints held. That's what civilization is, Alan. That's what morality is. Maybe we can't always keep our emotions in check, but so long as we control our actions, we'll stay on the right side of the line.”

“I'm not so certain. Every time the emotions get off the chain, there's the risk that the actions will, too.”

I poured a little more wine in both our glasses and tried to smile. “That's just the Englishman talking. If you'd let 'er rip a little more often over little things, you wouldn't build up such a head of steam over the big ones.”

“Kick the cat and swear at the motor mechanic and you'll never murder your boss, is that the idea?”

“More or less.”

He smiled a little, and I grinned back, and the talk eased back to trivialities, but I'd been shaken. I knew my husband to be a man of conviction, and I knew why being a policeman had been so important to him. His sense of right and wrong was strong. He'd wanted criminals out of society and in prison, where they could do no more harm, at least temporarily. He had known, of course, that they wouldn't stay out of circulation forever. He'd been sensibly aware that his work had been more like housecleaning than demolition, that there was no permanent solution to crime, only a day-to-day effort to keep the savages at bay.