by J M Gregson
Sam looked round his bedsit desperately. It was like having a visit from your mother. No, it was much worse than that. It was like having a visit from Miss Dagnan. She had been the Senior Mistress in his secondary school, a formidable, large-bosomed dragon who had been responsible for discipline. Sam had made the same jokes about her as his fellows, but he had never lost his secret fear of her.
Surely Marjorie Dooks couldn’t be as bad as old Daggers?
‘I don’t want you here when they come.’
‘Why’s that? I can give you moral support with the fuzz.’ Kate Merrick tried to keep it light, but she felt hurt.
‘To tell you the truth, I’m not quite sure why. Perhaps it’s because I would be self-conscious. I think I’ll find it easier if you’re not there, watching my every move.’ But Ros Barker found it difficult to look her partner in the face. She couldn’t remember when that had last happened.
‘You mean I might be like a protective wife, watching your every move?’
Ros did look at her now, hearing the hurt in her voice. ‘Don’t be silly. It’s nothing like that. I just think I’ll find it easier to concentrate on what I have to tell them without you or anyone else listening to me,’
‘Is it because you don’t want them to know that we live together?’
‘Don’t be silly! I thought both of us got over that a long time ago.’
‘Homophobia in the police service. It makes sense, I suppose, especially as this John Lambert is an older bloke.’
‘It’s nothing to do with that. Honestly it isn’t.’ She went over and held Kate’s shoulders, making her look into her face. She felt the tension in the slim frame, then the relaxation as Kate grinned at her earnestness. ‘All right. But wouldn’t you rather I was there to back you up with the fuzz? They’ll know you didn’t like Peter Preston.’
‘They’ll know because I’ll tell them. I shan’t make any secret of it. You and I both know that a lot of people didn’t like Herr Preston and his assumptions of cultural superiority.’
‘You’re right there. I don’t think you should call him that, though.’
‘Now you sound like my mum! But it shows what I mean. I’ll find it much easier to talk to them if I don’t have you listening. I know you’d be supporting me, but I’d be more self-conscious and less able to concentrate with anyone there — even you.’
Kate nodded, her small, mobile features suddenly very serious. ‘All right. I need to pop round to the primary school anyway; apparently there’s a possibility of a part-time job in the office there. Go and put your face on for the fuzz and I’ll make myself scarce.’
Ros went obediently into their bedroom and noted how neatly the bed was made and how Kate’s usual clutter of make-up on the dressing table had been tidied. Ready for the policemen, who would never see it. In many respects, Kate Merrick was a more conventional young woman than she pretended to be, but when you felt tenderly about someone, you loved even their foibles.
She tidied her hair, put on a little lipstick, thought for a moment, then slipped out of her jeans and into the skirt she rarely wore nowadays. Kate wasn’t the only one who could be a little conventional; for some reason she could not fathom, Ros thought she might be more convincing to the long arm of the law in a skirt.
She watched the police Mondeo turn into the drive, then skipped quickly down the two flights of stairs to open the big blue front door in the instant that they rang the bell. She thought they looked a little surprised at her promptness as she gave them her prepared smile. ‘Do come upstairs. We have the top part of the house, but we don’t have a separate entrance.’
She said this as she led them upstairs and into her studio. She had already decided not to speak to them in the rather cramped sitting room on the floor below. The space and light made the studio seem less confining — made it seem as if that would somehow make her answers to them more convincing. She said, ‘I’m sorry the place is so untidy — we’ve been deciding which of my paintings should go to the exhibition of my work in Cheltenham.’ She stifled a smile when she noticed that Kate had removed the nude of herself to a position behind the other works they had chosen. So much for her talk about bourgeois reservations.
Lambert and Hook looked round the studio unhurriedly and with genuine interest. Neither of them could remember being in the workplace of a professional artist before. Then they threw Ros off balance by beginning not with the killing she had geared herself for but with the letter she had almost forgotten in the face of greater events.
Hook said almost accusingly, ‘I understand you received a threatening letter two days ago. Don’t you think you should have informed us about that?’
‘I didn’t take it very seriously, I’m afraid. I was still pondering what to do when Kate brought it in to you.’
‘Didn’t take it seriously? Why was that? Isn’t it a serious thing to have your life threatened?’
‘Of course it is, if you think it’s a genuine threat. But it seemed like the kind of thing that only happens in books. I suppose it was beginning to dawn on me that even if there was an outside chance of it being serious I should report it. Then I heard that Kate Merrick had taken the matter out of my hands.’
‘So your initial thought was that it was just a prank?’
How could a man who looked so easy-going be so persistent? She was rattled by his doggedness, particularly as it seemed to imply she was crass or insensitive. ‘I was getting round to the idea that it was more than a prank when I heard that Kate had been to see you about it.’
‘So initially you thought it might be no more than a joke in bad taste. Who did you think might be the comedian responsible?’
‘One of the literature festival committee, I suppose. But I’ve no real idea.’
‘Which one?’
‘That would be pure speculation. This really isn’t fair, you know.’
Hook’s lips twisted a fraction at the edges. ‘I know. Nevertheless, we’d be interested to hear who you favoured as the author of these threats.’
‘I suppose I thought it might be the kind of stupid thing Peter Preston might do. But it’s irrelevant now, because he’s been killed himself, hasn’t he?’
Lambert took over as smoothly as if the transfer had been anticipated. ‘Indeed he has, Miss Barker. But the threatening messages might not be entirely irrelevant. Did you know that Mr Preston had received a note identical to the one you received yourself?’
‘No.’ She looked suitably shocked. ‘I think DS Hook told Kate that I wasn’t the only recipient, but I didn’t know that Preston had received one. And now he’s dead?’
‘Yes.’
He let the simple monosyllable hang in the wide-windowed studio. She breathed deeply and said, ‘Do you think whoever sent him the note is the man who killed him?’
Lambert allowed himself a grim smile. ‘We don’t know yet that it was a man who sent those letters, nor a man who killed Mr Preston. But for what it’s worth, I don’t think that whoever sent those messages killed Preston. And I don’t think you are in any danger because you received one. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have reported it. We don’t encourage foolish bravado in the public. Who do you think killed Mr Preston?’
The question came so abruptly on the end of his reassurance that she wondered if he had done it deliberately in the hope of catching her out. ‘I’ve no idea. Have you?’
‘Not yet. We shall know more after we’ve questioned those who were closest to him in his last few weeks of life — providing of course that they give us their full cooperation.’
‘I wasn’t close to Peter Preston. We should both have resented that idea.’
‘You were physically close, in that you were a member of the literature festival committee. I met him only once myself, but from what I saw and from what I have already heard of his attitude to younger people, I believe you will have crossed swords with him over issues of local culture.’ He glanced at the paintings of various sizes that had been
assembled for her exhibition. ‘And very probably over your own art.’
Ros forced herself to relax physically, remembering the yoga lessons from years ago, which she had almost forgotten. This man — probably both of these men — had played this game many times before, whereas this was her first experience of it. ‘You’re right. We had very different ideas. I felt it was almost a matter of principle with him to scorn my work, because I’m thirty and he was late fifties.’
‘Art is a very personal thing, especially when your living depends on what you produce. It must be very wounding when people criticise it.’
‘Criticism is assessment, Chief Superintendent Lambert. It involves praise as well as well as stricture.’
He nodded and gave her a tiny bow of acknowledgement. ‘I stand corrected. But I expect Preston’s criticism involved much more stricture than approbation.’
She smiled, and in a flash the lean face with the prominent nose became almost beautiful. ‘You’re right there. And right that it can be very wounding, particularly when you feel the critic does not understand what you are about. But one attempts to develop a thicker skin, over the years. Peter Preston said the things you would have expected of him, once you knew him and his habits. They irritated me a little, because they stemmed from ignorance and prejudice rather than objective analysis, but they didn’t upset me.’
‘But he clearly upset a lot of people.’
‘I’m sure he did. But whilst lots of us might have felt like killing him for a moment or two, we didn’t take any such drastic action.’
Lambert shrugged. ‘Someone did. Whether it was one of your committee or someone else entirely is yet to be established. Do you know of anyone with a more serious reason than pique to attack Peter Preston?’
‘No. I can’t think it will be anyone I know who killed him.’
‘Where were you on Tuesday night, please?’
‘Is that when he was killed?’
‘We think so, yes. We would like to eliminate you from the enquiry. It’s the way the routine works.’
The routine. She had somehow known that that word would accompany this inevitable enquiry. Ros stared hard at the stained floorboards between them. There was a speck of white paint near Hook’s foot, which she and Kate must both have missed when they cleaned up after yesterday’s work with her brushes. She was meticulous about cleaning, since they used this room a lot for leisure in the summer months. That ridiculous white spot was occupying her mind, stopping her from thinking about what she must say and how she could best defend herself.
‘On Tuesday night I was here. I was alone throughout the evening. Kate Merrick was visiting her mother and her younger brother; Jason is only fourteen.’ She wondered why she was giving them these details, when she should have been thinking about how to preserve herself. She watched Hook making a note in his notebook, and felt the image of his child-like concentration would be imprinted on her mind for months.
‘Did you take any phone calls during the evening?’
‘No. I only have a mobile and it was switched off. I didn’t want to be disturbed. I was only watching television, but there was a programme about the Pre-Raphaelites. I’m interested in them and the way they thought.’
She wondered if they would ask her to give details of the programme, to check on her story. But Lambert merely said. ‘If you should think of anyone who could confirm this, it would be useful for us to have the name. If you think of anything, even the smallest detail, which you think may be relevant to this murder investigation, please ring this number immediately.’
And then they were gone, leaving her staring at the card he had given her and wondering how much of what she said they had believed.
Sam Hilton tidied his bedsit meticulously for the visit of Marjorie Dooks. He couldn’t rid his mind of the image of old Daggers, the Senior Mistress who had so terrified him in his school days. She used to pounce on you if you had even the top button of your shirt undone.
And yet. . and yet it had been the comprehensive that had developed his love for poetry, which had fanned the flame first kindled by Mrs Lambert in his last year at primary school. He’d never dared to confess that to his male peers at school, of course; they’d have taunted you as a pooftah if you’d even admitted to liking something as unmanly as poetry. Yet he could still remember studying Goldsmith’s Deserted Village and its portrait of the schoolmaster:
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew.
He’d looked at the poem afterwards at home, as he was sure no one else in the class had done. He still quoted that couplet when he gave his talk about poetry and read his own work. They were a good example of the proper use of rhyme — how it could reinforce the sense and make the picture more rounded and satisfying — and most people in his audiences seemed to have heard the poem at some time.
Why was he thinking about that? He could hardly lecture Mrs Dooks about poetry, any more than he would have dared to discuss his ideas with old Daggers. He worked the ageing vacuum cleaner more vigorously back and forth over the threadbare carpet, stowed the dishes from the drainer away in the cupboard, even moved the photo-frame and the little pot dog on the window sill and dusted it. He didn’t think he’d ever dusted before, but he remembered his mother always talking about needing to do them when she expected visitors.
Marjorie Dooks didn’t seem to notice. She glanced round the bedsit as she accepted the easy chair he offered her, but she didn’t seem to register how clean and tidy he had made the place to receive her. Perhaps like the queen she just expected these things and didn’t see fit to comment upon them.
Then he realized that the formidable Mrs Dooks was nervous.
She said, ‘I needed to talk to you in private, Sam. Not in the context of the festival committee.’
‘No. You said that on the phone.’ Curiously, he found that her unease was giving him confidence. He felt quite adult, where previously her presence had reduced him to a stumbling adolescent. ‘I’m sure we can sort out whatever is concerning you.’
‘Yes. Well, if you can, I’ll be very pleased.’
He said, ‘I’ll put the kettle on. Tea or coffee?’
‘What? Oh, thank you. Either will do. Tea, perhaps.’ She realized as he did that she was being uncharacteristically uncertain and diffident. She sat primly with her knees together and tried to become her normal self as she watched him flick a tea bag into each of two beakers and pour in the boiling water. She couldn’t remember when she had last drunk tea with someone who did not use, perhaps did not even possess, a teapot. Sam squashed the bag against the side of the beaker with a spoon and removed it quickly, adding the dash of milk which was all she requested. He brought the beakers and sat down opposite her. She found to her surprise that the beaker was china and spotlessly clean, that the tea tasted surprisingly good.
She took a deep breath and said, ‘I wanted to talk to you about these messages. Someone has been threatening people on the committee — telling them that if they don’t resign they are likely to be killed.’
It sounded ridiculous when you voiced it in the cold morning light and in a setting like this. It sounded even more so when the young man who was less than half her age said calmly, ‘Yes. I’ve heard about these letters. They sound quite extraordinary. Someone’s sense of humour is very misplaced, don’t you think?’
‘Well, yes, I suppose I do. But perhaps I also think we should take them rather more seriously than that. The police certainly do. Have you had one yourself?’
‘No. Is that what you came here to find out?’ He was amazed that he should be asking her this, but the words came quite naturally to him.
‘No. Well, er, I suppose it’s part of the reason, if I’m honest.’
‘Much better to be honest, I think. The police convinced me of that, when they talked to me about these letters.’
‘The police have already interviewed you about them?’
‘I suppose you could call it an interview, yes. I spoke to them about those letters, in this very room.’ He looked happily and unhurriedly round the beautifully tidy bedsit. He was positively enjoying himself now. It was almost as if he had old Daggers at a conversational disadvantage. ‘I suppose the CID wanted to satisfy themselves that I hadn’t sent them. They sent two quite senior people.’
‘And did you manage to convince them that those threats hadn’t come from you?’
‘Well, you’d have to ask them about that. They seemed to accept what I said, but they don’t give much away, do they?’
Marjorie said stiffly, ‘I expect they don’t, no. I haven’t much experience of the CID, Sam.’
‘Haven’t you? No, I suppose you wouldn’t have. Well they didn’t haul me in for further questioning and throw me into a cell. And no charges have been preferred, so far.’
Marjorie Dooks’s lips twisted just a little at the corners. ‘I rather think you’re making fun of me, Sam. And I rather think I probably deserve it. I can only say that I came here with your best interests at heart.’
‘I accept that. And perhaps you were also just a little curious to know whether I had sent those letters.’
‘I suppose I was. But my first thought was to warn you that the police might want to speak to you about them, so that you could have time to think what you might want to say to them about the matter. I’m left feeling rather foolish, as I find that they’ve already done that and you’ve already satisfied them of your innocence.’
‘I hope I have, but only they could tell you whether they believed me. So perhaps I should take this opportunity to assure you that I didn’t send them.’
‘I never thought you did, Sam.’
‘Really? But aren’t you now puzzled, when it seems that Christine Lambert and I are the only members of your committee who haven’t received one of these written threats?’
She smiled properly now, knowing that he was enjoying her discomfiture but happily prepared to make the best of it. ‘I confess that the letter scared me. It doesn’t seem anything like as alarming, now that the police have followed it up. I’ve come round to your idea, that it’s someone’s misplaced sense of humour.’
