Helen laughed. ‘Coffee, everybody?’
Mallard stood up. ‘No, from now on you’re not moving from your chair. I’ll do it.’
When at last coffee and liqueur chocolates had been distributed and they were settled the Mallards looked expectantly at Thanet.
‘Now,’ said Mallard. ‘As our transatlantic cousins put it, shoot!’
‘Where d’you want me to begin?’
Joan waved a hand. ‘At the beginning, where else?’
TWENTY
Thanet sipped his coffee, marshalling his thoughts. Then, for Helen’s benefit, he filled in the background to the case, sketching each of the personalities involved and the complexities of their relationships, past and present.
‘So the problem was, you see, as I said to Joan the other night, all the suspects had the opportunity, and the pillow was there to hand. It would have taken only a few minutes for any of them to slip along to Isobel Fairleigh’s room, commit the crime and return to whatever they were doing without having been away long enough for anyone to have noticed their absence. And they all, except apparently for Grace Fairleigh, had a motive. It was, of course, the first murder which led to the second, but we didn’t know that at the time.’
‘That’s what I want to know,’ said Mallard. ‘What on earth put you on to that?’
This was usually the difficult part: how to get people to understand that final intuitive leap which led him to the solution? Thanet sighed. ‘I’ll try to explain. It began, of course, as it always does in a murder of this type, with trying to understand the people involved, and especially the character of the victim. Isobel Fairleigh was, as I’ve already said, a difficult woman. That was obvious from the start. But gradually a fuller picture emerged. She was ruthless, for a start, and saw the world as existing to serve her needs, always a dangerous combination. So I had to ask myself what those needs were. What had she wanted most out of life? Her father was much to blame, according to her sister Letty. He encouraged her to believe that she could get or do anything she wanted, and what she wanted at first was vicarious power, through her husband, who was a promising politician. But her ambition was thwarted when he died relatively young, and so she transferred her hopes to her son. She was determined to ensure that Hugo would achieve what his father had failed to, and she worked very hard on his behalf in the constituency. She managed to avert an undesirable early marriage by some particularly unpleasant manipulation, and approved wholeheartedly when he married a more suitable girl, of his own class and admirably equipped to be the wife of a successful politician.
‘The first thing that went wrong was that Grace, instead of providing Hugo with a healthy heir, produced a Down’s syndrome child. This didn’t suit Isobel at all. A lolling idiot, as she saw the baby, would as he grew up increasingly become an embarrassment to Hugo in his public career, would be incapable of handling the family home and fortune which he would inherit or of fathering suitable future heirs and, worse, would constantly reflect adversely upon Isobel herself. Self-image was very important to her and the thought of having to parade a mongol grandson didn’t appeal to her one little bit. She was a perfectionist herself and had to have the perfect son, the perfect family, the perfect home. She must almost at once have decided what she was going to do when the opportunity arose, and hid the revulsion she must have felt towards the child. I don’t think she saw him as a human being at all, but simply as an obstacle to be removed. I imagine that as she saw it, this particular brand of lightning rarely strikes twice. Grace would soon get over losing the baby and produce other, healthy children. Unfortunately this never happened. As I said, Grace was passionately devoted to the baby and never really recovered from its death.’
Helen shivered. ‘It’s horrible. How could Isobel Fairleigh do such a thing? A helpless little baby …’
‘She could and she did. Her determination must have been strengthened when, having acquitted himself well on a tough Labour by-election, a few months after the baby was born Hugo was selected as Conservative candidate for Sturrenden on the death of the current MP, Arnold Bates. It was what Isobel had always hoped for. Sturrenden was a safe seat and there was little doubt that Hugo would get in. So she bided her time, watching for her opportunity. It came halfway through the by-election campaign, when the baby was about six months old. He had a cold and both Grace and Hugo were to be away for the night. But she hadn’t taken Grace’s concern for the child sufficiently into account. Grace was very reluctant to leave the baby as it wasn’t well, and at first said she wouldn’t accompany Hugo to the function in London as planned. But Hugo was angry and kicked up a fuss, so eventually Grace did agree to go, but only after making the nanny, Rita Symes, promise to look in on the baby a couple of times during the night. Isobel, of course, didn’t know any of this. The baby had for some time been sleeping right through the night and she knew that Rita wouldn’t normally go into the nursery until around seven, by which time the baby would have been long dead.’
‘I don’t know whether I can bear to listen to this,’ said Joan. ‘Can we skip the details?’
Helen nodded. ‘I agree.’
But those details were engraved on Thanet’s mind.
Rita had dutifully set her alarm for two o’clock, when the baby had been all right. He had been snuffling, but there had been nothing that she could do to make him more comfortable and, leaving his door ajar, she had gone back to bed, setting her alarm for five.
This time she entered the nursery to find Isobel Fairleigh turning away from the cot, holding a small pillow in both hands. One glance told Rita that the child had stopped breathing. She had thrust the older woman aside and administered the kiss of life, but her efforts were in vain. Isobel had stood by, watching, until Rita had finally straightened up.
The nanny had turned on her.
‘You monster! How could you! I’m going to ring the police.’
Isobel had caught her by the arm as she turned towards the door. ‘Wait! I don’t think you’ve thought this through.’
‘What is there to think about?’
She had attempted to shake her arm free, but Isobel’s grip had been like iron, her face implacable.
Thanet became aware that the others were waiting for him to go on. ‘Let’s just say that, having been caught in the act, Isobel set out to convince Rita that it would be in her own best interests to keep quiet. First of all she threatened that if Rita insisted on going to the police she would blame the nanny for the child’s death.’
‘If there’s an investigation, it would be your word against mine, wouldn’t it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I could say that I was worried about my grandson because he had a cold, that I came in to find you holding a pillow over his face …’
‘You wouldn’t! You couldn’t!’
‘Try me! And who do you think they’d believe? Me, a respected pillar of the community, or you, a nobody from nowhere?’
Appalled, Rita had stopped struggling to free herself from Isobel’s grip and stared at the old woman. Isobel meant every word she said, she could see that. What was she to do?
‘And then,’ said Thanet, ‘Isobel threw in an added inducement. Money. Substantial amounts of it.’
She had swooped in for the kill. ‘Besides, this could all turn out to be to your advantage.’
‘Advantage? How?’ Rita had renewed her efforts to tug herself free. ‘You’re out of your mind, d’you know that? Crazy.’
‘Advantage. Yes. Do you really enjoy this work, Rita? Wiping the bottoms of other people’s babies, being at the beck and call of your employers day and night? Just think, you need never work again.’
‘What do you mean?’
Rita had begun to waver and Isobel was swift to recognise the fact. Taking her to another room she had begun to talk, persuasively. The baby had been handicapped, its quality of life would have been poor, Isobel had positively done it a favour by putting it out of its misery. Its death would benef
it everybody. Hugo would not have to endure the humiliation of parading a mongol child in public and Grace was young, she would soon get over this and have other, healthy children. No one would ever suspect what had happened. Cot deaths were common, the child had a cold, everyone knew that Down’s syndrome babies were especially vulnerable to infections. She, Isobel, was quite prepared to carry out her threat of blaming Rita if Rita insisted on dragging the police into it. She would argue that Rita herself had called the police in order to give credence to her story and cast suspicion away from herself. But she really would prefer to avoid any unpleasant and unnecessary fuss, and if Rita agreed she was prepared to make it worth her while. She, Isobel, was wealthy, and could see her way to making Rita a generous allowance, far more than she could ever hope to earn as a nanny.
‘An initial payment of five thousand pounds, to be precise,’ said Thanet, ‘a lot of money in those days, followed by regular monthly payments which would increase along with inflation. The temptation was too much and Rita gave in. Isobel told her what her story should be. Rita would say that her second visit to the child had been at 4.30, not 5, and that the child had still been alive. The next time she checked, at 6.30, he was dead. She had attempted resuscitation through the kiss of life, but without success. She had then rung the doctor and gone to wake up Isobel, tell her what had happened.’
‘But how could she hope to get away with it?’ said Joan. ‘There’s always a post mortem in cases of cot death, isn’t there?’
They all looked at Mallard, who shook his head sadly. ‘I’m afraid that unless there is reason for suspicion, the PM of a cot death is very much a formality. The pathologist would look for bruises, broken bones – reasons to suspect child abuse, in fact – and also do a routine examination of heart, lungs, tissue, brain and so on for obvious medical causes for the death. But if, as in this case, there had been no abuse and the baby had been snuffly or a bit chesty, and especially in the case of a Down’s syndrome child who is very susceptible to infections, well, I don’t think he’d look any further. Sad, but true. I think they’d get away with it all right – well, they did, didn’t they?’
‘They certainly did,’ said Thanet grimly. He had read the reports of the inquest. ‘There’s no doubt about it, if it hadn’t been for Rita’s untimely arrival Isobel would have been home and dry.’
‘It’s appalling,’ said Helen.
‘But surely,’ said Mallard, ‘it’s extraordinary that a woman like Isobel Fairleigh, if she was as ruthless as you say, should have been content to go on paying out large sums of money to someone like that year after year without a murmur?’
‘Yes,’ said Helen. ‘What could the girl have done, if Isobel had simply stopped paying up?’
‘Quite,’ said Joan. ‘She couldn’t have given Isobel away to the police without incriminating herself.’
‘I know. She knew that too, and so did Isobel, I’m sure. But she also knew Isobel,’ said Thanet. Just as I do, he thought. After only a few days he felt he knew the arrogant, self-centred old lady as well, perhaps better, than had her own family. ‘She knew Isobel would never risk it. Isobel was a proud woman, proud of her son, proud of her family name and above all proud of herself. Her self-image really mattered to her, more than almost anything, I would say.’
‘In that case, I’m surprised she didn’t take the other way out,’ said Mallard. ‘Don’t they say that murder is easier the second time around? Frankly, I find it surprising that the nanny is still with us.’
‘Ah, there’s a simple explanation for that. Rita Symes is no fool. She was well aware of the threat to her own safety, so she long ago took the precaution of depositing with her solicitor a letter setting out all the facts, to be opened only in the case of her own death by anything other than natural causes. And of course she made sure that Isobel knew about it.’
‘They really were a delightful pair, weren’t they!’ said Helen, with a grimace of distaste.
‘Anyway, you still haven’t explained how you got on to all this,’ said Mallard.
‘Well, it was chiefly something that Joan said, together with a remark that Lineham made, next day.’
‘You didn’t tell me that,’ said Joan. ‘Something I said? What?’
‘As I recall, I more or less told you to shut up at the time …’
‘Tut tut,’ said Mallard. ‘Disharmony in the Thanet household? I don’t believe it!’
‘It was when we were in bed, after we’d been talking about Michele. Remember?’
Joan was shaking her head, looking blank.
‘You said, as nearly as I can recall, that it was odd how misconceptions and distorted memories can influence personality and behaviour for years, when they have no basis in reality.’
‘Good grief!’ said Mallard. ‘Is that the kind of pillow talk you indulge in? I wonder the marriage has lasted so long! We’re much less intellectual, aren’t we, Helen?’
He and Helen smiled at each other. ‘Oh yes, much!’ she said.
‘All right,’ said Thanet. ‘Forget the double act. Do you want to hear this or not?’
Mallard pulled an exaggeratedly contrite face. ‘Sorry. Of course we do. Would you mind repeating that deep thought of Joan’s again?’
Thanet did so.
‘Yes,’ said Mallard. ‘Now that I’ve had a chance to absorb it, very profound.’ He held up his hand as Thanet opened his mouth to protest again. ‘I’m serious, Luke. It is. But what I still don’t understand is how it advanced your thinking on the case.’
‘Well as I say, it didn’t click at the time, but then next day … You know Richard Lineham has been diagnosed as dyslexic?’
They nodded, their faces solemn now.
‘Lineham’s very upset about it, naturally, and when we were talking about it next morning he said that discovering something like that really shakes you rigid. The extraordinary thing, he said, is that the situation existed all the time, that it hadn’t changed but your perception of it had and that this is what is so shattering.’
‘That’s exactly what happened to Michele – my client,’ Joan explained to the others.
Thanet nodded. ‘Yes. I suppose my subconscious had been chewing away on that all night, so when Lineham said much the same thing, suddenly I knew at once that this had some relevance to the case.’
‘But how?’ said Helen. ‘I just can’t see how. That’s what’s so fascinating.’
Thanet frowned. How to explain? ‘Well, let’s put it on a personal level. You know how, sometimes, when someone makes a remark, or perhaps when you read something in a book, you relate it to yourself and you think, Yes! That applies to me and I never realised it before!’
They were nodding.
‘It’s a moment of revelation, of insight, when you perceive a truth which had been there all the time, waiting to be discovered. The point is, you know in a flash that it’s true. Well, there often comes a point in a case when this happens to me.’
‘The famous policeman’s intuition,’ said Mallard with a grin.
Thanet shrugged. ‘Whatever you like to call it, it happens.’
‘It is fascinating, I agree,’ said Joan. ‘And we’ve often talked about it, haven’t we, Luke? I see it as similar to the process that takes place in the mind of anyone who is seeking to solve a problem, whether it’s a mathematician, or a scientist, or even a creative person such as a writer.’
‘That’s right,’ said Thanet. ‘I think that what happens is that all the time we are operating on two levels. The conscious mind is busy collecting together all the information needed to solve the problem and all along the subconscious is assimilating, sifting, considering, seeking to make sense of it all. And then someone says something, or something happens and suddenly, deep down, the connection is made. It’s a very exciting moment because my conscious mind knows it’s happening. It’s an actual physical sensation, as if something is trying to push itself up through the layers of consciousness. And I know that if only I stay qu
ite still and allow it to happen it will surface. And then, when it does, it really is like a revelation and everything slots into place, click, click, click. And I just know that I’m right, that this is true. Perhaps I’m not explaining this very well.’
But the others were nodding.
‘So go on,’ said Mallard. ‘What you’re saying is that you suddenly realised that what Lineham was saying could apply to one of your suspects.’
Thanet was nodding. ‘I got that sensation I’ve just described in my head. A certain situation had existed all along, some event had occurred which had been radically misunderstood by the murderer, an event which had had a profound effect upon him – or her, of course. Then something had happened which had in a flash changed his perception of it, revealed the truth. And the experience had been so shattering, so mind-blowing, that he had committed murder.
‘Well, there was one suspect who had experienced a traumatic event from which she had never recovered. Grace Fairleigh. Everyone had told me how she had doted on that baby, what a profound effect its death had had upon her. But how could this relate to Isobel? Unless … Unless Isobel had murdered the baby and Grace had somehow found out.’
Thanet paused. His listeners were spellbound.
‘And that was when everything fell into place. If this were true, it would explain everything – why Isobel was being blackmailed, and by whom, and how Grace had discovered the truth. I knew, you see, that Isobel couldn’t have paid the latest blackmail instalment because she always drew the money out on the first of the month and she had her stroke on 30 June. So by the time the murder was committed ten days later the blackmailer was no doubt becoming impatient. I strongly suspected that two strange phone calls asking for Isobel which Letty Ransome had answered were from the blackmailer.’ Thanet glanced at Mallard. ‘If you remember, I mentioned them to you the other day, when we were discussing the case with Mike Lineham. So I now surmised that having failed to get through to Isobel by telephone, the blackmailer had decided instead to write. If I was right, of course, the blackmailer could only be one person, the baby’s nanny, Rita Symes. I also knew that it was Grace who usually took Isobel’s letters up and read them to her, and that she had done so that day. It all fitted, you see.’
Wake the Dead Page 22
