by P. D. James
'And while it stood there in front of the house, was it continually under your eye?'
'Of course not. I was busy checking that the Copleys had everything that they needed, going over the things I needed to do while they were away, parish business, a few telephone calls.'
'Where was this happening?'
'In Mr Copley's study. Mrs Copley was in her bedroom.'
'And the car was unattended in the drive?'
'Are you suggesting that someone sabotaged it?'
'Well, that would be a little fanciful, wouldn't it? What gave you that idea?'
'You did, Chief Inspector. It wouldn't otherwise have occurred to me. And I agree, it's fanciful.'
'And when, at 9.45, Mr Jago rang from the Local Hero to tell you that the Whistler's body had been found, what did you do then?'
'There was nothing I could do. There was no way of ' stopping the Copleys; they were over an hour into their journey. I rang their daughter at her London club and managed to catch her before she set out for Liverpool Street. She said that she'd made all her arrangements so that they might as well stay for a week since they were on their way. Actually, they're coming home tomorrow afternoon. Mrs Duncan-Smith has been called to help nurse a sick friend.'
Rickards said: 'One of my officers has seen Mr Sparks. He was anxious to reassure you that the Copleys were safely on their way. He rang you as soon as convenient for him but could get no reply. That was at about 9.15, about the same time as Mr Jago first tried to get through to you.'
'I must have been in the garden. It was a beautiful moonlit night and I was restless. I needed to get out of the house.'
'Even with the Whistler, as you thought, still at large?'
'Strangely enough, Chief Inspector, I've never been very frightened of the Whistler. The threat always seemed remote, a little unreal.'
'You went no further than the garden?'
She looked at him straight in the eyes. 'I went no further than the garden.'
'Yet you didn't hear the telephone?'
'It is a large garden.'
'But it was a quiet night, Mrs Dennison.'
She didn't reply.
He asked: 'And when did you come in from wandering alone in the dark?'
'I wouldn't describe a stroll around the garden as wandering alone after dark. I suppose I was out for about half an hour. I had been back about five minutes when Mr Jago rang.'
'And when did you hear about the Robarts murder, Mrs Dennison? Obviously it wasn't news to you when we met at Martyr's Cottage.'
'I thought you already knew that, Chief Inspector. Miss Mair telephoned me shortly after seven on Monday morning. She herself knew when her brother returned late on Sunday night after seeing the body but she didn't want to disturb me at midnight, particularly with such distressing news.'
Oliphant asked: 'And was it distressing news, madam? You hardly knew Miss Robarts. Why should it be so distressing?'
Mrs Dennison gave him a long look, then turned away. She said: 'If you really have to ask that question, Sergeant, are you sure you're in the right job?'
Rickards rose to go. She came with him to the front door. As they were leaving she turned to him and said with sudden urgency: 'Chief Inspector, I'm not stupid. All these questions about the shoes. Obviously you've found a print at the scene and you think it could have been made by the murderer. But surely Bumbles aren't uncommon. Anyone could have been wearing them. The fact that Toby Gledhill's pair are missing could be simply coincidence. They weren't necessarily taken with evil purpose. Anyone needing a pair of trainers could have stolen them.'
Oliphant looked at her. 'Oh, I don't think so, madam, do you? As you said yourself only half an hour ago, this is Larksoken, not London.' And he smiled his thick-lipped, self-satisfied smile.
Rickards wanted to see Lessingham at once but the press conference called for ten meant that the interview had to be postponed and, to complicate matters further, a telephone call to Larksoken Power Station revealed that Lessingham had taken a day's leave but had left a message saying he could be reached at his cottage outside Blakeney. Luckily he was at home and, without explanation, Oliphant made an appointment for midday.
They were less than five minutes late and it was the more frustrating, therefore, to find when they arrived at the low-built wood and brick cottage set back on the coastal road a mile to the north of the village that he wasn't at home. A note in pencil was tacked to the front door.
'Anyone wanting me, try the Heron, berthed at Blakeney quay. That includes the police.'
'Bloody cheek!' complained Oliphant. As if unwilling to believe that any suspect could be as wilfully uncooperative, he tried the door, peered in at the window, then disappeared round the back. Returning he said: 'Ramshackle. Could do with a lick of paint. Funny place to choose to live. These marshes are pretty dreary in winter. You'd think he'd want a bit of life around him.'
Rickards privately agreed that it was an odd place for Lessingham to choose. His cottage looked as if it had once been a pair, now converted into a single dwelling, and, although agreeably proportioned with a certain melancholy charm, it looked at first sight unoccupied and neglected. Lessingham was a senior engineer after all, or technician, he couldn't for the moment remember which. Anyway, he hardly lived here because he was poor.
He said: 'He probably wants to be close to his boat.
There's not much choice of harbour on this coast. It was either there or Wells-next-the-Sea.'
As they got back into the car, Oliphant gazed back at the cottage resentfully as if it were concealing behind the peeling paint some secret which a few vigorous kicks on the door might persuade it to divulge. Fastening his seat belt, he grumbled: 'And when we get to the quay I suppose there'll be a notice telling us to try the pub.'
But Lessingham was where he said he'd be. Ten minutes later they came up to him, sitting on an upturned crate on the deserted quay, an outboard motor in front of him. Berthed beside him was a thirty-foot sailing boat with a central cabin. It was obvious that he hadn't yet started to work. A relatively clean rag drooped from fingers which seemed too listless to hold it and he was regarding the engine as if it posed an intractable problem. He looked up as they stood over him and Rickards was shocked at the change in him. In only two days he seemed to have aged ten years. He was barefoot and wore a faded dark blue guernsey over knee-length denim shorts fashionably tattered at the edges. But this informal garb seemed only to emphasize his urban pallor, the skin taut over the wide cheekbones, the smudges like bruises under the deep-set eyes. He was a part-time sailor after all, thought Rickards. Extraordinary that even this bad summer hadn't produced more than a biscuit-coloured tan.
Lessingham didn't get up, but said without preamble: 'You were lucky to catch me when you rang. A day's leave is too good to waste indoors, particularly now. I thought we could talk here as well as anywhere.'
Rickards said: 'Not altogether. Somewhere more private would be better.'
'This is private enough. The locals can recognize the police when they see them. Of course if you want me to make a formal statement or were thinking of arresting me, I'd prefer the police station. I like to keep my house and my boat uncontaminated.' He added: 'I mean uncontaminated by disagreeable sensations.'
Oliphant said stolidly: 'Why do you suppose we would want to arrest you? Arrest you for what exactly?' He added: 'sir', and made the word sound like a threat.
Rickards felt a spurt of irritation. It was like the man not to miss an easy opening but this childish preliminary sparring would hardly smooth the interrogation. Lessingham looked at Oliphant, seriously considering whether the question needed a reply.
'God knows. I suppose you could think of something if you put your minds to it.' Then, seeming to realize for the first time that they were having to stand, he got up. 'All right, better come on board.'
Rickards wasn't a sailor, but it seemed to him that the boat, all wood, was old. The cabin, which they had to crouch low to ent
er, had a narrow mahogany table down the whole length and a bench on either side. Lessingham seated himself opposite them and they regarded each other across two feet of polished wood, their faces so close that Rickards felt he could smell his companions, a masculine amalgam of sweat, warm wool, beer and Oliphant's aftershave, as if all three were claustrophobically caged animals. It could hardly have been a more unsuitable place in which to conduct an interview, and he wondered whether Adam Dalgliesh would have engineered things better and despised himself for the thought. He was aware of Oliphant's great bulk beside him, their thighs touching, Oliphant's unnaturally warm, and had to resist an impulse to edge further away.
He said: 'Is this your boat, sir? The one you were sailing last Sunday night?'
'Not sailing, Chief Inspector, for much of the time; there wasn't enough wind. But yes, this is my boat and this is the one I was on last Sunday.'
'You seem to have damaged the hull. There's a long fresh-looking scratch on the starboard side.'
'Clever of you to notice. I scraped the water tower offshore from the power station. Careless of me. I've sailed these waters often enough. If you'd come a couple of hours later it would have been repainted.'
'And do you still say that you were never at any time within sight of the beach where Miss Robarts took her last swim?'
'You asked me that question when you saw me on Monday. It depends what you mean by "in sight of". I could have seen the beach through my binoculars if I'd happened to look, but I can confirm that I never got to within half a mile of it and that I didn't land. Since I could hardly murder her without landing, that seems to me conclusive. But I don't suppose you've come all this way just to hear me repeat my alibi.'
Reaching down with difficulty, Oliphant dragged his grip on to the seat beside him, took out a pair of Bumble trainers and placed them on the table neatly, side by side. Rickards watched Lessingham's face. He controlled himself immediately but he hadn't been able to disguise the shock of recognition in the eyes, the tensing of the muscles around the mouth. The pair of trainers, pristine, new, grey and white, with the small bumblebee on each heel, seemed to dominate the cabin. Having placed them there, Oliphant ignored them.
He said: 'But you were south of the water towers at the power station. The scratch is on the starboard side. You must have been travelling north, sir, when you got that scrape.'
‘I turned for home when I was about fifty yards beyond the towers. I'd planned to make the power station the limit of the journey.'
Rickards said: 'These trainers, sir, have you seen a pair like these?'
'Of course. They're Bumbles. Not everyone can afford them but most people have seen them.'
'Have you seen them worn by anyone who worked at Larksoken?'
'Yes, Toby Gledhill had a pair. After he killed himself his parents asked me if I'd clear out his clothes. There weren't very many. Toby travelled light, but I suppose there were a couple of suits, the usual trousers and jackets and half a dozen pairs of shoes. The trainers were among them. Actually, they were almost new. He bought them about ten days before he died. He only wore them once.'
'And what did you do with them, sir?'
'I bundled up all the clothes and took them to the Old Rectory for the next church jumble sale. The Copleys have a small room at the back of the house where people can leave their junk. From time to time Dr Mair puts a notice on the notice board asking people to donate anything they don't want. It's part of the policy of being part of the community, all one happy family on the headland. We may not always go to church but we show goodwill by bestowing on the righteous our cast-off clothes.'
'When did you take Mr Gledhill's clothes to the Old Rectory?'
'I can't remember exactly, but I think it was a fortnight after he died. Just before the weekend I think. Probably on Friday the twenty-sixth of August. Mrs Dennison may remember. I doubt whether it's worth asking Mrs Copley, although I did see her.'
'So you handed them over to Mrs Dennison?'
'That's right. Actually, the back door of the rectory is usually kept open during daylight hours and people can walk in and drop anything they want to leave. But I thought on this occasion that it would be better to hand the things over formally. I wasn't entirely sure they'd be welcome. Some people are superstitious about buying the clothes of the recently dead. And it seemed, well, inappropriate just to drop them.'
'What happened at the Old Rectory?'
'Nothing very much. Mrs Dennison opened the door and showed me into the drawing room. Mrs Copley was there and I explained why I had called. She produced the usual meaningless platitudes about Toby's death and Mrs Dennison asked me if I would like tea. I declined and followed her through the hall to the room at the back where they store the jumble. There's a large tea chest there which holds the shoes. The pairs are just tied by the laces and thrown in. I had Toby's clothes in a suitcase and Mrs Dennison and I unpacked it together. She said that the suits were really too good for the jumble sale and asked if I'd mind if she sold them separately, provided, of course, the money went to church funds. She thought she might get a better price. I had a feeling that she was wondering whether Mr Copley might not use one of the jackets. I said she could do what she liked with them.'
'And what happened to the trainers? Were they put into the tea chest with the rest of the shoes?'
'Yes, but in a plastic bag. Mrs Dennison said they were in too good a condition to be thrown in with the others and get dirty. She went off and returned with the bag. She seemed to be uncertain what to do with the suits so I said I'd leave the suitcase. It was Toby's after all. It could be sold at the jumble sale with the rest of the things. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, jumble to jumble. I was glad to see the end of it.'
Rickards said: 'I read about Dr Gledhill's suicide, of course. It must have been particularly distressing for you who actually saw it happen. He was described as a young man of brilliant promise.'
'He was a creative scientist. Mair will confirm that if you're interested one way or the other. Of course, all good science is creative whatever the humanities try to tell you, but there are scientists who have this special vision, genius as opposed to talent, inspiration as well as the necessary patient conscientiousness. Someone, I forget who, described it rather well. Most of us edge forward, painfully advancing, yard by yard; they parachute behind enemy lines. He was young, only twenty-four. He could have become anything.'
Rickards thought, anything or nothing, like most of these young geniuses. Early death usually conferred a brief vicarious immortality. He'd never known a young DC I, accidentally killed, who wasn't at once proclaimed a potential Chief Constable. He asked: 'What exactly was he doing at the power station, what was his job?'
'Working with Mair on his PWR safety studies. Briefly, it's to do with the behaviour of the core in abnormal conditions. Toby never discussed it with me, probably because he knew I couldn't understand the complicated computer codes. I'm just a poor bloody engineer. Mair is due to publish the study before he leaves for his rumoured new job, no doubt under both their names and with a suitable acknowledgement to his collaborator. All that will last of Toby is his name under Mair's on a scientific paper.'
He sounded utterly weary and, looking towards the open door, made a half movement as if to get up, out of the claustrophobic little cabin and into the air. Then he said, his eyes still on the door: 'It's no use trying to explain Toby to you, you wouldn't understand. It would be a waste of your time and mine.'
'You seem very sure of that, Mr Lessingham.'
'I am sure, very sure. I can't explain why without being offensive. So why don't we keep it simple, stick to the facts. Look, he was an exceptional person. He was clever, he was kind, he was beautiful. If you find one of these qualities in a human being, you're lucky, if you find all three then you get someone rather special. I was in love with him. He knew because I told him. He wasn't in love with me and he wasn't gay. Not that it's any business of yours. I'm telling you because it was
a fact and you're supposed to deal in facts, and because if you're determined to be interested in Toby you may as well get him right. And there's another reason. You're obviously grubbing about for all the dirt you can find. I'd rather you had facts from me than rumours from other people.'
Rickards said: 'So you didn't have a sexual relationship.'
Suddenly the air was rent with a wild screeching and there was a beating of white wings against the porthole. Outside someone must be feeding the seagulls.
Lessingham started up as if the sound was alien to him. Then he collapsed back in his seat and said with more weariness than anger: 'What the hell has that to do with Hilary Robarts's murder?'
'Possibly nothing at all, in which case the information will be kept private. But at this stage it's for me to decide what may or may not be relevant.'
'We spent one night together two weeks before he died. As I said, he was kind. It was the first and the last time.'
