Devices & Desires - Dalgleish 08

by P. D. James

  He almost slid down the two ladders linking the mill floors and, dashing into the sitting room, paused only to telephone for the fire brigade and ambulance, grateful that he hadn't yet garaged the car. Seconds later he was hurtling at top speed across the rough grass of the headland. The Jaguar rocked to a stop and he rushed to the front door. It was locked. For a second he considered battering it open with the Jaguar. But the frame was solid sixteenth-century oak and valuable seconds could be lost in futile manoeuvring and accelerating. Racing to the side he sprang at the wall, grasped the top, swung his body over and dropped on to the rear patio. It took only a second to check that the back door, too, was bolted top and bottom. He had no doubt who was inside; he would have to get her out through the window. He tore off his jacket and wrapped it round his right arm while, at the same time, turning on full the outside tap and drenching his head and upper body. The icy water dripped from him as he flexed his elbow and crashed it against the glass. But the pane was thick, designed to keep out the winter gales. He had to stand on the sill, supporting himself by the window frame, and kick violently and repeatedly before the glass crashed inwards and the flames leapt at him.

  Inside the window was a double sink. He rolled over it and, gasping in the smoke, dropped to his knees and began to crawl towards her. She was lying between the stove and the table, the long body rigid as an effigy. Her hair and clothes were alight and she lay there staring upwards, bathed in tongues of fire. But her face was as yet untouched and the open eyes seemed to gaze at him with such an intensity of half-crazed endurance that there flashed into his mind unbidden the image of Agnes Poley so that the blazing tables and chairs were the crackling faggots of her agonizing martyrdom, and he smelled above the acrid smoke the dreadful stink of burning flesh.

  He tugged at Alice Mair's body but it was awkwardly wedged and the edge of the burning table had fallen across her legs. Somehow he had to buy a few seconds of time.

  He staggered coughing through the smoke to the sink, turned both taps full on and, seizing a pan, he filled it and threw water over the flames again and again. A small area of fire hissed and began to die. Kicking away the burning debris, he managed to lift her over his shoulder then stumbled to the door. But the bolts, almost too hot to touch, were jammed fast. He would have to get her out through the broken window. Gasping with the effort, he pushed the dead weight forward over the sink. But the rigid body caught on the taps and it took an eternity of agonizing time before he was able to free her, shove her forward to the window and at last see her tip forward out of sight. He gasped in the fresh air and, grasping the edge of the sink, tried to raise himself. But suddenly his legs had no strength. He felt them buckle and had to rest his arms on the sink edge to prevent himself from falling back into the strengthening fire. Until this minute he had been unaware of pain, but now it clawed and bit at his legs and back as if he were being savaged by a pack of dogs. He couldn't stretch his head to reach the running taps but he cupped his hands and threw the water against his face as if this cool benison could assuage the agony in his legs. And suddenly he was visited with an almost overwhelming temptation to let go, to fall back into the fire rather than make the impossible effort to escape. It was only a second's folly but it spurred him to a last desperate attempt. He seized the taps, one with each hand, and slowly and painfully lifted himself across the sink. And now his knees had a purchase on the hard edge and he could thrust himself forward to the windows. Smoke billowed around him and the great tongues of flame roared at his back. His ears hurt with the roaring. It filled the headland and he no longer knew whether he was hearing fire, wind or the sea. Then he made the last effort and felt himself falling on to the softness of her body. He rolled away from her. She was no longer burning. Her clothes had been burnt away and now clung like blackened rags to what was left of the flesh.

  He managed to get to his feet and half crawled, half stumbled towards the outside tap. He reached it just before he lost consciousness and the last thing he heard was the hiss as the stream of water quenched his burning clothes.

  A minute later he opened his eyes. The stones were hard against his burnt back and when he tried to move the spasm of agony made him cry aloud. He had never known such pain. But a face, pale as the moon, was bending over him and he recognized Meg Dennison. He thought of that blackened thing by the window and managed to say: 'Don't look. Don't look.'

  But she answered gently: 'She's dead. And it's all right, I had to look.'

  And then he ceased to know her. His mind, disorientated, was in another place, another time. And suddenly, among the crowd of gaping spectators, the soldiers with their pikes guarding the scaffold, there was Rickards saying: 'But she isn't a thing, Mr Dalgliesh. She's a woman.' He closed his eyes. Meg's arms enclosed him. He turned his face and pressed it into her jacket, biting the wool so that he would not disgrace himself by groaning aloud. And then he felt her cool hands on his face.

  She said: 'The ambulance is coming. I can hear it. Lie still, my dear. It's going to be all right.'

  The last sound he heard was the clanging of the fire engine's bell as he let himself slide again into unconsciousness.

  EPILOGUE

  Wednesday 18 January

  It was mid-January before Adam Dalgliesh came again to Larksoken Mill, a sunny day of such warmth that the headland lay bathed in the bright translucence of a premature spring. Meg had arranged to meet him at the mill in the afternoon to say goodbye and, passing through the rear garden gate to walk across the headland, she saw that the first snowdrops were already in bloom and squatted to gaze with pure pleasure at their delicate green and white heads trembling in the breeze. The turf of the headland was springy to her feet and, in the far distance, a flock of seagulls wheeled and swooped like a shower of white petals.

  The Jaguar stood outside the mill and through the open door a swathe of sunlight lay over the denuded room. Dalgliesh was on his knees packing the last of his aunt's books into tea chests. The pictures, already wrapped, were propped against the wall. Meg knelt beside him and began to help by passing him the corded volumes. She said: 'How are your legs and back?'

  'A little stiff and the scars still itch occasionally. But they seem fine.'

  'No more pain?'

  'No more pain.'

  They worked for a few minutes in companionable silence. Then Meg said: 'I know you don't want to be told this, but we're all grateful for what you are doing for the Blaneys. The rent you're charging for the mill is derisory and Ryan knows it.'

  Dalgliesh said: 'I'm doing him no favours. I wanted a local family to live here and he was the obvious choice. It isn't everyone's house, after all. If he's worried about the size of the rent he can regard himself as a caretaker. You could argue that I should be paying him.'

  'Not many men looking for a caretaker would choose an eccentric artist with four children. But this place will be just right for them; two bathrooms, a proper kitchen and the tower for Ryan to paint in. Theresa is transformed. She's been so much stronger since her operation and now she looks radiant with happiness. She called in at the Old Rectory yesterday to tell us all about it and how she's been measuring up the rooms and planning where they'll put the furniture. It's much more suitable for them than Scudder's Cottage even if Alex hadn't wanted to sell and get rid of it for good. I can't blame him. Did you know that he's selling Martyr's Cottage, too? Now that he's so busy with the new job I think he wants to cut himself off from the headland and its memories. I suppose that's natural. And I don't think you know about Jonathan Reeves. He's engaged to a young girl from the power station, Shirley Coles. And Mrs Jago has had a letter from Neil Pascoe. After a couple of false starts he's got a temporary job as a social worker in Camden. She says he seems happy enough. And there's good news about Timmy, at least I suppose it's good news. The police have traced Amy's mother. She and her common-law husband don't want Timmy so he's being placed for adoption. He'll go to a couple who'll give him love and security.'

  And
then she stopped, afraid that she was prattling on, that he might not be interested in all this local gossip. But there was one question that had been in her mind for the last three months which she needed to ask, and which only he could answer. She watched for a moment in silence as the long sensitive hands fitted the corded books expertly into the case, then said: 'Does Alex accept that his sister killed Hilary? I've never liked to ask Inspector Rickards and he wouldn't tell me if I did. And I can't possibly ask Alex. We've never discussed Alice or the murder since her death. At the funeral we hardly spoke.'

  But she knew that Rickards would have confided in Adam Dalgliesh. He said: 'I don't think Alex Mair is a man to deceive himself about uncomfortable facts. He must know the truth. But that doesn't mean that he'll admit it to the police. Officially he accepts their view that the murderess is dead but that it's now impossible to prove whether that murderess was Amy Camm, Caroline Amphlett or Alice Mair. The difficulty is that there still isn't a single piece of concrete evidence to connect Miss Mair with Hilary Robarts's death and certainly not enough circumstantial evidence posthumously to brand her as the killer. If she had lived and withdrawn her confession to you I doubt whether Rickards would have been justified even in making an arrest. The open verdict at the inquest means that even the suicide theory is unproved. The fire investigator's report confirms that the fire was caused by the overturn of a pan of boiling fat, probably while she was cooking, perhaps trying out a new recipe.'

  Meg said bitterly: 'And it all rests on my story, doesn't it? The not-very-likely tale told by a woman who has made trouble before and who has a history of mental breakdown. That came out clearly when I was being questioned. Inspector Rickards seemed obsessed with the relationship, whether I had a grudge against Alice, whether we had quarrelled. By the time he had finished I didn't know whether he saw me as a malicious liar or her accomplice.'

  Even three and a half months after the death it was difficult to think of those long interrogations without the familiar destructive mixture of pain, fear and anger. She had been made to tell her story over and over again under those sharp and sceptical eyes. And she could understand why he had been so reluctant to believe her. She had never found it easy to lie convincingly and he had known that she was lying. But why? he had asked. What reason did Alice Mair give for the murder? What was her motive? Her brother couldn't be forced to marry Hilary Robarts. And it's not as if he hadn't been married before. His ex-wife is alive and well, so what made this marriage so impossible for her? And she hadn't told him, except to reiterate obstinately that Alice had wanted to prevent it. She had promised not to tell, and she never would, not even to Adam Dalgliesh, who was the only man who might possibly have been able to make her. She guessed that he knew that too, but that he would never ask. Once when she was visiting him in hospital she had suddenly said: 'You know, don't you?'

  And he had replied: 'No, I don't know, but I can guess. Blackmail isn't an uncommon motive for murder.'

  But he had asked no questions, and for that she was grateful. She knew now that Alice had told her the truth only because she had planned that Meg wouldn't be alive the next day to reveal it. She had meant them to die together. But in the end she had drawn back. The whisky, almost certainly drugged with her sleeping tablets, had been gently but firmly taken from her hand. In the end Alice had kept faith with their friendship and she would keep faith with her friend. Alice had said that she owed her brother a death. Meg had pondered on those words but could still find no real meaning in them. But if Alice had owed Alex a death she, for her part, owed Alice her loyalty and her silence. She said: 'I'm hoping to buy Martyr's Cottage when the repairs are finished. I have some capital from the sale of the London house and the promise of a small mortgage which is all I'll need. I thought I could let it in summer to help with the expenses. And then, when the Copleys no longer need me, I could move in and live there. I'd like the thought that it would be waiting for me.'

  If he was surprised that she should want to return to a place with such traumatic memories, he didn't say so. As if she had a need to explain Meg went on: 'Terrible things have happened in the past to people living on this headland, not only to Agnes Poley, to Hilary, to Alice, to Amy and Caroline. But I still feel at home here. I still feel that this is my place. I still feel that I want to be part of it. And if there are ghosts at Martyr's Cottage, they will be friendly spirits.'

  He said: 'It's a stony soil in which to put down roots.'

  'Perhaps that's the kind of soil my roots need.'

  An hour later she had said her last goodbye. The truth lay between them, unspoken, and now he was leaving and she might never see him again. She realized with a smile of happy surprise that she was a little in love with him. But it didn't matter. It was as devoid of pain as it was of hope. When she reached a low ridge on the headland she turned and looked north at the power station, the generator and symbol of the potent and mysterious power which she could never separate from the image of that curiously beautiful mushroom cloud, symbol too of the intellectual and spiritual arrogance which had led Alice to murder, and it seemed to her for a second that she heard the echo of the last warning siren screaming its terrible message over the headland. And evil didn't end with the death of one evildoer. Somewhere at this moment a new Whistler could be planning his dreadful revenge against a world in which he had never been at home. But that was in the unforeseeable future and the fear had no reality. Reality was here, in a single moment of sunlit time, in the shivering grasses of the headland, the sparkling sea layered in blue and purple to the horizon and winged with a single sail, the broken arches of the abbey in which the flints struck gold from the mellowing sun, the great sails of the mill, motionless and silent, the taste of the sea-salted air. Here the past and the present fused and her own life, with its trivial devices and desires, seemed only an insignificant moment in the long history of the headland. And then she smiled at these portentous imaginings and, turning to wave a final goodbye to the tall figure still standing at the mill door, she strode out resolutely for home. The Copleys would be waiting for their afternoon tea.