A Certain Justice

by P. D. James

  Keeping his voice controlled, he said: “Excuse me, sir, but I think we’ve found the weapon.”

  6

  The four members of Chambers waited together in the library, for the most part without speaking. Langton had taken the chair at the head of the table, more from habit than from any wish to preside. He caught himself glancing at each of his colleagues’ faces with a momentary intensity which he was half afraid they would detect and resent. He saw them as if for the first time, not as three familiar faces, but as strangers involved in a common catastrophe, stranded in some airport lounge, wondering how each would react, curious about the circumstances that had so fortuitously thrown them together. He found himself thinking: I’m Head of Chambers and these are my friends, my brothers in the law, and I don’t even know them. I have never known them. He was reminded of a day when he was fourteen—it had been his birthday—and he had for the first time looked in the bathroom glass and subjected every detail of his face to a long unsmiling scrutiny and had thought: This is me, this is what I look like. And then he had remembered that the image was reversed and that never in all his life would he see the face that others saw, and that perhaps it was more than his features that were unknowable. But what could one tell from a face? “There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face. He was a gentleman on whom I built an absolute trust.” Macbeth. The unlucky play, or so actors claimed. The play of blood. How old had he been when they had studied it at school? Fifteen? Sixteen? How odd that he could remember that quotation when so much else had been forgotten.

  He glanced across the table at Simon Costello. He was sitting at the far end and continually pressing back his chair as if to rock himself into equanimity. Langton looked at the familiar pale square face, the eyes which now seemed too small under the heavy brows, the red-gold hair which could flame in high sunlight, the powerful shoulders. He looked more like a professional rugger player than a lawyer, though not when he wore his wig. Then the face became an impressive mask of judicial gravitas. But, thought Langton, wigs metamorphose us all; perhaps that’s why we’re so unwilling to get rid of them.

  He looked across at Ulrick, at the slight, delicate face, the undisciplined brown hair falling across the high forehead, the eyes keen and speculative behind the steel-rimmed spectacles, yet sometimes holding a look of gentle melancholy, even of endurance. Ulrick, who could look like a poet, but could rasp out his words with the occasional venom of a disappointed schoolmaster. He was still sitting in one of the armchairs beside the fireplace, with the same book spread open on his closed knees. It didn’t look like a legal tome. Langton found himself unreasonably curious to know what Ulrick was reading.

  Drysdale Laud was looking out of the window with nothing of him visible but a perfectly tailored back. Now he turned. He didn’t speak but gave a short interrogative twitch of his eyebrow and an almost imperceptible shrug. His face was perhaps paler than usual, but otherwise he looked as he always did, elegant, confident, relaxed. He was, thought Langton, easily the best-looking man in Chambers, perhaps one of the handsomest at the Bar, where confident good looks were not unusual before they hardened into the peevish arrogance of old age. The strong mouth was sculptured under the long straight nose, the hair a dark disciplined thatch flecked with grey above deep-set eyes. Langton found himself wondering what his relationship with Venetia had really been. Lovers? It seemed unlikely. And wasn’t there a rumour that Venetia was sexually occupied elsewhere? A lawyer? A writer? A politician? Someone well known. He must have heard something more definite than this vague recollection of old gossip, perhaps even a name. If so, like so much else, it had escaped him. What else, he wondered, had been going on that he hadn’t been aware of?

  Lowering his eyes to look away from his colleagues and down at his own clasped hands, he thought, “And what about me? How do they see me? How much do they know or guess?” But at least so far in this emergency he had acted as Head of Chambers. The words had come when he had needed them. The event, so dramatic in its horror, had imposed its own response. Drysdale, of course, had almost taken over, but not quite, not altogether. He, Langton, had still been Head of Chambers; it was to him that Dalgliesh had turned.

  Costello was the most restless. Now he got up from his chair, almost overturning it, and started again a deliberate pacing along the length of the table.

  He said: “I don’t see why we have to stay cooped up here as if we were suspects. I mean, it’s obvious someone from outside got in and killed her. It doesn’t mean it was the same person who decorated her with that bloody wig—bloody in more than one sense.”

  Looking up, Ulrick said: “It was an extraordinarily insensitive thing for anyone to do. It isn’t particularly pleasant having blood taken. I very much dislike the needle. And there’s always a risk, however small, of infection. Of course, I provide my own needles. Blood donors make out that the procedure is painless, and no doubt it is, but I have never found it agreeable. Now I shall have to cancel the operation and start all over again.”

  Laud said, half amused, half protesting: “For God’s sake, Desmond, what does it matter? All you’ve lost, however inconvenient, is a pint of blood. Venetia’s dead and we’ve got a murder in Chambers. I agree it would have been more convenient had she died elsewhere.”

  Costello stopped his pacing.

  “Perhaps she did. Are the police sure that she was killed where she was found?”

  Laud said: “We don’t know what Dalgliesh is sure about. He’s hardly likely to confide in us. Until he knows the time of death and the hours for which we are expected to provide alibis, I suppose we have to be considered suspects. But surely she was killed where she was found? I can’t see a murderer carrying a dead body through the Middle Temple just to leave it in Chambers for the purpose of incriminating us. Anyway, how would he get in?”

  Costello began again his vigorous pacing. “Well, that’s not going to be difficult, is it? We’re hardly security-conscious here, are we? I mean, you can’t exactly describe this place as being secure. I frequently find the front door ajar or even standing open when I arrive. I’ve complained about it more than once but nothing gets done. Even the people with security buttons on their inner doors don’t bother to use them half the time. Venetia and you, Hubert, have refused to have them fitted. Anyone could have got in last night—walked into the building and up to Venetia’s room. Well, someone obviously did.”

  Laud said: “It’s a comforting thought, but I don’t somehow think Dalgliesh is going to believe that this murdering intruder knew where to find the full-bottomed wig or the blood.”

  Costello said: “Valerie Caldwell did. I’ve been wondering a bit about her. She was terribly upset when Venetia wouldn’t take her brother’s case.” Looking round at their faces, suddenly stern, and Laud’s disgusted, he said feebly: “Well, it was only a thought.”

  Laud said: “Best kept to yourself. If Valerie wants to mention it to the police then it’s up to her. I certainly shan’t. The suggestion that Valerie Caldwell could have had anything to do with Venetia’s death is ludicrous. Anyway, with luck she’ll have an alibi. We all will.”

  Desmond Ulrick said with a note of satisfaction: “I certainly haven’t, that is not unless she was killed after seven-fifteen. I left Chambers just after seven-fifteen, went home to wash, leave my briefcase and feed the cat, then returned to have dinner at Rules in Maiden Lane. Yesterday was my birthday. I’ve had dinner at Rules on my birthday since I was a boy.”

  Costello asked: “Alone?”

  “Of course. Dinner alone is the proper end to my birthday.”

  Costello sounded like a cross-examiner.

  “Why bother to go home? I mean, why not go to the restaurant straight from here? A lot of trouble, wasn’t it, just to feed the cat?”

  “And to leave my briefcase. I never check it in when I have important papers and I greatly dislike leaving it under my chair.”

  Costello persisted: “Did you book?”

&nbs
p; “No, I didn’t book. I’m known at Rules. They usually manage to find me a table. They did last night. I was there by eight-fifteen, as the police will no doubt check. May I suggest, Simon, that you leave the police work to them?”

  He returned to his book.

  Costello said shortly: “I left Chambers just after you, Hubert, at six o’clock, went home and stayed at home. Lois can confirm it. What about you, Drysdale?”

  Laud said easily: “This is all a bit pointless, isn’t it, until we know the time of death? I too went home, and then to the theatre to see When We Are Married at the Savoy.”

  Costello said: “I thought that was at Chichester.”

  “It’s been transferred to the West End for an eight-week run until November.”

  “You went on your own? Don’t you usually go to the theatre with Venetia?”

  “Not this time. As you say, I went on my own.”

  “Well, it was conveniently close anyway.”

  Laud kept his voice calm: “Conveniently close for what, Simon? Are you suggesting that I could have dashed out in the interval, killed Venetia and got back in time for the second act? I suppose that’s something the police will check. I can just imagine one of Dalgliesh’s minions leaping out of his seat, tearing down the Strand, timing it all to the minute. Frankly I don’t think it could be done.”

  It was then that they heard the sound of wheels in the court. Laud moved to the window. He said: “What a sinister-looking van. They’ve come to take her away. Venetia leaves Chambers for the last time.”

  The front door was opened, they could hear masculine voices in the hall, the measured tread of feet on the stairs.

  Langton said: “It seems wrong to let her go like this.”

  He pictured what was happening in the room above them, the corpse being zipped into the body bag, lifted onto a stretcher. Would they leave the bloody wig on her head or transport it separately? And didn’t they tape the head and the hands? He remembered seeing that done last time he watched a crime series on television. He said again: “It seems wrong to let her go like this. I feel there’s something we ought to do.”

  He moved to join Laud at the window and heard Ulrick’s voice.

  “Do what precisely? Do you want to find Harry and Valerie and then line us all up in a guard of honour? Perhaps we should be wearing robes and wigs to make the gesture more appropriate.”

  No one replied, but all except Ulrick stood at the window and watched. The burden was carried out and loaded into the van, swiftly and efficiently. The doors were quietly closed. They stood watching until the sound of the wheels had died away.

  Langton broke the silence. He said to Drysdale Laud: “How well do you know Adam Dalgliesh?”

  “Not well. I doubt whether anyone does.”

  “I thought you’d met.”

  “Once, at a dinner party given by the last Commissioner. Dalgliesh is the Yard’s maverick. Every organization needs one, if only to reassure the critics that it is capable of inspiration. The Met doesn’t want to be seen as a bastion of masculine insensitivity. A touch of controlled eccentricity has its uses, provided it’s allied with intelligence. Dalgliesh certainly has his uses. He’s adviser to the Commissioner to begin with. That could mean anything or nothing. In his case it probably means more influence than either would be willing to admit. Then he heads a small squad dignified with some innocuous name set up to investigate crimes of particular sensitivity. Apparently ours qualifies for that privilege. It’s a device for keeping his hand in, presumably. He’s a useful committee man too. At present he’s just finished serving on that advisory group the Met set up to discuss how to assimilate the spies of MI-5 into conventional policing. There’s a nice little pot of trouble brewing up there.”

  Unexpectedly, Ulrick looked up and asked: “Do you like him?”

  “I don’t know him well enough to feel any emotion as positive as like or dislike. I’ve a certain prejudice, irrational as prejudice usually is. He reminds me of a sergeant I knew when I was doing my spell in the Territorials. He was perfectly qualified to take a commission but preferred to remain in the ranks.”

  “Inverted snobbery?”

  “More a kind of inverted conceit. He claimed that remaining a sergeant gave him a better chance of studying the men as well as greater independence. He was actually implying that he despised the officers too much to wish to join them. Dalgliesh could have been Commissioner or at least a Chief Constable, so why isn’t he?”

  Ulrick said: “There is his poetry.”

  “True, and that could be more successful if he put himself about, did a bit of publicity.”

  Costello said: “Will he realize that the work here has to go on, that’s what I’m asking. After all, it’s the beginning of the Michaelmas term. We’ve got to get access to our rooms. We can’t see clients when there are heavy-footed detective constables stamping up and down the stairs.”

  “Oh, he’ll be considerate. If he has to clamp the handcuffs on any of us he’ll do it with a certain style.”

  “And if the killer has Venetia’s keys, Harry had better arrange to have all the locks changed, and the sooner, the better.”

  They were too preoccupied to listen for noises outside the heavy door. Now it burst open and Valerie Caldwell almost tumbled in, white-faced.

  She gasped: “They’ve found the weapon. At least they think it’s the weapon. They’ve found Miss Aldridge’s paper-knife.”

  Langton said: “Where, Valerie?”

  She burst into tears and dashed towards him. He could hardly hear what she was saying. “In my filing drawer. It was in my bottom filing drawer.”

  Hubert Langton gazed helplessly at Laud. There was a second’s hesitation in which he almost feared that Drysdale wouldn’t respond, that he’d say, “You’re Head of Chambers. You cope.” But Laud went across to the girl and put an arm round her shoulders.

  He said firmly: “Now, this is nonsense, Valerie. Stop crying and listen. No one is going to believe that you had anything to do with Miss Aldridge’s death simply because the dagger has been found in your filing cabinet. Anyone could have put it there. It was the natural place for the murderer to drop it on his way out. The police aren’t fools. So pull yourself together and be a sensible girl.” He urged her gently towards the door. “What we all need now—and that includes you—is coffee. Proper coffee, fresh hot coffee and plenty of it. So be a good girl and see to it. We’re not out of coffee, are we?”

  “No, Mr Laud. I brought in a fresh packet yesterday.”

  “The police will probably be glad of some too. Bring ours in as soon as it’s ready. And there must be some typing you have on hand. Keep busy and stop worrying. No one suspects you of anything.”

  Under the calming influence of his voice the girl made gallant attempts to control herself, even to manage a smile of thanks.

  After the door closed behind her, Costello said: “She’s feeling guilty, I suppose, because of that business with her brother. It was stupid to feel resentment over that. What the hell did she expect? That Venetia would present herself in a North London magistrate’s court, complete with junior, to defend a boy accused of trading a few ounces of cannabis? Valerie shouldn’t have asked.”

  Laud said: “I gather that Venetia made that only too obvious. She could have been more gentle about it. The girl was genuinely distressed. Apparently she’s deeply devoted to the brother. And if Venetia couldn’t or wouldn’t help, someone here could have done something. I can’t help feeling we let the girl down.”

  Costello rounded on him. “Do what, for Christ’s sake? The boy had a perfectly competent solicitor. If he’d felt the need for a barrister and got in touch with Harry, one of us would have taken the case. Me, for example, if I’d been free.”

  “You surprise me, Simon. I didn’t realize you were so happy to appear in the lower courts. A pity you didn’t suggest it at the time.”

  Costello bristled but, before he could retort, Desmond Ulrick spoke. They
turned to him as if surprised to find him still among them. Without looking up from his book, he said: “Now that the police have the weapon, do you suppose they’ll let us back into our rooms? It really is most inconvenient being excluded. I’m not sure that the police have power to do it. You’re a criminal lawyer, Simon. If I demand to have access to my room, legally has Dalgliesh the power to keep me out?”

  Langton said: “I don’t think anyone has suggested that, Desmond. This isn’t a question of police powers. We’re just trying to be reasonably co-operative.”

  Costello broke in: “Desmond’s right. They’ve found the dagger. If they think that’s the weapon, then there’s no reason why we should stay cooped up here. Where is Dalgliesh, anyway? Can’t you demand to see him, Hubert?”

  Langton was saved from the need to reply. The door opened and Dalgliesh came in. He was carrying an object in a thin plastic bag. After taking it over to the table, he took it from the bag with his gloved fingers, then slowly drew the dagger from its scabbard while they watched as if this simple action had the intense fascination of a conjuring trick.

  He said: “Could you confirm, Mr. Laud, that this is the steel paper-knife which you gave to Miss Aldridge?”

  Laud said: “Of course. There would hardly be two. That’s the paper-knife I gave Venetia. You’ll find my initials on the blade, below the maker’s name.”

  Langton gazed down at it, recognized it, knew it for what it was. He had seen it often enough on Venetia’s desk, had even on some now forgotten occasion watched her using it to slit open a heavy envelope. Yet it seemed to him that he was seeing it for the first time. It was an impressive object. The scabbard was of black leather bound with brass, the handle and guard were brass, the whole made to a design that was both elegant and unfussy. The long steel blade was obviously very sharp. This was no toy. It had been made by a swordsmith and by any definition it was a weapon.

  He said with a kind of wonder: “Can this really be what killed her? But it’s so clean. It doesn’t look any different.”