by P. D. James
Dalgliesh said, “Millie’s eighteen, isn’t she? She’s not a juvenile, but if you feel she needs protection . . .”
Maycroft said hastily, “It’s not that. It’s just that I feel responsible for taking her on here. It was probably a mistake at the time, but she’s here now and she’s got herself involved in this mess, and of course she’s had the shock of actually seeing Oliver’s body. I can’t help thinking of her as a child.”
Dalgliesh could hardly forbid Maycroft access to his office. He doubted whether Mrs. Burbridge would be welcomed by Millie, but the housekeeper seemed a sensible woman and, he hoped, would know when to keep silent. Dalgliesh summoned Kate and Benton-Smith by radio. With Maycroft and Mrs. Burbridge present, Millie would be faced with five people—more than was desirable, but he had no intention of excluding Kate and Benton. Millie’s evidence promised to be vital.
He said, “Then please phone Mrs. Burbridge and ask her if she would be good enough to find Millie and bring her here.”
Maycroft looked disconcerted at having so easily got his own way. He lifted the receiver and made the call. Then he surveyed the office with a frown and began arranging the upright chairs in a half-circle to join the two button-backed ones in front of the fireplace. The intention was obviously to create an atmosphere of unthreatening informality but, since there was no fire in the grate, the arrangement looked incongruous.
It was ten minutes before Mrs. Burbridge and Millie arrived. Dalgliesh wondered if they had had an altercation on the way. Mrs. Burbridge’s lips were compressed, and there were two red blotches on her cheeks. Millie’s mood was even easier to read. It passed from surprise at the appearance of the office to truculence and finally to a sly wariness with the versatility of an actor auditioning for a soap opera. Dalgliesh gave her one of the easy chairs and placed Kate immediately opposite her on the other, with himself on Kate’s right. Mrs. Burbridge seated herself next to Millie, and Benton and Maycroft took the other two chairs.
Dalgliesh began without preamble. “Millie, Dr. Speidel tells us that yesterday afternoon he gave you an envelope to take to Mr. Oliver. Is that right?”
“He might’ve done.”
Mrs. Burbridge broke in. “Millie, don’t be ridiculous. And don’t waste time. Either he did or he didn’t.”
“Yeah, OK. He gave me a note.” Then she burst out, “Why do I have to have Mr. Maycroft and Mrs. Burbridge here? I’m not a juvenile now!”
So Millie wasn’t unfamiliar with the juvenile criminal-justice system. Dalgliesh wasn’t surprised but had no wish to pursue past and probably minor delinquencies. He said, “Millie, we’re not accusing you of anything. There’s no suggestion that you’ve done anything wrong. But we need to know exactly what happened on the day before Mr. Oliver died. Do you remember what time Dr. Speidel gave you the note?”
“Like you said, in the afternoon.” She paused, then added, “Before tea.”
Mrs. Burbridge said, “I think I can help here. Dr. Speidel phoned to say that he wouldn’t take dinner but would be grateful for some soup to heat up and some whisky. He said he wasn’t feeling well. Millie was helping in the kitchen when I went to speak to Mrs. Plunkett about the soup. She nearly always has soup available. Yesterday it was chicken, home-made of course, and very nourishing. Millie offered to take it to Shearwater Cottage in the buggy. She likes driving the buggy. She left at about three o’clock.”
Dalgliesh turned to Millie. “So you delivered the soup and whisky, and then what happened?”
“Dr. Speidel give me a note, didn’t he? He said would I take it to Mr. Oliver and I said, OK, I would.”
“And what did you do then?”
“Put it in the postbag, didn’t I?”
Mrs. Burbridge explained: “It’s a letter pouch marked Post attached to the buggy’s dashboard. Dan Padgett delivers any post to the cottages and collect letters for Jago to take to the mainland.”
And now it was Kate who took over the questioning. “And after that, Millie? Did you go straight to Peregrine Cottage? And don’t say you may have done. Did you?”
“No, I didn’t. Dr. Speidel never told me it was urgent. He never said to take it to Mr. Oliver straight away. He just told me to deliver it.” She added grumpily, “Anyway, I forgot.”
“How did you forget?”
“I just forgot. Anyway, I had to go back to my room. I wanted to go to the loo and I thought I’d change my top and my jeans. Nothing wrong in that, I suppose?”
“Of course not, Millie. Where was the buggy when you were in your room?”
“I left it outside, didn’t I?”
“Was the note from Dr. Speidel still in the pouch?”
“Must’ve been, mustn’t it? Otherwise I couldn’t have delivered it.”
“And when was that?”
Millie didn’t answer. Kate went on, “What happened after you changed your clothes? Where did you go next?”
“All right, I went down to see Jago. I knew he was taking the boat out this morning to test the engine and I wanted to go with him. So I went down to Harbour Cottage. He gave me a mug of tea and some cake.”
“Still in the buggy?”
“Yeah, that’s right. I went down in the buggy, and I left it outside on the quay when I was talking to Jago in his cottage.”
Mrs. Burbridge said, “Didn’t it occur to you, Millie, that the envelope might have contained something urgent and that Dr. Speidel must have expected you to deliver it on your way back to the house?”
“Well, he never said anything about it being urgent, and it wasn’t urgent, was it? The meeting wasn’t till eight o’clock this morning.” There was a silence. Millie said, “Oh shit!”
Kate said, “So you did read it.”
“I may’ve done. OK, I read it. I mean, it was open. Why did he leave it open if he didn’t want people to read it? You can’t take people to court for reading notes.”
Dalgliesh said, “No, Millie, but Mr. Oliver’s death may end in a trial, and if it does you could be one of the witnesses. You know how important it will be to tell the truth in court. You’ll be on oath. If you lie to us now, you may be in very great difficulties later. So you read the note?”
“Yeah, like I said, I read it.”
“Did you tell Mr. Tamlyn that you’d read it? Did you tell him about the meeting at the lighthouse between Mr. Oliver and Dr. Speidel?”
There was a long pause, then Millie said, “Yeah, I told him.”
“And what did he say?”
“He didn’t say nothing. I mean, he didn’t say nothing about the meeting. He told me I’d better go and take the note to Mr. Oliver straight away.”
“And then?”
“So I got into the buggy, didn’t I, and went up to Peregrine Cottage. I didn’t see no one, so I put the note in the postbox in the porch. If he didn’t get it, I daresay it’s still there. I could hear Miss Oliver talking to someone in the sitting room, but I didn’t want to give it to her. She’s a snooty stuck-up bitch and the note wasn’t for her anyway. Dr. Speidel said to give it to Mr. Oliver and I would’ve done if I’d seen him. So I put it in the box in the porch. And then I got into the buggy and came back to the house to help Mrs. Plunkett with the dinner.”
Dalgliesh said, “Thank you, Millie. You’ve been very helpful. Are you quite sure there’s nothing else we should know? Anything else you did or said, or was said to you?”
Suddenly Millie was shouting. “I wish I’d never taken that f—— . . . that bloody note. I wish I’d torn it up!” She turned on Mrs. Burbridge. “And you aren’t sorry he’s dead. None of you! You all wanted him off the island, anyone could see that. But I liked him. He was all right to me. We used to meet up and go for walks. We was . . .” Her voice dropped to a sullen whisper. “We were friends.”
In the silence that followed, Dalgliesh said gently, “When did the friendship start, Millie?”
“When he was here last time—July, wasn’t it? It was soon after Jago brought me here an
yway. That’s when we met.”
In the pause that followed, Dalgliesh saw Millie’s calculating eyes shifting from face to face. She had thrown her verbal bombshell and was gratified, and perhaps a little scared, at the extent of the fall-out. She could sense their reaction in the momentary silence and in Mrs. Burbridge’s worried frown.
Mrs. Burbridge said with a note of severity, “So that’s what you were doing on those mornings when I wanted you to check the linen. You told me you were out walking. I thought you were at Harbour Cottage with Jago.”
“Yeah, well, sometimes I was, wasn’t I? Other times I was seeing Mr. Oliver. I said I was out walking and I was out walking. I was walking with him. Nothing wrong in that.”
“But, Millie, I told you when you arrived here that you mustn’t bother the guests. They come here to be private, Mr. Oliver particularly.”
“Who said I was bothering him? He didn’t have to meet me. It was his idea. He liked seeing me. He said so.”
Dalgliesh didn’t interrupt Mrs. Burbridge. So far she was doing his job for him rather well. There were again two unbecoming splodges of red on her cheeks, but her voice was resolute. “Millie, did he want—well—want to make love to you?”
The response was dramatic. Millie shouted her outrage. “That’s disgusting! Course he didn’t. He’s old. He’s older than Mr. Maycroft. It’s gross. It wasn’t like that. He never touched me. You saying he was a perv or something? You saying he was a paedo?”
Surprisingly, Benton broke in. His youthful voice held a note of amused common sense. “He couldn’t be a paedophile, Millie, you’re not a child. But some older men do fall in love with young girls. Remember that rich old American in the papers last week? He married four of them, they all divorced him and became very rich and now he’s married to a fifth.”
“Yeah, I read. I think it’s gross. Mr. Oliver wasn’t like that.”
Dalgliesh said, “Millie, we’re sure he wasn’t, but we’re interested in anything you can tell us about him. When people die mysteriously, it’s helpful to know what they were feeling, whether they were worried or upset, whether they were afraid of anyone. It seems you may have known Mr. Oliver better than anyone else on Combe, except his daughter and Mr. Tremlett.”
“So why not ask them about him?”
“We have. Now we’re asking you.”
“Even if it’s private?”
“Even if it’s private. You liked Mr. Oliver. He was your friend. I’m sure you want to help us discover why he died. So go back to your first meeting and tell us how the friendship started.”
Mrs. Burbridge met Dalgliesh’s glance and bit back her comments. All their attention now was on Millie. Dalgliesh could see that she was beginning to enjoy the unaccustomed notoriety. He only hoped she would resist the temptation to make the most of it.
She leaned forward, her eyes bright, and looked from face to face. “I was sunbathing on the top of the cliff further on from the chapel. There’s a hollow in the grass and some bushes, so it’s private. Anyway, no one goes there. If they did, it wouldn’t worry me. Like I say, I was sunbathing. Nothing wrong in that.”
Mrs. Burbridge said, “In your swimsuit?”
“What swimsuit? In nothing. I was lying on a towel. So there I was, lying in the sun. It was my afternoon off, so it must have been a Thursday. I wanted to go to Pentworthy, and Jago wouldn’t take the launch. Anyway, I was just lying there when suddenly I heard this noise. It was a sort of cry—well, more like a groan. I thought it was some kind of animal. I opened my eyes and there he was, standing over me. I shrieked and pulled at the towel and wrapped it round me. He looked terrible. I thought he was going to faint he was so white. I never saw a grown man look that scared. He said he was sorry and asked if I was all right. Well, I was all right. I wasn’t really scared, not like he was. So I said he’d better sit down and he’d feel better, and he did. It was really weird. Then he said he was sorry he’d frightened me and that he thought I was someone else, a girl he’d once known, and she’d been lying on a beach in the sun like me. And I said, ‘Did you fancy her?’ and he said something really weird about it being in a different country and the girl was dead, only he didn’t say girl.”
Dalgliesh realised that Millie was the perfect witness, one of those rare people with almost total recall. He said, “But that was in another country, and besides, the wench is dead.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Funny you know that. Weird, wasn’t it? I thought he’d made it up.”
“No, Millie, the man who made it up has been dead for over four hundred years.”
Millie paused, frowningly contemplating the weirdness of it. Dalgliesh prompted her gently. “Then?”
“I said how did he know she was dead and he said if she wasn’t dead he wouldn’t be dreaming about her. He said the living never came to him in dreams, only the dead. I asked what she was called and he said he didn’t remember and perhaps she never told him. He said the name didn’t matter. He called her Donna, but that was in a book.”
“And after that?”
“Well, we got talking. Mostly about me—how I came to be on the island. He had a notebook and sometimes, when I said things, he’d write them down.” She glared angrily at Mrs. Burbridge. “I’d put my clothes on by then.”
Mrs. Burbridge looked as if she would have liked to say that it was a pity they had ever been taken off, but she stayed silent.
Millie went on. “So after that we got up and I went back to the house. But he said perhaps we could meet and talk again. And we did. He used to ring me early in the morning and say when we’d meet. I liked him. He told me some of the things he’d done when he was travelling. He’d been all over the world. He said he was meeting people and learning how to be a writer. Sometimes he didn’t say much, so we just walked.”
Dalgliesh asked, “When was the last time you saw him, Millie?”
“Thursday. It was Thursday afternoon.”
“And how did he seem then?”
“Like he always was.”
“What did he talk about?”
“He asked me if I was happy. And I said I was all right except when I was unhappy, like when they took Gran away to the home and when Slipper my cat died—she had white paws—and when Jago won’t take me out in the launch and Mrs. Burbridge is going on at me about the linen. Things like that. He said for him it was the other way round. He was unhappy most of the time. He asked about Gran and when she started getting Alzheimer’s, so I told him. He said that everybody who was old dreaded Alzheimer’s. It took away the greatest power human beings have. He said it’s a power as great as any tyrant’s or any god’s. We can be our own executioner.”
The silence was total. Dalgliesh said, “You’ve been very helpful. Is there anything else you can tell us, Millie, about Mr. Oliver?”
“No, there isn’t.” Millie’s voice was suddenly belligerent. “I wouldn’t have told you that if you hadn’t made me. I liked him. He was my friend. I’m the only one who cares that he’s dead. I’m not staying here any longer.”
Her eyes brimmed with tears. She got up and Mrs. Burbridge rose too, looking back at Dalgliesh accusingly as she edged Millie gently from the room.
Maycroft spoke for the first time. He said, “This changes things, surely. It must have been suicide. There has to be a way of explaining those marks on the neck. Either he made them himself or someone else did after death, someone who wanted this to look like murder.”
Dalgliesh said nothing.
“But his unhappiness, the burning of the proofs . . .”
Dalgliesh said, “I shall have confirmation tomorrow, but I don’t think you can take comfort from Millie’s evidence.”
Maycroft began putting back the chairs. He said, “Oliver was using her, of course. He wouldn’t have spent time with Millie for the pleasure of her conversation.”
But that, thought Dalgliesh, was precisely what he had wanted: her conversation. If he were planning to create a fictional Millie for his
next novel, he would know her character better than he knew himself. He would know what she felt and what she thought. What he needed to know was how she would put those thoughts into words.
They were inside the lift before Kate spoke. “So, from the time Millie arrived back at her room until she put the note in the box at Peregrine Cottage, anyone could have had access to it.”
Benton said, “But, ma’am, how would they know it was there? Would anyone open the mail pouch just out of curiosity? They couldn’t hope to find anything valuable.”
Dalgliesh said, “It has to be a possibility. We now know that Jago was certainly aware of the eight o’clock assignation and that Miranda and Tremlett may well have known too, as could anyone who saw the buggy while it was unattended. I can understand why Jago kept quiet—he was shielding Millie. But if the other two found the note and read it, why have they said nothing? It’s possible that Oliver didn’t check the postbox until he was leaving the cottage this morning. He might have set out on an early walk because he wanted to avoid seeing his daughter. After reading Speidel’s note, he saw a reason to change his plans and decided to go to the lighthouse early.”
They waited until they were back in Seal Cottage before phoning Peregrine Cottage. Miranda Oliver answered. She said that she hadn’t heard the buggy arrive yesterday evening, but as it was never driven up to the door because the path was too narrow, she wouldn’t have expected to hear it. Neither she nor Mr. Tremlett had checked the postbox, and neither would have opened any letter addressed to her father.
Kate and Benton went down to interview Jago in the cottage. They found him stripping the dead leaves from the geraniums in the six terra-cotta pots outside Harbour Cottage. The plants had grown high and straggly, the stems woody, but most of the foliage was still green and there were a few small flowers on the etiolated shoots to give the illusion of summer.
Faced with Millie’s admission, he said, “She did tell me about the note, and I said she’d better take it to Peregrine Cottage straight away. I never saw it or read it. I wasn’t that interested.” His tone suggested that he wasn’t interested now.
