A Taste for Death

by P. D. James

  “It hardly seemed relevant. We all operate, after all, on the ‘need to know’ principle. And we didn’t infiltrate her into Campden Hill Square. Garrod did. Travers’s little job for us had nothing to do with Berowne’s death.”

  “But Travers’s death might have.”

  “There was nothing suspicious about her death. You must have studied the autopsy report.”

  “Which wasn’t, I noticed, carried out by the usual Home Office pathologist for Thames Valley.”

  “We like to use our own people. He’s perfectly competent, I assure you. She died from natural causes, more or less. It could have happened to anyone. She had eaten too much, drunk too much, and she plunged into cold water, got tangled in the reeds, gasped and drowned. There were no suspicious marks on the body. She had had, as you no doubt remember from the pm report, a sexual connection just before death.” He hesitated a little before the phrase. It was the only time Dalgliesh had seen him even slightly discomposed. It was as if he felt the words “making love” were inappropriate and couldn’t bring himself to use a coarser soubriquet.

  Dalgliesh was silent. Anger had led him into a protest that now seemed to him humiliatingly childish as well as ineffectual. He had achieved nothing except possibly to exacerbate the simmering professional rivalry between C Division, the Special Branch and MI5, whose uneasy relationship could so easily spill over into high politics. Next time Gilmartin might say: “And for God’s sake, put AD in the picture. He’s apt to get his knickers in a twist if he doesn’t get his share of the lollipops.” But what depressed him most and left him with a sour taste of self-disgust was how close he had come to losing his control. He realized how important his reputation for coolness, detachment, uninvolvement, had become to him. Well, he was involved now. Perhaps they were right. You shouldn’t take on a case if you knew the victim. But how could he claim to have known Berowne? What time had they spent together, except for a three-hour train journey, a brief ten-minute spell in his office, an interrupted walk in St. James’s Park? And yet he knew that he had never felt so great an empathy with any other victim. That impulse to connect his fist with Gilmartin’s jaw, to see blood spurting over that immaculate shirtfront, that old school tie; well, fifteen years ago he might have done it and it would have cost him his job. For a moment he almost yearned for the lost uncomplicated spontaneity of youth.

  He said:

  “I’m surprised that you thought Garrod worth the trouble. He was a left-wing activist at university. It hardly needs an undercover agent to discover that Garrod doesn’t vote Tory. He’s never made any secret of his beliefs.”

  “Not of his beliefs, but he has of his activities. His group are rather more than the usual middle-class malcontents looking for an ethically acceptable outlet for aggression and some kind of cause, preferably one that gives them the illusion of commitment. Oh yes, he’s worth it.”

  Gilmartin signalled a glance at Duxbury, who said:

  “It’s only a small group—cell he calls it. At present four are women. Thirteen of them altogether. He never recruits more nor less. A nice touch of counter-superstition, and, of course, it adds to the mystique of conspiracy. The magic number, the closed circle.”

  Dalgliesh thought that the number also had a certain operational logic. Garrod could organize three groups of four or two of six for field work and still free himself as coordinator, director, recognized leader. Duxbury went on:

  “They’re all from the privileged middle class, which makes for cohesion and obviates class tensions. The comrades, after all, aren’t noticeable for brotherly love. This lot speak the same language, including, of course, the usual Marxist jargon, and they’re all intelligent. Silly, maybe, but intelligent. A potentially dangerous bunch. None is a member of the Labour Party, incidentally. Not that the party would have them. Six of them, including Garrod, are paid-up members of the Workers’ Revolutionary Campaign, but they don’t hold office. My guess is that the WRC is little more than a front. Garrod prefers to run his own show. A natural fascination with conspiracy, I suppose.”

  Dalgliesh said:

  “He should have joined Special Branch. And Sarah Berowne is a member?”

  “For the last two years. A member and Garrod’s mistress, which gives her a peculiar prestige in the group. In some ways the comrades are remarkably old-fashioned.”

  “And what did you get from Travers? All right, let me guess. Garrod introduced her into the Campden Hill Square house. That wouldn’t be difficult, given the shortage of reliable domestic help. Sarah Berowne would have tipped them off about the advertisement, if she didn’t actually suggest it. Anyone willing to do housework and turning up with good references—and you’d have seen to that—would be pretty sure of a job. That was his cell’s function presumably, to discredit selected MPs.”

  It was Gilmartin who answered:

  “One of their functions. They mostly went for the moderate socialists. Dig up the muck, an illicit love affair, preferably homosexual, an ill-advised friendship, a half-forgotten sponsored trip to South Africa, a suggestion of sticky fingers in the party funds. Then when the poor devil goes up for re-selection, spread the manure around judiciously and draw delicate attention to the smell. Discrediting members of the present administration is probably more a matter of occasional duty than enjoyment. I imagine Garrod chose Paul Berowne for personal rather than political reasons. Sarah dislikes more than her papa’s party.”

  So it had been Garrod who had sent the poison pen message to Ackroyd and the gossip writers of the nationals. Well, he had always been Dalgliesh’s most likely suspect for that particular mischief. As if hearing his thoughts, Gilmartin said:

  “I doubt whether you’ll be able to prove he sent that message to the press. They do it very cleverly. A member of the group visits one of those shops where they sell new and second-hand typewriters and let you try out the machines. You know the scene, rows of chained typewriters for the customers to bang away on. The chance of a single prospective customer being recognized is almost nil. We can’t keep perpetual watch on all the cell members. They don’t warrant that intensity of effort, and I’m not sure, anyway, what particular section or subsection of the criminal law they’d be infringing. The information they use is accurate. It’s no use to them if it isn’t. How did you get on to Travers, by the way?”

  “Through the woman she lodged with before she moved into her flat. Women have a profound contempt for masculine secret societies and a knack of seeing through them.”

  Gilmartin said:

  “The whole sex is one secret society. We wanted Travers to live alone. We should have insisted. But I’m surprised that she talked.”

  “She didn’t. Her landlady didn’t altogether believe in an unemployed actress who could yet afford to buy a flat. But it was your men turning up to search her room that confirmed her suspicions. Incidentally, what was your real interest in Garrod, apart from getting some additional names in your activist files?”

  Gilmartin pursed his lips.

  “There could have been an IRA connection.”

  “And was there?”

  For a moment Dalgliesh thought that he would refuse to answer. Then he glanced at Duxbury and said:

  “Not as far as we’ve been able to discover. Do you think Garrod is your man?”

  “He could be.”

  “Well, good hunting.” He seemed suddenly ill at ease, as if uncertain how to bring the interview to an end. Then he said:

  “It has been useful talking to you, Adam. We’ve taken notes of the points you’ve raised. And you’ll watch the procedures, won’t you? The IR49. A modest little form, but it has its uses.”

  As the lift bore him down to his own floor, it seemed to Dalgliesh that he had been closeted with Special Branch for days rather than less than an hour. He felt contaminated by a kind of sick hopelesssness. He knew that he would shake off its symptoms soon enough; he always did. But the infection would still be there in his bloodstream, part of that s
ickness of the spirit which he was beginning to think he must learn to endure.

  But the interview, humiliatingly fractious as it had been, had served its purpose, clearing away a tangle of extraneous brushwood from the main path of his enquiry. He knew now the identity and motive of the poison pen writer. He knew what Diana Travers had been doing at Campden Hill Square, who had put her there and why after the drowning her room had been searched. Two young women were dead, one by her own hand, one by accident. There was no mystery about why and how they had died, and little now about how they had lived. Why then was he still obstinately convinced that these two deaths were not only linked but central to the mystery of Paul Berowne’s murder?

  two

  When he got back from that secretive and self-sufficient world on the eighteenth and nineteenth floors, Dalgliesh found that his own corridor was unusually silent. He put his head in his secretary’s office, but Susie’s typewriter was shrouded, her desk cleared, and he remembered that she had a dental appointment that morning. Kate was meeting Carole Washburn in Holland Park. Irked by his own bad temper, he had hardly given a thought to the possibilities of that encounter. Massingham was, he knew, visiting the Wayfarers’ Refuge in Cosway Street to talk to the warden there about Harry Mack before going on to interview two of the girls who had been in the punt on the Thames when Diana Travers had drowned. According to their evidence at the inquest, neither of them had seen the girl dive into the river. They and the rest of the party had left her with Dominic Swayne on the bank when they pushed out the punt and had seen and heard nothing of her until that awful moment when the punt pole had struck her body. Both had admitted at the inquest that they had been half-drunk at the time. Dalgliesh doubted whether they would have anything more useful to say now that they were sober but, if they had, Massingham was the one best suited to get it out of them.

  But Massingham had left a message. As he entered his room, Dalgliesh saw a single sheet of white paper pinned to his blotter with Massingham’s paper knife, a long and remarkably sharp dagger which he claimed to have won at a fairground when a child. The dramatic gesture and the few lines of letters and figures in a stark black upright hand said it all. The forensic science laboratory had telephoned the result of the blood analyses. Without pulling out the dagger, Dalgliesh stood silently and looked down at the evidence which, more than any other, was vital to his theory that Berowne had been murdered.

  Berowne Mack Smears on carpet

  and jacket pocket

  Rhesus Pos Pos Pos

  ABO A A A

  AK 2–1 (7.6%) (enzymes) 1 (92.3%) 2–1

  PGM 1 + (40%)(enzymes) 2 +, 1 – (4.8%) 1 +

  Razor blade:

  AK 2–1

  PGM 2+,1–,1+

  The PGM system was, he knew, a strong one. There would have been no need to set up a control reaction with the dirty carpet. But the lab must have worked over the weekend despite their heavy load and the fact that, as yet, there was no suspect in custody, and he was grateful. There was blood of two different types on the razor, but that was hardly surprising, the analysis a mere formality. But, more important, the smear on the carpet under Harry’s coat wasn’t his blood. Dalgliesh had another interview booked for late in the afternoon which promised, in its different way, to be as irritating as the session with Gilmartin. It was helpful that this important piece of scientific evidence had arrived in time.

  three

  Holland Park was only a few minutes’ walk from Charles Shannon House. Kate had woken early, shortly after six, and by seven had breakfasted and was impatient to get away. After prowling restlessly round an already immaculate flat trying to find jobs to occupy the time, she stuffed a paper bag of crumbs for the birds in her jacket pocket and left three-quarters of an hour early, telling herself that it would be less frustrating to walk in the park than to stay cooped up wondering whether Carole Washburn would actually turn up, whether she might already be regretting her promise.

  Dalgliesh had accepted that the agreement with the girl must be kept; she would meet Carole Washburn alone. He had given her no instructions and offered no advice. Other senior officers would have been tempted to remind her of the importance of the meeting, but this wasn’t his way. She respected him for it, but it increased her burden of responsibility. Everything might depend on how she handled their encounter.

  Just before nine she made her way to the terrace above the formal gardens. When she had last visited the park the beds had been richly patterned with the summer display of geraniums, fuchsias, heliotropes and begonias. But now the time had come for the autumn stripping. Half the beds were already bare—expanses of soft loam littered with broken stems, petals like blobs of blood and a scatter of dying leaves. A council cart, like the dread tumbrel of winter, stood ready for the new Strippings. And now, as the minute finger of her watch clicked to the hour the squeals and shouts from the grounds of Holland Park School were suddenly hushed and the park lay in its early-morning calm. An old woman, bent as a witch, with a team of six small discouraged dogs on a lead shuffled along the side path, then paused to pull and sniff at the last flowers of the lavender. A solitary jogger loped down the steps and disappeared through the arches leading to the orangery.

  And suddenly Carole Washburn was there. Almost precisely on the hour a solitary female figure appeared at the far end of the garden. She was wearing a short grey jacket over a matching skirt, her head covered by a voluminous blue and white scarf which almost obscured her face. But Kate knew immediately and with a lift of the heart who it was. They stood for a moment regarding each other, then advanced between the denuded flower beds in measured, almost ceremonial, paces. Kate was reminded of spy thrillers, the exchange of defectors at some border crossing, a sense of unseen watchers, ears pricked for the crack of a rifle. When they met, the girl nodded but did not speak. Kate said simply:

  “Thank you for coming.”

  Then she turned and together they passed up the steps out of the garden, across the spongy turf of the wide lawn and into the path through the rose garden. Here the freshness of the morning air was tinged with the remembered scent of summer. Roses, thought Kate, were never finished. There was something irritating about a flower which couldn’t recognize that its season was over. Even in December there would be tight and browning buds destined to wither before they opened, a few anaemic heavy heads drooping towards the petal-strewn earth. Pacing slowly between the spiked bushes, aware of Carole’s shoulder almost brushing hers, she thought: I must have patience. I must wait for her to speak first. She has to be the one to choose the time and place.

  They came up to the statue of Lord Holland, seated on his pedestal, gazing benignly towards his house. Still without speaking, they walked on down the mushy path between the woodlands. Then her companion paused. She looked into the wilderness and said:

  “That’s where he found her, over there, under that slanting silver birch, the one by the holly bush. We came here together a week later. I think he needed to show me.”

  Kate waited. It was extraordinary that this wilderness of trees could be close to the centre of a great city. Once over the low palisade, it would be possible to believe oneself deep in the countryside. No wonder that Theresa Nolan, reared among the Surrey woodlands, should have chosen this quiet leafy place in which to die. It must have been like a return to early childhood: the smell of leaf loam, the rough bark of the tree against her back, the scurry of small birds and squirrels in the undergrowth, the softness of the earth making death as natural and friendly as falling asleep. For one extraordinary moment it seemed to her that she entered into that death, was mysteriously one with that lonely dying girl under the far tree. She shivered. The moment of empathy was quickly over, but its power astonished and a little disturbed her. She had seen enough suicides in her first five years of policing to have learnt detachment, and, for her, it had never been a difficult lesson. She had always been able to distance emotion, to think: This is a dead body. Not: This was a living woma
n. Perhaps, she thought, I can afford a little involvement, a little pity. But it was strange that it should begin now. What was it, she wondered, about the Berowne case which seemed to be changing even her perception of her job? She turned her eyes again to the path and heard Carole Washburn’s voice:

  “When Paul learned that she was missing, when the nursing home rang to ask if anyone at Campden Hill Square had seen her or knew where she was, he guessed that she might be here. Before he became a Minister and security became a nuisance, he often walked through the park to work. He could cross Kensington Church Street, get into Hyde Park and then into Green Park at Hyde Park Corner, walking nearly all the way to the House on grass and under trees. So it was natural to come and look—I mean, he didn’t have to go much out of his way. He wasn’t putting himself to any great trouble.”

  The sudden bitterness in her voice was shocking. Still Kate didn’t speak. She dug in her jacket pocket for the small bag of crumbs and held them out on her palm. A sparrow, tame as only London sparrows are, hopped on her fingers with a delicate scrape of claws. His head jerked, and she felt the beak like a pinprick, and then he was gone.

  She said:

  “He must have known Theresa Nolan very well.”

  “Perhaps. She used to talk to him in the night hours when Lady Ursula was asleep; tell him about herself, her family. He was easy for women to talk to, some women.”

  Both of them were for a moment silent. But there was one question which she had to ask. She said:

  “The child Theresa Nolan was carrying, could it have been his?”

  To her relief the question was taken calmly, almost as if it were expected. The girl said:

  “Once I would have said no and been absolutely certain. I’m not certain of anything any more. There were things he didn’t tell me, I always knew that. I know it even better now. But I think he would have told me that. It wasn’t his child. But he did blame himself for what happened to her. He felt responsible.”