A Taste for Death

by P. D. James

  Dalgliesh asked:

  “How long did Sir Paul stay?”

  “Oh, for hours, until nearly midnight. But I don’t think that he was being polite. I think he was happy here. We sat and talked, and I made scrambled eggs when we got hungry. There was enough milk for that but not, of course, for the cauliflower cheese. At one point he said: ‘No one in the world knows where I am at this moment, not a single soul. No one can get at me.’ He said it as if I had given him something precious. He sat in that chair, the one you’re in now, and he looked so comfortable in Father’s old dressing gown and so at home. You’re very like him, Commander. I don’t mean your features. He was fair and you’re so dark. But you are like him: the way you sit, your hands, the way you walk, even your voice a little.”

  Dalgliesh put down his cup and got up. Kate looked at him, surprised, then rose too and picked up her shoulder bag. Dalgliesh heard himself thanking Miss Gentle for the coffee, emphasizing the need for silence, explaining that they would like a written statement and that a police car would call and take her to New Scotland Yard, if that was convenient. They had reached the door when Kate asked, on impulse:

  “And when he left you that night, that was the last time you saw him?”

  “Oh, no. I saw him on the afternoon of his death. I thought you knew.”

  Dalgliesh said gently:

  “But Miss Gentle, how could we have known?”

  “I thought he would have told someone where he was going. Is it important?”

  “Very important, Miss Gentle. We’ve been trying to trace his movements that afternoon. Tell us what happened.”

  “There isn’t much to tell. He arrived, quite unexpectedly, just before three o’clock. I remember that I was listening to ‘Woman’s Hour’ on Radio Four. He was on foot and he was carrying a bag. He must have walked the four miles from the station, but he seemed surprised when I pointed out how far it was. He said he had felt like a walk along the river. I asked him if he’d had any lunch and he said he had some cheese in his bag and that would do. He must have been famished. Luckily I’d made myself a beef stew for lunch and there was some over, so I made him come in and he ate that and then we had coffee together. He didn’t talk very much. I don’t think he’d come to talk. Then he left his bag with me and set off for his walk. He came back about four thirty and I made tea. His shoes were very dirty—the river meadows have been so waterlogged this summer—so I gave him my shoe-cleaning box and he sat outside on the steps and cleaned them. Then he took up his bag, said good-bye and was on his way. It was as simple as that.”

  As simple as that, thought Dalgliesh. The lost hours accounted for, the wedge of mud on his shoe explained. He had gone, not to his mistress, but to a woman whom he had seen only once before in his life, who asked no questions, made no demands, who had given him those remembered moments of peace. He had wanted to spend those few hours where no one in the world knew where to find him. And he must have gone straight from Paddington to St. Matthew’s Church. They would have to check the times of the trains, how long the whole journey was likely to have taken. But whether or not Lady Ursula was lying, it seemed highly unlikely that Berowne could have called in at his house, collected his diary, and still arrived at the church at six.

  Looking back at the closing door, Kate said:

  “I know an old lady who, in her place, would say: ‘No one wants my books, I’m poor, I’m lame, and I live in a damp cottage with only a dog for company.’ She says: ‘I’ve got my health, my pension, my home, Makepeace for company, and I go on writing.’”

  Dalgliesh wondered who it was she had in mind. There was a bitterness in her voice which was new to him. Then he remembered that there was an elderly grandmother somewhere in the picture, and wondered. It was the first time that she had ever hinted at a private life. Before he could answer she went on:

  “So that explains why Higgins said that Swayne’s clothes were dripping wet. It was a night in August, after all. If he’d been swimming naked and then pulled on his clothes after the drowning, why should they be dripping?” She added:

  “It’s a new motive, sir, a double motive. Swayne must have hated him. The thrashing, the humiliation, thrown into the river and dragged out like a dog, and in front of the girl.”

  Dalgliesh said:

  “Oh, yes, Swayne must have hated him.”

  So he had it at last, the motive not only for murder but for this particular murder with its mixture of planning and impulse, its brutality, its overingenuity, the cleverness which hadn’t quite been clever enough. It was there before him in its pettiness, its arrogance, its essential inadequacy, but in all its terrible strength. He recognized the mind behind it. He had met it before, the mind of a killer who isn’t content merely to take a life, who avenges humiliation with humiliation, who cannot bear the searing knowledge that his enemy breathes the same air, who wants his victim not only dead but disgraced, the mind of a man who has felt despised and inferior all his life but who will never feel inferior again. And if his instinct was right and Dominic Swayne was his man, then to get him he would have to break a vulnerable, lonely and obstinate woman. He shivered and turned up the collar of his coat. The sunlight was fading over the meadows, but the wind was freshening and there came from the river a smell, dank and ominous, like the first breath of winter. He heard Kate’s voice:

  “Do you think we’ll be able to break his alibi, sir, by any method we’re allowed to use?”

  Dalgliesh roused himself and strode to the car.

  “We must try, Inspector, we must try.”

  BOOK SIX

  Mortal Consequences

  one

  When Father Barnes had first told Miss Wharton of Susan Kendrick’s suggestion that she might like to spend a day or so with them in the Nottingham vicarage until the fuss had died down, she had accepted with gratitude and relief. It was agreed that she would travel to Nottingham immediately after the inquest and that Father Barnes would himself go by tube with her to King’s Cross to carry her one case and see her off. The whole plan had seemed like an answer to a prayer. The half-lubricious respect with which she was now treated by the McGraths, who seemed to regard her as a prize exhibit, bolstering their esteem in the road, she found more terrifying than their previous antagonism. It would be a relief to get away from their avid eyes and endless questions.

  The inquest had been less of an ordeal than she had feared. Only evidence of identity and of the finding of the bodies had been briefly taken before, at the request of the police, the proceedings were adjourned. The coroner had treated Miss Wharton with grave consideration, and her time in the witness box had been so brief that she was hardly aware of standing there before she was released. Her anxiously searching eyes had failed to see Darren. She had a confused recollection of being introduced to a number of strangers, including a fair-haired young man who said that he was Sir Paul’s brother-in-law. No one else from the family was present, although there were a number of sombre-suited men who Father Barnes told her were lawyers. He himself, resplendent in a new cassock and biretta, had been extraordinarily at ease. He had shepherded her with a proprietorial arm past the photographers, had greeted members of the congregation with an assurance she had never before seen in him and had seemed quite at ease with the police. Miss Wharton, for one appalled moment, found herself thinking that the murders seemed to have done him good.

  She had known after the first day at St. Crispin’s that the visit wasn’t going to be a success. Susan Kendrick was heavily pregnant with her first child, but her energy was undiminished and every minute of her day seemed occupied either with parish or domestic concerns or with her part-time physiotherapy clinic at the local hospital. The rambling inner-city vicarage was never empty and, except for Father Kendrick’s study, never peaceful. Miss Wharton was constantly introduced to people whose names she couldn’t quite catch and whose functions in the parish she never divined. Where the murders were concerned, her hostess was dutifully sympathetic bu
t obviously took the view that it was unreasonable for anyone to be lastingly distressed by dead bodies, however unpleasant their ends, and that dwelling on the experience was at best self-indulgent and at worst morbid. But Miss Wharton had reached the stage when it would have been helpful to talk, and she was missing Darren with a need which was becoming desperate, wondering where he was, what was happening to him, whether he was happy.

  She had expressed her pleasure at the coming baby, but nervousness had made her sound coy and her words had sounded gushingly sentimental even to her own ears. Confronted with Susan’s robust common sense about her pregnancy, she had been made to feel an absurd old maid. She had offered to help in the parish, but her hostess’s inability to find a job suitable to her abilities had drained her confidence further. She had begun to creep about the vicarage like the church mouse they probably thought she resembled. After a couple of days she had nervously suggested that she ought to be thinking of home, and no one had made any attempt to dissuade her.

  But on the morning of departure she had brought herself to confide in Susan her worries about Darren, and here her hostess had been helpful. Local bureaucracy held no terrors for her. She had known whom to ring, how to discover the number and had spoken to the unknown voice at the end of the line in the accents of conspiratorial, mutually acknowledged authority. She had made the call from her husband’s study, with Miss Wharton seated in the chair conveniently placed for those seeking the vicar’s counsel. During the telephone conversation, she had felt like the unworthy recipient of patient professional concern, vaguely conscious that she would have done better had she been an unmarried mother or a delinquent, preferably both, and had been black.

  Afterwards Susan Kendrick had given her the verdict. She couldn’t see Darren at present; his social worker felt that it wasn’t at all desirable. He had been taken before the juvenile court and a supervision order made. They were hoping to arrange a programme of intermediate treatment for him, but until this was satisfactorily under way they didn’t think it wise for him to see Miss Wharton. It might only provoke unfortunate memories. He had been very reluctant to talk about the murders, and his social worker felt that when he was ready to do so it should be with someone suitably qualified in social work skills who could work through the trauma with him. He’ll hate it all, thought Miss Wharton. He never did like interference.

  Lying in bed on her first night at home, wakeful, as she so often was now, she came to a decision. She would go to Scotland Yard and ask the police to help. Surely they would have some authority, or at least some influence, over Darren’s social worker. They had always been kind and helpful to her. They would be able to reassure the local authority that she could be trusted with Darren. The decision brought a measure of peace to her troubled mind and she fell asleep.

  The next morning found her less confident, but with her resolution unshaken. She would set out after ten o’clock; there was no point in getting caught up in the rush hour. She dressed carefully for the excursion; first impressions were always important. Before setting out, she knelt to pray briefly that the visit might be a success, that she would be met with understanding, that Scotland Yard wouldn’t be the terrifying place of her imagination, that Commander Dalgliesh or Inspector Miskin would be willing to talk to the local authority, to explain that she wouldn’t even mention the murders to Darren if his social worker thought it unwise. She walked to Paddington underground station and took the Circle Line. At St. James’s Park Station she came out of the wrong exit, was for a few minutes lost and had to enquire the way to the Yard. And suddenly, across the road, she saw the revolving sign and the great glass oblong building so familiar from television news pictures.

  The entrance hall surprised her. She wasn’t sure what she had imagined: a uniformed officer on duty, perhaps a steel grille, even a succession of manacled prisoners being escorted to the cells. Instead she found herself facing an ordinary reception desk with a couple of young women on duty. The hall was very busy with an air of purposeful but relaxed activity. Men and women showed their passes and passed happily gossiping through to the lifts. Except for the flame of remembrance burning on its plinth, it could, she thought, be almost any office. She asked for Inspector Miskin, having decided that this was a matter on which a woman might be more sympathetic than a man and that she could hardly worry Commander Dalgliesh with something so unimportant, except to her. No, she admitted, she hadn’t an appointment. She was asked to sit down on one of the chairs set against the left-hand wall, and watched while the girl telephoned. Her confidence grew, and the hands clutching her handbag gradually relaxed. She was able to take an interest in the busy comings and goings, to feel that she had a right to be there.

  And suddenly Inspector Miskin was standing beside her. She hadn’t expected her to appear. Somehow she had thought that she would be taken by messenger to the inspector’s office. She thought: She’s saving time. If she thinks it’s important, then she’ll take me up. And Inspector Miskin obviously didn’t think it important. When Miss Wharton had explained her purpose, she sat down beside her and was for a moment silent. Miss Wharton thought: She’s disappointed. She hoped I was bringing her some news about the murders, that I’d remembered something new and important. Then the inspector said:

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t see how we can help. The juvenile court has made a supervision order to the local authority. It’s their concern now.”

  “I know, that’s what Mrs. Kendrick told me. But I thought you might be able to use your influence. After all, the police …”

  “We have no influence, not in this.”

  The words sounded dreadfully final. Miss Wharton found herself pleading:

  “I wouldn’t talk to him about the murders, although I sometimes think that boys are tougher than we are in some ways. But I’d be very careful. I’d feel so much better if only I could see him again, even if briefly, just to know that he’s all right.”

  “Why can’t you? Did they say?”

  “They think he ought not to talk about the murders until he can work through the trauma with someone experienced in social work skills.”

  “Yes, that sounds like the jargon.”

  Miss Wharton was surprised by the sudden bitterness in the inspector’s voice. She sensed that she had an ally. She opened her mouth to make an appeal and decided against it. If anything could be done, Inspector Miskin would do it. The inspector seemed to be thinking, then she said:

  “I can’t give you his address: anyway I can’t remember it. I’d have to consult the file. I’m not even sure if they’ve left him at home with his mother, although I suppose they’d have gone for a care order if they’d wanted to remove him. But I can remember the name of his school, Bollington Road Junior. Do you know it?”

  Miss Wharton said eagerly:

  “Oh yes, I know where Bollington Road is. I can get there.”

  “They still come out at about three thirty, don’t they? You could try passing at the right time. If you met him accidentally, I don’t see how they could object to that.”

  “Thank you, thank you.”

  Miss Wharton, her perceptions sharpened by anxiety and now relief, guessed that Inspector Miskin was wondering whether to ask her again about the murders; but she said nothing. As they got up and the inspector walked with her to the door, she looked up at her and said:

  “You’ve been very kind. If I remember anything new about the murders, anything I haven’t told you, I’ll get in touch at once.”

  Sitting in the tube on her way to St. James’s Park Station she had planned that, if all went well, she would treat herself afterwards to coffee in the Army and Navy Stores. But her visit to the Yard seemed to have taken more out of her than she had expected, and even the thought of negotiating the traffic of Victoria Street depressed and discouraged her. Perhaps it would be less exhausting to go without the coffee and make for home. While she was hesitating at the edge of the pavement she felt a shoulder brush against hers. A male
voice, young, pleasant, said:

  “Excuse me, but aren’t you Miss Wharton? I met you at the Berowne inquest. I’m Dominic Swayne, Sir Paul’s brother-in-law.”

  She blinked, confused for a second, and then recognized him. He said:

  “We’re blocking the pavement,” and she felt his hand on her arm, firmly guiding her across the street. Then, without releasing her, he said:

  “You must have been to the Yard. So have I. I feel in need of a drink. Please have one with me. I was thinking of the St. Ermin’s Hotel.”

  Miss Wharton said:

  “You’re very kind, but I’m not sure …”

  “Please. I need someone to talk to. You’d be doing me a kindness.”

  It really was impossible to refuse. His voice, smile, the press of his arm were persuasive. He was steering her gently but firmly forward through the station and into Caxton Street. And suddenly here was the hotel, looking so solidly welcoming, its wide courtyard flanked by heraldic beasts. It would be good to have a quiet sit before she started the journey home. He guided her through the left-hand door and into the foyer.

  It was, she thought, all very grand: the branching staircase leading to a curved balcony, the glittering chandeliers, the mirrored walls and elegantly carved pillars. Yet she felt strangely at home. There was something reassuring about this Edwardian elegance, this atmosphere of assured, respectable comfort. She followed her companion over the blue and fawn carpet to a couple of high-backed chairs before the fireplace. After they had seated themselves he asked:

  “What would you like? There’s coffee, but I think you should have something stronger. Sherry?”