A Taste for Death

by P. D. James

  Lady Ursula said:

  “I didn’t know that you felt like this. I should have known. I blame myself.”

  “Oh no you don’t! Those are just words. You never have blamed yourself. Not ever. Not for anything. Not all your life. Yes, I did sleep with him. And I shall again. You can’t stop me. It’s no affair of yours. You don’t own me body and soul, you only think you do. He loves me and I love him.”

  Lady Ursula said:

  “Don’t be ridiculous. He was using you. He used you to get a free meal, a hot bath, his clothes washed and ironed. And in the end he used you to get an alibi for murder.”

  Barbara Berowne had finished her manicure. Now she surveyed her finished nails with the pleased complacency of a child. Then she looked up.

  “I know that Dicco made love to her, he told me. Of course he didn’t murder Paul, that’s silly. That’s what he was doing when Paul died. He was making love to her on Paul’s bed.”

  Evelyn Matlock swung round on her. She cried:

  “It’s a lie. He couldn’t have told you. He wouldn’t have told you.”

  “Well, he did. He thought it would amuse me. He thought it was funny.”

  She looked at Lady Ursula, a conspiratorial glance of mingled amusement and contempt, as if inviting her to share a private joke. Barbara Berowne’s high, childish voice went on:

  “I asked him how he could bear to touch her, but he said he could make love to any woman if he shut his eyes and imagined it was someone else. He said he kept his mind on the hot bathwater and a free meal. Actually, he didn’t mind the love-making. He said she hasn’t a bad figure and he could quite enjoy it as long as he kept the light off. It was all the sloppy talk, all that messing over him afterwards that he couldn’t bear.”

  Evelyn Matlock had sunk down on one of the chairs against the wall. She put her face in her hands, then looked up into Dalgliesh’s face and said in a voice so low that he had to bend his head to hear:

  “He did go out that night, but he told me he wanted to talk to Sir Paul. He wanted to find out what was going to happen to Lady Berowne. He told me they were dead when he arrived. The door was open and they were dead. They were both dead. He loved me. He trusted me. Oh God, I wish he’d killed me too.”

  Suddenly she began crying, great retching sobs which seemed to tear her chest apart and rose to a whopping crescendo of agony. Sarah Berowne moved swiftly over to her and awkwardly cradled her head. Lady Ursula said:

  “This noise is appalling. Take her to her room.”

  As if the half-heard words were a threat, Evelyn Matlock made some attempt to control herself. Sarah Berowne looked across to Dalgliesh and said:

  “But surely he couldn’t have done it. There wouldn’t have been time to commit the murders, clean up afterwards. Not unless he went by car or by bicycle. He’d never have risked a cab. And if he took the cycle, Halliwell must have seen or heard him.”

  Lady Ursula said: “Halliwell wasn’t there to hear him.”

  She lifted the receiver and dialled a number. They heard her say:

  “Could you please come over, Halliwell.”

  No one spoke. The only sound in the room was Miss Matlock’s muted sobbing. Lady Ursula looked at her with a calmly speculative gaze, without pity, almost, it seemed to Dalgliesh, without interest.

  And then they heard footsteps on the marble floor of the hall and Halliwell’s stocky figure stood in the doorway. He was wearing jeans and a short-sleeved, open-necked shirt, and stood there completely at ease. The dark eyes flicked briefly from the police to the three Berownes, then to the sobbing, huddled figure in Sarah Berowne’s arms. Then he closed the door and looked calmly at Lady Ursula, undeferential, relaxed, wary, shorter than the other two men, but seeming in his calm self-confidence momentarily to dominate the room.

  Lady Ursula said:

  “Halliwell drove me to St. Matthew’s Church on the night my son died. Describe to the Commander what happened, Halliwell.”

  “Everything, my lady?”

  “Of course.”

  He spoke directly to Dalgliesh:

  “Lady Ursula rang me at ten to six and asked me to have the car ready. She said that she would come out to the garage and we were to leave as quietly as possible by the back door. When she was seated in the car she said that I was to drive to St. Matthew’s Church, Paddington. It was necessary for me to consult the road map and I did so.”

  So they had left, thought Dalgliesh, nearly an hour before Dominic Swayne had arrived. The flat over the garage would have been empty. Swayne would have assumed that Halliwell had already left for his next day’s leave. The chauffeur went on:

  “We arrived at the church and Lady Ursula asked me to park outside the south door at the back. Her ladyship rang the bell and Sir Paul answered it. She went inside. About half an hour later she returned and asked me to join them. That must have been about seven o’clock. Sir Paul was there with another man, a tramp. There was a sheet of paper on the table covered with about eight lines of handwriting. Sir Paul said he was about to sign his name and wanted me to witness his signature. Then he signed and I wrote my name underneath. The tramp did the same.”

  Lady Ursula said:

  “It was fortunate that Harry could write. But then he was an old man. He was at a state school when the young were taught these skills.”

  Dalgliesh asked:

  “Was he sober?”

  It was Halliwell who answered.

  “His breath smelt, but he was steady enough on his feet, and he could write his name. He wasn’t so drunk that he didn’t know what he was doing.”

  “Did you read what was written on the paper?”

  “No sir. It wasn’t my business to read it and I didn’t.”

  “How was it written?”

  “Apparently with Sir Paul’s fountain pen. He used the pen to sign his name and then handed it to me and to the tramp. When we had signed, he blotted the paper. Then the tramp went out through the door to the right of the fireplace and Lady Ursula and I left. Sir Paul stayed in the vestry. He didn’t see us to the door. Lady Ursula then said that she would like to be taken for a drive before returning home. We drove to Parliament Hill Fields and then to Hampstead Heath. She sat in the car on the edge of the heath for about twenty minutes. Then I drove her home and we arrived back about half past nine. Lady Ursula asked me to drop her at the front door so that she could enter the house unobserved. She told me to park the car in Campden Hill Square and I did so.”

  So they had been able to leave and return unobserved. And she had asked for her supper to be brought up on a tray, the thermos of soup, the smoked salmon. No one would disturb her until Miss Matlock came to put her to bed.

  He said to Halliwell:

  “After you had signed that paper, did Sir Paul say anything?”

  Halliwell looked at Lady Ursula but, this time, he got no help. Dalgliesh asked again:

  “Did he say anything, to you, to Harry Mack, to his mother?”

  “Harry wasn’t there. Like I said, he signed and stumbled off. Not much of a man, I’d say, for company or conversation. Sir Paul did speak, to her ladyship. Only the three words. He said: ‘Look after him.’”

  Dalgliesh looked across at Lady Ursula. She was sitting very still, her hands in her lap, looking out across the room beyond the green tapestry of the trees to some imagined future, and he thought he saw the trace of a smile on her lips. He turned again to Halliwell:

  “So you now admit that you lied when I asked if a car or the bicycle could have been taken out that night? You lied about being in your flat the whole of that evening?”

  Halliwell said calmly:

  “Yes sir, I lied.”

  Lady Ursula broke in:

  “I asked him to lie. What had happened between me and my son in that vestry wasn’t relevant to his death, whether or not he killed himself. It seemed to me important that you should spend your time and effort finding his killer, not meddling in the private affairs of t
he family. My son was alive when I left him. I asked Halliwell to say nothing about our visit. He is a man accustomed to obeying orders.”

  Halliwell said:

  “Some orders, my lady.”

  He looked across at her and gave her a grim fleeting smile. She answered his glance with a small, self-satisfied nod. It seemed to Dalgliesh that they were for a moment oblivious to anyone else in the room, united in their private conspiratorial world which had its own compulsions. They stood together now as they had from the first. And he had no doubt what it was that bound them. Hugo Berowne had been his commanding officer; she was Sir Hugo’s mother. He would have done a great deal more than lie for her.

  They had almost forgotten Barbara Berowne. But now she sprang up from the table and almost threw herself at Dalgliesh. The pink fingers scrabbled at his jacket. The spurious sophistication dropped away and he was being clutched by a frightened child. She cried:

  “It isn’t true, he didn’t do it! Dicco didn’t leave the house Can’t you see? Mattie is jealous because he never really cared for her. How could he? Look at her. And the family have always hated him, him and me.” She turned to Lady Ursula. “You never wanted him to marry me. You never thought I was good enough for your precious sons, either of them. Well, this house is mine now, and I think it would be better if you left.”

  Lady Ursula said quietly:

  “I’m afraid it isn’t.”

  With difficulty she turned and lifted the strap of her handbag from the back of her chair. They watched as the distorted fingers fumbled at the clip. Then she took out a folded sheet of paper. She said:

  “What my son signed was his will. You are adequately, but not extravagantly, provided for. This house and the rest of his property is left to me in trust for his unborn child. If that child does not survive, then it comes to me.”

  Barbara Berowne had tears brimming her eyes, a frustrated child. She cried:

  “Why did he do it? How did you make him?”

  But it was to Dalgliesh that Lady Ursula turned as if it were he who was owed the answer. She said:

  “I had gone there to remonstrate with him, to make sure that he knew about the child, knew whether it was his, to ask what he intended. It was the presence of the tramp that gave me the idea. You see, I had the necessary two witnesses. I told him: ‘If she’s carrying your child, I want to ensure that he’s born safely. I want to safeguard his future. If you should die tonight, she’ll inherit everything and your child will have Lampart as a stepfather. Is that what you want?’ He didn’t reply. He sat down at the table. I took a sheet of paper from the top drawer of the desk and placed it in front of him. Without speaking, he wrote out the will, just the eight lines. A reasonable annual income for his wife and everything else in trust for the child. He may have wanted to get rid of me; I think he did. He may have been beyond caring; that is possible. He may have taken it for granted that he would be alive to make more formal arrangements next day. Most of us make that assumption. Or he may, somehow, have known that he wouldn’t survive the night. But that, of course, is ridiculous.”

  Dalgliesh said:

  “You lied about speaking to Halliwell later that evening. Once the bodies were discovered you knew that he could be at risk. He would lie at your request. You felt you owed him at least an alibi. And you lied about your son’s diary. You know that it was in this house at six o’clock that evening. You went down to the study and took it from the desk drawer when the general telephoned.”

  She said:

  “At my age the memory is bound to be a little defective.” She added, with what sounded like grim satisfaction: “I don’t think I’ve ever lied to the police before. My class seldom has the need to. But if we do, then I can assure you that we’re quite as ready to and just as good at it, probably better, than other people. But then I don’t think you’ve ever doubted that.”

  Dalgliesh said:

  “You were waiting, of course, to see how much we had discovered, to be sure that your grandchild’s mother wasn’t a murderess or the accomplice of a murderer. You knew that you were concealing vital information, information which could have helped your son’s butcher go free. But that wouldn’t have mattered, would it? Not if the family line continued, not if your daughter-in-law produced an heir.”

  She corrected him gently:

  “A legitimate heir. It may not seem very important to you, Commander, but I am over eighty and we have different priorities. She isn’t an intelligent woman, not even an admirable one, but she’ll be an adequate mother, I’ll see to that. He’ll do all right. He’ll survive. But to grow up knowing that your mother was her lover’s accomplice in the brutal murder of your father, that’s not a heritage any child could cope with. I didn’t intend that my grandson should have to cope with it. Paul asked me to look after his son. That is what I have been doing. There is a peculiar authority about the last wishes of the recently dead. In this case they coincided with my own.”

  “That is all you care about?”

  She said:

  “I am eighty-two, Commander. The men I have loved are all dead. What on earth else is left for me to care about?”

  Dalgliesh said:

  “We shall want new statements, of course, from all of you.”

  “Naturally, you people always want statements. Aren’t you sometimes in danger of believing that everything important in life can be put down in words, signed and admitted in evidence? I suppose that’s the attraction of the job. All the messy, incomprehensible muddle reduced to words on a sheet of paper, exhibits with tags and numbers. But you’re a poet—or were once. You can’t possibly believe that what you deal in is the truth.”

  Dalgliesh said:

  “Dominic Swayne is living here now, isn’t he? Do any of you know where he is?” There was no reply. “Then we shall leave a police officer here until he returns.”

  It was then that the telephone began ringing. Barbara Berowne gave a gasp and glanced from the instrument to Dalgliesh with something very like fear. Lady Ursula and Sarah Berowne ignored it as if neither the room nor anything in it was any longer their concern. Massingham moved over to it and lifted the receiver. He gave his name, listened in silence for a couple of minutes during which no one moved, then spoke so quietly that the words were unintelligible and replaced the receiver. Dalgliesh moved over to him. Massingham said very quietly:

  “Darren has arrived home, sir. He won’t say where he’s been and Robins says it’s obvious he’s hiding something. His mother isn’t back yet and no one knows where she is. They’re trying her usual pubs and clubs. Two officers are staying with Darren until we pick up Swayne, and they’ve rung the social services to try to contact his supervisor. No luck there. It’s after office hours.”

  “And Swayne?”

  “No trace yet. That designer he shared a flat with says that he looked in at Shepherds Bush earlier to collect his gear. Said he was off to Edinburgh.”

  “Edinburgh?”

  “He has friends there, apparently, people he met when he was doing a fringe show at this year’s festival. Robins is in touch with Edinburgh. They may be able to pull him off the train.”

  “If he took it.”

  He walked over to Evelyn Matlock. She lifted to him a face devastated by grief, and he saw in her eyes something so like trust that it turned his heart over. He said:

  “He used your affection for him to make you lie for him; that was a betrayal. But what he felt for you and what you felt for him is your business and his, no one else’s, and no one but you can know the truth about it.”

  She said, looking up at him, willing him to understand:

  “He did need me. He never had anyone else. It was love. It was love.”

  Dalgliesh didn’t reply.

  Then she said in a voice so low that he could hardly catch the words:

  “He did take a box of matches with him when he left. I wouldn’t have known, only the electric kettle in the kitchen was broken. Halliwell was mend
ing it for me. I had to light the gas with a match and I needed a new box. The one by the stove was missing.”

  She began to cry again, but now almost soundlessly, a stream of silent tears washing down her face as if she wept out of a weariness and hopelessness that had gone beyond pain.

  But there were still questions that he needed to ask and to ask now, while she had passed beyond the extremity of misery and loss into an acceptance of defeat. He said:

  “When Mr. Swayne arrived, did he go alone into any part of the house other than your sitting room and the kitchen?”

  “Only to take his toilet bag to the bathroom.”

  So he would have had the chance to enter the study. He asked:

  “And when he came back, was he carrying anything?”

  “Only his evening paper. He had it with him when he arrived.”

  But why not leave it in the back of the house? Why carry a newspaper with him to the bathroom unless he proposed to use it to conceal something, a book, a file, private letters? Suicides commonly destroyed their papers; he would find something in the house to take with him and burn. It had probably been fortuitous that he had opened the drawer and found the diary ready to hand.

  He turned to Sarah Berowne and said:

  “Miss Matlock is obviously distressed. I think she would like a cup of tea. Perhaps one of you could go to the trouble of making it for her.”

  She said:

  “You despise us, don’t you? Every one of us.”

  He said:

  “Miss Berowne, I am in this house as an investigating officer. I have no other right here and no other function.”

  He and Massingham had reached the door before Lady Ursula spoke, her voice high, unwavering.

  “Before you leave, Commander, I think you should know that a gun is missing from the study safe. It belonged to my elder son, a Smith and Wesson .08. My daughter-in-law tells me that Paul got rid of it, but I think it would be safer to assume that she is—” She paused and then added with delicate irony, “That she is mistaken.”