A Taste for Death Page 16

  “I’m just making coffee, or there’s whisky if you’d prefer it.”

  They accepted the coffee, and he went through a door at the back of the room from which presently they heard the noise of running water, the clatter of a kettle lid. The sitting room was long but narrow and ran almost the whole length of the garage, its low windows looking out on the blank rear of the wall. Soane, as a good architect, would have ensured that the privacy of the family was protected; the mews would be unseen from all but the top windows of the house. At the far end of the room a door stood open and Dalgliesh could glimpse the end of a single bed. At the back was a small, delicately wrought Victorian fireplace with a carved wooden surround and an elegant fire-basket reminding him of the grate in St. Matthew’s Church. A modern three-bar electric fire was plugged into a socket at its side.

  A pine table with four chairs occupied the middle of the room and two rather battered armchairs stood each side of the fireplace. Between the windows was a worktop with, above it, a pegboard of tools, smaller and more delicate than those in the garage. They saw that Halliwell’s hobby was wood carving and that he was working on a Noah’s Ark with a set of animals. The ark was beautifully constructed with dovetail joints and an elegant clapboard roof; the completed animals, pairs of lions, tigers and giraffes, were more crudely carved but instantly recognizable and with a certain vigorous life.

  The far wall was fitted with a bookshelf from floor to ceiling. Dalgliesh moved across to it and saw with interest that Halliwell owned what looked like a complete set of the Notable British Trials. And there was one other volume even more interesting: he drew out and leafed through the eighth edition of Keith Simpson’s Textbook on Forensic Medicine. Replacing it and glancing round the room, he was struck with its tidiness, with its self-containment. It was the room of a man who had organized his living space and probably his life to fulfil his needs, who knew his own nature and was at peace with it. Unlike Paul Berowne’s study, this was the room of a man who felt he had a right to be there.

  Halliwell came in carrying a tray with three stoneware mugs, a bottle of milk and one of Bell’s whisky. He motioned towards the whisky and when Dalgliesh and Massingham shook their heads added a generous measure to his own black coffee. They sat round the table.

  Dalgliesh said:

  “I see you’ve got what looks like a complete set of the Notable British Trials. That must be comparatively rare.”

  Halliwell said:

  “It’s an interest of mine. I could have fancied being a criminal lawyer if things had been different.”

  He spoke without resentment. It was a statement of fact; but there was no need to ask which things. The law was still a privileged profession. It was rare for a working-class boy to end up eating his dinners in the Inns of Court.

  He added:

  “It’s the trials I find interesting, not the defendants. Most murderers seem pretty stupid and commonplace when you see them in the dock. Same will be true of this chap, no doubt, when you get your hands on him. But maybe a caged animal is always less interesting than one running wild, especially when you’ve glimpsed his spoor.”

  Massingham said:

  “So you’re assuming it’s murder.”

  “I’m assuming that a commander and a chief inspector of the CID wouldn’t come here after ten at night to discuss why Sir Paul Berowne should want to slit his throat.”

  Massingham leaned across to reach the milk bottle. Stirring his coffee, he asked:

  “When did you hear of Sir Paul’s death?”

  “On the six o’clock news. I rang Lady Ursula and said I’d drive back at once. She said I wasn’t to hurry. There was nothing I could do here and she wouldn’t be wanting the car. She said the police had asked to see me, but that you’d have plenty to occupy yourselves until I got back.”

  Massingham asked:

  “How much has Lady Ursula told you?”

  “As much as she knows, which isn’t a great deal. She said that their throats were cut and that Sir Paul’s razor had been the weapon.”

  Dalgliesh had asked Massingham to do most of the questioning. This apparent reversal of role and status was often disconcerting to a suspect, but not to this one. Halliwell was either too confident or too unworried to be troubled by such niceties. Dalgliesh had the impression that, of the two, it was Massingham who was, unaccountably, the less at ease. Halliwell, who answered his questions with what seemed deliberate slowness, had an odd and disconcerting trick of fixing his dark eyes intently on the questioner, as if it were he who was the interrogator, he who was seeking to fathom an unknown, elusive personality.

  He admitted that he had known that Sir Paul used a cut-throat razor; anyone in the house would know that. He knew that the diary was kept in the top right-hand drawer. It wasn’t private. Sir Paul might ring and ask whoever answered the telephone to check on the time of an engagement. There was a key to the drawer, kept usually in the lock or in the drawer itself. Occasionally Sir Paul had been known to lock the drawer and take the key with him, but that wasn’t usual. These were the sort of details you got to know if you lived or worked in a house. But he couldn’t remember when he had last seen the razors or the diary, and he hadn’t been told that Sir Paul would be visiting the church that previous evening. He couldn’t say whether anyone else in the house had known; no one had mentioned the matter to him.

  Asked for his movements during the day, he said that he had got up at about half past six and had gone for a half-hour jog in Holland Park before boiling an egg for his breakfast. At eight thirty he had gone over to the house to see if there were any odd jobs Miss Matlock had which needed doing. She had given him a table lamp to mend and an electric kettle. He had then driven to collect Mrs. Beamish, Lady Ursula’s chiropodist, who lived in Parsons Green and who no longer ran a car. That was a regular arrangement on the third Tuesday in the month. Mrs. Beamish was over seventy, and Lady Ursula was the only patient she now saw. The session was over by eleven thirty, and he had then driven Mrs. Beamish home and returned to take Lady Ursula to a luncheon engagement with a friend, Mrs. Charles Blaney, at the University Women’s Club. He had parked the car near the club, gone for a solitary pub lunch and returned at two forty-five to drive both ladies to an exhibition of watercolours at Agnew’s. Afterwards he had driven them to the Savoy for afternoon tea, then returned to Campden Hill Square by way of Chelsea, where he had dropped Mrs. Blaney at her Chelsea house. He and Lady Ursula were back at number sixty-two by five thirty-three. He could remember the time exactly because he had looked at the car clock. He was used to organizing his life by time. He had helped Lady Ursula into the house, had then garaged the Rover and had spent the rest of the evening in his flat until leaving for the country just after ten o’clock. Massingham said:

  “I believe Lady Ursula telephoned you twice during the evening. Can you remember when that was?”

  “Yes. Once at about eight, and once again at nine fifteen. She wanted to discuss next week’s arrangements and to remind me that she had said I could take the Rover. I drive one of the early Cortinas, but it’s having its MOT test.”

  Massingham asked:

  “When the cars are garaged, the Rover, your own and the Golf, is the garage kept locked?”

  “It’s kept locked whether or not the cars are garaged. The outer gate is, of course, always secure, so there isn’t much risk of theft, but it’s possible that kids from the comprehensive school could climb over the wall, perhaps as a dare. There are dangerous tools in the larger garage, and Lady Ursula thinks it wiser always to keep it locked. I didn’t bother to lock it tonight because I knew you were coming.”

  “And yesterday evening?”

  “It was locked after five forty.”

  “Who has the keys except yourself?”

  “Sir Paul and Lady Berowne both have a set and there’s a spare bunch on the keyboard in Miss Matlock’s sitting room. Lady Ursula wouldn’t need them. She relies on me to drive her.”

 
“And you were here in this flat all yesterday evening?”

  “From five forty. That’s right.”

  “Is there any chance that someone from the house or from outside could have taken out a car or the bicycle without your knowing?”

  Halliwell paused, then he said:

  “I don’t see how that would be possible.”

  Dalgliesh interposed quietly:

  “I’d like you to be more definite than that, Mr. Halliwell, if you can be. Could they or couldn’t they?”

  Halliwell looked at him.

  “No, sir, they couldn’t. I must have heard the garage being unlocked. I’ve got sharp ears.”

  Dalgliesh went on:

  “So last night from about five forty until you left for the country shortly after ten you were here alone in this flat and the garage door was bolted?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Is it usual for you to keep the doors bolted when you’re in the flat?”

  “If I know I’m not going out, it is. I rely on the garage door for my security. The flat lock is only a Yale. It’s become a habit to bolt the doors.”

  Massingham asked:

  “And where did you go when you left here?”

  “Into the country. To Suffolk, to see a friend. It’s a two-hour drive. I arrived about midnight. It’s the widow of one of my mates killed in the Falklands. There’s a boy. He doesn’t miss his dad, he was killed before he was born, but his mother reckons that it’s good for him to have a man about the place occasionally.”

  Massingham asked:

  “So you went to see the boy?”

  The smouldering eyes were fixed on him. Halliwell answered simply:

  “No. I went to see his mother.” Massingham said:

  “Your private life is your affair, but we need confirmation about when you arrived at your friend’s house. That means we need to know her address.”

  “Maybe, sir, but I don’t see why I need to give it. She’s had enough to put up with in the last three years without the police bothering her. I left here just after ten. If Sir Paul was dead before then, what I did later that night isn’t relevant. Maybe you know when he died, maybe not, but when you get the autopsy report you’ll get a clearer idea. If I need to give you her name and address then, OK, I’ll give it. But I’ll wait until you convince me that it’s necessary.”

  Massingham said:

  “We shan’t bother her. She merely has to answer one simple question.”

  “A question about murder. She’s had enough of death and dying. Look, I left here shortly after ten and I arrived almost exactly at midnight. If you do ask her, she’ll say the same, and if it’s relevant, if I had anything to do with Sir Paul’s death, then I’ll have fixed a time with her anyway, won’t I?”

  Massingham asked:

  “Why did you start out so late? Today was your day off. Why hang about until ten before starting on a two-hour journey?”

  “I prefer driving when the worst of the traffic is over, and I had some jobs I wanted to get finished first, a plug to fix on the table lamp, the electric kettle to mend. They’re on the side if you want to check on the work. Then I bathed, changed, cooked myself a meal.”

  The words, if not the voice, were on the edge of insolence, but Massingham held his temper. Dalgliesh, his own well under control, thought he knew why. Halliwell was a soldier, decorated, a hero. Massingham would have dealt less gently with any man for whom he felt less instinctive respect. If Halliwell had murdered Paul Berowne then the Victoria Cross wouldn’t save him, but Dalgliesh knew that Massingham would prefer almost any other suspect to be guilty. Massingham asked:

  “Are you married?”

  “I had a wife and a daughter. They’re both dead.”

  He turned and looked directly at Dalgliesh. He said:

  “What about you, sir? Are you married?”

  Dalgliesh had reached out behind him and taken up one of the carved lions. Now he turned it gently in his hands. He said:

  “I had a wife and a son. They, too, are dead.”

  Halliwell turned again to Massingham and bent on him his dark, unsmiling eyes.

  “And if that question was none of my business, neither are my wife and daughter any of yours.”

  Massingham said:

  “Nothing is irrelevant when it comes to murder. This lady you visited yesterday night, are you engaged to her?”

  “No. She’s not ready for that. After what happened to her husband, I don’t know that she ever will be. That’s why I don’t want to give you her address. She’s not ready for that kind of question from the police, or for any other question.”

  Massingham rarely made that kind of mistake and he didn’t compound it by explanation or excuse. Dalgliesh didn’t press the matter. The important hour was eight o’clock. If Halliwell had an alibi for the hours until ten, he was in the clear and was entitled to his privacy for the following day. If he was trying with difficulty to build up a relationship with a bereaved and vulnerable woman, it was understandable that he didn’t want the police arriving with unnecessary questions, however tactful. He said:

  “How long have you been working here?”

  “Five years three months, sir. I took the job when Major Hugo was alive. After he was killed, Lady Ursula asked me to stay on. I stayed. The money suits, the place suits, you could say Lady Ursula suits. Apparently I suit her. I like living in London and I haven’t decided yet what to do with my gratuity.”

  “Who pays your wages? Who actually employs you?”

  “Lady Ursula. It’s my job to drive her mostly. Sir Paul used to drive himself or use the ministerial car. Occasionally I’d drive him and her young ladyship if they were out in the evening. There wasn’t much of that. They weren’t a social couple.”

  “What sort of couple were they?” Massingham’s voice was carefully uninterested.

  “They didn’t hold hands in the back of the car, if that’s what you mean.” He paused, then added: “I think that she was a bit afraid of him.”

  “With reason?”

  “Not that I could see, but I wouldn’t describe him as an easy man. Nor a happy one, come to that. If you can’t cope with guilt, best avoid doing things that make you feel guilty.”

  “Guilt?”

  “He killed his first wife, didn’t he? All right, it was an accident; wet road, bad visibility, a notorious bend. That all came out at the inquest. But he was the one driving. I’ve seen it before. They never quite forgive themselves. Something here”—he gave his chest a gentle thump—“keeps asking them whether it really was an accident.”

  “There’s no evidence that it wasn’t, and he was as likely to kill himself as his wife.”

  “Maybe that wouldn’t have worried him that much. Still, he didn’t die, did he? She did. And then, five months later, he married again. He got his brother’s fiancée, his brother’s house, his brother’s money, his brother’s title.”

  “But not his brother’s chauffeur?”

  “No. He didn’t take over me.”

  Dalgliesh asked:

  “Did the title matter to him? I shouldn’t have thought so.”

  “Oh, it mattered all right, sir. It wasn’t much, I suppose, a baronetcy, but it was old—1642. He liked it, all right, the sense of continuity, his little bit of vicarious immortality.”

  Massingham said:

  “Well, we can all hope for that. You don’t sound as if you much liked him.”

  “Liking didn’t come into it between him and me. I drove his mother, she paid me. And if he disliked me he didn’t show it. But I reckon I reminded him of things he’d rather forget.”

  Massingham said:

  “And now it’s all gone, ended with him, even the title.”

  “Maybe. Time will show. I think I’d wait nine months before I was sure of that.”

  It was a hint of a possibility Dalgliesh had already suspected, but he didn’t pursue it. Instead he asked:

  “When Sir Paul gave up his m
inisterial job and then his parliamentary seat, what was the feeling in the house among the staff?”

  “Miss Matlock didn’t discuss it. This isn’t the sort of house where the staff sit in the kitchen drinking tea and gossiping about the family. We leave Upstairs, Downstairs to the telly. Mrs. Minns and I thought we might be in for a scandal.”

  “What sort of a scandal?”

  “Sexual, I suppose. That’s the kind it usually is.”

  “Had you any reason to suspect that?”

  “None, except that bit of dirt in the Paternoster Review. I’ve no evidence. You asked me what I thought, sir. That was what I thought most likely. Turns out I was wrong. It was more complicated apparently. But then he was a complicated man.”

  Massingham went on to ask him about the two dead women.

  Halliwell said:

  “I hardly saw Theresa Nolan. She had a room here, but she either stayed in it most of the time or went out. Kept herself to herself. She was employed as a night nurse and wasn’t supposed to be on duty until seven. Miss Matlock nursed Lady Ursula during the day. Theresa seemed a quiet, rather shy girl. A bit timid for a nurse, I thought. Lady Ursula had no complaints as far as I know. You’d better ask her.”

  “You know that she got pregnant while she was working here?”

  “Maybe, but she didn’t get pregnant in this flat, nor in the house, for all I know. There’s no law which says you can only have sex between seven at night and seven next morning.”

  “And Diana Travers?”

  Halliwell smiled.

  “A different girl altogether. Lively. Very bright, I’d say. I saw more of her, although she only worked the two days, Monday and Friday. Odd sort of job for a girl like that to take, I thought. And a bit of a coincidence, seeing Miss Matlock’s advert just when she was looking for a part-time job. Those cards usually stick in the windows until they get too brown and faded to be read.”

  Massingham said:

  “Apparently Lady Berowne’s brother, Mr. Swayne, was here last evening. Did you see him?”

  “No.”

  “Is he often here?”

  “More often than Sir Paul liked. Or other people, for that matter.”