P James: Devices & Desires

He placed the proofs on the desk, refused Alice Mair's offer of coffee and followed her back to the front door. She walked out with him to the car and said: 'I was sorry about your aunt – sorry for you, I mean. I expect that for an ornithologist death ceases to be terrible once sight and hearing begin to go. And to die in one's sleep without distress to oneself or inconvenience to others is an enviable end. But you had known her for so long that she must have seemed immortal.'

Formal condolences, he thought, were never easy to speak or accept and usually sounded either banal or insincere. Hers had been perceptive. Jane Dalgliesh had indeed seemed to him immortal. The very old, he thought, make our past. Once they go it seems for a moment that neither it nor we have any real existence. He said: 'I don't think death was ever terrible to her. I'm not sure that I really knew her and I'm left wishing I'd tried harder. But I shall miss her.'

Alice Mair said: 'I didn't know her either. Perhaps I should have tried harder too. She was a very private woman, I suspect one of those fortunate people who find no other company more agreeable than their own. It always seems presumptuous to encroach on that self-sufficiency. Perhaps you share it. But if you can tolerate company, I'm having a few people, mostly colleagues of Alex from the power station, to dinner on Thursday night. Would you care to join us? Seven thirty for eight.'

It sounded, he thought, more like a challenge than an invitation. Somewhat to his surprise, Dalgliesh found himself accepting. But then the whole encounter had been a little surprising. She stood regarding him with a serious intensity as he let in the clutch and turned the car and he had the impression that she was watching critically to see how he handled it. But at least, he thought as he gave a final wave, she hadn't asked him whether he had come to Norfolk to help catch the Whistler.

Three minutes later he raised his foot from the accelerator. Ahead of him, trudging along on the left of the path, was a little group of children, the eldest girl wheeling a pushchair with two smaller children, one each side of her, clutching the bars. Hearing the noise of the car she turned and he saw a peaked, delicate face framed with red-gold hair. He recognized the Blaney children, met once before with their mother walking along the beach. Obviously the eldest girl had been shopping: the folding pushchair had a shelf under the seat lumped high with plastic bags. Instinctively he slowed down. They were unlikely to be in real danger, the Whistler stalked at night, not in broad daylight, and no vehicle had passed him since he left the coastal road. But the child looked grossly overburdened and ought not to be so far from home. Though he had never seen their cottage he seemed to remember that his aunt had told him that it lay about two miles to the south. He recalled what he knew about them, that their father earned a precarious living as a painter whose innocuous, prettified water-colours were sold in cafes and tourist shops along the coast and that their mother had been desperately ill with cancer. He wondered whether Mrs Blaney was still alive. His instinct was to pile the children into the car and drive them home but that, he knew, was hardly sensible. Almost certainly the eldest child – Theresa, wasn't it? – had been taught not to accept lifts from strangers, particularly men, and he was virtually a stranger. On an impulse he reversed the Jaguar and drove quickly back to Martyr's Cottage. This time the front door was open and a swathe of sunlight lay across the red-tiled floor. Alice Mair had heard the car and came out to him from the kitchen, wiping her hands.

He said: 'The Blaney children are walking home. Theresa is wheeling a pushchair and trying to cope with the twins. I thought I could offer a lift if I had a woman with me, someone they know.'

She said briefly: 'They know me.'

Without another word she went back into the kitchen then came out to him, closed the front door after her without locking it and got into the car. Putting it into gear, his arm brushed her knee. He was aware of an almost imperceptible withdrawing, more emotional than physical, a small delicate gesture of self-containment. Dalgliesh doubted whether that half-imagined recoil had anything to do with him personally, nor did he find her silence disconcerting. Their conversation, when they did speak, was brief. He asked: 'Is Mrs Blaney still alive?'

'No. She died six weeks ago.'

'How are they managing?'

'Not particularly well, I imagine. But Ryan Blaney doesn't welcome interference. I sympathize. Once he lets down his defences half the social workers in Norfolk, amateur and professional, will move in on him.'

When they drew up beside the little band it was Alice Mair who opened the car door and spoke.

'Theresa, here is Mr Dalgliesh to give you all a lift. He's Miss Dalgliesh's nephew from Larksoken Mill. One of the twins had better sit on my lap. The rest of you and the pushchair can fit into the back.'

Theresa looked at Dalgliesh without smiling and said a grave thank you. She reminded him of pictures of the young Elizabeth Tudor, the same red-gold hair framing a curiously adult face both secretive and self-composed, the same sharp nose and wary eyes. The faces of the twins, softer editions of her own, turned towards her questioningly then broke into shy smiles. They looked as if they had been dressed in a hurry and not very suitably for a long walk on the headland, even in a warm autumn. One wore a tattered summer dress in pink spotted cotton with double flounces, the other a pinafore over a checked blouse. Their pathetically thin legs were unprotected. Theresa was wearing jeans and a grubby sweat shirt with a map of London's Underground across the front. Dalgliesh found himself wondering if it had been brought back from a school trip to the capital. It was too large for her and the wide sleeves of limp cotton hung from her freckled arms like rags thrown over a stick. In contrast to his sisters, Anthony was over-clad, a bundle of leggings, jumper and a padded jacket topped with a woollen helmet with a bobble pulled well down over his forehead, beneath which he surveyed their busyness, unsmiling, like a stout imperious Caesar.

Dalgliesh got out of the Jaguar and tried to extricate him from the pushchair, but the anatomy of the chair momentarily defeated him. There was a bar beneath which the child's rigid legs were obstinately stuck. The solid uncooperative bundle was surprisingly heavy; it was like trying to manoeuvre a firm and rather smelly poultice. Theresa gave him a brief, pitying smile, dragged the plastic bags from beneath the seat then expertly freed her brother and settled him on her left hip while, with the other hand, she collapsed the pushchair, with a single vigorous shake. Dalgliesh took the baby from her while Theresa helped the children into the Jaguar and commanded with sudden fierceness, 'Sit still.' Anthony, recognizing incompetence, grasped Dalgliesh's hair firmly with a sticky hand and he felt the momentary touch of a cheek, so soft that it was like the fall of a petal. Throughout these manoeuvrings Alice Mair sat quietly watching from the car but made no move to help. It was impossible to know what she was thinking.

But once the Jaguar had moved away she turned to Theresa and said in a voice of surprising gentleness: 'Does your father know that you're out alone?'

'Daddy has taken the van to Mr Sparks. It's due for its MOT test. Mr Sparks doesn't think it's going to pass. And I found we'd run out of milk for Anthony. We have to have milk. And we wanted some more disposable nappies.'

Alice Mair said: 'I'm giving a dinner party on Thursday evening. If your father agrees, would you like to come and help with the table like you did last month?'

'What are you going to cook, Miss Mair?'