P James - Devices & Desires

'It's been in all the papers, Terry. It's wonderful news. Are you all right? Are you feeding yourself properly?'

'Fine. I'm fine. Tired, but I'm OK. Look, darling, this new murder, it's different. We haven't got another serial murderer on the loose. The danger's over now. I'm afraid there's no chance I can get away to fetch you, but I could meet you at Norwich. Do you think you could make it today? There's a fast train at two minutes past three. If your mother would like to come, stay until after the baby is born, well that's all right, of course.'

It wasn't all right, but it was a small price to pay.

'Hold on, Terry. Mummy wants to talk to you.'

Then, after another long delay, he heard her mother's voice.

'Susie is staying here, Terry.'

'The Whistler is dead, Mrs Cartwright. The danger's over.'

'I know that the Whistler's dead. But you've had another murder down there, haven't you? There's still a killer at large and you're the man who's hunting him. This baby is due in less than two weeks and what Susie needs now is to get away from murder and death. Her health has to be my first consideration. What she needs is a little cosseting and kindness.'

'She's had that here, Mrs Cartwright.'

'I dare say you did your best, but you're never there, are you? Susie rang you four times last night. She really needed to talk to you, Terry, and you weren't there. It isn't good enough, not now it isn't. Out half the night catching murderers or not catching them. I know that's your job but it's hardly fair on Susie. I want my grandchild born safely. A girl's place is with her mother at a time like this.'

'I thought that a wife's place was with her husband.'

Oh, God, he thought, that I should ever hear myself speaking those words. A wave of utter misery swept over him compounded of self-disgust, anger and despair. He thought, If she doesn't come today she'll never come. The baby will be born in York and her mother will hold him in her arms before I do. She'll get her clutches into both of them, now and for ever. He knew how strong was that bond between widow and only child. There wasn't a day when Susie didn't telephone her mother, sometimes more than once. He knew with what difficulty and patience he had begun to wean her away from that obsessive maternal embrace. Now he had given Mrs Cartwright another weapon. He heard the triumph in her voice.

'Don't you talk to me about a wife's place, Terry. You'll be talking about Susie's duty next. And what about your duty to her? You've told her you can't get away to fetch her and I'm certainly not having my grandchild born on a British Rail train. Susie is staying here until this latest murder is solved and you can find time to fetch her.'

And then he was cut off. Slowly he replaced the receiver and stood waiting. Perhaps Susie would ring back. He could, of course, ring again but he knew with a sick hopelessness that there would be no use. She wasn't going to come. And then the telephone rang. He snatched up the receiver and said eagerly: 'Hello? Hello?'

But it was only Sergeant Oliphant ringing from the incident room at Hoveton, an early call letting him know that Oliphant had either been up all night or had snatched even less sleep than he. His own four hours now seemed an indulgence.

'The Chief Constable's trying to get you, sir. I told his PA there'd be no point in ringing home. You'd be on your way here by now.'

'I shall be on my way in five minutes. Not to Hoveton but to the Old Rectory at Larksoken. Mr Dalgliesh has given us a strong lead on the Bumble trainers. Meet me outside the rectory in three quarters of an hour. And you'd better ring Mrs Dennison now. Tell her to keep the back door locked and not to admit anyone to the house until we come. Don't alarm her; just say that there are one or two questions we have to put to her and we'd rather she spoke to us this morning before she talked to anyone else.'

If Oliphant was excited at the news he managed to conceal it. He said: 'You haven't forgotten that PR have fixed a press conference for ten, sir? Bill Starling from the local radio has been on to me but I told him he'll have to wait until then. And I think the CC wants to know if we're going to release the approximate time of death.'

And the Chief Constable wasn't the only one. It had been useful to fudge the approximate time of the murder, to avoid stating categorically that this couldn't have been the work of the Whistler. But sooner or later they would have to come clean and once the post-mortem report was to hand, it would be difficult to parry the media's insistent questions. He said: 'We shan't release any forensic information until we get the written report of the autopsy.'

'We've got that now, sir. Doc Maitland-Brown dropped it in about twenty minutes ago on his way to the hospital. He was sorry he couldn't wait to see you.'

I'll bet he was, thought Rickards. Nothing, of course, would have been said; Dr Maitland-Brown didn't gossip with junior police officers. But there must have been a cosy atmosphere of mutual self-congratulation in the incident room on their joint early start to the day. He said: 'There's no reason why he should have waited. All the stuff we need from him will be in the report. Better open it now, give me the gist.'

He heard the receiver being placed down on the desk. There was a silence of less than a minute, then Oliphant spoke: 'No sign of recent sexual activity. She wasn't raped. Seems she was an exceptionally healthy woman until someone slung a ligature round her neck and strangled her. He can be a bit more precise about the time of death now he's seen the stomach contents, but he hasn't changed his first estimate. Between 8.30 and 9.45, but if we want to make it 9.20 he won't object. And she wasn't pregnant, sir.'

'All right, Sergeant. I'll be with you outside the Old Rectory in about forty-five minutes.'

But he was damned if he was going to face a heavy day without breakfast. Quickly he peeled a couple of rashers from the packet in the refrigerator and placed them under the grill, turning it to full power, then switched on the kettle and reached for a mug. Time for one mug of strong coffee, then he'd put the rashers between two hunks of bread and eat them in the car.

Forty minutes later, driving through Lydsett, he thought about the previous evening. He hadn't suggested to Adam Dalgliesh that he should come with the police to the Old Rectory. It wasn't necessary; his information had been precise and specific, and it hardly needed a Commander of the Metropolitan Police to point out a tea chest of discarded shoes. But there was another reason. He had been happy enough to drink Dalgliesh's whisky, eat his stew, or whatever it was he had called it, to discuss the salient points of the investigation. What else, after all, had they in common except their jobs? But that certainly didn't mean that he wanted Dalgliesh present while he was actually doing it. He had been glad the previous evening to call at the mill, grateful that he hadn't to return to an empty house, had sat companionably by the wood fire and had felt, by the end of the evening, at least comfortably at ease. But once away from Dalgliesh's physical presence, the old uncertainties returned as they had with such disconcerting force at the deathbed of the Whistler. He knew he would never be totally at one with the man and he knew why. He had only to think of the incident now and the old resentment would come flooding back. And yet it had happened nearly twelve years ago and he doubted whether Dalgliesh even remembered it. That, of course, was the greater part of the injury, that words which had remained in his memory for years, which at the time had humiliated him and almost destroyed his confidence as a detective, could be so easily spoken and apparently so quickly forgotten.

The place was a small top room in a narrow warren of a house behind the Edgware Road, the victim a fifty-year-old prostitute. She had been dead for over a week when they found her and the stink in the cluttered, airless hovel had been so disgusting that he had had to press his handkerchief against his mouth to hold back the vomit. One of the DCs had been less successful. He had rushed to throw open the window and might have made it if the pane hadn't been grimed fast. He himself had been unable to swallow, as if his own spittle had become contaminated. The handkerchief held against his mouth was soaked with saliva. She had been lying naked among the bottles, the pills, the half-eaten food, an obscene putrefying lump of flesh only a foot from the brimming chamber pot which she hadn't in the end been able to reach. But that had been the least of the stench in the room. After the pathologist had left he had turned to the nearest PC and said: 'For God's sake, can't we get this thing out of here?'