Authors: P D James
He would be able to kneel if necessary without the risk of getting tell-tale mud on his trousers'
He called quietly:
'Oarren.'
The boy, still leaping at the roof, took no notice. Swayne i!:i had drawn breath to call again when suddenly the small
figure in front of him swayed, crumpled, fell silently as a leaf, and lay still. His first thought was that Darren was playing games; but when he came up to him he saw that the boy had fainted. He lay sprawled, so close to the canal that one thin arm was flung out over it, the small half-clenched fist almost touching the water. He was so motionless that he could have been dead; but Swayne knew that he would have recognized death when he saw it. He squatted and gazed intently into the still face. The boy's mouth was moistly open and he thought he could hear the gentle sigh of the breath. In the half-light the freckles stood out against the whiteness of the skin like splashes f gold paint and he could just see the sparse lashes spi]ed against the cheek. He thought: There must be soxnething wrong with him. He's sick. Boys don't faint for no reson. And then he was visited by a sensation which was half-pity, half-anger. Poor little bastard. They drag
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him before the Juvenile Court, put him under supervision and they can't even look after him. They can't even see he's sick. Sod them. Sod the whole fucking lot of them.
But now that what he had to do was made easier than ever, no more than a gentle nudge away, it had suddenlx become difficult. He put his foot under the boy and lifted him gently. The body rose on his shoe, seemingly weightless so that he could hardly feel it. But Darren didl'r stir. One tip, he thought, one small thrust. If he
believed in a god, he would have said to him: 'Yt: shouldn't have made it this easy. Nothing should be tlis easy.' It was very quiet in the tunnel. He could hear
slow drip of moisture from the roof, the faint slap of the canal against the pavement edge, the clicking of his digital watch, loud as a time-bomb. The smell of the water came up to him, strong and sour. The two half-moons gleaming at the tunnel ends seemed suddenly very far away. He could imagine them receding and shrinking into thin curves of light, and then fading completely, leaving him and the quietly breathing boy sealed up together in black, damp-smelling nothingness.
And then he thought: Do ! need to do it? He hasn't done me any harm. Berowne deserved to die, but he doesn't. And he won't talk. The police have lost interest in him, anyway. And once I have the button it won't matter if he does talk. It will be his word against mine. And with-out the button, what can they prove? He plucked the jacket from his shoulder and knew as he felt the slip of the lining against his arms that this was the decisive action. The boy would be allowed to live. He savoured for one extraordinary moment a new sensation of power, and it seemed to him sweeter, more exhilarating than even the moment when he had finally turned to gaze down on Berowne's body. This was what it felt like to be a god. He had the power to take life or to bestow it. And this time he had chosen to be merciful. He was giving the boy thc great-est gift in his power, and the boy wouldn't even kn>':.' that it was he who had given it. But he would tell Barbb Some day, when it was safe, he would tell Barbie, about the life
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he had taken, the life he had graciously spared. He pulled the body a little further from the water's edge and heard the boy moan. The eyelids flickered. As if afraid to meet the opening gaze, $wayne sprang to his feet then a/most ran to the tunnel end suddenly desperate to gain that half-moon of light before the darkness closed in on him for ever.
6
It was Sarah Berowne who let them in. Without speaking, she led them across the hall to the library. Lady Ursula was seated at the dining-room table on which were stacked letters and documents in three neat piles. Some of the writing paper was edged with black as if the family had rummaged in their drawers for the mourning paper which must have been fashionable in her youth. As Dalgliesh entered she looked up and gave him a nod then inserted her silver paper knife in yet one more envelope and he heard the faint rasp as the paper slit open. Sarah Berowne walked over to the window and stood looking out, her shoulders hunched. Beyond the rain-washed panes the heavy swathes of the sycamores drooped dankly in the drenched air, the dead leaves torn by the storm hanging like brown dusters among the green. It was very quiet. Even the hiss of the traffic on the avenue was muted like a spent tide on a far distant shore. But inside the room some of the heaviness of the day seemed still to linger and the diffused frontal headache which had plagued him since the morning intensified and focused behind his right eye, a stabbing needle of pain.
He had never felt in this house an atmosphere of peace 0r ease but now the tension quivered on the air. Barbara lerowne alone seemed impervious to it. She, too, was sitting at the table. She was painting her nails; small gleaming bottles and tufts of cotton wool were set out
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before her on a tray. As he entered the brush was for a
moment poised, its bright tip motionless in the air. Without looking round, Sarah Berowne said:
'My grandmother is concerned, among other matters, with the arrangements for the memorial service. I suppos,,. you have no views, Commander, on the relative al:-propriateness of "Fight the Good Fight" and "O and Master of Mankind"?'
Dalgliesh walked across to Lady Ursula and held the button on the palm of his hand. He said:
'Have you seen a button like this, Lady Ursula?'
She beckoned him nearer, then bent her head close to his fingers as if about to smell the button. Then she looked up at him expressionlessly and said:
'Not to my knowledge. It looks as if it came from a man's jacket, probably an expensive one. I can offer no other help.'
'And you, Miss Berowne?'
She came over from the window, looked at it briefly, and said:
'No, it isn't mine.'
'That wasn't my question. I asked if you'd seen it, or one like it.'
'If I have, I can't remember. But then, I'm not very in-terested in clothes or in trivia. Why not ask my stepmother?'
Barbara Berowne was holding up her left hand and blowing gently on her nails. Only the thumbnail remained. unpainted. It looked like a dead deformity among the four pink tips. As Dalgliesh came up to her she took up the brush and began to draw careful sweeps of pink along the thumbnail. This done, she glanced at the button, then turned quickly away and said:
'It isn't off anything of mine. I don't think it bi:longed to Paul either. I haven't seen it before. Is it important?'
She was, he knew, lying, but not, he thought, through fear or any sense of danger. For her, to lie when il ,!oubt was the easiest, even the most natural, response, a .:v of buying time, fending off unpleasantness, pos trouble. He turned to Lady Ursula:
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'I should like to speak to Miss Matlock, too, please.'
It was Sarah Berowne who went across to the fireplace and tugged at the bell.
When Evelyn Matlock came in, all three Berowne women turned as one and gazed at her. She stood for a moment her eyes fixed on Lady Ursula, then marched across to Dalgliesh stiff as a soldier on a charge. He said:
'Miss Matlock, I'm going to ask you a question. Don't answer it in a hurry. Think carefully before you speak and then tell me the truth.'
She glared at him. It was the look of a recalcitrant child, obstinate, malicious. He couldn't remember when he had seen so much hate in a face. Again he took his hand from his pocket and held out on his palm the silver-crested button. He said:
'Have you ever seen this button or one like it?'
He knew that Massingham's eyes as well as his own would be fixed on her face. It was easy to speak a lie, one short syllable. To act a lie was more difficult. She could just about control the tone of her voice, could make herself look up and gaze resolutely into his eyes, but the damage was already done. He hadn't missed that instantaneous flicker of recognition, the small start, the quick flush across the forehead; that, most of all, was beyond her control. As she paused, he said:
'Come closer, look at it carefully. It's a distinctive button, probably from a man's jacket. Not the kind you find on ordinary jackets. When did you last see one like it?'
But now her mind was working. He could almost hear
the process of thought.
'I can't remember.'
'Are you saying that you can't remember seeing a button like this, or that you can't remember when you saw it last?'
'You're muddling me.'
,Slhe ruffled her face to Lady Ursula who said:
fycu vant a lawyer before you answer, you're entitled
to one. I can ring Mr Farrell.'
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She said:
'I don't want a lawyer. Why should I want a lawyer? And if I did, I wouldn't choose Anthony Farrell. He looks at me as if I'm dirt.'
'Then I suggest you answer the Commander's question. It seems a plain enough one to me.'
'I've seen something like it. I can't remember where.
There must be hundreds of similar buttons.'
Dalgliesh said:
'Try to remember. You think you've seen something lik it. Where? In this house?'
Massingham, carefully avoiding Dalgliesh's eyes, must have been waiting his moment. His voice was a carefu? balance of brutality, contempt and amusement.
'Are you his mistress, Miss Matlock? Is that why you'r' shielding him? Because you are shielding him, aren't you? Is that how he paid you, a quick half hour on your bed between his bath and his supper? He was getting it chef, p, wasn't he, his alibi for murder.'
No one did it better than Massingham. Every word was a calculate, d insult. Dalgliesh thought: My God, why do I always let him do my dirty work for me?
The woman's face flared. Lady Ursula laughed, a cackle of derision. She spoke to Dalgliesh:
'Really, Commander, apart from being offensive, I fihd that suggestion ridiculous. It's grotesque.'
Evelyn Matlock turned on her, hands clenched: her body quivering with resentment:
'Why is it ridiculous, why is it grotesque? You bear to believe it, can you? You've had lovers enou ! in your time, everyone knows that. You're notorious. Well, you're old now, crippled and ugly and no one wants )ou, man or woman, and you can't bear to think that sore:cone might want me. Well he did and he does. He loves me. We love each other. He cares. He knows what my life is like in this house. I'm tired, I'm overworked and I hate you all. You didn't know that, did you? You thought was grateful. Grateful for the job of washing you li!,:e a baby, grateful for waiting on a woman too idle to pick up
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her own underclothes from the floor, grateful for the worst bedroom in the house, grateful for a home, a bed, a roof, the next meal. This place isn't a home. It's a museum. It's dead. It's been dead for years. And you think of no one but yourselves. Do this, Mattie, fetch that, Mattie, run my bath, Mattie. I do have a name. He calls me Evelyn. Evelyn, that's my name. I'm not a cat or a dog, I'm not a household pet.' She turned on Barbara Berowne: 'And what about you? There are things I could tell the police about that cousin of yours. You planned to get Sir Paul even before your fianc6 was buried, before his own wife was dead. You didn't sleep with him. Oh no, you were too cunning for that. And what about you, his daughter? How much did you care about him? Or that lover of yours? You only used him to hurt your father. Not one of you knows what caring is, what love is.' She turned again on Lady Ursula: 'And then there's Daddy. I'm supposed to be grateful for what your son did. But what did he do? He couldn't even keep Daddy out of prison. And prison was torture for him. He was claustrophobic. He couldn't take it. He was tortured to death. And how much do you care, any of you? Sir Paul thought that giving me a job, a home, what you call a home, was enough. He thought he was paying for his mistake. He never did pay. I did all the paying.'
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
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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 de;d. They were both dead. He loved me. He trusted me. Oh God, I wish he'd killed me too.'