A Coat of Varnish (40 page)

Perryman was led to the room where he had been questioned before, brought a cup of tea, left to himself. In the Murder Room, the detectives were hearing Bale’s impressions. There was a stir of approval. ‘It sounds as though he’s cracking up,’ said someone. One of the youngest there added: ‘He won’t give you too much trouble today, chief.’ They were all standing, and the young man spoke across the group to Briers: ‘I’ll bet you he’s ready to come out.’ Briers gave a truculent smile, but his voice was quiet: ‘We’ll see, we’ll see.’ The young detective went on: ‘He’ll come out today.’

That was a curious idiom. It meant come clean, confess. A generation before, it had become a protest phrase among students of English, when they wanted to proclaim an opinion; then it got caught up by homosexuals when they wanted to proclaim their faith. Just at that period, smart young policemen couldn’t resist borrowing it for their own purposes. Now Briers let it pass. He was in no hurry, though that was studied. It was nearly eleven before he nodded to Shingler, and walked through to the back room.

‘Good morning, Doctor,’ he said, back in his punctilious vein.

‘Good morning, Chief Superintendent.’ Perryman didn’t rise, just inclined his head.

‘I think you know Inspector Shingler.’

Perryman again inclined his head.

The little room was physically snug. Outside the window, it was as dark as the preamble to an eclipse. Lances of rain were flashing by. In the room, it was bright and warm, not too warm, judiciously so. The tray of tea-cups had followed behind Briers and Shingler. An ashtray, burnished, was waiting in front of Briers’ place, and two packets of cigarettes stood ready.

It was physically snug in there. Perryman threw back his head, in the mannerism which had fretted Briers’ nerves before, and said: ‘Before we begin proceedings, I should like to make a statement.’

‘I’ll take it down,’ Shingler said, eagerly.

‘No, no. Not your kind of statement. I want to tell you, Chief Superintendent, naturally I’m anxious to help you in any reasonable way I can–’

‘I’m sure you are.’ Briers’ tone was utterly unstressed.

‘But I think I ought to remind you that I have work of my own. This is a serious interference, and it might be more than a serious interference to some of my patients if I am called away again without proper notice. There are limits to what I can accept, in fairness to other people and myself. That should be clear enough. I am at your disposal today, but if you wish to repeat your invitation I should feel obliged to take official advice.’

‘That’s your privilege, Doctor.’

‘You understand, I was more helpful than you could have expected, last time I was here–’

‘That might be a matter of opinion, perhaps?’

Perryman had shown one way of recovering himself, Briers thought. Not many men would have had that degree of control, he thought later. It made it harder to keep his own.

It wasn’t a time to begin with emollience. He said: ‘I want to go back to old Lady Ashbrook’s illness. That is, when it was believed she might have cancer.’

‘I’ve said all I can about that.’

‘I want to be certain. You did tell me that you thought the hospital tests would be positive?’

‘I did tell you I thought it was possible.’

‘You thought it was more than possible, didn’t you?’ That was from Shingler.

Perryman didn’t glance at him, but replied: ‘I’ve already told the Chief Superintendent–’

‘That you regarded it as more likely than not? Well then.’ Briers pressed on. ‘You had your patient, who might be terminally ill. Right?’

‘Certainly.’

‘And she was more than a patient? She was someone you knew intimately. Who let you handle her financial affairs–’

‘We’ve been over all this. Tediously, if I may say so. It isn’t a profitable topic, you ought to realise by now.’

‘We’ll be patient.’

‘I’m having to be patient myself.’

Briers looked blank as though he hadn’t heard.

‘We all agree, don’t we, that you had your friend and patient there under your eyes? And you had good grounds to expect that she’d soon be told the worst. She expected it. She must have talked about her death – to you, Doctor. You must have been the first person she talked to.’

‘Certainly she talked about it. She didn’t pretend.’

‘She had to rely on you, didn’t she, if the worst came to the worst? You could ease her out? Did she talk about that, too?’

Perryman answered, with a condescending smile: ‘You seem hypnotised by this topic. The answer would be a confidence between patient and doctor. I’m not prepared to reveal it.’

‘You’re nothing if not correct, are you?’ For once there was bite in Briers’ voice.

‘If you mean that I don’t break solemn confidences, that is so.’ Perryman was relaxing into superiority. Briers, quickly, wanted to jangle it.

‘The point is, she was in your hands. For day after day. She thought death could be getting nearer. She had no one to rely on but you. Right?’

‘It’s not the first time that I’ve been in that situation.’

‘It must have been strange for you both when you knew that it had been a false alarm. So she needn’t rely on you any more. For release if it came to that.’

‘You can go on making assumptions, Chief Superintendent. As I have tried to impress on you, any conversations with my patient were in confidence. And there they will stay. It was obvious that she was in an extreme situation. Then she heard the news. The extreme situation ceased to exist. That is all.’

‘So she also ceased to rely on you?’

‘I didn’t have to see her every day. But you might remember, I was still her doctor.’

This line, which Briers had followed after the hint from Humphrey, wasn’t getting far. He and Shingler had agreed on another. Up to now, Shingler had been quiet, taking notes like a decorous secretary. Suddenly his sharp voice broke in: ‘You were a whole lot more than that, weren’t you?’

Perryman, who had been ignoring him throughout, had to regard him now. Then Perryman, head tilted back, was staring up at the ceiling, as if bored by a subordinate taking too much on himself. ‘You think so, do you?’ Perryman said, dismissively.

Perryman might not be taking notice of Shingler, but that didn’t apply in reverse. The young man’s face, at the same time good-looking and vulpine, was concentrated. Glossy black hair shone under the table lights. So did the big brown eyes shine. The staccato accent, lips not using their muscles, sounded out.

‘You were a whole lot more. It isn’t every doctor manages his patient’s money, is it?’

‘Haven’t we finished with that business?’ Perryman addressed himself to Briers.

Shingler was not deterred.

‘You said this was not the first time you had been in such a situation. Have you been in another situation when if your patient died you’d be in control of a secret fund? You don’t mean to tell us that you didn’t think of that. If she died, you would have been in control of the fund. Just as you were when she died by different means.’ Shingler added: ‘When you heard she wasn’t under threat of death, what did you think then? Did you make another plan? About the fund? How to get hold of it?’

Briers saw that Perryman didn’t flush with anger, but his nostrils were both blanched and pinched. He said, voice going higher-pitched: ‘This is intolerable. Intolerable.’

Then, as though going through a drill, he folded his arms on his chest, tautened his neck and shoulders, and slowly said to Briers: ‘I do not propose to answer questions from this officer of yours.’

Briers said, matter of fact, unyielding: ‘You are here to help, Doctor. You aren’t obliged to reply, but we shall draw our own conclusions if you don’t.’

In the same slow and stately manner, head and body quite still, Perryman said: ‘I shall decide precisely which questions are worth answering.’

‘Did you think how to get hold of the fund?’ Shingler repeated, sharp, unsoftened.

‘Not worth answering.’

More questions about the fund, after Lady Ashbrook’s reprieve. The same slow and routine answer. Briers was realising, and Shingler not long after, that Perryman had rehearsed himself. He wasn’t to lose control if provoked about money. It wasn’t only the police who worked out openings in advance. It seemed that Perryman didn’t trust his own temper, except with this statuesque self-discipline.

The fund in New York – Shingler was needling him. ‘Are you aware that we know the whole set-up now?’

‘Really?’

‘We know the balance you would have had at your disposal, of course.’

‘You must be better informed than I am. And that can’t be true, can it?’

‘You knew all right, didn’t you?’

Arms together on chest. Routine answer.

‘You knew how very small it was, didn’t you? Pathetically small for all your trouble.’

‘Not worth comment.’

‘It does seem extraordinary. A few thousand pounds. So little for a hell of a lot of trouble. Killing the old lady. Wondering when we should catch up. Seems fantastic to us. What about you?’

Perryman was kept rigid by his discipline. He didn’t speak. He gave the slightest indication of an indifferent smile.

Against such attacks by Shingler – so Briers was judging – he had prepared himself too well. To change the tactics, Briers tried a line of his own, expecting nothing of it, except perhaps to make Perryman less careful. Was it possible, in a ruminating manner, to forget things one had actually done? Significant things. Did a doctor forget when he had given wrong, maybe mortally wrong, treatment?

Perryman didn’t think so. He had made fatal mistakes himself, once for sure, possibly twice. He still shut his eyes, stock still, when he remembered them. Everyone did that, said Briers, and went on to agree that he didn’t believe much in forgetfulness. People didn’t forget crimes, though sometimes they pretended to. What was genuine was to do something – write a criminal statement, forge a cheque, drive in a knife – remember the act with absolute clarity, and yet as though it didn’t matter. With innocence, if you like. Hadn’t Perryman run across that kind of innocence? Yes, he had. He could still remember when he was very young writing a letter about a woman intended to do harm. He could still remember the words on the paper. They still seemed like the words on any other letter.

Could that apply – Briers asked as though it had just occurred to him – to the night of the murder?

Perryman stiffened himself and gave another indifferent smile.

‘I’ve told you what I did that night, haven’t I?’

‘Have you?’ Briers said, as though the matter were of no special interest. But he had gone far enough just then. Perryman was good at preparing himself. Instead, as a distraction, Briers glanced at Shingler, signalling that he was to play on about the money, money motive, all that Perryman had armoured himself against. Questions, police facts repeated, insinuations, sneers at petty proceedings, all the resources of a knowing young man. The same responses, rehearsed, routine, frozen dignity, no sign of temper or any emotion.

Trays were brought in. Unsurprising cups of tea. Rather more surprising, Cornish pasties instead of sandwiches. As at the first interrogation, Perryman ate methodically, Briers nibbled at half a pasty. Shingler was still asking questions about the money, when Briers interposed: ‘I suggest we drop that for the present, Norman,’ he said, with an affable offhand grin. ‘I fancy Dr Perryman is getting rather tired of it.’

Perryman appeared taken by surprise. His routine smile faded away. Briers said to him, across the table: ‘You are a rather remarkable man, aren’t you?’

Briers had said to Perryman across the table: ‘You are rather a remarkable man, aren’t you?’

But Perryman replied, with magniloquent composure, eyes gazing past the other man, ‘Is that for me to say?’

‘Come on, you’ve said it to yourself, haven’t you?’

‘How many people say such things to themselves?’

‘A fair number, as far as I’ve seen. But not many with as much claim as you have. Of course you’re an unusual man.’ Briers’ strong face showed no assertion. He spoke as though in a reflective mood. ‘Do you know, though, I’ve wondered about you. Several people have told me, you don’t seem to have done much. With everything going for you, I would have thought. I’ve wondered about that myself. You’ve got brains, no doubt about it. You’re impressive. You must have been impressive as a young man. You’ve got more than your share of courage and nerve – in my job one gets to be a bit of a judge of those qualities. What’s happened to it all? Why have you been satisfied to be one more nice safe middle-class doctor?’

‘That’s a question one need only answer to oneself,’ Perryman said, again magniloquently.

‘Is it, though? Perhaps you haven’t been satisfied?’

‘You’d better make up your own mind.’ Perryman said it with good-humoured patronage, indulgent, almost friendly.

‘No, I guess that you had a sense you were above the rest of us. Poor little things, scraping and scrabbling to make some sort of life, all messing about in the ruck. You never did feel you were part of the ruck, did you? Commonplace people living commonplace lives. Like your patients. Like those respectable characters round about. Like me.’

‘You don’t strike me as so commonplace, if I may say so.’

‘Oh, I am. I haven’t done things thousands wouldn’t have done, not many things anyway. I’ve been faithful to my wife. I’ve been honest about my debts. I’ve paid my taxes. I’m part of the ruck all right. I’ve behaved like one of the respectable characters. Never mind about that. The curious thing is, Doctor, you’ve behaved very much like the rest of us. Until recently. Of course there were those financial manoeuvres. They showed what a good planner you are, but let’s forget about that. They didn’t test you enough; they didn’t pull you right out of the ruck. Otherwise you were no different from anyone else. There were no women that we’ve been able to trace. Not for want of looking, believe me. You had plenty of opportunity. But so far as we know, and by now we should know, you’ve lived a blameless life. Maybe you weren’t tempted, though. But I’m sure you were tempted to break out somewhere. You’ve always wanted to show you’re not like ordinary men. You haven’t much use for the ordinary human rules, have you?’