A Darker God (14 page)

“Keeping the herd from swirling about and stepping in something they shouldn’t? Something you might want to swab and bottle up?” she teased gently.

“Yes. And I’m not insensitive to choreography. I was pleased to see you timed your own performance to the second. Again—well done! And this wasn’t the time-wasting exercise you seem to think it was. Police investigations are divided into three parts, Miss Talbot: Observation. Interrogation. Information. They normally occur in that order but I’m adaptable—not a stickler for routine. I’ve done just enough observation to be able to make sense of any information you may have gathered. I have to confide that, embarrassingly, it’s the last of the
three aspects that clinches most cases. The general public solve more murders than the élite detective division … though we take the credit. People tell you things. Can’t seem to help it. You’ve heard the initial responses from this lot, raw and delivered under shock with no time for editing out inconvenient elements. I should like to hear your impressions … your insights into the behaviour of members of the cast. They are your class and age—
-you
would understand them. You would be alert to any false notes. Were any of them acting more strangely than they normally do? Did anyone break down and confess under the gaze of your grey eyes, shining with innocence?”

“Will I be class sneak, you mean?”

“If you like. Though I think Andrew Merriman, in the circumstances, might have found a more dignified term to define the activity. We’re not seeking to establish which bounder stole the sticky buns from Smith Minor’s locker.”

Letty regretted her own unconsidered response.

“You haven’t yet confided the nature of your relationship with the Merrimans,” Montacute said. “Professional? Family? I don’t wish to assume too much—or too little. I’m sorry I have to ask indiscreet questions—prying is part of the job.”

“Part of my job too, Inspector,” Letty replied. “We’re both in the business of solving mysteries. Though my dead are long dead and, in studying them, I don’t risk annoying the living.”

“Not what I hear, miss,” he said with a grin.

Letty glowered and wondered from where exactly the inspector got his information. “My relationship with Andrew was professional, certainly, but more than that. He’s an old family friend … of my father’s. Archaeologists tend to be men of action and resource. To put down a pick and take up a Lee-Enfield is an easy gesture for them. Scholars and soldiers both, he and my father were drawn together by mutual interests and passions.

“Andrew was wounded, and for him the war should have
been over but he insisted on doing his bit. His particular talents were recognised and he was sent out to the Middle East. Indeed, I believe he spent some of the war years here in Greece. But you probably know more of that than I do.”

“His talents?”

“Knowledge of ancient languages … hieroglyphs … He was of use in the cypher department out here. Encoding and decoding—that sort of thing. And I believe he was given some light survey work to do while he was recovering from his wound. Andrew was never a man to sit twiddling his thumbs doing nothing, especially when the world was burning around him. You know what the military are like …”

He nodded and smiled.

“They gave him a horse and sent him off into the country around … oh … up north in Macedonia.”

“Salonika?”

“That’s right.
Thessalonike
, Andrew always called it, pedantically. Named for the sister of Alexander the Great. With his background, Andrew was appointed Surveyor of Ancient Monuments, Northern Division … or some such. And he had a wonderful time! He may even have had plans to dig there one day but he never discussed them with me. ‘Macedonia, Rich in Gold,’ I’ve heard him chortle. ‘Letty, I wonder, how would you look in a headdress of Thracian gold?’ He knew I despised Schliemann for making a dolly of his wife.”

Her voice wobbled in distress at the memory of Merriman’s enthusiasm for a fancy never fulfilled and she fell silent. Andrew’s following words were only ever to be replayed for herself alone.

“And presumably he made contacts that would prove useful in later life?”

“Presumably.”

“And after the war?”

“He picked up the threads of his academic career and made fast progress.”

“Ah, yes. Many chairs left empty at the high tables of Academe. A talented man
would
move swiftly towards the centre.”

Letty was not entirely comfortable with Montacute’s questions. She felt there were implications in each one that she was intended to refute or confirm. She was being invited to give away more than she felt she had any right to do. Her best defence was attack; she would turn his queries back onto him.

“Dead men’s boots? No doubt you’ve tried a few for size yourself, Inspector, judging by your eminence in the Force?” she commented, closing down that line of enquiry. “But you were asking about dubious behaviour among the cast,” she said, steering him back onto safer ground. “It’s hard for me to judge. I only know one or two of these people slightly. Students come and go … The staff at the Embassy washes in and out with every boat … I was here in Athens staying with the Merrimans for six weeks early in the spring. I was being prepared for an expedition to Crete—my first chance to direct a dig, and Andrew was determined I should do him credit. He put me through an intensive course in Minoan and Mycaenean archaeology and culture. I left in March and returned only last week, so my knowledge of the Athenian social scene is a bit patchy and out-of-date.”

“You hadn’t met Lady Merriman’s cousin?”

“No. I’ve only just settled back in … I hadn’t realised she even had a girl cousin. But a lot can happen in eight months’ absence.
You’ve
happened, Inspector—a new star in the Athenian heavens, I understand?”

He shrugged dismissively. A discussion of his stardom was not tempting enough to distract him, apparently. “You know the Merriman family well?”

“No. And it’s hardly a family. They have no children. I
don’t count Maud my friend. Maud is … I have always found her uncongenial … cold. She’s a good deal older than I am. My mother’s age, in fact. She’s always made a parade of maternal interest in me.” Letty shuddered. “You’ll find this with Maud-she categorizes people. Pops them into a pigeonhole at first acquaintance. It’s very annoying. She’ll most likely have
you
marked down as Policeman Plod, the Bumbling Bobby. For her, I’ll always be a sort of delinquent daughter, one who trails after her carrying the shopping and can’t quite be trusted to behave herself.”

“Shows a lamentable lack of judgement?”

Letty looked at him suspiciously and pressed on: “She’s older than her husband. Forty-five, perhaps? Andrew is … was … about five years younger. They married before the war, when he was quite young. Maud is well-off and well-connected and was reckoned to be something of a beauty in those days. It was a good marriage for him, I think. At first. Maud has grown more and more ill over the time I’ve known them, which must be nearly ten years. And her temper has declined with her health.”

Montacute nodded.

Letty realised that he had what she had come to recognise as the best quality of a police officer: He was an intelligent listener. He would go on hearing her confidences for as long as she was willing to make them. A danger. Policemen were not to be trusted with confidences like priests and doctors. They heard what you had to say and then used it in evidence, almost always against you. She fell silent and tried ostentatiously to consult her wristwatch.

He caught her raised arm and tucked it companionably under his. “It’s ten past eight. Past your bedtime, are you thinking? Well, listen! Before I take you home I’m going to tell you a story. You’re from Cambridge, aren’t you? Then you
probably know this one. Or a version of this one. Stop me when you realise you’ve heard it.

“Once upon a time, in a university city through which a green river ran,” he began with a confidential dip in his voice that she found intriguing despite her hostility, “a group of learned gentlemen—dons, they called them—formed a secret society. Innocent enough pastime, you’ll think, when I tell you that their entertainment consisted of gathering on those warm Sunday mornings before the war at a secluded spot along the riverbank to re-create scenes of their boyhood. In pursuit of the modern fad for Naturism they met at the river to bathe in the buff—naked!”

Of course she knew the old story. Letty smiled encouragement and he went on: “One Sunday an innocent young lady of the city, accompanied by three of her equally unworldly friends, set off to explore the riverbank. They made their way through the overhanging willows along a far reach of the river. Imagine their astonishment when they came upon a dozen dons
en déshabillé
, leaving the river and making for the clothes they had left hanging on a branch!

“The reaction was instant! Shrieks and confusion amongst the ladies, of course. And the gentlemen? All the dons, with one exception, automatically put their concealing hands over their private parts. The exception chose to put
his
hands over his face.”

Letty was intrigued by his version of the well-known tale and waited for the dénouement.

“When the danger had passed, the dons turned on their fellow and asked why he’d behaved differently. ‘I’m not entirely certain how
you
chaps are known about the town,’ he answered virtuously, ‘but
I’m
identifiable by my face.’”

“Ah—that might well have been my father,” murmured Letty, unsure where the inspector was going with this. She
feared she could guess. And if she was right, she saw clearly why she’d been singled out by him from the herd.

Suddenly serious, he turned his dark eyes on her and said softly: “I was struck just now by an unexpected reaction within the group. An oddity. Omissions, differences, and changes, Miss Talbot, are always interesting to me. Now, let me tell you what struck me—though perhaps I shouldn’t: Of the assembled crowd, only two people recognised the dead man for who he was from a glimpse of the naked torso. Even William Gunning, who was standing very close by and knew the deceased intimately … am I right in supposing this?”

“You’re right. Gunning knew Andrew well,” Letty whispered, now certain she knew what was coming next.

“Even Gunning had to wait until I removed the concealing wig from the features before he recognized him. You, Laetitia Talbot, were one of the two present who was able to identify the professor from … um … the neck down,” he finished delicately.

He looked at her, not with accusation but with sympathy.

She nodded dumbly.
“Two
, you say?”

“The other was Queen Clytemnestra.”

Chapter 11

F
or a moment Letty was silenced, then: “Great heavens! So she was! I believe you’re right! Thetis Templeton. Yes, she did break down before it was clear …” she breathed, remembering. “Oh, gosh! No wonder the poor girl looked shell-shocked!”

She squirmed in embarrassment and tried to withdraw her arm, disturbed by the contact, but the policeman held fast. “Look here—if you’re trying to take my pulse rate, Inspector, I have to tell you—you’re missing the spot by a mile. If this is some newfangled way of checking my level of agitation, I’ll tell you straight—it’s high! I’m agitated all right! I’m devastated and furious.”

“You mistake me, Miss Talbot. Just offering a little comfort in your uncomfortable circumstances.” He did not release her.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I’m not going to try to effect an escape. You can relax.”

She waited in vain for him to pursue his fanciful accusations. He’d made his play; now he was leaving an expanse of silence into which he expected her to leap. With what? A confession? An accusation? Letty was mystified. She remained stonily staring ahead.

Dissatisfied with her response, he changed tack. “I’m sorry. It must be a double shock for you. To find your lover not only is dead but has been unfaithful? Though perhaps a girl expects no less from a man who has, by his very relationship with her, demonstrated his capacity for infidelity?”

The gently enquiring smile that softened the austere features, the purr in the musical voice, made the scything rudeness even more intolerable. Letty drew in a sharp breath. “Very well, Mr. Policeman. Against my better judgement, I’ll allow you to sting me into a response to your impertinent question. Did you hear me? I said, ‘I’ll allow.’ Be quite clear that I know what you’re up to! Andrew was my lover off and on for some years until a year ago last spring. When … when …”

“When your affections were transferred elsewhere?” he supplied.

“When I went abroad to dig in the pursuit of my career, Inspector.” She was pleased with the calm hauteur of her squashing response. She’d learned squashing from Maud, and though she found very few targets for the skill, here was an intrusive and perfectly objectionable policeman testing her goodwill to the very limit. “If this interview is intended to reveal the character of the victim to you—and in a bad light—as I must suppose it is, you should understand, Montacute, that Andrew was not a wicked seducer of young girls. No, no! He had affairs but in all the cases of which I am aware, he was approached, invited into it even, by the girl or woman in question. And he chose carefully. The vulnerable, the naïve, the overprotected, were never in danger. He was a very attractive man. Hard for other men, I think, to appreciate this quality but every woman he met was aware of it … the kindness, the interest, the sparkle, the roguishness.”