A Dead Liberty (22 page)

“I daresay,” said Dr. Dabbe. “Keep an eye on her clothes, all the same, Burns. I can't see any tears or pulled threads, but you never know. We don't want the forensic science lads getting above themselves, do we?”

“There's mud on them, of course,” said the Scenes of Crime man. “I've got some from the site, too, to compare it with.”

“Good,” said Sloan absently. “What are the shoes like?”

“Clean,” said Burns.

It was all adding up, noted Sloan, as the pathologist commenced his external examination of the body proper, to Hortense Fablon having accepted a lift from someone she knew—not even of her having set off to walk anywhere. Then having been suddenly attacked and her body driven to this choice spot on the Berebury-to-Calleford road that could only have been known to someone who knew the area well.

And since the number of Englishmen whom she knew was necessarily limited …

“I'm having the larynx X-rayed before I go any further,” announced Dr. Dabbe suddenly. “That'll tell us if there are fractures of the hyoid bone and thyroid cartilages. I'm afraid there will be some delay while we get a radiographer over …”

There was a general slackening of tension in the post-mortem room while the obedient Burns went off to telephone.

“Got a motive yet, Sloan?” asked Dr. Dabbe informally.

“I'm beginning,” said Sloan, “to be very much afraid that it might have been because of something that she knew.”

The pathologist quoted A. H. Clough, a poet popular with the medical profession for quite the wrong reasons, with relish:

“Swans sing before they die: t'were no bad thing,

Some men should die before they sing.”

“But,” said Sloan, “I'm blessed if I know what Hortense Fablon knew or can have known that was a danger to anyone.” He frowned. “It must be tied in in some way with the Carline murder but don't ask me how …”

“I heard about that from young Dr. Bressingham over at Calleford,” said Dabbe. “He's just settling in.”

“The Durmasts and the Allsworthys are practically next-door neighbours at Braffle Episcopi,” said Sloan. “And they are friends too.”

“There's more than one way of killing a canary,” said the pathologist, adding thoughtfully, “or two canaries.”

“It can't be coincidence,” said Sloan.

“Poisoning, wasn't it?”

“Hyoscine.”

“A woman's weapon, poison.” Someone else had said that too. Before Dr. Dabbe.

“A lethal dose of hyoscine in the chili con carne. At least,” Sloan corrected himself, “a lethal dose of hyoscine in the deceased.” He mustn't forget that he was somewhere where accuracy counted above almost everything else. “We presumed it was in the chili con carne.”

“Ah.”

“She served it with something called samphire.” Sloan tried to remember who it was who had said “Accuracy is not a virtue, it is a duty.”

“Salicornia,” said Dr. Dabbe. “There'll be plenty of that on the shore their way.”

“And if Lucy Durmast didn't kill Kenneth Carline,” said Sloan, “I don't know who did.”

The pathologist pointed to the supine body of Hortense Fablon. “That was man's work, Sloan, unless I'm very much mistaken.”

“Lucy Durmast had everything,” said Sloan, following an earlier train of thought. “Means, motive, opportunity.”

“Doesn't mean, old chap, that someone else hadn't as well …” The pathologist looked up as a helmeted police dispatch rider appeared at the mortuary door. “Yes?”

“I'm looking for Detective Constable Crosby, sir.”

The pathologist waved an arm. “Over there.”

The dispatch rider handed an envelope to Crosby.

Detective Inspector Sloan watched the transaction with mingled irritation and curiosity.

“I told them to send it on,” said Crosby in a lordly way.

“Send what?” asked Sloan.

“That report we were waiting for,” said the constable.

Sloan frowned, unable to recollect any missing report.

“You know, sir,” said Crosby. “On the Rugby match that Kenneth Durmast got knocked about in.”

Sloan let out a sigh of pure exasperation.

“You did ask for it this morning,” said Crosby in injured tones.

“All right,” said Sloan resignedly. This morning seemed aeons away. This morning they hadn't known about the murder of Hortense Fablon. “Let me have a look at it.”

The reportage was enthusiastic, if amateur. The column was headed “Calleford 11, Luston 18”:

A superb second half display of fine tackling inspired Luston to victory over their old adversaries, Calleford. It was Luston's most impressive performance of the season. In spite of two late tries Calleford never looked like winning. Luston took the lead early with a penalty from Wilkins followed by a successful drop kick.

Calleford's spirited attempts to hit back particularly by Carline, were tempered by dedicated tackling on the part of Hirst and by midway through the second half Carline was practically a marked man. Carline came out of a loose scrum bloodied but unbowed but even so Hirst intercepted his best pass and sprinted 50 yards for a try converted by Wilkins; clinching victory.

Play up, play up, play the game, thought Sloan sourly to himself, except that Hirst didn't seem to have played it very fairly. Rugby was Verdun all over again. He handed the report back to Crosby. “I don't think we ought to change course because of this …”

As he was later to be the first to admit, he had seldom been more wrong.

SIXTEEN

Cataplasma
—
The poultices

One of the favourite quotations of Detective Inspector Sloan's mother was “Without haste, without rest” and Sloan was bound to admit that nothing fitted the ideal pace for a murder investigation better than this. It might have been medieval moralists who equated haste with evil but it went for today, too, as far as he, Sloan, was concerned. Morning had stretched into afternoon and late afternoon had merged imperceptibly into early evening without haste but without rest either.

By then he had been barely conscious of time. His evening meal of the day before seemed in retrospect to have been unconscionably leisured in comparison with the few snatched bites of today. Both he and Crosby had eaten on the hoof, so to speak, while the wheels of a full-scale murder enquiry had been set in motion. A tearful Clémence had been interviewed in Luston by an officer proficient not only in French but in the patois of Clémence's native département.

The girls had been to see a film called
Le Proie
and had parted as usual at the bus station. Hortense had not mentioned having a
rendez-vous clandestin
to her friend Clémence, but that didn't prove anything, did it? Absence of evidence, the interrogating officer had remarked in his report, not being the same thing at all as evidence of absence, adding by way of gilding the French lily, “
Après moi le déluge.
”

“Queen Anne's dead,” Sloan had retorted pretty speedily to that.

The ticket inspector at the Calleford bus station hadn't noticed a girl answering to Hortense's description waiting for the last bus to Marby juxta Mare, but that was just about the time he had his break from duty. Pressed, he admitted that a car could easily have pulled into and out of the bus station without his having heard it. He doubted if he would have recognised it if he had seen it, cars being all alike these days. The night cleaner at the bus station knew nothing about cars except that she was never going to be able to afford one. And that they weren't good news for bus companies.

There were two more people, though, whom Detective Inspector Sloan was determined to interview before the day was out and before he went back to have another session with John Allsworthy at Braffle Episcopi. One was Ronald Bolsover. Sloan and Crosby tracked him down to his home on the outskirts of Calleford. He was in his hot-house, attending to the plants when they arrived. The deputy chairman of Durmast's saw them coming up the path and beckoned them in that way.

“Cecelia Allsworthy telephoned me,” he said soberly. “Poor child.”

“Did you know her?” asked Sloan.

“I suppose, Inspector,” said Bolsover, “it would be more correct to say that I knew of her rather than that I actually knew her.”

“Hot in here, isn't it?” remarked Crosby, running a finger along inside his collar.

“I knew that she suffered from homesickness because Cecelia used to say,” carried on the deputy chairman, “that she was going to send her—Hortense was her name, wasn't it?—was going to send her over to sit in my greenhouse to remind her of home.”

“I can see why,” said Sloan.

“The bougainvillae might have helped,” said Bolsover.

“You've got some fine plants here,” said Sloan, looking round with a connoisseur's eye.

“And the hibiscus.” Bolsover continued with his theme. “That's common enough where she comes from.”

“So's that.” Sloan pointed to a healthy-looking oleander. “I don't know its neighbour though.”

“West Indian Jasmine,” said Bolsover with pardonable pride. He moved down the hot-house. “What do you think of this, Inspector?”

“It's erythrina, isn't it?”

“That's right.” Bolsover nodded. “The coral tree. Are you interested in semi-tropical stuff, Inspector?”

“Roses, mostly,” replied Sloan briefly. This was an official visit.

“What about this then?” Bolsover halted in front of a Dionaea.

“Venus fly trap,” said Sloan unhesitatingly. For some obscure reason that he hadn't time to explore, this brought him back to his duties as an investigating officer. “I shall need to know where everyone was last night.”

“I quite understand.” Bolsover nodded. “Actually I was at home all yesterday evening, Inspector. I'd just bought that new plant over there and I was potting it up. Bauhinia. I've never grown it before.”

“And your wife?” asked Sloan. Hot-houses were all right for some, but they cost money keeping at the right temperature.

“In London. She's gone up for a two-day china and porcelain sale. She collects Bow, you know. She stayed overnight.”

“I see, sir.” Out of the corner of his eye Sloan saw Crosby writing that down.

“I worked late, as she wasn't going to be here, and then I came home and did the watering.” Bolsover smiled. “At least Bow china doesn't need much attention. Then I got myself some supper and eventually went to bed.”

Sloan nodded as Crosby made his notes. From where he stood—literally—he could see that there would be nothing to be gained by involving the Bolsovers' neighbours in the confirmation of this. The house was sufficiently detached for an unlit car to slip in and out unseen. But as to why the deputy chairman of Durmast's should want to kill a French
au pair
girl, Sloan could think of no reason at all and soon set about taking his leave.

“Inspector”—Bolsover became suddenly diffident—“tell me, does the killing of this French lass have any bearing at all on the charge against Lucy Durmast?”

“Does it let her out, you mean?” Detective Constable Crosby did a quick literal translation of Ronald Bolsover's careful prose for everyone's benefit.

“Too soon to say,” responded Sloan repressively. Crosby wasn't there to rephrase the remarks of the person being interviewed. He would have to speak to him about that. “It might have everything to do with it. On the other hand it might have nothing at all …”

Crosby was quite undeterred. “Like the man who wanted a one-armed lawyer so that he couldn't say ‘on the other hand.'”

“Crosby!”

“Sorry, sir.”

Bolsover said quietly, “If you do have any news on that front, Inspector, it would be a help. I feel I have a heavy responsibility to Bill Durmast even though I respect Lucy's motives in keeping him out of the picture.” He essayed a faint smile. “If you're in a situation where client variation orders are delivered with a shrunken head to go with them, you don't want trouble at home as well.”

“Quite so,” said Sloan noncommittally, turning to go.

“What's that one called?” asked Crosby, pointing to a plant as he put his notebook away.

“Haemanthus,” answered Ronald Bolsover.

“Blood lily,” said Sloan. “Come along, Crosby …”

Once upon a time—more especially, that is, in the time when she had been a free woman—Lucy Durmast had read a marvellous book about solitary confinement. It had been written by a man who had experienced it in Fresnes prison in France during the last war and who therefore could be presumed to have known his subject. One of the observations he had made about his incarceration Lucy had at the time read with a certain amount of disbelief.

This was how he had come to dislike being interrupted.

Far from welcoming the distraction—any distraction—he had, after a time, come to resent it, preferring instead to continue with whatever train of thought he had embarked upon without interruption. Lucy wasn't in solitary confinement in H. M. Prison Cottingham Grange—not in any physical sense, that is—but she, too, was coming to see intrusions from the world outside her cell as disturbances.

Now for the first time she fully understood that writer. For one fragile moment as well she had also come near to believing that she could begin at last to understand something—but only something—of the way of life of a contemplative religious, but she had dismissed the notion as laughable as quickly as it had come to her. Actually there wasn't much that was laughable in Cottingham Grange—prisons weren't strong on humour. The risible is always a challenge to authority—Lucy knew that from her own schooldays—and the facetious simply did not arise.

Nevertheless she had found it interesting to see where undiverted trains of thought led. And had appreciated how a nun concentrating exclusively on a particular subject could reach greater heights of spirituality than someone interrupted by the mundane—the Mary and Martha conflict. The distractions of prison life were pitifully few and far between—even for the Marthas of this world. Meals, exercise, roll-call, work in the kitchens, constituted the daily round—this last much prized in prison, which, thought Lucy astringently, was rather illogical considering that there were those in the outside world who saw such work in the kitchen at home as prison. As for the phrase “Women's Lib,” it had connotations of irony in H. M. Cottingham Grange that verged on the sublime.