Ruling Passion (10 page)

'I'm a policeman, Mrs Bell,' he said.

'Oh.' Collapse of thin woman.

'CID, aren't you?' said Pelman. 'Tell me, what's your professional prognosis in this case?'

'Angus!' protested Marianne.

'He needn't answer if he'd rather not,' said  Pelman, staring hard at Pascoe.

'Another drink, anyone?' said Hartley Culpepper.

'Police procedure is quite simple in such matters,'  said Pascoe. 'Three things mainly. The weapon is  looked for. Absent persons who may be able to  help are looked for. And a great number of people are interviewed, statements taken, information  amassed. That's about it. Nothing very dramatic.  In the majority of murder cases, the police know who did it within twenty-four hours of being called  in. Often sooner.'

He scanned the group, poker-faced.

'And in this case?' asked Pelman, softly.

'Who knows? I'm not on the investigating team,'  said Pascoe. 'I'm just a witness. Like the rest of you  perhaps.'

'How important will finding the weapon be?'  asked Mrs Hardisty to fill the ensuing silence.

'It's finding who it belongs to that's important in the case of a gun,' explained Pascoe.

Pelman laughed explosively, unhumorously.

'That's no problem. It belongs to me.'

No one rushed to fill the silence this produced.  But Pascoe had no doubts about the thoughts swimming goldfish-like behind the surprised eyes. A joke in bad taste? Some kind of confession? A simple misunderstanding?

'Didn't Backhouse tell you?' asked Pelman.

'I said I'm not one of the investigating team,'  said Pascoe.

'No. Of course not. But it's not a secret, is it?  The thing is, when the superintendent spoke to  me, one of the things he was interested in was  my guns. Naturally. It had gone from my mind  till I looked.'

'What had?' asked Marianne impatiently. 'For  God's sake, this is serious, Angus. Don't make a  golf-club anecdote out of it.'

Pelman took his scolding meekly and went on.

'One of my guns was missing. I had lent it to  Colin Hopkins a week or so ago and he hadn't let  me have it back. Not that there was any hurry. It  wasn't up to much and I have plenty of others.'

'No doubt,' said Culpepper.

'So you think it was your gun that was used .. . ?'  Mrs Hardisty saw no need to finish her sentence.

'It seems probable.'

'Why did Colin want the gun?' asked Pascoe,  listening carefully to the timbre of his own voice.

It was light, steady. He was doing remarkably well. The control was there. Fat Dalziel would be proud  of him.

The lounge door burst open and he whirled like  a startled cat, slopping his whisky over the rim of  his glass.

In the door stood a tall, angular woman of some  considerable age. Her skin was brown and creased  like a tortoise's neck, but her eyes were bright and  alert. The nylonoverall she wore was the luminous orange of a road-worker's safety jacket, clashing  horridly with her dark violet slacks and fluffy red  slippers. This, thought Pascoe with surprise, must  be the gardener.

There's a man upstairs,' she said in a flat south  Lancashire accent.

'It's all right, Mother,' said Culpepper in a  reassuring tone. 'We have guests.'

'I'm not blind,' said the old woman scornfully.

'To stay, I mean. Mr Pascoe here. Pascoe, I'd like you to meet my mother, who does us the honour  of living with us.'

'You could put it like that,' said the woman,  staring at Pascoe with a marked lack of enthusiasm.  'It wasn't him.'

'Wasn't . . . ?'

'Upstairs.'

'Then it was probably Miss Soper, our other  guest,' said Culpepper triumphantly.

'It was a man,' she insisted.

Marianne Culpepper slid open a panel in an elegant walnut cabinet to reveal the contents of  an expensive-looking hi-fi system.

The new Drew Spade album came this morning,’ she said brightly. 'Shall we listen? I haven't  heard it myself yet, so I can't say what it's like.'

Another diversionary tactic. What a snarled-up  lot of people they were! And the sound which began to thump out of the speakers was hardly  music-for-the-bereaved, either. But it wasn't quite loud enough to prevent Pascoe from hearing the  rest of the exchange between Culpepper and his  mother.

'No, it must have been Miss Soper,’ said Hartley.

'Please your bloody self,' answered the old  woman, shrugging her still broad shoulders. 'I'm  off to my bed. I only hope I'm not murdered in  it.'

The remark acted on Pascoe like an electrical  impulse. He handed his glass to Culpepper, pushed between the man and his mother without apology and ran lightly up the stairs.

It was absurd. Probably the old woman had indeed just caught a glimpse of Ellie. But she  seemed sensible enough. Something of a burden,  perhaps, to Culpepper and his wife, but that was  none of his business. To an investigating officer, 
everything
is his business. One of Dalziel's dicta.

He pushed open Ellie's door quietly. She was  sitting up in bed with the lights on, smoking a  cigarette.

'Hi,' she said, unsurprised.

'Hi,' he said. 'Back in a sec.'

His own door was slightly ajar. The room was in darkness. The door moved easily at his touch and he stepped swiftly inside, trying to recall where the  light-switch was.

His groping hand could not make contact with it,  but he knew someone was there in the room with  him. The image of a shotgun rose suddenly in his  mind and he abandoned his search for the switch,  moving noiselessly away from the line of light  spilling in from the landing. As he dropped on one  knee beside the wardrobe, he heard a noise. The  curtains moved and the clear autumn sky leaned its pinholes of light against the glass till a figure  blotted them out. Everything went still again.

Pascoe spoke.

'Colin?' he said uncertainly.

He stood up.

'Colin? It's Peter, Peter Pascoe. Is that you,  Colin?'

He was by the small bedside table now. His hands  plunged down on the lamp which stood there. The  ball of his thumb caught the switch and the soft  light blossomed into the room.

The figure by the window spoke.

'No, I'm sorry, Mr Pascoe,’ he said compassionately. 'It's not Colin.'

'So I see,' said Pascoe, looking steadily at the  man before him. 'What are you doing in my room,  Mr Davenant?'

Chapter 8

'Oh, there you are, Anton,' said Marianne Culpepper  from the doorway. 'What on earth are you doing  in here?'

'Forgive me, darlings,' said Davenant moving  away from the window. 'I am quite, quite lost. That little room you put me in downstairs was  super, Marianne, except that it didn't seem to contain a loo. And while I'm sure a house of such distinction has loos all over the place, I could find  none downstairs, though I did peer through a kind of grid thing at a room full of po-shaped objects.'

'You mistook my room for a bathroom?' said  Pascoe with carefully measured incredulity.

'Not in the least. I tried the door in my search, though, peered in, realized my mistake of course and then forgot all else as across the window, outlined against the evening sky, swooped
Asio otus.'

'What?' said Marianne.

'The long-eared owl, my dear. I may have been  mistaken, but I think not. Those ears! I forgot everything. One call of nature gave way to a  greater, and I darted across the room to watch  his flight. Glorious! Then someone approached. I  froze into quietness, but alas! I was discovered.  Forgive us our trespasses, I pray you.'

He smiled sweetly at Pascoe, who put on the  all-is-explained face he often used when faced with a blatant liar.

'You've got him then,' said Mrs Culpepper,  senior, in a triumphant tone. She peered curiously over her daughter-in-law's shoulder. 'He's a funny-looking devil.'

'Hush!' said Marianne. 'This is Mr Davenant,  Mother. An old friend of mine.'

The plot thickens, thought Pascoe. And with the dramatic metaphor came a sense of staging,  of something being not quite real.

'From London, is it?' said the old woman, as if  wanting the worst to be confirmed.

'That's right,' said Marianne.

'I thought so.' She left, nodding triumphantly.

'Darling,' cried Culpepper up the stairs. 'John  and Sandra are going.'

'Sorry to rush, but Eric's got a chill and we don't like to leave the sitter too long,' came Sandra  Bell's voice.

Marianne looked uncertainly at Pascoe and  Davenant, then turned and went down. Davenant  made to follow her.

‘I didn't realize you had friends in the neighbourhood,' said Pascoe, sitting on the bed.

'Why should you? I didn't realize you had either. What I mean is, I didn't understand your odd  behaviour in the pub till I found out later who  you were.'

'Oh. Have you known the Culpeppers long?'  asked Pascoe.

'Not long. In fact, hardly at all. Dear Marianne was putting it on a bit, for the old dragon's sake,  I fancy, when she called me an old friend! No.  In fact . . .' he hesitated and peered assessingly at  Pascoe.

'In fact,' he went on, 'If I'm an old friend of  anyone, it's of your old friends.'

'I'm sorry?' said Pascoe. Then, amazed, 'You mean of Colin and Rose's?'

'Yes. Well, more of Timmy and Carlo's really,'  answered Davenant. 'Though I knew Rose and  Colin well also.'

Pascoe stood up and closed the bedroom door.

'You'd better tell me exactly what you're doing  here, Mr Davenant,' he said. Despite all his efforts  he could not keep a threat out of his voice.

Davenant's story was simple. In Oxford, collecting material for an article on English provincial cooking, he had heard the news of the  murders at mid-morning. As soon as he recognized the names, he had set out for Thornton  Lacey.

'I was all of a tremble, I promise you. I could  hardly point the car straight. But I had to come,  you understand. By the time I got here, I'd settled down a trifle. It struck me that I would be foolish  to appear as a friend of those murdered.'

'What made you think that?' demanded Pascoe.

'You're involved in the grief then. People don't  talk to you as they would otherwise. You must  have found that too.'

'I suppose so,' admitted Pascoe grudgingly.

'I wanted to be able to ask questions. Poke my  nose in. Be a journalist. Just as you must be dying  to be a policeman. I wanted to find out everything  I could about this awful business. So I invented that  silly story about my editor putting me on the job.'

'You did it very well,' murmured Pascoe.

'Thank you kindly. I decided I'd like to talk  with you when I found out who you were. They  told me you were staying up here. As soon as  they mentioned the name Culpepper, I thought,  Good Lord! Hartley! I've met him several times  in town at mutual acquaintances', and I knew he  lived in the country out here somewhere, but I'd  quite forgotten it was Thornton Lacey. In other  circumstances, a delicious coincidence.'

'Delicious. So they shut you away downstairs?'

'Until the other guests had gone, yes. It seemed  easier. These villages are full of eagle eyes and  tattle-tales.'

'And long-eared owls.'

'What? Oh yes. I wonder where the chappie's  gone.'

He turned to the window once more and stared  out into the star-filled night.

'Autumn,’ he said. 'Always a sad time. I'm sorry  now that I came and disturbed you. Perhaps I  should go.'

'Where are you staying?'

'With your late pugilistic opponent,’ said Davenant, turning and smiling. 'At the Eagle. If I start  walking now, I'll be in time for a nightcap in  the bar.'

'You walked here? Let me drive you back,'  offered Pascoe.

'How kind you are. But no. I really like to  walk. And perhaps
Asio otus
will appear for me  again.'

'Then I'll walk with you,' said Pascoe. 'The air  will help me to sleep. And I too would like a sight  of your owl.'

To his surprise Pascoe found that he really was  enjoying the walk after the first few minutes. There  were things about his companion which he did not  yet understand and a large part of his purpose in  accompanying him had been to probe deeper. But  the night was not made for chatter, idle or serious,  and even the sound of their footsteps in the gravel  of Culpepper's drive seemed an intrusion. It ran  before them, white as an Alaskan river, and when  they finally stepped off it on to the darker surface  of the lane which led down to the road, they both  hesitated as though uncertain of their footing. The  night sounds gradually took control: a breeze in  the trees; something rustling through the grass; a distant chatter, suddenly ending, then a long,  wavering note which caught at the nerve-ends.

'There!' said Davenant. 'That's him.'

'Your owl?'

'Probably. Or it may just be a tawny owl. They're  more common. Listen.'

The note came again. Pascoe felt as if the Indians  might be about to attack.

'I think it is a tawny,' said Davenant. 'Sweet  things in their way, but not the same.'

They set off walking again.

'Tell me,' said Pascoe when they reached the  road, 'what did Palfrey have to say about Colin  before I interrupted him? Or after.'

They had turned right towards the village. Left  would have taken them towards Brookside Cottage.

'Now you're interested!' said Davenant. 'Well  now, he was far from complimentary, you understand. I had met Colin through Timmy and Carlo  and was not so deeply involved with him as you.  Also, of course, I had set out to make him talk. So  I didn't react like you.'

'No need to apologize,' said Pascoe. 'I was stupid.'

'Perhaps. Our emotions deserve an outing from  time to time. Things  had started going wrong  fairly early in his acquaintance with the Hopkinses.  According to his highly coloured version, very  attractive, alas, to some of my fellows of the Press, Colin was an unbalanced, exhibitionistic Marxist.

Marxist,
by the way, is something pretty ultimate  in the Palfrey insult book. He would rather put  his handsome teenage son into the tender care  of someone like myself than entrust him to a  Marxist.'