An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (11 page)

Cordelia said: “People who feel the need to joke about my name usually enquire after my sisters. It gets very boring.”

“It must do. I’m sorry. I’m Hugo Tilling, this is my sister, this is Isabelle de Lasterie and this is Davie Stevens.”

Davie Stevens sat up like a jack-in-the-box and said an amiable “Hi.” He looked at Cordelia with a quizzical intentness. She wondered about Davie. Her first impression of the little group, influenced perhaps by the college architecture, had been of a young sultan taking his ease with two of his favourites and attended by the captain of the guard. But, meeting Davie Stevens’ steady intelligent gaze, that impression faded. She suspected that, in this seraglio, it was the captain of the guard who was the dominant personality.

Sophia Tilling nodded and said, “Hullo.”

Isabelle did not speak but a smile beautiful and meaningless spread over her face.

Hugo said: “Won’t you sit down, Cordelia Gray, and explain the nature of your necessities?”

Cordelia knelt gingerly, wary of grass stains on the soft suede of her skirt. It was an odd way to interview suspects—only, of course, these people weren’t suspects—kneeling like a suppliant in front of them. She said: “I’m a private detective. Sir Ronald Callender has employed me to find out why his son died.”

The effect of her words was astonishing. The little group, which had been lolling at ease like exhausted warriors, stiffened with instantaneous shock into a rigid tableau as if struck to marble. Then, almost imperceptibly, they relaxed. Cordelia
could hear the slow release of held breath. She watched their faces. Davie Stevens was the least concerned. He wore a half-rueful smile, interested but unworried, and gave a quick look at Sophie as if in complicity. The look was not returned; she and Hugo were staring rigidly ahead. Cordelia felt that the two Tillings were carefully avoiding each other’s eyes. But it was Isabelle who was the most shaken. She gave a gasp and her hand flew to her face like a second-rate actress simulating shock. Her eyes widened into fathomless depths of violet blue and she turned them on Hugo in desperate appeal. She looked so pale that Cordelia half expected her to faint. She thought: “If I’m in the middle of a conspiracy, then I know who is its weakest member.”

Hugo Tilling said: “You’re telling us that Ronald Callender has employed you to find out why Mark died?”

“Is that so extraordinary?”

“I find it incredible. He took no particular interest in his son when he was alive, why begin now he’s dead?”

“How do you know he took no particular interest?”

“It’s just an idea I had.”

Cordelia said: “Well, he’s interested now, even if it’s only the scientist’s urge to discover truth.”

“Then he’d better stick to his microbiology, discovering how to make plastic soluble in saltwater, or whatever. Human beings aren’t susceptible to his kind of treatment.”

Davie Stevens said with casual unconcern: “I wonder that you can stomach that arrogant fascist.”

The gibe plucked at too many chords of memory. Wilfully obtuse, Cordelia said: “I didn’t enquire what political party Sir Ronald favours.”

Hugo laughed. “Davie doesn’t mean that. By fascist Davie means that Ronald Callender holds certain untenable
opinions. For example, that all men may not be created equal, that universal suffrage may not necessarily add to the general happiness of mankind, that the tyrannies of the left aren’t noticeably more liberal or supportable than the tyrannies of the right, that black men killing black men is small improvement on white men killing black men in so far as the victims are concerned and that capitalism may not be responsible for all the ills that flesh is heir to from drug addiction to poor syntax. I don’t suggest that Ronald Callender holds all or indeed any of these reprehensible opinions. But Davie thinks that he does.”

Davie threw a book at Hugo and said without rancour: “Shut up! You talk like the
Daily Telegraph
. And you’re boring our visitor.”

Sophie Tilling asked suddenly: “Was it Sir Ronald who suggested that you should question us?”

“He said that you were Mark’s friends, he saw you at the inquest and funeral.”

Hugo laughed: “For God’s sake, is that his idea of friendship?”

Cordelia said: “But you were there?”

“We went to the inquest—all of us except Isabelle, who, we thought, would have been decorative but unreliable. It was rather dull. There was a great deal of irrelevant medical evidence about the excellent state of Mark’s heart, lungs and digestive system. As far as I can see, he would have gone on living forever if he hadn’t put a belt round his neck.”

“And the funeral—were you there too?”

“We were, at the Cambridge Crematorium. A very subdued affair. There were only six of us present in addition to the undertaker’s men: we three, Ronald Callender, that secretary/housekeeper of his and an old nanny type dressed in black.
She cast rather a gloom over the proceedings, I thought. Actually she looked so exactly like an old family retainer that I suspect she was a policewoman in disguise.”

“Why should she be? Did she look like one?”

“No, but then you don’t look like a private eye.”

“You’ve no idea who she was?”

“No, we weren’t introduced; it wasn’t a chummy kind of funeral. Now I recall it, not one of us spoke a single word to any of the others. Sir Ronald wore a mask of public grief, the King mourning the Crown Prince.”

“And Miss Leaming?”

“The Queen’s Consort; she should have had a black veil over her face.”

“I thought that her suffering was real enough,” said Sophie.

“You can’t tell. No one can. Define suffering. Define real.”

Suddenly Davie Stevens spoke, rolling over onto his stomach like a playful dog. “Miss Leaming looked pretty sick to me. Incidentally, the old lady was called Pilbeam; anyway, that was the name on the wreath.”

Sophie laughed: “That awful cross of roses with the black-edged card? I might have guessed it came from her; but how do you know?”

“I looked, honey. The undertaker’s men took the wreath off the coffin and propped it against the wall so I took a quick butcher’s. The card read ‘With sincere sympathy from Nanny Pilbeam.’ ”

Sophie said: “So you did, I remember now. How beautifully feudal! Poor old nanny, it must have cost her a packet.”

“Did Mark ever talk about a Nanny Pilbeam?” Cordelia asked.

They glanced at each other quickly. Isabelle shook her head. Sophie said, “Not to me.”

Hugo Tilling replied: “He never talked about her, but I think I did see her once before the funeral. She called at college about six weeks ago—on Mark’s twenty-first birthday actually, and asked to see him. I was in the Porter’s Lodge at the time and Robbins asked me if Mark was in college. She went up to his room and they were there together for about an hour. I saw her leaving, but he never mentioned her to me either then or later.”

And soon afterwards, thought Cordelia, he gave up university. Could there be a connection? It was only a tenuous lead, but she would have to follow it.

She asked out of a curiosity that seemed both perverse and irrelevant: “Were there any other flowers?”

It was Sophie who replied: “A simple bunch of unwired garden flowers on the coffin. No card. Miss Leaming, I suppose. It was hardly Sir Ronald’s style.”

Cordelia said: “You were his friends. Please tell me about him.”

They looked at each other as if deciding who should speak. Their embarrassment was almost palpable. Sophie Tilling was picking at small blades of grass and rolling them in her hands. Without looking up, she said: “Mark was a very private person. I’m not sure how far any of us knew him. He was quiet, gentle, self-contained, unambitious. He was intelligent without being clever. He was very kind; he cared about people, but without inflicting them with his concern. He had little self-esteem but it never seemed to worry him. I don’t think there is anything else we can say about him.”

Suddenly Isabelle spoke in a voice so low that Cordelia could hardly catch it. She said: “He was sweet.”

Hugo said with a sudden angry impatience: “He was sweet and he is dead. There you have it. We can’t tell you any more about Mark Callender than that. We none of us saw him after
he chucked college. He didn’t consult us before he left, and he didn’t consult us before he killed himself. He was, as my sister has told you, a very private person. I suggest that you leave him his privacy.”

“Look,” said Cordelia, “you went to the inquest, you went to the funeral. If you had stopped seeing him, if you were so unconcerned about him, why did you bother?”

“Sophie went out of affection. Davie went because Sophie did. I went out of curiosity and respect; you mustn’t be seduced by my air of casual flippancy into thinking that I haven’t a heart.”

Cordelia said obstinately: “Someone visited him at the cottage on the evening he died. Someone had coffee with him. I intend to find out who that person was.”

Was it her fancy that this news surprised them? Sophie Tilling looked as if she were about to ask a question when her brother quickly broke in: “It wasn’t any of us. On the night Mark died we were all in the second row of the dress circle of the Arts Theatre watching Pinter. I don’t know that I can prove it. I doubt whether the booking clerk has kept the chart for that particular night, but I booked the seats and she may remember me. If you insist on being tediously meticulous, I can probably introduce you to a friend who knew of my intention to take a party to the play; to another who saw at least some of us in the bar in the interval; and to another with whom I subsequently discussed the performance. None of this will prove anything; my friends are an accommodating bunch. It would be simpler for you to accept that I am telling the truth. Why should I lie? We were all four at the Arts Theatre on the night of 26th May.”

Davie Stevens said gently: “Why not tell that arrogant bastard Pa Callender to go to hell and leave his son in peace, then find yourself a nice simple case of larceny?”

“Or murder,” said Hugo Tilling.

“Find yourself a nice simple case of murder.”

As if in obedience to some secret code, they began getting up, piling their books together, brushing the grass cuttings from their clothes. Cordelia followed them through the courts and out of college. Still in a silent group they made their way to a white Renault parked in the forecourt.

Cordelia came up to them and spoke directly to Isabelle. “Did you enjoy the Pinter? Weren’t you frightened by that dreadful last scene when Wyatt Gillman is gunned down by the natives?”

It was so easy that Cordelia almost despised herself.

The immense violet eyes grew puzzled. “Oh, no! I did not care about it, I was not frightened. I was with Hugo and the others, you see.”

Cordelia turned to Hugo Tilling. “Your friend doesn’t seem to know the difference between Pinter and Osborne.”

Hugo was settling himself into the driving seat of the car. He twisted round to open the back door for Sophie and Davie. He said calmly: “My friend, as you choose to call her, is living in Cambridge, inadequately chaperoned I’m happy to say, for the purpose of learning English. So far her progress has been erratic and in some respects disappointing. One can never be certain how much my friend has understood.”

The engine purred into life. The car began to move. It was then that Sophie Tilling thrust her head out of the window and said impulsively: “I don’t mind talking about Mark if you think it will help. It won’t, but you can come round to my house this afternoon if you like—57 Norwich Street. Don’t be late; Davie and I are going on the river. You can come too if you feel like it.”

The car accelerated. Cordelia watched it out of sight. Hugo
raised his hand in ironic farewell but not one of them turned a head.

Cordelia muttered the address to herself until it was safely written down: 57 Norwich Street. Was that the address where Sophie lodged, a hostel perhaps, or did her family live in Cambridge? Well, she would find out soon enough. When ought she to arrive? Too early would look overeager; too late and they might have set out for the river. Whatever motive prompted Sophie Tilling to issue that belated invitation, she mustn’t lose touch with them now.

They had some guilty knowledge; that had been obvious. Why else had they reacted so strongly to her arrival? They wanted the facts of Mark Callender’s death to be left undisturbed. They would try to persuade, cajole, even to shame her into abandoning the case. Would they, she wondered, also threaten? But why? The most likely theory was that they were shielding someone. But again, why? Murder wasn’t a matter of climbing late into college, a venial infringement of rules which a friend would automatically condone and conceal. Mark Callender had been their friend. Someone whom he knew and trusted had pulled a strap tight round his neck, had watched and listened to his agonized choking, had strung his body on a hook like the carcass of an animal. How could one reconcile that appalling knowledge with Davie Stevens’ slightly amused and rueful glance at Sophie, with Hugo’s cynical calm, with Sophie’s friendly and interested eyes? If they were conspirators, then they were monsters. And Isabelle? If they were shielding anyone, it was most likely to be her. But Isabelle de Lasterie couldn’t have murdered Mark. Cordelia remembered those frail sloping shoulders, those ineffective hands almost transparent in the sun, the long nails painted like elegant
pink talons. If Isabelle were guilty, she hadn’t acted alone. Only a tall and very strong woman could have heaved that inert body onto the chair and up to the hook.

Norwich Street was a one-way thoroughfare and, initially, Cordelia approached it from the wrong direction. It took her some time to find her way back to Hills Road, past the Roman Catholic church and down the fourth turning to the right. The street was terraced with small brick houses, obviously early Victorian. Equally obviously, the road was on its way up. Most of the houses looked well cared for; the paint on the identical front doors was fresh and bright; lined curtains had replaced the draped lace at the single ground-floor windows; and the bases of the walls were scarred where a damp course had been installed. Number fifty-seven had a black front door with the house number painted in white behind the glass panel above. Cordelia was relieved to see that there was space to park the Mini. There was no sign of the Renault among the almost continuous row of old cars and battered bicycles which lined the edge of the pavement.