Death of an Expert Witness (18 page)

Brenda was not used to dissembling. It was obvious that something had occurred to her. She blushed and dropped her eyes. The metamorphosis from happy confidante to guilty schoolgirl was pathetically comic.

Dalgliesh said gently:

"Yes?" She didn't speak, but made herself meet his eyes and shook her head. He waited for a moment, then said:

"The investigation of murder is never agreeable. Like most unpleasant things in life, it sometimes seems easier not to get involved, to keep oneself uncontaminated. But that isn't possible. In a murder investigation, to suppress a truth is sometimes to tell a lie."

"But suppose one passes on information. Something private, perhaps, which one hasn't any real right to know--and it throws suspicion on the wrong person?"

Dalgliesh said gently: "You have to trust us. Will you try to do that?"

She nodded, and whispered "Yes," but she said nothing further. He judged that this was not the time to press her. He let her go, and sent for Angela Foley.

In contrast to Brenda Pridmore's artless confiding, Angela Foley presented a bland inscrutable gaze. She was an unusual-looking girl with a heart shaped face and a wide, exceedingly high forehead from which hair, baby fine, the colour of ripe grain, was strained back and plaited into a tight coil on top of her head. Her eyes were small, slanted, and so deeply set that Dalgliesh found it hard to guess their colour. Her mouth was small, pursed and uncommunicative above the pointed chin. She wore a dress in fine fawn wool, topped with an elaborately patterned, short-sleeved tabard, and short laced boots, a sophisticated and exotic contrast to Brenda's orthodox prettiness and neat hand-knitted twin set If she was distressed by her cousin's violent death, she concealed it admirably. She said that she had worked as Director's secretary for five years, first with Dr. MacIntyre and now with Dr. Howarth.

Before that, she had been a shorthand typist in the general office of the Laboratory, having joined Hoggatt's straight from school. She was twenty-seven. Until two years ago, she lived in a bed-sitting-room in Ely, but now shared Sprogg's Cottage with a woman friend. They had spent the whole of the previous evening in each other's company. Edwin Lorrimer and his father had been her only living relatives, but they had seen, very little of each other. The family, she explained as if this were the most natural thing in the world, had never been close.

"So you know very little of his private affairs, his will, for example?"

"No, nothing. When my grandmother left him all her money, and we were at the solicitor's office, he said that he would make me his heir. But I think he just felt guilty at the time that I wasn't named in the will. I don't suppose it meant anything. And, of course, he may have changed his mind."

"Do you remember how much your grandmother left?" She paused for a moment. Almost, he thought, as if calculating whether ignorance would sound more suspicious than knowledge. Then she said:

"I think about thirty thousand. I don't know how much it is now."

He took her briefly but carefully through the events of the early morning. She and her friend ran a Mini, but she usually cycled to work. She had done so that morning, arriving at the Laboratory at her usual time, just before nine o'clock, and had been surprised to see Dr. Howarth with Mrs. Bidwell driving in before her. Brenda Pridmore had opened the door. Inspector Blakelock was coming downstairs and he had broken the news of the murder. They had all stayed in the hall together while Dr. Howarth went up to the Biology Lab. Inspector Blakelock had telephoned for the police and for Dr. Kerrison. When Dr. Howarth returned to the hall he had asked her to go with Inspector Blakelock and check on the keys. She and the Director were the only two members of staff who knew the combination of his security cupboard. He had stayed in the hall, she thought talking to Brenda Pridmore. The keys had been in their box in the cupboard, and she and Inspector Blakelock had left them there. She had reset the combination lock and returned to the hall. Dr. Howarth had gone into his office to talk to the Home Office, telling the rest of the staff to wait in the hall. Later, after the police and Dr. Kerrison had arrived, Dr. Howarth had driven her in his car to break the news to old Mr. Lorrimer. Then he had left her with the old man to return to the Laboratory, and she had telephoned for her friend. She and Miss Mawson had been there together until Mrs. Swaffield, the rector's wife, and a constable arrived, about an hour later.

"What did you do at Postmill Cottage?"

"I made tea and took it in to my uncle. Miss Mawson stayed in the kitchen most of the time doing the washing-up for him. The kitchen was in a bit of a mess, mostly dirty crockery from the previous day."

"How did your uncle seem?"

"Worried, and rather cross about having been left alone. I don't think he quite realized Edwin was dead."

There seemed little else to be learned from her. As far as she knew, her cousin had had no enemies. She had no idea who could have killed him. Her voice, high, rather monotonous, the voice of a small girl, suggested that it was not a matter of much concern to her. She expressed no regret, advanced no theories, answered all his questions composedly in her high, unemphatic voice. He might have been a casual and unimportant visitor, gratifying a curiosity about the routine of the working of the Laboratory. He felt an instinctive antipathy towards her. He had no difficulty in concealing it, but it interested him since it was a long time since a murder suspect had provoked in him so immediate and physical a reaction. But he wondered whether it was prejudice that glimpsed in those deep and secretive eyes a flash of disdain, of contempt even, and he would have given a great deal to know what was going on behind that high, rather bumpy forehead.

When she had left, Massingham said: "It's odd that Dr. Howarth sent her and Blakelock to check on the keys. He must have immediately realized their importance. Access to the Lab is fundamental to this case. So why didn't he check on them himself? He knew the combination."

"Too proud to take a witness, and too intelligent to go without one.

And he may have thought it more important to supervise things in the hall. But at least he was careful to protect Angela Foley. He didn't send her alone. Well, let's see what Blakelock has to say about it."

Like Dr. Howarth, Inspector Blakelock chose not to sit. He stood at attention, facing Dalgliesh across Howarth's desk like a man on a disciplinary charge. Dalgliesh knew better than to try to get him to relax. Blakelock had first learned the technique of replying to questions in his detective constable days in the witness box. He gave the information he was asked for, no more and no less, his eyes fixed on some spot a foot above Dalgliesh's right shoulder. When he gave his name in a firm expressionless voice, Dalgliesh half expected him to reach out his right hand for the Book and take the oath.

In reply to Dalgliesh's questioning he described his movements since leaving his house in Ely to come to the Laboratory. His account of the finding of the body tallied with that of Brenda Pridmore. As soon as he had seen her face as she came down the stairs he had realized that something was wrong and he dashed up to the Biology Lab without waiting for her to speak. The door had been open and the light on. He described the position of the body as precisely as if its rigid contours were imprinted on the mind's retina. He had known at once that Lorrimer was dead. He hadn't touched the body except, instinctively, to slip his hand into the pocket of the white coat and feel that the keys were there.

Dalgliesh asked: "When you arrived at the Laboratory this morning you waited for Miss Pridmore to catch you up before coming in. Why was that?"

"I saw her coming round the side of the building after having put her bicycle away, and it seemed courteous to wait, sir. And it saved me having to re-open the door to her."

"And you found the three locks and the internal security system in good order?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you make a routine check of the Laboratory as soon as you arrive?"

"No, sir. Of course if I found that any of the locks or the security panel had been tampered with I should check at once. But everything was in order."

"You said earlier that the telephone call from Mr. Lorrimer senior was a surprise to you. Didn't you notice Dr. Lorrimer's car when you arrived this morning?"

"No, sir. The senior scientific staff use the end garage."

"Why did you send Miss Pridmore to see if Dr. Lorrimer was here?"

"I didn't, sir. She slipped under the counter before I could stop her."

"So you sensed that something was wrong?"

"Not really, sir. I didn't expect her to find him. But I think it did briefly occur to me that he might have been taken ill."

"What sort of a man was Dr. Lorrimer, Inspector?"

"He was the senior biologist, sir."

"I know. I'm asking you what he was like as a man and a colleague."

"I didn't really know him well, sir. He wasn't one for lingering at the reception desk to chat. But I got on all right with him. He was a good forensic scientist."

"I've been told that he took an interest in Brenda Pridmore. Didn't that mean that he occasionally lingered at the desk?"

"Nor for more than a few minutes, sir. He liked to have a word with the girl from time to time. Everyone does. It's nice to have a young thing about the Lab. She's pretty and hard working and enthusiastic, and I think Dr. Lorrimer wanted to encourage her."

"No more than that, Inspector?"

Blakelock said solidly: "No, sir."

Dalgliesh then asked him about his movements on the previous evening.

He said that he and his wife had bought tickets for the village concert, although his wife was reluctant to go because of a bad headache. She suffered from sinus headaches which were occasionally disabling. But they had attended for the first half of the programme and, because her headache was worse, had left at the interval. He had driven back to Ely, arriving home about a quarter to nine. He and his wife lived in a modern bungalow on the outskirts of the city with no near neighbours and he thought it unlikely that anyone would have noticed their return. Dalgliesh said:

"There seems to have been a general reluctance on the part of everyone to stay for the second part of the programme. Why did you bother to go when you knew your wife was unwell?"

"Dr. MacIntyre--he's the former Director, sir--liked the Laboratory staff to take part in village activities, and Chief Inspector Martin feels the same. So I'd got the tickets and my wife thought we might as well use them. She hoped that the concert might help her to forget her headache. But the first half was rather rowdy and, in fact, it got worse."

"Did you go home and fetch her, or did she meet you here?"

"She came out earlier in the afternoon by the bus, sir, and spent the afternoon with Mrs. Dean, wife of the Minister at the Chapel. She's an old friend. I went round to collect my wife when I left work at six o'clock. We had a fish and chip supper there before the concert."

"That's your normal time for leaving?"

"Yes, sir."

"And who locks up the Laboratory if the scientists are working after your time for leaving?"

"I always check who's left, sir. If there are junior staff working then I have to stay until they're finished. But that isn't usual. Dr.

Howarth has a set of keys and would check the alarm system and lock up if he worked late."

"Did Dr. Lorrimer normally work after you had left?"

"About three or four evenings a week, sir. But I had no anxiety about Dr. Lorrimer locking up. He was very conscientious."

"Would he let anyone into the Laboratory if he were alone?"

"No, sir, not unless they were members of the staff, or of the police force, maybe. But it would have to be an officer he knew. He wouldn't let anyone in who hadn't got proper business here. Dr. Lorrimer was very particular about unauthorized people coming into the Laboratory."

"Was that why he tried forcibly to remove Miss Kerrison the day before yesterday?"

Inspector Blakelock did not lose his composure. He said: "I wouldn't describe it as a forcible removal, sir. He didn't lay hands on the girl."

"Would you describe to me exactly what did happen, Inspector?"

"Miss Kerrison and her small brother came to meet their father. Dr.

Kerrison was lecturing that morning to the Inspector's training course.

I suggested to Miss Kerrison that she sit down on the chair and wait, but Dr. Lorrimer came down the stairs at that moment to see if the mallet had arrived for examination. He saw the children and asked rather peremptorily what they were doing there. He said that a forensic science lab wasn't a place for children. Miss Kerrison said that she didn't intend to leave, so he walked towards her as if he intended to put her out. He looked very white, very strange, I thought. He didn't lay a hand on her but I think she was frightened that he was going to. I believe she's very highly strung, sir. She started screeching and screaming "I hate you. I hate you." Dr.

Lorrimer turned and went back up the stairs and Brenda tried to comfort the girl."

"And Miss Kerrison and her small brother left without waiting for their father?"

"Yes, sir. Dr. Kerrison came down about fifteen minutes later and I told him that the children had come for him but had left."