Death of an Expert Witness (29 page)

Nothing about people surprised him, nothing shocked him. He said:

'"They'll tell you that the most destructive force in the world is hate. Don't you believe it, lad. It's love. And if you want to make a detective you'd better learn to recognize it when you meet it.""

Brenda was over an hour late at the Laboratory on Friday morning. After the excitement of the previous day she had overslept and her mother had deliberately not called her. She had wanted to go without her breakfast, but Mrs. Pridmore had placed the usual plate of bacon and egg before her, and had said firmly that Brenda wouldn't leave the house until it was eaten. Brenda, only too aware that both her parents would be happier if she never set foot in Hoggatt's again, knew better than to argue.

She arrived, breathless and apologetic, to find Inspector Blakelock trying to cope with a two days' intake of exhibits, a steady stream of arrivals and a constantly ringing telephone. She wondered how he would greet her, whether he had learned about the thousand pounds and, if so, whether it would make any difference. But he seemed his usual stolid self. He said:

"As soon as you've taken off your things, you're to go to the Director.

He's in Miss Foley's office. The police are using his. Don't bother about making tea. Miss Foley will be out until after lunch. She has to see someone from the local authority social services about her uncle."

Brenda was glad that she wouldn't have to face Angela Foley yet. Last night's admission to Commander Dalgliesh was too like betrayal to be comfortable. She said:

"Everyone else is in, then?"

"Clifford Bradley hasn't made it. His wife telephoned to say that he's not well. The police have been here since half past eight. They've been checking all the exhibits, especially the drugs, and they've made another search of the whole Lab. Apparently they've got the idea that there's something odd going on."

It was unusual for Inspector Blakelock to be so communicative. Brenda asked:

"What do you mean, something odd?"

"They didn't say. But now they want to see every file in the Lab with a number 18 or 40 or 1840 in the registration."

Brenda's eyes widened. "Do you mean for this year only, or do we have to go back to those on microfilm?"

"I've got out this year's and last year's to begin with, and Sergeant Underbill and the constable are working on them now. I don't know what they hope to find, and by the look of them, neither do they. Better look nippy. Dr. Howarth said that you were to go into him as soon as you arrive."

"But I can't do shorthand and typing! What do you think he wants me for?"

"He didn't say. Mostly getting out files, I imagine. And I daresay there'll be a bit of telephoning and fetching and carrying."

"Where's Commander Dalgliesh? Isn't he here?"

"He and Inspector Massingham left about ten minutes ago. Off to interview someone, I daresay. Never mind about them. Our job's here, helping to keep this Lab working smoothly."

It was as close as Inspector Blakelock ever got to a rebuke. Brenda hurried to Miss Foley's office. It was known that the Director didn't like people to knock on his door, so Brenda entered with what confidence she could muster. She thought, "I can only do my best. If that's not good enough, he'll have to lump it." He was sitting at the desk apparently studying a file. He looked up without smiling in response to her good morning, and said:

"Inspector Blakelock has explained to you that I want some help this morning while Miss Foley's away? You can work with Mrs. Mallett in the general office."

"Yes, sir."

"The police will be needing some more files. They're interested in particular numbers only. But I expect Inspector Blake lock has explained that."

"Yes, sir."

"They're working on the 1976 and '75 registrations now, so you'd better start getting out the 1974 series and any earlier years they want." He took his eyes from the files and looked directly at her for the first time.

"Dr. Lorrimer left you some money, didn't he?"

"Yes, sir. One thousand pounds for books and apparatus."

"You don't need to call me sir. Dr. Howarth will do. You liked him?"

"Yes. Yes, I did." Dr. Howarth had lowered his eyes again and was turning over the pages of the file.

"Odd, I shouldn't have thought that he would have appealed to women, or women to him."

Brenda said resolutely: "It wasn't like that."

"What wasn't it like? Do you mean he didn't think of you as a woman?"

"I don't know. I mean, I didn't think that he was trying to ..." Her voice broke off. Dr. Howarth turned a page. He said: "To seduce you?"

Brenda took courage, helped by a spurt of anger. She said: "Well, he couldn't, could he? Not here in the Lab. And I never saw him anywhere else. And if you'd known anything about him at all, you wouldn't talk like that."

She was appalled at her own temerity. But the Director only said, rather sadly she thought:

"I expect you're right. I never knew him at all." She struggled to explain.

"He explained to me what science is about."

"And what is science about?"

"He explained that scientists formulate theories about how the physical world works, and then test them out by experiments. As long as the experiments succeed, then the theories hold. If they fall, the scientists have to find another theory to explain the facts. He says that, with science, there's this exciting paradox, that disillusionment needn't be defeat. It's a step forward."

"Didn't you do science at school? I thought you'd taken physics and chemistry at "O' level."

"No one ever explained it like that before."

"No. I suppose they bored you with experiments about magnetism and the properties of carbon dioxide. By the way, Miss Foley has typed a paper on the ratio of staffing to workloads. I want the figures checked--Mrs. Mallett will do it with you--and the paper circulated to all Directors before next week's meeting. She'll give you the list of addresses."

"Yes, sir. Yes, Dr. Howarth."

"And I'd like you to take this file to Miss Easterbrook in the Biology Lab."

He looked up at her, and she thought for the first time that he looked kind. He said, very gently:

"I know how you feel. I felt the same. But there's only a white outline on the floor, just a smudge of chalk. That's all."

He handed her the file. It was a dismissal. At the door Brenda paused. The Director said:

"Well?"

"I was just thinking that detection must be like science. The detective formulates a theory, then tests it. If the facts he discovers fit, then the theory holds. If they don't, then he has to find another theory, another suspect."

Dr. Howarth said drily: "It's a reasonable analogy. But the temptation to select the right facts is probably greater. And the detective is experimenting with human beings. Their properties are complex and not susceptible to accurate analysis."

An hour later Brenda took her third set of files into Sergeant Underhill in the director's office. The pleasant-looking detective constable leaped forward to relieve her of her burden. The telephone rang on Dr. Howarth's desk, and Sergeant Underhill went over to answer it. He replaced the receiver and looked across at his companion.

"That's the Met Lab. They've given me the result of the blood analysis. The mallet was the weapon all right. There's Lorrimer's blood on it. And they've analysed the vomit."

He looked up, suddenly remembering that Brenda was still in the room, and waited until she had left and the door was closed. The detective constable said:

"Well?"

"It's what we thought. Think it out for yourself. A forensic scientist would know that the Lab can't determine a blood group from vomit. The stomach acids destroy the antibodies. What they can hope to say is what was in the food. So all you need to do, if it's your vomit and you're a suspect, is to lie about what you ate for supper.

Who could disprove it?"

His companion said: "Unless ..." Sergeant Underhill reached again for the phone. "Exactly. As I said, think it out for yourself."

After the last few days of intermittent rain and fitful autumn sunlight, the morning was cold but bright, the sun unexpectedly warm against their necks. But even in the mellow light, the Old Rectory, with its bricks the colour of raw liver under the encroaching ivy and its ponderous porch and carved overhanging eaves, was a depressing house. The open iron gate to the drive, half off its hinges, was embedded in a straggling hedge which bordered the garden. The gravel path needed weeding. The grass of the lawn was pulled and flattened where someone had made an inexpert attempt at moving it, obviously with a blunt machine, and the two herbaceous borders were a tangle of overgrown chrysanthemums and stunted dahlias half choked with weeds. A child's wooden horse on wheels lay on its side at the edge of the lawn, but this was the only sign of human life.

As they approached the house, however, a girl and a small boy emerged from the porch and stood regarding them. They must, of course, be Kerrison's children, and as Dalgliesh and Massingham approached the likeness became apparent. The girl must, he supposed, be over school age, but she looked barely sixteen except for a certain adult wariness about the eyes. She had straight, dark hair drawn back from a high, spotty forehead into short dishevelled pigtails bound with elastic bands. She wore the ubiquitous faded blue jeans of her generation, topped with a fawn sweater, loose-fitting enough to be her father's.

Round her neck Dalgliesh could glimpse what looked like a leather thong. Her grubby feet were bare and palely striped with the pattern of summer sandals.

The child, who moved closer to her at the sight of strangers, was about three or four years old, a stocky, round-faced boy with a wide nose and a gentle, delicate mouth. His face was a softer miniature model of his father's, the brows straight and dark above the heavily lidded eyes. He was wearing a pair of tight blue shorts and an inexpertly knitted jumper against which he was clasping a large ball. His sturdy legs were planted in short, red Wellington boots. He tightened his hold on his ball and fixed on Dalgliesh an unblinking disconcertingly judge mental gaze.

Dalgliesh suddenly realized that he knew virtually nothing about children. Most of his friends were childless; those who were not had learned to invite him when their demanding, peace-disturbing, egotistical offspring were away at school. His only son had died, with his mother, just twenty-four hours after birth. Although he could now hardly recall his wife's face except in dreams, the picture of those waxen, doll-like features above the tiny swathed body, the gummed eyelids, the secret look of self-absorbed peace was so clear and immediate that he sometimes wondered whether the image was really that of his child, so briefly but intently regarded, or whether he had taken into himself a prototype of dead childhood. His son would now be older than this child, would be entering the traumatic years of adolescence.

He had convinced himself long ago that he was glad to have been spared them.

But now it suddenly occurred to him that there was a whole territory of human experience on which, once repulsed, he had turned his back, and that this rejection somehow diminished him as a man. This transitory ache of loss surprised him by its intensity. He forced himself to consider a sensation so unfamiliar and unwelcome.

Suddenly the child smiled at him and held out the ball. The effect was as disconcertingly flattering as when a stray cat would stalk towards him, tail erect, and condescend to be stroked. They gazed at each other. Dalgliesh smiled back. Then Massingham sprang forward and whipped the ball from the chubby hands.

"Come on. Football!"

He began dribbling the blue and yellow ball across the lawn.

Immediately the sturdy legs followed. The two of them disappeared round the side of the house and Dalgliesh could hear the boy's high, cracked laughter. The girl gazed after them, her face suddenly pinched with loving anxiety. She turned to Dalgliesh.

"I hope he knows not to kick it into the bonfire. It's almost out, but the embers are still very hot. I've been burning rubbish."

"Don't worry. He's a careful chap. And he's got younger brothers."

She regarded him carefully for the first time. "You're Commander Dalgliesh, aren't you? We're Nell and William Kerrison. I'm afraid my father isn't here."

"I know. We've come to see your housekeeper, Miss Willard, isn't it?

Is she in?"

"I shouldn't take any notice of anything she says if I were you. She's a dreadful liar. And she steals Daddy's drink. Don't you want to question William and me?"

"A policewoman will be coming with us to talk to you both, sometime when your father's at home."

"I won't see her. I don't mind talking to you, but I won't see a policewoman. I don't like social workers."

"A policewoman isn't a social worker."

"She's the same. She makes judgements on people, doesn't she? We had a social worker here after my mother left, before the custody case, and she looked at William and me as if we were a public nuisance which someone had left on her doorstep. She went round the house too, poking into things, pretending to admire, making out it was just a social visit."