Death of an Expert Witness (33 page)

It was Massingham from Guy's Marsh station. The car which had parked in Hoggatt's drive on Wednesday night had at last been traced. It was a grey Cortina belonging to a Mrs. Maureen Doyle. Mrs. Doyle was at present staying with her parents in Ilford in Essex, but she had confirmed that the car was hers and that on the night of the murder it had been driven by her husband, Detective Inspector Doyle.

The interview room at Guy's Marsh police station was small, stuffy and overcrowded. Superintendent Mercer, with his great bulk, was taking up more than his share of space and, it seemed to Massingham, breathing more than his share of the air. Of the five men present, including the shorthand writer, Doyle himself appeared both the most comfortable and the least concerned. Dal gliesh was questioning him. Mercer stood against the mullioned windows.

"You were at Hoggatt's the night before last. There are fresh tyre-marks in the earth under the trees to the right of the entrance, your tyre-marks. If you want to waste time for both of us, you can look at the casts."

"I admit that they're my tyre-marks. I parked there, briefly, on Monday night."

"Why?" The question was so quiet, so reasonable, he might have had a genuine, human interest to know.

"I was with someone." He paused and then added, "sir."

"I hope, for your sake, that you were with someone the night before last. Even an embarrassing alibi is better than none. You quarrelled with Lorrimer. You're one of the few people he would have let into the Lab. And you parked your car under the trees. If you didn't murder him, why are you trying to persuade us that you did?"

"You don't really believe I killed him. Probably you already suspect or know who did. You can't frighten me, because I know you haven't any evidence. There isn't any to get. I was driving the Cortina because the clutch had gone on the Renault, not because I didn't want to be recognized. I was with Sergeant Beale until eight o'clock. We'd been to interview a man called Barry Taylor at Muddington, and then we went on to see one or two other people who'd been at the dance on Tuesday.

From eight o'clock I was driving alone, and where I went was my own business."

"Not when it's a case of murder. Isn't that what you tell your suspects when they come out with that good old bromide about the sanctity of their private lives? You can do better than that, Doyle."

"I wasn't at the Lab on Wednesday night. Those tyre-marks were made when I parked there last Monday."

"The Dunlop on the left-hand back wheel is new. It was fitted on Monday afternoon by Gorringe's garage, and your wife didn't collect the Cortina until ten o'clock on Wednesday morning. If you didn't drive to Hoggatt's to see Lorrimer, then what were you doing there? And if your business was legitimate, then why park just inside the entrance and under the trees?"

"If I'd been there to murder Lorrimer, I'd have parked in one of the garages at the back. That would have been safer than leaving the Cortina in the drive. And I didn't get to Hoggatt's until after nine.

I knew that Lorrimer would be working late on the clunch pit case, but not that late. The Lab was in darkness. The truth, if you must know, is that I'd picked up a woman at the crossroads just outside Manca. I wasn't in any hurry to get home, and I wanted somewhere quiet and secluded to stop. The Lab seemed as good a place as any. We were there from about nine-fifteen until nine-fifty. No one left during that time."

He had taken his time over what was presumably intended to be a quick one-night lay, thought Massingham. Dalgliesh asked:

"Did you trouble to find out who she was, exchange names?"

"I told her I was Ronny McDowell. It seemed as good a name as any. She said she was Dora Meakin. I don't suppose that more than one of us was lying."

"And that's all, not where she lived or worked?"

"She said she worked at the sugar-beet factory and lived in a cottage near the ruined engine-house on Hunter's Fen. That's about three miles from Manca. She said she was a widow. Like a little gentleman, I dropped her at the bottom of the lane leading to Hunter's Fen. If she wasn't telling me a yarn, that should be enough to find her."

Chief Superintendent Mercer said grimly: "I hope for your sake that it is. You know what this means for you, of course?"

Doyle laughed. It was a surprisingly lighthearted sound. "Oh I know, all right. But don't let that worry you. I'm handing in my resignation, and from now."

Dalgliesh asked: "Are you sure about the lights? The Lab was in darkness?"

"I shouldn't have stopped there if it hadn't been. There wasn't a light to be seen. And although I admit I was somewhat preoccupied for a minute or two, I could swear that no one came down that drive while we were there."

"Or out of the front door?"

"That would be possible, I suppose. But the drive isn't more than forty yards long, I'd say. I think I'd have noticed, unless he slipped out very quickly. I doubt whether anyone would have risked it, not if he'd seen my headlights and knew that the car was there."

Dalgliesh looked at Mercer. He said: "We've got to get back to Chevisham. We'll take in Hunter's Fen on the way."

Leaning over the back of the Victorian chaise longue Angela Foley was massaging her friend's neck. The coarse hairs tickled the back of her hands as, firmly and gently, she kneaded the taut muscles, feeling for each separate vertebra under the hot, tense skin. Stella sat, head slumped forward in her hands. Neither spoke. Outside, a light scavenging wind was blowing fit fully over the fens, stirring the fallen leaves on the patio, and gusting the thin, white wood-smoke from the cottage chimney. But inside the sitting-room all was quiet, except for the crackling of the fire, the ticking of the grandfather clock, and the sound of their breathing. The cottage was full of the pungent, resinous aroma of burning apple wood, overlaid with the savoury smell from the kitchen of beef casserole reheated from yesterday's dinner.

After a few minutes Angela Foley said: "Better? Would you like a cold compress on your forehead?"

"No, that's lovely. Almost gone in fact. Odd that I only get a headache on those days when the book has gone particularly well."

"Another two minutes, then I'd better see about dinner." Angela flexed her fingers and bent again to her task. Stella's voice, muffled in her sweater, suddenly said:

"What was it like as a child, being in local authority care?"

"I'm not sure that I know. I mean, I wasn't in a Home or anything like that. They fostered me most of the time."

"Well, what was that like? You've never really told me."

"It was all right. No, that's not true. It was like living in a second-rate boarding house where they don't want you and you know that you won't be able to pay the bill. Until I met you and came here I felt like that all the time, not really at home in the world. I suppose my foster-parents were kind. They meant to be. But I wasn't pretty, and I wasn't grateful. It can't be much fun fostering other people's children, and I suppose one does rather look for gratitude.

Looking back, I can see that I wasn't much joy for them, plain and surly. I once heard a neighbour say to my third foster-mother that I looked just like a foetus with my bulging forehead and tiny features. I resented the other children because they had mothers and I hadn't. I've never really outgrown that. It's despicable, but I even dislike Brenda Pridmore, the new girl on our reception desk, because she's so obviously a loved child, she's got a proper home."

"So have you now. But I know what you mean. By the age of five you've either learned that the world is good, that everything and everyone in it stretches out towards you with love. Or you know that you're a reject. No one ever unlearns that first lesson."

"I have, because of you. Star, don't you think we ought to start looking for another cottage, perhaps nearer Cambridge? There's bound to be a job there for a qualified secretary."

"We're not going to need another cottage. I telephoned my publishers this afternoon, and I think it's going to be all right."

"Hearne and Collingwood? But how can it be all right? I thought you said..."

"It's going to be all right." Suddenly Stella shook herself free of the ministering hands and stood up. She went into the passage and came back, her duffle-coat over her shoulder, her boots in hand. She moved over to the fireside chair and began to pull them on. Angela Foley watched her without speaking. Then Stella took from her jacket pocket a brown opened envelope and tossed it across. It fell on the velvet of the chaise-longue.

"Oh, I meant to show you this."

Puzzled, Angela took out the single folded sheet. She said: "Where did you find this?"

"I took it from Edwin's desk when I was rummaging about for the will. I thought at the time that I might have a use for it. Now I've decided that I haven't."

"But, Star, you should have left it for the police to find! It's a clue. They'll have to know. This was probably what Edwin was doing that night, checking up. It's important. We can't keep it to ourselves."

"Then you'd better go back to Postmill Cottage and pretend to find it, otherwise it's going to be a bit embarrassing explaining how we came by it."

"But the police aren't going to believe that; they wouldn't have missed it. I wonder when it arrived at the Lab. It's odd that he took it home with him and didn't even lock it up."

"Why should he? There was only the one locked drawer in his desk. And I don't suppose anyone, even his father, ever went into that room."

"But Star, this could explain why he was killed! This could be a motive for murder."

"Oh, I don't think so. It's just a gratuitous bit of spite, anonymous, proving nothing. Edwin's death was both simpler, and more complicated, than that. Murder usually is. But the police might see it as a motive, and that would be convenient for us. I'm beginning to think I should have left it where it was."

She had pulled on her boots and was ready to go. Angela Foley said:

"You know who killed him, don't you?"

"Does that shock you, that I haven't rushed to confide in that extraordinarily personable Commander?"

Angela whispered: "What are you going to do?"

"Nothing. I've no proof. Let the police do the work they're paid for.

I might have had more public spirit when we had the death penalty. I'm not afraid of the ghosts of hanged men. They can stand at the four corners of my bed and howl all night if it pleases them. But I couldn't go on living --I couldn't go on working, which amounts to the same thing for me--knowing that I'd put another human being in prison, and for life."

"Not really for life. About ten years."

"I couldn't stand it for ten days. I'm going out now. I shan't be long."

"But, Star, it's nearly seven! We were going to eat."

"The casserole won't spoil."

Angela Foley watched silently as her friend went to the door. Then she said:

"Star, how did you know about Edwin practising his evidence the night before he had to go into the box?"

"If you didn't tell me, and you say that you didn't, then I must have invented it, I couldn't have learnt it from anyone else. You'd better put it down to creative imagination." Her hand was on the door. Angela cried out:

"Star, don't go out tonight. Stay with me. I'm afraid."

"For yourself, or for me?"

"For both of us. Please don't go. Not tonight." Stella turned. She smiled and spread her hands in what could have been a gesture of resignation or a farewell. There was a howl of wind, a rush of cold air as the front door opened. Then the sound of its closing echoed through the cottage, and Stella was gone.

"My God, this is a dreary place!"

Massingham slammed the car door and gazed about in disbelief at the prospect before them. The lane, down which they had bumped in the fading light, had at last ended at a narrow iron bridge over a sluice, running grey and sluggish as oil, between high dykes. On the other bank was a derelict Victorian engine-house, the bricks tumbled in a disorderly heap beside the stagnant stream, the great wheel half visible through the ruined wall. Beside it were two cottages lying below water-level. Behind them the scarred and sullen acres of the hedge less fields stretched to the red and purple of the evening sky.

The carcass of a petrified tree, a bog-oak, struck by the plough and dredged from the depths of the peat, had been dumped beside the track to dry. It looked like some mutilated prehistoric creature raising its stumps to the uncomprehending sky. Although the last two days had been dry with some sun, the landscape looked saturated by the weeks of rain, the front gardens sour and waterlogged, the trunks of the few stunted trees sodden as pulp. It looked a country on which the sun could never shine. As their feet rang on the iron bridge a solitary duck rose with an agitated squawking, but otherwise the silence was absolute.

There was a light behind the drawn curtains of only one of the cottages, and they walked between wind-blown clumps of faded Michaelmas daisies to the front door. The paint was peeling, the iron knocker was so stiff that Dalgliesh raised it with difficulty. For a few minutes after the dull peremptory thud there was silence. Then the door was opened.

They saw a drab, shallow-faced woman, aged about forty, with pale anxious eyes and untidy straw-coloured hair strained back under two combs. She was wearing a brown checked Crimplene dress topped with a bulky cardigan in a harsh shade of blue. As soon as he saw her, Massingham instinctively drew back with an apology, but Dalgliesh said: