Death of an Expert Witness (38 page)

The district nurse, who had spent the night at Sprogg's Cottage, had lit the fire. Angela looked at the crackling wood and said:

"Stella never lit the fire until late in the afternoon. I used to lay it in the morning before I went to the Lab, and she'd put a match to it about half an hour before I was due home."

Dalgliesh said: "We found Miss Mawson's house-keys on her body. I'm afraid we had to unlock her desk to examine her papers. You were asleep, so we weren't able to ask you."

She said, dully: "It wouldn't have made any difference, would it? You would have looked just the same. You had to."

"Did you know that your friend once went through a form of marriage with Edwin Lorrimer? There wasn't a divorce; the marriage was annulled after two years because of non-consummation. Did she tell you?"

She turned to look at him, but it was impossible to gauge the expression in those small, pig-like eyes. If her voice held any emotion, it was closer to wry amusement than to surprise.

"Married? She and Edwin? So that's how she knew ..." She broke off.

"No, she didn't tell me. When I came to live here it was a new beginning for both of us. I didn't want to talk about the past and I don't think she did either. She did sometimes tell me things, about her life at university, her job, odd people she knew. But that was one thing she didn't tell me."

Dalgliesh asked gently: "Do you feel able to tell me what happened last night?"

"She said that she was going for a walk. She often did, but usually after supper. That's when she thought about her books, worked out the plot and dialogue, striding along in the darkness on her own."

"What time did she go?"

"Just before seven."

"Did she have the key of the chapel with her?"

"She asked me for it yesterday, after lunch, just before I went back to the Lab. She said she wanted to describe a seventeenth-century family chapel for the book, but I didn't know that she meant to visit it so soon. When she hadn't come home at half past ten, I got worried and went to look for her. I walked for nearly an hour before I thought of looking in the chapel."

Then she spoke directly to Dalgliesh, patiently, as if explaining something to an obtuse child:

"She did it for me. She killed herself so that I could have the money from her life assurance. She told me that I was her only legatee. You see, the owner wants to sell this cottage in a hurry; he needs the cash. We wanted to buy it, but we hadn't enough money for the deposit.

Just before she went out, she asked me what it was like to be in local authority care, what it meant to have no real home. When Edwin was killed, we thought that there might be something for me in his will.

But there wasn't. That's why she asked me for the key. It wasn't true that she needed to include a description of the chapel in her book, not this book anyway. It's set in London, and it's nearly finished. I know. I've been typing it. I thought at the time that it was odd that she wanted the key, but I learned never to ask Stella questions.

"But now I understand. She wanted to make life safe for me here, where we'd been happy, safe for ever. She knew what she was going to do. She knew she'd never come back. When I was massaging her neck to make her headache better, she knew that I should never touch her again."

Dalgliesh asked: "Would any writer, any writer who wasn't mentally ill, choose to kill herself just before a book was finished?"

She said dully: "I don't know. I don't understand how a writer feels."

Dalgliesh said: "Well, I do. And she wouldn't."

She didn't reply. He went on gently: "Was she happy, living here with you?" She looked up at him eagerly, and, for the first time, her voice became animated, as if she were willing him to understand.

"She said that she had never been as happy in all her life. She said that was what love is, knowing that you can make just one other person happy, and be made happy by them in return."

"So why should she kill herself? Could she really have believed that you'd rather have her money than herself? Why should she think that?"

"Stella always underrated herself. She may have thought that I'd forget her in time, but the money and the security would go on forever. She may even have thought that it was bad for me to be living with her--that the money would somehow set me free. She once said something very like that."

Dalgliesh looked across at the slim, upright figure, sitting, hands folded in her lap, opposite to him in the high winged chair. He fixed his eyes on her face. Then he said quietly:

"But there isn't going to be any money. The life assurance policy had a suicide clause. If Miss Mawson did kill herself, then you get nothing."

She hadn't known. He could be certain of that at least. The news surprised her, but it didn't shock. This was no murderess balked of her spoils.

She smiled and said gently: "It doesn't matter."

"It matters to this investigation. I've read one of your friend's novels. Miss Mawson was a highly intelligent writer, which means that she was an intelligent woman. Her heart wasn't strong and her life assurance premiums weren't cheap. It can't have been easy to meet them. Do you really think that she didn't know the terms of her policy?"

"What are you trying to tell me?"

"Miss Mawson knew, or thought she knew, who had killed Dr. Lorrimer, didn't she?"

"Yes. She said so. But she didn't tell me who it was."

"Not even whether it was a man or a woman?"

She thought. "No, nothing. Only that she knew. I'm not sure that she said that, not in so many words. But when I asked her, she didn't deny it."

She paused, and then went on with more animation: "You're thinking that she went out to meet the murderer, aren't you? That she tried to blackmail him? But Stella wouldn't do that! Only a fool would run into that kind of danger, and she wasn't a fool. You said so yourself. She wouldn't voluntarily have gone alone to face a killer, not for any money. No sane woman would."

"Even if the murderer were a woman?"

"Not alone and at night. Star was so small and fragile, and her heart wasn't strong. When I put my arms round her it was like holding a bird." She looked into the fire and said, almost wonderingly:

"I shall never see her again. Never. She sat in this chair and pulled on her boots, just as she always did. I never offered to go with her in the evenings. I knew that she needed to be alone. It was all so ordinary, until she got to the door. And then I was frightened. I begged her not to go. And I shall never see her again. She won't ever speak again, not to me, not to anyone. She'll never write another word. I don't believe it yet. I know that it must be true or you wouldn't be here, but I still don't believe it. How shall I bear it when I do?"

Dalgliesh said: "Miss Foley, we have to know if she went out on the night Dr. Lorrimer was killed."

She looked up at him. "I know what you're trying to make me do. If I say that she did go out, then the case is finished for you, isn't it?

It's all nicely tied up; means, motive, opportunity. He was her ex husband and she hated him because of the will. She went to try to persuade him to help us with money. When he refused, she seized the first weapon to hand and struck him down."

Dalgliesh said: "He may have let her into the Laboratory, although it's unlikely. But how did she get out?"

"You'll say that I took the keys from Dr. Howarth's security safe and lent them to her. Then I put them back next morning."

"Did you?" She shook her head.

"You could only have done that if you and Inspector Blake lock were in this together. And what reason has he for wishing Dr. Lorrimer dead?

When his only child was killed by a hit and-run driver, the evidence of the forensic scientist helped secure an acquittal. But that was ten years ago, and the scientist wasn't Dr. Lorrimer. When Miss Pridmore told me about the child we checked. That evidence was to do with paint particles, the job of a forensic chemist, not a biologist. Are you telling me that Inspector Blakelock lied when he said that the keys were in the security cupboard?"

"He didn't lie. The keys were there."

"Then any case we might seek to build against Miss Mawson weakens, doesn't it? Could anyone really believe that she climbed out of a third-floor window? You must believe that we're here to find the truth, not to fabricate an easy solution."

But she was right, thought Massingham. Once Angela Foley had admitted that her friend had left Sprogg's Cottage that night, it would be difficult to bring home the crime to anyone else. The solution she had propounded was neat enough and, whoever was brought to trial for Lorrimer's murder, the defence would make the most of it. He watched his chief's face. Dalgliesh said:

"I agree that no sane woman would go out alone at night to meet a murderer. That's why I don't think she did. She thought she knew who had killed Edwin Lorrimer, and if she did have an assignation last night, it wasn't with him. Miss Foley, please look at me. You must trust me. I don't know yet whether your friend killed herself or was killed. But if I'm to discover the truth, I'll have to know whether she went out the night Dr. Lorrimer died."

She said dully: "We were together all the evening. We told you." There was a silence. It seemed to Massingham to last for minutes. Then the wood fire flared and there was a crack like a pistol shot. A log rolled out on the hearth. Dalgliesh knelt and with the tongs eased it back into place. The silence went on. Then she said:

"Please tell me the truth first. Do you think Star was murdered?"

"I can't be sure. I may never be able to prove it. But yes, I do."

She said: "Star did go out that night. She was out from half past eight until about half past nine. She didn't tell me where she'd been, and she was perfectly ordinary, perfectly composed, when she got home. She said nothing, but she did go out."

She said at last:

"I'd like you to go now, please."

"I think you should have someone with you."

"I'm not a child. I don't want Mrs. Swaffield or the district nurse or any of the village do-gooders. And I don't need a policewoman. I haven't committed a crime, so you've no right to force yourselves on me. I've told you everything I know. You've locked her desk, so no one can get at Stella's things. I shan't do anything foolish--that's the expression people use when they're trying to ask tactfully if you're planning to kill yourself, isn't it? Well, I'm not. I'm all right now. I just want to be left alone."

Dalgliesh said: "I'm afraid we shall need to force ourselves on you later again."

"Later is better than now." She wasn't trying to be offensive. It was a simple statement of fact. She got up stiffly and walked towards the door, her head held rigidly high as if only the body's discipline could hold intact the fragile integrity of the mind. Dalgliesh and Massingham exchanged glances. She was right. They couldn't force comfort or company where neither was wanted. They had no legal authority either to stay or to compel her to leave. And there were things to do.

She went over to the window and watched from behind the curtains as the car rounded Sprogg's Green and accelerated towards the village. Then she ran into the hall and dragged out the telephone directory from its shelf. It took only a few seconds of feverishly leafing to find the number she wanted. She dialled, waited and then spoke. Replacing the receiver she went back into the sitting-room. Slowly, with ceremony, she lifted the French sword from the wall and stood very still, holding out her arms, the weapon resting across her palms. After a few seconds she curled her left hand round the scabbard, and with her right slowly and deliberately withdrew the blade. Then she took her stand just inside the sitting room door, naked sword in her hand, and measured the room with her eyes, regarding the disposition of furniture and objects, intent as a stranger calculating her chances in some coming trial.

After a few minutes she moved into the study, and again stood silently surveying the room. There was a Victorian button-backed chair beside the fireplace. She dragged it to the study door and hid the naked sword behind it, the tip resting against the floor; then slid the scabbard under the chair. Satisfied that neither could be seen she returned to the sitting-room. She took her seat beside the fire and sat motionless, waiting for the sound of the approaching car.

If Claire Easterbrook was surprised, on her arrival at the Laboratory just before nine o'clock, to be asked by Inspector Blakelock to see Commander Dalgliesh immediately, she concealed it. She changed first into her white coat, but otherwise did not delay in obeying the summons more than was strictly necessary to assert her independence. When she went into the Director's office, she saw the two detectives, the dark head and the red, quietly conferring together at the window almost, she thought, as if their business was ordinary, their presence unremarkable. There was an alien file on Dr. Howarth's desk, and a plan of the Laboratory and an Ordnance Survey map of the village laid open on the conference table, but otherwise the room seemed unchanged.

Dalgliesh moved to the desk and said:

"Good morning, Miss Easterbrook. You heard what happened last night?"

"No. Should I have? I was at the theatre after dinner, so people couldn't reach me, and I've spoken to no one but Inspector Blakelock. He hasn't told me anything."