Original Sin (55 page)

Claudia said sharply: “Of course she killed herself. Any other idea is wishful thinking on the part of the police. Why accept suicide when you can go for the more exciting option? And that fax may have been the last straw for Esmé. Whoever sent it bears a heavy responsibility.”

She was gazing fixedly at Blackie, and the heads of the others turned as if Claudia had pulled on an invisible string.

Claudia suddenly said: “It was you! I thought so. It was you, Blackie! You sent it!”

They watched appalled as Blackie’s mouth slowly and silently opened. For what seemed minutes rather than seconds she held her breath, and then she burst into uncontrollable sobbing. Claudia got up from her seat and took her by the shoulders. For a second it looked as if she were going to shake her.

“And what about the rest of the mischief? What about the altered proofs, the stolen artwork? Was that you too?”

“No! No, I swear it. Just the fax. Nothing else. Only that one. She was so unkind about Mr. Peverell. She said terrible things. It isn’t true he thought I was a nuisance. He cared about me. He relied on me. Oh God, I wish I were dead like him.”

She stumbled to her feet and, still howling, blundered to the door, holding out a hand before her like a blind woman feeling for her way. Frances half rose and de Witt was already on his feet when Claudia grasped his arm.

“For God’s sake leave her alone, James. We don’t all welcome your shoulder to cry on. Some of us prefer to bear our own misery.”

James flushed and immediately sat down.

Dalgliesh said: “I think we had better stop now. When Miss Blackett is calmer Inspector Miskin will talk to her.”

De Witt said: “Congratulations Commander. It was clever of you to get us to do your job for you. It would have been kinder to have questioned Blackie in private but that would have taken longer, wouldn’t it, and might have been less successful.”

Dalgliesh said: “A woman has died and it is my job to discover how and why. I’m afraid that kindness isn’t my first priority.”

Frances said, almost in tears, looking across at de Witt: “Poor Blackie! Oh my God, oh poor Blackie! What are they going to do with her?”

It was Claudia who replied. “Inspector Miskin will comfort her and then Dalgliesh will grill her. Or, if she’s lucky, the other way round. You needn’t worry about Blackie. Sending that fax isn’t a hanging matter, it isn’t even an indictable offence.” She turned violently and spoke to Dauntsey. “Gabriel, I’m sorry. I’m so terribly sorry. I’m sorry, sorry. I don’t know what came over me. My God, we’ve got to stand together.” When he didn’t reply, she said almost beseechingly: “You don’t think it was murder, do you? Esmé’s death, I’m saying. You don’t think someone killed her?”

Dauntsey said quietly: “You’ve heard the Commander read that message she wrote for us. Did that really sound to you like a suicide note?”

Mr. Winston Johnson was large, black, amiable, apparently unworried by the ambience of a police station and philosophical about losing possible fares by the necessity to call in at Wapping. His voice was a deep attractive bass but its accent was pure Cockney. When Daniel apologized for the need to encroach on his working time he said: “Don’t reckon I’ve lost much. Picked up a fare wanting Canary Wharf on the way here. A couple of American tourists. Good tippers too. That’s why I’m a bit late.”

Daniel passed over a photograph of Esmé Carling. “This is the fare we’re interested in. Thursday night to Innocent Walk. Recognize her?”

Mr. Johnson took the photograph in his left hand. “That’s right. Hailed me at Hammersmith Bridge at about half past six. Said she wanted to be at number ten Innocent Walk by seven-thirty. No problem there. It wasn’t going to take the best part of an hour, not unless the traffic was extra bad or we’d had a bomb alert and your chaps had closed down one of the roads. We made good time.”

“You mean you got there before seven-thirty.”

“Would’ve done, but she tapped the glass when we got to the Tower and said she didn’t want to be early. Asked me to kill time. I asked her where she’d like to go and she said, ‘Anywhere, so long as we get to Innocent Walk at seven-thirty.’ So I took her as far as the Isle of Dogs and drove round a bit, then came back down The Highway. It put a few bob on the fare but I reckon that wasn’t her worry. Eighteen pounds in all that cost her, and she gave a tip.”

“How did you approach Innocent Walk?”

“Left off The Highway down Garnet Street, then right off Wapping Wall.”

“Did you see anyone in particular?”

“Anyone in particular? There were one or two chaps around but I can’t say I noticed anyone particular. Watching the road, wasn’t I?”

“Did Mrs. Carling speak to you on the journey?”

“Only what I told you, that she didn’t want to get to Innocent Walk until half past seven, so would I drive around, like.”

“And you’re sure she wanted number ten Innocent Walk, not Innocent House.”

“Number ten is what she asked for and number ten is where I dropped her. By the iron gates at the end of Innocent Passage. Seemed to me she was anxious not to go further down Innocent Walk. She tapped on the window as soon as I turned into it and said that’s as far as she wanted.”

“Did you see whether the gate into Innocent Passage was open?”

“It wasn’t standing open. That’s not to say it was locked.”

Daniel asked, knowing what the answer would be but needing to get it on record. “She didn’t mention why she was going to Innocent Walk, whether she was meeting anyone, for example?”

“Wasn’t my business, was it, guv?”

“Maybe not, but fares do chat occasionally.”

“A darned sight too much, some of them. But this one didn’t. Just sat there clutching her bloody great shoulder bag.”

Another photograph was passed over. “This shoulder bag?”

“Could be. Looks like it. Mind you, I couldn’t swear to it.”

“Did the bag look full, as if she was carrying something heavy or bulky?”

“Can’t help you there, mate. But I did notice that it was slung round her shoulder and it was large.”

“And you can swear that you drove this woman from Hammersmith to Innocent Walk on Thursday and left her alive at the end of Innocent Passage at seven-thirty?”

“Well I certainly didn’t leave her dead. Yes I can swear to that all right. Do you want me to make a statement?”

“You’ve been very helpful, Mr. Johnson. Yes, we’d like a statement. We’ll take it next door.”

Mr. Johnson went out accompanied by the detective constable. Almost immediately the door opened and Sergeant Robbins put his head in. He made no attempt to disguise his excitement.

“Just checking on the river traffic, sir. We’ve just had a telephone call from the Port of London Authority. It’s in reply to that ring I gave them about an hour ago. Their launch,
Royal Nore
, was passing Innocent House last night. Their chairman had a private dinner party on board. The meal was at eight and three of his guests were anxious to see Innocent House so they were out on deck. They reckon the time was about twenty to eight. They can swear, sir, that the body wasn’t suspended then and that they saw no one on the forecourt. And there’s another thing, sir. They’re adamant that the launch was to the left not to the right of the steps. I mean to the left looking from the river.”

Daniel said slowly: “Bloody hell! So AD’s instinct was right. She was killed in the launch. The killer heard the Port of London Authority boat approaching and kept the body out of sight before he strung her up.”

“But why that side of the railings? Why move the boat?”

“In the hope that we wouldn’t realize that that’s where she was killed. The last thing he wants is to have scene-of-crime officers crawling over that launch. And there’s another thing. He met her inside the wrought-iron gates at the bottom of Innocent Passage. He had a key and was waiting for her, standing in the side doorway. It would be safer to keep to that end of the forecourt as far as possible from Innocent House and number twelve.”

Robbins had thought of an objection. “Wasn’t it risky moving the launch? Miss Peverell and Mr. de Witt might have heard it from her flat. If they had, surely they’d have come down to investigate.”

“They claim they couldn’t even hear a taxi unless it was actually driven over the cobbles of Innocent Lane. It’s something we can check, of course. If they did hear an engine they probably thought it was any passing launch on the river. They had the curtains drawn, remember. Of course there’s always another possibility.”

“What’s that, sir?”

“That it was they who moved the launch.”

It was only just 5.30 on Saturday, normally a busy day, but the shop was locked with the closed notice showing through the glass. Claudia rang the bell at the side and within seconds Declan’s figure appeared and the door was unbolted. As soon as she was through he gave a quick look down both sides of the street, then locked the door again behind her.

She said: “Where’s Mr. Simon?”

“In hospital. That’s where I’ve been. He’s very ill. He thinks it’s cancer.”

“What do they say, the people at the hospital?”

“They’re going to do some tests. I could see that they think it’s serious. I made him call in Dr. Cohen—that’s his GP—this morning and he said, ‘For God’s sake, why didn’t you see me earlier?’ Simon knows he isn’t going to come out of hospital, he told me. Look, come into the back room, won’t you, it’ll be more comfortable there.”

He neither kissed her nor touched her.

She thought, he’s speaking to me as if I were a customer. Something had happened to him, something more than old
Simon’s illness. She had never seen him like this before. He seemed to be possessed by a mixture of excitement and terror. His eyes looked almost wild and his skin glistened with sweat. She could smell him, an alien feral smell. She followed him into the conservatory. All three bars of the wall-mounted electric fire were on and the room was very warm. The familiar objects looked strange, diminished, the petty leavings of dead and unregarded lives.

She didn’t sit but stood watching him. He seemed unable to keep still, pacing the few yards of free space like a caged animal. He was more formally dressed than usual and the unfamiliar tie and jacket were at odds with his almost manic restlessness, the dishevelled hair. She wondered how long he had been drinking. There was a bottle of wine, two-thirds empty, and a single stained glass among the clutter on one of the tables. Suddenly he stopped the restless pacing and turned to her, and she saw in his eyes a look of mingled pleading, shame and fear.

He said: “The police have been here. Look Claudia, I had to tell them about Thursday, the night that Gerard died. I had to tell them that you left me at Tower Pier, that we weren’t together all the time.”

She said: “Had to? What do you mean, had to?”

“They forced it out of me.”

“What with, thumbscrews and hot pincers? Did Dalgliesh twist your arms and slap your face? Did they take you to Notting Hill nick and punch you up, cleverly leaving no bruises? We know how good they are at that, we watch the TV.”

“Dalgliesh wasn’t here. It was that Jew-boy and a sergeant. Claudia, you don’t know what it was like. They think that that novelist, Esmé Carling, was murdered.”

“They can’t know that.”

“I’m telling you, that’s what they think. And they know I had a motive for Gerard’s murder.”

“If it was murder.”

“They knew that I needed cash, that you’d promised to get it for me. We could’ve moored the launch at Innocent House and done it together.”

“Only we didn’t.”

“They don’t believe that.”

“Did they say that directly, any of it?”

“No, but they didn’t need to. I could see what they were thinking.”

She said patiently: “Look, if they seriously suspected you they would have had to question you under caution at a police station and tape-record the interview. Is that what they did?”

“Of course not.”

“They didn’t invite you to go with them to the station, tell you that you could call a lawyer?”

“Nothing like that. They did say at the end that I must call in at Wapping and make a statement.”

“So what did they really do?”

“Kept on about was I really sure that we’d been together all the time, that you’d driven me back here from Innocent House. How much better it was to tell the truth. The inspector used the words ‘accessory to murder,’ I’m sure he did.”

“Are you? I’m not.”

“Anyway, I told them.”

She said quietly and through lips that no longer seemed her own: “You realize what you’ve done? If Esmé Carling was murdered then probably Gerard was too, and if he was, the same person was responsible for both deaths. It would be too much of a coincidence to have two murderers in one firm. All you’ve done is to get yourself suspected of two deaths, not one.”

He was almost crying. “But we were together here when Esmé died. You came here straight from work. I let you in. We were together the whole evening. We were making love. I told them that.”

“But Mr. Simon wasn’t here when I arrived, was he? No one saw me but you. So what proof have we?”

“But we were together! We’ve got an alibi—we both have an alibi!”

“But are the police going to believe it now? You’ve admitted that you lied about the night of Gerard’s death; why shouldn’t you be lying again about the night when Esmé died? You were so anxious to save your own skin that you hadn’t the sense to see that you were dropping yourself deeper in the shit.”

He turned from her and poured more wine into the glass. He held out the bottle and said: “Do you want some? I’ll get a glass.”

“No thank you.”

Again he turned away from her. “Look,” he said, “I don’t think we ought to see each other again. Not for quite a time anyway. I mean, we oughtn’t to be seen together until all this is cleared up.”

She said: “Something else has happened, hasn’t it? It’s not only the alibi.”

It was almost laughable how his face changed. The look of shame and fear gave way to a flush of excitement, a sly satisfaction. How like a child he is, she thought, and wondered what new toy had come within his grasp. But she knew that the contempt she felt was more for herself than for him.