Original Sin (42 page)

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I've seen that bath, Kate. It's the big old-fashioned solid kind. You could drown a couple of adults in it. All he had to do was to leave the tap on very slowly so that the bathfilled up while he was away. Then he steps into it to get himself convincingly wet and rings for Frances Peverell. But my guess is they were fellow conspirators.'

'Daniel, you're not thinking clearly. It's that story about the bath water which puts Frances Peverell in the clear. If they were fellow conspirators why concoct a complicated story about baths, running water and eight minutes? Why not merely say that she was looking out for his taxi, was worried because he was late, and when she saw that he'd arrived she took him up to her own flat and kept him there for the night. She's got a spare room, hasn't she? This is murder, after all. She's not going to be worried about the possibility of gossip.'

%Ve could prove he hadn't slept in that bed. If she'd told that story we would have got forensic on to it. You can't sleep all night in a bed without some evidence, from hair or sweat.'

'Well, I think she's telling the truth. That alibi is too complicated not to be genuine.'

qhat's probably what we're meant to believe. My God, this murderer is clever. Clever and lucky. Think about Sonia Clements for a moment. She killed herself in that room. Why couldn't she have frayed the window cord, bunged up the gas fire flue?'

Kate said: 'Look Daniel, AD and I have checked that this morning, as far as we could anyway. Her sister says she was mechanically inept. And why should she tamper with the fire? In the hope that someone, weeks later, would mysteriously light it, entice Etienne upstairs and lock him in to be poisoned with carbon monoxide?'

'Of course not. But she could have planned to kill herself that way, wanting it to look like an accident, hoping to protect Peverells. Perhaps she had that in mind from the moment old Peverell died.

Then when Gerard Etienne sacked her so brutally...'

'If he was brutal.'

'Assume he was. After that she no longer cares whether or not she harms the firm, probably wanted to harm it, or at least to harm Etienne. So she no longer bothers to make her death look accidental, kills herself in a more agreeable way with drugs and drink and leaves a suicide note. Kate, I like that. It has a kind of crazy logic about it.'

qIore crazy than logical. How would the murderer know that Clements had interfered with the gas? She's hardly likely to have told

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him. All you've done is to make the accidental death theory more plausible. Your theory is just another gift for the defence. You can hear defence counsel making the most of it. "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Sonia Clements had just as much chance as my client of interfering with that gas fire, and Sonia Clements is dead."'

Daniel said: 'OK, let's be optimistic. We catch him, and then what will happen to him? Ten years in prison if he's unlucky, fewer if he behaves himself.'

'You wouldn't want to sling him up by the neck?'

'No. Would you?'

'No I wouldn't want hanging back. I'm not sure, though, that my position is particularly rational. I'm not even sure that it's honest. I happen to believe that the death penalty does deter, so what I'm saying is that I'm willing for innocent people to take a greater chance of being murdered so that I can salve my conscience by saying that we no longer execute murderers.'

Daniel said: 'Did you watch that TV programme last week?'

'The one about the USA correctional institute?'

'Correctional. That's a good word. The inmates were corrected all right. Killed with lethal injection after God knows how many years on death row.'

'Yes, I saw it. You could argue that they got a damn sight easier end than their victims. An easier end than most human beings get, come to that.'

'So you approve of revenge killing?'

'Daniel, I didn't say that. It's just that I couldn't feel much pity. They killed in a state with the death penalty and then seemed aggrieved that the state proposed to carry out what it had legislated for. Not one of them mentioned his victim. No one spoke the word "Femorse".'

'One did.'

Fhen I must have missed it.' qhat's not all you missed.' 'Are you trying to quarrel?'

'Just trying to find out what you believe.'

'What I believe is my business.'

'Even on matters which concern the job?'

'Particularly on matters which concern the job. Anyway, this doesn't concern the job except indirectly. The programme was intended to

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make me feel outrage. OK, it was skilfully made. The producer didn't labour the point. You couldn't say it was unfair. But at the end they gave a number to the viewers so that they could ring to express disgust. All I'm saying is that I iidn't feel quite the disgust they obviously intended. Anyway, I dislike television programmes which try to tell me what I ought to feel.' `in that case you'd better stop watching documentaries.' A police launch, sleek and fast, came into view travelling upstream, its prow searchlight raking the darkness, its wake a white fishtail of foam. Then it was gone and the dishevelled surface subsided into a gentle heaving calm on which the reflected lights of the river pubs threw shining pools of silver. Small beads of foam floated out of the darkness to break against the river wall. A silence fell. They were standing about two feet apart, each looking out over the river. Then simultaneously they turned and their eyes met. Kate couldn't see his expression from the one wall-lamp but she could feel his force and hear his quickened breathing. Suddenly she felt a charge of physical longing so strong that she had to put out a hand and steady herself against the wall to prevent herself from stepping forward into his arms. He said 'Kate', and made a quick move towards her, but she had known what was coming and she turned quickly aside. The movement was slight but unmistakable. He said gently: What's wrong, Kate?' and then, his voice sardonic, 'Wouldn't AD like it?' 'I don't arrange my private life to suit AD.' He didn't touch her. It would, she thought, have been easier if he had. She said: 'Look, I've chucked a man I love because of the job. Why should I mess it up for someone I don't love?' 'Would it mess it up, your job or mine?' 'Oh Daniel, doesn't it always?' He said, a little teasingly, 'You did tell me I should train myself to fancy intelligent women.' 'But I didn't offer to be part of the training.' His low laugh broke the tension. She liked him immensely, not least because, unlike most men, he could take rejection without rancour. But why not? Neither of them could pretend to be in love. She thought, both of us are vulnerable, .both a little lonely, but this isn't the answer. As they turned to go back into the pub, he asked: 'If it were AD

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here with you now, if he asked you to go home with him, would you?'

She thought for a few seconds, then decided he deserved honesty. ffrobably. Yes I would.'

'And would that be love or sex?'

'Neither,' she said. 'Call it curiosity.'

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45

On Monday morning Daniel telephoned the switchboard at Innocent House and asked George Copeland to call in at Wapping during his lunch break. He arrived just after half-past one, bringing into the room with him a weight of apprehension and tension which seemed to encumber the very air. When Kate suggested that the room was warm and that he might like to take off his coat, he did so at once, as if the suggestion had been a command, but looked after it with anxious eyes as Daniel received it and hung it up, as if fearing that this was the first stage of some premeditated divestation. Looking at the childlike face, Daniel thought that it must have changed little since he was a boy. The round cheeks with their moons of red, definite as patches, had the smoothness of rubber, an incongruous contrast to the dry thatch of grey hair. The eyes had a look of strained hopefulness and the voice, attractive but diffident, was, he suspected, more ready to propitiate than to assert. Probably bullied at school, thought Daniel, and been kicked around since. But apparently he had found his niche at Innocent House in a job which seemed to suit him and which he obviously did satisfactorily. How long, he wondered, would that have lasted under the new dispensation?

Kate had settled him opposite her with more courtesy than she would have shown Claudia Etienne, or any of the other male suspects, but he sat facing her across the desk as rigid as a board, his hands like paws, close-fisted, in his lap.

Kate said: 'Mr Copeland, on the night of Mr Etienne's engagement party on the tenth of July you were seen with Mrs Bartrum coming down from the archives floor at Innocent House. What were you doing there?'

The question was gently put, but the effect was as devastating as if Kate had physically pinned him up against the wall and screamed in his face. He seemed literally to sink in his chair and the red moons flamed and grew, then faded, leaving him so pale that Daniel instinctively moved closer, half expecting him to faint.

Kate said: 'Do you admit that you did go to the top floor?'

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He found his voice: 'Not to the archives room, not there. Mrs Bartrum wanted to use the toilet. I took her to the one on the top floor and waited outside.'

'Why didn't she use the lavatories in the women's cloakroom on the first floor?'

'She tried, but both cubicles were occupied and there was a queue. She was - she was in a hurry.'

'So you took her upstairs. But why did she ask you, rather than one of the women staff?'

It was a question which, Daniel thought, could more reasonably have been put to Mrs Bartrum. No doubt in time it would be.

Now Copeland was silent. Kate persisted: 'Wouldn't it have been more natural for her to have asked one of the women?'

'It might have been, but she was shy. She didn't know any of them, and I was there on the desk.'

'And she knew you, is that it?' He didn't answer, but he gave a little nod. Kate said: 'How well does she know you?'

And now, looking full in her face, he replied: 'She's my daughter.' 'Mr Sydney Bartrum is married to your daughter? So that explains it. It's all perfectly natural and understandable. She came to you because you're her father. But that isn't generally known, is it? Why the secrecy?'

'If I tell you, does it have to go any further? Do you have to say that I've told?'

'We don't have to tell anyone else except Commander Dalgliesh and it won't then go further unless it's relevant to our inquiry. We can't decide that unless you explain.'

'It was Mr Bartrum - Sydney - who wanted it kept silent. He wanted it kept a secret, at least at the beginning. He's a good husband, he loves her, they're happy together. Her first husband was a brute. She tried to make a success of the marriage but I think it was a relief when he walked out. There had always been other women and he went off with one of them. They got a divorce, but it hit her very hard.

She lost all her confidence. Luckily there were no children.'

'How did she meet Mr Bartrum?'

'She came to collect me from work one day. I'm usually the last out, so no one saw her except Mr Bartrum. His car wouldn't start so Julie and I offered him a lift. When he got to his house he invited us in for coffee. I suppose he thought he had to. That's when it began. They

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started writing to each other. He went down at weekends to Basingstoke, where she lived and worked, to see her.'

'But surely people at Innocent House knew that you had a daughter?' � .

'I'm not sure. They knew I was a widower but they never asked about my family. It wasn't as if Julie lived with me. She worked in the tax office in Basingstoke and she wasn't often at home. I think they must have known, but they didn't ask about her. That's why the

secrecy was so easy when they married.'

'Why shouldn't people know?'

'Mr Bartrttm - Sydney - said he wanted to keep his private life private, that his marriage was nothing to do with Peverell Press, that he didn't want the junior staff gossiping about his personal affairs. He didn't invite any of them to the wedding but he did tell the directors that he was married. Well, of course he had to because of changing his tax code. And later he told them about the baby and showed everyone her photograph. He's very proud of her. I think to begin with he didn't want people to know that he'd married - well, that he'd married the receptionist's daughter. Perhaps he was afraid that he'd lose face with the staff here. He was brought up in an orphanage, and forty years ago institutions for children were different from how they are today. He was despised at school, made to feel inferior, and I don't think he ever forgot it. He's always been a little over-concerned about his status in the firm.'

'And what does your daughter think about all this, the secrecy, concealing the fact that Mr Bartrum is your son-in-law?'

'I don't think that worries her. She's probably forgotten by now. It's not as if the firm is part of her life. She's only been in Innocent House once since they were married and that was for Mr Gerard's engagement party. She wanted to see inside the house, see number ten and the room where he worked. She loves him. They've got the baby now, they're happy together. He's changed her life. And it's not as if I don't see them out of the office. I visit nearly every weekend. I see Rosie - the baby - whenever I like.'

He looked from Daniel to Kate, imploring them to understand, then said: 'I know it seems strange and I think Sydney regrets it now. He's more or less said so. But I can see how it happened.. He asked us on impulse to keep it secret and the longer we did the more impossible it was to tell the truth. And no one asked. No one was

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interested in whom he married. No one asked me about my daughter. People are only interested in your family if you talk about them, and even then it's mostly just politeness. They don't really care. It would be very hurtful to Mr Bartrum - to Sydney - if it came out now./knd I wouldn't like him to think that I told you. Does it need to go any further?' 'No,' said Kate, 'I don't think it does.' He seemed reassured and Daniel helped him into his coat. When he came back from seeing him off the premises he found Kate pacing the room in a furious temper. 'Of all the bloody pompous stupid snobs! That man is worth ten of Bartrum. Oh, I can see how it happened, all right, the social insecurity I mean. He's the only one of the senior staff - isn't he? - who hasn't been to Oxbridge. These things seem to matter to your sex. God knows why. And it tells you something about Peverell Press, doesn't it? That man has worked for them for - how long? - nearly tw'enty years, and they've never even enquired about his daughter.' Daniel said: 'If they had asked he would have replied that she was now married and very happy, thank you. But why should they enquire? AD doesn't enquire about your home life. Would you want him to? I can see how it began, the first snobbish impulse to keep it secret and then the realization that he had to go on keeping it a secret unless he wanted to look a fool. I wonder how much Bartrum would pay to prevent it being known. At least we know now why Copeland and Mrs Bartrum were on the top floor together. Not that he needed an excuse to be there, he can go up any time. That's one small problem out of the way.' Kate said: 'Not really. They were all pretty discreet at Innocent House, particularly the partners, but we've heard enough from Mrs Demery and the junior staff to get a good idea of what was going on. With Gerard Etienne as boss, how long do you think either Bartrum or Copeland would have lasted in their jobs? Copeland loves his daughter and she loves her husband - God knows why but apparently she does. They're happy together, they've got a child. There was a lot at stake for both of them, wasn't there, Bartrum and Copeland? And don't forget one thing about George Copeland. He's the handyman. He does the repairs. He's one of the people at Innocent House who would have had no trouble in disconnecting that gas fire. And he could have done it safely at any time. The only person who regularly