Death of an Expert Witness

BOOK FOUR Hanged by the Neck

Sprogg's Cottage, low-built and top-heavy under its low, occluding roof of thatch, wire-netted, strong against the fen winter gales, was almost invisible from the road. It lay about three-quarters of a mile north-east from the village and was fronted by Sprogg's Green, a wide triangular grass verge planted with willows. Pushing open the white wicker gate on which someone had optimistically but fruitlessly substituted the word "Lavender" for Sprogg's, Dalgliesh and Massingham stepped into a front garden as brightly ordered and conventional as that of a suburban villa. An acacia tree in the middle of the lawn flaunted its autumn glory of red and gold, the yellow climbing roses trained over the door still gleamed with a faint illusion of summer and a massed bed of geraniums, fuchsia and dahlias, supported by stakes and carefully tended, flared in discordant glory against the bronze of the beech hedge. There was a hanging basket of pink geraniums beside the door, now past their best, but still bright with a few tattered blooms.

The knocker was a highly polished brass fish, every scale gleaming.

The door was opened by a slight, almost fragile woman, bare-footed and wearing a cotton overblouse, patterned in greens and brown, above her corduroy slacks. She had coarse dark hair strongly streaked with grey and worn in a short bob, with a heavy fringe which curved low to meet her eyebrows. Her eyes were her most remarkable feature, immense, the irises brown speckled with green, translucently clear under the strongly curved brows. Her face was pale and taut, deeply etched with lines across the forehead and running from the widely springing nostrils to the corners of the mouth. It was the face, thought Dalgliesh, of a tortured masochist in a medieval triptych, the muscles bulging and knotted as if they had been racked. But no one coming under the gaze of those remarkable eyes could call it plain or ordinary. Dalgliesh said: "Miss Mawson? I'm Adam Dalgliesh. This is Inspector Massingham."

She gave him a direct, impersonal gaze and said without smiling:

"Come through into the study, will you? We don't light the sitting-room fire until the evening. If you want to speak to Angela, I'm afraid she's not here at present. She's over at Postmill Cottage with Mrs. Swaffield meeting the Social Security people. They're trying to persuade old Lorrimer to go into an old people's home.

Apparently he's being obstinately resistant to the blandishments of bureaucracy. Good luck to him."

The front door opened directly into a sitting room with a low, oak-beamed ceiling. The room surprised him. To enter it was like walking into an antique shop, but one where the proprietor had arranged his oddly assorted wares with an eye to the general effect. The mantel shelf and every ledge bore an ornament, three hanging cupboards held a variety of mugs, teapots, painted jugs and Staffordshire figures, and the walls were almost covered with prints, framed old maps, small oil paintings and Victorian silhouettes in oval frames. Above the fireplace was the most spectacular object, a curved sword with a finely wrought scabbard. He wondered whether the room reflected merely an indiscriminate acquisitiveness, or whether these carefully disposed objects served as comforting talismans against the alien, undomesticated spirits of the encroaching fens. A wood fire was laid but not lit in the open hearth. Under the window a polished gate-legged table was already laid for two.

Miss Mawson led the way through to her study. It was a smaller, less cluttered room at the back with a latticed window giving a view of a stone terrace, a lawn with a sundial in the middle, and a wide field of sugar beet, still unharvested. He saw with interest that she wrote by hand. There was a typewriter, but it stood on a table by itself. The working-desk under the window held only a pad of unlined paper, covered with a black upright holograph in an elegant italic. The lines were carefully patterned on the paper, and even the marginal alterations were aligned.

Dalgliesh said: "I'm sorry if we're interrupting your work."

"You aren't. Sit down, won't you both. It isn't going well this morning. If it were I should have hung a 'don't disturb' notice on the knocker and you wouldn't have got in. Still, it's nearly finished; only one chapter to do now. I suppose you want me to give Angela an alibi. Helping the police, isn't it called? What were we doing on Wednesday night; and when, and why, and where, and with whom?"

"We would like to ask you some questions, certainly."

"But that one first, presumably. There's no difficulty. We spent the evening and night together from six-fifteen, which was the time she arrived home."

"Doing what, Miss Mawson?"

"What we normally do. We separated the day from the evening, me with whisky, Angela with sherry. I asked about her day and she inquired about mine. Then she lit the fire and cooked the meal. We had avocado pear with sauce vinaigrette, chicken casserole and cheese and biscuits.

We washed up together and then Angela typed my manuscript for me until nine. At nine we turned on the television and watched the news, followed by the play. That brought us to ten forty-five, cocoa for Angela, whisky for me, and bed."

"Neither of you left the cottage?"

"No."

Dalgliesh asked how long she had lived in the village.

"Me? Eight years. I was born in the fens--at Soham actually--and spent most of my childhood here. But I went up to London University when I was eighteen, took a second-class degree, and then worked, not particularly successfully, at various jobs in journalism and publishing. I came here eight years ago when I heard that the cottage was to let. That's when I first decided to give up my job and become a full-time writer."

"And Miss Foley?"

"She came to live here two years ago. I advertised locally for a part-time typist and she replied. She was living in lodgings at Ely then and wasn't particularly happy there, so I suggested that she moved in. She had to depend on the bus to get to work. Living here is obviously much more convenient for the Lab."

"So you've lived long enough in the village to get to know people?"

"As much as one ever does in the fens. But not well enough to point the finger at a murderer for you."

"How well did you know Dr. Lorrimer?"

"By sight. I wasn't told that Angela was his cousin until she came to live with me. They're not close and he never came here. I've met most of the Lab staff, of course. Dr. Howarth started a string quartet soon after he arrived, and last August they gave a concert in the Wren chapel. Afterwards there was wine and cheese in the vestry. I met a number of the staff then. Actually, I already knew them by sight and name, as one does in a village. We use the same post office and the same pub. But if you're hoping for village and Lab gossip, it's no use coming to me."

Dalgliesh said: "Was the concert, in the chapel successful?"

"Not particularly. Howarth is a very fine amateur violinist and Claire Easterbrook is a competent cellist, but the other two weren't up to much. He hasn't repeated the experiment. I gather that there was a certain amount of unkind comment about a new arrival who saw it as his duty to civilize the underprivileged natives, and it may have got to his ears. He does rather give the impression that he sees himself as bridging single-handed the culture gap between the scientist and the artist. Or perhaps he wasn't satisfied with the acoustics. My own view is that the other three didn't want to go on playing with him. As a leader of a quartet he probably behaved with much the same arrogance as he does as Director. The Lab is certainly more efficient; the work output is up twenty per cent. Whether the staff are happy is another matter."

So she wasn't altogether immune to Lab and village gossip, thought Dalgliesh. He wondered why she was being so frank. Equally frank, he asked bluntly:

"When you were at Postmill Cottage yesterday, did you go upstairs?"

"Fancy the old man telling you that! What did he think I was after, I wonder? I went up to the bathroom to see if there was a tin of scouring powder there to clean the sink. There wasn't."

"You know about Dr. Lorrimer's will, of course?"

"I imagine the whole village does. Actually I was probably the first to know. The old man was getting agitated to know whether there was any money coming, so Angela rang the solicitor. She'd met him at the time her grandmother's will was read. He told her that the cottage was to go to the old man with ten thousand pounds, so she was able to put his mind at rest."

"And Miss Foley herself got nothing?"

"That's right. And that a new clerical officer at the Lab, whom Edwin had apparently taken a fancy to, gets a thousand pounds."

"A not particularly just will."

"Have you ever known beneficiaries who thought a will was just? His grandmother's will was worse. Angela lost the money then, when it could have made a difference to her life. Now she doesn't need it. We manage perfectly well here."

"Presumably it wasn't a shock to her. Didn't he tell her of his intentions?"

"If that's meant to be a tactful way of finding out whether she had a motive for murder, you can ask her yourself. Here she is."

Angela Foley came through the sitting-room, tugging off her headscarf.

Her face darkened at the sight of the visitors and she said with quick defensive annoyance: "Miss Mawson likes to work in the mornings. You didn't say that you were coming."

Her friend laughed. "They haven't worried me. I've been getting a useful insight into police methods. They're effective without being crude. You're back early."

"The social work department rang to say that they can't get over until after lunch. Uncle doesn't want to see them, but he wants to see me even less. He's having lunch with the Swaffields at the rectory, so I thought I might as well come home."

Stella Mawson lit a cigarette. "You've arrived at an opportune time.

Mr. Dalgliesh was inquiring tactfully whether you had a motive for murdering your cousin: in other words, did Edwin tell you that he was about to alter his will?"

Angela Foley looked at Dalgliesh and said calmly: "No. He never discussed his affairs with me and I didn't discuss mine with him. I don't think I've spoken to him during the last two years except about Lab business." Dalgliesh said: "It's surprising, surely, that he should want to change a long-standing will without talking to you about it?"

She shrugged, and then explained: "It was nothing to do with me. He was only my cousin, not my brother. He transferred to Hoggatt's from the Southern Laboratory five years ago to live with his father, not because I was here. He didn't really know me. If he had, I doubt whether he would have liked me. He owed me nothing, not even justice."

"Did you like him?" She paused and thought, as if the question was one to which she herself wanted an answer. Stella Mawson, eyes narrowed, regarded her through the cigarette smoke. Then Miss Foley spoke:

"No, I didn't like him. I think I was even a little afraid of him. He was like a man psychologically burdened, unsure of his place in life.

Lately the tension and unhappiness were almost palpable. I found it embarrassing and, well, somehow menacing. People who were really secure in their own personalities didn't seem to notice or be bothered by it. But the less secure felt threatened. I think that's why Clifford Bradley was so afraid of him."

Stella Mawson said: "Bradley probably reminded Edwin of himself when he was young. He was painfully insecure, even in his job, when he first started. D'you remember how he used to practise his evidence on the night before he went into the box; writing down all the possible questions the opposing counsel might ask, making sure that he was word perfect with the answers, learning all the scientific formulae by heart to impress the jury? He made a mess of one of his first cases, and never forgave himself."

There was a strange little silence. Angela Foley seemed about to speak, then changed her mind. Her enigmatic gaze was fixed on her friend. Stella Mawson's eyes shifted. She walked over to her desk and stubbed out her cigarette. She said:

"Your aunt told you. She used to have to read out the questions for him over and over again; an evening of tension and incomprehensible boredom. Don't you remember?"

"Yes," said Angela in her high, dispassionate voice. "Yes, I remember." She turned to Dalgliesh.

"If there's nothing else you want to ask me, there are things I need to get on with. Dr. Howarth isn't expecting me at the Lab until this afternoon. And Stella will want to work." Both women showed them out, standing together in the doorway as if politely speeding departing guests. Dalgliesh almost expected them to wave goodbye. He hadn't questioned Miss Foley about the quarrel with her cousin. The time might come for that, but it wasn't yet. It had interested, but not surprised him that she had lied. But what had interested him more was Stella Mawson's story of Lorrimer rehearsing his evidence on the night before a trial. Whoever had told her this, he was fairly certain that it hadn't been Angela Foley.

As they drove away, Massingharn said: "Fifty thousand pounds could change her whole life, give her some independence, get her away from here. What sort of life is it for a young woman, just the two of them, stuck here in this isolated swamp? And she seems little more than a drudge."

Dalgliesh, unusually, was driving. Massingham glanced at the sombre eyes in the mirror, the long hands laid lightly on the wheel. Dalgliesh said:

"I'm remembering what old George Greenall, the first detective sergeant I worked under, told me. He'd had twenty-five years in the CID.

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."

"Policewomen--and policemen--never pretend that they're just paying a social visit. No one would believe us, would they?"

They turned and walked together towards the house. The girl said:

"Are you going to discover who killed Dr. Lorrimer?"

"I hope so. I expect so."

"And then what will happen to him, the murderer, I mean?"

"He'll appear before the magistrates. Then, if they think that me evidence is sufficient, they'll commit him to the Crown Court for trial."

"And then?"

"If he's found guilty of murder, the judge will pass the statutory penalty, imprisonment for life. That means that he'll be in prison for a long time, perhaps ten years or more."

"But that's silly. That won't put things right. It won't bring Dr.

Lorrimer back."

"It won't put anything right, but it isn't silly. Life is precious to nearly all of us. Even people who have little more than life still want to live it to the last natural moment. No one has a right to take it away from them."

"You talk as if life were like William's ball. If that's taken away he knows what he's lost. Dr. Lorrimer doesn't know that he's lost anything."

"He's lost the years he might have had."

"That's like taking away the ball that William might have had. It doesn't mean anything. It's just words. Suppose he was going to die next week anyway. Then he'd only have lost seven days. You don't put someone in prison for ten years to repay seven lost days. They might not even have been happy days."

"Even if he were a very old man with one day left to him, the law says that he has a right to live it. Willful killing would still be murder."

The girl said thoughtfully: "I suppose it was different when people believed in God. Then the murdered person might have died in mortal sin and gone to hell. The seven days could have made a difference then. He might have repented and had time for absolution."

Dalgliesh said: "All these problems are easier for people who believe in God. Those of us who don't or can't have to do the best we can.

That's what the law is, the best we can do. Human justice is imperfect, but it's the only justice we have."

"Are you sure you don't want to question me? I know that Daddy didn't kill him. He isn't a murderer. He was at home with William and me when Dr. Lorrimer died. We put William to bed together at half past seven and then we stayed with him for twenty minutes and Daddy read Paddington Bear to him. Then I went to bed because I'd got a headache and wasn't feeling well, and Daddy brought me up a mug of cocoa which he'd made specially for me. He sat by me reading poetry from my school anthology until he thought I'd gone to sleep. But I hadn't really. I was just pretending. He crept away just before nine, but I was still awake then. Shall I tell you how I know?"

"If you want to."

"Because I heard the church clock strike. Then Daddy left me and I lay there in the dark, just thinking. He came back to look in at me again about half an hour later, but I still pretended to be asleep. So that lets Daddy out, doesn't it?"

"We don't know exactly when Dr. Lorrimer died but, yes, I think it probably does."

"Unless I'm telling you a lie."

"People very often do lie to the police. Are you?"

"No. But I expect I would if I thought it would save Daddy. I don't care about Dr. Lorrimer, you see. I'm glad he's dead. He wasn't a nice man. The day before he died William and I went to the Lab to see Daddy. He was lecturing in the morning to the detective training course and we thought we'd call for him before lunch. Inspector Blakelock let us sit in the hall, and that girl who helps him at the desk, the pretty one, smiled at William and offered him an apple from her lunch box. And then Dr. Lorrimer came down the stairs and saw us.

I know it was he because the Inspector spoke to him by his name and he said: "What are those children doing in here? A lab isn't a place for children." I said: "I'm not a child. I'm Miss Eleanor Kerrison and this is my brother William, and we're waiting for our father." He stared at us as if he hated us, his face white and twitching. He said:

"Well, you can't wait here." Then he spoke very unkindly to Inspector Blakelock. After Dr. Lorrimer had gone, he said we'd better go but he told William not to mind and took a sweet out of his left ear. Did you know that the Inspector was a conjurer?"

"No. I didn't know that."

"Would you like to see round the house before I take you to Miss Willard? Do you like seeing houses?"

"Very much, but I think perhaps not now."

"See the drawing-room anyway. It's much the best room. There now, isn't it lovely?" The drawing-room was in no sense lovely. It was a sombre, oak-panelled, over-furnished room which looked as if little had changed since the days when the bombazine-clad wife and daughters of the Victorian rector sat there piously occupied with their parish sewing. The mullioned windows, framed by dark-red, dirt-encrusted curtains, effectively excluded most of the daylight so that Dalgliesh stepped into a sombre chilliness which the sluggish fire did nothing to dispel. An immense mahogany table, bearing a jam-jar of chrysanthemums, stood against the far wall and the fireplace, an ornate edifice of marble, was almost hidden by two immense, saggy armchairs, and a dilapidated sofa. Eleanor said with unexpected formality, as if the room had recalled her to her duty as a hostess:

"I try to keep at least one room nice in case we have visitors. The flowers are pretty, aren't they? William arranged them. Please sit down. Can I get you some coffee?"

"That would be pleasant, but I don't think we ought to wait. We're really here to see Miss Willard."

Massingham and William appeared in the doorway, flushed with their exercise, William with the ball tucked under his left arm. Eleanor led the way through a brass-studded, green-baize door and down a stone passage to the back of the house. William, deserting Massingham, trotted behind her, his plump hand clutching ineffectively at the skin-tight jeans. Pausing outside the door of unpolished oak, she said:

"She's in here. She doesn't like William and me to go in. Anyway, she smells, so we don't."

And taking William by the hand, she left them.

Dalgliesh knocked. There was a rapid scrabbling noise inside the room, like an animal disturbed in its lair, and then the door was opened slightly and a dark and suspicious eye looked out at them through the narrow aperture. Dalgliesh said:

"Miss Willard? Commander Dalgliesh and Inspector Massingham from the Metropolitan Police. We're investigating Dr. Lorrimer's murder. May we come in?"

The eye softened. She gave a short, embarrassed gasp, rather like a snort, and opened the door wide.

"Of course. Of course. What must you think of me? I'm afraid I'm still in what my dear old nurse used to call my disability. But I wasn't expecting you, and I usually have a quiet moment to myself about this time of the morning."

Eleanor was right, the room did smell. A smell, Massingham diagnosed after a curious sniff, composed of sweet sherry, unfresh body linen and cheap scent. It was very hot. A small blue flame licked the red-hot ovals of coal briquettes banked high in the Victorian grate.

The window, which gave a view of the garage and the wilderness which was the back garden, was open for only an inch at the top despite the mildness of the day, and the air in the room pressed down on them, furred and heavy as a soiled blanket. The room itself had a dreadful and perverse femininity. Everything looked moistly soft, the cretonne-covered seats of the two armchairs, the plump row of cushions along the back of a Victorian chaise-longue, the imitation fur rug before the fire. The mantel shelf was cluttered with photographs in silver frames, mostly of a cassocked clergyman and his wife, whom Dalgliesh took to be Miss Willard's parents, standing side by side but oddly dissociated outside a variety of rather dull churches. Pride of place was held by a studio photograph of Miss Willard herself, young, toothily coy, the thick hair in corrugated waves. On a wall shelf to the right of the door was a small woodcarving of an armless Madonna with the laughing Child perched on her shoulder. A night-light in a saucer was burning at her feet, casting a soft glow over the tender drooping head and the sightless eyes. Dalgliesh thought that it was probably a copy, and a good one, of a medieval museum piece. Its gentle beauty emphasized the tawdriness of the room, yet dignified it, seeming to say that there was more than one kind of human loneliness, human pain, and that the same mercy embraced them all.

Miss Willard waved them to the chaise longue. "My own little den," she said gaily. "I like to be private, you know. I explained to Dr.

Kerrison that I could only consider coming if I had my privacy. It's a rare and beautiful thing, don't you think? The human spirit wilts without it."

Looking at her hands, Dalgliesh thought that she was probably in her middle forties, although her face looked older. The dark hair, dry and coarse and tightly curled, was at odds with her faded complexion.

Two sausages of curls over the brow suggested that she had hurriedly snatched out the rollers when she heard their knock. But her face was already made up. There was a circle of rouge under each eye and the lipstick had seeped into the creases pursing her mouth. Her small, square, bony jaw was loose as a marionette's. She was not yet fully dressed and a padded dressing-gown of flowered nylon, stained with tea and what looked like egg, was corded over a nylon nightdress in bright blue with a grubby frill round the neck. Massingham was fascinated by a bulbous fold of limp cotton just above her shoes, from which he found it difficult to avert his eyes, until he realized that she had put on her stockings back to front.

She said: "You want to talk to me about Dr. Kerrison's alibi, I expect. Of course, it's quite ridiculous that he should have to provide one, a man so gentle, totally incapable of violence. But I can help you, as it happens. He was certainly home until after nine, and I saw him again less than an hour later. But all this is just a waste of time. You bring a great reputation with you, Commander, but this is one crime which science can't solve. Not for nothing are they called the black fens. All through the centuries, evil has come out of this dank soil. We can fight evil, Commander, but not with your weapons."

Massingham said: "Well, suppose we begin by giving our weapons a chance." She looked at him and smiled pityingly.

"But all the doors were locked. All your clever scientific aids were intact. No one broke in, and no one could have got out. And yet he was struck down. That was no human hand, Inspector." Dalgliesh said:

"It was almost certainly a blunt weapon, Miss Willard, and I've no doubt there was a human hand at the end of it. It's our job to find out whose, and I hope that you may be able to help us. You house keep for Dr. Kerrison and his daughter, I believe?" Miss Willard disposed on him a glance in which pity at such ignorance was mixed with gentle reproof.

"I'm not a housekeeper, Commander. Certainly not a housekeeper. Shall we say that I'm a working house-guest. Dr. Kerrison needed someone to live in so that the children weren't left alone when he was called out to a murder scene. They're children of a broken marriage, I'm afraid.

The old, sad story. You are not married, Commander?"

"No."

"How wise." She sighed, conveying in the sibilant release of breath infinite yearning, infinite regret. Dalgliesh persevered:

"So you live completely separately?"

"My own little quarters. This sitting-room and a bedroom next door.

My own small kitchenette through this door here. I won't show it to you now because it's not quite as I should like it to be."

"What precisely are the domestic arrangements, Miss Willard?"

"They get their own breakfast. The Doctor usually lunches at the hospital, of course; Nell and William have something on a tray when she bothers to prepare it, and I look after myself. Then I cook a little something in the evenings, quite simple, we're none of us large eaters.

We eat very early because of William. It's more a high tea really.

Nell and her father do all the cooking during the weekend. It really works out quite well."

Quite well for you, thought Massingham. Certainly William had seemed sturdy and well nourished enough, but the girl looked as if she ought to be at school, not struggling, almost unaided, with this isolated and cheerless monstrosity of a house. He wondered how she got on with Miss Willard. As if reading his thoughts, Miss Willard said:

"William is a sweet little boy. Absolutely no trouble. I hardly see him really. But Nell is difficult, very difficult. Girls of her age usually are. She needs a mother's hand. You know, of course, that Mrs. Kerrison walked out on her husband a year ago? She ran away with one of his colleagues at the hospital. It broke him up completely.

Now she's trying to get the High Court to reverse the custody order and give her the children when the divorce is heard in a month's time, and I'm sure it'll be a good thing if they do. Children ought to be with their mother. Not that Nell's really a child any longer. It's the boy they're fighting over, not Nell. If you ask me, neither of them cares about her. She gives her father a terrible time of it. Nightmares, screaming attacks, asthma.

He's going to London next Monday for a three-day conference on forensic pathology. I'm afraid she'll make him pay for that little jaunt when he gets back. Neurotic, you know. Punishing him for loving her brother more, although, of course, he can't see that."

Dalgliesh wondered by what mental process she had arrived at that glib psychological assessment. Not, he thought, that it was necessarily wrong. He felt profoundly sorry for Kerrison.

Suddenly Massingham felt sick. The warmth and feculent smell of the room overpowered him. A blob of cold sweat dropped on his notebook.

Muttering an apology, he strode over to the window and tugged at the frame. It resisted for a moment then slammed down. Great draughts of cool reviving air poured in. The frail light before the carved Madonna flickered and went out.

When he got back to his notebook, Dalgliesh was already asking about the previous evening. Miss Willard said that she had cooked a meal of minced beef, potatoes and frozen peas for supper, with a blancmange to follow. She had washed up alone and had then gone to say good-night to the family before returning to her sitting-room. They were then in the drawing-room, but Dr. Kerrison and Nell were about to take William up to bed. She had seen and heard nothing else of the family until just after nine o'clock when she had gone to check that the front door was bolted. Dr.

Kerrison was sometimes careless about locking up and didn't always appreciate how nervous she felt, sleeping alone and on the ground floor. One read such terrible stories. She had passed the study door, which was ajar, and had heard Dr. Kerrison speaking on the telephone.

She had returned to her sitting room and had switched on the television.

Dr. Kerrison had looked in shortly before ten o'clock to talk to her about a small increase in her salary, but they had been interrupted by a telephone call. He had returned ten minutes or so later and they had been together for about half an hour. It had been pleasant to have the opportunity of a private chat without the children butting in. Then he had said goodnight and left her. She had switched on the television again and had watched it until nearly midnight, when she had gone to bed. If Dr. Kerrison had taken out the car, she felt fairly sure that she would have heard it since her sitting-room window looked out at the garage, which was built at the side of the house. Well, they could see that for themselves.

She had overslept the next morning and hadn't breakfasted until after nine. She had been woken by the telephone ringing, but it hadn't been until Dr. Kerrison returned from the Laboratory that she knew about Dr. Lorrimer's murder. Dr. Kerrison had returned briefly to the house shortly after nine o'clock to tell her and Nell what had happened and to ring the hospital to say that any calls for him should be transferred to the reception desk at the Laboratory.

Dalgliesh said: "I believe Dr. Lorrimer used to drive you to the eleven o'clock service at St. Mary's at Guy's Marsh. He seems to have been a solitary and not a very happy man. No one seems to have known him well. I was wondering whether he found in you the companionship and friendship he seems to have lacked in his working life."

Massingham looked up, curious to see her response to this blatant invitation to self revelation. She hooded her eyes like a bird, while a red blotch spread like a contagion over her throat. She said, with an attempt at archness:

"Now I'm afraid you're teasing me, Commander. It is Commander, isn't it? It seems so odd, just like a naval rank. My late brother-in-law was in the Navy, so I know a little of die se matters. But you were talking of friendship. That implies confidence. I should like to have helped him, but he wasn't easy to know. And there was the age difference. I'm not so very much older, less than five years, I suppose. But it's a great deal to a comparatively young man.

No, I'm afraid we were just two reprobate High Anglicans in this Evangelical swampland. We didn't even sit together in church. I've always sat in the third pew down from the pulpit and he liked to be right at the back."

Dalgliesh persisted: "But he must have enjoyed your company. He called for you every Sunday, didn't he?"

"Only because Father Gregory asked him. There is a bus to Guy's Marsh, but I have to wait half an hour and, as Dr. Lorrimer drove past the Old Rectory, Father Gregory suggested that it would be a sensible arrangement if we travelled together. He never came in. I was always ready and waiting for him outside the drive. If his father were ill or he himself was out on a case, he'd telephone. Sometimes he wasn't able to let me know, which was inconvenient. But I knew that if he didn't drive up at twenty to eleven he wouldn't be coming, and then I'd set off for the bus. Usually, of course, he came, except during the first six months of this year when he gave up Mass. But he rang early in September to say that he would be stopping for me as he used to.

Naturally I never questioned him about the break. One does go through these dark nights of the soul."

So he had stopped going to Mass when the affair with Domenica Schofield began, and had resumed his churchgoing after the break. Dalgliesh asked:

"Did he take the Sacrament?"

She was unsurprised by the question. "Not since he started coming to Mass again in mid September. It worried me a little, I confess. I did wonder whether to suggest to him that if anything was troubling him he should have a talk with Father Gregory. But one is on very delicate ground. And it really wasn't any concern of mine."

And she wouldn't want to offend him, thought Massingham. Those lifts in the car must have been very convenient. Dalgliesh asked:

"So he did very occasionally telephone you. Have you ever rung him?"

She turned away and fussed herself plumping up a cushion. "Dear me, no! Why should I? I don't even know his number."

Massingham said: "It seems odd that he went to church at Guy's Marsh instead of in the village."

Miss Willard looked at him severely. "Not at all. Mr. Swaffield is a very worthy man, but he's Low, very Low. The fens have always been strongly Evangelical. When my dear father was rector here, he had constant fights with the Parochial Church Council over Reservation. And then I think that Dr. Lorrimer didn't want to get drawn into church and village activities. It's so difficult not to once you're known as a regular member of the congregation. Father Gregory didn't expect that; he realized that Dr. Lorrimer had his own father to care for and a very demanding job. Incidentally, I was very distressed that the police didn't call for Father Gregory. Someone should have called a priest to the body."

Dalgliesh said gently: "He had been dead some hours when the body was discovered, Miss Willard."

"Even so, he should have had a priest." She stood up as if signifying that the interview was at an end. Dalgliesh was glad enough to go. He said his formal thanks and asked Miss Willard to get in touch with him immediately if anything of interest occurred to her. He and Massingham were at the door when she suddenly called out imperiously:

"Young man!" The two detectives turned to look at her. She spoke directly at Massingham, like an old-fashioned nurse admonishing a child:

"Would you please shut the window which you so inconsiderately opened, and relight the candle."

Meekly, as if in obedience to long-forgotten nursery commands, Massingham did so. They were left to find their own way out of the house and saw no one. When they were in the car fastening their seat-belts, Massingham exploded:

"Good God, you'd think Kerrison could find someone more suitable than that old hag to care for his children. She's a slut, a dipsomaniac, and she's half-mad."

"It's not so simple for Kerrison. A remote village, a large, cold house, and a daughter who can't be easy to cope with. Faced with the choice of that kind of job and the dole, most women today would probably opt for the dole. Did you take a look at the bonfire?"

"Nothing there. It looks as if they're periodically burning a lot of old furniture and garden rubbish which they've got stacked in one of the coach-houses. William said that Nell made a bonfire early this morning."

"William can talk, then?" Dalgliesh asked.

"Oh William can talk. But I'm not sure that you'd be able to understand him, sir. Did you believe Miss Willard when she gave that alibi for Kerrison?"

"I'm as ready to believe her as I am Mrs. Bradley or Mrs. Blakelock when they confirmed Bradley's and Blakelock's alibis. Who can tell?

We know that Kerrison did ring Dr. Underwood at nine and was here to receive his return call at about ten. If Miss Willard sticks to her story, he's in the clear for that hour, and I've a feeling that it's the crucial hour. But how did he know that? And if he did, why suppose that we should be able to pin down the time of death so precisely? Sitting with his daughter until nine and then calling on Miss Willard just before ten looks very like an attempt to establish that he was at home during the whole of that hour."

Massingham said: "He must have been, to take that ten o'clock call.

And I don't see how he could have got to Hoggatt's, killed Lorrimer and returned home in less than sixty minutes, not if he went on foot. And Miss Willard seems confident that he didn't take the car. I suppose it would just be possible if he took a short cut through the new Laboratory, but it would be a close thing."

Just then the car radio bleeped. Dalgliesh took the call. It was from the Guy's Marsh control tower to say that Sergeant Reynolds at the Lab wanted to contact them. The Met Lab report had been received.

They opened the door together. Mrs. Bradley held a sleeping child in her arms. Bradley said:

"Come in. It's about the vomit, isn't it? I've been expecting you."

They moved into the sitting-room. He gestured Dalgliesh and Massingham to the two chairs and sat down on the sofa opposite them. His wife moved close to him, shifting the baby's weight against her shoulder.

Dalgliesh asked:

"Do you want a solicitor?"

"No. Not yet, anyway. I'm ready to tell the whole truth and it can't hurt me. At least, I suppose it can lose me my job. But that's the worst it can do. And I think I'm almost beyond caring."

Massingham opened his notebook. Dalgliesh said to Susan Bradley:

"Wouldn't you like to put the baby in her pram, Mrs. Bradley?"

She gazed at Dalgliesh with blazing eyes, and shook her head vehemently, holding the child more tightly as if she expected them to tear her from her arms. Massingham was grateful that, at least, the child was asleep. But he wished that neither she nor her mother were there. He looked at the baby, bunched in her pink sleeping suit against her mother's shoulder, the fringe of longer hair above the tender hollowed neck, the round bare patch at the back of the head, the close shut eyes and ridiculous, snubbed nose. The frail mother with her milky bundle was more inhibiting than a whole firm of recalcitrant anti-police lawyers.

There was a lot to be said for bundling a suspect into the back of a police car and taking him off to the police station to make his statement in the functional anonymity of the interrogation room. Even the Bradleys' sitting-room provoked in him a mixture of irritation and pity. It still smelt new and unfinished. There was no fireplace, and the television held pride of place above the wall mounted electric heater with, above it, a popular print of waves dashing against a rocky shore. The wall opposite had been papered to match the flowered curtains, but the other three were bare, the plaster already beginning to crack. There was a metal baby's high chair and, underneath it, a spread of plastic sheeting to protect the carpet. Everything looked new, as if they had brought to their marriage no accumulation of small personal impedimenta, had come spiritually naked into possession of this small, characterless room. Dalgliesh said:

*OL "We'll take it that your previous account of your movements on Wednesday night wasn't true, or was incomplete. So what did happen?"

Massingham wondered for a moment why Dalgliesh wasn't cautioning Bradley; then he thought he knew. Bradley might have had the guts to kill if provoked beyond endurance, but he'd never have had the nerve to drop from that third floor window. And if he didn't, how did he get out of the Laboratory? Lorrimer's killer had either used the keys or he had made that climb. All their investigations, all their careful and repeated examination of the building had confirmed that hypothesis.

There was no other way.

Bradley looked at his wife. She gave him a brief, transforming smile and held out her free hand. He clasped it and they edged closer. He moistened his lips, and then began speaking as if the speech had been long rehearsed.

"On Tuesday Dr. Lorrimer finished writing my annual confidential report. He told me he wanted to talk to me about it next day before he passed it to Dr. Howarth, and he called me into his private room soon after he arrived in the Lab. He'd given me an adverse report and, according to the rules, he had to explain why. I wanted to defend myself, but I couldn't. And there wasn't any real privacy. I felt that the whole Laboratory knew what was happening and was listening and waiting. Besides, I was so frightened of him, I don't know why exactly. I can't explain it. He had such an effect on me that he'd only have to be working close to me in the Laboratory and I'd start shaking. When he was away at a scene of crime it was like heaven. I could work perfectly well then. The annual confidential report wasn't unjust. I knew that my work had deteriorated. But he was partly the reason why. He seemed to take my inadequacy as a personal denigration of himself. Poor work was intolerable to him. He was obsessed by mistakes. And because I was so terrified, I made them all the more."

He paused for a moment. No one spoke. Then he went on: "We weren't going to the village concert because we couldn't get a baby-sitter, and, anyway, Sue's mother was coming for supper. I got home just before six. After the meal--the curry and rice and peas--I saw her off on the seven forty-five bus. I came straight back here. But I kept thinking of the adverse report, what Dr. Howarth would say, what I was going to do if he recommended a move, how we could possibly sell this house. We had to buy when prices were at their peak, and it's almost impossible to find buyers now, except at a loss. Besides, I didn't think another lab would want me. After a time I thought I'd go back to the Laboratory and confront him. I think I had some idea that we might be able to communicate, that I could speak to him as another human being and make him understand how I felt. Anyway, I felt that I would go mad if I stayed indoors. I had to walk somewhere, and I walked towards Hoggatt's. I didn't tell Sue what I was going to do, and she tried to persuade me not to go out. But I went."

He looked up at Dalgliesh and said: "Can I have a drink of water?"

Without a word, Massingham got up and went to find the kitchen. He couldn't see the glasses, but there were two washed cups on the draining-board. He filled one with cold water and brought it back to Bradley. Bradley drained it. He drew his hand over his moist mouth and went on:

"I didn't see anyone on the way to the Laboratory. People don't walk out in this village much after dark, and I suppose most of them were at the concert. There was a light on in the hall of the Laboratory. I rang the bell and Lorrimer came. He seemed surprised to see me but I said I wanted to speak to him. He looked at his watch and said he could only spare me five minutes. I followed him up to the Biology Lab."

He looked across directly at Dalgliesh. He said: "It was a strange sort of interview. I sensed that he was impatient and wanted to get rid of me, and part of the time I thought that he hardly listened to what I was saying, or even knew that I was there. I didn't make a good job of it. I tried to explain that I wasn't being careless on purpose, that I really liked the work and wanted to make a success of it and be a credit to the Department. I tried to explain the effect he had on me. I don't know whether he was listening. He stood there with his eyes fixed on the floor.

"And then he looked up and began speaking. He didn't really look at me, he was looking through me, almost as if I wasn't there. And he was saying things, terrible things, as if they were words in a play, nothing to do with me. I kept hearing the same words over and over again. Failure. Useless. Hopeless. Inadequate. He even said something about marriage, as if I were a sexual failure too. I think he was mad. I can't explain what it was like, all this hate pouring out, hate, and misery and despair. I stood there shaking with this stream of words pouring over me as if... as if it were filth. And then his eyes focused on me and I knew that he was seeing me, me, Clifford Bradley. His voice sounded quite different. He said:

'"You're a third-rate biologist and a fourth rate forensic scientist.

That's what you were when you came into this Department and you'll never change. I have two alternatives: to check every one of your results or to risk the Service and this Laboratory being discredited in the court. Neither is tolerable. So I suggest that you look for another job. And now I've things to do, so please leave."

"He turned his back on me and I went out. I knew that it was impossible. It would have been better not to have come. He'd never told me before exactly what he thought of me, not in those words, anyway. I felt sick and miserable, and I knew I was crying. That made me despise myself the more. I stumbled upstairs to the men's cloakroom and was just able to reach the first basin before I vomited. I don't remember how long I stood there, leaning over the basin, half crying and half vomiting. I suppose it could have been three or four minutes.

After a time I put on the cold tap and swilled my face. Then I tried to pull myself together. But I was still shaking, and I still felt sick. I went and sat on one of the lavatory seats and sank my head in my hands.

"I don't know how long I was there. Ten minutes perhaps, but it could have been longer. I knew I could never change his opinion of me, never make him understand. He wasn't like a human being. I realized that he hated me. But now I began to hate him and in a different way. I'd have to leave; I knew he'd see to that. But at least I could tell him what I thought of him. I could behave like a man. So I went down the stairs and into the Biology Laboratory."

Again he paused. The child stirred in her mother's arms and gave a little cry in her sleep. Susan Bradley began an automatic jogging and crooning, but kept her eyes on her husband. Then Bradley went on:

"He was lying between the two middle examination tables, face downwards. I didn't wait to see whether he was dead. I know that I ought to feel dreadful about that, about the fact that I left him without getting help. But I don't. I can't make myself feel sorry.

But at the time I wasn't glad that he was dead. I wasn't aware of any feeling except terror. I hurled myself downstairs and out of the Laboratory as if his murderer were after me. The door was still on the Yale and I know that I must have drawn back the bottom bolt, but I can't remember. I raced down the drive. I think there was a bus passing, but it had started up before I reached the gate. When I got into the road it was disappearing. Then I saw a car approaching and, instinctively, I stood back into the shadows of the walls. The car slowed down and turned into the Laboratory drive. Then I made myself walk slowly and normally. And the next thing I remember was being home."

Susan Bradley spoke for the first time: "Clifford told me all about it.

But, of course, he had to. He looked so terrible that I knew something awful must have happened. We decided together what we'd better do. We knew that he'd had nothing to do with what had happened to Dr. Lorrimer. But who would believe Cliff? Everyone in the Department knew what Dr. Lorrimer thought of him. He would be bound to be suspected anyway, and if you found out that he was there, in the Laboratory, and at the very moment it happened, then how could he hope to persuade you that he wasn't guilty? So we decided to say that we'd been together the whole evening. My mother did ring about nine o'clock to say that she'd got safely home, and I told her that Cliff was having a bath. She'd never really liked my marriage and I didn't want to admit to her that he was out. She'd only start criticizing him for leaving me and the baby. So we knew that she could confirm what I'd said, and that might be some help, even though she hadn't spoken to him. And then Cliff remembered about the vomit."

Her husband went on, almost eagerly now, as if willing them to understand and believe:

"I knew I'd swilled cold water over my face, but I couldn't be certain that the bowl was clean. The more I thought about it, the more sure I was that it was stained with vomit. And I knew how much you could learn from that. I'm a secreter, but that didn't worry me. I knew that the stomach acids would destroy the antibodies and that the Lab wouldn't be able to determine my blood group. But there was the curry powder, the dye in the peas. They'd be able to say enough about that last meal to identify me. And I couldn't lie about what we'd had for supper because Sue's mother had been here sharing it with us.

"So we had this idea of trying to stop Airs Bidwell going early to the Laboratory. I always get to work before nine, so I would be first on the scene quite naturally. If I went straight to the washroom as I normally would, and cleaned the bowl, then the only evidence that I was in the Lab the previous evening would be gone for ever. No one would ever know."

Susan Bradley said: "It was my idea to phone Mrs. Bidwell, and I was the one who spoke to her husband. We knew that she wouldn't answer the phone. She never did. But Cliff hadn't realized that old Mr. Lorrimer wasn't entering hospital the previous day. He was out of the Department when old Mr. Lorrimer rang. So the plan went all wrong.

Mr. Lorrimer telephoned Inspector Blakelock, and everyone arrived at the Lab almost as soon as Cliff. After that, there was nothing we could do but wait."

Dalgliesh could imagine how terrible that time of waiting had been. No wonder that Bradley hadn't been able to face going in to the Lab. He asked:

"When you rang the bell at the Laboratory, how long was it before Dr.

Lorrimer answered?"

"Almost immediately. He couldn't have come down from the Biology Department. He must have been somewhere on the ground floor."

"Did he say anything at all about expecting a visitor?"

The temptation was obvious. But Bradley said: "No. He talked about having things to do, but I took it that he meant the analysis he was working on."

"And when you found the body, you saw and heard nothing of the murderer?"

"No. I didn't wait to look, of course. But I'm sure he was there and very close. I don't know why."

"Did you notice the position of the mallet, the fact that there was a page torn from Lorrimer's notebook?"

"No. Nothing. All I can remember is Lorrimer, the body and the thin stream of blood."

"When you were in the washroom, did you hear the doorbell?"

"No, but I don't think I could have heard it, not above the first floor. And I'm sure I wouldn't have heard it while I was being sick."

"When Dr. Lorrimer opened the door to you, did anything strike you as unusual, apart from the fact that he had come so promptly?"

"Nothing, except that he was carrying his notebook."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. It was folded back." So Bradley's arrival had interrupted whatever it was that Lorrimer had been doing. And he had been on the ground floor, the floor with the Director's office, the Records Department, the Exhibits Store.

Dalgliesh said: "The car which turned into the drive as you left; what sort of car?"

"I didn't see. All I can remember are the headlights. We don't have a car and I'm not clever at recognizing the different models unless I get a clear look."

"Can you remember how it was driven? Did the driver turn into the drive confidently as if he knew where he was going? Or did he hesitate as if he were looking for a convenient spot to stop and happened to see the open driveway?"

"He just slowed down a little and drove straight in. I think it was someone who knew the place. But I didn't wait to see if he drove up to the Lab. Next day, of course, I knew that it couldn't have been the police from Guy's Marsh or anyone with a key, or the body would have been discovered earlier."

He looked at Dalgliesh with his anxious eyes. "What will happen to me now? I can't face them at the Lab."

"Inspector Massingham will drive you to Guy's Marsh police station so that you can make a formal statement and sign it. I'll explain to Dr.

Howarth what has happened. Whether you go back to the Lab and when must be for him and your Establishment Department to say. I imagine they may decide to give you special leave until this affair is settled."

If it ever were settled. If Bradley were telling the truth, they now knew that Lorrimer had died between eight forty-five, when his father had telephoned him, and just before nine-eleven when the Guy's Marsh bus had moved away from the Chevisham stop. The clue of the vomit had fixed for them the time of death, had solved the mystery of the call to Mrs. Bidwell. But it hadn't pointed them to a murderer. And if Bradley were innocent, what sort of life would he have, inside or outside the forensic science service, unless the case were solved? He watched Massingham and Bradley on their way, then set out to walk the half mile back to Hoggatt's, not relishing the prospect of his interview with Howarth. Glancing back, he saw that Susan Bradley was still standing at the doorway looking after him, her baby in her arms.

Howarth said: "I'm not going to trot out the usual platitude about blaming myself. I don't believe in that spurious acceptance of vicarious liability. All the same, I ought to have known that Bradley was near breaking point. I suspect that old Dr. MacIntyre wouldn't have let this happen. And now I'd better telephone the Establishment Department. I expect they'll want him to stay at home for the present.

It's particularly inconvenient from the point of view of the work. They need every pair of hands they can get in the Biology Department. Claire Easterbrook is taking on as much of Lorrimer's work as she can manage, but there's a limit to what she can do. At the moment she's busy with the clunch pit analysis. She's insisting on starting the electrophoresis again. I don't blame her; she's the one who'll have to give evidence. She can only speak for her own results."

Dalgliesh asked what was likely to happen about Clifford Bradley.

"Oh, there'll be a regulation to cover the circumstances somewhere.

There always is. He'll be dealt with by the usual compromise between expediency and humanity; unless, of course, you propose to arrest him for murder, in which case, administratively speaking, the problem will solve itself. By the way, the Public Relations Branch have rung. You probably haven't had time to see today's Press. Some of the papers are getting rather agitated about Lab security. "Are our blood samples safe?" And one of the Sundays has commissioned an article on science in the service of crime. They're sending someone to see me about three o'clock. Public Relations would like a word with you, incidentally.

They're hoping to lay on another Press conference later this afternoon."

When Howarth had left, Dalgliesh joined Sergeant Underbill and occupied himself with the four large bundles of files which Brenda Pridmore had provided. It was extraordinary how many of six thousand cases and nearly twenty-five thousand exhibits which the Laboratory dealt with each year had the numbers 18, 40 or 1840 in their registration. The cases came from all the departments: Biology, Toxicology, Criminalistics, Document Examination, Blood Alcohol Analysis, Vehicle Examination. Nearly every scientist in the Laboratory above the level of Higher Scientific Officer had been concerned in them. All of them seemed perfectly in order. He was still convinced that the mysterious telephone message to Lorrimer held the clue to the mystery of his death. But it seemed increasingly unlikely that the numbers, if old Mr. Lorrimer had remembered them correctly, bore any reference to a file registration. By three o'clock he had decided to put the task on one side and see if physical exercise would stimulate his brain. It was time, he thought, to walk through the grounds and take a look at the Wren chapel. He was reaching for his coat when the telephone rang.

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:

"Mrs. Meakin? We're police officers. May we come in?" She didn't trouble to look at his proffered identity card. She hardly seemed surprised even. Without speaking she pressed herself against the wall of the passage and they passed before her into the sitting-room. It was small and very plainly furnished, drearily tidy and uncluttered.

The air smelt damp and chill. There was an electric reflector fire with one bar burning, and the single pendant bulb gave a harsh but inadequate light. A plain wooden table stood in the middle of the room, with four chairs. She was obviously about to start her supper. On a tray there was a plate of three fish fingers, a mound of mashed potato and peas. Beside it was an unopened carton containing an apple tart.

Dalgliesh said: "I'm sorry that we're interrupting your meal. Would you like to take it into the kitchen to keep it warm?" She shook her head and motioned them to sit down. They settled themselves round the table like three card players, the tray of food between them. The peas were exuding a greenish liquid in which the fish fingers were slowly congealing. It was hard to believe that so small a meal could produce so strong a smell. After a few seconds, as if conscious of it, she pushed the tray to one side. Dalgliesh took out Doyle's photograph and passed it across to her. He said:

"I believe you spent some time on Wednesday evening with this man."

"Mr. McDowell. He's not in any trouble is he? You're not private detectives? He was kind, a real gentleman, I wouldn't like to get him into trouble."

Her voice was low and rather toneless, Dalgliesh thought, a countrywoman's voice. He said:

"No, we're not private detectives. He is in some trouble, but not because of you. We're police officers. You can help him best by telling the truth. What we're really interested in is when you first met him and how long you were together."

She looked across at him. "You mean, a sort of alibi?"

"That's right. A sort of alibi."

"He picked me up where I usually stand, at the crossroads, about half a mile from Manca. That must have been about seven. Then we drove to a pub. They nearly always start off by buying me a drink. That's the part I like, having someone to sit with in the pub, watching the people, hearing the voices and the noise. I usually have a sherry, or a port, maybe. If they ask me, I have a second. I never have got more than two drinks. Sometimes they're in a hurry to get away so I only get offered the one."

Dalgliesh asked quietly: "Where did he take you?"

"I don't know where it was, but it was about thirty minutes' drive. I could see him thinking where to go before he drove off. That's how I know he lives locally. They like to get clear of the district where they're known. I've noticed that, that and the quick look round they give before we go into the pub. The pub was called The Plough. I saw that from the illuminated sign outside. We were in the saloon bar, of course, quite nice really. They had a peat fire and there was a high shelf with a lot of different coloured plates round it and two vases of artificial roses behind the bar, and a black cat in front of the fire. The barman was called Joe. He was ginger-haired."

"How long did you stay there?"

"Not long. I had two ports and he had two doubles of whisky. Then he said we ought to be going."

"Where did he take you next, Mrs. Meakin?"

"I think it was Chevisham. I glimpsed the signpost at the crossroads just before we got there. We turned into the drive of this big house and parked under the trees. I asked who lived there, and he said no one, it was just for Government offices. Then he put out the lights."

Dalgliesh said gently: "And you made love in the car. Did you get into the back seat, Airs Meakin?"

She was neither surprised nor distressed at the question. "No, we stayed in the front."

"Mrs. Meakin, this is very important. Can you remember how long you were there?"

"Oh yes, I could see the clock on the dashboard. It was nearly quarter past nine when we arrived and we stayed there until just before ten. I know because I was a bit worried wondering whether he'd drop me at the end of the lane. That's all I expected. I wouldn't have wanted him to come to the door. But it can be awkward if I'm just left, miles from home. Sometimes it isn't easy to get back."

She spoke, thought Massingham, as if she were complaining about the local bus service.

Dalgliesh said:

"Did anyone leave the house and come down the drive while you were in the car? Would you have noticed if they had?"

"Oh yes, I think so. I should have seen if they'd gone out through the space where the gate used to be. There's a street light opposite and it shines on the drive."

Massingham asked bluntly: "But would you have noticed? Weren't you a bit occupied?"

Suddenly she laughed, a hoarse, discordant sound which startled them both.

"Do you think I was enjoying myself? Do you suppose I like it?" Then her voice again became toneless, almost subservient. She said obdurately:

"I should have noticed."

Dalgliesh added: "What did you talk about, Mrs. Meakin?" The question brightened her. She turned to Dalgliesh almost eagerly.

"Oh, he's got his troubles. Everyone has, haven't they? Sometimes it helps to talk to a stranger, someone you know you won't ever see again.

They never do ask to see me again. He didn't. But he was kind, not in a rush to get away. Sometimes they almost push me out of the car. That isn't gentlemanly; it's hurtful. But he seemed glad to talk. It was about his wife really.

Not wanting to live in the country. She's a London girl and keeps nagging him to get back there. She wants him to leave his job and go and work for her father. She's at home with her parents now and he doesn't know whether she'll come back."

"He didn't tell you he was a police officer?"

"Oh no! He said he was a dealer in antiques. He seemed to know quite a lot about them. But I don't take much notice when they tell me about their jobs. Mostly they pretend."

Dalgliesh said gently: "Mrs. Meakin, what you are doing is terribly risky. You know that, don't you? Someday a man will stop who wants more than an hour or so of your time, someone dangerous."

"I know. Sometimes when the car slows down and I'm standing there waiting at the side of the road, wondering what he'll be like, I can hear my heart thudding. I know then that I'm afraid. But at least I'm feeling something. It's better to be afraid than alone."

Massingham said: "It's better to be alone than dead." She looked at him.

"You think so, sir? But then you don't know anything about it, do you?"

Five minutes later they left, having explained to Mrs. Meakin that a police officer would call for her next day so that she could be taken to make a statement at Guy's Marsh station. She seemed perfectly happy about this, only asking whether anyone at the factory need know.

Dalgliesh reassured her.

When they had crossed the bridge, Massingham turned to look back at the cottage. She was still standing at the door, a thin figure silhouetted against the light. He said angrily:

"God, it's all so hopeless. Why doesn't she get out of here, move to town, Ely or Cambridge, see some life?"

"You sound like one of those professionals whose advice to the lonely is always the same: "Get out and meet people, join a club." Which, come to think of it, is precisely what she's doing."

"It would help if she got away from this place, found herself a different job."

"What job? She probably thinks that she's lucky to be employed. And this is at least a home. It takes youth, energy and money to change your whole life. She hasn't any of those. All she can do is to keep sane in the only way she knows."

"But for what? To end up another corpse dumped in a clunch pit?"

"Perhaps. That's probably what she's subconsciously looking for.

There's more than one way of courting death. She would argue that her way at least gives her the consolation of a warm, brightly lit bar and, always, the hope that, next time, it may be different. She isn't going to stop because a couple of intruding policemen tell her that it's dangerous. She knows about that. For God's sake let's get out of here."

As they buckled their seat-belts, Massingham said: "Who'd have thought that Doyle would have bothered with her. I can imagine him picking her up. As Lord Chesterfield said, all cats are grey in the dark. But to spend the best part of an hour telling her his troubles."

"They each wanted something from the other. Let's hope they got it."

"Doyle got something; an alibi. And we haven't done too badly out of their encounter. We know now who killed Lorrimer."

Dalgliesh said: "We think we know who and how. We may even think we know why. But we haven't a scintilla of proof and without evidence we can't move another step. At present, we haven't even enough facts to justify applying for a search warrant."

"What now, sir?"

"Back to Guy's Marsh. When this Doyle affair is settled I want to hear Underbill's report and speak to the Chief Constable. Then back to Hoggatt's. We'll park where Doyle parked. I'd like to check whether it would be possible for someone to sneak down that drive without being seen."

By seven o'clock the work was at last up to date, the last court report had been checked, the last completed exhibit packed for the police to collect, the figures of cases and exhibits received had been calculated and checked. Brenda thought how tired Inspector Blakelock seemed. He had hardly spoken an unnecessary word during the last hour.

She didn't feel that he was displeased with her, merely that he hardly knew she was there. She had talked little herself, and then in whispers, afraid to break the silence, eerie and almost palpable, of the empty hall. To her right the great staircase curved upwards into darkness. All day it had echoed to the feet of scientists, policemen, scene-of-crime officers arriving for their lecture. Now it had become as portentous and threatening as the staircase of a haunted house. She tried not to look at it, but it drew her eyes irresistibly. With every fleeting upward glance she half imagined that she could see Lorrimer's white face forming out of the amorphous shadows to hang imprinted on the still air, Lorrimer's black eyes gazing down at her in entreaty or despair.

At seven o'clock Inspector Blakelock said: "Well, that's about all then. Your mum won't be best pleased that you've been kept late tonight."

Brenda said with more confidence than she felt: "Oh, Mum won't mind.

She knew I was late starting. I rang her earlier and said not to expect me until half past."

They went their separate ways to collect their coats. Then Brenda waited by the door until Inspector Blakelock had set and checked the internal alarm. All the doors of the separate laboratories had been closed and checked earlier in the evening. Lastly they went out by the front door and he turned the two final keys. Brenda's bicycle was kept in a shed by the side of the old stables, where the cars were garaged.

Still together, they went round to the back. Inspector Blakelock waited to start his car until she had mounted, then followed her very slowly down the drive. At the gate he gave a valedictory hoot and turned to the left. Brenda waved and set off briskly, pedalling in the opposite direction. She thought she knew why the Inspector had waited so carefully until she was safely off the premises, and she felt grateful. Perhaps, she thought, I remind him of his dead daughter and that's why he's so kind to me.

And then, almost immediately, it happened. The sudden bump and the scrape of metal against tarmac were unmistakable. The bicycle lurched, almost throwing her into the ditch. Squeezing on both brakes she dismounted and examined the tyres by the light of the heavy torch which she always kept in her bicycle saddlebag. Both were flat. Her immediate reaction was one of intense irritation. This would happen on a late night! She swept the torchlight over the road behind her, trying to identify the source of the mishap. There must be glass or something sharp on the road somewhere. But she could see nothing, and realized that it wouldn't help if she did. There was no hope of repairing the punctures. The next bus home was the one due to pass the Laboratory just after nine o'clock, and there was no one left at the Lab to give her a lift. She spent very little time in thinking. The best plan was obviously to return the bicycle to its rack and then make her way home through the new Laboratory. It would cut off nearly a couple of miles and, if she walked fast, she could be home just after seven-thirty.

Anger, and ineffective railing against bad luck, is a powerful antidote to fear. So is hunger and the healthy tiredness that longs for its own fireside. Brenda had jerked the bicycle, now reduced to a ridiculously antiquated encumbrance, back into its stand and had walked briskly through the grounds of Hoggatt's and unbolted the wooden gate which led to the new site before she began to feel afraid. But now, alone in the darkness, the half-superstitious dread which it had seemed safe to stimulate in the Laboratory with Inspector Blakelock so reassuringly by her side, began to prick at her nerves. Before her the black bulk of the half-completed Laboratory loomed like some pre-historic monument, its great slabs bloodstained with ancient sacrifices, rearing upwards towards the implacable gods. The night was fitfully dark with a low ceiling of cloud obscuring the faint stars.

As she hesitated, the clouds parted like ponderous hands to unveil the full moon, frail and transparent as a Communion wafer. Gazing at it she could almost taste the remembered transitory dough, melting against the roof of her mouth. Then the clouds formed again and the darkness closed about her. And the wind was rising.

She held the torch more firmly. It was solidly reassuring and heavy in her hand. Resolutely she picked out her way between the tarpaulin shrouded piles of bricks, the great girders laid in rows, the two neat huts on stilts which served as the contractor's office, towards the gap in the brickwork which marked the entrance to the main site. Then once again she hesitated. The gap seemed to narrow before her eyes, to become almost symbolically ominous and frightening, an entrance to darkness and the unknown. The fears of a childhood not so far distant reasserted themselves. She was tempted to turn back.

Then she admonished herself sternly not to be stupid. There was nothing strange or sinister about a half-completed building, an artifact of brick, concrete and steel, holding no memories of the past, concealing no secret miseries between ancient walls. Besides, she knew the site quite well. The Laboratory staff weren't supposed to take a short cut through the new buildings--Dr. Howarth had pinned up a notice on the staff notice-board pointing out the dangers--but everyone knew that it was done. Before the building had been started there had been a footpath across Hoggatt's field. It was natural for people to behave as if it were still there. And she was tired and hungry. It was ridiculous to hesitate now. , Then she remembered her parents. No one at home could know about the punctures and her mother would soon begin worrying. She or her father would probably ring the Laboratory and, getting no reply, would know that everyone had left. They would imagine her dead or injured on the road, being lifted unconscious into an ambulance. Worse, they would see her lying crumpled on the floor of the Laboratory, a second victim.

It had been difficult enough to persuade her parents to let her stay on in the job, and this final anxiety, growing with every minute she was overdue and culminating in the relief and reactive anger of her late appearance, might easily tip them into an unreasoned but obstinate insistence that she should leave. It really was the worst possible time to be late home. She shone her torch steadily on the entrance gap and moved resolutely into the darkness.

She tried to picture the model of the new Laboratory set up in the library. This large vestibule, still unroofed, must be the reception area from which the two main wings diverged. She must bear to the left through what would be the Biology Department for the quickest cut to Guy's Marsh road. She swept the torch beam over the brick walls, then picked her way carefully across the uneven ground towards the left-hand aperture. The pool of light found another doorway, and then another.

The darkness seemed to increase, heavy with the smell of brick dust and pressed earth. And now the pale haze of the night sky was extinguished and she was in the roofed area of the Laboratory. The silence was absolute.

She found herself creeping forward, breath held, eyes fixed in a stare on the small pool of light at her feet. And suddenly there was nothing, no sky above, no doorway, nothing but black blackness. She swept the torch over the walls. They were menacingly close. This room was surely far too small even for an office. She seemed to have stumbled into some kind of cupboard or storeroom. Somewhere, she knew, there must be a gap, the one by which she had entered. But disorientated in the claustrophobic darkness, she could no longer distinguish the ceiling from the walls.

With every sweep of the torch the crude bricks seemed to be closing in on her, the ceiling to descend inexorably like the slowly closing lid of a tomb. Fighting for control, she inched gradually along one wall, telling herself that, soon, she must strike the open doorway.

Suddenly the torch jerked in her hand and the pool of light spilt over the floor. She stopped dead, appalled at her peril. In the middle of the room was a square well protected only by two planks thrown across it. One step in panic and she might have kicked them away, stumbled, and dropped into inky nothingness. In her imagination the well was fathomless, her body would never be found. She would lie there in the mud and darkness, too weak to make herself heard. And all she would hear would be the distant voices of the workmen as, brick on brick, they walled her up alive in her black tomb. And then another and more rational horror struck.

She thought about the punctured tyres. Could that really have been an accident? The tyres had been sound when she had parked the bicycle that morning. Perhaps it hadn't been glass on the road after all.

Perhaps someone had done it purposely, someone who knew that she would be late leaving the Lab, that there would be no one left to give her a lift, that she would be bound to walk through the new building. She pictured him in the darkness of the early evening, slipping soundless into the bicycle shed, knife in hand, crouching down to the tyres, listening for the hiss of escaping air, calculating how big a rent would cause the tyres to collapse before she had cycled too far on her journey. And now he was waiting for her, knife in hand, somewhere in the darkness. He had smiled, fingering the blade, listening for her every step, watching for the light of her torch. He, too, would have a torch, of course. Soon it would blaze into her face, blinding her eyes, so that she couldn't see the cruel triumphant mouth, the flashing knife. Instinctively she switched off the light and listened, her heart pounding with such a thunder of blood that she felt that even the brick walls must shake.

And then she heard the noise, gentle as a single footfall, soft as the brush of a coat-sleeve against wood. He was coming. He was here. And now there was only panic. Sobbing, she threw herself from side to side against the walls, thudding her bruised palms against the gritty, unyielding brick. Suddenly there was a space. She fell through, tripped, and the torch spun out of her hands. Moaning she lay and waited for death. Then terror swooped with a wild screech of exultation and a thrashing of wings which lifted the hair from her scalp. She screamed, a thin wail of sound which was lost in the bird's cry as the owl found the paneless window and soared into the night.

She didn't know how long she lay there, her sore hands clutching the earth, her mouth choked with dust. But after a while she controlled her sobbing and lifted her head. She saw the window plainly, an immense square of luminous light, pricked with stars. And to the right of it gleamed the doorway. She scrambled to her feet. She didn't wait to search for the torch but made straight for that blessed aperture of light. Beyond it was another. And, suddenly, there were no more walls, only the spangled dome of the sky swinging above her.

Still sobbing, but now with relief, she ran unthinkingly in the moonlight, her hair streaming behind her, her feet hardly seeming to touch the earth. And now there was a belt of trees before her and, gleaming through the autumn branches, the Wren chapel, lit from within, beckoning and holy, shining like a picture on a Christmas card. She ran towards it, palms outstretched, as hundreds of her forebears in the dark fens must have rushed to their altars for sanctuary. The door was ajar and a shaft of light lay like an arrow on the path. She threw herself against the oak, and the great door swung inwards into a glory of light.

At first her mind, shocked into stupor, refused to recognize what her dazzled eyes so clearly saw. Uncomprehending, she put up a tentative hand and stroked the soft corduroy of the slacks, the limp moist hand.

Slowly, as if by an act of will, her eyes travelled upwards and she both saw and understood. Stella Mawson's face, dreadful in death, drooped above her, the eyes half open, the palms disposed outward as if in a mute appeal for pity or for help. Circling her neck was a double cord of blue silk, its tasselled end tied to a hook on the wall. Beside it, wound on a second hook, was the single bell-rope. There was a low wooden chair upended close to the dangling feet. Brenda seized it.

Moaning, she grasped at the rope and swung on it three times before it slipped from her loosening hands, and she fainted.

Less than a mile away across the field and the grounds of Hoggatt's, Massingham drove the Rover into the Laboratory drive and backed into the bushes. He switched off the car lights. The street-lamp opposite the entrance cast a soft glow over the path, and the door of the Laboratory was plainly visible in the moonlight. He said:

"I'd forgotten, sir, that tonight is the night of the full moon. He'd have had to wait until it moved behind a cloud. Even so, he could surely get out of the house and down the drive unseen if he chose a lucky moment. After all, Doyle had his mind--and not only his mind-on other things."

"But the murderer wasn't to know that. If he saw the car arriving, I doubt whether he would have risked it. Well, we can at least find out if it's possible even without the co-operation of Mrs. Meakin. This reminds me of a childhood game, Grandmother's Footsteps. Will you try first, or shall I?"

But the experiment was destined never to take place. It was at that moment that they heard, faint but unmistakable, three clear peals of the chapel bell.

Massingham drove the car fast on to the grass verge -and braked within inches of the hedge. Beyond them the road curved gently between a tattered fringe of windswept bushes, past what looked like a dilapidated barn of blackened wood and through the naked fens to Guy's Marsh. To the right was the black bulk of the new Laboratory.

Massingham's torch picked out a stile, and, beyond it, a footpath leading across the field to a distant circle of trees, now no more than a dark smudge against the night sky. He said:

"Odd how remote from the house it is, and how secluded. You wouldn't know it was there. Anyone would think that the original family built it for some secret, necromantic rite."

"More probably as a family mausoleum. They didn't plan for extinction."

Neither of them spoke again. They had instinctively driven the mile and a half to the nearest access to the chapel from Guy's Marsh road.

Although less direct, this was quicker and easier than finding their way by foot through the Laboratory grounds and the new building. Their feet quickened and they found they were almost running, driven by some unacknowledged fear, towards the distant trees.

And now they were in the circle of loosely planted beeches, dipping their heads under the low branches, their feet scuffling noisily through the crackling drifts of fallen leaves, and could see at last the faintly gleaming windows of the chapel. At the half-open door Massingham instinctively turned as if to hurl his shoulder against it, then drew back with a grin.

"Sorry, I'm forgetting. No sense in precipitating myself in. It's probably only Miss Willard polishing the brass or the rector saying an obligatory prayer to keep the place sanctified."

Gently, and with a slight flourish, he pushed open the door and stood aside; and Dalgliesh stepped before him into the lighted ante chapel After that there was no speech, no conscious thought, only instinctive action. They moved as one. Massingham grasped and lifted the dangling legs and Dalgliesh, seizing the chair upturned by Brenda's slumping body, slipped the double loop of cord from Stella Mawson's neck and lowered her to the floor. Massingham tore at the fastenings of her duffle jacket, forced back her head and, flinging himself beside her, closed his mouth over hers. The bundle huddled against the wall stirred and moaned, and Dalgliesh knelt beside her. At the touch of his arms on her shoulders she struggled madly for a moment, squealing like a kitten, then opened her eyes and recognized him. Her body relaxed against his. She said faintly:

"The murderer. In the new Lab. He was waiting for me. Has he gone?"

There was a panel of light switches to the left of the door. Dalgliesh clicked them on with a single gesture, and the inner chapel blazed into light. He stepped through the carved organ-screen into the chancel.

It was empty. The door to the organ loft was ajar. He clattered up the narrow winding stairway into the gallery. It, too, was empty.

Then he stood looking down at the quiet emptiness of the chancel, his eyes moving from the exquisite plaster ceiling, the cheque red marble floor, the double row of elegantly carved stalls with their high-arched backs set against the north and south walls, the oak table, stripped of its altar-cloth, which stood before the reredos under the eastern window. All it now held were two silver candlesticks, the tall white candles burnt half down, the wicks blackened. And to the left of the altar, hanging incongruously, was a wooden hymn-board, showing four numbers:

He recalled old Mr. Lorrimer's voice, "She said something about the can being burned and that she'd got the numbers." The last two numbers had been 18 and 40. And what had been burned was not a can, not cannabis, but two altar candles.

Forty minutes later, Dalgliesh was alone in the chapel. Dr. Greene had been sent for, had briefly pronounced Stella Mawson dead, and had departed. Massingham had left with him to take Brenda Pridmore home and to explain to her parents what had happened, to call at Sprogg's Cottage and to summon Dr. Howarth. Dr. Greene had given Brenda a sedative by injection, but had held out no hope that she would be fit to be questioned before morning. The forensic pathologist had been summoned and was on his way. The voices, the questions, the ringing footsteps, all for the moment were stilled.

Dalgliesh felt extraordinarily alone in the silence of the chapel, more alone because her body lay there, and he had the sense that someone--or something--had recently left, leaving bereft the unencumbered air. This isolation of the spirit was not new to him; he had felt it before in the company of the recently dead. Now he knelt and gazed intently at the dead woman. In life only her eyes had lent distinction to that haggard face. Now they were glazed and gummy as sticky sweetmeats forced under the half-opened lids. It was not a peaceful face. Her features, not yet settled in death, still bore the strain of life's inquietude. He had seen so many dead faces.

He had become adept at reading the stigmata of violence. Sometimes they could tell him how, or where, or when. But essentially, as now, they told him nothing.

He lifted the end of the cord still looped loosely around her neck. It was made of woven silk in royal blue, long enough to drape a heavy curtain, and was finished with an ornate silver and blue tassel. There was a five-foot panelled chest against the wall and, putting on his gloves, he lifted the heavy lid. The smell of mothballs came up to him, pungent as an anaesthetic. Inside the chest was a folded pair of faded blue velvet curtains, a starched but crumpled surplice, the black and white of an MA. hood, and, lying on top of this assorted bundle, a second tasselled cord. Whoever had put that cord round her neck--herself or another--had known in advance where it could be found.

He began to explore the chapel. He walked softly, yet his feet fell with portentous heaviness on the marbled floor. Slowly, he paced between the two rows of splendidly carved stalls towards the altar. In design and furnishing the building reminded him of his college chapel.

Even the smell was the same, a scholastic smell, cold, austere, only faintly ecclesiastical. Now that the altar had been denuded of all its furnishing except the two candlesticks, the chapel looked purely secular, unconsecrated. Perhaps it always had. Its formal classicism rejected emotion. It enshrined man, not God; reason, not mystery. This was a place where certain reassuring rituals had been enacted, reaffirming its proprietor's view of the proper order of the universe and his own place in that order. He looked for some memento of that original owner and found it. To the right of the altar was the chapel's only memorial, a carved bust, half draped with a looped marble curtain, of a bewigged eighteenth-century gentleman, with the inscription:

This simple petition, unadorned, so out of period, was singularly inapposite to the formal confidence of the memorial, the proud tilt of the head, the self-satisfied smirk on the opulent marble lips. He had built his chapel and set it in a triple circle of trees, and death had not stayed its hand even long enough to give him time to make his carriage drive.

On either side of the organ-screen and facing the east window were two ornate stalls under carved canopies, each shielded from draughts by a blue velvet curtain similar to those in the chest. The seats were fitted with matching cushions; soft cushions with silver tassels at each corner lay on the book-rests. He climbed into the right-hand stall. On the cushion was a heavy black leather Book of Common Prayer which looked unused. The pages opened stiffly and the bold black and red lettering shone from the page.

"For I am a stranger with thee: and a sojourner, as all my fathers were. O spare me a little, that I may recover my strength: before I go hence, and be no more seen." He held the book by its spine and shook it. No paper fluttered from its rigid leaves. But where it had lain, four hairs, one fair and three dark, had adhered to the velvet pile. He took an envelope from his pocket and stuck them to the gummed flap. He knew how little the forensic scientists could hope to do with only four hairs, but it was possible that something could be learned.

The chapel, he thought, must have been ideal for them. Shielded by its trees, isolated, secure, warm even. The fen villagers kept indoors once darkness fell and, even in the evening light, would have a half-superstitious dread of visiting this empty and alien shrine. Even without a key they need fear no casual intruder. She need only watch that she was unobserved when she drove the red Jaguar into Hoggatt's drive to park it out of sight in one of the garages in the stable block. And then what? Wait for the light in the Biology Department to go out at last, for the advancing gleam of light from Lorrimer's torch as he joined her for that walk through the Lab grounds and into the trees. He wondered whether she had dragged the velvet cushions to the sanctuary, whether it had added to the excitement to make love to Lorrimer in front of that denuded altar, the new passion triumphing over the old.

Massingham's flame of hair appeared in the doorway. He said:

"The girl's all right. Her mother got her straight to bed and she's asleep. I called next at Sprogg's Cottage. The door was open and the sitting-room light was on, but there's no one there. Howarth was at home when I rang, but not Mrs. Schofield. He said he'd be along. Dr.

Kerrison is at the hospital at a medical committee meeting. His housekeeper said that he left just after seven. I didn't ring the hospital. If he is there, he'll be able to produce plenty of witnesses."

"And Middlemass?"

"No answer. Out to dinner, or at the local perhaps. No answer either from the Blakelocks' number. Anything here, sir?"

"Nothing, except what we'd expect to find. You've got a man posted to direct Blain Thomson when he arrives?"

"Yes, sir. And I think he's arriving now."

Dr. Reginald Blain-Thomson had a curious habit, before beginning his examination, of mincing round the body, eyes fixed on it with wary intensity as if half afraid that the corpse might spring into life and seize him by the throat. He minced now, immaculate in his grey pinstriped suit, the inevitable rose in its silver holder looking as fresh in his lapel as if it were a June blossom, newly plucked. He was a tall, lean-faced, aristocratic looking bachelor with a skin as freshly pink and soft as that of a girl. He was never known to put on protective clothing before examining a body, and reminded Dalgliesh of one of those television cooks who prepare a four-course dinner in full evening dress for the pleasure of demonstrating the essential refinement of their craft. It was even rumoured, unjustly, that Blain-Thomson performed his autopsy in a lounge suit.

But, despite these personal idiosyncrasies, he was an excellent forensic pathologist. Juries loved him. When he stood in the box and recited, with slightly world-weary formality and in his actor's voice, the details of his formidable qualifications and experience, they gazed at him with the respectful admiration of men who know a distinguished consultant when they see one, and have no intention of being so disobliging as to disbelieve what he might choose to tell them.

Now he squatted by the body, listened, smelled and touched. Then he switched off his examination torch and got to his feet. He said:

"Yes, well. Obviously she's dead and it's very recent. Within the last two hours, if you press me. But you must have reached that conclusion yourselves or you wouldn't have cut her down. When did you say you found her? Three minutes after eight. Dead one and a half hours then, say. It's possible. You're going to ask me whether it's suicide or murder. All I can say at the moment is that there's only the double mark encircling the neck and the cord fits. But you can see that for yourselves. There's no sign of manual throttling, and it doesn't look as if the cord were superimposed on a finer ligature.

She's a frail woman, little more than seven stone, I'd estimate, so it wouldn't need strength to overpower her. But there's no sign of a struggle and the nails look perfectly clean, so she probably didn't get the chance to scratch. If it is murder, he must have come up behind her very swiftly, dropped the looped cord over her head, and strung her up almost as soon as unconsciousness supervened. As for the cause of death--whether it's strangulation, broken neck or vagal inhibition--well, you'll have to wait until I get her on the table. I can take her away now if you're ready."

"How soon can you do the P.M.?"

"Well, it had better be at once, hadn't it? You're keeping me busy, Commander. No questions about my report on Lorrimer, I suppose?"

Dalgliesh answered: "None, thank you. I did try to get you on the phone."

"I'm sorry I've been elusive. I've been incarcerated in committees practically all day. When's the Lorrimer inquest?"

"Tomorrow, at two o'clock."

"I'll be there. They'll adjourn it, I suppose. And I'll give you a ring and a preliminary report as soon as I've got her sewn up."

He drew on his gloves carefully, finger by finger, then left. They could hear him exchanging a few words with the constable who was waiting outside to light him across the field to his car. One of them laughed. Then the voices faded.

Massingham put his head outside the door. The two dark-uniformed attendants from the mortuary van, anonymous bureaucrats of death, manoeuvred their trolley through the door with nonchalant skill. Stella Mawson's body was lifted with impersonal gentleness. The men turned to trundle the trolley out through the door. But suddenly the way was blocked by two dark shadows, and Howarth and his sister stepped quietly and simultaneously into the light of the chapel.

The figures with the trolley paused, stock-still like ancient helots, unseeing, un hearing Massingham thought that their entrance seemed as dramatically contrived as that of a couple of film stars arriving at a premiere. They were dressed identically in slacks and fawn leather jackets, lined with shaggy fur, the collars upturned. And for the first time he was struck by their essential likeness. The impression of a film was reinforced.

Gazing at the two pale, arrogant heads framed with fur, he thought that they looked like decadent twins, their fair, handsome profiles theatrically posed against the dark oak panelling. Again simultaneously, their eyes moved to the shrouded lump on the trolley, then fixed themselves on Dalgliesh. He said to Howarth:

"You took your time coming."

"My sister was out driving and I waited for her to return. You said you wanted both of us. I wasn't given to understand that it was of immediate urgency. What has happened? Inspector Massingham wasn't exactly forthcoming when he so peremptorily summoned us."

"Stella Mawson is dead by hanging." He had no doubt that Howarth appreciated the significance of his careful use of words. Their eyes moved from the two hooks on the chapel wall, one with the bell-rope hitched over it, to the blue cord with its dangling tassel held lightly in Dalgliesh's hand. Howarth said:

"I wonder how she knew how to find the cord. And why choose here?"

"You recognize the cord?"

"Isn't it from the chest? There should be two identical cords. We had an idea of hanging the curtains at the entrance to the chancel when we held our concert on 2 6th August. As it happens, we decided against it. The evening was too hot to worry about draughts. There were two tasselled cords in the chest then."

"Who could have seen them?"

"Almost anyone who was helping with the preparations: myself, my sister, Miss Foley, Martin, Blakelock. Middlemass gave a hand arranging the hired chairs, and so did a number of people from the Lab.

Some of the women helped with the refreshments after the concert and they were fussing about here during the afternoon. The chest isn't locked. Anyone who felt curious could have looked inside. But I don't see how Miss Mawson could have known about the cord. She was at the concert, but she had no hand in the preparations."

Dalgliesh nodded to the men with the trolley. They pushed it gently forward, and Howarth and Mrs. Schofield stood aside to let it pass.

Then Dalgliesh asked:

"How many keys are there to this place?"

"I told you yesterday. I know of only one. It's kept on a board in the Chief Liaison Officer's room."

"And that's the one at present in the lock?" Howarth did not turn his head. He said: "If it's got the Laboratory plastic tab--yes."

"Do you know if it was handed out to anyone today?"

"No. That's hardly the sort of detail Blakelock would worry me with."

Dalgliesh turned to Domenica Schofield: "And that's the one, presumably, that you borrowed to get extra keys cut when you decided to use the chapel for your meetings with Lorrimer, How many keys?"

She said calmly: "Two. One you found on his body. This is the second." She took it from her jacket pocket and held it out in the palm of her hand in a gesture of dismissive contempt. For a moment it appeared that she was about to tilt her palm and let it clatter on the floor.

"You don't deny that you came here?"

"Why should I? It's not illegal. We were both of age, in our right minds, and free. Not even adultery; merely fornication. You seem fascinated by my sex-life, Commander, even in the middle of your more normal preoccupations. Aren't you afraid it's becoming rather an obsession?"

Dalgliesh's voice didn't change. He went on:

"And you didn't ask for the key back when you broke with Lorrimer?"

"Again, why should I? I didn't need it. It wasn't an engagement ring."

Howarth hadn't looked at his half-sister during this exchange. Suddenly he said harshly:

"Who found her?"

"Brenda Pridmore. She's been taken home. Dr. Greene is with her now."

Domenica Schofield's voice was surprisingly gentle: "Poor child. She seems to be making a habit of finding bodies, doesn't she? Now that we've explained to you about the keys, is there anything else you want us for tonight?"

"Only to ask you both where you've been since six o'clock."

Howarth said: "I left Hoggatt's at about a quarter to six and I've been at home ever since. My sister's been out driving alone since seven o'clock. She likes to do that occasionally."

Domenica Schofield said: "I'm not sure if I can give you the precise route, but I did stop at an agreeable pub at Whittlesford for a drink and a meal shortly before eight o'clock. They'll probably remember me.

I'm fairly well known there. Why? Are you telling us that this is murder?"

"It's an unexplained death."

"And a suspicious one, presumably. But haven't you considered that she might have murdered Lorrimer and then taken her own life?"

"Can you give me one good reason why she should have?"

She laughed softly. "Murdered Edwin? For the best and commonest of reasons, or so I've always read. Because she was once married to him.

Hadn't you discovered that for yourself, Commander?"

"How did you know?"

"Because he told me. I'm probably the only person in the world he ever did tell. He said the marriage wasn't consummated and they got an annulment within two years. I suppose that's why he never brought his bride home. It's an embarrassing business, showing off one's new wife to one's parents and the village, particularly when she isn't a wife at all and one suspects that she never will be. I don't think his parents ever did know, so it's really not so surprising if you didn't. But then, one expects you to ferret out everything about people's private concerns."

Before Dalgliesh could reply, their ears caught, simultaneously, the hurried footfall on the stone step, and Angela Foley stood inside the door. She was flushed with running. Looking wildly from face to face, her body heaving, she gasped:

"Where is she? Where's Star?" Dalgliesh moved forward, but she backed away as if terrified that he might touch her. She said:

"Those men. Under the trees. Alen with a torch. They're wheeling something. What is it? What have you done with Star?"

Without looking at her half-brother, Domenica Schofield put out her hand. His reached out to meet it. They didn't move closer together, but stood, distanced, rigidly linked by those clasped hands. Dalgliesh said:

"I'm sorry, Miss Foley. Your friend is dead."

Four pairs of eyes watched as her own eyes turned, first to the blue loops of cord dangling from Dalgliesh's hand, then to the twin hooks, lastly to the wooden chair now tidily placed against the wall. She whispered:

"Oh no! Oh no!" Massingham moved to take her arm, but she shook free.

She threw back her head like a howling animal and wailed:

"Star! Star!" Before Massingham could restrain her she had run from the chapel and they could hear her wild, despairing cry borne back to them on the light wind.

Massingham ran after her. She was silent now, weaving through the trees, running fast. But he caught up with her easily before she reached the two distant figures with their dreadful burden. At first she fought madly; but suddenly, she collapsed in his arms and he was able to lift her and carry her to the car.

When he got back to the chapel, thirty minutes later, Dalgliesh was sitting quietly in one of the stalls, apparently engrossed with the Book of Common Prayer. He put it down and said:

"How is she?"

"Dr. Greene's given her a sedative. He's arranged for the district nurse to stay the night. There's no one else he could think of. It looks as if neither she nor Brenda Pridmore will be fit to be questioned before morning."

He looked at the small heap of numbered cards on the seat beside Dalgliesh. His chief said:

"I found them at the bottom of the chest. I suppose we can test these and those in the board for fingerprints. But we know what we shall find."

Massingham asked: "Did you believe Mrs. Schofield's story that Lorrimer and Stella Mawson were married?"

"Oh yes, I think so. Why lie when the facts can be so easily checked?

And it explains so much: that extraordinary change of will; even the outburst when he was talking to Bradley. The first sexual failure must have gone deep. Even after all these years he couldn't bear to think that she might benefit even indirectly from his will. Or was it the thought that unlike him, she had found happiness--and found it with a woman--that he found so insupportable?"

Massingham said:

"So she and Angela Foley get nothing. But that's not a reason for killing herself. And why here, of all places?"

Dalgliesh got to his feet. "I don't think she did kill herself. This was murder."