The Black Tower

CHAPTER EIGHT The Black Tower

NEXT DAY DALGLIESH walked up to the Grange to explain to Wilfred that he must now stay on at Hope Cottage until after the inquest, and to pay his token rent. He found Wilfred alone in the business room. Surprisingly, there was no sign of Dot Moxon. Wilfred was studying a map of France spread out on the desk. A bundle of passports in a rubber band weighed down one corner. He seemed hardly to hear what his guest said. He replied “The inquest. Yes, of course,” as if it were a forgotten luncheon engagement, then bent again over the map. He made no mention of Maggie’s death and Dalgliesh’s formal condolences were coldly received as if they were in poor taste. It was as if by divesting himself of Toynton Grange, he had detached himself from further responsibility, even from concern. Now nothing remained but his twin obsessions, his miracle and the pilgrimage to Lourdes.

Inspector Daniel and the forensic laboratory worked quickly. The inquest was held exactly one week after Maggie’s death, a week in which the inhabitants of Toynton Grange seemed as resolutely determined to keep out of Dalgliesh’s way as he was to avoid them. No one, not even Julius, showed any inclination to chat over Maggie’s death. It was as if they saw him now merely as a police officer, an unwelcome intruder of uncertain allegiance, a potential spy. He drove away from Toynton Head early every morning and returned late each night to darkness and silence. Neither the police activities nor the life at Toynton Grange touched him. He continued his daily, compulsive exploration of Dorset like a prisoner on licence and looked forward to the inquest as the final day of release.

It came at last. None of the patients from Toynton Grange attended except Henry Carwardine, surprisingly since he was not required to give evidence. As the company stood in whispering reverential groups outside the courthouse in the usual disorganized hiatus which follows attendance at the more sombre public rituals, he wheeled his chair with vigorous thrusts of the arms to where Dalgliesh stood. He looked and sounded euphoric.

“I realize that these ceremonial tidying up of legal loose ends aren’t exactly a novelty to you as they are to me. But this one wasn’t without interest, I thought. Less fascinating technically and forensically than Holroyd’s, but with more human interest.”

“You sound like a connoisseur of inquests.”

“If we go on like this at Toynton Grange I soon shall be. Helen Rainer was the star turn today, I thought. That extraordinary suit and hat in which she chose to appear were, I take it, the dress uniform of a state registered nurse. A very wise choice. Hair up; the merest trace of make-up; a general air of dedicated professionalism. ‘Mrs. Hewson may have believed that there was a relationship between me and her husband. She had too much free time to brood. Naturally Dr. Hewson and I have to work closely together. I have a high opinion of his kindness and competence but there has never been anything improper between us. Dr. Hewson was devoted to his wife.’ Nothing improper! I never believed that people actually used that expression.”

Dalgliesh said:

“At inquests they do. Did the jury believe her, do you suppose?”

“Oh, I think so, don’t you? Difficult to imagine our lady with the lamp garbed as she was this afternoon in grey samite—gabardine anyway—mystic, wonderful, romping between the sheets. She was wise I think to admit that she and Hewson had spent the meditation hour together in her room. But that, as she explained, was because both had already come to their decision and couldn’t afford to waste sixty minutes mulling it over when they had so much to discuss professionally together.”

“They had to choose between their alibi for what it was worth, and the risk to reputation. On the whole they chose wisely.”

Henry swung round his wheelchair with aggressive exuberance.

“It rather foxed the honest jurymen of Dorset, though. You could see the way their minds were working. If they aren’t lovers why were they closeted together? But if they were together, then Hewson couldn’t have killed his wife. But unless they were lovers he wouldn’t have had a motive for murdering his wife. But if he had such a motive, why admit that they were together? Obviously to give him an alibi. But he wouldn’t need an alibi if he hadn’t the usual motive. And if he had such a motive, then he and the girl would have been together. Very puzzling.”

Mildly amused, Dalgliesh asked:

“What did you think about Hewson’s performance?”

“He did well too. Not quite the professional competence and detachment of yourself, my dear Commander, but quiet, sincere, some natural grief bravely under control. Sensible of him to admit that Maggie desperately wanted him to leave Toynton Grange but that he felt an obligation to Wilfred, ‘who took me on when I wasn’t finding it easy to get a job’. No mention, of course, of being struck off the Medical Register and no one tactless enough to bring it up.”

Dalgliesh said:

“And no one tactless enough to suggest that he and Helen may have been lying about their relationship.”

“What else do you expect? What people know and what they can legally prove—or care to state in a court of law—are two very different things. Besides, we must at all costs protect dear Wilfred from the contamination of truth. No, I thought it went very well. Suicide while the balance of her mind, etc., etc. Poor Maggie! Stigmatized as a selfish, pleasure-seeking slut addicted to the bottle, out of sympathy with her husband’s dedication to his noble profession and not even competent to make a comfortable home for him. Court’s suggestion that it might have been an accidental death, play-acting which got out of hand, received no credence from the jury, did it? They took the view that a woman who drank the best part of a bottle of whisky, borrowed a rope and wrote a farewell letter was carrying play-acting a little far and did Maggie the compliment of believing that she intended what she did. I thought that the forensic scientist was extraordinarily definite in his opinion, given the basically subjective nature of document examination. There seems no doubt that Maggie did write the suicide note.”

“The first four lines of it, which were all he felt competent to pronounce on. What did you think of the verdict?”

“Oh, I agree with Julius. She was planning to be cut down just in time amidst general hullabaloo. But with the best part of a bottle of whisky inside her she wasn’t even competent to stage-manage her own resurrection. Incidentally, Julius gave me a graphic description of the drama in Charity Cottage, including Helen’s impressive debut in the role of Lady Macbeth;

There was no expression on Dalgliesh’s face or in his voice. He said:

“How entertaining for you both. It’s a pity Court wasn’t as detached at the time. He might have made himself useful instead of behaving like a hysterical queer.”

Henry smiled, gratified to have provoked the response he wanted. He said:

“So you don’t like him? Neither, I suspect, did your friend in holy orders.”

Dalgliesh spoke on impulse:

“I know that this is nothing to do with me, but isn’t it time that you got away from Toynton Grange?”

“Got away? To where do you suggest?”

“There must be other places.”

“The world is full of places. But what do you suppose I could do, or be, or hope for in any of them? As a matter of fact, I did once plan to leave. It was a particularly foolish dream. No, I shall stay on at the Grange. The Ridgewell Trust have the professionalism and experience which Anstey lacks. I could do worse. Besides, Wilfred himself is to stay; and I still have a debt to pay Wilfred. In the meantime, this formality over, we can all relax and set off tomorrow to Lourdes in peace. You ought to come with us, Dalgliesh. You’ve hung around here so long that I suspect you rather enjoy our company. Besides, I don’t think your convalescence has really done you a great deal of good. Why not come to Lourdes and see what the odour of incense and a change of scene can do for you?”

The Toynton Grange bus, driven by Philby, had drawn level with them now and the back ramp was being lowered. Dalgliesh watched in silence as Eric and Helen detached themselves from Wilfred, laid their hands simultaneously on the handle bars and wheeled Henry briskly into the bus. The ramp was raised, Wilfred took his seat in the front beside Philby, and the Toynton Grange bus disappeared from view.

Colonel Ridgewell and the trustees arrived after lunch. Dalgliesh watched as the car drew up and the sombre-suited party disappeared into the house. Later they emerged and walked with Wilfred over the headland towards the sea. Dalgliesh was a little surprised to see that Eric and Helen were with them but not Dorothy Moxon. He could see the Colonel’s grey hair lifting in the breeze as he paused to swing his walking stick in wide explanatory sweeps or stood suddenly still conferring with the little group who quickly closed round him. No doubt, thought Dalgliesh, they would want to inspect the cottages. Well, Hope Cottage was ready for them. The book shelves were empty and dusted, the packing cases corded and labelled for the carrier, his suitcase packed except for the few things he needed on this his last night. But he had no wish to get involved in introductions or to stand making small talk.

When the party finally turned back and made their way towards Charity Cottage, he got into his car and drove off, with no clear direction in mind, no particular aim, no intention except to keep driving long into the night.

The next morning was airless and sultry, inducing headache, the sky a tent of stained calico ponderous with unspilt rain. The pilgrimage party was due to set out at nine o’clock and at half past eight Millicent Hammitt barged in, without a preliminary knock, to say goodbye. She was wearing a blue-grey tweed suit badly seated, with a short double-breasted jacket; a blouse in a harsher and discordant blue adorned with a garish brooch at the neck; brogues; and a grey felt hat pulled down to cover the ears. She dumped a bulging airline bag and her shoulder bag at her feet, drew on a pair of fawn cotton gloves and held out her hand. Dalgliesh put down his coffee cup. His right hand was grasped in a crushing grip.

“Goodbye then, Commander. Odd, but I’ve never really got used to using your Christian name. You’ll be gone, I understand, by the time we return?”

“I plan to drive back to London later this morning.”

“I hope you’ve enjoyed your stay. At least it has been eventful. One suicide, one natural death and the end of Toynton Grange as an independent institution. You can’t have been bored.”

“And one attempted murder.”

“Wilfred in the burning tower? It sounds like the title of an avant-garde play. I’ve always had my doubts about that particular excitement. If you ask me, Wilfred set it up himself to justify handing over his responsibilities. No doubt that explanation occurred to you.”

“Several explanations occurred to me but none of them made much sense.”

“Little at Toynton Grange ever does. Well, the old order changeth yielding place to new and God fulfils Himself in many ways. We must hope that He will.”

Dalgliesh asked if Millicent had any plans.

“I shall stay on in the cottage. Wilfred’s agreement with the Trust stipulates that I may live there for life, and I assure you, I’ve every intention of dying at my own convenience. It won’t be the same, of course, knowing that the place belongs to strangers.”

Dalgliesh asked:

“How does your brother feel about the hand-over?”

“Relieved. Well, it’s what he schemed for isn’t it? He doesn’t know what he’s let himself in for, of course. Incidentally, he hasn’t given this cottage to the Trust. This will continue to belong to him and he plans to move in after the place has been converted into something more civilized and comfortable. He’s also offered to help at Toynton Grange in any capacity in which the Trust feel he can be of use. If he imagines that they’ll let him stay on as warden he’s in for a shock. They’ve got their own plans for the Grange and I doubt whether they include Wilfred, even if they have agreed to pander to his vanity by naming the home after him. I suppose Wilfred imagines that everyone will defer to him as their benefactor and the original owner. I can assure you they won’t. Now that the deed of gift—or whatever it is—is signed and the Trust are the legal owners, Wilfred counts for as little as Philby, less probably. It’s his own fault. He should have sold out completely.”

“Wouldn’t that have broken faith?”

“Superstitious nonsense! If Wilfred wanted to dress up in monk’s garb and behave like a medieval abbot he should have applied for entry to a monastery. An Anglican one would have been perfectly respectable. The twice yearly pilgrimage will go on, of course. That’s one of Wilfred’s stipulations. It’s a pity you aren’t coming with us Commander. We stay at an agreeable little pension, really quite cheap and the food is excellent; and Lourdes is a cheerful little place. Quite an atmosphere. I don’t say I wouldn’t have preferred Wilfred to have had his miracle in Cannes, but it might have been worse. He could have got cured at Blackpool.”

She paused at the door to turn and say:

“I expect the bus will stop here so that the others can take leave of you.” She made it sound as if they would be conferring a privilege. Dalgliesh said that he would walk up with her and say goodbye at Toynton Grange. He had discovered one of Henry Carwardine’s books on Father Baddeley’s shelf and wanted to return it. There was also his bed linen to take back and some leftover tins of food which Toynton Grange could probably use.

“I’ll take the tins later. Just leave them here. And you can return the linen any time. The Grange is never locked. Philby will be back later anyway. He only drives us to the port and sees us on the boat and then comes back to caretake and feed Jeoffrey and, of course, the hens. They’re rather missing Grace’s help with the hens although no one thought that she did anything very useful when she was alive. And it’s not only the hens. They can’t lay their hands on her list of the Friends. Actually, Wilfred wanted Dennis to stay at home this time. He’s got one of his migraines and looks like death. But no one can make Dennis miss a pilgrimage.”

Dalgliesh walked up to the Grange with her. The bus was drawn up outside the front door and the patients were already loaded. The pathetically depleted party had a bizarre air of slightly spurious joviality. Dalgliesh’s first impression from their varied garb was that they proposed to pursue quite different and unrelated activities. Henry Carwardine, in a belted tweed coat and deerstalker hat, looked like an Edwardian gentleman on his way to the grouse moors. Philby, incongruously formal in a dark suit with high collar and black tie, was an undertaker’s man loading a hearse. Ursula Hollis had dressed like a Pakistani immigrant in full fig whose only concession to the English climate was an ill-cut jacket in mock fur. Jennie Pegram, wearing a long blue headscarf, had apparently made an attempt to impersonate Saint Bernadette. Helen Rainer, dressed as she had been at the inquest, was a prison matron in charge of a group of unpredictable delinquents. She had already taken her seat at the head of Georgie Allan’s stretcher. The boy’s eyes were feverishly bright and Dalgliesh could hear his high frenetic chatter. He was wearing a blue and white striped woollen scarf and clutching an immense teddy bear, its neck adorned with pale blue ribbon and what, to Dalgliesh’s astounded eyes, looked like a pilgrimage medal. The party could have been an oddly assorted party of team supporters on their way to a football match, but one, Dalgliesh thought, that hardly expected the home side to win.

Wilfred was gently fussing over the remainder of the luggage. He, Eric Hewson and Dennis Lerner were wearing their monk’s habits. Dennis looked desperately ill, his face was taut with pain and his eyes half closed as if even the dull morning light were intolerable. Dalgliesh heard Eric whisper to him:

“For God’s sake, Dennis, give up and stay at home! With two wheelchairs less we can perfectly well manage.”

Lerner’s high voice held a tinge of hysteria.

“I’ll be all right. You know it never lasts more than twenty-four hours. For God’s sake leave me alone!”

At last the medical paraphernalia, decently shrouded, was loaded, the ramp was raised, the rear door finally slammed and they were off. Dalgliesh waved in response to the frantically signalling hands and watched as the brightly painted bus lurched slowly over the headland looking, as it receded, as vulnerable and insubstantial as a child’s toy. He was surprised, and a little saddened, that he could feel such pity and regret for people with whom he had taken such care not to become involved. He remained watching until the bus bumped slowly up the slope of the valley and finally tipped over the headland out of sight.

Now the headland was deserted, Toynton Grange and its cottages stood unlit and unpeopled under the heavy sky. It had grown darker in the last half hour. There would be a storm before midday. Already his head ached with the premonition of thunder. The headland lay in the sinister anticipatory calm of a chosen battlefield. He could just hear the thudding of the sea, less a noise than a vibration on the dense air like the sullen menace of distant guns.

Restless and perversely reluctant to leave now that he was at last free to go, he walked up to the gate to collect his paper and any letters. The bus had obviously stopped for the Toynton Grange post and there was nothing in the box but the day’s copy of The Times, an official-looking buff envelope for Julius Court and a square white one addressed to Father Baddeley. Tucking the newspaper under his arm he split open the stout linen-backed envelope and began to walk back, reading on his way. The letter was written in a firm, strong masculine hand; the printed address was a Midlands deanery. The writer was sorry not to have replied earlier to Father Baddeley’s letter but it had been posted on to him in Italy, where he had taken a locum post for the summer. At the end of the conventional enquiries, the methodical recording of family and diocesan concerns, the perfunctory and predictable comments on public affairs, came the answer to the mystery of Father Baddeley’s summons:

“I went at once to visit your young friend, Peter Bonnington, but he had, of course, been dead for some months. I am so very sorry. In the circumstances there seemed little point in enquiring whether he had been happy at the new home or had really wanted to move from Dorset. I hope that his friend at Toynton Grange managed to visit before he died. On your other problem, I don’t think I can offer much guidance. Our experience in the diocese where, as you know, we are particularly interested in young offenders, is that providing residential care for ex-prisoners whether in a home or in the kind of self-supporting hostel you envisage requires a great deal more capital than you have available. You could probably buy a small house even at today’s prices, but at least two experienced staff would be needed initially and you would have to support the venture until it became established. But there are a number of existing hostels and organizations who would very much welcome your help. There certainly couldn’t be a better use for your money, if you have decided, as you obviously have, that it ought not now to go to Toynton Grange. I think that you were wise to call in your policeman friend. I’m sure that he will be best able to advise you.”

Dalgliesh almost laughed aloud. Here was an ironical, and fitting end to failure. So that was how it had begun! There had been nothing sinister behind Father Baddeley’s letter, no suspected crime, no conspiracy, no hidden homicide. He had simply wanted, poor, innocent, unworldly old man, some professional advice on how to buy, equip, staff and endow a hostel for young ex-offenders for the sum of £19,000. Given the present state of the property market and the level of inflation, what he had needed was a financial genius. But he had written to a policeman, probably the only one he knew. He had written to an expert in violent death. And why not? To Father Baddeley all policemen were fundamentally alike, experienced in crime and familiar with criminals, dedicated to prevention as well as detection. And I, thought Dalgliesh bitterly, have done neither. Father Baddeley had wanted professional advice, not advice on how to deal with evil. There he had his own infallible guidelines; there he was at home. For some reason, almost certainly connected with the transfer of that young, unknown patient, Peter Bonnington, he had become disenchanted with Toynton Grange. He had wanted advice on how else to use his money. How typical of my arrogance, thought Dalgliesh, to suppose that he wanted me for anything more.

He stuffed the letter into his jacket pocket and strolled on, letting his eyes glance over the folded newspaper. An advertisement stood out as clearly as if it had been marked, familiar words leaping to the eye.

Of course! The list of Toynton Grange Friends, unaccountably mislaid since Grace Willison’s death, those sixty-eight names which Grace had known by heart. He stood stock still under the menacing sky and read the notice again. Excitement gripped him, as violently physical as a twist of the stomach, a surge of the blood. He knew with immediate, with heart-lifting certainty that here at last was the end of the tangled skein. Pull gently on this one fact and the thread would begin, miraculously, to run free.

If Grace Willison had been murdered, as he obstinately believed, postmortem result notwithstanding, it had been because of something she knew. But it must have been vital information, knowledge which she alone possessed. One did not kill merely to silence intriguing but evidentially useless suspicions about where Father Baddeley had been on the afternoon of Holroyd’s death. He had been in the black tower. Dalgliesh knew it and could prove it; Grace Willison might have known it too. But the shredded match and Grace’s testimony taken together could prove nothing. With Father Baddeley dead, the worst anyone could do would be to point out that it was strange that the old priest hadn’t mentioned seeing Julius Court walking over the headland. And Dalgliesh could imagine Julius’s contemptuous, sardonic smile. A sick, tired old man, sitting with his book at the eastern window. Who could say now that he hadn’t slept the hours away before making his way back to Toynton Grange across the headland while, on the beach unseen below, the rescue party toiled with their burden? With Father Baddeley dead, his testimony silenced, no police force in the world would reopen the case on that secondhand evidence. The worst harm Grace could have done to herself might have been to betray that Dalgliesh wasn’t just convalescing at Toynton, that he too was suspicious. That betrayal might just have tipped the scales for her from life to death. Then she might have become too dangerous to let live. Not because she knew that Father Baddeley had been in the black tower on the afternoon of the 12th September, but because she possessed more specific, more valuable information. There was only one distribution list of the Friends of Toynton Grange and she could type it by heart. Julius had been present when she made that claim. The list could be torn up, burnt, utterly destroyed. But there was only one way in which those sixty-eight names could be erased from one frail woman’s consciousness.

Dalgliesh quickened his pace. He found himself almost running down the headland. His headache seemed surprisingly to have lifted despite the lowering sky, the dense, storm-laden air. Change the metaphor, still trite but well proved. In this job it wasn’t the last piece of jigsaw, the easiest of all, that was important. No, it was the neglected, uninteresting small segment which, slotted into place, suddenly made sense of so many other discarded pieces. Delusive colours, amorphous and ambiguous shapes came together as now to reveal the first recognizable outline of the finished picture.

And now, that piece in place, it was time to move the others speculatively over the board. For the present, forget proof, forget autopsy reports and the formal legal certainty of inquest verdicts; forget pride, the fear of ridicule, the reluctance to become involved. Get back to the first principle applied by any divisional detective constable when he smelt villainy on his patch. Cui bono? Who was living above his means? Who was in possession of more money than could reasonably be explained? There were two such people at Toynton Grange, and they were linked by Holroyd’s death. Julius Court and Dennis Lerner. Julius who had said that his answer to the black tower was money and the solace it could buy; beauty, leisure, friends, travel. How could a legacy of £30,000, however cleverly invested, enable him to live as he lived now? Julius, who helped Wilfred with the accounts and knew better than anyone how precarious were the finances of Toynton Grange. Julius who never went to Lourdes because it wasn’t his scene, but who took care to be at his cottage to give a welcome home party for the pilgrims. Julius who had been so untypically helpful when the pilgrimage bus had had an accident, driving immediately to the scene, taking charge, buying a new and specially adapted bus so that the pilgrimages could be independent. Julius, who had provided the evidence to clear Dennis Lerner from any suspicion of Holroyd’s murder.

Dot had accused Julius of using Toynton Grange. Dalgliesh recalled the scene at Grace’s death bed; Dot’s outburst, the man’s first incredulous look, the quick reactive spite. But what if he were using the place for a more specific purpose than to gratify the insidious pleasure of patronage and easy generosity. Using Toynton Grange. Using the pilgrimage. Scheming to preserve them both because both were essential to him.

And what of Dennis Lerner? Dennis, who stayed on at Toynton Grange being paid less than the normal wages and who could yet support his mother in an expensive nursing home. Dennis who resolutely overcame his fear so that he could go climbing with Julius. What better opportunity to meet and talk in absolute privacy without exciting suspicion? And how convenient that Wilfred had been frightened by the frayed rope into giving up rock climbing. Dennis, who could never bear to miss a pilgrimage even when as today, he could hardly stand with migraine. Dennis who was in charge of distributing the handcream and bath powder, who did most of the packing himself.

And it explained Father Baddeley’s death. Dalgliesh had never been able to believe that his friend had been killed to prevent him disclosing that he hadn’t glimpsed Julius walking over the headland on the afternoon of Holroyd’s death. In the absence of clear proof that the old man hadn’t, even momentarily, slumbered at his window, an allegation that Julius had lied, based on that evidence, would have been embarrassing perhaps but hardly dangerous. But what if Holroyd’s death had been part of a larger and more sinister conspiracy? Then it might well have seemed necessary to snuff out—and how simply!—an obstinate, intelligent and ever-present watcher who could have been silenced in no other way once he smelt out the presence of evil. Father Baddeley had been taken to hospital before he learnt of Holroyd’s death. But when he did learn, the significance of what he had so singularly failed to see must have struck him. He would have taken some action. And he had taken action. He had made a telephone call to London, to a number he had needed to look up. He had made an appointment with his murderer.

Dalgliesh walked quickly on, past Hope Cottage and, almost without conscious decision, to Toynton Grange. The heavy front door opened to his touch. He smelt again the slightly intimidating spicy smell, masking more sinister, less agreeable odours. It was so dark that he had at once to switch on the light. The hall blazed like an empty film set. The black and white chequered floor was dazzling to the eyes, a gigantic chess board, waiting for the pieces to move into place.

He paced through the empty rooms switching on the lights as he went. Room after room burst into brilliance. He found himself touching tables and chairs as he passed as if the wood were a talisman, looking intently around with the wary eye of a traveller returning unwelcomed to a deserted home. And his mind continued to shuffle the pieces of jigsaw. The attack on Anstey, the final and most dangerous attempt in the black tower. Anstey himself assumed that it was a final attempt to frighten him into selling out. But suppose it had had another purpose, not to close Toynton Grange but to make its future secure? And there was no other way, given Anstey’s dwindling resources, than to pass it over to an organization financially sound and already well established. And Anstey hadn’t sold out. Satisfied by the last, the most dangerous attack on him, that it couldn’t have been the work of a patient and that his dream was still intact, he had given his inheritance away. Toynton Grange would go on. The pilgrimages would continue. Was that what someone—someone who knew only too well how financially precarious the home was—had always schemed for and intended?

Holroyd’s visit to London. It was obvious that he had learnt something on that visit, had somehow acquired knowledge which had sent him back to Toynton Grange restless and elated. Was it also knowledge which had made him too dangerous to live? Dalgliesh had assumed that he had been told something by his solicitor, something perhaps about his own financial concerns or those of the Anstey family. But the visit to the solicitor hadn’t been the main purpose of the trip. Holroyd and the Hewsons had also been to St. Saviour’s hospital, the hospital where Anstey had been treated. And there, in addition to seeing the consultant in physical medicine with Holroyd, they had visited the medical records department. Hadn’t Maggie said when she and Dalgliesh first met? “He never went back to St. Saviour’s hospital so that they could record the miraculous cure on his medical record. It would have been rather a joke if he had.” Suppose Holroyd had gained some knowledge in London but gained it, not directly, but through a confidence from Maggie Hewson given, perhaps, during one of their lonely periods together on the cliff edge. He remembered Maggie Hewson’s words:

“I’ve said I won’t tell. But if you keep on nagging about it I may change my mind.” And then: “What if I did? He wasn’t a fool you know. He could tell that something was up. And he’s dead, dead, dead!” Father Baddeley was dead. But so was Holroyd. And so was Maggie. Was there any reason why Maggie had to die, and at that particular time?

But this was to go too fast. It was still all conjecture, all speculation. True, it was the only theory which fitted all the facts. But that wasn’t evidence. He had still no proof that any of the deaths at Toynton Head had been murder. One fact was certain. If Maggie had been killed, then somehow she had been persuaded unwittingly to connive in her own death.

He became aware of a faint bubbling sound and detected the pungent smell of grease and hot soap from the direction of the kitchen. The kitchen itself stank like a Victorian workhouse laundry. A pail of teacloths was simmering on the old-fashioned gas stove. In the bustle of departure Dot Moxon must have forgotten to turn off the gas. The grey linen was billowing above the dark evil-smelling scum, the gas plate was splattered with sponges of dried foam. He turned off the gas and the teacloths subsided into their murky bath. With the extinguishing plop of the flame the silence was suddenly intensified; it was as if he had turned off the last evidence of human life.

He moved on into the activity room. The work tops were shrouded with dust sheets. He could see the outline of the row of polythene bottles and the tins of bath powder waiting to be sieved and packed. Henry Carwardine’s bust of Anstey still stood on its wooden plinth. It had been covered by a white plastic bag tied at the throat with what looked like one of Carwardine’s old ties. The effect was peculiarly sinister; the nebulous features under the transparent shroud, the empty eye sockets, the sharp nose pointing the thin plastic made it as potent an image as a severed head.

In the office at the end of the annexe Grace Willison’s desk still stood squarely under the north window, the typewriter under its grey cover. He pulled open the desk drawers. They were as he expected, immaculately tidy and ordered, banks of writing paper with Toynton Grange heading; envelopes carefully graded by size; typewriter ribbons; pencils; erasers; carbon paper still in its box; the sheets of perforated sticky labels on which she had typed the names and addresses of the Friends. Only the bound list of names was missing, the list of sixty-eight addresses; one of them in Marseilles. And here typed in that book and imprinted on Miss Willison’s mind had been the vital link in the chain of greed and death.

The heroin had travelled far before it was finally packed at the bottom of a tin of bath powder in Toynton Grange. Dalgliesh could picture each stage of that journey as clearly as if he had travelled it himself. The fields of opium poppies on the high Anatolian plateau, the bulging pods oozing their milky sap. The secret rendering down of the raw opium into base morphine even before it left the hills. The long journey by mule train, rail, road or air towards Marseilles, one of the main distribution ports of the world. The refinement into pure heroin in one of a dozen clandestine laboratories. And then, the arranged rendezvous among the crowds at Lourdes, perhaps at Mass, the package slipped quickly into the waiting hand. He remembered wheeling Henry Carwardine across the headland on his first evening at Toynton, the thick rubber handgrips twisting beneath his hand. How simple to wrench one off, to insert a small plastic bag into the hollow strut, its drawstring taped to the metal. The whole operation would take less than a minute. And there would be plenty of opportunity. Philby didn’t go on the pilgrimages. It would be Dennis Lerner who would have charge of the wheelchairs. What safer way for a drug smuggler to pass through customs than as the member of a recognized and respected pilgrimage. And the subsequent arrangements had been equally foolproof. The suppliers would need to know in advance the date of each pilgrimage, just as the customers and distributors would need to be told when the next consignment would come in. How more easily than by means of an innocuous newsletter from a respectable charity, a newsletter despatched so conscientiously and so innocently each quarter by Grace Willison.

And Julius’s testimony in a French court, the alibi for a murderer. Had that been, not a reluctant yielding to blackmail, not a payment for services rendered, but payment in advance for services to come? Or had Julius, as Bill Moriarty’s informant suggested, given Michonnet his alibi with no other motive than a perverse pleasure in thwarting the French police, gratuitously obliging a powerful family and causing his superiors the maximum of embarrassment? Possibly. He might neither have expected nor wanted any other reward. But if one were offered? If it were tactfully made known to him that a certain commodity could be supplied in strictly limited quantities if he could find a way to smuggle it into England? Would he later have been able to resist the temptation of Toynton Grange and its six-monthly pilgrimage?

And it was so easy, so simple, so foolproof. And so incredibly profitable. What was illegal heroin fetching now? Something like £4,000 an ounce. Julius had no need to deal in bulk or complicate his distribution arrangements beyond the one or two trusted agents to make himself secure for life. Ten ounces brought in each time would buy all the leisure and beauty that any man could desire. And with the Ridgewell Trust takeover the future was secure. Dennis Lerner would keep his job. The pilgrimages would continue. There would be other homes open to his exploitation, other pilgrimages. And Lerner was completely in his power. Even if the newsletter was discontinued and the home no longer needed to pack and sell its handcream and powder, the heroin would still come in. The arrangements for notification and distribution were a minor matter of logistics compared with the fundamental problem of getting the drug safely, reliably and regularly through the port.

There was as yet no proof. But with luck, and if he were right, there would be in three days’ time. He could telephone the local police now and safely leave it to them to contact the central drug control branch. Better still, he could telephone Inspector Daniel and arrange to call in to see him on his way back to London. Secrecy was essential. There must be no risk of suspicion. It would take only one telephone call to Lourdes to cancel this consignment and leave him again with nothing but a hotchpotch of half-formulated suspicions, coincidences, unsubstantiated allegations.

The nearest telephone, he remembered, was in the dining room. It had an external line, and he saw that this had been switched through to the exchange. But when he lifted the receiver, the line was dead. He felt the usual momentary irritation that an instrument, taken for granted, should be reduced to a ridiculous and useless lump of plastic and metal, and reflected that a house with a dead telephone seemed always so much more isolated than one with no telephone at all. It was interesting, perhaps even significant, that the line was silent. But it didn’t matter. He would get on his way and hope to find Inspector Daniel at police headquarters. At this stage when his theory was still little more than conjecture he was reluctant to talk to anyone else. He replaced the receiver. A voice from the doorway said:

“Having difficulty, Commander?”

Julius Court must have stepped through the house as delicately as a cat. He stood now, one shoulder resting lightly against the door post, both hands deep in his jacket pockets. The assumption of ease was deceptive. His body, poised on the balls of his feet as if to spring, was rigid with tension. The face above the high rolled collar of his sweater was as skeletal and defined as a carving, the muscles taut under the flush skin. His eyes unblinking, unnaturally bright, were fixed on Dalgliesh with the speculative intentness of a gambler watching the spinning balls.

Dalgliesh said calmly:

“It’s out of order apparently. It doesn’t matter. My housekeeper will expect me when she sees me.”

“Do you usually roam about other people’s houses to make your private calls? The main telephone is in the business room. Didn’t you know?”

“I doubt whether I should have been any luckier.”

They looked at each other, silent in the greater silence. Across the length of the room Dalgliesh could recognize and follow the process of his adversary’s thought as plainly as if it were registering visibly on a graph, the black needle tracing the pattern of decision. There was no struggle. It was the simple weighing of probabilities.

When Julius at last drew his hand slowly out of his pocket it was almost with relief that Dalgliesh saw the muzzle of the Luger. The die was cast. Now there was no going back, no more pretence, no more uncertainty.

Julius said quietly:

“Don’t move, I’m an excellent shot. Sit down at the table. Hands on the top. Now, tell me how you found me out. I’m assuming that you have found me out. If not, then I’ve miscalculated. You will die and I shall be put to a great deal of trouble and inconvenience and we’ll both be aggrieved to know that it wasn’t after all necessary.”

With his left hand Dalgliesh took Father Baddeley’s letter from his jacket pocket and slid it across the table.

“This will interest you. It came this morning addressed to Father Baddeley.”

The grey eyes did not move from his.

“Sorry. I’m sure it’s fascinating but I have my mind on other matters. You read it to me.”

“It explains why he wanted to see me. You needn’t have worried to concoct the poison pen letter or destroy his diary. His problem had nothing to do with you. Why kill him anyway? He was in the tower when Holroyd died; he knew perfectly well that he hadn’t slept, that you hadn’t come over the headland. But was that knowledge dangerous enough to snuff him out?”

“It was, in Baddeley’s hands. The old man had a deep-rooted instinct for what he would describe as evil. That meant he had a deep-rooted suspicion of me, particularly of what he saw as my influence over Dennis. We were playing out our private comedy on a level which I don’t think the procedures of the Metropolitan Police would recognize. It could only have one end. He telephoned me at my London flat from the hospital three days before he was discharged and asked me to come to see him on 26th September after nine o’clock. I went prepared. I drove down from London and left the Mercedes in that hollow behind the stone wall off the coast road. I took one of the habits from the business room while they were all at dinner. Then I walked to Hope Cottage. If anyone had seen me, then I should have had to change my plan. But no one did. He was sitting alone by the dying fire waiting for me. I think he knew about two minutes after I entered that I would kill him. There wasn’t even a flicker of surprise when I pressed the plastic against his face. Plastic, you note. It wouldn’t leave any telltale threads in the nostrils or windpipe. Not that Hewson would have noticed, poor fool. Baddeley’s diary was on the table and I took it away with me just in case he’d made any incriminating entries. Just as well. He had, I discovered, a tedious habit of recording precisely where he’d been and when. But I didn’t break into the bureau. I didn’t need to. You can put that little peccadillo down to Wilfred. He must have been frantic to get his eyes on the old man’s will. Incidentally, I never found your postcard and I suspect Wilfred looked no further once he’d found the will. Probably the old man tore it up. He disliked keeping trifles. Afterwards I went back and slept in some discomfort in the car. Next morning I rejoined the London road and arrived here when all the excitement was over. I saw in the diary that he had invited an A.D. to stay and that the visitor was expected on the first of October. It struck me as a bit odd. The old man didn’t have visitors. So I planted the poison pen letter the evening before, just in case Baddeley had confided that something was on his mind. I must say, it was a bit disconcerting to discover that the mysterious A.D. was you, my dear Commander. Had I known, I might have tried for a little more subtlety.”

“And the stole? He was wearing his stole.”

“I should have removed it, but one can’t remember everything. You see, he didn’t believe I was protecting Dennis to save Wilfred grief or out of kindness to Dennis. He knew me too well. When he accused me of corrupting Dennis, of using Toynton for some purpose of my own, I said that I would tell him the truth, that I wanted to make my confession. He must have known in his heart that this was death, that I was only amusing myself. But he couldn’t take the risk. If he refused to take me seriously, then all his life would have been a lie. He hesitated for just two seconds, then he put the stole round his neck.”

“Didn’t he even give you the gratification of a flicker of fear?”

“Oh, no! Why should he? We were alike in one thing. Neither of us feared death. I don’t know where Baddeley thought he was going as he just had time to make that last archaic sign of his allegiance, but wherever it was he apparently saw nothing to fear. Neither do I. I know just as certainly as he did what will follow my death. Annihilation. It would be unreasonable to fear that. I’m not so unreasonable. Once you have lost the fear of death—absolutely lost it—then all other fears are meaningless. Nothing can touch you. All that is necessary is to keep the means of death to hand. Then one is invulnerable. I apologize for the fact that, in my case, it has to be a gun. I do realize that at the moment I look melodramatic, ridiculous. But I can’t fancy killing myself any other way. Drowning? That onrush of suffocating water? Drugs? Some interfering fool might drag me back. Besides, I do fear that shadow land between life and death. A knife? Messy and uncertain. There are three bullets here, Dalgliesh. One for you, and two, in case they should be needed, for me.”

“If you trade in death as you do, it’s as well no doubt to come to terms with it.”

“Everyone who takes hard drugs wants to die. You know that as well as I do. There is no other way they can do it with so little inconvenience and so much profit to others, and with such pleasure to themselves, at least initially.”

“And Lerner? I suppose you paid his mother’s nursing home fees. What are they, about £200 a month? You got him cheap. Even so, he must have known what he was bringing in.”

“Will be bringing in, three days from now. Will go on bringing in. I told him that it was cannabis, a perfectly harmless drug; one which an over-sensitive government have chosen to make illegal but which my London friends happen to fancy and are prepared to pay highly for. He chooses to believe me. He knows the truth, but he won’t admit to himself that he knows. That’s reasonable, sensible, a necessary self-deception. It’s how we all manage to go on living. You must know that your job is a dirty job, crooks catching crooks, and that you waste your intelligence by doing it. But it wouldn’t exactly add to your peace of mind to admit the fact. And if you ever chuck it, you won’t give that as your reason. Are you going to chuck it, by the way? Somehow I’ve gained the impression that you might be.”

“That shows some discernment. I did have it in mind. But not now.”

The decision to go on, arrived at when and why Dalgliesh didn’t know, seemed to him as irrational as the decision to give up. It wasn’t a victory. A kind of defeat even. But there would be time enough, if he lived, to analyse the vicissitudes of that personal conflict. Like Father Baddeley, a man lived and died as he had to. He heard Julius’s amused voice.

“A pity. But as this seems likely to be your last job, why not tell me how you found me out.”

“Is there time? I don’t relish spending my last five minutes in a recital of professional incompetence. It won’t give me any satisfaction and I don’t see why I should gratify your curiosity.”

“No. But it’s more in your interests than mine. Oughtn’t you to be playing for time? Besides, if it’s fascinating enough I might relax my guard, might give you a chance to pounce or fling a chair at me or whatever they train you to do in this kind of situation. Or somebody may come, or I may even change my mind.”

“Will you?”

“No.”

“Then gratify my curiosity. I can guess about Grace Willison. You killed her in the same way you killed Father Baddeley once you decided that I was getting dangerously suspicious, because she could type by heart the list of Friends, the list which included your distributors. But Maggie Hewson, why did she have to die?”

“Because of something she knew. Haven’t you guessed that? I’ve over-estimated you. She knew that Wilfred’s miracle was a delusion. I drove the Hewsons and Victor to London for his appointment at St. Saviour’s hospital. Eric and Maggie went to the medical records department to have a look at Wilfred’s folder. I suppose they wanted to gratify a natural professional curiosity while they were there. They discovered that he’d never had disseminated sclerosis, that his latest tests had shown that it was a wrong diagnosis. All he’d suffered from was hysterical paralysis. But I must be shocking you, my dear Commander. You’re a pseudo-scientist, aren’t you? It must be hard for you to accept that medical technology can err.”

“No. I believe in the possibility of a wrong diagnosis.”

“Wilfred, apparently, doesn’t share your healthy scepticism. He never returned to the hospital for his next checkup, so no one bothered to write to him about their little mistake. Why should they? But it was knowledge that the two Hewsons couldn’t keep to themselves. They told me, and subsequently Maggie must have told Holroyd. He probably guessed on the drive back to Toynton that something was up. I tried to bribe her with whisky to keep the knowledge to herself—she actually believed in my solicitude for dear Wilfred—and it worked until Wilfred excluded her from the decision on the future of the home. She was furious. She told me that she planned to burst into the last session at the end of the meditation and publicly proclaim the truth. I couldn’t risk that. It was the one fact, the only fact, that could have made him sell out. It would have stopped the hand-over to the Ridgewell Trust. Toynton Grange and the pilgrimage had to go on.

“She wasn’t really looking forward to the fracas that would follow breaking the news and it was easy enough to persuade her to leave the party at Toynton Grange to indulge their various reactions to her news and escape up to town with me immediately afterwards. I suggested that she should leave a deliberately ambiguous note, one which could be read as a threat of suicide. Then she could return to Toynton if and when she felt like it and see how Eric was reacting as a presumptive widower. It was the kind of histrionic gesture which appealed to dear Maggie. It got her out of an awkward situation here, provided the maximum of worry and inconvenience to Wilfred and Eric, and provided her with a free holiday in my London flat and the prospect of plenty of excitement if and when she chose to return. She even volunteered to fetch the rope herself. We sat there drinking together until she was too fuddled to suspect me but still sober enough to write the note. The last scrawled lines, the reference to the black tower, were, of course, added by me.”

“So that was why she was bathed and dressed.”

“Of course. Tarted up to make an effective entrance at Toynton Grange, and also I flatter myself, to impress me. I was gratified that I ranked clean underclothes and painted toe nails. I don’t know what precisely she thought I had in mind for us when we reached London. Dear Maggie was never quite in touch with reality. To pack her contraceptive was perhaps more optimistic than discreet. But she may have had her plans. The dear girl was certainly delirious at the thought of leaving Toynton. She died happy I assure you.”

“And, before leaving the cottage, you gave the signal with the light.”

“I had to have some excuse for turning up and finding the body. It seemed prudent to add verisimilitude. Someone might have looked out of a window and been able to confirm my story. I didn’t bargain for it being you. Finding you here busily doing your boy scout turn gave me a bad moment. And you were remarkably obstinate about not leaving the body.”

It must have been almost as bad a moment, thought Dalgliesh, as finding Wilfred so nearly choked to death. There had been nothing faked about Julius’s terror either then or after Maggie’s death. He asked:

“And was Holroyd pushed over the cliff for the same reason, to stop him talking?”

Julius laughed:

“Now this will amuse you; a delicious irony. I didn’t even know that Maggie had confided in Holroyd until I challenged her with it after his death. And Dennis never knew. Holroyd began taunting Dennis as he usually did. Dennis was more or less inured to it and merely moved with his book a little way apart. Then Holroyd began on a more sinister line of torment. He began shouting at Dennis. He wondered what Wilfred would say when he learned that his precious pilgrimages were a fraud, that Toynton Grange itself was founded on a lie. He told Dennis to make the most of the next pilgrimage; it would certainly be the last. Dennis panicked; he thought that Holroyd had discovered about the drug smuggling. He didn’t pause to ask himself how in the hell Holroyd could have found out. He told me afterwards that he couldn’t even remember scrambling to his feet, releasing the brakes and hurling the chair forward. But he did, of course. There was no one else to do it. It couldn’t have landed where it did if it hadn’t gone over the cliff with considerable force. I was on the beach beneath them when Holroyd came over. One of the irritating things about that murder was that I’ve never received any sympathy for the traumatic experience of having Holroyd smashed to death only twenty yards from me. I hope you will give it to me now.”

Dalgliesh reflected that the murder must have been doubly convenient for Julius. It removed Holroyd and his dangerous knowledge; it put Dennis Lerner finally in his power. He said:

“And you disposed of the two side pieces of the wheelchair while Lerner was fetching help.”

“About fifty yards away, down a deep cleft between two rocks. It seemed, at the time, a sensible way of complicating the case. Without the brakes no one could be sure that it wasn’t an accident. On reflection I should have left well alone and let it be assumed that Holroyd killed himself. Essentially he did. That’s what I’ve persuaded Dennis.”

Dalgliesh asked:

“What are you going to do now?”

“Put a bullet in your head, conceal your body in your own car and get rid of both together. It’s a trite method of murder I know, but I understand that it works.”

Dalgliesh laughed. He was surprised that the sound could be so spontaneous.

“You propose to drive about sixty miles, I take it, in an easily identifiable car with the murdered body of a Commander of the Metropolitan Police in the boot—his own boot incidentally. A number of men of my acquaintance in the maximum security wings of Parkhurst and Durham would admire your nerve even while not exactly relishing the prospect of welcoming you to their company. They’re a quarrelsome, uncivilized bunch. I don’t think you’re going to have a lot in common.”

“I shall be at risk. But you’ll be dead.”

“Of course. So in effect will you from the moment the bullet enters my body, unless you count a life sentence as living. Even if you try to fake finger prints on the trigger, they’ll know that I was murdered. I’m not the type to kill myself or to drive my car into remote woods and quarries to put a bullet in my brain. And the forensic evidence will give the lab a field day.”

“If they find your body. How long before they even begin looking? Three weeks?”

“They’ll be looking hard. If you can think of a suitable spot to dump me and the car, so can they. Don’t assume that the police can’t read an ordnance survey. And how do you propose to get back here? By picking up a train at Bournemouth or Winchester? By hitch-hiking, hiring a bicycle, walking through the night? You can hardly travel on to London by train, and pretend that you joined the train at Wareham. It’s a small station and you’re known there. Going or returning, you’ll be remembered.”

Julius said consideringly:

“You’re right, of course. Then it means the cliffs. They must fish you out of the sea.”

“With a bullet in my head? Or are you expecting me to walk over the cliff edge to suit your convenience? You could try physical force, of course, but then you’ll have to come dangerously close, close enough for a fight. We’re fairly evenly matched. I take it you don’t intend to be dragged over with me? Once they find my body and that bullet, then you’re finished. The trail begins here remember. I was last seen alive when the Toynton Grange bus left, and there’s no one here but we two.”

It was then that, simultaneously, they heard the distant slam of the front door. The sound, sharp as a gunshot, was followed by the thud of footsteps, heavy and firm, crossing the front hall.

Julius said quickly:

“Call out, and I kill you both. Stand to the left of the door.”

The footsteps were crossing the central hall now unnaturally loud in the eerie silence. Both men held their breath. Philby stood in the doorway.

He saw the gun immediately. His eyes widened and then blinked rapidly. He looked from one man to the other. When he spoke he sounded hoarse, apologetic. He spoke directly to Dalgliesh like a child explaining a misdemeanour:

“Wilfred sent me back early. Dot thought she’d left the gas on.”

His eyes turned again to Julius. This time the terror was unmistakable. He said “Oh, no!” Almost instantaneously, Julius fired. The crack of the revolver, although expected, was still shattering, still unbelievable. Philby’s body stiffened, rocked, then fell backward like an axed tree with a crash which shook the room. The bullet had gone in precisely between the eyes. Dalgliesh knew that this was where Julius had intended it to go; that he had used this necessary killing to demonstrate that he knew how to use his gun. This had been target practice. He said calmly, his gun now turned on Dalgliesh again:

“Go over to him.”

Dalgliesh bent by the dead man. The eyes still seemed to hold their last look of wild surprise. The wound was a neat grumous slit in the low heavy forehead, so unremarkable that it could have been used for a forensic ballistics demonstration of the effect of discharge at six feet. There were no powder marks, as yet little blood, only the soiling of the skin by the spin of the bullet. It was a precise, almost decorative stigma giving no clue to the destructive tumult within.

Julius said:

“That settles the score for my smashed marble. Is there an exit wound?”

Gently Dalgliesh turned the heavy head.

“No. You must have hit a bone.”

“That’s what I intended. Two bullets left. But this is a bonus, Commander. You were wrong about my being the last person to see you alive. I shall drive away to establish my alibi and, in the eyes of the police, the last person to see you alive will have been Philby, a criminal with a propensity to violence. Two bodies in the sea with bullet wounds. A pistol, licensed, I may say, stolen from my bedside drawer. Let the police concoct a theory to explain that. It shouldn’t be difficult. Is there any blood?”

“Not yet. There will be. But not much.”

“I’ll remember that. It will be easy enough to wipe it from this linoleum. Get that plastic hood from Carwardine’s bust of Wilfred and tie it over his head. Use his own tie. And hurry. I shall be just six paces behind you. And if I get impatient I might feel it worthwhile doing my own work.”

Hooded with white plastic, his wound a third eye, Philby was transformed into an inert guy, its bulging body grotesquely stuffed into a dapper undersized suit, its tie askew under the clownish features. Julius said:

“Now get one of the lighter wheelchairs.”

He motioned Dalgliesh once again towards the workroom and followed, always a careful six feet behind. Three folded chairs were standing against the wall. Dalgliesh prized one open and wheeled it in beside the body. There would be finger prints to find here. But what did they prove? This might even be the chair in which he had wheeled Grace Willison.

“Now get him into it.”

As Dalgliesh hesitated he said, allowing his voice a trace of controlled impatience:

“I don’t want to have to manage two bodies alone. But I can if I need to. There’s a hoist in the bathroom. If you can’t lift him unaided, then get it. But I thought they taught policemen useful little knacks like this.”

Dalgliesh managed without the hoist. But it wasn’t easy. The wheel brakes slid on the linoleum and it took more than two minutes before the heavy, unresponsive body slumped back against the canvas. Dalgliesh had succeeded in gaining some time but at a cost; he had lost strength. He knew that he would stay alive just as long as his mind with its store of dreadfully appropriate experience, and his physical strength could be used by Julius. It would be inconvenient for Julius to have to carry two bodies to the cliff edge, but it could be done. Toynton Grange had facilities for moving inert bodies. At present Dalgliesh was less of an encumbrance alive than dead, but the margin was dangerously narrow; there was no sense in reducing it further. The optimum moment for action would come, and it would come for both of them. Both of them were waiting for it, Dalgliesh to attack, Julius to shoot. Both knew the cost of a mistake in recognizing that moment. Two bullets left and he had to ensure that neither of them ended in his body. And as long as Julius kept his distance and held the gun he was inviolable. Somehow Dalgliesh had to draw him close enough for physical contact. Somehow he had to divert that concentration if only for a fraction of a second.

Julius said:

“And now we’ll take a walk together to Toynton Cottage.”

He still kept his careful distance behind as Dalgliesh wheeled the chair with its grotesque burden down the ramp of the front door and across the headland. The sky was a grey suffocating blanket pressing down on them. The close air was harsh and metallic on the tongue and smelt as strong as rotting seaweed. In the half-light the pebbles on the path glittered like semi-precious stones. Half way across the headland Dalgliesh heard a high querulous wail and, looking back, saw that Jeoffrey was following them, tail erect. The cat padded behind Julius for another fifty yards and then, as unpredictably as he had appeared, turned tail and made off for home. Julius, his unblinking eyes on Dalgliesh’s back, seemed to notice neither his arrival nor his departure. They walked on in silence. Philby’s head had fallen back, his neck collared by the canvas of the chair. His cyclops wound, gummed to the plastic, stared into Dalgliesh’s face in what seemed mute reproach. The path was dry. Looking down Dalgliesh saw that the wheels made only an imperceptible thread on the patches of dry turf and the dusty, gritty path. And behind him he could hear Julius’s shoes scuffing the marks into oblivion. There would be no useful evidence left here.

And now they stood on the stone patio. It seemed to shake under their feet with the thunder of the waves as if earth and sea anticipated the coming storm. But the tide was ebbing. No curtain of spray rose between them and the cliff edge. Dalgliesh knew that it was the moment of great danger. He made himself laugh aloud, and wondered whether the sound rang as false to Julius’s ears as it did to his own.

“Why so amused?”

“It’s easy to see that your killing is normally done at a distance, a commercial transaction merely. You propose to hurl us into the sea at your own back door, a broad enough hint for even the stupidest detective constable. And they won’t be putting stupid officers on this crime. Your cleaning woman is expected this morning isn’t she? And this is one part of the coast with a beach, even at high tide. I thought you wanted to delay discovery of the bodies.”

“She won’t come out here. She never does.”

“How do you know what she does when you aren’t here? She may shake the dusters over the cliff. It may even be her habit to paddle. But have it your own way. I’m merely pointing out that your only hope of success—and I don’t rate it high—is to delay discovery of our bodies. No one will start looking for Philby until the pilgrimage returns in three days’ time. If you get rid of my car it will be even longer before they start looking for me. That gives you opportunity to dispose of this consignment of heroin before the hunt is up, assuming you still intend to let Lerner bring it in. But don’t let me interfere.”

Julius’s hand on the gun did not waver. As if considering a proposition for a picnic site, he said:

“You’re right, of course. You ought to go into deep water and further along the coast. The best place is the black tower. The sea will be still washing the cliffs there. We’ve got to get him to the tower.”

“How? He must weigh over twelve stone. I can’t push him unaided up the cliff edge. You’ll hardly be much help if you walk behind with a gun in my back. And what about wheel marks?”

“The rain will finish those. And we shan’t go up the headland. We’ll drive along the coast road and approach the tower over the cliff as we did when we rescued Anstey. Once the couple of you are in the boot of the car I’ll watch for Mrs. Reynolds through my glasses. She cycles in from Toynton village, and she’s always exactly on time. We ought to plan to meet her just outside the boundary gate. I’ll stop and let her know that I shan’t be back for dinner. That pleasant minute of ordinary conversation should impress the coroner if they ever get your bodies to an inquest. And eventually, the tedious business over, I’ll drive off to Dorchester for an early luncheon.”

“With the wheelchair and the plastic hood in the boot?”

“With the chair and the hood locked in the boot. I shall establish an alibi for the whole of today and return to Toynton Grange this evening. And I shan’t forget to wash the plastic hood before replacing it, dust the chair to remove your prints and examine the floor for bloodstains. And, of course, retrieve the cartridge case. Were you hoping I would overlook that? Don’t worry, Commander. I do realize that, by then, I’ll be planning without your valuable assistance, but thanks to you, I shall have a day or two to work out the details. One of two sophistications attract me. I’m wondering if I could make use of the smashed marble. Couldn’t that be worked in to provide the motive for Philby’s murderous attack on you?”

“I should keep it simple.”

“Perhaps you’re right. My first two murders were models of simplicity and none the worse for it. Now get him into the boot of the Mercedes. It’s parked at the back. But first through into the scullery. You’ll find two sheets in the washing machine. Take the one from the top. I don’t want fibres and shoe dust in the car.”

“Won’t Mrs. Reynolds notice that one is missing?”

“She washes and irons tomorrow. A woman of strict routine. By this evening I shall have replaced it. Don’t waste time.”

Julius’s mind must be registering every second, thought Dalgliesh, yet his voice betrayed no anxiety. Not once did he glance at his watch, or even at the clock on the kitchen wall. He kept his eyes and the muzzle of the Luger on his victim. Somehow that concentration had to be broken. And the time was running out.

The Mercedes was parked outside the stone garage. Under Julius’s direction Dalgliesh raised the unlocked lid of the boot and spread the creased sheet over the floor. It was an easy matter to tumble Philby’s body from the wheelchair. Dalgliesh folded the chair and placed it on top of the body. Julius said:

“Now get in beside him.”

Could this be the best opportunity, the last opportunity even, to act; here outside Julius’s own cottage with the murdered man in his car and the evidence plain? But plain to whom? Dalgliesh knew that if he sprang on Julius now he would gain nothing but a second’s release from frustration and anger before the bullet hit him. Two bodies instead of one would be driven to the black tower and tumbled into deep water. In his mind’s eye he could see Julius poised in solitary triumph on the edge of the cliff, the gun curving through the air like a falling bird to cleave the tumbling waves, beneath which two bodies were being torn and tugged by the ebbing tide. The plan would go ahead. A little more tedious, taking longer since there would be two bodies to wheel unaided across the headland. But who was there to prevent it? Certainly not Mrs. Reynolds even now cycling along the road from Toynton village. And if she suspected, if she even mentioned casually when she dismounted to greet Julius on the road that she had heard what sounded like a shot? Then there were still two bullets left in the gun. And he was no longer sure that Julius was sane.

But there was at least something he could do at this moment, something he had planned to do. But it wasn’t going to be easy. He had hoped that, for a couple of seconds at least, the raised lid of the boot would have partly screened him from Julius’s view. But Julius was standing immediately behind the car; Dalgliesh was in full view. But there was one advantage. The grey eyes never flickered, dared not flicker from his face. If he were quick and cunning, if he were lucky, he might bring it off. He placed his hands as if casually on his hips. He could feel the slight weight of his thin leather wallet in his back trouser pocket lying curved against his buttock. Julius said with dangerous quietness:

“I said get in on top of him. I’m not risking driving with you any closer.”

Dalgliesh’s right thumb and forefinger twisted at the pocket button. Thank God the button hole was reasonably loose. He said:

“Then you’d better drive fast unless you want to have a corpse dead of suffocation to explain.”

“A night or two in the sea and your lungs will be too waterlogged for that kind of diagnosis.”

The button was undone now. He insinuated his right forefinger and thumb gently into the top of the pocket and grasped the wallet. Everything now depended on its sliding out easily, on his being able to drop it unseen behind the wheel of the car. He said:

“They won’t, you know. The PM will show perfectly clearly that I was dead before I hit the water.”

“And so you will be, with a bullet in your body. Given that, I doubt whether they’ll look for signs of suffocation. But thank you for the warning. I’ll drive fast. Now get in.”

Dalgliesh shrugged his shoulders and bent with sudden energy to get into the boot as if momentarily relinquishing hope. He rested his left hand on the bumper. Here, at least, there would be a palm mark which would be difficult to explain. But then he remembered. He had rested his palm on the bumper when loading the shepherd’s crook, the sacks and the besom into the boot. It was only a small discouragement but it depressed him. He let his right hand dangle and the leather slipped from his finger and thumb to fall under the right wheel. No dangerously quiet word of command followed. Julius neither spoke nor moved, and he was still alive. With luck he would stay alive now until they reached the black tower. He smiled at the irony that his heart should now rejoice at a gift which a short month ago he had so grudgingly welcomed.

The boot lid slammed down. He was cramped in total blackness, total silence. He felt a second of claustrophobic panic, the irresistible urge to stretch his curled body and batter his clenched hands against the metal. The car did not move. Julius would be free now to check his timing. Philby’s body lay heavily against him. He could smell the dead man as if he still breathed, an amalgam of grease, mothballs and sweat, the air of the boot was hot with his presence. He felt a moment of guilt that Philby was dead; he alive. Could he have saved him by calling out a warning? It could only have resulted, he knew, in both their deaths. Philby would have come on; must have come on. And even if he had turned and run, Julius would have followed and disposed of him. But now the feel of the cold moist flesh pressing against him, the hairs on the limp wrist sharp as bristles, pricked him like a reproach. The car rocked gently and began to move.

He had no means of knowing if Julius had seen the wallet and removed it; he thought it unlikely. But would Mrs. Reynolds find it? It was lying in her path. She would almost certainly dismount from her bicycle outside the garage. If she did find it, then he guessed she would have no rest until it was returned. He thought of his own Mrs. Mack, a Metropolitan police constable’s widow who cleaned and occasionally cooked for him; of her almost obsessive honesty, her meticulous concern for her employer’s belongings, the perpetual explanatory notes about missing laundry, the increased cost of shopping, a mislaid cuff link. No, Mrs. Reynolds wouldn’t rest with the wallet in her possession. He had cashed a cheque on his last visit to Dorchester; the three ten pound notes, the bundle of credit cards, his police warrant, all would particularly worry her. She would probably waste some time going to Hope Cottage. Not finding him there, what then? His guess was that she would ring the local police, terrified that he might discover his loss before she had reported it. And the police? If he were lucky they would see the incongruity of a wallet dropped so conveniently in her path. Suspicious or not, they would be courteous enough to get in touch with him at once. They might find it worthwhile ringing Toynton Grange since the cottage was not on the telephone. They would discover that the telephone was inexplicably out of order. It was at least an even chance that they would think it worthwhile sending a patrol car, and if one were reasonably close it could come quickly. Logically, one action must follow another. And he had one piece of luck. Mrs. Reynolds, he remembered, was the village constable’s widow. At least she wouldn’t be afraid of using the telephone, would know whom to ring. His life depended on her seeing the wallet. A few square inches of brown leather on the paved courtyard. And the light was darkening under the storm-laden sky.

Julius was driving very fast even over the bumpy ground of the headland. The car stopped. Now he would be opening the boundary gate. Another few seconds of driving and the car stopped again. Now he must have met Mrs. Reynolds and was exchanging that half-minute of conversation. Now they were off again, this time with smooth road under their wheels.

There was something else he could do. He moved his hand under his cheek and bit into his left thumb. The blood tasted warm and sweet. He smeared it across the roof of the boot and, scuffling aside the sheet, pressed his thumb into the carpet. Group AB rhesus negative. It was a rare enough group. And with any luck Julius would miss these minute telltale smears. He hoped the police searcher would be more perspicacious.

He began to feel stifled, his head thudded. He told himself that there was plenty of air, that this pressure on his chest was no more than psychological trauma. And then the car rocked gently and he knew that Julius was driving off the road and into the hollow behind the stone wall which divided the headland from the road. It was a convenient stopping place. Even if another car passed, and this was unlikely, the Mercedes wouldn’t be visible. They had arrived. The final part of the journey was about to begin.

There were only about one hundred and fifty yards of rock-strewn and lumpy turf to where the black tower stood squat and malignant under the menacing sky. Dalgliesh knew that Julius would prefer to make a single journey. He would want to get as quickly as possible out of all sight of the road. He would want the business over so that he could get on his way. More important, he needed to make no physical contact with either victim. Their clothes would yield nothing when their bloated bodies were finally fished from the sea; but Julius would know how difficult to eradicate, without telltale cleaning, would be the infinitesimally small traces of hair, fibre or blood on his own clothes. So far he was absolutely clean. It would be one of his strongest cards. Dalgliesh would be allowed to live at least until they reached the shelter of the tower. He felt confident enough of this to take his time in getting Philby’s body strapped into the chair. Afterwards he leaned for a moment over the handlebars breathing heavily, simulating more exhaustion than he felt. Somehow, despite the hard pushing ahead, he must conserve his strength. Julius slammed down the boot lid and said:

“Get a move on. The storm is almost on us.”

But he didn’t shift his fixed gaze to glance at the sky, nor had he need. They could almost smell the rain in the freshening breeze.

Although the wheels of the chair were well oiled the going was hard. Dalgliesh’s hands slid on the rubber handgrips. Philby’s body, strapped like a recalcitrant child, jerked and rolled as the wheels struck stones or clumps of grass. Dalgliesh felt the sweat rolling into his eyes. It gave him the opportunity he needed to get rid of his jacket. When it came to the last physical struggle the man least encumbered would have an advantage. He stopped pushing and stood gasping. The feet behind him stopped too.

It might happen now. There was nothing he could do if it did. He comforted himself with the thought that he would know nothing. One press of Julius’s finger on the trigger and his busy fearful mind would be stilled. He remembered Julius’s words. “I know what will happen to me when I die; annihilation. It would be unreasonable to fear that.” If only it were that simple! But Julius did not press. The dangerously quiet voice behind him said:

“Well?”

“I’m hot. May I take off my jacket?”

“Why not? Drape it over Philby’s knees. I’ll chuck it in the sea after you. It would be torn off your body by the tide anyway.”

Dalgliesh slid his arms from his jacket and placed it folded over Philby’s knees. Without looking round he said:

“You’d be unwise to shoot me in the back. Philby was killed instantly. It has to look as if he shot me first but only to wound, before I wrenched the gun from him and finished him off. No fight with only one gun could reasonably result in two instantaneous killings, and one in the small of the back.”

“I know. Unlike you, I may be inexperienced in the cruder manifestations of violence but I’m not a fool and I do understand about firearms. Get on.”

They moved forward, carefully distanced, Dalgliesh pushing his macabre passenger and hearing behind him the soft rustle of the following feet. He found himself thinking about Peter Bonnington. It was because an unknown boy, now dead, had been moved from Toynton Grange that he, Adam Dalgliesh, was now walking across Toynton Head with a gun at his back. Father Baddeley would have discerned a pattern. But then Father Baddeley had believed that there was a great underlying pattern. Given that assurance, all human perplexities were no more than exercises in spiritual geometry. Suddenly Julius began speaking. Dalgliesh could almost imagine that he felt the need to entertain his victim on this last tedious walk, that he was making some attempt at justification.

“I can’t be poor again. I need money as I need oxygen. Not just enough; more than enough. Much more. Poverty kills. I don’t fear death but I fear that particular slow and corrosive process of dying. You didn’t believe me, did you—that story about my parents?”

“Not altogether. Was I expected to?”

“Yet that at least was true. I could take you to pubs in Westminster—Christ, you probably know them—and bring you face to face with what I fear; the pathetic elderly queens managing on their pensions. Or not managing. And they, poor sods, haven’t even been used to having money. I have. I’m not ashamed of my nature. But if I’m to live at all, I have to be rich. Did you really expect me to let one sick old fool and a dying woman stand in my way?”

Dalgliesh didn’t reply. Instead he asked:

“I suppose you came this way when you set fire to the tower.”

“Of course. I did as we’ve done now, drove to the hollow and came on foot. I knew when Wilfred, a creature of habit, was likely to be in the tower and I watched him walk over the headland through my binoculars. If it wasn’t that day, it would be another. There was no difficulty in helping myself to the key and a habit. I saw to that a day in advance. Anyone who knows Toynton Grange can move about it undetected. Even if I were seen, I don’t have to explain my presence there. As Wilfred says, I’m one of the family. That’s why killing Grace Willison was so easy. I was home and in bed soon after midnight and with no worse effects than cold legs and a little difficulty in getting to sleep. By the way, I ought to say, in case you harbour any doubts, that Wilfred knows nothing of the smuggling. If I were about to die and you to live instead of the other way round you could look forward to the pleasure of breaking the news. Both pieces of news. His miracle a delusion and his abode of love a staging post for death. I should give a great deal to see his face.”

They were within feet now of the black tower. Without overtly changing direction Dalgliesh steered the wheelchair as close as he dared to the porch. The wind was gently rising in short moaning crescendos. But then, there would always be a breeze on this wind-scoured promontory of grass and rock. Suddenly he stopped. He held the chair with his left hand and half turned towards Julius, carefully balancing his weight. It was now. It had to be now.

Julius said sharply:

“Well, what is it?”

Time stopped. A second was stilled into infinity. In that brief, timeless lacuna, Dalgliesh’s mind was drained free of tension and fear. It was as if he were detached from the past and the future, aware simultaneously of himself, of his adversary, of the sound, scent and colour of sky, cliff and sea. The pent up anger at Father Baddeley’s death, the frustration and indecision of the last few weeks, the controlled suspense of the past hour; all were calmed in this moment before their final release. He spoke, his voice, high and cracked, simulating terror. But, even to his own ears, the terror sounded horribly real.

“The tower! There’s someone inside!”

It came again as he had prayed it would, the bone ends, piercing the torn flesh, scrabbling frantically against unyielding stone. He sensed rather than heard the sharp hiss of Julius’s intake of breath. Then time moved on, and in that second, Dalgliesh sprang.

As they fell, Julius’s body beneath him, Dalgliesh felt the hammer blow on his right shoulder, the sudden numbness, the sticky warmth, soothing as a balm, flowing into his shirt. The shot echoed back from the black tower, and the headland came alive. A cloud of gulls rose screaming from the rock face. Sky and cliff were a tumult of wildly beating wings. And then as if the laden clouds had waited for this signal, the sky was ripped open with the sound of tearing canvas, and the rain fell.

They fought like famished animals clawing at their prey, without skill, eyes stung and blinded by rain, locked in a rigor of hate.

Dalgliesh, even with the weight of Julius’s body beneath him, felt his strength ebbing. It had to be now, now while he was on top. And he still had the use of his good left shoulder. He twisted Julius’s wrist into the clammy earth and pressed with all his strength on the beat of the pulse. He could feel Julius’s breath like a hot blast on his face. They lay cheek to cheek in a horrible parody of exhausted love. And still the gun did not drop from those rigid fingers. Slowly, in painful spasms, Julius bent his right arm towards Dalgliesh’s head. And then the gun went off. Dalgliesh felt the bullet pass over his hair to spend itself harmlessly in the sheeting rain.

And now they were rolling towards the cliff edge. Dalgliesh, weakening, felt himself clutching Julius as if for support. The rain was a stinging lance on his eyeballs. His nose was pressed suffocatingly into the sodden earth. Humus. A comforting and familiar last smell. His fingers clawed impotently at the turf as he rolled. It came apart in moist clumps in his hands. And suddenly Julius was kneeling over him, hands at his throat, forcing his head back over the cliff edge. The sky, the sea and the sheeting rain were one turbulent whiteness, one immense roaring in his ears. Julius’s streaming face was out of his reach, the rigid arms pressing down the cruel encircling hands. He had to bring that face closer. Deliberately he slackened his muscles and loosened his already weakening hold on Julius’s shoulders. It worked. Julius relaxed his grasp and instinctively bent his head forward to look into Dalgliesh’s face. Then he screamed as Dalgliesh’s thumbs gouged into his eyes. Their bodies fell apart. And Dalgliesh was on his feet and scrambling up the headland to fling himself behind the wheelchair.

He crouched behind it, heaving against the sagging canvas for support, watching Julius advance, hair streaming, eyes wild, the strong arms stretching forward, eager for that final clutch. Behind him the tower streamed black blood. The rain slashed like hail against the boulders, sending up a fine mist to mingle with his hoarse breath. Its painful rhythm tore at his chest and filled his ears like the death throes of some great animal. Suddenly he released the brakes and with his last strength hurled the chair forward. He saw his murderer’s astonished and desperate eyes. For one second he thought that Julius would fling himself against the chair. But at the last moment he leapt aside, and the chair and its dreadful burden sailed over the cliff.

“Explain that when they fish it out!” Dalgliesh never knew whether he spoke to himself or shouted the words aloud. And then Julius was on him.

This was the end. He wasn’t fighting now, only letting himself be rolled downwards towards death. He could hope for nothing except to carry Julius over with him. Hoarse, discordant cries were hurting his ears. The crowd were shouting for Julius. All the world was shouting. The headland was full of voices, of shapes. Suddenly the weight on his chest lifted. He was free. He heard Julius whisper “Oh, no!” Dalgliesh heard the sad despairing protest as clearly as if the voice had been his own. It wasn’t the last horrified cry of a desperate man. The words were quiet, rueful, almost amused. Then the air was darkened by a shape, black as a great bird, passing spread-eagled over his head in what seemed slow motion. Earth and sky turned slowly together. A solitary seagull screamed. The earth thudded. A white ring of amorphous blobs was bending over him. But the ground was soft, irresistibly soft. He let his consciousness bleed away into it.

The surgical registrar came out of Dalgliesh’s room to where a group of large men were obstructing the corridor. He said:

“He’ll be OK for questioning in about half an hour or so. We’ve extracted the bullet. I’ve handed it over to your chap. We’ve put up a drip but don’t let that worry you. He’s lost a fair amount of blood but there’s no real damage. There’s no harm now in your going in.”

Daniel asked:

“Is he conscious?”

“Barely. Your chap in there says he’s been quoting King Lear. Something about Cordelia anyway. And he’s fretting because he hasn’t said thank you for the flowers.”

Daniel said:

“He won’t be needing flowers this time, thank God. He can thank Mrs. Reynolds’s sharp eyes and common sense for that. And the storm helped. But it was a close thing. Court would have carried him over the cliff if we hadn’t come up on them before he noticed us. Well, we may as well go in if you think it’s OK.”

A uniformed constable appeared, helmet under his arm.

“Well?”

“The Chief Constable’s on his way, Sir. And they’ve pulled out Philby’s body half strapped to a wheelchair.”

“And Court’s?”

“Not yet, Sir. They reckon he’ll be washed in further down the coast.”

Dalgliesh opened his eyes. His bed was ringed with black and white figures advancing and receding in a ritual dance. Nurses’ caps floated like disembodied wings above the smudged faces as if uncertain where to settle. Then the picture cleared and he saw the circle of half familiar faces. Sister was here, of course. And the consultant had got back early from his wedding. He wasn’t wearing his rose any more. The faces broke simultaneously into wary smiles. He made himself smile back. So it wasn’t acute leukaemia; it wasn’t any kind of leukaemia. He was going to get better. And once they’d removed this heavy contraption which for some reason they’d fixed to his right arm he could get out of here and back to his job. Wrong diagnosis or not, it was nice of them, he thought sleepily, looking up into the ring of smiling eyes, to look so pleased that he wasn’t going to die after all.