Whoever Has the Heart Page 17

He said it without a smile and I swear he was not making a joke.

  ‘Sensible woman,’ I said.

  Crick and David lived in their beautiful house in a state of dignified disorder. The furniture came with the house, David had told me on my first visit, but the books and the muddle are ours. But the brass knocker on the door was beautifully polished and that was David’s work because I had seen him at it.

  Crick opened the door to me, throwing it wide and greeting me with a generous shout of welcome. ‘Come in, come in.’

  Behind him I could see David at work at his desk. He wrote in longhand on sheets of bright yellow paper. A typewriter was on the table behind him. But David had a neat pile of yellow pages at his right hand. The life of Lord Curzon must be going well.

  I walked in. David stood up, smiling his open welcome. The desk at which he had been working was a nice plain piece of late-eighteenth-century carpentry. It was small, and possibly it had been made for a woman, but David looked comfortable at it. He held out a hand. I couldn’t help remembering how welcoming they had been to me.

  ‘How’s the ankle?’

  ‘Much better. But I’m taking a bit of time off.’

  ‘But still worrying about the murders,’ said Crick, drawing a chair forward for me. ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘I could say I could read it in your face, but in fact I saw you with the other policeman. You looked serious.’

  ‘It’s a serious business.’

  ‘Who’s laughing?’ said David.

  ‘Let me get you a cup of coffee.’ Click was bustling round. ‘We’re just having one.’

  I accepted a cup gratefully. Their coffee was famous. ‘You must have known Dryden quite well.’

  ‘Only by sight,’ said David.

  ‘Not well,’ said Crick almost at the same time.

  I sipped my coffee. ‘You didn’t know him as a boy?’ I looked at David who looked blank.

  ‘No.’ He stood up. ‘Let me get you some more coffee. We pride ourself on our brew. Crick’s brew really, he’s the coffee-maker always.’

  ‘This is delicious coffee, Crick, how do you make it?’

  ‘I put in a pinch of cardamom … learnt that trick in the Lebanon. In the old days,’ he added hastily. ‘And I always mix my own coffee beans. Ring the changes, you know. I shop in Oxford market … or Wellington Yard if I’m in London.’ He took it more seriously than I thought I could ever manage to do.

  ‘I must learn. I came round to ask you if you’d have dinner with me one night. Might make a little party of it. Ask Mary.’

  ‘And her betrothed?’ said David. A little sourly, I thought.

  ‘Couldn’t leave him out.’ Unless he was under arrest for murder, of course.

  I was discovering that one of the disadvantages of not being officially engaged in an investigation was that I could not come right out and say: ‘And did you ever borrow any money from Bea Armitage?’

  And even if I did so now, then they might retort: ‘And what is it to do with you?’ Adding, if they retained their presence of mind: ‘And what connection is this with the murder of two people?’

  ‘She’s the executor of Mrs Armitage’s will.’

  ‘I don’t suppose she had much to leave,’ said Crick.

  ‘No, so Mary said. Not much at all. Money seems to have melted away.’ I took another sip of coffee. ‘ Mary thinks Bea was too generous with her money.’

  I had come as near as I could to asking directly if Bea Armitage had given or lent them money.

  The two men exchanged a look. They had understood me only too well, that look said.

  Crick said deliberately: ‘Bea was very kind and generous to us when we came here. But not with money. She gave us enormous support. Of course, she knew how hard up we were. How hard up we are, everyone does.’

  I managed a smile. ‘She was a marvellous lady. I can feel it in the house. I hate the way the cellar seems to have been used.’ I finished my coffee and stood up to go. ‘You must feel the same, David, more so really.’

  David looked at me. ‘Oh?’

  ‘Mary said you used to play there with her.’ David helped me on with my coat. ‘Don’t remember that.’ And then as he settled my coat on my shoulders, he said: ‘Yes, I think we did kid around a bit.’

  ‘Funny how you forget things,’ said Crick. ‘Mind how you go with that ankle.’

  Then I left, and I heard them close the door firmly behind me. As I walked away I realized that I had just alienated the two people who had been my first friends in the village.

  And we hadn’t finalized the arrangements for dinner, either.

  But I had learned something. When David had spoken about not knowing Dryden well and not remembering playing with Mary in the cellar when they were children, I had recognized that tone and that look.

  Something false. I did not believe it.

  I went back to my own house and let myself in to confront a morose cat and a dead fire. I sat thinking.

  Why lie?

  Children did forget things. The play had meant more to Mary than to David, she had remembered and he had not. But then he had pretended that he had.

  Lies are tiresome things, they remind people of other lies. And you ask yourself why? Or you do if you are a person like me. Trivial lies like this one are the most puzzling of all.

  They make you wonder what other untruths have been told. A child’s fibs might mean anything, might mean nothing. David was no longer a child.

  I found myself thinking about his hair. Another trivial, cosmetic lie. It seemed to me that Beryl Andrea Barker was more responsible for that hair than nature. I suppose the thought had been at the back of my mind for some time, gradually working its way to the surface as buried things will.

  I was not allowing myself to confront why it mattered so much, but I could hear Thomas Dryden muttering that one of them was murdered.

  If he didn’t mean his wife or the Beasley family, and was not referring to Chloe Devon (and it would be a strange way of talking about a girl so openly and terribly murdered), who then was the victim?

  Only one death left to consider: Bea Armitage.

  There it was, I had got that thought formed and into the open. I could look at it now and consider it.

  Had Bea Armitage been killed, and if so, in what way? A way that had passed for natural death. Her doctor had said so, it seemed. I might ask about that.

  But had I an intellectual need to connect it with David and his fibs?

  I knew the person to ask about his hair and she would be delighted to talk. She’d be there in her shop, checking the stock, keeping an eye on her assistants, flattering the clients. Baby loved her job.

  And all the time she would be giving herself little glances in the wall mirrors and smoothing her hair and thinking about her lipstick.

  Baby did not answer the telephone herself. It was her pride that she had assistants who would call her.

  ‘Hello? Did you want to speak to me?’ She was probably polishing her nails as she spoke. Of course, she had assistants to perform that service for her now as well. Perhaps she was just stretching out her hand on the little cushion while a new colour was painted on. There always was a colour on her nails. I had wondered if there was much nail beneath it after all these years, or only layers and layers of enamel.

  ‘Baby?’

  ‘Ah.’ That gave her a clue. I was one of the few women left outside prison who called her by that name. ‘Ah, it’s you again. What is it now? Hair not right? I’m telling you that you ought to brighten it up. Owe it to yourself.’

  ‘No, it’s not my hair, I’m pleased with it.’ I realized with surprise that I was, that I liked the way it made me look.

  ‘Oh, good. What then? Because I’m really busy.’

  ‘I wanted to ask you something.’

  ‘You ask me?’ She sounded genuinely surprised. She was clearly running over the subjects on which she was an expert: petty crime, hair, and women covered that field.


  ‘It’s about hair, but not my hair. Your other customer from this village … you touch up his reddish hair?’

  ‘That’s right. He only comes in occasionally to have the odd touch-up. I think he goes to Alfredo in Knightsbridge for the main job.’

  ‘I thought it might be the case.’ I could hear her talking to someone in the salon. She seemed to be soothing an irritated customer. ‘Are you listening, Baby?’

  ‘Yes, I’m listening, but get on with it, I’m running a business here.’ She loved saying that. Being the important successful woman of affairs talking to Charmian Daniels who was just a police officer.

  ‘Well, could you make a guess what the colour of his hair truly is?’

  ‘I don’t have to guess, dear, it’s black. Or a very dark brown. You only have to look at his eyebrows to know that. People with really red hair have pale red eyebrows. Eyelashes too. Sometime they dye them. His are not dyed. I can tell the difference.’

  ‘I knew you’d be able to. Thanks, Baby.’

  ‘Any time …’ She got her revenge. ‘But easier after four o’clock, not so busy then.’

  It was hard to get the better of Beryl Andrea Barker, but inside she bled like everyone else. I knew it and she knew it. She still mourned for her lover who had died. Been killed, in fact. Only not by Baby who was many things, indestructible being one of them – but not a killer.

  ‘Let’s meet sometime, Baby,’ I said. ‘Let’s lunch.’

  ‘Yes, sure.’ She was surprised. She would never believe she could be a support to me.

  I hesitated, then said: ‘You’ve met all sorts inside.’ I meant she’d lived in the same prison as some very violent offenders, never mind if they were women. ‘What’s the strongest reason for murder, in your opinion?’

  She didn’t have to think. ‘Oh, sex, for sure. Either jealousy or fear of losing someone.’

  ‘Not money?’

  ‘Oh, well, that could come into it, couldn’t it? If you lose money, then you might lose the person you loved.’ She spoke with a sad knowledge of the world she lived in.

  ‘So it’s sex and money?’

  ‘Not just sex, Char,’ she corrected me. ‘Love, I prefer to call it love. It’s very strong.’

  ‘And what about revenge?’

  ‘Well, it would be revenge for sex or money, wouldn’t it? Probably, anyway.’

  That was Baby, I thought. Murder for her would always be something created between the sheets with an eye on the bank balance.

  ‘Of course, there are those who seem to do it for fun, although I haven’t known many of those, women don’t do things that way so often. Though I did know a kid, she killed that way, pretty little thing too.’ She paused and thought about it. ‘A waste of prettiness it had been. But I suppose even there you could call it sex. Or they hate the human race, and want revenge.’ Baby could be very articulate when she wanted. Behind her the hairdressing salon was rattling with noise and life. Someone had switched on the radio, a popular music programme. ‘You haven’t got one like that on the books, have you?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. Can’t be sure, but I think not.’

  ‘Glad to hear it. Now let’s have that lunch. I shall take you up on that. And bring along that new man of yours.’

  ‘Don’t go on about that, Baby.’

  ‘Bound to be an improvement on the last one.’

  ‘You don’t know anything about him,’ I protested. Poor Humphrey.

  ‘No, but I know you.’ She laughed. ‘You do give yourself away.’

  She was still laughing when I put the telephone down. I had enjoyed my conversation with her, and I had used it to let her observations about David’s hair colour settle down and make a shape in my mind.

  Some such shapes are worse than others and this was a bad one. David dyed his hair from black to reddish gold. A lovely colour but I didn’t think he did it from vanity. I did not judge him to be a vain man. Not in that sort of way.

  I sat there thinking while the fire died down into ashes. Why did David tint his hair?

  Is it because he doesn’t have the naturally red hair of the Cremorne family?

  But why should that matter?

  Let us suppose that he is not a real Cremorne. Let me suppose further that the real Cremorne boy whom Mary had played with did have red hair but died.

  All right, why should David pretend to be what he is not?

  There was an easy answer to that one: because he and Crick get a lovely free house to live in. Nothing matters so much to David as his writing, but he does not earn real money from it. He needs the freedom the house in Brideswell gives him.

  Bea Armitage may have picked up the deception. Add to it that she may have lent the two of them money and you had an explosive mix.

  I made up the fire, put a guard in front of it in case of sparks (I was learning about wood fires), took my coat, and went out again. It was raining hard by now.

  Crick opened the door to me. I didn’t wait to be asked in, I just

  went in.

  There was a suitcase in the hall and other signs of packing. They

  had got on with it fast. ‘Going away?’

  Crick said nothing. His eyes looked dark and anxious.

  David came through from the back of the house. ‘ What is it?’

  He saw me. ‘Oh, it’s you.’ He had his arms full of papers.

  ‘Going away?’

  The two men looked at each other. ‘Just tidying up,’ said David.

  He was always the stronger of the two, I thought.

  ‘Something more than that, I fancy. What would you say if I

  asked to see your passports?’

  ‘They’re in order,’ said David.

  ‘Oh, sure. But that’s not the point, is it. What names do they bear?’

  Crick went to stand beside David. ‘What is it you want?’

  ‘I want to talk to you. Both of you. Let’s go in and sit down. Don’t bother about any coffee this time, Crick.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to.’

  I led the way into the living room, they followed me silently. I sat down. They both stood there looking down at me. Tall men, nearly the same height, David was slightly the taller. The younger generation usually is.

  ‘Your hair is a nice colour, David,’ I said. ‘I’ve always admired it. Autumn Bronze, that’s the shade you go for, isn’t it? I’ve got a hairdresser in Windsor too.’

  ‘What’s this about?’ said Crick quickly.

  ‘Let me tell you a story. Let’s suppose there are two men. Perhaps father and son. Or it could be a sexual relationship.’

  I heard Crick give a kind of growl.

  ‘All right. I’ll accept father and son. Easy to check, anyway. So we can leave sex out of it and put love in.’

  David started to protest: ‘Look here—’

  I didn’t let him. ‘Stop it and listen to me. Let’s suppose the elder man has been married twice and has a son by the first marriage. This second wife already has a son, a true Cremorne. This son dies in Italy. His wife is already dead. This man’s own son is very talented but they have no money. Or very little. But they can use the Cremorne connection to get a free house while David – yes, I have to name you – gets on with writing. There’s not much danger of being found out: the Earl is generous to his own family and out of the way. Not generous to outsiders, of course, so it wouldn’t do to get found out. How does that sound?’

  Neither of them answered.

  ‘I think Bea Armitage found out. She guessed. She had known the real David Cremorne as a boy.’

  Suddenly Crick said: ‘Bea knew straight away. She laughed, she would never have said anything. Bea Armitage was a good, kind, loving woman.’

  I just looked at him.

  ‘I would never have hurt Bea.’

  I did not answer.

  ‘Besides …’

  ‘Besides what? Besides, Chloe Devon knew too?’

  ‘Oh, God,’ said David. ‘Don’t
say it.’

  ‘Chloe Devon knew, she possibly found out in Rome. She didn’t think it was a joke.’

  ‘You’re getting this wrong.’

  ‘And did Dryden know too? She could have told him, they did meet … Are you going round killing everyone who knew?’

  David sank down and put his head on his hands.

  ‘Scream if you want to,’ I said.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The room seemed drained of air as if I had exploded a bomb which had sucked out the oxygen. I could see David breathing very fast, taking in great gulps of air. For myself I felt cold and calm.

  I had no sense of personal danger although I knew it could be there. But I was careful to position myself near the door and facing them.

  Crick said: ‘ You cannot believe that we would kill two people so brutally for any such relatively unimportant reason. All right, we might be acting a lie because it suited us, but it wouldn’t be worth killing for. We could pack up and go. And did you really suggest that Bea Armitage came into it? That she might be a victim too? We loved her, if you know what that means.’

  I stood silently observing the play of emotion on his face. ‘I think you might have killed Bea Armitage, although I don’t as yet know how. From that death, the rest follows.’

  ‘No one killed Bea. It’s monstrous what you are suggesting. You think we are monsters.’

  ‘I’ve known people kill for less,’ I said.

  David stood up. ‘I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. You are out of your mind.’

  ‘I’ve heard people say that too.’

  ‘We’re not getting across to you, are we? We have not killed anyone.’

  ‘I liked you,’ I said. ‘Admired you both.’

  The front doorbell rang. Two loud peals.

  David looked at me and shrugged. Neither man moved.

  ‘The police?’ said Crick. ‘Your colleagues?’ The doorbell sounded again. ‘It’s your door,’ I said. ‘You open it.’ Crick went to the door. I heard him laugh. Ellen Bean came in

  smartly. ‘You took your time.’

  ‘We didn’t feel exactly free agents,’ he said.

  She looked from face to face. ‘ Oh, I know where you’re at.

  You’ve found out who David is. Or who he isn’t.’