this embarrassing. Sordid disclosures always read rather better than they sound. You did ask for it, though.”
The policeman shook his head. He spoke gently. “Embarrassment is a selfish emotion, Mrs Larch. I think we can be of much greater help to one another at the moment if we dispense with it.”
“Oh, let’s be clinical, then. You take over the questioning and we’ll have a post-mortem on my sister.” She flashed a look at her mother. “Or half-sister, should I say?”
Purbright watched Mrs Pointer but she showed no reaction. “Is that true, Mrs Pointer?” he asked her. “Was the adoption arranged because your husband knew he was not the child’s father?”
The woman tightened her mouth and seemed to be marshalling strength for another attempt at the unaccustomed exercise of speech.
“He had been to France, hadn’t he?” Purbright prompted. “Was that something to do with it?”
Mrs Pointer moved closer to Hilda and accepted the arm that she slipped, almost absent-mindedly, round her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” the mother said. They were the only words she had been able to summon. Her life, thought Purbright, must have become a single, dreary act of apology, He felt sadness, yet no compassion.
“Have you anything more to ask. Inspector?” Hilda had resumed her role of manager.
“Yes,” said Purbright, deliberately. “I should like to be told the name of Celia’s father.”
“I...I can’t tell you that.”
“Please believe me: this is not idle and impertinent curiosity. The matter is important and perhaps urgent.”
Mrs Pointer shook her head. The action was more like a shudder.
“He’s still alive?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Oh, yes.”
“And living here in the town?”
She made no reply.
“Tell me, Mrs Pointer: had this man maintained a relationship with Celia over the years? Not necessarily as a father, I mean, but an affectionate relationship.”
“He used to see her, I believe.”
“They were fond of each other?”
“Oh, yes.” The words emerged dreamily, enviously.
“Won’t you tell me his name?”
The ghost of an old pride stirred in the faded frightened little woman. She looked directly into Purbright’s face. “Certainly not,” she said.
Purbright and Hilda left her there in the garden. She was kneeling beside some border plants, fussily easing them apart.
At the front door, Hilda Larch hesitated. “Why couldn’t they have told me? Now there’s so much...so much I can’t put right in my mind.”
Purbright said nothing. She passed a hand across her brow. “It’s too late.”
After a while she looked up at him. “That man who killed Celia...”
“Biggadyke.”
“Yes. He...I let him make love to me.” The muscles of her neck were tightly drawn.
“I see.”
She stroked the knob of the Yale lock with her palm “You think, don’t you...that Celia’s father...”
“Murdered...”
Her eyes blazed. “Executed, you mean!”
“That probably is a better word.”
She nodded. “I’m glad mother said no more. Goodbye, Inspector.”
On the step he turned. “There’s just one thing, Mrs Larch.”
She waited.
“That night when Biggadyke was killed—why did you decide to stay away from his caravan?”
A slow, careful smile passed over her face. “I had a telephone message, Inspector. From the Civil Defence people. They said my husband had finished early and was on his way home.”
“And was he?”
“There must have been some mistake. He arrived the following day—as usual.”
“The voice on the telephone...”
Her smile broadened. “Absolutely unidentifiable, Inspector, I assure you. But I liked it. I liked it tremendously.”
The door closed.
