She drew hard on the cigarette, frowning as though at a difficult task. Her protracted expulsion of smoke in a sort of soup-cooling exercise was distinctly audible. Purbright was reminded of Palgrove. He wondered if her gestures were unconsciously imitative.
“You know Mr Palgrove pretty well, don’t you, Mrs Booker?”
“Sort of. Yes, I suppose so.”
“How long have you known him?”
“Not all that long, really. About a year.”
“But you are on close terms, intimate terms?” He saw she was trying to get her eyes switched to indignation. “Look, I’m sorry, but we cannot talk usefully until we acknowledge this basic situation. Don’t think that I’m bothered about people’s notions of what’s moral or immoral: I’m not. There isn’t time for that sort of nonsense when one’s trying to get at the facts. Now then, never mind that awful police court word ‘intimate’—you’re fond of each other, you like to make love together when the chance offers—that’s the situation, isn’t it?”
She tip-tongued her lips, staring at the corner of the desk. A nod. Purbright inwardly sighed with relief. Lucky Father Purbright. Not unfrocked yet.
“Had Mr Palgrove told his wife that he was in love with someone else?”
She looked back at him, alarmed. “Oh, no! I’m sure he didn’t.”
“Did you ever meet Mrs Palgrove?”
“Yes, once or twice. She was on some of the same committees as Kingsley.”
“Kingsley?”
“My husband. I met her sometimes at garden fetes and bazaars and things like that.”
“Was Mr Palgrove present as well?”
“Only once, I think. Len doesn’t like that sort of thing.”
“Did you ever telephone Mr Palgrove at his home?”
She considered while she looked about her, holding her cigarette upright. The inspector pushed an ashtray to the edge of the desk and she toppled into it the column of ash. “No, I don’t think so,” she said finally. “Not at his home. We were always very careful.”
“You never discussed anything with Mr Palgrove at any time when his wife might conceivably have overheard? Think very carefully, Mrs Booker.”
She shook her head. “Why are you asking me all this?”
Purbright watched her in silence. The flesh round her mouth made tiny contracting movements.
“Did she...is she supposed...”
“Did she what, Mrs Booker?”
She looked down at her own hand, clenching the edge of her coat. “Kill herself...”
“No, we don’t think so.”
Her face rose again at once, relieved but still uncertain.
“We believe she was murdered.”
The clenched hand went to her mouth, almost like a fist delivering a blow. “Oh, God!” Receding blood left patches of make-up standing out against paper-white skin.
Again, “Oh, God!” From the depths of her throat, almost inaudible.
Purbright leaned forward. He had picked up a pen and was rolling it slowly between thumb and forefinger. Quietly, he asked: “How do you suppose it happened, Mrs Booker?”
She seemed not to hear, but continued to stare at an ink stain in the centre of one of the scored and battered panels of the desk.
“You can have no serious doubt as to who was responsible, can you?” The question was put almost soothingly. The woman found that her head was moving in a slow, despairing negative, and wondered if she had meant it to.
“Did you know that he might do that? That he intended to?”
A whispered “No” left her.
“But he met you that night, didn’t he? He says he came out to the cottage.”
“I wasn’t there. I couldn’t...couldn’t get there.”
“You’d arranged to meet, though?”
“Yes.” She was still bowed, motionless, gazing past the ink stain to some scene in her own mind.
Suddenly she raised her head. “You don’t
“I’m sorry, Mrs Booker. We’re absolutely satisfied on that score.”
“She was queer. You know—wilful, moody. And perhaps she did find out. About me and Len.”
“Oh, she did.”
