Sowerby smiled his sly superior smile. He said easily: 'Perhaps they thought that's what we're doing.'
Fifteen minutes later, Dalgliesh left with Mair. As they stood unlocking their cars he looked back and saw that the janitor was still waiting at the open door.
Mair said: 'Making sure that we actually leave the premises. What extraordinary people they are! I wonder how they got on to Caroline. There seemed no point in asking as they made it obvious that they had no intention of saying.'
'No, they wouldn't say. Almost certainly they got a tip-off from the security services in Germany.'
'And this house. How on earth do they find these places? D'you suppose that they own it, borrow it, rent it or just break into it?'
Dalgliesh said: 'It probably belongs to one of their own officers, retired, I imagine. He, or she, lets them have a spare key for such an occasional use.'
'And now they'll be packing up, I suppose. Dusting down the furniture, checking for fingerprints, finishing up the food, turning off the power. And in an hour no one will know that they were ever there. The perfect temporary tenants. They've got one thing wrong, though. There wasn't a physical relationship between Amy and Caroline. That's nonsense.'
He spoke with such extraordinary strength and conviction, almost with outrage, that Dalgliesh wondered for a moment whether Caroline Amphlett had been more than his PA. Mair must surely have sensed what his companion was thinking but he neither explained nor denied. Dalgliesh said: 'I haven't congratulated you yet on your new job.'
Mair had slipped into his seat and turned on the engine.
But the car door was still open and the silent warder at the door still waited patiently.
He said: 'Thank you. These tragedies at Larksoken have taken away some of the immediate satisfaction, but it's still the most important job I'm ever likely to hold.' Then, as Dalgliesh turned away, he said: 'So you think we still have a killer alive on the headland.'
'Don't you?'
But Mair didn't reply. Instead he asked: 'If you were Rickards, what would you do now?'
'I'd concentrate on trying to find out whether Blaney or Theresa left Scudder's Cottage that Sunday night. If either of them did, then I think my case would be complete. It isn't one that I'd be able to prove, but it would stand up in logic and I think that it would be the truth.'
Dalgliesh drove first out of the drive but Mair, accelerating sharply, overtook him on the first stretch of straight road and remained ahead. The thought of following the Jaguar all the way back to Larksoken was, for some reason, intolerable. But there was no danger of it; Dalgliesh even drove like a policeman, inside, if only just inside, the speed limit. And by the time they reached the main road Mair could no longer see the lights of the Jaguar in his mirror. He drove almost automatically, eyes fixed ahead, hardly aware of the black shapes of the tossing trees as they rushed past like an accelerated film, of the cat's-eyes unfolding in an unbroken stream of light. He was expecting a clear road on the headland and, cresting a low ridge, saw almost too late the lights of an ambulance. Violently twisting the wheel, he bumped off the road and braked on the grass verge, then sat there listening to the silence. It seemed to him that emotions which for the last three hours he had rigorously suppressed were buffeting him as the wind buffeted the car. He had to discipline his thoughts, to arrange and make sense of these astonishing feelings which horrified him by their violence and irrationality. Was it possible that he could feel relief at her death, at a danger averted, a possible embarrassment prevented, and yet, at the same time, be torn as if his sinews were being wrenched apart by a pain and regret so overwhelming that it could only be grief? He had to control himself from beating his head against the wheel of the car. She had been so uninhibited, so gallant, so entertaining. And she had kept faith with him. He hadn't been in touch with her since their last meeting on the Sunday afternoon of the murder and she had made no attempt to contact him by letter or telephone. They had agreed that the affair must end and that each would keep silent. She had kept her part of the bargain, as he had known she would. And now she was dead. He spoke her name aloud, 'Amy, Amy, Amy.' Suddenly he gave a gasp which tore at the muscles of his chest as if he were in the first throes of a heart attack and felt the blessed releasing tears flow down his face. He hadn't cried since he was a boy and even now, as the tears ran like rain and he tasted their surprising saltiness on his lips, he told himself that these minutes of emotion were good and therapeutic. He owed them to her and, once over, the tribute of grief paid, he would be able to put her out of his mind as he had planned to put her out of his heart. It was only thirty minutes later, when switching on the engine, that he gave thought to the ambulance and wondered which of the few inhabitants of the headland was being rushed to hospital.
As the two ambulance men wheeled the stretcher down the garden path the wind tore at the corner of the red blanket and billowed it into an arc. The straps held it down but Blaney almost flung himself across Theresa's body as if desperately shielding her from something more threatening than the wind. He shuffled crab-like down the path beside her, half bent, his hand holding hers under the blanket. It felt hot and moist and very small and it seemed to him that he was aware of every delicate bone. He wanted to whisper reassurance but terror had dried his throat and when he tried to speak his jaw jabbered as if palsied. And he had no comfort to give. There was a too-recent memory of another ambulance, another stretcher, another journey. He hardly dared look at Theresa in case he saw on her face what he had seen on her mother's; that look of pale, remote acceptance which meant that she was already moving away from him, from all the mundane affairs of life, even from his love, into a shadow land where he could neither follow nor was welcome. He tried to find reassurance in the memory of Dr Entwhistle's robust voice.
'She'll be all right. It's appendicitis. We'll get her to hospital straight away. They'll operate tonight and with luck she'll be back with you in a few days. Not to do the housework mind; we'll discuss all that later. Now, let's get to the telephone. And stop panicking, man. People don't die of appendicitis.'
But they did die. They died under the anaesthetic, they died because peritonitis intervened, they died because the surgeon made a mistake. He had read of these cases. He was without hope.
As the stretcher was gently lifted and slid with easy expertise into the ambulance he turned and looked back at Scudder's Cottage. He hated it now, hated what it had done to him, what it had made him do. Like him, it was accursed. Mrs Jago was standing at the door holding Anthony in her unpractised arms with a twin standing silently on each side. He had telephoned the Local Hero for help and George Jago had driven her over immediately to stay with the children until he returned. There had been no one else to ask. He had telephoned Alice Mair at Martyr's Cottage but all he had got was the answerphone. Mrs Jago lifted Anthony's hand and waved it in a gesture of goodbye, then bent to speak to the twins. Obediently they too waved. He climbed into the ambulance and the doors were firmly shut.
The ambulance bumped and gently swayed up the lane, then accelerated as it reached the narrow headland road to Lydsett. Suddenly it swerved and he was almost thrown from his seat. The paramedic sitting opposite him cursed.
'Some bloody fool going too fast.'
But he didn't reply. He sat very close to Theresa, his hand still in hers, and found himself praying as if he could batten on the ears of the God he hadn't believed in since he was seventeen. 'Don't let her die. Don't punish her because of me. I'll believe. I'll do anything. I can change, be different. Punish me but not her. Oh God, let her live.'
And suddenly he was standing again in that dreadful little churchyard, hearing the drone of Father McKee's voice, with Theresa at his side, her hand still cold in his. The earth was covered with synthetic grass but there was one mound left bare and he saw again the newly sliced gold of the soil. He hadn't known that Norfolk earth could be so rich a colour. A white flower had fallen from one of the wreaths, a small, tortured, unrecognized bud with a pin through the wrapped stalk and he was seized with an almost uncontrollable compulsion to pick it up before it was shovelled with the earth into the grave, to take it home, put it in water and let it die in peace. He had to hold himself tautly upright to prevent himself bending to retrieve it. But he hadn't dared, and it had been left there to be smothered and obliterated under the first clods.
He heard Theresa whisper and bent so low to listen that he could smell her breath. 'Daddy, am I going to die?'
'No. No.'
He almost shouted the word, a howled defiance of death, and was aware of the paramedic half rising to his feet. He said quietly: 'You heard what Dr Entwhistle said. It's just appendicitis.'
'I want to see Father McKee.'
