besides, nobody could have started much of a hunt for him in the middle of the night. But when there was no telephone call this morning, and his car was still in the garage, I thought I’d better make some discreet enquiries. That was when I called the vicar, and since then I’ve called everyone I could think of, half a dozen dealers, both the shops, even Charles Goddard in Comerbourne, and John Stubbs down at Mottisham. And then you came. And that’s all. Oh, and I’ll give you his solicitor’s name and number. As far as I know, they hold his will.’
She was perfectly in command of herself and her situation now, and her composure in speaking of such details as her husband’s will was completely detached and impersonal, as though the disposal of his worldly goods had nothing to do with her, and could hardly affect her.
‘And what happens about the funeral arrangements? I suppose there has to be an inquest. And then will they release his body? I suppose I ought to call in a firm to take responsibility, in any case.’
‘It would be wise,’ George agreed. ‘I’d like the addresses of the shops. And I will take the office key, with your permission. We shall probably have to disturb you occasionally during the next few days, but we’ll try not to upset your life more than we have to. You have no servants living in the house?’
‘To vouch for my movements last night?’ she said with a faint, grim smile. ‘No, I’m afraid you’ll have to take, or doubt, my word for it. There are two girls who come in, mornings, and help out if I have a dinner-party. And a woman who comes in twice a week to clean. All from the village. I’ll give you their names, too.’
Nothing could have been more open or more practical. She handed him the freedom of the house and of all her husband’s papers and records, as though they were now nothing to do with her. As though, in fact, she felt the whole load of this house, this business, this association, lifted from her, and was undertaking the final chore of handing over to someone else with the greatest equanimity. The end of an employment. Rather an abrupt end, but the times were such that sudden redundancies were commonplace.
It occurred to him as he was leaving that there was even a note of curious anticipation in her practicality, rather as though the redundancy did not come amiss to her, almost as though she already had some other and more congenial situation in mind. It sent him away wondering how accurate his judgement of her had been, and how good an actress she could be at need. For there was no blinking the fact that Rainbow had not projected the image of a successful marriage so much as that of an efficient working partnership, and the lady had a field of admirers as long as Middlehope itself, besides the outsiders from Rainbow’s world. Now just how do all these hopeful swains stand, George wondered, now she’s a widow?
Sergeant Moon and Detective-Constable Barnes, who was a Middlehope man himself, were making the rounds of the nearest houses to the church, in search of someone, somewhere, who would admit to having seen, or heard, or even thought, anything during the past twenty-four hours. They were both guileful and resourceful men, well versed in the ways of their neighbours, and they made every approach obliquely, with mild deception in every phrase. But neither of them was surprised to find that the news had flown before them, even though no curious onlookers had had to be chased away from the churchyard. However deviously they circled the real reason for their enquiries, just as deviously the interrogated counter-circled, well aware of what had happened to Rainbow, and impervious in the armour of ignorance. Nobody saw anything, nobody heard anything, nobody knew anything.
‘Which could well be true,’ admitted Barnes, comparing notes after an hour’s activity. ‘Because I reckon this was timed well on, round about ten if not after, and it would be dark, and there aren’t any houses so near that one heavy, dull fall, with no after-sounds, would get people rushing out to see what had happened. But no bones about it, the result would be the same if nine or ten of us had seen him shoved over the parapet.’ It was the measure of his entrenched loyalties that even in a police matter he said ‘us’ and not ‘them’, a fact which Sergeant Moon perfectly understood.
As for the choir, there was no way of getting at the boys until they were home from school and under the guardianship of their parents, and the men, scattered at work between upland farms, small craft workshops, and the factories of Comerbourne, had better also be left until evening. When, of course, they would say they went straight home after practice, and knew nothing further about anything connected with Rainbow. Still, they had to be asked.
In the post-mortem room at Comerbourne George watched what he had grown used to after many experiences, but would much rather not have had to watch. Mortality was an abstract idea, having its own solemn dignity, if not beauty, but even mortality disintegrated under the hands of Reece Goodwin, and there, but for the grace of God, went every one of us, identity and all, into sample-jars and dog-meat. The fact that the remains would undoubtedly be reassembled as decently as possible, and far beyond what would have been thought possible, hardly mitigated the harshness of this dissection. And yet it was meant for the protection of those still living, and the provision of justice towards this one, dead, and he had learned to accept it. To be the pathologist was quite a different discipline. The more impossible the task of extracting information from the material provided, the more enthusiastic did Reece Goodwin become. But this one was fresh and relatively simple, and he had to draw his ardours from its few subtleties.
‘Now this,’ he said didactically, probing round the head of the corpse with delicate, passionate fingers, ‘presents a very interesting problem. This head wound, you can see, is so situated that it cannot possibly have arisen in the course of impact after his fall. It lies low at the back of the skull, and is long and narrow and deeply indented, and was clearly inflicted before death, though probably very shortly before. It might well have been enough to cause death, if these multiple injuries received in the impact hadn’t intervened. If they really did intervene! He was not dead, or even unconscious, when he fell or was hoisted over the coping, for this stuff we’ve isolated from under his finger-nails, and these markings on his palms, are certainly traces of stone-dust – we’ll go into the kind! – and fine mosses. He was still able to claw at safety.’
‘And he couldn’t have made any such motions after his fall?’ George asked.
‘After his fall he was most definitely dead. Once for all. In fact, what is particularly interesting, though he was alive enough to try and cling to the stone at the top, he may very well have been dead before he hit at the bottom. One rather hopes he was.’
‘One does,’ agreed George drily. The thought that Rainbow might have made his exit in the mild autumn night between assault and violation, in mid-air, was curiously calming. Almost like being taken up to heaven in a fiery chariot, or by liberal-minded angels. If heaven was Rainbow’s destination? It did seem, to put it moderately, rather excessive. There should have been a sort of commercial limbo.
‘These obvious multiple injuries, though they did spatter the neighbouring stones, actually shed very little blood. I can’t tell you whether the head wound caused his death, or the impact. My guess would be, he was as good as dead when he landed, but it is a guess. I’ve got a lot of work to do on him before I can be more precise.’
‘Then the head wound is the only one that can’t have been either self-inflicted, or the result of the fall?’ George insisted.
‘That’s right, it can’t, and it’s the only one. Somebody hit him from behind, fairly low at the back of the skull. And with fell intent, and a long, narrow and very solid instrument. The marvel is that he was conscious enough to claw at the parapet as he went over, after such a clout. But take it from me, he was. He did.’
