that his accent and style of speech had changed completely. The long drawn vowels and rising rhythms were gone. What remained was flat, almost monotonous, with a touch of the north in it.
'How long have you been a fence?' asked Pascoe, ready for denial and wondering what he would do when it came.
'About ten years. Six on a regular basis. I started shortly after I accepted my first bribe for mentioning someone's stinking restaurant in a piece I was doing. You must have noticed how one thing leads to another crime.'
'You're being very frank,' said Pascoe, slightly taken aback.
'Look, sonny, you're a frightening man. I reckon you've flipped just a bit because of this business. But not so much that you'd beat me up in front of witnesses. I don't like being beaten up anywhere, so I'll talk to you. But like your beatings, not in front of witnesses.'
'How old are you?' asked Pascoe.
'Forty-three.'
'You look younger.'
'Thank you kindly,' said Davenant, relapsing momentarily into his old manner. 'It's marvellous what fiction and false hair will do for you. Truth is dead.'
But now as Pascoe looked at him he no longer saw the fashionable ageless swinger, cynical and sophisticated, but a middle-aged man dressed up for a costume-party he no longer wants to attend, with lines of worry running from the eyes and the mouth to complement the deeper furrows of age on the brow.
A frightened man. Pascoe knew from observation how easy it was for a frightened man to kill. Just as he knew from experience how easy it was for an angry policeman to strike. He clenched his fists in his jacket pockets and tried to keep his voice calm as he asked, 'Why did you kill them?'
'For God's sake!' said Davenant. 'What a stupid question!'
'You mean the answer's obvious!'
'No! Yes. Yes, it's obvious. I didn't. I've told you the truth. I was there. I went on business; you don't like that, do you? I left at seven. I went to Culpepper's. When I left there I went straight back to Oxford.'
'You're a liar,' said Pascoe, taking a step forward.
Davenant leapt up in fear, his chair shot backwards and overturned. The door opened and Ferguson's head appeared.
'You all right, sir?'
'Yes. Listen, Davenant, you think you've got an alibi, don't you? Well, we'll see about that. Nobody's said a thing yet that supports your story. I don't think they are going to. Ferguson, stay here and watch him. Don't be taken in by the whipped poodle expression. The beast is dangerous.'
He turned and left the study, the fury in him burning high now. Culpepper was the key. Without his supporting story, Davenant was done. The group in the lounge seemed to be still in session, which was good. He was better with Backhouse out of the way.
In the porcelain room Culpepper stood between the two huge pseudo-Chinese vases with his back to the door. Lights were on in all the display niches and the pieces of his collection tranquilly radiated their cold beauty.
'Why not sell them?' asked Pascoe. 'That would tide you over for a bit.'
'What? Oh, Mr Pascoe. Yes, I suppose it would, I suppose it would.'
The words expressed agreement but the tone was the kind used when agreeing with an importunate child.
'What were you going to do with the money Pelman brought?'
'That? But you know that already. It was for Davenant.'
This was better than he could have hoped for. He thought of stepping out and fetching Backhouse, but was afraid of breaking the atmosphere.
'He was blackmailing you.'
'In a way.'
'Because some of your collection had come through him?'
'In a way.'
'What else did he want from you?'
'I'm sorry?'
'Did he ask you to do anything else? Was he really here that Friday night?'
'Oh yes, he was here.'
'And what time did he leave?'
'I forget.'
'Come on, Mr Culpepper! He says he was here till after ten. What do you say? Is that true?'
'Oh no. He definitely left before half past eight.'
Pascoe let out a long sigh of relief. His hunch had been right. Culpepper was in no mood at the moment to play alibis. He might be sorry later, but later would be too late.
'Thank you, Mr Culpepper,' he said, turning away. Behind him was old Mrs Culpepper.
'You going?' she said.
'Yes. We won't bother you much longer.'
'Oh aye.' She shook her head, whether in negation or to clear it was not certain.
'Hold on a moment,' she said, stepping into the room.
Pascoe watched, impatient to get back to Davenant to present Backhouse with his killer, to go home. Slowly the old woman moved forward and stood behind her son.
'Yes, Mother,' he said.
'The clever policeman’s going, Hartley. Don't you want to talk to him?'
She said nothing more but stood in silence looking at her son's unyielding back. Then she did something amazing. She turned and threw all her old weight at one of the Chinese vases. Pascoe leapt forward to catch it as it toppled off its plinth but he was too late.
It hit the ground and exploded into green and blue and white shards. Something lay among them like a gift in a child's chocolate Easter egg.
A shotgun.
Pascoe moved fast, but the old woman was in the way and the shotgun was in Culpepper's hands before he could get by her.
'I'm sorry, son,' said the old woman. 'I waited long enough, too long perhaps. You should have told him yourself.'
Pascoe's mind was spinning. There was no room for fear there, or at least only for the fear that he might never hear the truth.
'Why?' he cried. 'But why?'
'Your friend was going to tell everybody,' said Culpepper, his face twisted in a plea for understanding. 'He had no right. You understand that? And I didn't realize that everybody knew already. But I never meant… but I never meant..’
In the lounge they heard the almost simultaneous double blasts of the shotgun. For a second no one moved. Then they poured into the hallway and gazed with varying degrees of incomprehension at the scene before them.
Pascoe, old Mrs Culpepper and her son were standing in the porcelain room looking at the damage the double blast from the gun which still smoked in Hartley's hands had wreaked on his collection.
Some of the pieces were still untouched. Now Culpepper stepped forward and smashed these with the gun barrel. Satisfied at last, he dropped the weapon and came out into the hall where he stood and gazed unemotionally at his wife who was sobbing rhythmically in Sam Dixon's arms.
Dixon? wondered Pascoe, surprised at nothing now.
The study door opened and Davenant and Ferguson stepped out.
Davenant looked into the porcelain room and shook his head at the shambles. Then he turned to Pascoe.
'Pity,' he said. 'I hoped he'd blown your bloody head off.'
