But Dalziel stood aside and pushed open the door. The smile faded and with it ten years from Bonnie's face.
'Oh, Andy,' she said. 'Whatever happened to Sydney Carton? This is a far, far shittier thing than you have ever done.'
Dalziel considered this while Pascoe's eyes flitted from the stricken woman to the even more devastated visage of her father-in-law. Then he looked through the door.
Standing in the hallway with Sergeant Cross's protective or retentive arm around his shoulders was Nigel Fielding.
'No, it isn't,' said Dalziel to Bonnie.
18
'Was she your first?' asked Dalziel.
'Yes.'
'And Hank fixed you up?'
'Yes.'
'Well,' said the fat detective with an effort at jocularity, 'we've all got to start some time and it's best to start with an expert.'
The room had been cleared except for Nigel and his mother. They sat on the sofa while opposite them Dalziel and Balderstone lounged in armchairs. Cross had gone upstairs with Hereward who had folded up like an evening daisy when the boy appeared. Pascoe stood quietly in the window bay.
'So you had been intimate with Mrs Greave since she came to this house?' asked Balderstone delicately.
'Come on, Inspector,' said Bonnie scornfully. 'I didn't bring up my children to be mealy-mouthed!'
'Did you know of this relationship, ma'am?' enquired Balderstone.
'Not till too late,' said Bonnie.
'And when you found out, what did you do?'
'What should I do?' she asked. 'I saw no harm in it. I thought she was Pappy's daughter, remember. A nice respectable widow who happened to have hot pants. Like the Superintendent says, we've all got to start somewhere and it was better than getting some local kid into trouble.'
Dalziel took up the questioning again. His voice had a strange quality which puzzled Pascoe, who had attended the fat man's interrogations more times than he could remember. But this intonation was new to him.
'After your father's funeral you decided to run away?'
'Yes,' said Nigel. He had spoken only the minimum necessary to answer questions. He looked pale but composed. Only occasional quick flickers of his eyes from one extreme of vision to the other hinted at agitation.
'But you didn't get far. It was too wet. You came back to shelter.'
'Yes.'
'And you hid in Mrs Greave's room?'
'Yes.'
Dalziel nodded and scratched his nose.
'I thought it was Papworth,' he explained to Balderstone. 'Only, when I searched his room, I couldn't find any suede shoes. Any road, I doubt if he eats doughnuts for breakfast! We nearly bumped into each other once or twice, eh, lad?'
The boy nodded.
'So you were here all the time. And when I found you in the billiards-room with your rucksack, you hadn't just come back. No, you were just on your way out then. I wondered how you knew my name! You were waiting till Herrie got me safely out of the way to Orburn, then off you would go and as far as I was concerned the one person who could know nothing about Annie's death was you. Right? But you did know something about it, didn't you, Nigel?'
The boy nodded. His mother put her arm protectively over his shoulder. They were large shoulders, Pascoe realized. The large frame of the elder brother was all here, though unhung as yet with Bertie's superfluous flesh. He was a powerful young man, powerful enough to.. .
'I killed her,' he said blankly.
'Tell us about it,' said Dalziel gently.
Why doesn't his mother intervene? wondered Pascoe. There's no need to let him answer these questions now. She could get her solicitor here for a start.
'She just packed up and said she was going. I found her getting ready and when I tried to persuade her to stay, she just laughed at first. I tried to stop her and we had a fight. We ended up on the bed and, well, I thought it was going to be all right then. But after we'd finished, she just went back to her packing.'
He fell silent and glanced at his mother.
Dalziel coughed phlegmily.
'You were fond of her?' he said.
'Yes,' said Nigel lowly. 'I told her I loved her. I thought she felt the same. But she laughed again, told me to grow up. She'd never treated me like a child before. I started unpacking her case and she got angry. She pushed me away, I hit her, she said things about my father…'
'What things?' demanded Balderstone.
'About your father making love to her?' said Dalziel quickly.
'Yes. She said that. She said that I was being a bloody nuisance now like he'd been. I didn't believe her, but then she started saying things about my mother too. We had another fight, only this time.. .'
His agitation was quite clear now. His mother's arm tightened around him, but still she didn't speak.
'But you didn't mean to kill her,' urged Dalziel.
No wonder Bonnie doesn't bother with a solicitor, thought Pascoe. This was the unfamiliar intonation in Dalziel's voice. Defence counsel trying to lead his witness.
'No. I was just angry.'
'And afterwards you went out and found Herrie?' said Dalziel. He was recalling the photos he had looked at in Uniffs room. In one of them Herrie had been standing by the door, apparently talking to someone in the corridor. In the subsequent shots, the old man had disappeared. Everyone else was accounted for except for himself and Bonnie, upstairs on the bed (his mind quickly suppressed the image), Papworth allegedly drinking in the Green Man, and of course Annie Greave, already by this time he now knew lying dead in her room. His mind had been toying with the limited permutations for ten days now. Nigel had made an appearance at a subconscious level long before he would permit him to take the lead.
'Yes,' said the boy. 'I locked the door. Charley tried it, but I just kept quiet. Then I slipped out and nearly bumped into you and my mother.'
He turned to Bonnie and said, 'I was going to look for you but I couldn't say anything when I saw you with him, could I?'
Bonnie shook her head slowly.
'No. I'm afraid you couldn't, darling.'
Balderstone took up the questioning.
'Why did your grandfather and yourself put the body in Butt's car?'
'He wanted to use the Rover, but Mother had the keys and she was with Mr Dalziel. Mr Butt had left the keys in his car. Herrie thought that Mr Butt was so drunk he'd be hours. But just after we'd got the boot shut, he came out of the house. He didn't see me, but he saw Herrie by the car. They talked for a moment, then he drove away.'
No wonder the old man had believed he could offer himself as a decoy. If Butt's memory had been stimulated
