Deadheads

'Well, I'll tell you. Because after I parked my car that day, the day it was vandalized, I got into Dick's car and we spent the day together at his cottage, that's why!'

'Oh, I see,' said Ellie blankly.

'So I told him about the car being vandalized, and I told him about that sergeant visiting the house. I recall he seemed very interested in what he'd said, but I didn't know why.'

'No, no, of course not,' said Ellie, now feeling herself completely at sea. 'Daphne, you went to Elgood's cottage to . . .'

Untypically she found the sentence difficult to finish.

Daphne said in her loud, clear, confident, privately educated voice, 'Screw is, I think, the word you're looking for. So you didn't know? That's interesting. Which means either that your husband hasn't told you. Which is also interesting. Or that he doesn't know either, and you’ve got to make up your mind whether your deep friendship for me permits you to tell him. Which is perhaps the most interesting thing of all.'

She rose, set down her glass and made for the door.

'Daphne!' cried Ellie. 'Please, let's talk some more.'

'All right, if that's what you want, but not now,' said Daphne, very cool and Noel Cowardish. 'Let's meet tomorrow morning. In the Chantry. I was going to come along to the Market Caff this morning and tell you what I thought of you, but I funked it. But I'll feel more confident in the Chantry, won't I? And you can let me know what you decided, can't you?'

It was too good an exit to spoil by pursuit and expostulation. Ellie remained fast in her seat, like a spellbound princess, hearing the front door close and the Polo start up and draw away.

She imagined she sat quite still during this time but when she finally stirred and looked down at her glass of unwanted Scotch, she discovered it had somehow become completely empty and she felt more than ready for another.

6

 

CLYTEMNESTRA

(Hybrid musk. Crinkled pinky-yellow blooms, leathery leaves, of a spreading bushy habit, excellent in Autumn.)

'Mr Capstick's not at home,' said Mrs Unger in the severe tone of a governess finding it necessary to repeat what should not have needed to be said in the first place.

Pascoe wondered if the old woman was using the phrase literally or conventionally.

'I see,' he said. 'I'm Inspector Pascoe. I was here a few days ago, you may recall.'

The unblinking blue eyes in the old apple-wrinkled face fixed themselves on his forehead as though in search of some authenticating mark. It struck Pascoe that perhaps their peculiarly unnerving quality derived from myopic first sight rather than keen second.

'I talked to Mr Capstick in the conservatory,' he went on. 'You brought me some delicious buttered scones.'

The features relaxed. He had been approved once, and she was not, he guessed, a woman to change her mind very often.

'He's gone to Harrogate,' she pronounced with the intonation of one who might be saying Xanadu. 'One of his cronies came to fetch him.'

So he really wasn't at home. In fact, it suited Pascoe very well. He said, 'Perhaps I could have a word with you, Mrs Unger. It won't take long, I promise you. ‘Her lips puckered fractionally at his presumption. He got the message. It would take precisely the amount of time she condescended to allow. His promises didn't come into it.

But she opened the door wide and stood aside to let him enter. Then, closing the door and bolting it (an instinctive rather than a significant action, he assured himself uneasily) she pushed by him and walked down the hallway to a handsome inner door where the process was repeated save for the ramming home of the bolt.

'Sit down,' she ordered.

Pascoe sat. To his surprise, Mrs Unger immediately withdrew.

Musing on her intentions, he looked around. It was a fair room, a little too square perhaps, and rather too high for its width. An oak sideboard and a large glass-fronted oak bookcase, both solidly mid-Victorian in style, filled the wall to the left of his wing chair which was placed square to an ornate marble fireplace. Daringly, he rose and went to look at the bookcase. Through the diamonds of glass he read some of the titles engraved and gilded on the leather-bound volumes. A taste for Trollope was perhaps forecastable, but Colette came as a surprise.

Behind him there was a rattle and he turned to see that Mrs Unger had entered the room with a wooden tea- trolley which she was now manoeuvring into position alongside the wing chair.

'You'll have some tea,' she said.

It wasn't a question. He guessed that, like Dalziel, she knew what was best for most people. He nodded and said, 'Thank you,' and sank deep into the chair, but not so deep as his heart when his glance lit upon the plateful of buttered scones on the lower tray of the trolley.

Direct attack seemed the best defence.

'I wanted to talk to you about the day the Reverend Somerton was killed, the gentleman who got hit by the stone falling from the tower of St Mark's. Now I know this happened more than ten years ago but I wonder if you remember the day.'

Mrs Unger did not reply. As he spoke, she had poured him a cup of tea. He stirred it and sipped it. The silence continued. With a wan smile he took a plate, helped himself to a scone and bit into it.

'Delicious,' he said.