In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

crafted and saying, “Nicer than the Cavendish's road sign, I think.”

“Thanks.” But Maiden hadn't spent his career with the Met to think that the detective inspector in charge of the investigation into his daughter's murder had come to chat about the manner in which Maiden Hall was advertising its presence. He dumped a mound of concrete into the hole he'd dug, and he sank his shovel into the earth nearby. He said, “You've news for us,” and he appeared to be attempting to read Hanken's face for the answer in advance of hearing it.

“A knife's been found.” Hanken brought the other policeman into the picture with a brief explanation of how it had come into the hands of the police.

“You'll want me to look at it,” Maiden said.

Hanken brought out the plastic evidence bag and rested it with the knife in his palm. Maiden didn't ask to hold it himself. Rather, he stood gazing at it as if the case, the folded blades, or the blood upon both could give him an answer to questions he wasn't yet willing to ask.

“You mentioned that you gave her your own knife,” Hanken said. “Could this be it?” And when Maiden nodded, “Is there anything about the knife that you gave her that distinguishes it from others of the same type, Mr. Maiden?”

“Andy? Andy?” A woman's voice grew louder as the woman herself descended from the Hall, walking through the trees. “Andy darling, here. I've brought you some-” Nan Maiden stopped abruptly when she saw Hanken. “Excuse me, Inspector. I had no idea you were… Andy, I've brought you some water. The heat. You know. Pellegrino's all right, isn't it?”

She thrust the water at her husband. She touched the backs of her fingers to his temple, saying, “You aren't overdoing it, are you?”

He flinched.

Hanken felt a stirring on the back of his neck, like a spirit's caress against his skin. He looked from husband to wife, assessed the moment that had just passed between them, and knew he was fast approaching the time to ask the question no one had given voice to yet.

He said first, after nodding a hello to Maiden's wife, “As to anything that might differentiate the knife you gave your daughter from other similar Swiss Army knives…?”

“One of the blades of the scissors broke off a few years ago. I never replaced it,” Maiden said.

“Anything else?”

“Not that I recall.”

“After you gave the knife-possibly this one-to your daughter, did you buy another for yourself?”

“I have another, yes,” he said. “Smaller than that though. Easier to carry about.”

“You have it with you?”

Maiden reached into the pocket of his cut-off jeans. He brought out another model of a Swiss Army knife and handed it over. Hanken examined it, using his thumbnail to prise open its largest blade. Two inches appeared to be its length.

Nan Maiden said, “Inspector, I don't understand what Andy's knife has to do with anything.” And then without a pause for response, “Darling, you haven't had lunch yet. May I bring you a sandwich?”

But Andy Maiden was watching Hanken open the knife and take the measure of each of its blades. Hanken could feel the former officer's eyes upon him. He could sense the intent behind the gaze that fixed itself on his fingers.

Nan Maiden said, “Andy? May I bring you…?”

“No.”

“But you must eat something. You can't keep-”

“No.”

Hanken looked up. Maiden's replacement knife was too small for the murder weapon. But that didn't obviate the necessity for asking the question that both of them knew he would ask. He had, after all, admitted to helping his daughter pack her camping gear into her car on Tuesday. And he himself had given her the knife that he himself had later declared to be missing.

“Mr. Maiden,” he said, “where were you on Tuesday night?”

“That's a monstrous question,” Nan Maiden said quietly.

“I suppose it is,” Hanken agreed. “Mr. Maiden?”

Maiden glanced in the direction of the Hall above them, as if what he was about to say needed an accompanying corroboration that would be supplied by the Hall's existence. “I was having some eye trouble on Tuesday night. I went upstairs early because my vision kept tunneling. It gave me a scare, so I had a lie-down to see if that would help take care of it.”

Tunnel vision? Hanken wondered incredulously. That was certainly an alibi and a half.

Maiden obviously inferred Hanken's thoughts from the expression on his face. He said, “It happened during the evening meal, Inspector. One can't mix drinks or serve dinners if one's field of vision is reduced to the size of a five-pence coin.”

“It's the truth,” Nan asserted. “He went upstairs. He was resting in the bedroom.”

“What time was this?”

Maiden's wife answered for him. “The first of our guests had gone through for their starters. So Andy must have left round half past seven.”

Hanken looked at Maiden for confirmation of the time. Maiden frowned, as if he were conducting a complex inner dialogue with himself.

“How long were you up there in your bedroom, then?”

“The rest of the evening, the night,” Maiden said.

“Your vision didn't improve. Is that it?”

“That's it.”

“Have you seen a doctor? Seems to me that a problem like that could be cause for real concern.”

“Andy's had a few turns like this,” Nan Maiden said. “They pass. He's fine as long as he rests. And that's what he was doing on Tuesday night. Resting.”

“I'd expect, though, that a condition like that wants looking at. It could lead to something far worse. A stroke, perhaps? Chances are one would think of a stroke straightaway. I'd want to call an ambulance as soon as I had the first symptoms.”

“It's happened before. We know what to do,” Nan Maiden said.

“Which is what, exactly?” Hanken enquired. “Application of ice packs? Acupuncture to the temples? Full body massage? Half a dozen aspirin? What is it you do when it looks like your husband might be having a stroke?”

“It isn't a stroke.”

“So you left him alone to his bed rest, did you? From half past seven in the evening until… what time might that have been, Mrs. Maiden?”

The care the couple took not to look at each other was as obvious as would have been a sudden collapse into each other's arms. Nan Maiden said, “Of course I didn't leave Andy alone, Inspector. I looked in on him twice. Three times, perhaps. During the evening.”

“And the times?”

“I have no idea. Probably at nine. Then again round eleven.” And as Hanken looked towards Maiden, she continued by saying, “It's no use asking Andy. He'd fallen asleep, and I didn't wake him. But he was there in the bedroom. And there he stayed. All night. I hope that's all you want to ask in the matter, Inspector Hanken, because the very idea… the thought that…” Her eyes grew bright as she directed them towards her husband. He looked in the direction of the U-shaped gorge, whose south end could be glimpsed where the road curved to the north. “I hope that's all you want to ask,” she said simply, and there was a quiet dignity to her words.

Still, Hanken said, “Do you have any idea what your daughter planned to do with her life once she returned to London from her summer in Derbyshire?”

Maiden watched him steadily, though his wife looked away. “No,” he said. “I don't know.”

“I see. And you're certain of that? Nothing you want to add? Nothing you want to explain?”

“Nothing,” Maiden said, and to his wife, “You, Nancy?”

“Nothing,” she said.