‘What kind of things?’
‘Oh, it was all in his books. People back in the Dark Ages who challenged the Church with ideas that weren’t in the book of rules.’
‘And you deliberately studied these ideas with the intention of annoying your father?’
‘Oh, yes, and it always worked. I enjoyed baiting the old man.’
‘What was your mother’s attitude?’
‘I don’t think she had one. She never attempted to argue or interfere. It was Karen who did that. My mother just used to sit and knit and listen. She never took any part. I think she thought father ought to have kept on his job as a schoolmaster – he taught when he first came over here – but he threw it up just to do reading and studying. He said he was going to write a book, and he did send a couple of chapters to a publisher, I believe, but they came back, so I don’t think he tried any more. He said that posterity would do him justice. Anyway, I got sick of it at home and went to sea, and having, as I told you, a pretty good brain, I’ve got on. I shall have my own ship by the time I’m thirty.’
‘Not if you half-kill the crew, you won’t,’ said Maisry, gently and with a slight smile. ‘Well, now, let’s get back to Miss Machrado.’
‘Oh, Christ! I didn’t kill her, and I don’t know who did.’
‘You say you have a good brain, and I do not dispute it,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Have you also a good memory?’
‘You need a good memory in my job. Do you know what a second officer’s duties are? But then, why should you?’
‘Why, indeed, since they do not affect me or my question. If your memory is a good one, I wonder whether you can remember any of the subjects about which you used to tease your father?’
‘One or two. Three, in fact, because he clouted me on the ear once, when I’d already got earache, although, mind you, I don’t think he knew that.’
‘Yes? What were these three?’
‘One was about a chap named Priscillian. He claimed that the local bishops were too fond of luxury and converted some of them to his ideas. He was also in favour of some birds called Gnostics, who, as far as I can make out, derived somehow or other from the Jews. Anyhow, I was chiefly interested in Priscillian because he was condemned for sorcery, a subject in which I’ve always been interested.’
‘His dates?’
‘Dates? Oh, I’ve never bothered with dates. Pretty early on, I believe, but I couldn’t really say.’
‘And the other two?’
‘Oh, a fellow called Arnold. They hanged him and burnt the body and chucked it into the River Tiber. The other one – the one when I had earache – was Pelagius. He interested me because his followers became violent and did all sorts of things that weren’t exactly what you’d call Christian.’
‘Your tastes, then, even as a young boy, ran in the direction of necromancy, cruelty and violence.’
‘Oh, well, hang it all, you know what boys of fourteen and fifteen are like!’
‘I think I interrupted Detective-Inspector Maisry, who was asking you to return to the subject of Maria Machrado.’
‘I’ve told him all I know about her.’
‘Tell us again,’ said Maisry, ‘and I’d prefer the story straight, if you don’t mind.’ So far as essentials went, it was the story he had told before. He had met Maria Machrado in Bilbao, she had subsequently come to Southampton on his ship, they had been intimate, he had introduced her to his mother as a paying guest at week-ends and during college vacations. His object, he admitted, was so that the intimacy might continue.
‘Now tell us about this last quarrel,’ said Maisry.
‘You’re trying to trap me.’
‘On the contrary,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘we are almost convinced by your story, so far. You have gone a long way towards proving to us that you are innocent of murder.’
He looked at her with suspicion in his gaze, Maisry with slight surprise in his.
‘Well, all right, then,’ said Otto, ‘if that’s the way you want it, but it was only the usual sort of row that springs up between the likes of her and the likes of me, you know.’
‘Right,’ said Maisry. ‘The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth will help you, so any embroidery or airy persiflage is out.’
‘I can take a hint. I don’t know about you, but I really believe the Dame is willing to see me in the clear. Here goes, then. I met Maria at my mother’s a couple of week-ends – I expect mother told you. Then I stayed with her at her digs – I expect you remember hearing about that, too. I spent all I could afford, but she wanted more, and when I told her she couldn’t have it she got sore with me and threatened to tell my mother that she was going to have my baby. Of course, I laughed, who wouldn’t? As though my mother would give a damn, I said, whose baby she was going to have. At that she fished out a knife and went for me like a mad thing. Well, you don’t get to be second officer on our kind of ship without knowing how to handle blokes with knives, so I side-stepped and then smacked my hand hard down on her knife-wrist and, of course, she had to let go the knife. It fell on the floor and I kicked it under a chair and smacked her face.
‘She was yelling blue murder by this time, and I didn’t want her landlady phoning up the police and giving me in charge for assault, so I slung my hook p.d.q. That didn’t do for Maria. She followed me out and all down the street, shouting curses and insults in Spanish and bringing quite a few of the citizens
