pyjamas and shaving tackle, together with a neat overnight case to put them in. Then, in spite of the afternoon traffic, with the luck that he knew now would never desert him, he hailed a cab and told the driver to take him to Paddington Station.
He caught the next train to Oxford, and took a taxi to the Randolph Hotel. Yes, they did have a single room for two nights. Graham Marshall booked in.
He ate well, pampering himself. The credit cards could cope. Soon, after all, he would have the Head of Personnel’s salary to fund him.
On the Saturday evening, as he drank through a second bottle of Chambolle Musigny, he thought about the sequence of events which had brought him to this point.
He was now where he should be. It was amusing to speculate what might have happened had he been appointed Head of Department when he first applied.
Presumably he would not have killed the old man. If they had met, Graham would not have felt the same repressed violence, and another derelict would have survived a few more years.
And if he had never inadvertently broken the taboo, presumably Merrily and Robert Benham would still be around to irritate and frustrate him. Even dear old George would be alive, drunk and lonely in Haywards Heath.
Graham Marshall couldn’t regret any of it. The murders had given him strength when he needed it, identity and power when he had none.
He wondered again about Lilian’s charge of madness. Certainly he had been in a tense state, yes; but not mad, no. He had been logical and efficient.
And, above all, it had worked.
Four murders. He couldn’t resist a little, complacent smile at the thought.
But, with slight regret, he knew that that must be the end. His luck had been incredible, but the risk was always there. So many times he could have been seen and had proved invisible. So many times he could have been caught and hadn’t. It was exhilarating, but dangerous.
Besides, he had achieved all that he had wanted.
He felt like a world motor racing champion retiring at the peak of his success. He had taken all the risks, he had survived, and could now enjoy the benefits of his achievement.
And, anyway, he reflected, if it became necessary, he could always come out of retirement.
With that comforting thought, he signed his dinner bill and retired to the delicious anonymity of his hotel room.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
He pampered himself all weekend. Expensive meals, leisurely strolls around the colleges, a trip on the river. He felt he deserved it.
After a large lunch in the hotel on the Monday, he paid his bill with a credit card and had a taxi summoned to take him to the station.
He did not regret leaving. He felt rested and indulged and was keen to get back to work. The next day, whether or not the appointment was officially ratified, Graham Marshall would take over as Head of Personnel.
And he was determined that no one in the Department would be unaware of the change.
He took the Metropolitan Line from Paddington to Hammersmith and walked to Boileau Avenue.
He knew there was no one in when he put the key in the lock. Lilian must have taken her bitterness away, no doubt to plan further ineffectual gestures.
As he walked, he had been thinking. Except for another moment of homage on Hammersmith Bridge, he had concentrated on work. His mind was relaxed and well tuned, and he thought he saw a solution to an interminable dispute between Personnel Department and the Staff Association over a new grading system. The idea had grown as he walked along, and he was impatient to check its feasibility with some figures Terry Sworder had produced from the computer.
Graham rushed up to his study as soon as he got home and pulled Terry’s report out of his briefcase. He jotted a few notes as he galloped down the columns, then sat back with satisfaction. It would work. Put a few backs up, certainly, but his scheme had the required mix of appeal to greed and illusion of consultation; it couldn’t fail to be accepted.
Preoccupied, he hadn’t noticed until that moment the flashing light on his new Ansaphone, which registered the messages left. It had been switched on to record before he left on the Friday morning and he hadn’t had time to check it since.
He was reaching to set the machine to ‘Playback’ when the phone rang. He switched off the recorder and picked up the receiver.
It was Charmian.
‘Hello,’ he responded guardedly, anticipating a new tirade about his shortcomings as a father.
‘You’ve heard?’
‘Heard what?’
‘About. . Mummy.’
‘No.’ What the hell had Lilian done now? But Charmian didn’t give him any time for conjecture. ‘She’s dead.’
‘Hmm?’
‘She killed herself.’
‘Good God.’ Graham provided a conventional response while he tried to define what his real reaction was. He rather suspected it might be delight.
‘I’ve been trying to contact you for the best part of forty-eight hours. So have the police. Where’ve you been?’
‘Out,’ he replied laconically.
‘So she finally succeeded. Obviously it wasn’t all talk. I should have listened, should have. .’ Charmian’s voice broke. The shock had transformed her bottled-up emotion for her mother into guilt.
‘Well, I suppose it was only to be expected.’ He spoke with judicious authority, a detached voice of reason.
‘Oh yes, “only to be expected”!’ Charmian snapped. ‘And I bet you’re bloody over the moon about it!’
‘Charmian, I can’t pretend that — ’
‘Now you’ve got rid of everyone, haven’t you? Now you can go back to being the fucking emotional eunuch you always were!’
‘There’s no need to — ’
‘I just thank God I’ve got Henry and Emma away from you, that’s all, before you somehow managed to destroy them too!’
‘Now just a minute. Lilian destroyed herself. I had nothing to do with it.’
‘You drove her to it.’
‘You can’t shift your guilt on to me that easily, Charmian. She had been threatening it for years.’
A sob broke from the other end of the phone. ‘You’ve got it all now, Graham, haven’t you? The whole bloody lot. God, there’s no justice. Everything’s just random. That someone like you should be granted the kind of luck that … If I had any belief in a God, that’d destroy it. And to think — you’ll get all the other money as well now.’
‘What other money?’ he asked, puzzled.
‘Don’t pretend you don’t know. But if you’ve got any spark of decency in you, see that the children get some of it. Otherwise, just do one thing for me.’
‘What?’
‘Keep out of my life. I never want to see you again. You bastard!’
He replaced his receiver more gently than she had hers. She really was becoming more and more like her mother.
He corrected himself. Her late mother. The thought amused him. To those who have shall be given. The removal of the inconvenience of Lilian was a bonus he had not expected. But what had Charmian meant about the
