‘I suppose so.’ Charles hoped he sounded convinced.
‘It’s fairly bizarre behaviour.’
‘Yes, I agree. Certainly Martin is in a very strange mental state. He’s all mixed up and he has some violent fantasies. I think he’s probably suffering from overwork-you know, just taken finals-but that doesn’t make him a murderer. His disguise may be for criminal purposes, or it may just be that he needs to escape into another identity.’
‘Hmm. That sounds like psychological claptrap to me.’
‘You don’t subscribe to a psychological approach to crime?’
‘I dare say it’s very useful in certain cases, but I think it’s often used to fog perfectly straightforward issues. Every action has some sort of motive, and I’m sure that Martin Warburton has a real motive for dressing up as someone else.’
‘And you don’t regard an inadequacy in his personality as a real motive?’
‘I regard it as a formula of words. A motive is theft or blackmail, that sort of thing. Revenge even.’
‘But Martin might take on another identity because there’s something in his own that he can’t come to terms with.’
‘I don’t really know what you’re talking about.’
It was so easy for the Laird, insulated from life in his library, just as he had been insulated with his mother at Glenloan House and insulated in the staffroom at Kilbruce School. Because he had never encountered any unpleasant realities, he assumed they did not exist. Or if they did, they were simple things that could be cut up like sheets of paper, not made of material that frayed and tore and could never be properly divided.
‘But, James, come off it. When we last spoke you were talking of an obsessional killer, someone for whom the Mary, Queen of Scots story had a macabre significance.’
‘I didn’t quite say that.’
‘You were moving in that direction. And an obsessional killer hasn’t got one of your nice neatly defined motives like theft or blackmail or revenge.
‘Yes, he has. The very obsession is the motive. It’s not a sane motive, but it’s real to the murderer.’
‘Therefore you’ve got to understand the psychology of the murderer.’ Charles felt that it was a mild triumph.
‘Yes, but the process is simple. Assume an inverted logic, and the motivation makes sense. You don’t have to delve into inadequacies of personality and compensation and all that humbug.’
‘I don’t think we’re going to agree on this point.’ Charles was beginning to lose the little interest he had in their discussion. His mind was elsewhere, and not enjoying the trip. But he felt he should simulate some concern. ‘So if Martin, say, is an obsessional killer, what do you reckon is the motive for his walking round the city of Edinburgh in disguise?’
‘It must be something to do with the planning of his next crime.’
‘I see.’ Charles tried not to sound contemptuous. ‘So what do you think we should do about it?’
‘I think we should keep a close eye on him.’
‘Yes, fine. I must go.’ He rose with almost rude abruptness. ‘I’ve got to… um… go.’ He could not think of a polite excuse. He could not think of anything except the ordeal ahead of him. The ordeal of seeing Anna.
When it came, it was not really an ordeal. She arrived, flushed and excited after the revue. There had been a B.B.C. producer in the audience who (according to Brian Cassells, who had buttonholed the poor man departing and forced an opinion out of him) had liked Anna’s performance. She was very giggly and charming as she described Brian’s earnest relaying of the news and imagined his clumsy handling of the encounter. Charles warmed to her in spite of himself.
But he felt detached because of the tiny infection of suspicion inside him. He kept wanting to ask her about Willy, to know if they had had an affair and, by doing so, cauterise the wound before it spread to dangerous proportions. But he could not do it. Not when she was so lovely. It would spoil everything.
They drank some port that Anna had bought and giggled into bed. And they made love. As good as ever, tender, synchronised, good. Except that Charles felt he was watching the two of them like a picture on the wall. Immediately after, they switched off the light and Anna, who was exhausted by Mary rehearsals and the revue, slipped easily into sleep.
Charles did not. He felt better for having seen her; his imagination could not run riot while she was actually there. But the doubt remained. He wanted to excise it, cut it out of his mind. The only way to do that was to ask her point-blank. But he knew he couldn’t. Not to her face. He contemplated ringing her up, even ringing her up in a different identity, pretending to be a policeman or… No, that was stupid.
He reasoned with himself. All right, so say she had been having an affair with Willy Mariello. So what? Charles had no particular claim on her and, anyway, he never worried about a woman’s previous lovers; they didn’t concern him. Jealousy over something that was over was pointless. And a lover couldn’t be more over than Willy.
That was the worrying bit. Not that Anna had slept with the Scottish lout, but that he had been murdered. Again Charles reasoned with himself and calmed himself with thoughts that there might be no connection between the two facts. Indeed, they weren’t both definitive facts yet. And they could be investigated.
Yes, a bit of investigation would put his mind at rest. He plumped up his pillow and turned over. Anna’s breathing had a soporific rhythm. But he did not sleep.
CHAPTER NINE
There’s some have specs to help their sight
Of objects dim and small
But Tim had specks within his eyes,
And could not see at all.
The first part of the investigation to set his mind at rest was another call on Jean Mariello.
She opened the door and leaned against it uninvitingly. ‘What do you want? There’s nothing more I can tell you.’
‘Please, just a couple of questions. I think I’m on to something.’
‘Big deal. Listen, Mr Paris. I’m very busy packing. The only thing that interests me about Willy is how soon I can forget he ever existed. And I don’t want to play cops and robbers.’
‘Please give me five minutes.’
‘Oh…’ She hovered between shutting him out and letting him in. Then she drew back. ‘Five minutes.’ She looked at her watch.
Charles entered the hall and moved into the front room. Jean Mariello gained some of the satisfaction she would have got from slamming the door in his face by slamming it behind him. ‘Right. Ask.’
Charles looked round. There were suitcases and cardboard boxes brimful of belongings. In the corner household rubbish and decorating rubble was swept into a neat pile. ‘You’re going?’
‘Yes, the house is on the market. I’ll never come back here.’
‘You’re leaving Edinburgh?’
‘Yes. I’m moving in with a man in the folk group. In Newcastle.’
‘Won’t you miss it?’
‘Edinburgh, yes. This house I hope I never see again.’
‘It’s a nice enough house.’
‘Look, I never lived here. Willy only bought the place a few months ago. I’ve been on tour. The only times I ever saw it, it was covered with paint brushes or plaster dust or other evidence of Willy’s latest ideas of home decor. He had the knack of converting every place we lived in into a pigsty. He’d suddenly get sick of his
