A Certain Justice (28 page)

The flat, chosen by Helen, was in a prestigious 1930s block in Duchess of Bedford’s Walk in Kensington. Even after he had acquiesced in the purchase of the lease she continued irritatingly to reiterate its advantages.

“A good-sized drawing-room and dining-room and two double bedrooms — you won’t need more. Twenty-four-hour porterage and a modern security system. No balcony, which is a pity, but a balcony always increases the risk of burglary. All the shops you need in Kensington High Street and you can go to Chambers from the High Street underground on the Circle Line. It only means a short walk downhill. If you go an extra station on the journey home and get out at Notting Hill Gate you can leave by the Church Street exit and avoid crossing either main road.” There was the implication that Helen had arranged the London Underground system for his convenience. “And there’s a supermarket close to both stations, and Marks and Spencer at the High Street, so that you can easily pick up any food you need. At your age there’s no need to carry heavy loads.”

It was Helen who, through one of her complicated networks of colleagues and acquaintances, found him Erik and Nigel.

“They’re gay, of course, but that needn’t worry you.”

“No,” he said, “it doesn’t worry me. Why should it?” But neither his comment nor the question had been heard.

“They keep some kind of antique shop south of the High Street but they don’t open before ten o’clock. They’re prepared to come in first thing and cook breakfast, make your bed and do a little general tidying. You can have a daily woman for the heavy work. They offered to come back in the evening and give you dinner — well, ‘supper’ would be a more appropriate word, I suppose. Nothing complicated, simple well-cooked food. Erik, he’s the elder, is reputed to be an excellent cook. He’s Erik with a
k
, remember, he’s particular over that. I can’t think why, as he isn’t Scandinavian. Born in Muswell Hill, I think he said. Nigel is a sweet boy, so Marjorie assures me. Very blond, but I suppose his mother rather liked the name and didn’t know or care about derivations. Now, we’d better discuss pay. It will be a tie for them, of course. This kind of service doesn’t come cheap.”

He was tempted to say that he supposed the family would leave him enough from the sale of the house at Wolvercote to pay for part-time hired help.

It had worked well, was still working well. Erik and Nigel were kind, efficient and reliable. He wondered now how he had ever managed without them. Erik was a plump, dandyish fifty-year-old with a mouth too pink and perfectly formed above a rough beard. Nigel was slight, very fair and the more vivacious of the two. They worked always together, Erik doing the cooking, Nigel, his acolyte, preparing the vegetables, washing-up and providing vocal admiration. When they were in the flat he could hear from the kitchen their constant antiphonal voices: Erik’s slower bass, Nigel’s high enthusiastic treble. The sound was agreeably companionable, and when they were on holiday he missed that happy bird-like chatter. The kitchen had become their domain; even its smell was unfamiliar and exotic. He entered it as a stranger, wary of using his own pans and utensils in case he should mar their perfection, examining with curiosity the labels on the extraordinary variety of bottles and jars which Erik found necessary for his “good simple cooking”: extra-virgin olive oil, sun-dried tomatoes, soy sauce. He would sniff half-guiltily the herbs in their pots set out in a row on the window-sill.

The food was beautifully served with a formality which complemented the quality of the meal. It was always Erik who brought in the supper, Nigel watching anxiously from the door as if to ensure the proper recognition of its perfection. Tonight Erik, putting down the plate, announced that he was to eat calves’ liver and bacon with mashed potatoes, spinach and peas, the liver cut very thin and seared rather than cooked, just as he liked it. It was one of his favourite meals; he wondered how he would manage to eat it. He spoke the usual words: “Thank you, Erik, that looks excellent.”

Erik permitted himself a brief, self-congratulatory smile, Nigel beamed. But something more must be said. Obviously they hadn’t yet heard the news of the murder, but it would break tomorrow. It would look strange, suspicious even, if he came home and said nothing. But when he spoke, just as Erik had reached the door, he realized that, despite the careful nonchalance in his voice, he had said the wrong thing.

“Erik, can you remember what time I got home yesterday?”

It was Nigel who answered. “You were late, Mr. Langton. Three-quarters of an hour. We were a bit surprised that you hadn’t telephoned. Don’t you remember? You said you went for a walk after you left Chambers. It didn’t matter, because Erik never begins cooking the vegetables until you’re drinking your sherry.”

Erik said quietly: “You got home just after seven-thirty, Mr. Langton.”

Something more had to be said. When the news broke about the murder his question would be remembered, pondered over, its significance recognized. He reached for the bottle of claret, but realized in time that his hand wasn’t steady. Instead he spread his napkin over his knees and kept his eyes on the plate. His voice was calm. Too calm?

“It may be of some importance. I’m afraid something very dreadful has happened. This morning, one of my colleagues, Venetia Aldridge, was found dead in Chambers. The police aren’t sure yet how or when she died. There’ll have to be an autopsy, but there is a strong possibility — almost a certainty — that she was murdered. If that is proved, then all of us in Chambers will have to account for our movements. A matter of police routine, nothing more. I wanted to be sure that my recollection was accurate.”

He made himself look up at them. Erik’s face was an impassive mask. It was Nigel who reacted.

“Miss Aldridge? You mean the lawyer who got off those IRA terrorists?”

“She defended three men accused of terrorism, certainly.”

“Murder. But that’s terrible! How ghastly for you. You didn’t find the body, did you, Mr. Langton?”

“No, no. I’ve just explained. The body was discovered early in the morning, before I arrived.” He added, “The Temple gates aren’t closed until eight o’clock at night. Someone obviously got in.”

“But the door to Chambers wouldn’t be open, would it, Mr. Langton? It must have been someone with a key. Or perhaps Miss Aldridge let her murderer in. It could have been someone she knew.”

This was awful. He said repressively: “I don’t think it’s helpful to speculate. As I said, the police haven’t confirmed exactly how she died. It’s a suspicious death. That’s really all we know. But the police may ring or send someone to ask you what time I got home yesterday. If they do, obviously you must tell the truth.”

Nigel opened his eyes very wide. He said: “Oh Mr. Langton, I don’t think it’s ever a good idea to tell the police the truth.”

“It’s a much worse idea to tell them a lie.”

His voice must have been more impressive than he had intended. They left him without another word. Five minutes later they came briefly into the dining-room to say good-night and he heard the front door closing. He waited a few minutes to be safe, then took his plate and flushed the remainder of the meal down the lavatory. He cleared the table and left the dirty plates in the sink for Erik and Nigel to deal with next morning, rinsing them first to avoid overnight smells. It occurred to him, as it did every night, that he might as well finish the job, but this was not part of the domestic agreement drawn up by Helen.

Now he sat in the silence of his over-tidy drawing-room beside the “living-flame” gas fire which looked so realistic, gave so comforting a sense that someone had actually laid the kindling, carried the coals, and let the deadening weight of anxiety and self-disgust settle on his mind.

He found himself thinking of his wife. His marriage had endured, and if it had brought him no heart-healing joy, it had given him little keen unhappiness. Each had sympathized with rather than understood or shared the other’s deepest concerns. The children and her garden had occupied most of Marigold’s energy and in neither had he taken much interest. But now that she was dead, he mourned and missed her more than he would have thought possible. No adored wife could have bequeathed such a desolation of regret. Such a loss, he reasoned, might paradoxically have been easier to accept; death would have been seen as a rounding off, something achieved, some thing distinctively human, a perfection of loving which left no regrets, no hopes unfulfilled, no unfinished business. Now all his life seemed unfinished business. The horror, the abomination of that blood-bloated wig now seemed a grotesque but not unfitting comment on a career which had begun so full of promise but which, like a stream with too feeble a spring, had spent itself with a sad inevitability among the sandy shallows of unrealized ambition.

He saw the rest of his life with horrible clarity, that long future of humiliating dependence and inexorable senility. His mind, which he had thought was the best, the most dependable part of him, was turning traitor. And now, in his Chambers, there was this murder, bloody, obscene, with its overtones of madness and revenge, to demonstrate how fragile was that elegant, complicated bridge of order and reason which the law had constructed down the centuries over the abyss of social and psychological chaos. And somehow he, Hubert Langton, had to deal with it. He was Head of Chambers. It was he who must co-operate with the police, protect Chambers from the worst intrusions of publicity, steady the nerves of the frightened, find appropriate words to say to those who grieved or pretended to grieve. Horror, shock, disgust, astonishment, regret: those were the emotions common enough after the murder of a colleague. But grief? Who would feel genuine pain for the death of Venetia Aldridge? What was he feeling now but a fear close to terror? He had left Chambers just after six o’clock. Simon, leaving at the same time, had seen him. That was what he had told Dalgliesh when the police had interviewed each member of Chambers separately. He should have been home by six-forty-five at the latest. Where had he been during those missing forty-five minutes? Was this total loss of memory just the most recent symptom of whatever it was that afflicted him? Or had he seen something — worse still, done something — so terrible that his mind refused to accept its reality?

T
he Rawlstones lived in a stuccoed Italianate house on the eastern fringes of Pimlico. With its large portico, gleaming paintwork and brass lion’s-head knocker polished almost to whiteness, the house gave an impression of stolid affluence just short of ostentation.

The door was opened by a young woman, formally dressed in a calf-length black skirt, high-buttoned blouse and cardigan. She could, thought Kate, have been a secretary, housekeeper, parliamentary researcher or general factotum. She received them with brisk efficiency but without smiling, and said in a voice which managed to convey a hint of disapproval: “Mr. Rawlstone is expecting you. Will you come up, please?”

The hall was wide, sparsely but impressively furnished, masculine, the only pictures a series of prints of historic London which covered both the hall and the staircase walls. But the first-floor drawing-room into which they were shown could have belonged to a different house. It was a conventional room, the dominant colour a soft greeny blue. The looped curtains framing the two tall windows, the linen covers of sofa and chairs, the small elegant tables, the richness of the rugs against the pale wood of the floor, all spoke of comfortable wealth. The oil over the fireplace was of an Edwardian mother, her arms round her two daughters, the sentimentality of the subject vindicated by the skill of the painter. Another wall held a series of water-colours, a third a miscellany of pictures, skilfully arranged but giving evidence of a personal taste indulged without much thought of artistic merit. There were Victorian religious scenes embroidered in silk, small portraits in oval frames, silhouettes and an illuminated address which Kate had to resist the temptation to go over and read. But the crowded wall saved the drawing room from being too obviously a model of conventional good taste and gave it an individuality which was attractive because it was not self-conscious. One of the tables held a collection of small silver objects and the other a group of delicate porcelain figures. In the corner was a grand piano, the top covered with a silken shawl. There were flowers: smaller arrangements on the low tables and a large vase of uncut glass holding lilies on the piano. Their scent was pungent but, in this domestic ambience, not funereal.

Kate said: “How does he do this on an MP’s salary?”

Dalgliesh was standing in front of the window, apparently in thought, and taking little interest in the details of the room. He said quietly: “He doesn’t. His wife has money.”

The door opened and Mark Rawlstone came in. Kate’s first thought was that he looked smaller and less handsome than on the television. He had the strong clean-cut features to which the camera is kind, perhaps, too, the egotism which can psych itself up for a performance, producing an aura of confident glamour which, in the flesh, loses substance and vitality. She thought that he was wary but not particularly worried. He shook hands with Dalgliesh, briefly and without a smile, giving the impression, intentionally, Kate felt, that his thoughts were elsewhere. Dalgliesh introduced her, but all she received was a brief nod of acknowledgement.

Rawlstone said: “I’m sorry I’ve kept you waiting. I didn’t expect to find you in here. My wife’s drawing-room isn’t really an appropriate place for the sort of conversation that we’re likely to have.”

It was the tone rather than the words which Kate found offensive.

Dalgliesh said: “We have no wish to contaminate any part of the house. Perhaps you would prefer to come to my office at the Yard?”

Rawlstone had too much sense to compound his mistake. He flushed slightly and gave a rueful smile. It made him look both more boyish and a little more vulnerable, and went some way in explaining his attractiveness to women. Kate wondered how often he used it.