A Coat of Varnish (19 page)

He seemed to be conducting a sombre research, Humphrey thought, surveying how far liberal opinions had carried. He wasn’t reassured. Most of them said they were against him. Paul Mason, who had been so silent, put in an independent crossbench voice: he would eliminate terrorists and wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep.

‘Make martyrs of them, would you?’ Tom Thirkill protested.

‘They’d be less nuisance as martyrs than if they were alive. You can’t try to rescue martyrs,’ Paul said coolly.

Kate was the first and only person to say that she was on Alec Luria’s side. She said it with warmth and her whole heart. From across the table, Monty Lefroy, with the air of one delivering the final judgment, said that he was not at one with his dear wife. ‘I believe in the direction of time’s arrow,’ he said, letting his voice roll round. ‘And it’s gone in the direction of preserving individual life.’

‘Has it now?’ Luria, not protracting that exchange, turned his gaze, quizzical, eyes shining in their brown depths, on to Kate’s neighbour, Dr Perryman. But before Perryman could give his answer his wife intervened.

‘I’m against you, Professor,’ she said, bright, compassionate, composed. ‘My reason, though, would be different from what I’ve heard just now. It’s religious. I do believe, you see, that everyone has a chance of redemption. Crimes are horrible, of course. But anyone can repent and be granted grace. If you execute them, you may be taking away that chance. Whatever anyone has done, they ought to have the opportunity to make their soul.’

That was the longest speech, from an unexpected quarter. Luria was prepared for most kinds of argument, but not for that special kind of Christian idiom. Dr Perryman helped him out, though he was speaking, as he had once done to Humphrey, as though he was off on an absent-minded fugue.

‘I think, I think that I come down with Alice. But I can’t pretend I believe as she does. It might be a comfort to believe, but it’s no use pretending unless you’re right there. I can’t help coming down to earth. Are we always certain that we’re executing the right man? I don’t know about you, but I don’t like the faintest possibility of a mistake. I can’t face that…’

Shortly afterwards, guests began to get up from the table. Disquiet might have been sharpened by that conversation. There hadn’t been much drunk after dinner, though Humphrey noticed that Kate, who had a healthy appetite for spirits, had taken a second glass of brandy. They didn’t return to the drawing-room and the party was breaking up early.

Humphrey wanted to speak to Kate, but as he approached she was once more listening raptly to Dr Perryman who, when they got into Eaton Square, walked beside her towards her home.

Next morning, quite early, Humphrey heard Kate’s voice, strong, affectionate, over the telephone. Perryman needed some advice, she said, that’s why he had been talking to her last night. He was hoping that Kate and Humphrey could go round to his house some evening that week. She was doing what Humphrey had done himself in a precarious love affair – was it a love affair? Or just a skirmishing, not yet committed? She was using a card of re-entry, just a mundane excuse, to get them back into whatever relation they had, in which neither of them dared to disturb the peace of the moment.

In the morning Kate had told Humphrey that Dr Perryman was asking for advice. It took only a few hours before Humphrey had an intimation of what might be the trouble. Frank Briers rang up, friendly, energetic, surgent. ‘Come round sometime. If you’re not too busy. Quite a small matter, nothing to speak of, but you might be more in the picture than I am. Anyway, I’d like you to see our set-up now we’ve got things organised.’

Was it such a treat to see someone else’s office simmering with activity? Inside the Murder Room, for the first moments Humphrey felt alien, curiously shy, as though he, not used to self-consciousness, had suddenly become afflicted. Briers had his jacket off, shirt-sleeves neatly rolled up, strong forearm muscles catching the eye, thick wrists. There was now a battery of telephones standing on his desk. One was scrambled, and he was listening to a call. Round the walls were maps of south-west London, circles and arrows marked out in red.

Superintendent Bale came in decorous and sensible as before.

‘He seems a good chap,’ Humphrey said, as Bale took care to leave them alone.

‘So he is.’ Briers was smiling cheerfully. He leant back in his chair and swept a hand round, displaying the room. ‘Well, this is a bit more like it, isn’t it? We really are in business now.’ Then he gave a hard, debunking grin.

‘Not that we’ve got much change out of it.’

‘Haven’t you?’

‘Did you expect us to?’ Briers’ question was light, casual, as if it were social; but his glance was sharp, as though he wasn’t being as casual as he sounded. Humphrey said: ‘It’s your game, not mine. I imagined it would take some time.’

‘It might be taking too much time.’ He grinned again. ‘Look here, I’ll tell you what we’ve done.’ Humphrey thought Briers was behaving exactly like a business tycoon in a negotiation. Presumably he would come to the point some time – if there was a point, which as before Humphrey didn’t doubt. But, still, ceremonies must be properly performed.

From time to time more policemen entered, questions, brisk friendly instructions, those of a man on terms with his subordinates, then back to the exposition. His lads (that was a generic term which included women) had, within fifteen days, been inside seven hundred and fifty-seven houses. That was the score up to the previous night. There were perhaps as many more visits to be made. Some houses they had called on more than once. They had foraged in the local dives and pubs. They had talked to all the villains they had information about, and had identified a number more. ‘We’re picking out more of the criminal population of SW1 and SW3 than we have done for years. It may be useful sometime. It may not be so useful to them. But it’s small stuff, it’s chicken feed.’

Humphrey didn’t believe for an instant that Briers was showing his chief concern. Still, it was part of the job.

Briers was neither tired nor deflated. Another interruption from Bale. Humphrey had ceased to feel an alien. If you had lived any kind of active life, there was a satisfaction in watching people immersed in their job, whatever it was. It was one of the comforts, minor but a comfort, against chaos, absurdity, the cold. Humphrey had kept his curiosity. It would have been interesting to go along with some of those policemen and see how the enquiries went. Questionnaires, so far as he could make out: accounts of movements hour by hour; testimonies by relatives, women, checks on what the testimony was worth. No corners turned, a mass scrutiny, anonymous, a collective action. Individuals didn’t prevail against the apparatus. There were too many people. The crowd was too large. Society was nameless – and yet, out of those molecular enquiries, sometimes there could emerge one singular name.

‘I must say,’ Humphrey remarked, ‘you’re being pretty thorough.’

‘What do you take us for?’

Humphrey was smiling. ‘My old firm never had your resources. We couldn’t have mounted a search like this.’

With Briers, professional pride was strong, but so was realism. ‘Sometimes we get nowhere,’ he said. ‘The routine doesn’t always cope.’

‘I’d like to follow just one day’s work with some of your lads.’

Briers’ answer came straight but decisive.

‘Too dangerous, Humphrey. If they were chasing anything like a competent villain, and we took him in sometime, and he had one of those damned bent lawyers, also competent, then they’d be on to you. A regular outsider. They’d find out what you used to do. They’d call you a spy. We couldn’t face it.’

Humphrey nodded.

‘But you’re welcome to see some specimens from the file,’ Briers offered. ‘Questions, answers. It’d teach you something. It’s what surprised me most when I went into the force. How inarticulate about ninety per cent of our fellow-citizens are. Not just when they’re frightened, that’s understandable. But when they’re prattling away.’ Then Briers said: ‘By the by, that doctor, Dr Perryman, he’s not inarticulate, is he? Do you know much about him?’

At last: this was the lead-in for which Humphrey had been waiting, but less ominous. This was a neutral topic.

Humphrey gave a neutral opinion. Perryman’s patients praised him, he said. He kept up to date, was conscientious and had good judgment. As far as Humphrey’s own feeling went, he thought the man was intelligent, but didn’t find him sympathetic. As he spoke, Humphrey was aware that a resentment of his own was filtering in – Humphrey had often felt that Kate gave the doctor too much attention.

Briers looked acquiescent. He said there was some information from Perryman’s old hospital. One of their brightest students. They couldn’t understand why he had gone into general practice.

Humphrey said: ‘What’s all this in aid of?’

‘Nothing important. It doesn’t signify. It’s a bit of an oddity, that’s all. But it’s not sensible to pass over the oddities, in our trade. You know the old lady kept wads of notes in the house. Paid her bills with them, almost every penny she spent, which weren’t very many. You were right about that, she was as close as they come. She also kept the number of every note she had. Neat and tidy in her notebook. The notes in the house when she was killed – we have all the numbers. Coutts, that was her bank. Not one of those notes in the house that night has turned up. We’ve dug into every shop in the Metropolitan area. No go. But two tenners which she drew out a year ago, they have turned up. The numbers were in her little notebook for 1975, with a tick, which meant she’d paid a bill with them. Then they’ve been used to pay another bill. Perfectly naturally, in the normal way of business. By Dr Perryman. To a newspaper shop in the Pimlico Road. He’s bought his papers there for years. They know him well. He often pays in notes.’

‘He’s not the only professional character who does.’

‘That fits. I didn’t want to leave a loose end, so I had him in. Rather lost, he was, but quite candid. Yes, she always paid him in notes. It didn’t go through his books. He was escaping tax, naturally. He said what you’ve just said, he wasn’t the only private doctor to like being paid in notes. He gave the old lady a thirty per cent discount on his normal fees. They seem to have thought that it was very nice and convenient for them both, doing each other a good turn.’ Briers went on: ‘It was a good interview. He’s not a nobody. He came clean. Do you think it makes sense?’

Briers seemed to think it did make sense. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been so forthcoming. About some of Humphrey’s acquaintances he would have kept more back.

Humphrey’s smile was sarcastic, not amused. He said: ‘I used to think the majority of people were fairly honest about money. Now I sometimes think that no one is. To talk to, Perryman is a high-minded man. Yes, I expect he genuinely is. And one would have thought old Lady Ashbrook might be as hard as nails, but she was an honourable soul. Yes, I expect she genuinely was. And it wouldn’t worry them to get cheerfully together on a ridiculous wangle like that. Everyone’s gone mad about money. Oh, yes, I agree with you, it makes sense.’

Briers was gratified and, with one of his bursts of ceremony, thanked Humphrey for sparing so much time. Then, a good deal less ceremonious, he began talking, with much internal amusement, about the sexual predicament of one of his officers. Policemen were not saints: women officers were available, young, and some of them willing. One of the chaps was in a mess, said Briers: he had walked into an affair, and the girl was hearty and wouldn’t let go. There were plenty of hazards waiting for a detective. This was the latest one.

This was more like Briers’ conversation when he was younger. He wouldn’t tell Humphrey who the policeman was, nor why Briers himself was excessively amused.

Two days later, after Kate had looked after her husband’s dinner, she and Humphrey walked to the Perrymans’ house. This was in Bloomfield Terrace, technically in Pimlico. Pimlico was the district immediately south of Belgravia and the biggest of the nineteenth-century developments, but the one which had never enticed enough of the well-to-do. Young women about to be married were sternly advised by Victorian dowagers: never let him take you south of Eccleston Square. In cool fact, the houses in Bloomfield Terrace were indistinguishable from those next door to Humphrey’s.

Humphrey and Kate were walking slowly, enjoying having no one round them. The evening was sultry and, though they had had those weeks of such weather, they were enjoying that, too. Kate said: ‘I haven’t been out at night for months. This is nice.’

That wasn’t accurate, in strictly factual terms. She had been out to Tom Thirkill’s, less than a week before. In other terms, it might have had a different accuracy, and Humphrey took it so. They were walking arm in arm through a dark street, past St Barnabas’ Church.

‘So it is. Shall I take you out to dinner soon?’

‘Just ask me.’

She enquired, what was he going to say to Perryman? What kind of advice did Perryman want, Humphrey said. Perhaps about how to deal with the police? He had already told Kate what he had learned from Briers.

‘Quite trivial, for serious purposes,’ said Humphrey. ‘But unless you’re used to police methods it’s likely to worry you.’

She frowned. ‘He’s been stupid, hasn’t he? Ralph Perryman.’

‘Fairly stupid.’

‘You know, I should have thought he was above all that.’

‘It’s not so rare.’

‘It ought to be.’

Humphrey smiled at her affectionately. ‘You wouldn’t do it yourself?’

‘Nor would you.’

Was he as honest as she was, Humphrey was wondering. About money, probably. About anything else? He would have trusted her word, when anything depended upon it. There had been times when he wouldn’t have trusted his own.

Upstairs in the Perryman drawing-room, the doctor’s wife was more at ease than he was. She sat, face unclouded, beside the standard lamp, mouth comfortably upturned in a calm smile, giving out complete self-confidence that she was able to understand and soothe. While Dr Perryman, authority deserting him, was fussing round a table, on which stood an array of bottles. What would Kate and Humphrey care to drink? No whisky, no gin, no brandy, the standard London spirits, Humphrey was observing. There was strega, slivova, rum. More bottles. Campari, cordials, juices, vermouths. Perryman would be glad to make them an old-fashioned cocktail which was a little unusual. Humphrey had no taste for fancy drinks, and, while the others weren’t watching, Kate gave him a mocking wink.