A New Lease of Death (20 page)

Archery glanced out of the window towards the little wooden church. ‘Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest …’ he murmured.

‘That’s right,’ said the woman. ‘You never know, they may turn up, like the Dead Sea Scrolls.’

Archery paid five and sixpence for the picture of the shepherd and the lamb and strolled up towards the church. He opened the kissing gate and, walking in a clockwise direction, made for the door. What was it she had said? ‘You must never go widdershins around a church. It’s unlucky.’ He needed luck for Charles and for himself. The irony was that however things fell out, one of them would lose.

There was no music coming from the church, but as the door opened he saw that some sort of service was in progress. For a moment he stood, looking at the people and listening to the words.

‘If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not?’

It was a funeral. They were almost exactly half way through the service for the burial of the dead.

‘Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die …’

The door gave a slight whine as he closed it. Now, as he turned, he could see the funeral cars, three of them, outside the other gate. He went to look again at Grace’s grave, passed the newly dug trench where this latest coffin was to be laid, and finally sat down on a wooden seat in a shady corner. It was a quarter to twelve. Give it half an hour, he thought, and then he would have to go for his bus. Presently he dozed.

The sound of gentle footfalls awakened him. He opened his eyes and saw that they were carrying the coffin out of the church. It was supported by four bearers, but it was a small coffin, a child’s perhaps or a short woman’s. On it were a few bunches of flowers and a huge wreath of Madonna lilies.

The bearers were followed by a dozen people, the procession being headed by a man and a woman walking side by side. Their backs were towards Archery and besides that the woman, dressed in a black coat, wore a large black hat whose brim curved about her face. But he would have known her anywhere. He would have known her if he were blind and deaf, by her presence and her essence. They could not see him, had no idea they were watched, these mourners who had come to bury Alice Flower.

The other followers were mostly old, friends of Alice’s perhaps, and one woman looked as if she must be the matron of the Infirmary. They gathered at the graveside and the vicar began to speak the words that would finally commit the old servant to
the
ground. Primero bent down and, taking rather fastidiously a handful of black earth, cast it on to the coffin. His shoulders shook and a little hand in a black glove reached out and rested on his arm. Archery felt a savage stab of jealousy that took away his breath.

The vicar spoke the Collect and blessed them. Then Primero went a little way apart with him, they spoke together and shook hands. He took his wife’s arm and they walked slowly towards the gate where the cars were. It was all over.

When they were out of sight Archery got up and approached the gradually filling grave. He could smell the lilies five yards off. A card was attached to them and on it someone had written simply: ‘From Mr and Mrs Roger, with love.’

‘Good day,’ he said to the sexton.

‘Good day, sir. Lovely day.’

It was gone a quarter past twelve. Archery hurried towards the kissing gate, wondering how often the buses ran. As he came out from under the arch of trees, he stopped suddenly. Charles was striding towards him up the sandy lane.

‘Good thing you didn’t come,’ Charles called. ‘The place was shut for redecorating. Can you beat it? We thought we might as well drift back and pick you up.’

‘Where’s the car?’

‘Round the other side of the church.’

They would be gone by now. Just the same Archery wished he were safely back at The Olive and Dove eating cold beef and salad. As they rounded the yew hedge a black car passed them. He forced himself to
look
towards the gate. The Primeros were still there, talking to the matron. His throat grew suddenly dry.

‘Let’s cut across the green,’ he said urgently.

‘Mr Kershaw happens to be waiting on this side.’

They were now only a few yards from the Primeros. The matron shook hands and stepped into a hired limousine. Primero turned and his eyes met those of Charles.

He grew first white, then a curious vinegary purple. Charles went on walking towards him and then Primero too began to move. They were approaching each other menacingly, ridiculously, like two gunmen in a Western.

‘Mr Bowman, of the
Sunday Planet
, I believe?’

Charles stopped and said coolly. ‘You can believe what you like.’

She had been talking to the women in the car. Now she withdrew her head and the car began to move off. They were alone, the four of them, in the centre of the fifth prettiest village in England. She looked at Archery first with embarrassment, then with a warmth that conquered her awkwardness.

‘Why, hallo, I …’

Primero snatched at her arm. ‘Recognize him? I shall need you for a witness, Imogen.’

Charles glared. ‘You what?’

‘Charles!’ said Archery sharply.

‘Do you deny that you made your way into my home under false pretences?’

‘Roger, Roger …’ She was still smiling, but her
smile
had grown stiff. ‘Don’t you remember we met Mr Archery at the dance? This is his son. He’s a journalist, but he uses a pseudonym, that’s all. They’re here on holiday.’

Charles said rigidly, ‘I’m afraid that isn’t quite true, Mrs Primero.’ She blinked, her lashes fluttering like wings, and her gaze came to rest softly on Archery’s face. ‘My father and I came here with the express purpose of collecting certain information. That we have done. In order to do it we had to make our way into your confidence. Perhaps we have been unscrupulous, but we thought the end justified the means.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t understand.’ Her eyes were still on Archery and he was unable to draw his own away. He knew that his face registered a tremendous plea for forgiveness, a disclaimer of Charles’s statement, and also registered the agony of love. There was, however, no reason why she should read there anything but guilt. ‘I don’t understand at all. What information?’

‘I’ll tell you …’ Charles began, but Primero interrupted him.

‘Since you’re so frank, you won’t have any objection to coming down to the police station right now and laying your “information” before Chief Inspector Wexford.’

‘None at all,’ Charles drawled, ‘except that it happens to be my lunchtime and in any case I have an appointment with the Chief Inspector already. At two sharp. I intend to tell him, Mr Primero, just how opportunely for you your grandmother died,
how
– oh, perfectly legally, I admit – you managed to cheat your sisters out of their inheritance, and how you concealed yourself in Victor’s Piece on a certain evening in September sixteen years ago.’

‘You’re out of your mind!’ Primero shouted.

Archery found his voice. ‘That’s enough, Charles.’ He heard her speak, a tiny disembodied sound.

‘It isn’t true!’ And then, terribly afraid. ‘It isn’t true, is it?’

‘I’m damned if I’ll argue it out in the street with this crook!’

‘Of course it’s true.’

‘It was all above board.’ Primero suddenly broke. They were all hot, standing there in the noon sun, but only Primero’s face showed actual sweat, water drops on the cheesy sallow skin. ‘Hell, it was a matter of law,’ he blustered. ‘What’s it got to do with you, anyway? Who
are
you?’

Without taking her gaze from Archery, she took her husband’s arm. All the gaiety had left her face and she looked almost old, a faded blonde who was effaced by her black clothes. Because she had become ugly she suddenly seemed for the first time within Archery’s reach, yet she had never been farther from it. ‘Let’s go home, Roger.’ Her mouth trembled and cobweb lines had appeared at its corners. ‘In the course of your enquiries, Mr Archery,’ she said, ‘I hope you managed to combine pleasure with business.’

Then they were gone. Charles gave a great gasp.

‘I must say I rather enjoyed that. I suppose by
pleasure
she meant the lunch they gave me. You can rely on these tycoons’ wives to tot up every egg in the caviare. Still it was hard on her. You needn’t look so shattered, Father. It’s awfully middle-class to have a phobia about scenes.’

13

I deal with the thing that is lawful and right … and all false ways I utterly abhor.

Psalm 119, appointed for the 26th Day

‘PUBLIC GENERAL ACTS
and Measures, 1950.’ Wexford took the book – was it a White Paper? Archery was ashamed to confess that he did not know – and read the title aloud. ‘There’s something here you want me to look at?’

Charles found the page for him. ‘Here.’ Wexford began to read. The silence was tense, almost agonized. Archery looked surreptitiously at the others, Charles who was flushed with eagerness, Kershaw trying to sit casually, but whose bright darting eyes betrayed his anxiety, Tess who looked confident, serene. Was it her mother in whom she trusted so completely or was it Charles? A good deal of Charles’s poise had deserted him when, on entering the office five minutes before, he had to
introduce
Tess to the Chief Inspector.

‘Miss Kershaw,’ he had said, ‘my … the girl I’m going to marry. I …’

‘Ah, yes.’ Wexford had been very urbane. ‘Good afternoon, Miss Kershaw, Mr Kershaw. Won’t you sit down? Heat-wave’s coming to an end at last, I’m afraid.’

And indeed a change had come over the bright blue un-English sky. It had begun just after lunch with the appearance of a cloud that was truly no bigger than a man’s hand, and this cloud had been followed by more, driven by a sudden wind. Now, as Wexford, frowning a little, read steadily, Archery contemplated the window from which the yellow blind had been fully raised, and through it the lumpy blotchy mass of cumulus, hollowed and pock-marked with grey.

‘Very interesting,’ said Wexford, ‘and new to me. I didn’t know the Primero sisters were adopted. Convenient for Primero.’

‘Convenient?’ said Charles. Archery sighed within himself. He could always tell when his son was going to be rude or what Charles himself called forthright. ‘Is that all you’ve got to say?’

‘No,’ said Wexford. Few people have the confidence and the restraint to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ without qualification. Wexford was big and heavy and ugly; his suit had seen better days, too many wet ones and too many hot dusty ones, but he radiated strength. ‘Before we go any further on this tack, Mr Archery,’ he said to Charles, ‘I’d like to say that I’ve had a complaint about you from Mr Primero.’

‘Oh, that.’

‘Yes, that. I’ve been aware for some days that your father had made the acquaintance of the Primeros. Perhaps it wasn’t a bad idea and I’m sure it wasn’t an unpleasant one to do so through Mrs Primero.’ Archery knew his face had become white. He felt sick. ‘And let me say in all fairness,’ Wexford went on, ‘that I told him it was all right as far as I was concerned to make contact with the people concerned in the Primero case.’ He glanced briefly at Tess who didn’t move. ‘Make contact, I said, not make trouble. Your little escapade on Friday is what I call making trouble and that I won’t have!’

Charles said sulkily, ‘All right, I’m sorry.’ Archery saw that he had to justify himself before Tess. ‘You’re not going to tell me that your people don’t occasionally invent a cover story to get what they want.’

‘My people,’ Wexford snapped, ‘happen to have the law on their side.’ He added grandiloquently, ‘They
are
the law.’ The frown thawed. ‘Now we’ve got the lecture over you’d better tell me just what you and your father have found out.’

Charles told him. Wexford listened patiently, but as the evidence against Primero mounted, instead of surprise, his face registered a strange blankness. The heavy features had become brutish, like those of an old bull.

‘Of course, you’ll say he had an alibi,’ said Charles. ‘I realize your people would have checked his alibi and after all these years it’s going to be difficult to crack, but …’

‘His alibi was not checked,’ said Wexford.

‘What did you say?’

‘His alibi was not checked.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Mr Archery …’ Wexford got up and rested his massive hands on the desk, but he didn’t move away from behind it. ‘I am quite happy to discuss this whole matter with you, answer any questions you may like to ask.’ He paused. ‘But not in the presence of Miss Kershaw. If I may say so, I think you were unwise to bring her with you.’

Now it was Charles’s turn to get to his feet.

‘Miss Kershaw is going to be my wife,’ he said hotly. ‘Anything you say to me you can say to her. I won’t have any secrets from her in this.’

Casually Wexford sat down again. He drew a bunch of papers from a desk drawer and began to study them. Then he lifted his eyes slowly and said: ‘I’m sorry this has been a fruitless interview for you. With a little co-operation I think I could have saved you a lot of useless enquiry. But, if you’ll forgive me, I’m a very busy man so I’ll say good afternoon.’

‘No,’ said Tess suddenly. ‘I’ll go. I’ll wait in the car.’

‘Tess!’

‘Of course I’m going, darling. Don’t you see? He can’t talk about my father in front of me. Oh, darling, be your age!’

He is being his age, thought Archery miserably. Wexford knew something – something that was going to be horrible. But why was he playing this pouncing cat and mouse game with them all, why had he played it with Archery all along? Confidence
and
strength – but did it cover a fierce inverted snobbism, a fear that the Archeries might shake his authority and trouble the still waters of his district? And yet the man held such sway and was, beyond a doubt, a good, just man. He would never lie or even shift truth to cover a lapse. ‘His alibi was not checked …’ If only they would stop fencing!

Then, suddenly, Wexford stopped it.

‘No need to leave the building, Miss Kershaw,’ he said. ‘If your – your father would care to take you upstairs – straight along the corridor and turn left when you come to the double doors – you’ll find we’ve got quite a reasonable canteen, even for a lady. I suggest a cup of strong tea and an eccles cake.’