Original Sin (36 page)

For four years he had lived a double life so successfully that he was never suspected by the Germans nor denounced as a collaborator by his fellow résistants. His deep distrust of the Maquis had been reinforced when in 1943 his wife had been killed in a train blown up by one of the more active groups. He had ended the war as a hero, not as well known as Alphonse Rosier, Serge Fischer or Henri Martin, but his name could be found in the index of books on the Vichy Resistance. He had earned his medals and his peace.

Less than two hours after leaving London Dalgliesh had turned off the A12 south-east to Maldon, then east through flat unexciting countryside, and had entered the attractive village of Bradwell-on-Sea with its square-towered church and pink, white and ochre clapboard cottages, the doorways hung with baskets of late chrysanthemums. He marked down the King’s Head as a possible place for lunch. A narrow road was signposted to the chapel of St. Peter-on-the-Wall and soon it came into view, a distant high rectangular building standing against the sky. It looked now as it had when he had first been brought there by his father as a ten-year-old, as simply and crudely proportioned as a child’s doll’s house. There was a rough footpath leading to the chapel separated from the road by a fixed wooden
barrier, but the track to Othona House a few hundred yards to the right was open. A signpost, the wood beginning to split and the words almost indecipherable, bore the painted name of the house, and that and the distant sight of the roof and chimneys confirmed that the lane was the only access. Dalgliesh reflected that Etienne could hardly have devised a more effective deterrent to visitors and for a moment he wondered whether to walk the half-mile rather than risk his suspension. Glancing at his watch he saw that it was 10.25. He would arrive precisely on time.

The track to Othona House was deeply rutted, the potholes still holding water from the previous night’s rain. It was bounded on one side by ploughed fields stretching as far as the eye could see, hedgeless and with no sign of habitation. On the left was a wide ditch bordered by a tangle of blackberry bushes heavy with berries, and beyond them a broken row of gnarled trunks thickly leached with ivy. On both sides of the path the tall dry grasses, already weighted with seed pods, stirred fitfully in the breeze. Under his careful handling the Jaguar lurched and shuddered and he was beginning to regret not parking in the entrance to the land when the track became less potholed, the crevasses less deep, and he was able to accelerate for the last hundred yards.

The house, bounded by a high curved wall in brick which looked comparatively modern, was still invisible except for the roof and chimneys, and it was apparent that the entrance faced the sea. He drove round to the right and saw the place clearly for the first time.

It was a small, agreeably proportioned house in mellowed red brick, the façade almost certainly Queen Anne. The central bay was capped with a Dutch parapet, its curve echoing that of the elegant portico of the front door. On either side
stretched identical wings with their eight-paned windows under a stone cornice, decorated with carved scallop shells. These were the only indication that the house had been built on the coast but it still seemed oddly out of place, its dignified symmetry and mellow calm more appropriate to a cathedral close than to this bleak and isolated headland. There was no immediate access to the sea. Between the breaking waves and Othona House stretched a hundred yards or so of salt marsh, crossed by innumerable small streams, a sodden and treacherous carpet of soft blues, greens and greys with patches of acid green in which the pools of seawater gleamed as if the marshland had been set with jewels. He could hear the sea, but on this calm day, with only a light wind rustling the reeds, it came to him as gently as a soft expiring sigh.

He rang the bell and heard its muffled peal within the house, but it was over a minute before his ears caught the shuffle of approaching footsteps. There was a rasp of a drawn bolt and he heard the key turn before, slowly, the door was opened.

The woman who stood regarding him with blank incuriosity was old—probably, he thought, nearer eighty than seventy—but there was nothing frail about her full-fleshed solidity. She was wearing a black dress, high-buttoned to the throat and fastened with an onyx brooch surrounded with dull seed pearls. Her legs bulged above black laced boots and her breasts were carried high, shapeless as a bolster over a voluminous white starched apron. Her face was broad, the colour of suet, the cheekbones sharp ridges under the creased, suspicious eyes. Before he could speak, she said: “Vous êtes le Commandant Dalgliesh?”

“Oui Madame, je viens voir Monsieur Etienne, s’il vous plaît.”

“Suivez-moi.”

Her pronunciation of his name was so bizarre that at first he couldn’t recognize it, but her voice was strong and deep,
and with a note of confident authority. She might be a servant at Othona House but she was not servile. She stood aside to let him enter and he waited while she closed and secured the door. The bolt above her head was heavy, the key large and old-fashioned, and she had some difficulty in turning it. The veins on her age-blanched and speckled hands stood out like purple cords and the strong work-worn fingers were gnarled.

She led him down a panelled hall to a room at the rear of the house. Pressing her back against the open door as if he were infectious, she announced “Le Commandant Dalgliesh,” then closed the door firmly as if anxious to dissociate herself from this unwanted guest.

The room was surprisingly light after the darkness of the hall. Two tall windows, multi-paned and fitted with shutters, looked out over a treeless garden dissected with stone paths and apparently given over to vegetables and herbs. The only colour was from late geraniums planted in the large terracotta pots which lined the main path. The room was obviously both a library and a sitting room. Three walls were fitted with bookshelves to a height comfortable to reach, with prints and maps ranged above them. There was a drum table in the middle of the room, its top laden with books. To the left was a stone fireplace with a simple but elegant overmantel. A small fire of wood crackled in the basket-grate.

Jean-Philippe Etienne was sitting in a high buttoned green leather chair to the right of the fire, but made no move until Dalgliesh had almost reached it, when he got to his feet and held out his hand. Dalgliesh felt for no more than two seconds the clasp of the cold flesh. Time, he thought, can reduce all individuality to stereotype. It can soften and plump the ageing features into bland childishness, or strip them to the bone and
muscle so that mortality already stares out from the shrivelled eyes. It seemed to him that he could see the outline of every bone, the twitch of every muscle in Etienne’s face. His spare figure was still upright, although he walked stiffly, and his dapper elegance held no hint of decrepitude. The grey hair was sparse, brushed back from a high forehead, the jutting nose was long above a wide, almost lipless mouth, the large ears lay flat against the skull and the veins under the high cheekbones looked as if they were about to bleed. He was wearing a velvet jacket with frogged fastening, reminiscent of a Victorian smoking jacket, above black tightly fitting trousers. Just so might a nineteenth-century landowner have risen stiffly to greet a guest, but this guest, Dalgliesh at once knew, was as little welcome in this elegant library as he had been on arrival.

Etienne motioned him to the chair opposite his own and seated himself, then he said: “Claudia handed me your letter, but please spare me any renewal of your condolences. They can hardly be sincere. You did not know my son.”

Dalgliesh said: “It isn’t necessary to know a man to feel regret that he should die too young and needlessly.”

“You are, of course, right. The death of the young is always embittered by the injustice of mortality, the young go, the old live on. You will take something? Wine? Coffee?”

“Coffee, please, sir.”

Etienne walked into the passage, closing the door behind him. Dalgliesh could hear him call out, he thought in French. There was an embroidered bell rope to the right of the fireplace, but apparently Etienne did not choose to use it in his relationship with his household. Returning to his chair, he said: “It was necessary for you to come, I realize that. But there is nothing I can say to help you. I have no idea why my son died, unless it was, as seems most likely, by accident.”

Dalgliesh said: “There are a number of oddities about his death which suggest that it could have been deliberate. I know that this must be painful for you and I’m sorry.”

“What are those oddities?”

“The fact that he died of carbon monoxide poisoning in a room he rarely visited. A broken window cord which could have snapped when it was tugged so that the window couldn’t be opened. A missing tape recorder. A removable tap on the gas fire which could have been removed after the fire was lit. The position of the body.”

Etienne said: “Nothing you have told me is new. My daughter was here yesterday. The evidence is surely entirely circumstantial. Were there any prints on the gas tap?”

“Only a smudge. The surface is too small for anything useful.”

Etienne said: “Even taken together these suppositions are less—odd was the word you used?—than the suggestion that Gerard was murdered. Oddities are not evidence. I am ignoring the matter of the snake. I know that there is a malicious prankster at Innocent House. His or her activities scarcely warrant the attention of a Commander of New Scotland Yard.”

“They do, sir, if they complicate, or obscure, or are connected with a murder.”

There were footsteps in the passage. Etienne went at once to the door and opened it for the housekeeper. She came in with a tray bearing a cafetière, a brown jug, sugar and one large cup. She placed the tray on the table and, after a glance at Etienne, immediately left the room. Etienne poured the coffee and brought it over to Dalgliesh. It was apparent that he himself was not to drink, and Dalgliesh wondered if this was a not-very-subtle ploy to put him at a disadvantage. There was no small table by his chair so he placed the coffee cup on the hearth.

Returning to his chair, Etienne said: “If my son was murdered I want his murderer brought to justice, inadequate as that justice may be. It is not perhaps necessary that I say this, but it is important that I do say it and that you believe me. If you find me unhelpful it is because I have no help to give.”

“Your son had no enemies?”

“I know of none. No doubt he had professional rivals, discontented authors, colleagues who disliked, resented, or were envious of him. That is common for any successful man. I know of no one who would wish to destroy him.”

“Is there anything in his past, or yours? Some old or imagined wrong or injustice that could have caused long-standing resentment?”

Etienne paused before replying, and Dalgliesh was aware for the first time of the silence of the room. Suddenly the wood fire crackled with a small explosion of flame and a shower of sparks fell onto the hearth. Etienne looked into the fire. He said: “Resentment? The enemies of France were once my enemies and I fought them in the only way I could. Those who suffered may have sons, grandsons. It seems to me ludicrous to imagine they are exacting a vicarious revenge. And then there are my own people, the families of Frenchmen who were shot as hostages because of the activity of the Resistance. Some would say they had a legitimate grievance, but surely, not against my son. I suggest you concentrate your attention on the present not the past and on those people who normally had access to Innocent House. That would seem the obvious line of enquiry.”

Dalgliesh picked up his coffee cup. The coffee, black as he wanted, was still too hot to drink. He replaced it on the hearth and said: “Miss Etienne has told us that your son visited you regularly. Did you discuss the firm?”

“We discussed nothing. He apparently felt the need to keep me informed of what was happening, but he asked for no advice and I offered none. I have no longer any interest in the firm and I had little for the last five years I worked there. Gerard wanted to sell Innocent House and move to Docklands. There is, I think, no secret about that. He saw it as necessary, and no doubt it was. No doubt it still is. I have a confused memory of our conversations; there was talk of money, acquisitions, staff changes, leases, a possible purchaser for Innocent House. I’m sorry my memory is not more precise.”

“But your years with the firm were not unhappy?”

The question, Dalgliesh saw, was regarded as an impertinence. He had ventured on forbidden ground. Etienne said: “Neither happy nor unhappy. I made a contribution although, as I say, in the last five years it was an increasingly unimportant one. I doubt whether any other job would have suited me better. Henry Peverell and I went on too long. The last time I visited Innocent House was to help scatter Peverell’s ashes in the Thames. I shall not return again.”

Dalgliesh said: “Your son planned a number of changes, some, no doubt, unwelcome.”

“All change is unwelcome. I am glad to have placed myself beyond its reach. Some of us who dislike aspects of the modern world are fortunate. We need no longer live in it.”

Looking across at him while he at last sipped his coffee, Dalgliesh saw that the man was as tense in his chair as if about to spring from it. He realized that Etienne was a true recluse. Human company, except that of the few people with whom he lived, was intolerable to him for more than a brief span and he was nearing the end of his endurance. It was time to go; nothing else would be learned.

Moments later, as Etienne was accompanying him to the
front door, a courtesy which Dalgliesh hadn’t expected, he commented on the age and architecture of the house. It was the only thing he had said which stimulated his host to an interested response.

“The façade is Queen Anne, as I expect you know, but the interior is largely Tudor. The original house on this site was much earlier. Like the chapel, it is built on the walls of the old Roman settlement of Othona, hence the name of the house.”