The Age of Treachery (26 page)

“Yes,” said Forrester. “Just be careful which way you fire them in future. You could have caused an accident.”

“Alright, mister. Sorry,” said the boy, relieved the man was going to take it no further, and Forrester got on his bike again and rode the rest of the way to Alice Hayley’s lodgings. The landlady, when she opened the door, looked at him disapprovingly.

“I have a strict rule for my young ladies,” she said. “No gentlemen visitors.”

“I am a don at Barnard College,” said Forrester, “and I’m coming in response to a note from Miss Hayley.”

“I daresay you are,” said the landlady. “But that doesn’t make it right, does it?”

“Do you have a sitting room?” asked Forrester. “I’d be perfectly happy to talk to her there.” The landlady looked at him narrowly, as if weighing up what trouble he could get up to in the sitting room, and as Forrester smiled reassuringly at her, clearly decided
Not much, I suppose
, sniffed, and went upstairs to fetch her boarder.

A minute later she came down. “She’s not in,” she said, with some satisfaction. Forrester was about to depart when it occurred to him to ask if the landlady had seen Alice Hayley leave.

“No, I didn’t, as a matter of fact.”

For no reason he understood Forrester began to feel uneasy. “I imagine you keep a fairly close eye on comings and goings here,” he said carefully.

“Naturally I do,” said the landlady.

“So I wonder how Miss Hayley slipped away without you seeing her?”

“I really can’t say,” said the landlady. “I can’t be responsible for everything these young women do,” and Forrester suddenly realised why he was uneasy. The faintest, the very faintest of olfactory sensations. “What’s that smell?”

They both stood there for a moment, and then the landlady was running back up the stairs with Forrester close behind her.

“She tried this before,” she said. “She promised she’d never do it again!”

The door was bolted on the inside but Forrester aimed a massive kick at the handle and it sprang open. Inside, Alice Hayley was kneeling by her unlit gas fire, like a worshipper at a shrine, and the room was thick with fumes. “Oh my God,” said the landlady.

“Call an ambulance,” said Forrester, choking on the gas, and as the landlady retreated downstairs he took a deep breath, rushed into the room, grabbed Alice Hayley and pulled her away, half dragging, half carrying her towards the door. Her face was blue, her eyes rolled up in her head. Lifting her in his arms he staggered down the stairs, through the front door and out into the freezing evening air as curtains were pulled aside and doors opened in the neighbouring houses, letting shafts of yellow light out onto the trodden snow.

“What’s happened?” said a man in carpet slippers, the evening paper still in his hand.

“Looks as if one of them girls tried to kill herself,” said a woman in curlers.

“Oh, one of them,” said a man in a singlet.

Forrester looked from one spectator to another, and wanted to knock the lot of them back to their frowsty little lives, but as the red tide of anger welled up in him, he felt a movement against his forearm, where it was hard against Alice Hayley’s diaphragm.

A spasm.

Without thinking he grabbed a handful of snow and slathered it over her face, and as the shock of the cold hit her she drew in a torn, ragged breath, and suddenly she was retching, and the spectators were stepping back as she vomited into the snow.

And then the ambulance was coming, and the ambulance men were taking her off his hands, and in the distance he could hear the clanging of the police bells. Before they could get there Forrester darted up the stairs and back into Alice Hayley’s grim little room, turned off the gas tap on the fire, flung up the window and stood there, gulping in fresh evening air, before he looked at her desk.

On which lay the note. A beat, and then he picked it up.

To Whom it May Concern,

I, Alice Hayley, wish to confess to the murder of Dr. David Lyall on 13th January this year. He had been my lover; he left me for Margaret Clark. I stabbed him in a jealous rage. I know it was wrong, and that I must atone. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry for what I did, and I hope you will forgive me.

Alice Hayley

Forrester gasped. He had been on the wrong track all along. It had not been Dorfmann, or anyone he had sent who had killed David Lyall. It had had nothing to do with Norse manuscripts, or wartime treachery.

Or Gordon Clark.

Suddenly he was exuberant, as if a current of air had caught him and wafted him upwards out of the void. His friend was innocent! Gordon was going to be released – and Forrester was going to be able to fulfil his promise to him. He was still holding the note when Barber came into the room.

“Well,” he said. “What an interesting surprise.”

Forrester stared at him.

“Normally I wouldn’t come out for something like this,” said Barber, “but I happened to be finishing up some paperwork when the call came in. And of course I recognised the young lady’s name.” A beat. “What’s
your
excuse, Dr. Forrester?”

“Miss Hayley sent me a note, asking me to come.”

“Is that the note?”

“No, I’ve just found this, on her desk. It’s a confession.” And he offered it to the inspector.

Barber raised a hand to stop him, and gestured for Forrester to put the note back down on the desk. “There are rules for dealing with evidence, Dr. Forrester,” he said, “and you’ve just broken several of them. Which is why it’s best to leave detective work to the professionals.”

Only then did he step over to the desk and peer down at the note.

“Ah,” he said. “Interesting.”

“So Gordon Clark is innocent after all,” said Forrester.

Barber turned and regarded him steadily. “Provided it’s genuine.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean provided that Alice Hayley wrote it. Provided that she was the person who left it here.”

“You know she did!”

“All I know, Dr. Forrester, is that I came into the room and found you holding it.”

“Because I found it here!”

“So you say.”

“This is ridiculous! The landlady was with me when we broke into the room. If I hadn’t been here Alice Hayley might be dead.”

“May already be dead,” said Barber. “People have been known to die on the way to the hospital.”

“I don’t see what you’re getting at.”

“Well, look at it from my point of view, sir. You have been making valiant – not to say desperate – efforts to prove your friend’s innocence. Now a young lady, previously not a suspect, is found unconscious with her head over an unlit gas fire and a note beside her admitting to the crime – and there you are, in the room. How do I know you didn’t make her write the note and force her head over the gas yourself?”

Forrester gaped at him, hardly able to comprehend what he was being accused of, and then gathered his wits.

“Because five minutes ago I was outside the front door with the landlady,” he said, “asking her for permission to come in.”

“There is a window,” said Barber. “And I see it’s open.”

“I opened it to let air in.”

“Perhaps you did. Perhaps you opened it earlier to gain admittance to the room, attack Alice Hayley and plant your note before going back outside and knocking at the front door to speak to the landlady.”

“This is pure fantasy. I saved Alice Hayley’s life.”

“As I say, that remains to be seen. In the meantime, Dr. Forrester, I’d like you to return to your college and remain there until I have time to interview you again.”

“You are completely wrong about this,” said Forrester.

“So you have been telling me, sir,” said Barber, “since this whole affair began. But perhaps this time I am right.”

And he turned back to the note. As he did so, a burly constable appeared in the doorway. Forrester pushed past him and went out into the darkness.

Forrester was in a state of shock when he got back to his rooms. He had been within an ace of getting Gordon Clark out of prison, and by his very presence in Alice Hayley’s room, now risked destroying the very exoneration the girl had been trying to provide. Damnation! Then he tried to reassure himself: as soon as Alice Hayley could speak, she’d say he had nothing to do either with her trying to commit suicide, or writing the note. Things would be back on track.

But what if she didn’t regain consciousness? What if, as Barber had darkly hinted, she relapsed and died? Not only would Gordon remain in prison but he himself might well become a murder suspect.

And yet – what else could he have done?

Except, perhaps, read her first note straight away, and gone round to see her immediately, before any of this could have happened.

And then, he thought, if Sitwell hadn’t failed to turn up for his tutorial, he would not have gone round there at all, and Alice Hayley would be dead. And her note admitting her guilt found by someone else, and thus exactly the piece of evidence needed to save Gordon Clark.

Forrester swore softly. In the last twenty-four hours, ever since the college lights had gone out, everything had gone wrong. He and Harrison had made themselves look like fools, he had alienated the Master and utterly destroyed his credibility with Barber.

Damn, damn, damn!

He took off his coat and flung it on the sofa, and as he did so he saw the envelope that contained Alice Hayley’s first note, the one asking him to come and see her, lying where he had dropped it. He picked it up and was about to open it when there was a knock at the door and Harrison appeared.

Forrester looked at him without enthusiasm. “Hello, Harrison,” he said. Harrison took his ammunition bag off his shoulder, fished inside and brought out something shrouded in brown paper.

“I thought you might need this,” he said, and unwrapped a bottle of Chianti.

“I’m not sure I’m in the mood, old chap,” said Forrester.

“That’s why I thought you’d need it,” said Harrison implacably, taking out a corkscrew. Forrester watched expressionlessly as Harrison filled two glasses and pressed one of them into his hand.

To his surprise, the wine wasn’t actually too bad. In fact, as he rolled it around in his mouth, he felt as if he was tasting the warmth of the long-gone Italian summers.

“Here’s to better days,” said Harrison.

“Yes,” said Forrester, wryly. “There have to be some, at some point.”

And he told Harrison what had happened on Chalfont Road, and of Barber’s accusation when he had found him there.

“That man is the biggest fool on God’s earth,” said Harrison, and it did Forrester’s heart good to hear.

“Thank you for that,” he said. “I was beginning to think I might have done it.”

“No,” said Harrison, grinning. “Not your style. But tell me this, do you think the confession was genuine?”

“I have no idea,” said Forrester. “I’d just assumed it was.”

“Well Barber may be only half wrong,” said Harrison.

“What do you mean?” said Forrester.

“Well, you may not have faked the confession,” he said, “but somebody might have. For example, what about the handwriting? Was that the same as on the note you got?”

“I don’t know. Actually I was just about to have a look at it.” And he turned back to the envelope.

But when he opened the envelope again the letter was gone. “Perhaps I put it down,” he said. So he and Harrison searched the room, and all his pockets, but there was still no sign of it. “I might have dropped it,” said Forrester. “On the way to Chalfont Road or when I was carrying her down the stairs or something.”

“You
might
have,” said Harrison, “but consider this possibility: somebody came into your rooms today, took the note, and used it to imitate Alice Hayley’s handwriting when they concocted her confession.”

Forrester stared at him. “Are you serious?”

“Perfectly.”

“You’re saying somebody tried to murder her and make it look as if she’d committed suicide?”

“I’m saying it’s a possibility. After all, if you were the murderer of David Lyall and felt that the net was closing in on you, what better move than to have someone else confess to it and then conveniently kill themselves so they couldn’t retract their confession?”

“You’d have to be a pretty devious sort of bastard to come up with something like that.”

“Well, Dr. Forrester,” said Harrison mildly, refilling their glasses, “don’t all the facts suggest that we
are
dealing with a pretty devious bastard?”

“But why?” Forrester said at last. “If we assume that whoever murdered Lyall also tried to pin it on Alice Hayley – why did he do it?”

“Or she.”

“Yes, alright, or she. But what had they to gain? Gordon Clark is already in prison; the case against him is, as far as we know, as solid as ever. Why would the murderer want another suspect?” He noticed a change in Harrison’s expression. “Why are you looking like that?”

“That pronoun started me thinking,” said Harrison.

“She?”

“What other suspect might that apply to?”

“Well, the only other woman… no, that’s ridiculous. It was Margaret Clark who begged me to save Gordon.”

“If Alice Hayley had died and the note had been found by someone else, that
would
have saved Dr. Clark. And ensured nobody blamed his wife.”

Forrester looked at him narrowly.

“For killing Lyall?”

“Exactly.”

“What motive did Margaret Clark have to kill David Lyall?” asked Forrester – but he already knew the answer.

“Perhaps he was going to ditch her,” said Harrison.

“Do we have any evidence that was the case?”

“No, but it’s a possibility, isn’t it? You know what put it in my mind? Perhaps he’d got tired of Margaret Clark and wanted to move on. And I think it shouldn’t be too difficult to find out if she visited your rooms today.”

At which point the porter knocked on the door. “Telephone call for you, Dr. Forrester,” he said, with a dark look at Harrison. He had clearly not yet forgiven him for blacking out the college the night before.

“Who is it?” said Forrester.