A Death of Distinction (24 page)

‘A young man came to the house yesterday looking for Flora,' she began again, looking at the carpet as she spoke, and so missed the quick glance which passed between Abigail and Mayo. ‘She wasn't in, so I spoke to him myself. It seems that he works at the County Hospital, where Flora was looked after. He met her there – and apparently he'd been pestering her ever since to go out with him, despite the fact that she'd told him she doesn't want to see him again, that she's engaged to be married. I wasn't aware that this was happening ... I'd never met the young man before ... but, I immediately recognized him. Even before he gave his name ...'

‘You recognized him?'

Her large, pale hands, bare but for her wedding band, were clasped so tightly together that the knuckles were white. Her feet, similarly long and elegant, were pressed closely together. ‘He's the image of his mother – his mother as she used to be, as I remember her.'

‘Who was this, Mrs Lilburne?'

She stirred her coffee but made no move to drink it. ‘Her name was Daventry – Marie-Laure Daventry. He was her son, Marc.'

She looked directly at Mayo, evidently expecting to read recognition in his face, but he gave no sign that the name meant anything to him.

‘Don't you recall the Daventry case, sixteen years ago?' she asked. ‘The Frenchwoman who killed her husband with a carving knife?'

‘I know which one you're talking about.'

He'd been sure, from the beginning, with that copper's instinct for spotting evasions, that Dorothea Lilburne had known, or suspected, more about her husband's murder than she'd been prepared to say, but there'd been no way of forcing her to tell what she knew; it had taken the shock of finding Marc Daventry on her doorstep to make her admit at last what he devoutly hoped would now be the truth. It was taking an unconscionable time to get at it.

‘Mrs Lilburne, let's get this straight. You say you believe this old tragedy has something to do with your husband's death. You must have your reasons for saying that. Tell me what your connections with Charles Daventry and his wife were?'

‘They were simply acquaintances, nothing more, as far as I was concerned. I scarcely knew them. It was Jack who had the connections. With her, at least – with Mrs Daventry.' Her eyes, as she spoke, were on Abigail, not him. He nodded, willing enough to let Abigail take it, if Dorothea felt happier responding to her. ‘You understand what I'm saying?'

‘They were having an affair?' Abigail's voice was gentle.

Dorothea gave a dry little cough that was probably meant to mean yes, reached out and sipped the now cold coffee, grimaced and put it down with distaste. Waved away Abigail's offer to pour fresh and sat rigidly upright. It was hard for her to admit betrayal, but she was going to do it courageously, with as little loss of face as possible.

Mrs Lilburne's secret wasn't the astonishing revelation to them, by now, that she must have thought it would be, after having stayed undisclosed all these years. But how had Lilburne, Mayo wondered, not always as circumspect about his affairs as he might have been, managed to keep his liaison with Daventry's wife from emerging at her trial? By virtue of the others, possibly – in that it had been thought just another affair when they'd been seen together, with nobody curious enough to wonder who she was. Yet Dorothea had known ...

‘It wasn't something that came out during the inquiry, Mrs Lilburne,' he remarked.

‘No, I'll give her that. She had the sense to keep quiet about it – but there was no reason why she
should
implicate him, was there? After all, she was the one who'd killed her husband. Jack had nothing to do with it.'

Abigail said bluntly, ‘This young man you say has been pestering your daughter – this Marc Daventry – do you have any reason to believe he's your husband's child?'

‘
What?
Oh, heavens, no, there's no question of that! The child was two or three years old when they came to live in the district – before she and Jack ever knew one another.'

‘Then what makes you think he could have anything to do with your husband's murder? If he's implicated in any way, wouldn't he be likely to keep away from your daughter?'

‘I'd have thought so, yes, that's what I can't understand, but he struck me as being a very strange young man – oh, he was polite enough, but there was something – well, not quite right about him. One never knows what that sort will do.'

‘Even to planting a bomb? Thinking your husband morally, if not actually, responsible for his father's murder? Is that what you're saying?'

Dorothea looked thoughtful. ‘You could be right. No, I hadn't thought of that.'

Not true, Mayo thought. She'd worked that one out, all right, but she hadn't wanted the suggestion to come from her.

‘I could be overreacting,' she admitted, ‘though I'm not easily alarmed, and there was something about him that made me nervous.'

‘Mrs Lilburne, where was your husband the night Charles Daventry was killed?' Mayo asked suddenly.

She stiffened. ‘He was here, with me, all night.'

‘All night? No emergency at the Young Offenders' Institution, or anything like that?'

‘Nothing like that,' she said, looking him straight in the eye.

He sighed gently.

‘Are you suggesting, Mr Mayo, that
he
murdered Charles Daventry? That's preposterous! Jack, sticking a knife into someone? Never! He was
for
life, not against it – no one more so.'

She surprised him, then. After taking a deep breath, she said in a rush, ‘If anyone was to blame, I was.'

No one spoke. She looked frightened. A plane droned across the sky. He wondered if she'd meant to say that, and then realized this was why she'd sent for him, why she'd wanted Flora out of the way. But –

‘Well, there you are,' she said in a tired voice.

‘That's not all, though, is it?'

After a moment, she shook her head. ‘No. She killed her husband, of course. But not simply because of a quarrel over money. Whatever her reasons were for saying that, I've no idea, but it wasn't true. She killed Charles Daventry because he found out about her affair with Jack.'

‘How can you know that?' Abigail asked.

‘For the best reason I can think of. I told him myself.'

Her back stiff, she looked at nobody as she added, ‘I cannot imagine now what made me do something so – so vulgar. Jack had had affairs before, but none that lasted. I'd valued my marriage enough to ignore them. But this was different... it had gone on too long, it had to be stopped before it got too serious.'

‘How did you find out?'

‘What? Oh, one knows. We'd met them socially, and when I saw them together ... a woman knows these things ...' Doubtless that was partly true, Mayo thought, if her suspicions had been alerted in the first place, but it was too simplistic to be wholly convincing. In the circumstances, he decided to let it pass, until the next time he questioned her. It wasn't the only thing she'd been lying about.

So this was Marie-Laure, the woman who had killed her husband, sitting on the other side of the interview room. There could hardly have been a greater contrast with Dorothea Lilburne, the woman he'd just left.

Dark, slender; brown eyes in a pale face, a wide Gallic mouth. Not the face or demeanour of a murderess, but if criminals wore their guilt or their malevolence on their features, he and a lot more people would pretty soon be out of a job. She had, apparently, been very upset when told the news of Avril Kitchin's death – though she'd reportedly shed no tears – but she'd seemingly recovered and now appeared self-controlled and determined to say as little as possible.

Prison had taught her when to be silent, when words might incriminate. Living in the convent, where unnecessary speech would no doubt be discouraged, had possibly, though in a different way, reinforced this lesson. But while silence in a nun might be admirable, the refusal of the woman in front of him to communicate in anything more than a few words was irritating.

‘Mrs Nicoud – do you prefer to be known as that, or Mrs Daventry?'

‘Daventry is still my legal name.'

‘Mrs Daventry, then. When did you last see Miss Kitchin?'

‘When I moved out, and into my own flat, about three weeks ago.'

‘Three weeks? That's a long time, to say you'd previously been living together.' She shrugged. ‘Did you by any chance have a disagreement – was that why you left? Failing, incidentally, to report your new address? You're in trouble there, you know that?'

‘It didn't occur to me. Perhaps I forgot. I was very preoccupied. It was always understood I would leave, as soon as I found somewhere of my own. Her place was too small for two people to live comfortably.'

‘Didn't she help you to move in?” Abigail asked. ‘Or even come to see your new flat, to see how you were settled?'

‘She would have done, in time.'

He let her take a drink of water. ‘What brought her to live in Lavenstock after she was released? She wasn't from these pans.'

‘She knew I would return here, eventually. We were friends. She didn't have many.'

‘You didn't appear to have much in common, if I may say so.'

‘She was a strong woman – she helped me to survive in prison – she gave me confidence.'

He was wondering what made her think she lacked confidence, for he certainly didn't think so, unless they had different perceptions of the meaning of the word, when Abigail asked, suddenly, ‘Do you still have the set of keys to her flat she gave you when you lived with her?'

‘Keys?' She looked blank. ‘Oh, yes, as a matter of fact, I have.'

Abigail held her hand out and after a moment when it looked as though she might be about to refuse, Marie-Laure produced from her handbag two Yale-type keys on a ring with an enamel tag. ‘I had forgotten about them.' She surrendered them reluctantly, watching warily as they were slipped into a plastic bag and tagged.

‘Why did you go to the convent yesterday?' Mayo asked abruptly.

She studied the lion and the unicorn stamped on the copy of PACE which hung on the wall, as if every detail had to be committed to memory. ‘I had something personal I wished to discuss with the Reverend Mother.'

‘As personal as confessing to her that you'd killed Avril Kitchin?'

‘I have told you, I had nothing to do with Avril's death.' Her words were low and dispassionate, there was still nothing in her manner to show that she was upset, or grieved for her friend. Which didn't mean that she didn't feel anything, of course, only that she held her emotions on a very tight rein indeed.

He asked her the same question he'd asked her son, interested to see whether her reaction would be the same as his. ‘You haven't asked how she was killed.'

‘If you want me to know, no doubt you will tell me.'

‘Perhaps you already know that she was stabbed with a knitting needle. Pierced through the heart with it.'

The announcement provoked no other reaction than a slight flicker in her eyes, a tightening of her mouth. ‘I did not know.'

‘All right.' Mayo leaned back in his chair. ‘Never mind that, for the moment. Let's talk about something else. You must have heard about the bomb at the Conyhall Young Offenders' Institution, and Mr Jack Lilburne, who was killed?'

‘I read about it in the newspaper, yes.'

‘Did you have any hand in that killing?'

She stared at him. ‘I did not.'

‘Do you know who did?'

He hadn't expected an affirmative, though it was a valid question. Both women had been inside for a long time – they could have made contacts, they knew the score. And he'd sensed fear, smelled it, when Lilburne's name was mentioned ...

This time, he'd at least provoked a reaction. ‘You insult me,' she said. ‘I committed a grave sin once. Am I to be under suspicion for the rest of my life, for every murder that is committed in this town?'

‘But you were acquainted with Mr Lilburne, weren't you, before you went into prison?'

The tape machine whirred. She was so long answering he thought she was again taking refuge in silence.

‘Come on, now, we know you were. That he was meeting you on a regular basis, that he stayed with someone on several occasions at the Gravely Arms near Chipping Campden, and we have witnesses who can prove it was you. We also believe you recently wrote him a letter, suggesting a meeting. Can you confirm this?'

She still didn't reply.

‘Mrs Daventry,' he reminded her, ‘we can if necessary compare the handwriting on that letter with yours. Did you write to him because you wished to resume your relationship with him?'

‘No. Not at all. You're quite wrong!' She stared down at her hands, clasped together on her lap, then raised her eyes to his face, eyes that were clear and luminous. ‘Very well. I did write to him, but not for those reasons. When I went to prison, he made arrangements for my son to be adopted, and during this time – and afterwards – he kept me informed of Marc's progress ...'

‘Why? Why did he agree to do all this?' When she merely shrugged, he went on, ‘I suggest it was in return for keeping his name out of it. For not revealing at the trial the real reason you and your husband quarrelled?'

He thought she was going to deny it, then she sighed. ‘Charles had found out about us, I don't know how – he was threatening divorce, to take the child from me, to make a scandal for Jack ... in the end, it was too much ... I was telling nothing but the truth at my trial when I said my life with my husband had been a misery. I killed him, I have never denied it. But nothing would have been gained if I had made my affair with Jack public.'

Naming him at the original inquiry wouldn't have saved her, that was true. Might have put her in a worse light, and would have ruined more lives, Dorothea's and Flora's, not to mention blighting Lilburne's career. On the other hand, she might have received more sympathy from the jury than simply knifing her husband in cold blood had earned her. He watched her hand tighten round the little ivory crucifix. Could they believe her? She was a clever woman, she could be a very convincing liar. He could, very easily indeed, imagine her wielding a knife – or a knitting needle – and killing someone. Yet ...