Ruling Passion (33 page)

'The old lady made it for me,' he said defensively.

'You bring out the mother in us all,' said Pascoe.  'Is he still in there?'

He jerked his head at the porcelain room. Ferguson nodded.

'Good. In here please, Mr Davenant.'

'Do you ever get a feeling of
deja vu?'
asked  Davenant as he entered the study once more. 'As  the bishop said in the strip-club.'

'Let's cut the comics,' said Pascoe, closing the  door. 'And you can drop the queer act too.'

'Don't you love me any more?' asked Davenant advancing coyly, hips wiggling, arms stretched out  appealingly.

Pascoe poked him in the stomach, not hard, but hard enough to double him up and send him  crashing into a chair.

'Jesus Christ!' gasped Davenant, holding his  arms across his waist. 'So it really happens! The  rubber truncheon bit. I never believed it.'

'I'm glad we had you fooled. Are you sitting comfortably? Then let's begin.'

'What the hell do you want?' asked Davenant, eyeing the door speculatively. Pascoe was interested to note that his accent and style of speech  had changed completely. The long drawn vowels and rising rhythms were gone. What remained was flat, almost monotonous, with a touch of the  north in it.

'How long have you been a fence?' asked Pascoe, ready for denial and wondering what he would do  when it came.

'About ten years. Six on a regular basis. I started shortly after I accepted my first bribe for mentioning  someone's stinking restaurant in a piece I was  doing. You must have noticed how one thing leads  to another crime.'

'You're being very frank,' said Pascoe, slightly  taken aback.

'Look, sonny, you're a frightening man. I reckon you've flipped just a bit because of this business.  But not so much that you'd beat me up in front of  witnesses. I don't like being beaten up
anywhere,
so  I'll talk to you. But like your beatings, not in front  of witnesses.'

'How old are you?' asked Pascoe.

'Forty-three.'

'You look younger.'

'Thank you kindly,' said Davenant, relapsing  momentarily into his old manner. 'It's marvellous what fiction and false hair will do for you. Truth  is dead.'

But now as Pascoe looked at him he no longer saw the fashionable ageless swinger, cynical and sophisticated, but a middle-aged man dressed up  for a costume-party he no longer wants to attend,  with lines of worry running from the eyes and the  mouth to complement the deeper furrows of age  on the brow.

A frightened man. Pascoe knew from observation  how easy it was for a frightened man to kill. Just  as he knew from experience how easy it was for an  angry policeman to strike. He clenched his fists in  his jacket pockets and tried to keep his voice calm  as he asked, 'Why did you kill them?'

'For God's sake!' said Davenant. 'What a stupid  question!'

'You mean the answer's obvious!'

'No! Yes. Yes, it's obvious. I didn't. I've told you  the truth. I was there. I went on business; you  don't like that, do you? I left at seven. I went  to Culpepper's. When I left there I went straight  back to Oxford.'

'You're a liar,' said Pascoe, taking a step forward.

Davenant leapt up in fear, his chair shot backwards  and overturned. The door opened and Ferguson's  head appeared.

'You all right, sir?'

'Yes. Listen, Davenant, you think you've got  an alibi, don't you? Well, we'll see about that. Nobody's said a thing yet that supports your story.  I don't think they are going to. Ferguson, stay here and watch him. Don't be taken in by the whipped  poodle expression. The beast is dangerous.'

He turned and left the study, the fury in him burning high now. Culpepper was the key. Without his supporting story, Davenant was done. The  group in the lounge seemed to be still in session,  which was good. He was better with Backhouse out of the way.

In the porcelain room Culpepper stood between the two huge pseudo-Chinese vases with his back  to the door. Lights were on in all the display niches  and the pieces of his collection tranquilly radiated  their cold beauty.

'Why not sell them?' asked Pascoe. 'That would  tide you over for a bit.'

'What? Oh, Mr Pascoe. Yes, I suppose it would,  I suppose it would.'

The words expressed agreement but the tone was  the kind used when agreeing with an importunate  child.

'What were you going to do with the money  Pelman brought?'

'That? But you know that already. It was for  Davenant.'

This was better than he could have hoped for. He  thought of stepping out and fetching Backhouse, but was afraid of breaking the atmosphere.

'He was blackmailing you.'

'In a way.'

'Because some of your collection had come  through him?'

'In a way.'

'What else did he want from you?'

'I'm sorry?'

'Did he ask you to do anything else? Was he really here that Friday night?'

'Oh yes, he was here.'

'And what time did he leave?'

'I forget.'

'Come on, Mr Culpepper! He says he was here till after ten. What do you say? Is that true?'

'Oh no. He definitely left before half past eight.'

Pascoe let out a long sigh of relief. His hunch had been right. Culpepper was in no mood at the  moment to play alibis. He might be sorry later, but  later would be too late.

'Thank you, Mr Culpepper,' he said, turning  away. Behind him was old Mrs Culpepper.

'You going?' she said.

'Yes. We won't bother you much longer.'

'Oh aye.' She shook her head, whether in negation or to clear it was not certain.

'Hold on a moment,' she said, stepping into  the room.

Pascoe watched, impatient to get back to Davenant to present Backhouse with his killer, to go home. Slowly the old woman moved forward and stood  behind her son.

'Yes, Mother,' he said.

'The clever policeman’s going, Hartley. Don't  you want to talk to him?'

She said nothing more but stood in silence looking at her son's unyielding back. Then she did  something amazing. She turned and threw all her  old weight at one of the Chinese vases. Pascoe leapt forward to catch it as it toppled off its plinth but he was too late.

It hit the ground and exploded into green and  blue and white shards. Something lay among them  like a gift in a child's chocolate Easter egg.

A shotgun.

Pascoe moved fast, but the old woman was in  the way and the shotgun was in Culpepper's hands  before he could get by her.

'I'm sorry, son,' said the old woman. 'I waited  long enough, too long perhaps. You should have  told him yourself.'

Pascoe's mind was spinning. There was no room  for fear there, or at least only for the fear that he  might never hear the truth.

'Why?' he cried. 'But why?'

'Your friend was going to tell everybody,' said Culpepper, his face twisted in a plea for understanding. 'He had no right. You understand that?  And I didn't realize that everybody knew already.  But I never meant . . . but I never meant..’

In the lounge they heard the almost simultaneous double blasts of the shotgun. For a second  no one moved. Then they poured into the hallway  and gazed with varying degrees of incomprehension at the scene before them.

Pascoe, old Mrs Culpepper and her son were  standing in the porcelain room looking at the damage the double blast from the gun which still  smoked in Hartley's hands had wreaked on his collection.

Some of the pieces were still untouched. Now Culpepper stepped forward and smashed these with the gun barrel. Satisfied at last, he dropped  the weapon and came out into the hall where he stood and gazed unemotionally at his wife who  was sobbing rhythmically in Sam Dixon's arms.

Dixon? wondered Pascoe, surprised at nothing  now.

The study door opened and Davenant and  Ferguson stepped out.

Davenant looked into the porcelain room and  shook his head at the shambles. Then he turned  to Pascoe.

'Pity,' he said. 'I hoped he'd blown your bloody  head off.'

Chapter 11

Statement of Antony Neville Dick made at  Thornton Lacey Police Station, Oxfordshire,  in the presence of Detective Superintendent  D. S. Backhouse.

I am a free-lance feature writer, working  under the name of Anton Davenant. The  nature of my work has brought me in close contact with many people connected with  art and antiquities and I have from time to  time acted as an agent for dealers. At no time  have I had reason to suspect that any dealer I  worked for did not have full title to the goods  I handled.

'Can he get away with this?' asked Pascoe,  almost in admiration.

'We can only hope you do a better job of work in  Yorkshire than you've managed down here,' said  Backhouse.

On Friday September 17th at about seven  p.m. I called at Brookside Cottage, Thornton Lacey. My purpose was partly social as I knew the owners, Mr and Mrs Colin Hopkins,  and partly business. Mr Timothy Mansfield, a  house-guest, had brought with him a figurine  which I had agreed to pick up from him and  show to a local collector, Mr Hartley Culpepper.

'Is there anything other than Davenant's assertion  to tie Timmy in with this business?' asked Pascoe. 

'Circumstantial stuff only.' 

'But you believe it?' 

'It seems probable, that's all.'

 'And the others?'

'Customers, perhaps. A couple of things went  missing from the cottage at the time of the fire. I suspect Davenant picked them up just to get any  evidence out of harm's way.' 

'He started the fire?'

'Left a gas tap on, I believe. Eventually the pilot  light ignited it. But it's all beyond proof.'

I had dealt with Mr Culpepper before. Indeed  he owed me almost four thousand pounds  from a previous business deal, so I was naturally concerned when his name was  mentioned in connection with the book Mr Hopkins was working on. Its theme was  poverty in the affluent society and it was concerned not so much with breadline poverty as with credit living, conspicuous waste, executive unemployment, that kind of thing. Mr  Hopkins had gained access to information  from one of the big executive employment  agencies and had noticed the name of his new neighbour there. He was intrigued to find  that Culpepper was still maintaining the pretence that he was employed by the Nordrill  Company and he had hopes of ultimately getting the man's co-operation in using his experience as material for the book, though  no approach had yet been made.

Shortly after seven-thirty I left Brookside Cottage and called at the Culpepper's house.  He expressed an interest in the figurine but  said he had not sufficient cash on hand to pay  for it and asked me to add it to the price of  his previous debt. In view of the information I had just received, I refused and told him  why. He denied it at first, then became very  angry and demanded to know how I had  found out. I told him about Hopkins's book  and suggested it might be worth his while  financially to co-operate with Hopkins, and  even offered to act as his agent should he  decide to dispose of his porcelain collection. At this he became so incensed that I left and  returned to Oxford.

'And that is all we are going to get out of Master  Davenant, I fear,' said Backhouse.

'And Culpepper?'

'A long and rambling statement swinging between self-justification and recrimination. I don't think  you'd care to read it.'

'No.'

'It's pretty clear what happened. He went down  to Brookside to protest to Hopkins. Mrs Hopkins  had just gone off to the pub. He and Hopkins had  a row in the dining-room. Your friend was quite drunk, of course, and perhaps did not realize just what this business meant to Culpepper.'

'What did it mean?' asked Pascoe.

'It meant the shattering of a self-image as well as a public one,' said Backhouse slowly. 'He came from a poor background, you know. Achieving the  position he had done was his life's work. More. His  life perhaps. Suddenly Hopkins must have seemed  the focus of everything that threatened him. He  picked up the nearest suitable object, which happened to be the shotgun your friend had borrowed  from Pelman, and struck him on the head with it. Half unconscious, Hopkins staggered through the  french window into the garden. The other two now came through the lounge to investigate. He  brought the gun up and pressed both triggers.  At that range you don't have to be any kind of  gunman.'

'And Colin?'

'Hears the gun and sets off down the garden into the stream bed, follows the flow of water. He's on  the point of collapse, remember. Culpepper's only made more furious by what he's done. Hopkins 
made
him do it - that's the way he's thinking. There's a box of cartridges on the sideboard. He  reloads it, sets out after Hopkins. Unfortunately, Mrs Hopkins arrives home at this point and comes  round the back of the house to re-enter through the  french window. Nothing is going to stop Culpepper now. He shoots her down without a thought and  goes after Hopkins. He catches up with him by the  culvert.'

'Oh God.'

'And that's that. As some kind of rationality  returns, he sets about tidying things up. He goes back to the cottage and unearths your friend's  notes for his book. These he must destroy. Then he comes across the jottings from the poem and  sees how these might just sound like a suicide note.  So he sets it all up. He's lucky. No interruption and  later it rains so heavily that all traces of Hopkin's  passage up to the stream are obliterated. Back home. His wife is out - with Sam Dixon, of course -  and he's safe. Except that his mother sees him, and  then or later discovers the gun. Poor old woman.  She suspected something, but with Hopkins still  missing and apparently the killer, she persuaded  herself all was well. Later however . . . Not a good  way to end your life.'

'No,' said Pascoe. 'Davenant must have suspected?'

'He claims he believed like everyone else that  it was Hopkins. I believe he went back to the cottage to remove the dangerous pieces and also  got hold of the notes for the book. He was worried in case anyone coming across the reference  to Culpepper might stir things up and he wasn't  very keen on Culpepper in his present frame  of mind having any pressure put on him. Pure  self-interest, of course. He tried to set fire to the  cottage in case the manuscript was still there  somewhere, and he searched your bedroom just  in case you'd got hold of it as Hopkins's friend.  But once again, this is pure speculation. Nothing  to show in court.'