She Died Young (32 page)

chapter
48

B
LACKSTONE TURNED OUT OF
the lift towards his front door. He must have forgotten to double-lock it, because it opened before he’d turned the second key, but he was too tired and preoccupied to worry about that. It was a relief to have had it from Jarrell that Camenzuli had finally told the truth. He had described Slater’s arrival with the frightened girl. He’d described how Slater took her upstairs and how from the sound of it he’d tried to terrify her into giving him the evidence that would convict her lover, Le Saux. Finally, he’d described how the two had struggled on the landing, how Slater had his hands round the girl’s neck and then how the girl’s broken body lay at the bottom of the stairs.

The television was on. Blackstone could hear it murmuring away. He must have left that on too. And the light in the lounge.

He made first for the kitchen where the whisky was kept. He was too exhausted to see Rita tonight. He poured himself a double and carried it towards the lounge.

A man rose from the sofa where he’d been waiting. He was tall, he was broad.

‘Good God. Slater! What the hell are you doing here?’

‘Whaddya think, me old darling? I’m waiting for you.’

chapter
49

M
CGOVERN RECEIVED A CALL
from Detective Sergeant Venables. ‘I just thought you ought to know,’ huffed Venables down the long-distance line. ‘The post-mortem wasn’t quite so clear cut. In fact, the inquest returned an open verdict. The Professor had a congestive heart condition. He took digitalis, or had in the past. There was an excess of digitalis in the body. He probably died from digitalis toxicity.’

Venables’ bald account was another indigestible fact to come to terms with. McGovern didn’t know what to make of it, but it preoccupied him as he took a cab to visit Sonia Mallory. A cab was justified in the pouring rain; and he was also in a hurry. Lily wanted him home early on this particular evening.

As he waited for the woman he’d known as Frieda he looked round the peach-coloured drawing room and it suddenly seemed stale and cheap. Yet in its cheapness he found a sadness in spite of himself. How human beings strove to make something of their lives and in such unpromising circumstances. Frieda had clawed her way out of East Berlin and out of post-war Germany and here she was today, doing her best to put a glossy sheen on her sordid occupation. Then he remembered how she’d exploited others – children – to save her own skin and her situation lost its poignancy.

She looked as calm as ever. She played the hostess, but he refused her offer of a drink.

‘This is a formal visit. I was sent to Oxford to monitor Professor Quinault’s activities. Now he’s dead, I wanted to tie up the loose ends.’

‘Of course.’ She was demurely dressed today in a white peter pan blouse and grey skirt.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were being blackmailed by the old man? That would have been helpful. After all, I knew all about your past, so what had you to lose?’

‘I didn’t know where it might lead. I couldn’t afford a court appearance. Mallory would have been annoyed. Bad publicity. I’d no idea where it might end. I preferred to keep quiet and pay. But it was becoming more and more difficult. One of my clients, an MP – a government minister, in fact – was having the same trouble. I got in touch with him. We met. He didn’t know about Germany, at least I thought he didn’t. I believe Quinault may have dropped some hints about my past, though. From something the MP said … but anyway, whatever my past might have been it didn’t bother him, because he was getting desperate. I had an idea as to how we might resolve it.’

‘What sort of idea was that?’

‘Well, I wanted to persuade him to go to the police. My name couldn’t be brought into it, but I thought he should call Quinault’s bluff. After all, he hadn’t done anything illegal. But he said that wasn’t possible. We tried to think of another way … in the end, though, nothing came of it. I didn’t see him again.’

‘You tried very hard to prevent us from finding out what happened to Valerie Jarvis. You were afraid your husband had killed her. Wasn’t that it?’

The room was so quiet. Little sound came from the outside world, veiled by the net curtains that shrouded the window. Had she felt safe here, relatively safe, at least, until Quinault had turned up and Valerie had died?

Sonia looked at her pale fingernails. She drew a cigarette from the packet on the glass table. ‘He was angry,’ she said in a low voice. ‘It wasn’t so much Valerie leaving in itself as her leaving with Le Saux. He couldn’t stand Archie. He knows the boy’s uncle from way back. They never got on. Old enemies, in fact, he told me. Mallory wanted him to do something about Archie. There were all these rumours flying around. Everyone
knew
it was Archie who’d done Tony Marx. I thought Mallory might have tried to get Valerie to go to the police – because she must have known – and he’d lost his temper and hit her and … it would have been an accident, but I was afraid. I don’t see Mallory often. We don’t discuss these things.’

These things! As if murder were an everyday occurrence. McGovern watched her and waited for her to continue. But she simply sat and smoked in silence and eventually he prompted her. ‘I know all about your past in Germany,’ he said. ‘You’ve no reason to lie to me. You may as well tell me everything that happened now that Archie’s been charged. We have his version of events. But he’s not the most reliable witness, especially against a police officer. You could be helpful to us if your story supports his.’

He could not imagine her giving evidence in court, but he had no alternative but to wait, bringing his silent, patient pressure to bear on her resolve, if resolve it was. She kept silent, so he tried again. ‘Why did you – how did you – persuade Camenzuli to say he pushed Valerie down the stairs?’

She didn’t look at him. She seldom looked at him.

‘That was a bit desperate.’

‘It worked, didn’t it? I rescued Maria – really. She wasn’t capable of carrying on the hotel on her own. I promised there’d be money. Her husband would probably get off anyway. People are so greedy. He fell for it. And, to tell you the truth, Maria was quite glad he was inside. And I helped her. I did pay her handsomely. So that she could go back to Malta. That was what she really wanted.’

Was this the truth? In preparation for this encounter McGovern had considered numerous angles. ‘She was also a liability,’ he countered. ‘You never knew what she might say next. Likewise Dr Swann. There are doubts he died of an overdose. Or committed suicide. It’s gone down as accidental death, but the case could always be reopened.’

‘Yes – I heard poor Dr Swann had passed away.’

‘Some drugs went missing from his flat.’

Sonia stood up and stalked over to the window. She lifted aside the net curtain and looked out for a moment. ‘He was always a rather soft touch for his regular clients.’

‘It seemed as if some morphine had gone. And other drugs – digitalis, for example. Not the sort of drug an addict would be looking for.’

She continued to look out of the window.

‘Professor Quinault probably died from an excess of digitalis.’

Sonia sat down opposite him again. ‘I hope you’re not trying to blame me for Professor Quinault’s heart condition.’

‘You knew he had a heart condition?’

‘Of course. I read the papers. I read his obituary.’

‘Had Quinault not died, we would have pursued the charge of blackmail. It would have been difficult. Victims like yourself, or like the politician you mentioned, are reluctant to appear in court. Even if the blackmailer is convicted, the victims have also been found guilty in the public eye of whatever they had done. The sexual misdemeanours of a politician – it’s very damaging. Your past – very damaging to your husband, as well as to you.’

She was silent.

‘I returned to Oxford – one last time. I spoke to the porter at Corpus Christi. It was too late, of course. He couldn’t remember who had passed in and out of the college on the day Quinault died. Undergraduates, messengers, visitors, tourists. I was at the college myself that day. The ambulance had got there before me. There was a lot of toing and froing. The porter was distracted. Anyone could have come in or out. And beforehand – there’s no security. Anyone can just walk in and roam around the colleges. I wondered, though, what you were doing on that particular day. Three weeks ago. Tuesday the twenty-third.’

Sonia’s calm was unruffled. Suspects often blustered when questioned about an alibi. They took offence and yet often at the same time looked furtive and evasive, even when perfectly innocent. Not Sonia. ‘I expect I was here. I usually am. I could easily check. And Mrs Smith would vouch for me. She would confirm that I was here.’

He knew it was only a wild supposition. He had no evidence at all. ‘In the end,’ he said, ‘you realised your fears about your husband were baseless. You learned that Slater had killed Miss Jarvis. So all your efforts had been a waste of time and effort. Apart, of course, from Quinault’s timely death.’

McGovern unlocked his front door. Lily called from the kitchen. She had opened a bottle of wine and two glasses stood on the table. This was unusual.

‘Is this a celebration?’

‘Our exhibition has got a brilliant write-up in
Fine Arts Review
. And someone came to see it from the Institute of Contemporary Arts. The ICA! Isn’t that amazing? They may even transfer it to their gallery in Dover Street. Can you imagine! That would be simply wonderful.’

‘That really is something to celebrate!’ McGovern took the corkscrew she proffered him. ‘I wish I could say the same. The German woman – you remember? She’s dangerous. I’ve only just begun to understand how dangerous. I’ve a very strong suspicion that she murdered two men she thought were a threat to her, or to her husband, but I haven’t a shred of evidence. There’s not a thing I can do about it. Not a thing.’

‘You also solved two murders.’

‘It was the journalist who solved them – with Jarrell’s help.’

‘Don’t be like that. But listen – I have another piece of news. Something else to celebrate.’

‘The good news about your exhibition.’

‘But something else, as well.’ She looked at him as he poured the wine. He couldn’t read her expression. She raised her glass. They drank. ‘Give me a hug,’ she said.

McGovern encircled her waist. ‘What is it?’

‘I saw the doctor today.’ She paused.

He caught his breath in anxiety. Surely she wasn’t ill.

‘It’s what you wanted.’

He didn’t believe it. ‘But—’

‘I know. But nothing’s foolproof, is it? Perhaps the Pope stuck a pin through it.’

‘Oh, Lily.’ He held her tightly, not knowing what to say or even how to feel.

She looked up into his face. ‘You’re happy, aren’t you, Jack? I did so want you to be pleased.’

‘Of course I’m pleased, I’m so happy,’ he muttered.

‘Then I’m happy too.’

He stroked her hair and kissed her cheek and of course he was happy. Yet as they drank to the future, seated on opposite sides of the kitchen table, an unexpected sadness tinged his joy. It was a bittersweet celebration, because he knew that for her it was also a kind of defeat, and he almost wished he hadn’t got his way, that he hadn’t won. She would, of course, love his child, their children. Yet those children might in the end push her art into second place and that would mean that the thing he wanted most in life involved, for her, a kind of renunciation.