Doomed to Die Read online

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘She couldn’t stand Perdita. To tell you the truth, I don’t think she could have accepted anyone Giles married. He’s an only child, you see.’ Mrs Harrow frowned, skin creasing against bone in slack folds. ‘The trouble was, it was all done so … subtly, I don’t know that Giles was even aware of what was going on half the time. But Perdita knew. Oh yes, Perdita knew, all right. And Mrs Master knew she knew.’ Mrs Harrow shivered and hugged the dressing gown more tightly around her. ‘Horrible woman.’

  ‘I’m not sure I quite understand what you mean.’

  ‘Well, that’s the trouble, it’s so difficult to explain … It’s just that whatever Perdita did – or didn’t do, whatever she said – or didn’t say, Mrs Master would somehow twist things to show that Perdita was wrong, or her method was unsuitable or inferior or naïve or something. And Perdita herself was too sweet-natured to retaliate. She just put up with it. It used to make me so angry … And as I say, I’m not sure whether Giles genuinely had no idea of what was going on, whether he knew but chose to ignore it, or whether he did nothing because he simply didn’t know how to deal with it. Though I think he did get fed up with his mother always being on their doorstep. She was always round there in the evenings and at weekends.’

  ‘She’s a widow, I believe?’

  ‘Yes. A pity, I’ve always thought, as far as the young people were concerned. If she’d had a husband of her own to look after … Though I understand she’s always been very possessive about Giles. She doesn’t seem to have much of a life of her own, does she, Ralph? – no close friends, so far as I know, or other interests.’

  Harrow was nodding. ‘Could never stand the woman, myself.’

  Thanet was aware of Lineham shifting uncomfortably beside him. Perhaps all this was a little too close to home for the sergeant’s comfort. He too was an only child and had had to suffer the claustrophobic attentions of a widowed mother.

  ‘She and Giles didn’t have much of a social life, either – virtually none, in fact. Giles almost invariably said no to invitations and in the end people stopped asking them. I don’t think he could stand the way other men looked at her. Perdita was always very attractive to men, you see. I don’t know what it was about her, but right from the time when she was in her teens she used to have a string of boys after her. Actually, when she started work it was a nuisance – she never stayed long in any one job because sooner or later her employer would start hanging around her and either she’d get fed up with it and move on or the wife would get suspicious and give her the sack.’

  ‘Did she enjoy all this admiration?’

  ‘Well it was flattering, of course, when she was younger, but no, I think she found it more of a nuisance than anything else, especially after she was married, with Giles being so jealous. No, I think the only reason she was able to stick with the marriage so long was because she found her satisfactions elsewhere – in her painting, chiefly, and in her garden. She loved her garden.’

  ‘I’ve seen some of her work,’ said Thanet. ‘She was very talented.’

  ‘She was always mad on painting and drawing, right from the time she was a little girl. She should have gone to Art School. She could easily have gone to Maidstone College of Art, or Medway, but no, she had to go and train as a nanny. I know she always loved kids, but it seemed such a waste … I blame myself really. She was at the age when if I said “Black”, she’d say “White”. I was always on at her to go to Art School but the more I pressed the more determined she became not to go. I should have seen what was happening and just shut up, let her go her own way. If I had, I think she would have gone.’

  ‘She never had any children of her own?’

  ‘No. That was a great disappointment to her. Though now, perhaps it’s just as well –’ Mrs Harrow suddenly clutched at her husband’s hand. ‘Ralph! I’ve just thought! Stephanie! Does she know yet?’

  ‘No. I wanted to tell you first.’

  ‘You must go. At once. I couldn’t bear it if she heard from someone else. She’ll be so upset, she was so fond of Perdita …’

  Harrow patted her hand. ‘It’s all right, don’t worry. She won’t hear from anyone else. The police are not releasing details until this afternoon, are you, Inspector?’

  Thanet shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘Oh. But you will make sure …?’

  ‘Of course I will. I promise.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said to Thanet.

  ‘If you’d like to stop, now?’

  Mrs Harrow shook her head, slowly, as if her thin neck could not sustain too vigorous a movement. ‘No, it’s all right. It’s just … No, if there’s anything else you want to ask … I’d rather get it over with.’

  ‘Very well. Her husband, Mr Master, did he mind not having children?’

  Her answer was what he expected.

  ‘No. I think he was glad, really. He preferred to have her all to himself.’ Her lips quivered again, but she took a deep breath and continued. ‘It’s so sad, really. I think she was very relieved to have come to a decision, to have actually managed to tell Giles she was leaving him. She looked happier and more optimistic than I’d seen her in years … Looking back, you know, I don’t think she ever really got over her father’s death.’ She glanced at her husband, squeezed his hand. ‘Not that it’s any reflection on you, Ralph, but she never did accept you, did she? She’d always been a Daddy’s girl, you see, and she changed a lot. Became, well, withdrawn and gloomy. I thought she’d get over it, but she never did. I remember once …’ She stopped and her eyes darkened with pain at some memory.

  ‘What?’ said Harrow.

  She shook her head, sorrowfully. ‘I was just thinking … At one time, in her teens, she used to be obsessed with death. She was forever asking questions about it, questions I couldn’t answer. And then, a few years ago, when she was going through an especially difficult patch with Giles, she said to me, “Still, I don’t suppose it matters much, does it, Mum? I don’t expect I’ll have to put up with it much longer.” And when I asked her what she meant, she told me that she’d always thought she would die young.’ Mrs Harrow’s face was becoming even more skull-like, as if the thin layer of flesh upon it were melting away before their eyes. She was staring at her husband without seeing him, looking back into the past and relating it to the present in a way which was evidently almost too painful to bear. ‘It’s almost,’ she whispered, ‘as if she knew … that she was doomed to die before her time.’

  Abruptly she turned her head into Harrow’s shoulder and began to weep, harsh, racking sobs which were painful to witness.

  Thanet glanced at Lineham. Time to go.

  Unobtrusively, they withdrew.

  EIGHT

  Outside in the corridor, Thanet said, ‘If I’d known she was in that condition … Why didn’t anyone warn us?’

  Lineham shrugged. ‘Doesn’t sound as though Mrs Master had much of a life, does it? If you ask me we won’t have to look much further than her husband. If he could tear up her new blouse simply because he couldn’t bear to think of other men seeing her wear it, imagine how he’d react if she told him she’d fallen for someone else! He’d go berserk! I bet you anything he got that black eye in a fight with Swain on Saturday night. I bet that’s why he locked her in the bedroom, so that she wouldn’t be able to get away while he was beating Swain up. He didn’t reckon on her climbing out of the window though, did he?’ The thought evidently gave Lineham satisfaction.

  ‘I agree, he does seem the best bet so far. I wonder if forensic will come up with anything useful on that polythene bag. That’s what bothers me as far as –’

  He stopped as they turned a corner and ran into Vanessa Broxton, casually dressed in jeans and knitted jacket. Her eye shadow was unevenly applied, her mascara smudged, her eyes anxious in their shadowed sockets. The strain of the last twenty-four hours was taking its toll.

  She had left the children with the housekeeper. ‘I don’t think Angela
’s really up to having Henry bounce all over her yet,’ she said, with an attempt at lightness. ‘How are things going, Inspector?’

  ‘Too early to tell at the moment, I’m afraid.’

  ‘If you need me, I’ll be at home. I’m not going back to work until I find a reliable temporary nanny. Fortunately, the fact that my case went short means that I’m free at the moment.’

  ‘Have you managed to get in touch with Mr Broxton yet?’

  She grimaced. ‘No. He’s moving about, it’s difficult. I expect I’ll hear from him this evening, though. He rings every other day, when he’s away.’

  Back at the car there was a message on the radio. The men who had been to interview Howard Swain reported that Swain appeared to have been in a fight; he too was sporting a black eye.

  ‘Told you!’ said Lineham triumphantly. ‘Do we go and see him next?’

  Thanet nodded. He was curious to meet the third person in the triangle which had seemingly brought Perdita Master to her death. He was inclined to agree with Lineham. It was looking more and more likely that Master was their man. Though, as he had been about to say when they ran into Vanessa Broxton, the polythene bag puzzled him. It seemed out of character. He could see Master losing his temper with his wife, lashing out at her in a jealous rage, but he would have thought that having knocked her down, Master would then have been more likely to be overcome with remorse rather than resort to such a cold-blooded and calculated way of finishing her off. Still, time would tell, no doubt.

  Meanwhile, Thanet was content to enjoy the brief drive out to Nettleton. It was a glorious autumn day. The frost which had lain thick upon the grass when he got up this morning was long gone and the sun, now high in a sky of pure unblemished blue, illuminated the glowing colours of the foliage in trees and hedgerows: the gold of oak, the lemon, butter-yellow and apricot of field-maple, the scarlet of hawthorn berry, the frothy cream of old man’s beard, all set against the tender green of winter wheat and the rich chocolate furrows of newly-ploughed fields. Thanet loved the gentle, rolling curves of the Kentish landscape, the undulating skyline of the North Downs, the sense that the countryside was gradually preparing to settle down into its winter sleep.

  Apart from the occasional tractor the roads were quiet, Nettleton asleep in the noonday hush. As they approached the Masters’ home Lineham slowed down so that they could take a better look at it by daylight. It was a substantial house, built probably in the sixties, Thanet guessed. Its proportions were good, the windows generous and the grounds extensive and well maintained. They glimpsed a man with a wheelbarrow raking up leaves on the lawn.

  ‘Full-time gardener by the look of it,’ said Lineham.

  ‘I doubt it. Her mother said that Mrs Master loved her garden and implied that she spent a lot of time in it. He probably comes in once or twice a week to do routine maintenance.’

  ‘What would two people want with a house that size anyway? And I wonder how he got planning, permission?’

  Thanet didn’t respond. He was used to Lineham’s twinges of envy over other people’s life-styles.

  ‘This’ll be the Swains’.’

  A five-barred gate stood open at the entrance to another gravelled drive, but the house was very different, a long low black and white timbered Elizabethan dwelling with a tilting roof-line and leaded windows.

  ‘Ve-ry nice,’ said Lineham as they got out of the car.

  The Masters’ house, Thanet guessed, had been built in part of the original grounds of this one, perhaps replacing a range of stables or outbuildings. No one would get away with that these days. In the country old was now considered sacred. Thanet often thought that it was a pity the same principles had not been applied to the towns. The county town of Maidstone, for instance, had been ruined by the wholesale destruction of old buildings replaced by characterless blocks of offices and ugly warehouse-style temples to consumerism.

  But the charm of a house like the Swains’ would never fade. It sat in the landscape as if it had grown there, the very materials of which it was constructed hewn from local timber, culled from local tilefields, local earth. Thanet’s own preference was for brick and tile-hanging, but he couldn’t help admiring such a picturesque tribute to the skill of Elizabethan craftsmen.

  Lineham was already wielding the heavy iron ring-knocker on the front door, the hammer-like blows reverberating in the still, sun-drugged air. Thanet walked across to join him, admiring the late-blooming yellow roses trained across the front of the house, the well-tended borders crammed with cottage-garden plants. Here was another keen gardener, it seemed. Perhaps that was how Perdita Master and Swain had first got to know each other well – over the garden fence, so to speak.

  ‘Yes?’

  A shock of recognition. Despite the purple and yellow bruising around Swain’s left eye, the strip of plaster along his jawbone, he was immediately recognisable as the man in Perdita Master’s sketches. She had captured exactly his air of sensitivity, the impression of a mind engaged elsewhere in some aesthetic activity.

  ‘Oh, not again,’ said Swain, when they introduced themselves. ‘I’ve had you lot around once this morning already.’

  ‘Yes, I know, I’m sorry. But I wouldn’t trouble you if I didn’t think it necessary.’

  Swain stood back with ill grace. ‘You’d better come in.’

  The room into which he led them was low and square, with massive overhead beams and a huge inglenook fireplace. It was comfortably if conventionally furnished with chintz curtains and matching loose covers on chairs and sofa. Through an open door at the rear Thanet caught a tantalising glimpse of a kaleidoscope of colour: floor-to-ceiling shelves on one wall held a rainbow of coloured cones of wool, and the other visible wall was a huge pinboard covered with vivid sketches, designs and samples of knitted swatches trailing multi-coloured strands.

  Here was more common ground between the two. Perdita and Swain were both artists, united in their love of beauty, colour and form.

  Swain himself was presumably wearing one of his own creations, a rugged masculine heavy-knit sweater in an abstract design of muted earth colours – browns, greens and a deep, rich aubergine.

  ‘I don’t know what more I can tell you,’ he said as they all sat down.

  ‘Perhaps I ought to show you this,’ said Thanet. He took out Perdita’s sketchbook and opened it, held it up.

  The shock showed in the clenching of Swain’s fists, the tightening of his lips, the determined effort he made not to betray emotion. It was clear that he had recognised not only himself but the hand of the artist.

  ‘We found it amongst Mrs Master’s possessions, at the house where she was staying. And it’s clear, from the preceding sketches, that these were done from memory. An excellent likeness, I’m sure you’ll agree.’

  ‘She …’ Swain paused to clear his throat, take a deep breath to steady his voice. ‘She had brilliant recall.’

  ‘Interesting that during her very brief stay at Mrs Broxton’s house, Mrs Master should have spent most of her spare time drawing you.’

  Swain said nothing, just shook his head slightly, perhaps to deny involvement with Perdita, perhaps to hold emotion at bay.

  ‘It’s only fair to tell you that we know Mrs Master wanted a divorce because she had fallen in love with someone else.’

  Still Swain did not speak. Perhaps he couldn’t trust himself to do so.

  ‘We know too that she told her husband of her intentions on Saturday night, and that they had a row about it … And of course, we find it very interesting that both you and Mr Master have obviously been involved in a recent fight.’

  This time Swain opened his mouth, but Thanet held up a hand, forestalling him. ‘Please, don’t insult us by telling us that you, too, walked into a door. We’re not idiots, Mr Swain. The inference from all this is quite clear, and sooner or later the truth is bound to come out. It would be easier all round, I think, if you were frank with us now.’

  Swain was looking down at
his hands, rubbing the side of one thumb with the other, his jaw muscles clenched.

  Thanet waited, to give the man time to think it over, and then said softly, ‘Don’t think that we don’t understand your position, Mr Swain. It must be an unbearable strain on you, to have lost the woman you loved and not be able to mourn her openly.’ He meant it. Although in his heart he could not condone adultery, he could recognise and sympathise with suffering when he saw it.

  Compassion prevailed where reason had not. Swain made a small, choking sound and jumped up, went to stand with his back to them at one of the windows, his shoulders jerking with stifled sobs. After a few moments he took out a handkerchief and furtively wiped his eyes, blew his nose.

  Why were so many men ashamed of showing emotion? Thanet wondered. What could be more natural than to show grief at the death of a loved one? The tradition of the stiff British upper lip had a lot to answer for. Far better to mourn openly, acknowledge and come to terms with a sense of loss, than to drive it underground to fester perhaps for years to come.

  At last Swain turned to face them again. ‘I must apologise, Inspector.’

  ‘Please don’t. It would be presumptuous to say I know how you feel, because I’ve never been in your position. Shall I just say that I find your reaction entirely natural.’

  Swain managed a faint smile of gratitude now, and returned to his chair. He blew his nose once more then put his handkerchief away, in control of himself again. ‘You’re right, of course. What’s the point of denying it? Perdita and I were in love …’ Briefly his voice wavered and he took another deep breath. ‘We had planned to marry, eventually, when we were free …’

  Thanet waited, willing for Swain to set the pace. Now that the man had begun to talk he would go on.

  ‘She had a terrible time with him, you know. He was impossibly, insanely jealous. He wanted her all to himself, all the time. He didn’t want her to go out or do anything, ever, except with him. She was becoming virtually a prisoner in her own home. It hadn’t got to the stage where he actually locked her in, but she could see that coming, in the not-too-distant future. He’d ring her up at all times of the day, to make sure she was there, and if she wasn’t, when he came home he’d question her. Where had she been? Who had she seen? What had they done? What had she bought? Which shops had she been into? It was as if he wanted to be with her physically or vicariously twenty-four hours a day, and as you can imagine she was suffocated by it.’ Swain shook his head. ‘I’d have gone mad, if someone had invaded my privacy to that extent … I often wondered why she chose me, you know, and I suppose the answer is quite simple. I was there.’