‘Yes, yes,’ said Wexford gruffly. ‘I understand all that.’ He didn’t dare look at Burden. It wouldn’t altogether have surprised him if the inspector, like the man in Bleak House, had entirely disappeared, melting away by a process of spontaneous combustion.
With more than an edge of irony to his voice, he said, ‘You have been very frank with us, Miss Doorn.’
‘I am good, yes?’ said Katje with intense satisfaction. She chewed her hair enthusiastically. ‘I tell you things that help? I am knowing all about talking with the police. When I am in Amsterdam with the provos the police are asking me many questions, so I am knowing all about police and not frightened at all!’ She gave them a radiant smile which lingered and sparkled when it was turned on Burden. ‘Now I think I am making you coffee and telling you how we throw the smoke bombs in Amsterdam while this old police chief is talking with poor Mr Nightingale.’
Burden had lost all his poise and while he stammered out something about having already had coffee, Wexford said smoothly, ‘Some other time, thank you.’ He didn’t mind being called a police chief, but the adjective rankled. ‘We shall want to talk to you again, Miss Doorn.’
‘Yes, I think so too,’ said Katje, giggling. Placidly she accepted the fact that most men, having once met her, would want to talk to her again.
She curled up in her chair and watched them go, her eyes dancing.
‘Now for Nightingale,’ said Wexford as they descended the stairs. ‘I’ve already had a few words with him but that was before I knew about these dawn ablutions of his. He’ll have to come out of that study, Mike. I’ve sent Martin to swear a warrant to search this house.’
3
HE had the kind of looks women call distinguished. His hair was silver without a black strand and he wore a small silver moustache which gave him the look of an ambassador or a military man of high rank. Because of this rather premature silvering he looked no younger than his fifty years, although his tall figure was as slim as Sean Lovell’s, his chin muscles firm and his skin unlined.
People expect a pretty woman to have a handsome husband or a rich one.
Otherwise they feel the marriage is unaccountable, that she has thrown herself away. Elizabeth Nightingale had been more than usually pretty and her widower was more than usually rich besides being handsome enough to match her beauty. But this morning he looked almost ugly, his features haggard and drawn.
It had taken a good deal of persuasion and finally peremptory insistence to make him admit them to the study, but now he was inside, Wexford’s anger dissolved into an impatient pity. Quentin Nightingale had been crying.
‘I’m sorry, sir. I must question you just as I must question everyone else.’
‘I realise that.’The voice was low, cultured and ragged. ‘It was childish of me to lock myself in here. What do you want to ask me?’
‘May we sit down?’
‘Oh, please ... I’m sorry. I should have ...’
‘I quite understand, Mr Nightingale.’ Wexford sat down in a leather chair that resembled his own at the police station, and Burden chose the high wooden stool that stood by the bookcase. ‘First of all, tell me about last evening. Did you and Mrs Nightingale spend it alone?’
‘No. My brother-in-law and his wife came up to play bridge with us.’ A
little animation came into his voice as he said, ‘He is the distinguished author of works on Wordsworth, you know.’
‘Really?’said Wexford politely.
‘They came at about eight-thirty and left at half past ten. My brother-in-law said he had some research to do at the school library before he went to bed.’
‘I see. flow did your wife seem last night?’
‘My wife ...’Quentin winced at the word and at having to repeat it himself.
‘My wife was quite normal, gay and lovely as always.’ His voice broke and he steadied it. ‘A very gracious hostess. I remember she was particularly sweet to my sister-in-law. She gave her some present and Georgina was delighted. Elizabeth was the most generous of women.’
‘What was this present, sir?’
‘I don’t know,’ Quentin said, suddenly weary once more. ‘I only heard Georgina thank her for it.’
Burden shifted on his stool. ‘Why did your wife go into the forest, Mr Nightingale?’
‘I don’t know that either. My God, I wish I did. She often went for a walk in the grounds. in the late evening, I mean. I never dreamt she would go into the forest.’
‘You were a happily married couple, sir?’
‘Certainly we were. Ideally happy. Ask any of our friends. Oh God, would I be like this, the way I am, if we hadn’t been happy?’
‘Please don’t distress yourself, Mr Nightingale,’ Wexford said gently.
‘Now I want you to answer very carefully. You’re aware that Palmer came into your bedroom just after five this morning but couldn’t find you?
Would you mind telling me where you were?’
A dark asharned flush coloured Quentin’s face. He put his hands up to his cheeks as if he thought their cold touch would drive the blood away. ‘I
was in the bath,’ he said stiffly.
‘A curious time to take a bath.’
‘Occasionally we all do curious things, Chief Inspector. I awoke early on account of the wind. I couldn’t get to sleep again, so I had a bath.’
‘Very well, Mr Nightingale. I should like to search this house now, if you please.’
‘As you like,’ said Quentin. He looked like a condemned man who has received a reprieve but knows it is only a temporary stay of execution.
Fingering a paperweight of dark blue stone threaded with silver, he said,
‘You’ll be careful, won’t you?’
‘We aren’t vandals,’ said Wexford sharply, then relenting slightly,
‘Afterwards you won’t know we’ve passed this way.’
As country houses go, Myfleet Manor wasn’t large, but it wasn’t, to use Burden’s own phrase, a council maisonette either. Altogether there were fifteen rooms, each furnished with taste and apparently with love, nearly every one a museum of objets d’art. Nothing was out of place, no carpet stained or cushion crumpled. Clearly no child and certainly no dog had ever been permitted to run wild here. Only the petals fallen from flower arrange—
ments told of half a day’s neglect.
And yet, despite the dahlia-filled vases and the pale sunbeams that the wind blew flickeringly across satin and polished wood, the place had a cold sepulchral air. It was, as Wexford remarked, ascending the staircase, rather like being in church.
The life of the Manor, its pulse and the sole source of its laughter, was up above them in the au pair girl’s flat. Glancing up the topmost flight rather wistfully, Wexford entered Quentin’s bedroom, Burden following close behind.