“Neither of you ladies knew Miss Grope?”
“Not personally, no.”
“Mrs Pointer?” Purbright did not enjoy being rude but he felt that Hilda Larch was more likely to respect tactics than tact. However, the snub to the older woman’s guardian and interpreter was of no avail; Mrs Pointer merely looked helplessly at her daughter.
“Celia Grope was an adopted child. Her father told us that much and it was a fairly simple matter to trace her natural parentage from the court records. I tell you this,” Purbright explained, “in case you imagine I have come here to fish for information. I haven’t. The facts have been landed, so to speak. All I ask is a little assistance in weighing them up.”
“You are a very devious policeman,” said Hilda, “and a mysterious one. Won’t you say what this business is all about and what it has to do with us?”
Purbright sighed. “Obviously that is what I must do. I had hoped that making painful revelations was not going to be required. You, Mrs Pointer, know perfectly well what I am talking about. If your daughter really doesn’t know, don’t you think it would be kinder if you told her now yourself?”
Before Hilda could provide an answer on her mother’s behalf, Mrs Pointer broke her silence.
“Twenty years!”
The inspector was startled by the vehemence packed into the two words by a woman who had seemed to possess no more independent motivation than a ventriloquist’s doll. The cry was a harsh compound of anger, pain and pleading. Hilda stared at her mother. From her slowly unclenching hand lupin pods, bruised and split, dropped to the grass.
“Did you have to?” Mrs Pointer made as if to clutch Purbright’s sleeve but her arm remained faltering in mid-air like the limb of a crippled beggar.
A bee droned erratically round their heads. Hilda started, as if from sleep. She pulled out a case and matches from the pockets of her slacks, lit a cigarette, and released a tremulous “Oh, for God’s sake!” with the first drag of smoke.
Mrs Pointer regarded her appealingly. “There seemed no point in telling you dear. Celia never knew.” She looked down at her own hands, pulling at the stuff of her skirt. “I tried to think of her as having been born dead. But of course I couldn’t. It was...” The lips went on moving for a few seconds longer but no words came. Purbright was reminded of an old film running on when the sound track had failed.
Hilda had had time to throw a cloak of anger over her bewilderment and wretchedness. “I take it,” she said coldly, “that you and Daddy had some compelling reason for this extraordinary arrangement?”
“Your father thought...he said it would be better...” Hilda turned abruptly to Purbright. “I’m sorry if you find this embarrassing. Sordid disclosures always read rather better than they sound. You did ask for it, though.”
The policeman shook his head. He spoke gently. “Embarrassment is a selfish emotion, Mrs Larch. I think we can be of much greater help to one another at the moment if we dispense with it.”
“Oh, let’s be clinical, then. You take over the questioning and we’ll have a post-mortem on my sister.” She flashed a look at her mother. “Or half-sister, should I say?”
Purbright watched Mrs Pointer but she showed no reaction. “Is that true, Mrs Pointer?” he asked her. “Was the adoption arranged because your husband knew he was not the child’s father?”
The woman tightened her mouth and seemed to be marshalling strength for another attempt at the unaccustomed exercise of speech.
“He had been to France, hadn’t he?” Purbright prompted. “Was that something to do with it?”
Mrs Pointer moved closer to Hilda and accepted the arm that she slipped, almost absent-mindedly, round her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” the mother said. They were the only words she had been able to summon. Her life, thought Purbright, must have become a single, dreary act of apology, He felt sadness, yet no compassion.
“Have you anything more to ask. Inspector?” Hilda had resumed her role of manager.
“Yes,” said Purbright, deliberately. “I should like to be told the name of Celia’s father.”
“I...I can’t tell you that.”
“Please believe me: this is not idle and impertinent curiosity. The matter is important and perhaps urgent.”
Mrs Pointer shook her head. The action was more like a shudder.
“He’s still alive?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Oh, yes.”
“And living here in the town?”
She made no reply.
“Tell me, Mrs Pointer: had this man maintained a relationship with Celia over the years? Not necessarily as a father, I mean, but an affectionate relationship.”
“He used to see her, I believe.”
“They were fond of each other?”
“Oh, yes.” The words emerged dreamily, enviously.
“Won’t you tell me his name?”
The ghost of an old pride stirred in the faded frightened little woman. She looked directly into Purbright’s face. “Certainly not,” she said.
Purbright and Hilda left her there in the garden. She was kneeling beside some border plants, fussily easing them apart.
At the front door, Hilda Larch hesitated. “Why couldn’t they have told me? Now there’s so much...so much I can’t put right in my mind.”
Purbright said nothing. She passed a hand across her brow. “It’s too late.”
After a while she looked up at him. “That man who killed Celia...”
“Biggadyke.”
“Yes. He...I let him make love to me.” The muscles of her neck were tightly drawn.
“I see.”
She stroked the knob of the Yale lock with her palm “You think, don’t you...that Celia’s father...”
“Murdered...”
Her eyes blazed. “Executed, you mean!”
“That probably is a better word.”
She nodded. “I’m glad mother said no more. Goodbye, Inspector.”
On the step he turned. “There’s just one thing, Mrs Larch.”
She waited.
“That night when Biggadyke was killed—why did you decide to stay away from his caravan?”
A slow, careful smile passed over her face. “I had a telephone message, Inspector. From the Civil Defence people. They said my husband had finished early and was on his way home.”
“And was he?”
“There must have been some mistake. He arrived the following day—as usual.”
“The voice on the telephone...”
Her smile broadened. “Absolutely unidentifiable, Inspector, I assure you. But I liked it. I liked it tremendously.”
The door closed.
Purbright walked slowly down the path. He was searching his memory for something he knew had matched an impression just received. It was as though he had emerged from a market knowing that on two separate stalls were pictures or ornaments which, though unremarkable each in itself, once had formed a pair. He recalled Mrs Pointer’s pale, bewildered face; its expression of constant readiness to register regret for something. Had he seen it before? He thought not. Years of self-immolation had left it almost devoid of memorable peculiarities.