'Strangely enough, Chief Inspector, I've never been very frightened of the Whistler. The threat always seemed remote, a little unreal.'
'You went no further than the garden?'
She looked at him straight in the eyes. 'I went no further than the garden.'
'Yet you didn't hear the telephone?'
'It is a large garden.'
'But it was a quiet night, Mrs Dennison.'
She didn't reply.
He asked: 'And when did you come in from wandering alone in the dark?'
'I wouldn't describe a stroll around the garden as wandering alone after dark. I suppose I was out for about half an hour. I had been back about five minutes when Mr Jago rang.'
'And when did you hear about the Robarts murder, Mrs Dennison? Obviously it wasn't news to you when we met at Martyr's Cottage.'
'I thought you already knew that, Chief Inspector. Miss Mair telephoned me shortly after seven on Monday morning. She herself knew when her brother returned late on Sunday night after seeing the body but she didn't want to disturb me at midnight, particularly with such distressing news.'
Oliphant asked: 'And was it distressing news, madam? You hardly knew Miss Robarts. Why should it be so distressing?'
Mrs Dennison gave him a long look, then turned away. She said: 'If you really have to ask that question, Sergeant, are you sure you're in the right job?'
Rickards rose to go. She came with him to the front door. As they were leaving she turned to him and said with sudden urgency: 'Chief Inspector, I'm not stupid. All these questions about the shoes. Obviously you've found a print at the scene and you think it could have been made by the murderer. But surely Bumbles aren't uncommon. Anyone could have been wearing them. The fact that Toby Gledhill's pair are missing could be simply coincidence. They weren't necessarily taken with evil purpose. Anyone needing a pair of trainers could have stolen them.'
Oliphant looked at her. 'Oh, I don't think so, madam, do you? As you said yourself only half an hour ago, this is Larksoken, not London.' And he smiled his thick-lipped, self-satisfied smile.
Rickards wanted to see Lessingham at once but the press conference called for ten meant that the interview had to be postponed and, to complicate matters further, a telephone call to Larksoken Power Station revealed that Lessingham had taken a day's leave but had left a message saying he could be reached at his cottage outside Blakeney. Luckily he was at home and, without explanation, Oliphant made an appointment for midday.
They were less than five minutes late and it was the more frustrating, therefore, to find when they arrived at the low-built wood and brick cottage set back on the coastal road a mile to the north of the village that he wasn't at home. A note in pencil was tacked to the front door.
'Anyone wanting me, try the Heron, berthed at Blakeney quay. That includes the police.'
'Bloody cheek!' complained Oliphant. As if unwilling to believe that any suspect could be as wilfully uncooperative, he tried the door, peered in at the window, then disappeared round the back. Returning he said: 'Ramshackle. Could do with a lick of paint. Funny place to choose to live. These marshes are pretty dreary in winter. You'd think he'd want a bit of life around him.'
Rickards privately agreed that it was an odd place for Lessingham to choose. His cottage looked as if it had once been a pair, now converted into a single dwelling, and, although agreeably proportioned with a certain melancholy charm, it looked at first sight unoccupied and neglected. Lessingham was a senior engineer after all, or technician, he couldn't for the moment remember which. Anyway, he hardly lived here because he was poor.
He said: 'He probably wants to be close to his boat.
There's not much choice of harbour on this coast. It was either there or Wells-next-the-Sea.'
As they got back into the car, Oliphant gazed back at the cottage resentfully as if it were concealing behind the peeling paint some secret which a few vigorous kicks on the door might persuade it to divulge. Fastening his seat belt, he grumbled: 'And when we get to the quay I suppose there'll be a notice telling us to try the pub.'
But Lessingham was where he said he'd be. Ten minutes later they came up to him, sitting on an upturned crate on the deserted quay, an outboard motor in front of him. Berthed beside him was a thirty-foot sailing boat with a central cabin. It was obvious that he hadn't yet started to work. A relatively clean rag drooped from fingers which seemed too listless to hold it and he was regarding the engine as if it posed an intractable problem. He looked up as they stood over him and Rickards was shocked at the change in him. In only two days he seemed to have aged ten years. He was barefoot and wore a faded dark blue guernsey over knee-length denim shorts fashionably tattered at the edges. But this informal garb seemed only to emphasize his urban pallor, the skin taut over the wide cheekbones, the smudges like bruises under the deep-set eyes. He was a part-time sailor after all, thought Rickards. Extraordinary that even this bad summer hadn't produced more than a biscuit-coloured tan.
Lessingham didn't get up, but said without preamble: 'You were lucky to catch me when you rang. A day's leave is too good to waste indoors, particularly now. I thought we could talk here as well as anywhere.'
Rickards said: 'Not altogether. Somewhere more private would be better.'
'This is private enough. The locals can recognize the police when they see them. Of course if you want me to make a formal statement or were thinking of arresting me, I'd prefer the police station. I like to keep my house and my boat uncontaminated.' He added: 'I mean uncontaminated by disagreeable sensations.'
Oliphant said stolidly: 'Why do you suppose we would want to arrest you? Arrest you for what exactly?' He added: 'sir', and made the word sound like a threat.
Rickards felt a spurt of irritation. It was like the man not to miss an easy opening but this childish preliminary sparring would hardly smooth the interrogation. Lessingham looked at Oliphant, seriously considering whether the question needed a reply.
'God knows. I suppose you could think of something if you put your minds to it.' Then, seeming to realize for the first time that they were having to stand, he got up. 'All right, better come on board.'
Rickards wasn't a sailor, but it seemed to him that the boat, all wood, was old. The cabin, which they had to crouch low to enter, had a narrow mahogany table down the whole length and a bench on either side. Lessingham seated himself opposite them and they regarded each other across two feet of polished wood, their faces so close that Rickards felt he could smell his companions, a masculine amalgam of sweat, warm wool, beer and Oliphant's aftershave, as if all three were claustrophobically caged animals. It could hardly have been a more unsuitable place in which to conduct an interview, and he wondered whether Adam Dalgliesh would have engineered things better and despised himself for the thought. He was aware of Oliphant's great bulk beside him, their thighs touching, Oliphant's unnaturally warm, and had to resist an impulse to edge further away.
He said: 'Is this your boat, sir? The one you were sailing last Sunday night?'
'Not sailing, Chief Inspector, for much of the time; there wasn't enough wind. But yes, this is my boat and this is the one I was on last Sunday.'
'You seem to have damaged the hull. There's a long fresh-looking scratch on the starboard side.'
'Clever of you to notice. I scraped the water tower offshore from the power station. Careless of me. I've sailed these waters often enough. If you'd come a couple of hours later it would have been repainted.'
'And do you still say that you were never at any time within sight of the beach where Miss Robarts took her last swim?'
'You asked me that question when you saw me on Monday. It depends what you mean by "in sight of". I could have seen the beach through my binoculars if I'd happened to look, but I can confirm that I never got to within half a mile of it and that I didn't land. Since I could hardly murder her without landing, that seems to me conclusive. But I don't suppose you've come all this way just to hear me repeat my alibi.'