Dalgliesh asked: 'Did Gledhill say whether he'd spoken to anyone at the station?'
'He said that he hadn't, not yet. I think that was what he most dreaded. He particularly hated the thought of telling Miles Lessingham. While we walked along the beach with Timmy half asleep bumping on my back he felt free to talk and I think he found it a release. He told me that Lessingham was in love with him. He wasn't gay himself but he was ambivalent. But he did tremendously admire Lessingham and felt that in some way he was letting him down. He gave the impression that everything was a muddle, his feelings about atomic power, his personal life, his career, everything.'
Suddenly Pascoe seemed to realize that he was holding his coffee mug and, lowering his head, began to drink from it with great slurps, like a man desperate with thirst. When the mug was drained he put it down on the floor and wiped his mouth with his hand.
He said: 'It was a warm night after a rainy day, the night of the new moon. Funny how I remember that. We were walking just above the tide mark on the shingle. And then, suddenly, there she was, Hilary Robarts, splashing out of the foam. She was only wearing the bottom half of her bikini and she stood there for a moment with the water running off her hair, glistening in that eerie light which seems to come off the sea on a starry night. Then she came slowly up the beach towards us. I suppose we stood there almost as if mesmerized. She had lit a small fire of brushwood on the shingle and the three of us moved towards it. She picked up her towel but didn't wrap it round her. She looked – well, she looked marvellous, the drops of water glistening on her skin and that locket thing she wears resting between her breasts. I know it sounds ridiculous and, well, corny, but she looked like some goddess risen from the sea. She took absolutely no notice of me but she looked at Toby. She said: "Nice to see you, Toby. Why not come down to the cottage for a drink and a meal?" Such ordinary words. Harmless sounding words. But they weren't.
'I don't think he could resist her. I don't suppose I would have been able to either. Not at that moment. And I knew exactly what she was doing, and so did she. She was asking him to make a choice. On my side nothing but trouble, a lost job, personal anguish, possibly even disgrace. And on hers security, professional success, the respect of peers, colleagues. And love. I think she was offering him love. I knew what would happen in the cottage if he went with her and he knew too. But he went. He didn't even say goodnight to me. She slung her towel over her shoulder and turned her back on us as if absolutely confident that he would follow her. And he did follow her. And two days later, on Friday the twelfth of August, he killed himself. I don't know what she said to him. No one will know now. But after that meeting I think he just couldn't take any more. It was not what she threatened him with, or even if she threatened him at all. But if it hadn't been for that meeting on the beach I think he'd be alive now. She killed him.'
Dalgliesh said: 'None of this came out at the inquest?'
'No, none. There was no reason why it should. I wasn't called as a witness. It was all handled very discreetly. Alex Mair was anxious that there shouldn't be any publicity. As^ you've probably noticed, there hardly ever is when something goes wrong at an atomic power station. They all become experts at the cover-up.'
'And why are you telling me this?'
'I want to be sure that this is something Rickards needs to be told. But I suppose I'm really telling you because I need to share it with someone. I'm not sure why I picked on you. Sorry.'
A true, if hardly kind, reply would have been: 'You picked on me in the hope that I'd undertake to pass it on to Rickards and save you the responsibility.' Instead Dalgliesh said: 'You realize, of course, that this is information Chief Inspector Rickards should have.'
'But is it? That's what I want to be sure of. I suppose it's the usual fear when dealing with the police. What use are they going to make of it? Are they going to get the wrong idea? Could it point to someone who could be innocent? I suppose you have to have confidence in the integrity of the police, you wouldn't go on being a detective if you hadn't. But the rest of us know that things can go wrong, that the innocent can be harried, the guilty get off, that the police aren't always as scrupulous as they pretend to be. I'm not asking you to tell him for me, I'm not that childish. But I don't really see how it's relevant. Both of them are dead. I can't see how telling Rickards about that meeting can help to catch Miss Robarts's killer. And it can't bring either of them back to life.'
Dalgliesh refilled Pascoe's mug. Then he said: 'Of course it's relevant. You're suggesting that Hilary Robarts might have blackmailed Gledhill into staying in his job. If she could do it to one person she could do it to another. Anything about Miss Robarts could be relevant to her death. And don't worry too much about innocent suspects. I'm not going to pretend that the innocent don't suffer in a murder investigation. Of course they do. No one even remotely touched by murder goes unscathed. But Chief Inspector Rickards isn't a fool and he's an honest man. He's only going to use what is relevant to his inquiry and it's for him to decide what is relevant and what isn't.'
'I suppose that's the reassurance I wanted to hear. All right, I'll tell him.'
He finished his coffee very quickly as if anxious to be gone and, with only a final word of goodbye, mounted his bicycle and pedalled furiously down the path, bending himself against the wind. Dalgliesh took the two mugs back into the kitchen thoughtfully. That verbal picture of Hilary Robarts rising like a glistening goddess from the waves had been remarkably vivid. But one detail had been wrong. Pascoe had spoken of the key locket resting between her breasts. He remembered Mair's words as he stood looking down at the body. 'That locket round her neck. I gave it to her on August the twenty-ninth for her birthday.' On Wednesday 10 August Hilary Robarts couldn't have been wearing it. Pascoe had undoubtedly seen Hilary Robarts walking out of the sea with the locket resting between her naked breasts; but it couldn't have been on 10 August.
BOOK SIX. Saturday i October to Thursday 6 October
Jonathan had decided to wait until Saturday to visit London and continue his inquiries. His mother was less likely to question him about a trip on Saturday to visit the Science Museum, while taking a day's leave always provoked inquiries about where he was going and why. But he thought it prudent to spend half an hour in the museum before setting off to Pont Street and it was after three o'clock before he was outside the block of flats. One fact was immediately apparent: no one who lived in this building and employed a housekeeper could possibly be poor. The house was part of an imposing Victorian terrace, half stone, half brick, with pillars each side of the gleaming black door and ornate glass, like green bottle tops, in the two ground-floor windows. The door was open and he could see a square hall tiled with black and white marble, the lower balustrade of an ornate wrought-iron staircase, and the door of a golden cage lift. To the right was a porter's desk with a uniformed man on duty. Anxious not to be seen loitering he walked quickly on considering his next move.
In one sense none was necessary except to find his way to the nearest tube station, return to Liverpool Street and take the first train to Norwich. He had done what he had set out to do; he knew now that Caroline had lied to him. He told himself that he should be feeling shocked and distressed, both at her lie and at his own duplicity in discovering it. He had thought himself in love with her. He was in love with her. For the past year there had been hardly an hour in which she had been absent from his thoughts. That blonde, remote, self-contained beauty had obsessed him. Like a schoolboy he had waited at the corners of corridors where she might pass, had welcomed his bed because he could lie undisturbed and indulge his secret erotic fantasies, would wake wondering where and how they might next meet. Surely neither the physical act of possession nor the discovery of deceit could destroy love. So why was this confirmation of her deception almost agreeable, even pleasant? He should be devastated; instead he was filled with a satisfaction close to triumph. She had lied, almost carelessly, confident that he was too much in love, too enthralled, too stupid even to question her story. But now, with the discovery of the truth, the balance of power in their relationship had subtly shifted. He wasn't sure yet what use he would make of the information. He had found the energy and courage to act but whether he would have the courage to confront her with his knowledge was another matter.