The question came so abruptly on the end of his reassurance that she wondered if he had done it deliberately in the hope of catching her out. ‘I’ve no idea. Have you?’
‘Not yet. We shall know more after we’ve questioned those who were closest to him in his last few weeks of life — providing of course that they give us their full cooperation.’
‘I wasn’t close to Peter Preston. We should both have resented that idea.’
‘You were physically close, in that you were a member of the literature festival committee. I met him only once myself, but from what I saw and from what I have already heard of his attitude to younger people, I believe you will have crossed swords with him over issues of local culture.’ He glanced at the paintings of various sizes that had been assembled for her exhibition. ‘And very probably over your own art.’
Ros forced herself to relax physically, remembering the yoga lessons from years ago, which she had almost forgotten. This man — probably both of these men — had played this game many times before, whereas this was her first experience of it. ‘You’re right. We had very different ideas. I felt it was almost a matter of principle with him to scorn my work, because I’m thirty and he was late fifties.’
‘Art is a very personal thing, especially when your living depends on what you produce. It must be very wounding when people criticise it.’
‘Criticism is assessment, Chief Superintendent Lambert. It involves praise as well as well as stricture.’
He nodded and gave her a tiny bow of acknowledgement. ‘I stand corrected. But I expect Preston’s criticism involved much more stricture than approbation.’
She smiled, and in a flash the lean face with the prominent nose became almost beautiful. ‘You’re right there. And right that it can be very wounding, particularly when you feel the critic does not understand what you are about. But one attempts to develop a thicker skin, over the years. Peter Preston said the things you would have expected of him, once you knew him and his habits. They irritated me a little, because they stemmed from ignorance and prejudice rather than objective analysis, but they didn’t upset me.’
‘But he clearly upset a lot of people.’
‘I’m sure he did. But whilst lots of us might have felt like killing him for a moment or two, we didn’t take any such drastic action.’
Lambert shrugged. ‘Someone did. Whether it was one of your committee or someone else entirely is yet to be established. Do you know of anyone with a more serious reason than pique to attack Peter Preston?’
‘No. I can’t think it will be anyone I know who killed him.’
‘Where were you on Tuesday night, please?’
‘Is that when he was killed?’
‘We think so, yes. We would like to eliminate you from the enquiry. It’s the way the routine works.’
The routine. She had somehow known that that word would accompany this inevitable enquiry. Ros stared hard at the stained floorboards between them. There was a speck of white paint near Hook’s foot, which she and Kate must both have missed when they cleaned up after yesterday’s work with her brushes. She was meticulous about cleaning, since they used this room a lot for leisure in the summer months. That ridiculous white spot was occupying her mind, stopping her from thinking about what she must say and how she could best defend herself.
‘On Tuesday night I was here. I was alone throughout the evening. Kate Merrick was visiting her mother and her younger brother; Jason is only fourteen.’ She wondered why she was giving them these details, when she should have been thinking about how to preserve herself. She watched Hook making a note in his notebook, and felt the image of his child-like concentration would be imprinted on her mind for months.
‘Did you take any phone calls during the evening?’
‘No. I only have a mobile and it was switched off. I didn’t want to be disturbed. I was only watching television, but there was a programme about the Pre-Raphaelites. I’m interested in them and the way they thought.’
She wondered if they would ask her to give details of the programme, to check on her story. But Lambert merely said. ‘If you should think of anyone who could confirm this, it would be useful for us to have the name. If you think of anything, even the smallest detail, which you think may be relevant to this murder investigation, please ring this number immediately.’
And then they were gone, leaving her staring at the card he had given her and wondering how much of what she said they had believed.
Sam Hilton tidied his bedsit meticulously for the visit of Marjorie Dooks. He couldn’t rid his mind of the image of old Daggers, the Senior Mistress who had so terrified him in his school days. She used to pounce on you if you had even the top button of your shirt undone.
And yet. . and yet it had been the comprehensive that had developed his love for poetry, which had fanned the flame first kindled by Mrs Lambert in his last year at primary school. He’d never dared to confess that to his male peers at school, of course; they’d have taunted you as a pooftah if you’d even admitted to liking something as unmanly as poetry. Yet he could still remember studying Goldsmith’s Deserted Village and its portrait of the schoolmaster:
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew.
He’d looked at the poem afterwards at home, as he was sure no one else in the class had done. He still quoted that couplet when he gave his talk about poetry and read his own work. They were a good example of the proper use of rhyme — how it could reinforce the sense and make the picture more rounded and satisfying — and most people in his audiences seemed to have heard the poem at some time.
Why was he thinking about that? He could hardly lecture Mrs Dooks about poetry, any more than he would have dared to discuss his ideas with old Daggers. He worked the ageing vacuum cleaner more vigorously back and forth over the threadbare carpet, stowed the dishes from the drainer away in the cupboard, even moved the photo-frame and the little pot dog on the window sill and dusted it. He didn’t think he’d ever dusted before, but he remembered his mother always talking about needing to do them when she expected visitors.
Marjorie Dooks didn’t seem to notice. She glanced round the bedsit as she accepted the easy chair he offered her, but she didn’t seem to register how clean and tidy he had made the place to receive her. Perhaps like the queen she just expected these things and didn’t see fit to comment upon them.
Then he realized that the formidable Mrs Dooks was nervous.
She said, ‘I needed to talk to you in private, Sam. Not in the context of the festival committee.’
‘No. You said that on the phone.’ Curiously, he found that her unease was giving him confidence. He felt quite adult, where previously her presence had reduced him to a stumbling adolescent. ‘I’m sure we can sort out whatever is concerning you.’
‘Yes. Well, if you can, I’ll be very pleased.’
He said, ‘I’ll put the kettle on. Tea or coffee?’
‘What? Oh, thank you. Either will do. Tea, perhaps.’ She realized as he did that she was being uncharacteristically uncertain and diffident. She sat primly with her knees together and tried to become her normal self as she watched him flick a tea bag into each of two beakers and pour in the boiling water. She couldn’t remember when she had last drunk tea with someone who did not use, perhaps did not even possess, a teapot. Sam squashed the bag against the side of the beaker with a spoon and removed it quickly, adding the dash of milk which was all she requested. He brought the beakers and sat down opposite her. She found to her surprise that the beaker was china and spotlessly clean, that the tea tasted surprisingly good.