At half past six Andrew got up, and as no one seemed yet to be astir in the house, he went to the bathroom, had a shower and shaved, then returned to his bedroom. He got dressed, then sat down by the window to watch the slow dawn come.
The central heating had switched itself off for the night, but at seven o’clock it switched on again and the room became reasonably warm. The morning was fine but cold. There was a sparkling white frost on the grass and the bushes in the garden. The sky, turning by degrees to palest blue, was clear except for a few clouds that wandered across it, coloured a brilliant rose by the rising sun. It was a long time since Andrew had watched a dawn. Even in winter, when it came so late, he usually slept till there was daylight at the window.
He sat very still, thinking that dawn seen from the window of a London flat, with only roofs and curtained windows visible across an empty street, could have none of the peaceful beauty of this one; yet how satisfying it would feel to be in his own home now, even if he had had a sleepless night. He stood up and suddenly began to pack his suitcase. It took only a few minutes, and when it was done he put the suitcase by the door and returned to the chair by the window. It was full daylight now and the rosy clouds were only puffs of white, without the drama they had had at sunrise. But it was going to be a fine day. If the frost that Inspector Roland had told him was foretold had in fact come, confounding Roland’s scepticism about the weathermen, it did not look too threatening.
At eight o’clock there was a tap at the door and Jonathan came in, carrying Andrew’s breakfast tray. Seeing Andrew up and dressed, he raised his eyebrows.
“You’re up early, aren’t you?” he said. “Didn’t you have a good night?” He put the tray down on a table beside Andrew’s chair. “I didn’t have much of one myself.”
Andrew saw that the tray had been neatly arranged as usual, with coffee and toast and marmalade and a small cube of Cheddar cheese. But he said nothing, and Jonathan, giving him a troubled look, turned towards the door.
He was only a step away from it when Andrew said, “You killed them both, didn’t you, Jonathan?”
Jonathan had his back to Andrew at that moment, and Andrew did not see his face, but he saw the young man’s body suddenly go rigid. Then he turned slowly and came back towards Andrew. His face had the pallor of shock.
“What do you mean, both?” His voice was almost a whisper.
“Sir Lucas Dearden and Gwen Dearden.”
“I don’t understand,” Jonathan said.
“Then I suppose I’ll have to explain.” Andrew picked up the cube of cheese and began to nibble it. “But sit down, Jonathan. This may take a little time.”
He gestured towards a chair, but Jonathan stayed standing where he was.
“It’ll take quite a bit of explaining,” he said.
“I know that.” Andrew poured out his coffee. “It all begins with Erica, doesn’t it?”
“Erica? How does she come into it?”
“Because it’s Erica you’ve been in love with for a long time, perhaps since you were a student in London and used to visit the Haslams’ house from time to time. There was never anything between you and Gwen. Lyn Goddard was absolutely right about that.”
As if there were a strange fascination in what Andrew was saying, something that drew him against his will, Jonathan moved nearer to him and sat down in the chair where he had refused to sit a moment before. His eyes were fixed unblinkingly on Andrew’s face.
“That’s completely untrue,” he said. “We did our best to hide it, but somehow Nicholas found out about it. And I think my mother guessed. In fact, I think a rumour about it must have got around.”
“And people said, ‘There’s no smoke without fire.’ But in this case there was smoke without any fire at all. There was a rumour without the least foundation, one which I think you rather skilfully encouraged so that where there really was fire there wasn’t any smoke. But Erica shouldn’t have made that telephone call.”
“What telephone call?”
“The one she made to your office before the office party and that brought you home to plant the bomb that killed Dearden. It wasn’t Gwen who made that call, it was Erica. She told you that if you did it right away, before other people knew her father was coming home, it would be assumed that you were the real target and that would confuse everybody.”
“You can’t possibly prove a thing like that,” Jonathan said. But there was a crack in his voice and the direct stare of his eyes was wavering, though he managed to go on almost calmly. “The last few days have been too much for you, Andrew. I’d get on with your breakfast if I were you and then go home.”
“It’s what I’m hoping to do,” Andrew replied. It annoyed him that when he picked up the cup he had just filled with coffee his hand was shaking. He thought that if anything Jonathan was the more composed of the two of them, which was not as things should be. “It’ll be easy enough to prove. Erica’s in a private hospital, of course in a private room. And she’s certainly got a phone by her bed. All private hospitals have phones by their patients’ beds. And they keep a record of the calls their patients make so that they can charge them. If Erica made that call to Rockford, it’ll be on their account.”
Jonathan considered this thoughtfully, then gave a slight shrug of his shoulders.
“All right, suppose it’s Erica I’m in love with, doesn’t that tell you what really happened? You seem to have missed the point.”
“I’ll be glad if I have.”
“I’ll explain it. She did make that call, but it had nothing to do with bringing me home. It was only to chat about her accident and to wish me a merry Christmas and so on. She didn’t want to ring me up while I was here at home because my parents would have heard me answering and might have guessed whom I was talking to. And it was rather important for us to be very careful about no one finding out about us because of Henry. He’s a very dangerous man, Andrew. Don’t you understand, he’s the murderer? Only the first murder went wrong. He meant to get Waterman to plant the bomb where it would blow me up, but Lucas got there just ahead of me and so he got it. I don’t know how Henry found out about Erica and me. I suppose someone saw us together sometime and talked about it, or perhaps she talked about it herself in the state of shock she was in after her accident. Perhaps she called out for me or something like that. Anyway, he’s the man you want. I’m only a minor character.”
“What about Gwen’s murder?” Andrew asked.
“Quite simply, she threatened him,” Jonathan said. “She’d been up to London and seen Erica, and I think Erica confided in her and Gwen told Henry she knew what he’d done and that she was going to the police next day. She was just giving him a chance, you see, for all our sakes, to get away. He’d lots of money. He could have taken off to one of those South American countries you were talking about that don’t go in for extradition. But he didn’t take the chance. He’s infatuated with Erica, you know. He’d never leave her. So he strangled Gwen to stop her talking, pretty sure that Nicholas would get the blame.”
“What a pity you didn’t take off for South America when I advised you to go there,” Andrew said. “I’m sorry, I don’t believe you, Jonathan. Haslam is the one person who can’t have had anything to do with planting the bomb in the lane. You understand me, don’t you?”
Jonathan did not reply. He looked incredulous, or at least, Andrew thought, was doing his best to look incredulous.
“Don’t you see, Haslam knew Dearden was on his way home,” Andrew said. “He’d even have known approximately when he’d get here. He knows how long it takes to drive from London to Upper Cullonden. So he’d have known that Dearden would have been arriving at around the same time as you normally did. So whichever of you it was that he wanted to murder, he’d have known there was a good chance that he’d get the wrong one. No, I don’t think you can involve Haslam in this. You’ve a better chance of making out a case against Nicholas, only he seems to have had no motive. Perhaps I ought to go back to the beginning and tell you how I see things.”
Again Jonathan did not reply. But there had been a change in his expression. There was a certain boldness about him now, even truculence. For a moment Andrew felt afraid of him, but thought that in his parents’ house there was really no serious threat to him.
“I believe the murder of Lucas Dearden was as carefully planned and cold-blooded a crime as I’ve ever heard of,” he said. “I don’t know which of you thought of it, you or Erica. Probably you worked it out between you. You were in love with each other and she could easily have left Henry, but it happened that Erica liked money. She’d got used to it, living with a wealthy father and then with an equally wealthy husband. A husband, incidentally, who wouldn’t have forgiven her if she’d been unfaithful to him. And however promising you are in your work and however successful you may become eventually, it’ll take time. She’d have had some years of relative poverty to endure before she could live in the way to which she was accustomed. But if her father died she’d inherit a considerable amount, and thinking of that missing page 96 in his memoirs, I think one can deduce she didn’t love him.”
“She hated him!” Jonathan suddenly exploded, then looked as if he wished that he had not spoken.
“I thought that might be the case,” Andrew said. “The real love of her life was a married man, a good deal older than herself, who she thought would leave his wife and marry her. But he decided to stick to his wife and the two of them left for New Zealand. I’ve wondered, ever since I heard about that, if Dearden had anything to do with it. I don’t suggest he actually bribed the man to give Erica up, I don’t know anything about that. But I don’t think he was the sort of man Dearden wanted as a son-in-law, and I think the missing page may have given away the fact that he had more to do with the breakup of the relationship than he later thought was advisable. Then there was another man, a not very successful actor, who was killed in a car crash. That must have been a relief to Dearden. He wouldn’t have fitted too well into the family either. And almost at once she married Haslam, just the kind of man Dearden would have chosen for her. Perhaps he did choose him. And she accepted him because it was a way of getting away from home, but that didn’t mean he was going to be the only love of her life. I’ve never met her, so of course I’m only guessing, but it seems to me she’s probably irresponsible, not too faithful to anybody, and that may include you. It strikes me that she may have thought of you as a convenience, with your access in your work to explosives and your being able to live next door to her father without it seeming unnatural, and so having the chance to kill him when the suitable opportunity occurred. Do you want me to go on, Jonathan?”
“Yes, go on,” Jonathan muttered. “You can’t say anything much worse than you’ve said already.”
“Well, the suitable opportunity happened to come when she had her accident,” Andrew said. “Her father was coming to stay over Christmas with her and Haslam, but when she was taken into hospital he decided to come home. Haslam knew this and he told her. And as soon as she could she telephoned you in your office, telling you that the time had come. A time, that is, when it would look as if you were the target for the bomb. You were to get out to some spot near to the opening of Stillmore Lane where you could leave your car out of sight—I suppose there’s some wood or some track there where it would be hidden in the darkness—get up the lane as fast as you could, dump the bomb and get back to your car. Then you were just to wait till everything was over. And the reason I’ve called this a notably cold-blooded crime is that you must have had that bomb ready to use in just the way you did for at least some weeks. You can’t manufacture a bomb in a few minutes. And the reason you stayed here with your parents wasn’t to be near Gwen. She never meant anything to you, though you managed to make your mother believe that she did as a smoke screen for the real affair with Erica. The reason you stayed was just to be able to do what you did to Dearden when the chance came along.”
“And is that all?” Jonathan asked.
“Of course not. There’s the murder of Gwen to be explained. That wasn’t as calculated as Dearden’s murder, in fact it wasn’t calculated at all. It was what happened because things had gone wrong. She knew about you and Erica. I don’t know how she knew, but Gwen will have been the one person who knew that there was nothing between her and you, and that your attempt to make it look as if you were the intended victim was absurd. But you saw a good deal of each other and she may have known you far better than you realised. Something you said or did accidentally may have given her the clue, and when Dearden died she must have worked out how it had happened. She went up to London to visit Erica and somehow got some admission out of her that was very damaging to you. Yet she didn’t go straight to the police with her knowledge. She drove home, went to The Running Man and rang you up, asking you to meet her there. And when you did that, what she said to you had nothing to do with her and Erica having believed that Nicholas was the murderer, as you told me, and that you should go away because you were still in danger from him. She did tell you that you were in danger and did beg you to go away, but that was because, although she was going to give you the possibility of escaping, she meant to go to the police next day. She didn’t want Nicholas suspected and she had enough feeling for you, as someone whom she’d thought of as a friend, to want to give you a chance. She even offered you money, didn’t she, to help you get out of the country from Heathrow?”
“So now we’ve got to Heathrow,” Jonathan said. There was irony in his voice. “I suppose you’re going to explain what in hell I was doing there, as apparently I wasn’t expecting Gwen to join me.”
“I think it was the best you could think of by way of setting up an alibi,” Andrew said. “Not exactly an alibi, but it publicised this supposed affair of yours with Gwen. It’s unlikely that anyone noticed exactly when you got to the airport, in all the crowds there, and the forensic people can’t say to the minute when she died. And it only takes about an hour to get from here to Heathrow—less, perhaps, in the middle of the night when there’s no traffic—so if you left as soon as you’d dumped her body in the shed it would be hard for anyone to prove you hadn’t been there at the time when she was killed.”
“Hard to prove!” Jonathan exclaimed. “That’s the first time anything about proof has been mentioned in all this. Do you really think anyone’s going to believe you?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me if Roland does,” Andrew said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if he and his men have already found the tracks of your car wherever you parked it beyond the end of the lane, and are getting ready to question you about them. If not, they’ll do it when I’ve talked to them.”
“And why did Gwen come out to talk to me in the middle of the night?” Jonathan asked. “You aren’t suggesting I got inside the house to strangle her, are you?”
“She came out to give you some money, as she’d promised,” Andrew said. “When she met you in The Running Man and tried to persuade you to go away, she offered you money to help you go, as I said just now. And you’d an appointment to meet her late in the night in the lane, where you’d be waiting for her, and she brought money down to you in her handbag, but instead of taking it you killed her and put her body in the shed. It always seemed a little strange to me, you know, that if you and she were going away together she shouldn’t have gone with you in your car. What would have been the point of your driving off separately? But you made a real mistake, I’m afraid, picking up the handbag she dropped and putting it beside her in the shed. It would have been cleverer of you either to leave it where it had fallen, after taking the money out of it, so that it just could have looked as if she’d been assaulted and robbed after she came out of the house; or you could have taken it with you and thrown it into a ditch somewhere. It’s interesting that you didn’t think of helping yourself to the money. You aren’t a thief. To each his particular form of crime. You’re capable of murder, but it’s against all your instincts to help yourself to someone else’s money.”
There was a short silence, then Jonathan suddenly sprang up from his chair and shot out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Andrew heard the sound of a key turning in the lock. So he was locked in.
It was really a great relief. It meant that there was nothing he could do for the present but sit still and finish his breakfast. He poured out a second cup of coffee for himself. He had not yet come to any decision as to what he would say to Colin and Dorothea, but beginning to think about this, and of how painful it was sure to be, he let his mind drift into memories. He thought of a holiday that he and Nell had once spent with the Cahills by the sea. Jonathan had been a child of ten, with bright eyes and a glowing smile and the wonderful charm of childish exuberance together with apparently warm affections. He and Andrew had played French cricket together on the beach, and as often as he had been able, Jonathan would hook the old tennis ball with which they were playing into the waves, so that Andrew had to go wading into the surf to recover it while Jonathan crowed with laughter. Andrew had enjoyed the game quite as much as the boy. And Jonathan had had an enormous appetite, zestfully gorging on huge helpings of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, on cream teas and strawberries, and on anything else attractive that came near him. Then he would fling his arms round his mother and kiss her and tell her that it had been wonderful. Was there any of that child still left in him? Was that what had drawn Erica Haslam to him, his sheer enjoyment of good things and eagerness to obtain them at any price?
At that point Andrew deliberately directed his thoughts elsewhere. He did not want to start interpreting Jonathan’s motives or actions. He began to think about Robert Hooke and the contract that he had signed for the publication of his book. He began to think about the next chapter that should be written, for which he had abundant notes. It would be the last chapter in the book and if he really settled down to work, should not take him more than two or three weeks to finish. But what a loss it would be to him when the work was finally done. Until he brought himself to start on something else, his days would be empty. It was one of his misfortunes that he had no hobbies. He thought of a colleague of his who on his retirement had settled down with great pleasure to painting watercolours, usually of flowers, some of which he even sold occasionally. Something like that must make old age much easier to endure. But the fate of Robert Hooke was sealed. There was that contract: a challenge, if nothing else.
It was ten o’clock when the moment came that Andrew had been dreading. He heard the key turn in the lock, the door opened and Colin came in.
“So he locked you in,” Colin said.
“Yes,” Andrew answered.
“He’s gone, you know.” Colin’s tone was flat and expressionless.
“Do you know where to?” Andrew asked.
“No.”
“I don’t suppose he does either.”
“No, I don’t suppose so.”
“Has he told you…?” Andrew hesitated as Colin stood still in the middle of the room, looking at him in a dull, tired way as if there was nothing for them to discuss.
“Yes, I think he told us most of it,” he said.
“Colin, I’m sorry…”
“Nothing you could help. You’re going to the police, of course.”
“I’ve got to, haven’t I?”
“I think so, yes.”
“It’s what you’d do yourself, is it?”
“That’s a different question. I doubt if I could bring myself to do it. But of course it ought to be done. Not that Dorothea and I understand the whole of it. But when you’re ready will you come down and tell us how you worked things out?”
“I’ll come now, if that’s what you want.”
“All right, come along then.”
Andrew stood up.
“Colin, I think I ought to go home today,” he said. “I’m ready to go right away.”
“I suppose that would be best. Only you’ll have to go and talk to Roland first. Meanwhile…” This time it was Colin who hesitated.
“Yes?” Andrew said.
“They’ll catch up with him, won’t they, wherever he’s gone? But at least he got away from here. He’s got a chance. I believe you meant him to have it, talking to him so early up here.”
Andrew thought that Jonathan had a chance to drive over the edge of a cliff, if that was what he preferred to being arrested and tried, but not much chance of any other escape.
“You know, he said to me there wasn’t any proof of what I was saying to him,” he said. “It may be that there isn’t much proof that would stand up in a court of law.”
“He’s admitted it all to us, as I told you,” Colin said, “and when pressure’s put on her, I think Erica’s liable to break down. She may try her best to put the whole blame for the plot on him, though it seems to me likely enough to have been her idea originally. But I know it’s only natural that I should think like that. And perhaps I don’t really. Whatever the truth is about that, we’ve got to recognize that Jonathan is a danger to himself and others. Come along, Andrew. Don’t be afraid of meeting Dorothea. She’s much stronger than you may imagine.”
They went downstairs together. Dorothea and Lyn Goddard were together in the sitting room. Andrew noticed as he went in that the holly that had been tucked in above the picture frames was gone, and so was the bough that had been hung with Christmas cards. He saw too that Dorothea’s eyes were red and that her face was blotched and pale. She looked at him, but it was as if she were looking through him and did not see him. As usual she was on the sofa with her knees drawn up to her chin. Lyn was standing by a window, looking out, and did not turn when Colin and Andrew entered.
“Andrew’s going home today,” Colin said, with the same lifeless tone in which he had spoken upstairs. “But first he’s got to see Roland. I’ll drive him into Rockford presently.”
Lyn turned quickly. “I’ll do that. I’ll take Nicholas’s car. You two had better stay together.”
“But I still only half understand things,” Dorothea said. “Please explain it all to us, Andrew. Jonathan said you could.”
“I can tell you what I said to him,” Andrew said.
“Then do that, please.”
“I don’t know how much he told you.”
“He said—only it didn’t sound like him saying it, he sounded so wild—he said he’s the murderer they’re looking for and he did it because he was in love with Erica, and Erica hated her father and wanted his money, and Gwen found out about it and was going to go to the police. And he said something about Erica making a telephone call to his office, which I don’t understand, and that we’d never see him again.”
“Then he gave you the substance of what I had to say,” Andrew said.
“But please explain it.”
Sitting down, Andrew began to repeat what he had said to Jonathan. None of them asked any questions. As he spoke, it occurred to Andrew that this was probably the last time that he would ever see Colin and Dorothea, unless it was in a court room, and he recognized that although for some years they had not seen a great deal of one another, their friendship had been deeply valued through much of his life. If he could have thought of any way of sparing them, he would have done so. But they did not seem to want it. All that they wanted just then was certainty, to know exactly what it was that they would have to face.
Colin had sat down on the sofa, and he and Dorothea moved closer to one another while Andrew spoke, Colin putting an arm round Dorothea and she resting her head against his shoulder. Lyn stayed by the window to which she had turned once more, gazing out into the garden.
When Andrew had come to the end of what he had to say there was silence in the room.
Then Dorothea raised her head and said, “Of course I always knew it.”
“Knew that Jonathan was…” Andrew began in astonishment, then stopped himself.
“Was the murderer?” she said. “No, of course not, I didn’t know that. But I knew he was very unhappy about something, and he wouldn’t talk to me as he used to. I thought it was because of Gwen. He’s been a different boy for some time now, and I used to think he’d be better off if he didn’t live here with us and see her so often. But you say that had nothing to do with it. If he gets life now for what he’s done, he’ll be an old man when he comes out and we’ll both be dead.”
Colin’s hold of her tightened and she let her head rest on his shoulder again.
“We’ll move away,” he said. “Go to London or somewhere anonymous. But we’ll have to stay here for the present, I suppose. We must get a lawyer and see what can be done. Everything you told us is circumstantial, isn’t it, Andrew? There’s just the question of tyre tracks in the wood down the lane and the telephone call Erica made to the office, if the hospital has a record of it. And that he ever made any confession to us is something we don’t have to tell anyone. But then again, perhaps…” He paused. “When you’ve committed two murders, does it get easier to commit another, several others? I suppose it does.”
Andrew did not feel that he had to answer. That for every murderer there were parents, or a husband or a wife, or children, or friends who might suffer almost as much as his victims—this was something he had always known but to which he had never given any special thought. In a general way he had always assumed that they were to be blamed if they gave any succour to the man of violence. But looking two people in the face, two people who now had the horror of choice of action thrust upon them, was very confusing.
He drew a deep breath and said, “Well, I’d better be going.”
Lynn turned again. “To the police?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll take you.”
“Thank you.”
He went upstairs to fetch the suitcase that he had packed. When he came down again Colin and Dorothea were still sitting side by side on the sofa with their backs to the door. They did not look round as he came to it, and he did not go into the room. Lyn was waiting for him in the hall, putting on her overcoat. Andrew went to the front door without speaking.
He and Lyn did not talk as they walked together to the Deardens’ garage. She backed Nicholas’s car out and Andrew got in beside her. She drove very slowly along the narrow lane, but as they reached the end of it and emerged onto the main road she suddenly accelerated, driving far faster than was advisable along a road with so many bends and ups and downs. Andrew hated to be driven fast, but glancing sideways at her set face, he managed to say nothing. He felt that she almost wanted to be involved in an accident, or at least to put as much distance as she could between herself and Upper Cullonden, as rapidly as was possible.
After a little while she slowed down somewhat and said, “You know, I thought it was Henry.”
“It was Henry you meant in the pub, was it, when you said you knew who it was?” Andrew asked.
“Yes, but not for any good reason,” she said. “It was just a feeling I had about him. I don’t usually trust my feelings so rashly. I don’t think I’ll do it again.”
“You didn’t know about Jonathan and Erica?”
“No.”
“But now Henry will have to know.”
“Yes, poor Henry. But it doesn’t really break my heart. I don’t think it can ever have been much of a marriage.”
“Are you going to trust your feelings about Nicholas?”
“If he wants me to.”
“Have you any doubts about that?”
“I always have doubts about everything. If I could be sure that it’ll be the same for us as it is for Colin and Dorothea—though why they should have had a son like Jonathan… It can’t have been their fault. The Jonathans of this world seem just to happen without anyone being specially to blame. Perhaps it’s genetic. You never had any children yourself, did you?”
“No.”
“Were you sorry?”
“Well, I said to myself, we live in an overcrowded world, so why worry?”
“That was sensible. I don’t think I want any children. Too much of a risk.”
“You know, I’ve a feeling that in a few years you’ll have two or three at least crawling around you. One has to take risks sometimes.”
She did not answer for some time, then at last, thoughtfully, said, “Yes.”
They hardly spoke again until she drove him up to the entrance of the police station in Rockford.
Andrew spent about the next two hours talking to Detective Inspector Roland and Sergeant Porter. They agreed that for once the weathermen had been right, that a frost had come as they had predicted, and that this might be the beginning of a severe winter. On the other hand, it might not. There might be a mild breeze, perhaps a little rain and a sodden sense of mildness by tomorrow. After that matter had been settled, their talk became more demanding.
Sergeant Porter took copious notes. Roland took Andrew over his statement again and again, by degrees making him feel as time went on how thin his story was and by how few facts it was supported. Yet he was told that tyre tracks had been found in the wood at the end of Stillmore Lane, and though it was thought that these might have been left by a courting couple who had found it a convenient place to park out of sight from the main road, there was also a suspicion that the tracks might match with the tyres of Jonathan’s car. But Jonathan and his car had vanished for the moment.
Some days later Andrew heard that Jonathan’s car had been found in the car-park at Heathrow, but whether Jonathan had really left the country for some destination not yet discovered, or had simply left his car at the airport as a blind while he stayed in hiding in Britain, was not known. However, the tyres of the car matched the tracks that had been left in the wood.
The matter of the telephone call to Jonathan’s office was simpler. While Andrew and Roland were talking in Rockford, Sergeant Porter had at one point left the room, and returning after a while had nodded his head at the inspector. It appeared that he had been able to check that Erica Haslam had made a telephone call to Rockford not long after she had been admitted to the hospital. Challenged later, she coolly admitted it. Henry Haslam was frantic, and denied that it was possible and immediately engaged lawyers to defend his wife. As long as he possibly could, he refused to believe that she could be in love with anyone but himself. When she quietly killed herself by taking an overdose of barbiturates one day after emerging from St. Raphael’s, he mourned her as a beloved wife who had never recovered from the aftereffects of her accident.
Jonathan Cahill vanished into thin air. A man’s body that was found in the Thames many weeks after the murders and never identified was thought possibly to be his, but this was never certain. It was not impossible that he was making a good career for himself, might have married, had children and even settled down in Chile or Peru or some other country. Thinking of Colin and Dorothea, Andrew favoured this belief, though he had no evidence for doing so.
After his long session in the police station in Rockford, at the end of which he had signed a statement, a police car had driven him to the station and he had returned home. He had never before felt that he loved his home so much. For a long time after Nell’s death its emptiness had had almost a feeling of menace for him. He had thought of moving to a smaller flat, or even into the country. But then there would have been the appalling problem to be faced of what to do with all his books; and of deciding which pieces of furniture, collected by Nell and him over the years, he could bear to part with; and of finding someone as comfortably efficient as his daily help to keep things in order. In the end he had stayed where he was, the number of books relentlessly increasing, so that he had had to have new bookshelves built for him. His help had left him, but he had been fortunate in soon finding another. And the presence of Nell never altogether faded from rooms that slowly became shabbier, yet were dear to his heart. He often talked to Nell when he was there alone, finding it easy to fill in the replies that she never made. Arriving home after the most distressing Christmas of his experience, he told her bit by bit all that had happened to him during the last few days.
But at the same time he began to think of Robert Hooke and of his contract. A contract was a serious thing. He sat down at his desk and began to turn over some of the pages of notes lying there. If he really worked at it he could finish the book quite soon. He slid a sheet of paper into his typewriter.