'So the cottage was empty. What else is there? Obviously there is something else.'
Meg said: 'That message on your answerphone; if you'd really received it at ten past eight you would have telephoned Norwich station and left a message for me to ring back. You knew how much the Copleys disliked the thought of going to their daughter. No one else on the headland knew that. The Copleys never spoke of it and nor did I, not to anyone except you. You would have rung, Alice. There could have been an announcement over the station loudspeaker and I could have driven them home. You would have thought of that.'
Alice said: 'One lie to Rickards which could have been a matter of convenience, a wish to avoid trouble, and one instance of insensitive neglect. Is that all?'
'The knife. The middle knife in your block. It wasn't here. It meant nothing at the time, of course, but the block looked odd. I was so used to seeing the five carefully graded knives, each in its sheath. It's back now. It was back when I called in on the Monday after the murder. But it wasn't here on the Sunday night.'
She wanted to cry out: 'You can't be going to use it! Alice, don't use it!' Instead she made herself go on, trying to keep her voice calm, trying not to plead for reassurance, understanding.
'And next morning, when you telephoned to say that Hilary was dead, I didn't say anything about my visit. I didn't know what to believe. It wasn't that I suspected you; that would have been impossible for me, it still is. But I needed time to think. It was late morning before I could bring myself to come to you.'
'And then you found me here with Chief Inspector Rickards and heard me lying. And you saw that the knife was back in the block. But you didn't speak then and you haven't spoken since, not even, I presume, to Adam Dalgliesh.'
It was a shrewd thrust. Meg said: 'I've told no one, how could I? Not until we'd spoken. I knew that you must have had what seemed to you a good reason for lying.'
'And then, I suppose, slowly, perhaps unwillingly, you began to realize what that reason might be?'
'I didn't think you'd murdered Hilary. It sounds fantastic, ludicrous even to speak those words, to think of suspecting you. But the knife was missing and you weren't there. You did lie and I couldn't understand why. I still can't. I wonder who it is you're shielding. And sometimes - forgive me, Alice - sometimes I wonder whether you were there when he killed her, kept guard, stood there watching, might even have helped him by cutting off her hair.'
Alice sat so still that the long-fingered hands resting in her lap, the folds of her shift, might have been carved in stone. She said: 'I didn't help anyone - and no one helped me. There were only two people on that beach, Hilary Robarts and I. I planned it alone and I did it alone.'
For a moment they sat in silence. Meg felt a great coldness. She heard the words and she knew that they were true. Had she, perhaps, always known? She thought: I shall never be with her in this kitchen again, never again find the peace and security which I found in this room. And there fell into her mind an incongruous memory; herself sitting quietly in the same chair and watching while Alice made short pastry; sieving the flour on to a marble slab, adding the squares of soft butter, breaking in the egg, her long fingers delicately dabbling the mixture, drawing in the flour, lightly forming the glistening ball of dough. She said: 'They were your hands. Your hands tightening the belt round her throat, your hands cutting off her hair, your hands slicing that L into her forehead. You planned it alone and you did it alone.'
Alice said: 'It took courage, but perhaps less than you would imagine. And she died very quickly, very easily. We shall be lucky to go with so little pain. She hadn't even time to feel terror. She had an easier death than most of us can look forward to. And as for what followed, that didn't matter. Not to her. Not even much to me. She was dead. It's what you do to the living that takes the strong emotions, courage, hatred and love.'
She was silent for a moment, then she said: 'In your eagerness to prove me a murderess, don't confuse suspicion with proof. You can't prove any of this. All right, you say the knife was missing, but that's only your word against mine. And if it was missing, I could say that I went for a short walk on the headland and the murderer saw his chance.'
'And put it back afterwards? He wouldn't even know that it was there.'
'Of course he would. Everyone knows that I'm a cook, and a cook has sharp knives. And why shouldn't he put it back?'
'But how would he get in? The door was locked.'
'There's only your word for that. I shall say that I left it open. People on the headland usually do.'
Meg wanted to cry out: 'Don't, Alice. Don't begin planning more lies. Let there at least be truth between us.' She said: 'And the portrait, the smashed window, was that you too?'
'Of course.'
'But why? Why all that complication?'
'Because it was necessary. While I was waiting for Hilary to come out of the sea I glimpsed Theresa Blaney. She suddenly appeared on the very edge of the cliff by the abbey ruins. She was only there for a moment and then she disappeared. But I saw her. She was unmistakable in the moonlight.'
'But if she didn't see you, if she wasn't there when you . . . when Hilary died . . .'
'Don't you see? It meant that her father wouldn't have an alibi. She has always struck me as a truthful child and she has had a strict religious upbringing. Once she told the police that she was out on the headland that night Ryan would be in terrible danger. And even if she had sense enough to lie, for how long could she keep it up? The police would be gentle questioning her. Rickards isn't a brute. But a truthful child would find it difficult to lie convincingly. When I got back here after the murder I played back the messages on the answerphone. It occurred to me that Alex might change his plans and telephone. And it was then, too late, that I got George Jago's message. I knew that the murder could no longer be pinned on the Whistler. I had to give Ryan Blaney an alibi. So I tried to ring him to say that I'd collect the picture. When I couldn't get through I knew I had to call at Scudder's Cottage and as quickly as possible.'
'You could just have collected the portrait, knocked at the door to say what you'd done, seen him then. That would be proof enough that he was at home.'
'But it would have looked too deliberate, too contrived. Ryan had made it plain that he didn't want to be disturbed, that I was merely to collect the portrait. He made that very clear. And Adam Dalgliesh was with me when he said it. Not any casual caller, but Scotland Yard's most intelligent detective. No, I had to have a valid excuse to knock and speak to Ryan.'
'So you put the portrait in the boot of your car and told him that it wasn't in the shed?' It seemed to Meg extraordinary that horror could briefly be subsumed by curiosity, by the need to know. They might have been discussing complicated arrangements for a picnic.
Alice said: 'Exactly. He was hardly likely to think that it was I who had taken it only a minute earlier. It was convenient, of course, that he was half drunk. Not as drunk as I described to Rickards, but obviously incapable of killing Robarts and getting back to Scudder's Cottage by a quarter to ten.'
'Not even in the van or on his bicycle?'
'The van was out of commission and he couldn't have stayed on the bicycle. Besides, I would have passed him cycling home. My evidence meant that Ryan would be safe even if Theresa confessed that she'd left the cottage. After I left him I drove back over a deserted headland. I stopped briefly below the pillbox and threw the shoes inside. I had no way of burning them except on an open fire where I had burned the paper and string from the wrapped portrait, but I had an idea that burning rubber could leave some trace and a persistent smell. I didn't expect the police to search for them because I didn't believe they would find a print. But even if they did there would be nothing to link those particular shoes with the murder. I washed them thoroughly under the outside tap before I disposed of them. Ideally I could have returned them to the jumble box but I daren't wait and that night I knew that, with you gone to Norwich, the back door would be locked.'
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'And then you threw the picture through Hilary's window?'
'I had to get rid of it somehow. That way it looked like a deliberate act of vandalism and hatred and there were plenty of possible suspects for that, not all of them on the headland. It complicated matters even further and it was one more piece of evidence to help Ryan. No one would believe that he would deliberately destroy his own work. But it had a double purpose: I wanted to get into Thyme Cottage. I smashed enough of the window to get through.'
'But that was terribly dangerous. You might have cut yourself, got a sliver of glass on your shoes. And they were your own shoes then; you had disposed of the Bumbles.'
'I examined the soles very thoroughly. And I was particularly careful where I trod. She had left the downstairs lights on so I didn't have to use my torch.'
'But why? What were you looking for? What did you hope to find?'
'Nothing. I wanted to get rid of the belt. I curled it very carefully and put it in the drawer in her bedroom among her other belts, stockings, handkerchiefs, socks.'
'But if the police examined it, it wouldn't have her prints on it.'
'Nor would it have mine. I was still wearing my gloves. Anyway why should they examine it? One would assume that the murderer had used his own belt and had taken it away again. The least likely hiding place for the killer to choose would be the victim's own cottage. That's why I chose it. And even if they did decide to examine every belt and dog lead on the headland I doubt whether they'd get any useful prints from half an inch of leather which dozens of hands must have touched.'
Meg said bitterly: 'You took a lot of trouble to give Ryan an alibi. What about the other innocent suspects? They were all at risk, they still are. Didn't you think of them?'
'I only cared about one other, Alex, and he had the best alibi of all. He would go through security to get into the station and again when he left.'
Meg said: 'I was thinking of Neil Pascoe, Amy, Miles Lessingham, even myself.'
'None of you is a parent responsible for four motherless children. I thought it very unlikely that Lessingham wouldn't be able to provide an alibi and if he couldn't there was no real evidence against him. How could there be? He didn't do it. But I have a feeling that he guesses who did. Lessingham isn't a fool. But even if he knows, he'll never tell. Neil Pascoe and Amy could give each other an alibi and you, my dear Meg, do you really see yourself as a serious suspect?'
'I felt like one. When Rickards was questioning me it was like being back in that staffroom at school, facing those cold accusing faces, knowing I'd already been judged and found guilty, wondering if perhaps I wasn't guilty.'
'The possible distress of innocent suspects, even you, was very low on my list of priorities.'
'And now you'll let them blame the murder on Caroline and Amy, both dead and both innocent?'
'Innocent? Of that, of course. Perhaps you're right and the police will find it convenient to assume they did it, one of them or together in collusion. From Rickards's point of view it's better to have two dead suspects than no arrest. And it can't hurt them now. The dead are beyond harm, the harm they do and the harm that is done to them.'
'But it's wrong and it's unjust.'
'Meg, they are dead. Dead. It can't matter. Injustice is a word and they have passed beyond the power of words. They don't exist. And life is unjust. If you feel called upon to do something about injustice concentrate on injustice to the living. Alex had a right to that job.'
'And Hilary Robarts, hadn't she a right to life? I know that she wasn't likeable, nor even very happy. There's no immediate family to mourn, apparently. She doesn't leave young children. But you've taken from her what no one can ever give back. She didn't deserve to die. Perhaps none of us do, not like that. We don't even hang the Whistler now. We've learned something since Tyburn, since Agnes Poley's burning. Nothing Hilary Robarts did deserved death.'
'I'm not arguing that she deserved to die. It doesn't matter whether she was happy, or childless, or even much use to anyone but herself. What I'm saying is that I wanted her dead.'
'That seems to me so evil that it's beyond my understanding. Alice, what you did was a dreadful sin.'
Alice laughed. The sound was so full-throated, almost happy, as if the amusement were genuine. 'Meg, you continue to astonish me. You use words which are no longer in the general vocabulary, not even in the Church's, so I'm told. The implications of that simple little word are outside my comprehension. But if you want to see this in theological terms, then think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He wrote: "We have at times to be willing to be guilty." Well, I'm willing to be guilty.'
'To be guilty, yes. But not to feel guilt. That must make it easier.'
'Oh, but I do feel it. I've been made to feel guilty from childhood. And if at the heart of your being you feel that you've no right even to exist, then one more cause of guilt hardly matters.'
Meg thought, I shall never be able to unlearn, never forget what's happening here this evening. But I have to know the whole of it. Even the most painful knowledge is better than half-knowledge. She said: 'That night I came here to tell you the Copleys were going to their daughter . . .'
Alice said: 'On the Friday after the dinner party. Thirteen days ago.'
'Is that all? It seems in a different dimension of time. You asked me to come and have supper with you when I got back from Norwich. Was that planned as part of your alibi? Did you use even me?'
Alice looked at her. She said: 'Yes. I'm sorry. You would have been here about half-past nine, just time for me to get back and be ready with a hot meal in the oven.'
'Which you would have cooked earlier in the evening. Safe enough with Alex at the power station, out of the way.'
'That's what I planned. When you declined I didn't press it. That would have looked suspicious later, too like trying to establish an alibi. Besides, you wouldn't have been persuaded to change your mind, would you? You never do. But the very fact of the invitation would have helped. A woman wouldn't normally invite a friend to even an informal supper if she's simultaneously planning a murder.'
'And if I had accepted, if I had turned up here at half-past nine, that would have been awkward, wouldn't it, given your later change of plan? You wouldn't have been able to drive over to Scudder's Cottage to give Ryan Blaney his alibi. And you would have been left in possession of the shoes and the belt.'
'The shoes would have been the greatest problem. I didn't think they'd ever be connected with the crime but I needed to get rid of them before next morning. I couldn't possibly explain my possession of them. I would probably have washed them and hidden them away, hoping for a chance to get them back to the jumble box the next day. Though I would have to have found a way of giving Ryan his alibi. Probably I would have told you that I couldn't get through by telephone and that we ought to drive over at once to tell him that the Whistler was dead. But it's all academic. I didn't worry. You said you wouldn't come and I knew you wouldn't.'
'But I did. Not to supper. But I came.'
'Yes. Why did you, Meg?'
'A feeling of depression after a heavy day, hating seeing the Copleys go, the need to see you. I wasn't looking for a meal. I had an early supper and then walked over the headland.'
But there was something else she needed to ask. She said: 'You knew that Hilary swam after watching the beginning of the main news. I suppose most people knew that who knew that she liked swimming at night. And you were taking trouble to see that Ryan had his alibi for nine fifteen or shortly after. But suppose the body hadn't been discovered until the next day? Surely she wouldn't normally be missed until she didn't turn up at the power station on Monday morning, and then they would telephone to see if she were ill. It might even have been Monday evening before anybody made any inquiries. She could have swum in the morning and not at night.'
'The pathologist can usually estimate the time of death with reasonable accuracy. And I knew she'd be found that night. I knew that Alex had promised to visit h
er when he got back from the power station. He was on his way to the cottage when he met Adam Dalgliesh. And now, I think, you know it all, except for the Bumble trainers. I came through the back gardens at the Old Rectory late on Sunday afternoon. I knew that the back door would be open and it was the time when you would be having high tea. I had a bag with me with a few items of jumble in case I was seen. But I wasn't seen. I took soft shoes, easy to wear, a pair that looked roughly my size. And I took one of the belts.'
But there was one more question to ask, the most important of all. Meg said: 'But why? Alice, I have to know. Why?'
'That's a dangerous question, Meg. Are you sure you really want the answer?'
'I need the answer, need to try to understand.'
'Isn't it enough that she was determined to marry Alex and I was determined that she shouldn't?'
'That isn't why you killed her. It can't be. There was something more than that, there had to be.'
'Yes, there was. I suppose you have a right to know. She was blackmailing Alex. She could have stopped him getting that job, or, if he had got it, could have made it impossible for him to function successfully. She had the power to destroy his whole career. Toby Gledhill had told her that Alex had deliberately held up publishing the result of their research because it might have prejudiced the success of the inquiry into Larksoken's second reactor. They discovered that some of the assumptions made in generating the mathematical models were more critical than had been thought. People opposing the building of the new PWR at Larksoken could have exploited it to cause delay, whip up fresh hysteria.'