Oliphant asked: 'Was that before or after Mr Lessingham brought in the trainers?'
'I can't remember, Sergeant. You'd better ask him. We neither of us looked in the shoe box. Mr Pascoe was interested in warm jumpers for Timmy. He paid for two. There's a tin with the money on a shelf in the kitchen.'
'So people don't just help themselves and leave the cash?'
'Oh no, Chief Inspector. No one would dream of doing that.'
'And what about the belts? Would you be able to say whether one of the belts or straps is missing?'
She said with a sudden spurt of impatience: 'How could I possibly do that? Look for yourself. This box is literally a jumble; straps, belts, old handbags, scarves. How could I possibly say if anything is missing or when it was taken?'
Oliphant said: 'Would it surprise you to be told that we have a witness who saw the trainers in this box last Wednesday morning?'
Oliphant could make the simplest and most innocuous question sound like an accusation. But his crudeness, sometimes bordering on insolence, was usually carefully judged and Rickards seldom attempted to discipline it knowing that it had its uses. It had, after all, been Oliphant who had got close to shaking Alex Mair's composure. But now he should perhaps have remembered that he was talking to an ex-schoolmistress. Mrs Dennison turned on him the mildly reproving look more appropriate to a delinquent child.
'I don't think you can have been listening carefully to what I've been saying, Sergeant. I have no idea when the shoes were taken. That being so, how could it surprise me to learn when they were last seen?' She turned to Rickards: 'If we're going to discuss this further, wouldn't it be more comfortable for all of us in the drawing room than standing about here?'
Rickards hoped that it might at least be warmer.
She led them across the hall into a room at the front of the house which faced south over the lumpy lawn and the tangle of laurels, rhododendrons and wind-stunted bushes which effectively screened the road. The room was large and barely warmer than the one they had left, as if even the strongest autumn sun had been unable to penetrate the mullioned windows and the heavy drapes of the velvet curtains. And the air was a little stuffy, smelling of polish, pot-pourri and faintly of rich food as if still redolent with long-eaten Victorian afternoon teas. Rickards almost expected to hear the rustle of a crinoline.
Mrs Dennison didn't switch on the light and Rickards felt that he could hardly ask her. In the gloom he had an impression of solid mahogany furniture, side tables laden with photographs, of comfortably upholstered armchairs in shabby covers and of so many pictures in ornate frames that the room had the air of an oppressive and rarely visited provincial gallery. Mrs Dennison seemed aware of the cold if not of the gloom. She stooped to plug in a two-bar electric fire to the right of the huge carved grate then seated herself with her back towards the window, and gestured Rickards and Oliphant to the sofa on which they sat side by side solidly upright on stiff, unyielding cushions. She sat quietly waiting, her hands folded in her lap. The room with its weight of dark mahogany, its air of ponderous respectability diminished her and it seemed to Rickards that she gleamed like a pale and insubstantial wraith dwarfed by the huge arms of the chair. He wondered about her life on the headland and in this remote and surely unmanageable house, wondered what she had been seeking when she fled to this wind-scoured coast and whether she had found it.
He asked: 'When was it decided that the Reverend and Mrs Copley should go to stay with their daughter?'
'Last Friday, after Christine Baldwin was murdered. She'd been very anxious about them for some time and pressing them to leave, but it was the fact that the last murder was so very close that persuaded them. I was to drive them to Norwich to catch the 8.30 on Sunday evening.'
'Was that generally known?'
'It was talked about, I expect. You could say it was generally known in as far as there are people here to know it. Mr Copley had to make arrangements for the services he normally takes. I told Mrs Bryson at the stores that I would only be needing half a pint of milk a day instead of the normal two and a half pints. Yes, you could say it was generally known.'
'And why didn't you drive them to Norwich as arranged?'
'Because the car broke down while they were finishing the packing. I thought I'd explained that already. At about half-past six I went to get it out of the garage and drove it to the front door. It was all right then but when I finally got them into it at 7.15 and we were ready to go it wouldn't start. So I rang Mr Sparks at Lydsett Garage and arranged for him to take them in his taxi.'
'Without you?'
Before she could answer Oliphant got to his feet, walked over to a standard lamp close to his chair and, without a word, switched it on. The strong light flowed down on her. For a moment Rickards thought that she was about to protest. She half rose from the chair, then sat down again and went on as if nothing had happened.
'I felt bad about that. I would have been much happier to have seen them on the train, but Mr Sparks could only take the job if he could go straight on to Ipswich where he had to pick up a fare. But he promised he wouldn't leave them until he'd seen them into the carriage. And, of course, they're not children, they're perfectly capable of getting out at Liverpool Street. It's the terminus, after all; and their daughter was meeting them.'
Why, Rickards wondered, was she so defensive? She could hardly suppose herself a serious suspect. And yet, why not? He had known less likely murderers. He could see fear in the dozen small signs which no experienced policeman could miss; the tremble of the hands which she tried to control when his glance fell on them, the nervous tic at the corner of the eye, the inability to sit still one moment followed by an unnatural, controlled stillness the next, the note of strain in the voice, the way in which she was resolutely meeting his eyes with a look compounded of defiance and endurance. Taken singly each was a sign of natural stress; together they added up to something close to terror. He had resented Adam Dalgliesh's warning the previous night. It had been uncomfortably close to teaching him his job. But perhaps he had been right. Perhaps he was facing a woman who had suffered more aggressive interrogations than she could take. But he had his job to do.
He said: 'You phoned for the taxi straight away? You didn't try to find out what was wrong with the car?'
'There was no time to fuss about under the bonnet. I'm not a mechanic anyway. I've never been particularly good with a car. It was lucky that I found out in time that it wouldn't go, and even luckier that Mr Sparks could oblige. He came at once. Mr and Mrs Copley were getting very agitated. Their daughter was expecting them; all the arrangements had been made. It was important to catch the train.'
'Where was the car normally kept, Mrs Dennison?' 'I thought I told you that, Chief Inspector. In the garage.' 'Locked?'
'There's a padlock. Quite a small one. I don't suppose it's very secure if someone really wanted to break it, but no one has ever tried. It was locked when I went for the car.'
'Three-quarters of an hour before you needed to leave,' 'Yes. I don't understand what you're getting at. Is that significant?'
'I'm just curious, Mrs Dennison. Why so much time?'
'Have you ever had to load a car with the luggage required by two elderly people leaving for an indefinite stay? I had been helping Mrs Copley with the final part of her packing. I wasn't needed for a minute or so and it seemed a good opportunity to get the car out.'
'And while it stood there in front of the house, was it continually under your eye?'
'Of course not. I was busy checking that the Copleys had everything that they needed, going over the things I needed to do while they were away, parish business, a few telephone calls.'