‘You quarrelled?’
‘I called him a fat, greasy lickspittle – or something like that. He called me a Casanova, an ageing lady-killer – among other things, I forget what.’ He lifted his chin, which was still firm and well-defined. ‘Spiteful nonsense, of course.’
‘So you were angry. Did you feel at that point you wanted to kill him?’
My father laughed as though indulging the inspector’s sense of drama. ‘I’m not a violent man nor is it my habit to assault people who call me hard names.’
‘But why have you been arrested?’ I asked.
My father gave a superior sort of smile. ‘You have to see it from a policeman’s point of view, to understand why such a hopeless bungle has been made of the business. Imagine yourself a young constable – about seventeen years old to judge from the down on his cheek – whose most exciting job of the day has been to take a lost puppy to the dog pound. You are informed that a famous actor has been found dead in suspicious circumstances. You come bounding in, almost swallowing your whistle with excitement. At last, a chance to use those handcuffs! Something to tell mother when you go home for tea! You see a possibly even more famous actor – it is not for me to say – prostrate at the scene of the crime – for Sandra’s eager embraces had prevented me from rising – and dripping with the corpse’s vital fluids. Naturally – because you are young and foolish and have no comprehension of human nature – you assume it was he who dispatched the man with all his crimes broad-blown, as flush as May, his heels kicking at heaven.’
‘Hang on a bit.’ Sergeant Tweeter was breathing hard now in his efforts to keep up. ‘Who was it kicked the dog?’
‘Never mind, Tweeter.’ Inspector Foy looked at his notebook. ‘We mustn’t forget that when PC Copper questioned you, your answers were, to say the least, ambiguous. When asked what you knew about Sir Basil’s death, you said, “Blood will have blood. Never shake thy Goldilocks at me.”’ The inspector frowned. ‘I think that must be gory locks. “Will all my great-nephew’s” – great Neptune’s, I think – “ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?”’
‘They were remarkably bloody.’ My father looked down at his spread fingers, now mercifully clean.
‘But you can’t arrest him for saying that,’ I protested. ‘He was in shock. He just said the first thing that came into his head. It didn’t mean anything.’
‘If you remember Macbeth as you ought, Harriet,’ said my father reprovingly, ‘you will know it is a moment of exquisite nuance in a scene crammed with meaning and expressed in the finest poetry: No-o-o! This my hand will rather the multitudinous seas –’
‘I understand, Miss Byng. But PC Copper is not a student of English literature. It sounded to him like a confession. When your father refused to say he didn’t do it, the constable placed him under arrest.’
I leant across the table and put my hand on my father’s arm. ‘Pa, tell them you didn’t kill Basil.’
‘Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought. Of this alone I am guilty.’ My father spoke in a slow dreamy voice. ‘I may not have been the instrument but I confess I was, God help me, frequently angry enough to wish him – no, not dead, but – out of my way.’
For my father other people’s prime duty was to be an audience. Being looked at and wondered at and talked about was as necessary to him as breathing. He was enjoying giving a bravura performance of a man wrongfully accused. One of his first roles as a child actor had been the eponymous character in The Winslow Boy.
‘There you are!’ I looked at the inspector. ‘He’s just said he didn’t do it.’
‘Sergeant, read out what you’ve just written.’
‘I’m getting it down as fast as I can.’ The sergeant’s tone was injured. He read out in a slow monotone. ‘“Father Harry – I am guil-ty. I may not have been a hinstrument but I confess –” Blast! Excuse me, ladies. My pencil’s just broke. It’s all them long words.’
The inspector sighed. ‘You see how it’s going to sound in court, Miss Byng. What we need is a clear statement. A straightforward denial. And there’s also the business of the fingerprints.’
‘Fingerprints?’ I began to feel frightened.
‘The autopsy report’s just come in. Sir Basil was struck once, a heavy blow, centre skull, from above. According to PC Copper’s notes there was a metal rod lying beside the body. It was sent immediately to Forensic. Two feet six inches long, weighing several pounds, with a point at one end. And covered with blood. Forensic say Mr Byng’s prints were on the handle.’
‘Naturally they were. That was the gouger,’ explained my father. ‘I took it with me to get me in the mood. Think of it, Inspector. Your arms are tied, you are helpless before your enemies. Their grinning, exultant faces are the last things you will see in this world. But not quite! The very last thing of all is the cruel tip of obdurate iron as it makes it way through the soft jelly of your eye into your very brain! A-a-a-rgh!’ My father flung himself back in his chair and gave a blood-curdling scream that made me drive my nails into my palms. Maria-Alba opened her eyes and crossed herself fervently. A policeman put his head round the door and asked if we were all right.
The inspector waved him away and stuck to his point. ‘Did you use this – gouger to kill Sir Basil, Mr Byng?’
‘Of course I didn’t! I must have dropped it when I fell over the body. Naturally there was blood on it. Everything within ten feet of Basil was covered with it. Ugh!’ He gave another shudder and drew together his dark-winged brows.
‘Got that, Tweeter?’
Sergeant Tweeter, licking the point of his pencil, muttered that he had some of it.
‘What did you mean when you called Sir Basil –’ he consulted his notes again, ‘“a dreary old queen, bloated with bombast”?’
‘Did I really say that? I don’t remember.’
‘According to Miss Marina Marlow. Was Sir Basil a homosexual, to your knowledge?’
My father put on his I-know-a-hawk-from-a-handsaw face, a combination of abstraction and cunning. ‘Don’t start a hare, Inspector. I neither know nor care if Basil was queer. He’s dead. Let his secrets die with him. De mortuis nil nisi bonum – good advice and I shall stick to it.’
Was it possible? I wondered, watching my father as he swept a lock of dark wavy hair from his forehead. His expression was one of pained virtue. Could he actually be a murderer? My father – who would cross the road to avoid seeing rabbits with bloody muzzles hanging in the butcher’s shop window? Who would not allow Loveday to kill the moles that ruined the grass? Who, when fishing had enjoyed a brief vogue with Bron years ago, objected violently to the cruelty of skewering live worms with hooks.
‘Thank you, sir. I think we’ll leave it there for today. Miss Byng, I’ll arrange for a car to take you and Miss Petrelli home.’
For a moment I couldn’t think who Miss Petrelli was. Then I remembered it was Maria-Alba. I was fairly sure I had not got round to introducing them. My anxiety was increased by this display of police omniscience.
‘Have you a message for Ma?’ I asked my father.
‘Tell her to be brave. All will be resolved. Tomorrow and tomorrow, and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace …’
I stood politely and waited for the end of the speech, my knee aching and my cut stinging. Shakespeare had suitable observations for every occasion. He really was inexhaustible. The last sight I had of my father was of his face turned to the window displaying his famous profile while the young constable applauded.
Maria-Alba held my arm tightly as we walked back along the corridor.
‘This