people was what he’d been good at when Joyce had first employed him, and that probably we’d expeaed too much of him, setting him to unravel attempted murders.
He said, ‘You’ll find there’s a definite pattern about the movements of your family, and at the same time an absence of pattern. The murder of Mrs Moira and the gassing of Mr Pembroke both took place at about five in the evening, and at five almost all your family are habitually on the move. Mind you, so is most of the working population. It’s a time of day when it’s easy to lose an hour or so without anyone noticing. Traffic jams, left work late, stopped for a drink, watched television in shop windows… I’ve heard all those from erring husbands. The list is limitless of things people think up as excuses for getting home late. With a family like yours, where practically no one has a set time for leaving a place of work, it’s even easier. That’s why it’s been almost hopeless establishing alibis, and I’m pretty sure the police found the same thing over Mrs Moira. When there’s no expectation of anyone arriving at a regular time, no one looks at the dock.’
‘I do understand,’ I said thoughtfully.
‘Newmarket was a bit different,’ he said, ‘because it meant someone being away from their normal environment for a whole day, assuming that Mr Pembroke was followed from his hotel when he left at lunchtime for Newmarket. And one has to assume that a follower would be in position much earlier than that, because he wouldn’t know when Mr Pembroke would leave, or where he would go.’ He cleared his throat and sipped his whisky. ‘I thought it would be simple in those circumstances to discover which family member had been away all of that Tuesday, but in fact it wasn’t, as you’ll read. Now, if the explosive device was planted in Quantum House between four when the gardener usually left and six, when you might have returned from the races, we’re back to the… er …’
‘Five o’clock shadow,’ I said.
He looked mildly shocked. It wasn’t a laughing matter. ‘I’ve nodoubt the same pattern will be found,’ he said. ‘No one will be able, or willing, to say exactly where they were or where anyone else was during that period.’
‘We may be lucky,’ I said.
He said maybe, and looked unconvinced.
‘Couldn’t you please tell me,’ I said, ‘which Mrs Pembroke got you to find Malcolm? I know all about your ethics, but after this bomb… can’t you? Whose name was on the cheque?’
He considered, staring at his drink as if to find wisdom in the depths. He sighed heavily, and shrugged.
‘I didn’t get paid,’ he said. ‘The cheque never came. I’m not sure, but I think… I think it was the voice of Mrs Alicia Pembroke.’ He shook his head. ‘I asked her if it was her, when I interviewed her. She said it wasn’t but I think she was lying. But two other people found out on their own account, don’t forget, by doing exactly as I did, telephoning around.’
‘I won’t forget.’
He looked at me sombrely. ‘I hope Mr Pembroke can’t be found as easily at this moment.’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said.
‘Can I give you some advice?’
‘Please do.’
‘Carry a weapon with you.’
‘Mr West!’
‘Even if it’s only a pot of pepper,’ he said, ‘or a can of spray paint. There’s a good deal of enmity towards you in your family because of your favoured status with Mr Pembroke. You were supposed to die with him in the house, I should imagine. So don’t go unprepared.’
I swallowed and thanked him. He nodded and prosaically produced a smaller envelope from an inner pocket, which contained his account. I wrote him his cheque. He took it, inspected it, and put it away.
He rose wearily to his feet and shook my hand. ‘Any time you want to,’ he said, ‘phone me. I don’t mind talking, if it will help.’
I thanked him again and he went greyly away, leaving me on my own with his notes and a feeling of nakedness.
I began reading the notes. It so happened that he had reversed his original working order, or perhaps the order had become reversed during the copying: in any event, the eldest-to-youngest progression had been transposed, and it was Serena’s notes which came first.
Norman West had written all his notes in longhand with aide-memoires to himself, and I could almost hear his radio-announcer voice in my head as