A Murder of Quality

Smiley was silent for a long time, watching Rode and thinking. Then he asked suddenly: 'What was Stella's blood group, do you know?'

'Mine's B. I know that. I was a donor at Branxome. Hers was different.'

'How do you know that?'

'She had a test before we were married. She used to suffer from anaemia. I remember hers being different, that's all. Probably A. I can't remember for sure. Why?'

'Where were you registered as a donor?'

'North Poole Transfusion Centre.'

'Will they know you there still? Are you still recorded there?'

'I suppose so.'

The front door bell rang. It was Ailsa Brimley, back from her shopping.

Ailsa installed herself in the kitchen, while Rode and Smiley sat in the warm comfort of the drawing-room.

'Tell me something else,' said Smiley, 'about the night of the murder. Why did you leave the writing-case behind? Was it absent-mindedness?'

'No, not really. I was on Chapel duty that night, so Stella and I arrived separately at Fielding's house. She got there before I did and I think Fielding gave the case to her—right at the start of the evening so that it wouldn't get forgotten. He said something about it later that evening. She'd put the case beside her coat in the hall. It was only a little thing about eighteen inches by twelve. I could have sworn she was carrying it as we stood in the hall saying good-bye, but I must have been mistaken. It wasn't till we got to the house that she asked me what I'd done with it.'

'She asked you what you'd done with it?'

'Yes. Then she threw a temper and said I expected her to remember everything. I didn't particularly want to go back, I could have rung Fielding and arranged to collect it first thing next morning, but Stella wouldn't hear of it. She made me go. I didn't like to tell the police all this stuff about us quarrelling, it didn't seem right.'

Smiley nodded. 'When you got back to Fielding's you rang the bell?'

'Yes. There's the front door, then a glass door inside, a sort of french window to keep out draughts. The front door was still open, and the light was on in the hall. I rang the bell and collected the case from Fielding.'

They had finished supper when the telephone rang.

'Rigby here, Mr Smiley. I've got the laboratory results. They're rather puzzling.'

'The exam, paper first: it doesn't tally?'

'No, it doesn't. The boffins here say all the figures and writing were done with the same ballpoint pen. They can't be sure about the diagrams but they say the legend on all the diagrams corresponds to the rest of the script on the sheet.'

'All done by the boy after all in fact?'

'Yes. I brought up some other samples of his hand-writing for comparison. They match the exam, paper right the way through. Fielding couldn't have tinkered with it.'

'Good. And the clothing? Nothing there either?'

'Traces of blood, that's all. No prints on the plastic.'

'What was her blood group, by the way?'

'Group A.'

Smiley sat down on the edge of the bed. Pressing the receiver to his ear, he began talking quietly. Ten minutes later he was walking slowly downstairs. He had come to the end of the chase, and was already sickened by the kill.

It was nearly an hour before Rigby arrived.

Chapter 20—The Dross of the River

Albert Bridge was as preposterous as ever; bony steel, rising to Wagnerian pinnacles, against the patient London sky; the Thames crawling beneath it with resignation, edging its filth into the wharves of Battersea, then sliding towards the mist down river.

The mist was thick. Smiley watched the driftwood, as it touched it, turning first to white dust, then seeming to lift, dissolve and vanish.

This was how it would end, on a foul morning like this when they dragged the murderer whimpering from his cell and put the hempen rope round his neck. Would Smiley have the courage to recall this two months from now, as the dawn broke outside his window and the clock rang out the time? When they broke a man's neck on the scaffold and put him away like the dross of the river?

He made his way along Beaumont Street towards the King's Road. The milkman chugged past him in his electric van. He would breakfast out this morning, then take a cab to Curzon Street and order the wine for dinner. He would choose something good. Fielding would like that.

Fielding closed his eyes and drank, his left hand held lightly across his chest.

'Divine,' he said 'divine!' And Ailsa Brimley, opposite him, smiled gently.

'How are you going to spend your retirement, Mr Fielding,' she asked.' Drinking Frankenwein?'

His glass still held before his lips he looked into the candles. The silver was good, better than his own. He wondered why they were only dining three. 'In peace,' he replied at last. 'I have recently made a discovery.'

'What's that?'