A Taste for Death by P. D. James Page A

reply he'd probably come round to se
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    ifBerowne was all right. If he continued to get the engaged sound he'd probably assume that Berowne was having an
    evening of telephoning and let it go.'
    'We might get a palm print, sir.'
    'Unlikely, John. If this is murder, we're not dealing with a fool.'
    He continued his exploration. With his gloved hands, he pulled open the top drawer and found a stack of white writing paper, of cheap quality, headed with the name of the church, and a box of envelopes. Apart from these, the desk held nothing of interest. Against the left-hand wall was an assortment of canvas and metal chairs neatly stacked, presumably for the occasional use of the parochial church council. Beside them was a five-drawer metal filing cabinet, and next to it a small glass-fronted bookcase. He slipped the catch and saw that it contained an assortment of old prayer books, missals, devotional pamphlets, and a pile of booklets about the history of the church. There were only two easy chairs, one set on each side of the fireplace; a compact brown chair in torn leather with a patchwork cushion, and a grubby, mor modern chair with fitted pads. One of the stacked chairs had been up-righted. A white towel hung over its back and on the seat rested a brown canvas bag, its zip open. Massingham rummaged gently inside and said:
    'A pair of pyjamas, a spare pair of socks, and a table napkin wrapped round half a sliced loaf, wholemeal, and a piece of cheese. Roquefort by the look of it. And there's
    an apple. A Cox if that's relevant.'
    'Hardly. Is that all, John?'
    'Yes, sir. No wine. Whatever he thought he was doing here, it doesn't look like an assignation, not with a woman anyway. And why choose this place with the whole of London open to him? Bed too narrow. No comfort.'
    'Whatever he was looking for, I don't think it was comfort.'
    Dalgliesh had moved over to the fireplace, a plain wooden overmantel with an iron surround patterned with g,pes and convolvulus set in the middle of the right-hand
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    a little that it was possible to fix the attention on the room itself, its furniture and objects, even before the bodies had been packaged and taken away, as if in their fixed and silent decrepitude they had for a moment become part of the room's artefacts, as significant as any other physical clue, no more and no less. As he moved into the room he was aware of Massingham behind him, alert, already drawing on his gloves but, for him, unnaturally subser-vient, pacing quietly behind his chief like a recently quali-fied houseman deferentially attendant on the consultant. Dalgliesh thought: Why is he behaving as if I need tactful handling, as if I'm suffering from a private grief?. This is a job like any other. It promises to be difficult enough with-out John and Kate treating me as if I'm a sensitive con-valescent.
    Henry James, he remembered, had said of his approach-ing death, 'So here it is at last, the distinguished thing!' If Berowne had thought in these terms, then this was an in-congruous place in which to receive so honoured a visita-tion. The room was about twelve foot square and lit by a fluorescent tube running almost the full length of the ceil-ing. The only natural light came from two high curved windows. They were covered outside by a protective mesh which looked like chicken wire on which the dirt of decades had accumulated, so that the panes were honeycombs of greenish grime. The furniture, too, looked as if it had been gradually acquired over the years; gifts, rejects, the un-regarded remnants of long-forgotten jumble sales. Opposite the door and set under the windows was an ancient oak desk with three right-hand drawers, one without handles. On its top was a simple oak cross, a much used blotter in a leather pad, and an old fashioned black telephone, the re ceiver off the rest and lying on its side.
    Massingham said:
    'Looks as if he took it off. Who wants the telephone to ring just when he's concentrating on slitting