The Murder Room by P. D. James

Author:P. D. James [P. D. James]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
ISBN: 9780571247035
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Published: 2003-03-23T16:00:00+00:00

13

Mrs Faraday’s house was the eighth in a mid-nineteenth-century terrace on the south side of an Islington square. The houses, no doubt built originally for the superior working class, must have gone through the usual transmogrification of rising rents, neglect, war damage and multi-occupancy, but had long been taken over by those of the middle class who valued proximity to the City, the nearness of good restaurants and the Almeida Theatre, and the satisfaction of proclaiming that they lived in an interesting, socially and ethnically diverse community. From the number of window grilles and burglar alarm systems, it was apparent that the occupants had protected themselves against any unwelcome manifestation of this rich diversity. The terrace had an attractive architectural unity. The identical façades of cream stucco and black iron balconies were broken up by the shining paint of different coloured doors and the varied brass knockers. In spring this architectural conformity would be enlivened by the blooms of cherry trees, their trunks protected by railings, but now the autumn sun shone on a patterned avenue of bare branches, touching the trunks with gold. An occasional window box was bright with trailing ivy and the yellow of winter pansies.

Kate pressed the bell in its brass surround and it was quickly answered. They were courteously received by an elderly man with carefully brushed-back white hair, and a resolutely non-committal face. His clothes struck a note of eccentric ambiguity; striped black trousers, a brown linen jacket which looked newly pressed and a spotted bow tie. He said, ‘Commander Dalgliesh and Inspector Miskin? Mrs Faraday is expecting you. She’s in the garden but perhaps you won’t mind going through.’ He added, ‘My name is Perkins,’ as if this somehow explained his presence.

It was neither the house nor the reception that Kate had expected. There were now very few houses where the door was opened by a butler, nor did the man they were following look like one. In demeanour and assurance he seemed like an old retainer, or was he perhaps a relation of the family who had decided, for his perverse amusement, to play a part?

The hall was narrow and made more so by the slender mahogany grandfather clock to the right of the door. The walls were covered with water-colours so closely hung that little of the patterned dark green paper was visible. A door to the left gave Kate a glimpse of book-covered walls, an elegant fireplace and a portrait in oils above it. This wasn’t a house where you would expect to find prints of wild horses galloping out of the sea or a green-faced oriental woman. An elegantly-carved mahogany banister led upstairs. At the end of the corridor Perkins opened a white-painted door which led into a conservatory stretching the width of the house. It was a room of casual intimacy; coats slung over low wicker chairs, magazines on the wicker table, a profusion of green plants obscuring the glass and giving the light a greenish tinge as if they were under water.

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