Free The Black Tower by P. D. James

almost pretty and, strangely, it seemed to give her some comfort.
    Suddenly Jennie Pegram leaned forward across the table and said with a moue of simulated distaste:
    â€œA funny job catching murderers and getting them hanged. I don’t see how you fancy it.”
    â€œWe don’t fancy it, and nowadays they don’t get hanged.”
    â€œWell, shut up for life then. I think that’s worse. And Ibet some of those you caught when you were younger got hanged.”
    He detected the anticipatory, almost lascivious gleam in her eyes. It wasn’t new to him. He said quietly:
    â€œFive of them. It’s interesting that those are the ones people always want to hear about.”
    Anstey smiled his gentle smile and spoke as one determined to be fair.
    â€œIt isn’t only a question of punishment though, Jennie, is it? There is the theory of deterrence; the need to mark public abhorrence of violent crime; the hope of reforming and rehabilitating the criminal; and, of course, the importance of trying to ensure that he doesn’t do it again.”
    He reminded Dalgliesh of a school master he had much disliked who was given to initiating frank discussion as a matter of duty but always with the patronizing air of permitting a limited expression of unorthodox opinion provided the class came back within the allotted time to a proper conviction of the rightness of his own views. But now Dalgliesh was neither compelled nor disposed to cooperate. He broke into Jennie’s simple, “Well, they can’t do it again if they’re hanged, can they?” by saying:
    â€œIt’s an interesting and important subject, I know. But forgive me if I don’t personally find it fascinating. I’m on holiday—actually I’m convalescing—and I’m trying to forget about work.”
    â€œYou’ve been ill?” Carwardine, with the deliberate care of a child uncertain of its powers, reached across and helped himself to honey.
    â€œI hope your call here isn’t, even subconsciously, on your own behalf. You aren’t looking for a future vacancy? You haven’t a progressive incurable disease?”
    Anstey said:
    â€œWe all suffer from a progressive incurable disease. We call it life.”
    Carwardine gave a tight self-congratulatory smile, as if he had scored a point in some private game. Dalgliesh, who was beginning to feel himself part of a mad hatter’s tea party, wasn’t sure whether the remark was spuriously profound or merely silly. What he was sure was that Anstey had made it before. There was a short, embarrassed silence, then Anstey said:
    â€œMichael didn’t let us know he was expecting you.” He made it sound like a gentle reproof.
    â€œHe may not have received my postcard. It should have arrived on the morning of his death. I couldn’t find it in his bureau.”
    Anstey was peeling an apple, the yellow rind curved over his thin fingers. His eyes were intent on his task. He said:
    â€œHe was brought home by the ambulance service. It wasn’t convenient that morning for me to fetch him. I understand that the ambulance stopped at the postbox to collect any letters, probably at Michael’s request. He later handed a letter to me and one to my sister, so he should have received your card. I certainly found no postcard when I looked in the bureau for his will and for any other written instructions he may have left. That was early on the morning after his death. I may, of course, have missed it.”
    Dalgliesh said easily:
    â€œIn which case it would still be there. I expect Father Baddeley threw it away. It’s a pity you had to break into the bureau.”
    â€œBreak into?” Anstey’s voice expressed nothing but a polite, unworried query.
    â€œThe lock has been forced.”
    â€œIndeed. I imagine that Michael must have lost the key and was forced to that extremity. Forgive the pun. I found the bureau open when I