Seven Dials - Anne Perry [57]
PITT LEFT THE PURSUIT of Edwin Lovat’s life and the trail of pain he had created behind his various love affairs. He had followed every name, and found nothing but unhappiness and helpless anger.
A wild thought came to him as he tried looking at the case from an entirely different angle. Sometimes it was profitable to abandon even the most obvious assumptions and consider the story as if they were untrue. Lovat had been shot in a garden in the middle of the night. There seemed to be no sense in Ayesha Zakhari’s having taken her gun and gone outside to see who it was lurking in the bushes. She had a perfectly capable manservant and a telephone in her home to call for assistance.
He had assumed that she had known it was Lovat, but there seemed no sane reason to have killed him. If she did not wish to see him she had merely to remain inside. If she did not know who it was, the answer was the same.
But what if she had supposed it was someone else? What if she had not recognized Lovat until after he was dead? The garden was dark. They were not in a path of light thrown from the house, even if all the lamps had been lit in the downstairs rooms, which in itself was unlikely at three in the morning.
Who might she have mistaken him for? Was it possible that a perfectly rational answer to the murder lay in the fact she had believed him to be someone else?
He began by going back to Eden Lodge. It looked curiously empty in the sharp autumn morning, the long light golden across the quiet street, and in the absolute stillness not even the leaves of the birch trees stirred. He could hear hooves in the distance, and a bird singing somewhere above him. A small black cat wove in and out through the dead lily stems waiting to be cut back.
Tariq el Abd answered the door.
“Good morning, sir,” he said politely, his face expressionless. “How can I help you?”
“Good morning,” Pitt replied. “I need to make some further enquiries, and you can help me.”
El Abd invited him in and led the way through to the withdrawing room. He did not look entirely comfortable about having the police in this part of the house—they were hardly social acquaintances—but the kitchens and laundry rooms were his domain, and he did not wish them there either. He drew the line at offering refreshment.
“What is it you need to ask me, sir?” he said, remaining standing so Pitt should do so as well.
Pitt had little time to look around the room, but he had a sense of subtle colors and light. The lines were less cluttered than he was accustomed to; everything was simpler. There was an elaborate ornament of a dog with large ears, the whole creature perhaps a foot and a half long, crouching on one of the side tables. It was a thing of great loveliness.
El Abd must have seen his eye caught by it.
“Anubis, sir,” he said. “One of the ancient gods of our country. Of course, the people who believed in him are long dead.”
“The beauty of their workmanship remains,” Pitt answered with feeling.
“Yes, sir. What is it you wish to ask me?” His face was still almost devoid of expression.
“Were the lights on in this room when Mr. Lovat was shot?”
“I beg your pardon, sir? I do not understand. Mr. Lovat was shot in the garden . . . outside. He never entered the house.”
“You were awake?” Pitt asked in surprise.
El Abd’s face showed an instant’s lack of composure, then it was gone again. “No, sir, not until I heard the shot. Miss Zakhari said he did not come inside. I believe her. There had been no one in here. The lights were not on.”
“Anywhere else in the house?”
“There were no lights lit anywhere downstairs, sir, except in the hall. They are never turned completely off.”
“I see. And upstairs?”
“I do not understand what it is you seek, sir. The lights were on in Miss Zakhari’s bedroom and her sitting room upstairs, and on the landing above the stairs, as always.”
“Are there some at the front of the house, or the back?”
“The front, sir.” It was natural. Master bedrooms usually faced the front.