Death of an expert witness by P.D. James

I liked it a lot, a good  book, but I’d have liked a few pages more after the murderer is caught, just a brief look at how people are doing..  I liked it a lot but I’m not one to try and figure it out myself, I like to read and possibly let them amaze me, otherwise I’m not sure that I’d have liked it much, because I’m not sure that it was possible to get to the murderer. A guess surely, not even so wild after all, but a logical explanation to your guessing? I don’t know about that.
It was very interesting for me though, because the movie starts with a woman being found dead, and all the usual people gathering around her: cops, photographers, the medical examiner, a lot of people working on the “clunch pit case”, and you kind of think that that’s the murder you’re setting up yourself to follow; you start meeting a lot of people: Maxim Howarth, new director of the Forensic Science Laboratory, jealous that his half-sister slept with Dr Lorrimer, the Senior Biologist of Hoggatt’s Laboratory, and detective inspector Doyle with his loud voice and his “barely controlled aggression beneath the mask of casual good humour”, and Dr Kerrison the forensic pathologist, recently separated and about to fight for custody of his daughter Eleanor “Nell” but mostly of his son William, only three years old; we meet inspector Blakelock the Assistant Police Liaison Officer, whose daughter was killed by a hit-and-run driver who got acquitted because the scientific officer made a mess at the trial, and young Brenda Pridmore who works at the reception desk with him although her parents don’t like this arrangement and would rather see her married; Angela Foley  who is Howarth’s secretary and also Lorrimer’s cousin: she was totally disinherited where their grandmother died because the cold woman who didn’t care for either of them disapproved of women having money and so she left everything to him; Stella Mawson, a writer, who now lives with Angela and is called throughout the book “her friend” but is clear that she’s more than that; Clifford Bradley, the Higher Scientific Officer in the biology department, who is constantly terrorized by Lorrimer and also on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and his wife Susan, who is eager to find a solution to the Lorrimer-problem; and finally Mr Middlemass, the Principal Scientific Officer Document Examiner, who confronts Lorrimer after receiving a call from Susan asking for his help. He tells Lorrimer to back off and let Bradley do his work in peace, and reminds him of his wife’s cousin that worked under him some time before: he was terrorized much like Bradley, and eventually killed himself. There are tough words exchanged and eventually Middlemass punches him in the face.
All this while they keep talking and working on the “clunch pit murder”. 
I knew from the cover that this was “a Dalgliesh mystery”, and since I still haven’t seen him it’s clear that something more is about to happen.
It does: one morning, that is the next morning if I’m not mistaken, Lorrimer is found dead at the Lab. Dalgliesh is called in, and detective inspector John Massingham goes with him. 
For once the possibility of a stranger is dismissed at once because access to the lab is possible only with the keys or if Lorrimer let them in. 
The investigation is long and complex: there are tyre-tracks under a tree, there’s trace of vomit in the basin, everybody but Brenda hated Lorrimer, Howarth’s sister Domenica wanted nothing more to do with him although Lorrimer couldn’t let it go and became obsessed with her, Claire Easterbrook is the new Senior Biologist now, Brenda inherits some money to help her with her studies, Angela is again completely disinherited, Nell uses a sort of voodoo doll to hurt Lorrimer because he was very rude and sent her and William out of the lab while they were waiting for their father...
*****warning*******solution of the mystery*******warning***********solution of the mystery****************

The tyre tracks were from Doyle’s car, who that night happened to pick up a woman and park in that spot to have sex with her. It was a rather sad interview when they checked his alibi with the woman, Dora Meakin. I felt so sad for her: a lonely woman who most nights would go standing on a corner waiting to be picked up by a man, hoping for a few words, a drink together somewhere, some time in someone else’s company, even if she doesn’t enjoy in the least the sex-part of the night she puts up with it in order to not be alone for some time. Dalgliesh warns her that “what you are doing is terribly risky” and that she could meet someone dangerous, and she replies: “I know. Sometimes when the car slows down and I’m standing there waiting at the side of the road, wondering what he’ll be like, I can hear my heart thudding. I know then that I’m afraid. But at least I’m feeling something. It’s better to be afraid than alone” to which Massingham says “it’s better to be alone than dead” and James writes: “She looked at him. “You think so, sir? But then you don’t know anything about it, do you?””
That bit hit me like a rock, because Massingham is young and energetic, and doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Maybe he thinks he does, because young people often think they know everything, but he has no idea how the woman feels, he hasn’t the slightest idea.
He had seemed a nice lad, but then this interview occurred, and then towards the end he brutally confirmed to Nell that her father was sleeping with Domenica, not giving time to Dalgliesh to find the right tactful words. 
That night Bradley had gone to talk to Lorrimer, trying to make him understand his position, but he had been treated horribly and had felt so badly he had been sick in the restroom, waited a few moments to get a hold of himself and then got back down to tell Lorrimer what he thought of him, since he would have probably been fired anyway, but he found Lorrimer already dead. Returning home he had told his wife everything, and she planned the call to Mrs Bidwell, the laboratory cleaner, to delay her so that Clifford could come in before her and clean the basin, but Lorrimer’s father called in before he arrived, and Brenda discovered the body too soon.
After dumping Lorrimer, Domenica had started having sexual encounters with Kerrison. Lorrimer couldn’t accept it, he wanted her back, was beyond reason at this point, and was furious against Kerrison, as if it depended on him. That’s what crazy men think, that they’re the ones who get to decide who she’ll be with. Lorrimer wanted to blackmail Kerrison into staying away from her, and threatened to tell his wife about it. He had gone on and on, spitting evil, and on the spur of the moment Kerrison had grabbed a heavy piece of exhibit and landed it on Lorrimer’s head. Nell somehow knew it but was sure that he did it for her, for them, after Lorrimer had been so nasty with them, and is devastated now to think that he did it for Domenica instead. 
Stella also knew, somehow, and arranged a meeting with Kerrison. She didn’t want to blackmail him, she hated the idea of anyone imprisoned, she also hated Lorrimer. She told Kerrison that they were both Lorrimer’s victims, and that she’d never tell on him, and she gave him right away a little piece of evidence she had found; she asked him to lend her some money with a regular written deal that she would repay in time because she desperately needed it or she’d lose the house she shared with Angela, and they both loved that place, it was ‘their home’. Kerrison had no money problem, but he had already decided that he couldn’t risk it, and killed her too. When Dalgliesh arrests him, he doesn’t resist and confesses, still haunted by what he did to her, cold-blooded murder, but he says he couldn’t risk anyone knowing that he was involved in Lorrimer’s death, even remotely, or he’d lose his children. He says he’ll confess everything voluntarily, hoping that this way his daughter won’t be needed to testify against him. So at the end, he did care for her too. He didn’t do it for Domenica.

It was heartbreaking to witness Angela’s pain when she learned that Stella (or Star as she appropriately called her) had been murdered, and thinking that Doyle did it she called him and waited for him with a sword in her hand, but he managed to convince her that he didn’t do it and she let him take the sword away. They sat down and he made her tea.