An Unkindness of Ravens (28 page)

‘But what a fool I’ve been,’ he said aloud.

‘Have you, darling?’

‘If I’d got on to it sooner maybe that poor girl wouldn’t have died.’

‘Come on,’ said Dora. ‘You’re not God.’

The phone was ringing as he left the house. It was Burden but Wexford wasn’t there to answer it and Dora spoke to him.

A report on the postmortem, rushed through by Sir Hilary Tremlett, was awaiting Wexford. He went through it with Crocker beside him. Strangling had been with a fine powerful cord and whatever this was had left a red staining in the deep indentation it had made around the victim’s neck.

‘The nylon line from the spool of an electric edge trimmer,’ said Wexford.

Crocker looked at him. That’s a bit esoteric.’

‘I don’t think so. Joy Williams has three such spools in her garage and one of them, unless I’m much mistaken, will be empty.’

‘Are you going to go there and check that?’

‘Not just at the moment. Maybe later. Do you think it wrong to encourage a child to inform against its immediate family?’

‘Like what happens in totalitarian societies, d’you mean? Or what I suppose happens. Extremists always believe the means are justified by the end. It depends what you mean by immediate family too, I mean, against a parent is a bit grim. That sticks in one’s throat.’

‘Drugging a man and stabbing him and burying the knife in a wall sticks in one’s throat too.’ Wexford picked up the phone and put it down again. ‘I’ve got two women to arrest,’ he said, ‘and the way things are I’ll never make the charges stand up. When do the schools go back?’

Crocker looked a little startled at this apparent non sequitur. ‘The state schools—that is, the older kids—sometime this week.’

Td better do it today if I’m to catch her without her mother.’ He lifted the phone again, this time asked for an outside line. It rang for so long he began to think she must be out. Then at last Veronica Williams’s soft, rather high voice answered, giving the number in all its ten digits. Wexford spoke her name, ‘Veronica?’ then said, ‘This is Chief Inspector Wexford of Kingsmarkham CID.’

‘Oh, hello, yes.’ Was she afraid or did she always answer the phone in this cautious breathless way?

‘Just one or two things to check with you, Veronica. First, what time is your match tonight and where is it?’

‘Kingsmarkham Tennis Club,’ she said. ‘It’s at six.’ She gathered some courage. ‘Why?’

Wexford was too old a hand to answer that. ‘After that’s over I’d like to talk to you. Not you and your mother, just you alone. All right? I think you have quite a lot of things you’d like to tell me, haven’t you?’

The silence was so heavy he thought he’d gone too far.

But no. And it was better than he had hoped. ‘I have got things to tell you. There are things I’ve got to tell you.’ He thought he heard a sob but she might only have been clearing her throat.

‘All right then. When you’ve finished your match come straight here. D’you know where it is?’ He gave her directions. ‘About ten minutes’ walk from the club. I’ll have a car to send you home in.’

She said, ‘I’ll have to tell my mother.’

‘By all means tell your mother. Tell anyone you like.’ Did he sound too eager? ‘But make sure your mother knows I want to see you alone.’

The enormity of what he was doing hit him as he put the phone down. Could anything justify it? She was a sixteen-year-old girl with vital information for him. The last teenage girl with vital information for him had been strangled before she could impart it. Was he sending her to the same death as Paulette Harmer? If Burden had been there he would have told him everything but with the doctor he had reservations.

‘You’re not going round there, then?’ Crocker said, a little mystified as much by Wexford’s expression as by the cryptic phone conversation.

That’s the last thing I must do.’

Later, when the doctor had gone, Wexford thought, I hope I have the nerve to stick it out. Pity it’s so many hours off. But the advantage of an evening match was that afterwards it would soon be dark ... Advantage! She would be phoning her mother now at Jickie’s to tell her, he thought, and somehow—hopefully—persuading Wendy not to come with her. He would have that girl watched every step of the way.

The phone rang.

He picked it up and the telephonist said she had a Miss Veronica Williams for him. What a little madam she was giving her name as ‘Miss’!

‘I could come and see you now,’ the childish voice said.

‘That might be easier. Then I wouldn’t have to upset Mummy. I mean I wouldn’t have to tell her I don’t want her with me.’

He braced himself. He hardened his heart. Tm too busy to see you before this evening, Veronica. And I’d like you to tell your mother, please. Tell her now.’

If she called back, he thought, he’d relent and let her come. He wouldn’t be able to hold out. Would she recognize Martin? Archbold? Palmer? Certainly she’d know Allison. But would it matter if she did recognize them? He’d be there himself anyway. There was no way he was going to let her take that ten-minute walk in the half-dark from the club down a lane off the Pomfret Road to the police station, especially in the case of her following his directions and taking the footpath across one and a half fields.

The phone rang again. That’s it, he thought. I can’t keep it up. I’ll go round there and she’ll tell me and that’ll be evidence enough ... He picked up the receiver.

‘Inspector Burden for you, Mr Wexford.’

Burden’s voice sounded strange, not really like his voice at all.

‘It’s all over. Mother and baby are doing fine. Jenny had a Caesarean at nine this morning.’

‘Congratulations. That’s great, Mike. Give my love to Jenny, won’t you? You’d better tell me what Mary weighed so that I can tell Dora.’

‘Eight pounds nine ounces, but it’s not going to be Mary. We’re changing just one letter in the name.’

Wexford didn’t feel up to guessing. Jenny’s persuaded him into something fancy against his better judgement, he thought.

‘Mark, actually,’ said Burden. Til see you later. Cheers for now.’

21

 A woman had once been found murdered on that very footpath.* They would all have that in their minds, even Palmer and Archbold who hadn’t been there at the time, who had probably still been at school. As Veronica Williams still was. Had she ever heard of the murder? Did people still talk about it?

That woman had lived in Forest Road, the last street in the area to bear the postal address Kingsmarkham. The Pomfret boundary begins there, though it is open country all the way to Pomfret in one direction and nearly all the way to Kingsmarkham Police Station in the other. The tennis club, however, is not in Forest Road but in Cheriton Lane which runs more or less parallel to it on the Kingsmarkham side. Smallish meadows enclosed by hedges cover the few acres between the club and the town, and the footpath runs alongside one of these hedges, at one point skirting a little copse. It emerges into the High Street fifty yards north of the police station and on the opposite side.

Wexford had Martin and Palmer in a car in Cheriton Lane, would station himself and Archbold in the copse, Loring among the spectators at the match, Bennett to start walking from the High Street end, Allison to follow her at a discreet distance.

‘One black man’ll look very like another to her, sir,’ Allison had said. ‘That mightn’t be so in a city but it is out here.’

‘Don’t tell me Inspector Burden and I look alike to you.’

 * See A Sleeping Life.

‘No, sir, but that’s a question of age, isn’t it?’

Which puts me firmly in my place, thought Wexford. Burden was in his office, sitting beside him, anxious to take part in the protection-of-Veronica exercise. Can’t keep away from the place for more than five minutes, Wexford had grumbled at him. At least Burden had supplied a diversion in the lull of the long afternoon.

‘I don’t understand how they could make a mistake over the sex like that. God knows I don’t know much about it, but if a man has an XY chromosome formula and a woman XX surely they must always have it from embryo to old age?’

‘It’s not that. It’s like this. In an amniocentesis they extract cells from the amniotic fluid the foetus is in. But occasionally they make a mistake and once in about ten thousand times they take cells from the mother not the child. And even then they aren’t always going to know their error. Because if the child does happen to be a girl ... In this case, though, I gather someone’s head is going to roll.’

‘It caused a lot of unnecessary misery.’

‘Misery, yes,’ said Burden, ‘but maybe not unnecessary. Jenny says it’s taught her a lot about herself. It’s taught her she’s not what you might call a natural feminist and now she has to approach feminism not from an emotional standpoint but from what is—well, right and just. We didn’t know, either of us, what a lot of deep-rooted old fashioned prejudices we had. Because I felt it too, you know, I also wanted a son though I never said. It’s taught us how much we’ve concealed from the other when we thought we were frank and open. All this has been—well, not far from—what does Jenny call it?—Guided Confrontation Therapy.’

With difficulty Wexford kept a straight face. ‘So long as now you’ve got a son you don’t wish it was a girl.’ He said ‘you’ but he meant Jenny whom he thought the kind of woman for whom the unattainable grass might always be the greener.

‘Of course not!’ Burden exclaimed, looking very sour. ‘After all, as Jenny says, what does it really matter so long as it’s healthy and has all its fingers and toes?’

This was a cliche Wexford didn’t feel he could compete with. Now Burden was here how would he feel about taking part in the Veronica watch? Not much, said Burden, he had to be back at the hospital. Then Wexford thought it might start raining. If it rained the match would be cancelled and in all probability Veronica would simply take the bus to the police station from Pomfret.

But the sky lightened round about 5.30. He wondered what those two women were thinking. How had they reacted to being left all day to their own devices? Unless the match was over in two straight sets Veronica could hardly expect to leave the club before seven. Should he fill in the time by seeing what he could get out of Kevin Williams? But he didn’t really want to get anything out of him. He knew it all already. Why not simply go and watch the match?

 It hadn’t occurred to him to ask himself—or anyone else for that matter—if the tournaments of the Kingsmarkham Tennis Club were or were not open to the public. And it wasn’t until he walked through the doors of the clubhouse that the question came into his mind. But a hearty elderly man with the air of a retired Air Force officer who said he was the secretary welcomed him with open arms. They loved spectators. If only they could get more spectators. It provided such encouragement for the players.

He had already spotted Martin and Archbold sitting in the car a discreet distance from the gates. Now if Veronica saw him, as it was most likely she would do, his best course would be to leave. Then, later, she wouldn’t fail to follow. The great thing was not to give her a chance to speak to him. Therefore, to the bar, a refuge which was also the last place to which a sixteen-year-old competitor was likely to retreat before a match. The secretary, seeing him headed in that direction, trotted up to say that as a nonmember he wasn’t allowed to purchase a drink but if he would permit a drink to be bought for him ... ? Wexford accepted.

The bar was semicircular, with a long curved window offering a view of three of the club’s nine hard courts. Wexford had a half of lager, the club like most places of its kind being unable to provide any sort of draught beer or ‘real ale’. The secretary talked rather monotonously, first about the bad public behaviour of certain international tennis stars, then their own disappointment at Saturday’s rain and the enforced cancellation of this singles final. There would have been more spectators on a Saturday, he said sadly. In fact, nine people had actually come along he had counted—but had had to be turned away. Of course, they were most unlikely to come back tonight. Wexford had the impression that if any of them had turned up the secretary would have bought them drinks too.

It got to six, to ten past. She’s not going to come, Wexford thought. Then an umpire arrived and climbed up into the high seat. Five canvas chairs and a wooden bench had been arranged for a possible audience. It looked as if they would remain empty but after a while two elderly women with white cardigans over their tennis dresses came and sat down and at the same time, approaching by the path that led from the farther group of six courts, Loring sauntered up. In sound English fashion the women sat in the canvas chairs on the left-hand end of the row and Loring at the extreme right-hand end of the bench. Colin Budd should have been so wise.

Veronica and a taller, older, altogether bigger girl appeared outside the court and let themselves in by the gate.

‘Well, best get out there and give them some moral support,’ said the secretary, rubbing his hands together.

It was certainly cold. A gust of wind whipped across the court, tearing at Veronica’s short pleated skirt. In classic style they began with a knock-up.

‘I don’t think I will,’ said Wexford. ‘D’you mind if I watch from in here?’

The secretary was terribly disappointed. He gave him a look of injured reproach.

‘You mustn’t buy any drinks, you do know that, don’t you? And you’re not to serve him, mind, Priscilla.’

Loring, his jacket collar turned up, was smoking a cigarette. The secretary appeared, running up to the two women, and sat beside them. The knock-up, in which Veronica had had the best of it, was over and the match began.

Dark would come early because the day had been so dull. Wexford wondered if the light would hold long enough for the match to be played to the finish. Veronica, whose service it was, won the first game to love but had a tougher time when her opponent came to serve.

‘You can have a drink if you like,’ said Priscilla. ‘I work it like this. I give it to you for free and next time a member buys me a drink I’ll charge yours up to him. I’m a total abstainer actually but I don’t let on to this lot.’