Murder Being Once Done (13 page)

‘What are you afraid of?’

‘Of her happiness.’ She laughed a little shrilly. ‘Doesn’t that sound absurd? I keep asking myself if happiness hasn’t made her do something reckless, take some awful risk.’ With a shiver, she said. ‘What shall I do? Tell me what to do.’

Come to Kenbourne Vale with me and identify a body. He couldn’t say that. If this had been Kingsmarkham and he in charge of the Morgan case, he would have said something like that but in the gentlest possible, the most roundabout way. He wasn’t in Kingsmarkham and before he did anything he would have to talk to Howard, perhaps find out more before he did even that.

Melanie Dearborn had suffered a lot in her forty years. If his present assumption was correct, all the pain she had ever been through would be nothing compared with the anguish she was going to have to bear. He wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemy. And this woman wasn’t that. He liked her; he liked her femininity and her concern and her good manners.

What harm would it do to comfort her and let things slide for a bit? He had no duty here. He was on holiday.

‘It’s only just over a week, Mrs Dearborn,’ he said. ‘Remember there was a time when you didn’t hear from Isa for months.’

‘That’s true.’

‘If I may, I’ll call on you again on Wednesday and if you still haven’t heard by then, we’ll report your daughter as a missing person.’

‘You really think I’m making a mountain out of a molehill?’

‘I do,’ he lied. So what? He could be wrong, couldn’t he? Isa – what was her other name? – could be alive and well and junketing about Europe with some boy for all he knew. Something like this had happened to him once before. He had
known
the girl was dead, all the evidence had pointed to it, and then she had turned up, all tanned and smiling from a holiday in Italy with a poet.

‘What’s your daughter’s surname?’ he asked.

‘Sampson,’ said Mrs Dearborn. ‘Louise Sampson, or Isa or Lulu or whatever she’s calling herself at present.’

Or Loveday? Don’t, he wanted to cry – he who had always rejoiced at positive identifications – don’t make the thing worse for me, more definite.

‘I must go.’

‘How?’ she asked. ‘Taxi? Bus?’

‘One of those,’ he smiled.

‘Let me drive you. You’ve been so kind, giving up your holiday time to me, and I’ve got to go shopping.’

They argued. Mrs Dearborn won. She went upstairs to fetch the baby and when she reappeared at the head of the stairs, Wexford went up to help her with the carry cot. Her head resting on a pale pink pillow, the child Alexandra stared up at him with large, calm blue eyes. She was rather a fat baby, exquisitely clean and dressed in an expensive-looking, one-piece garment of pink angora.

Mrs Dearborn tucked a white fur rug round her. ‘My husband’s latest extravagance,’ she said. ‘He buys presents for this child practically every day. She’s got far more clothes than I have.’

‘Hallo,’ said Wexford to the baby. ‘Hallo, Alexandra.’ She behaved after the manner of her kind by first wrinkling her face threateningly, then allowing it to dissolve into a delightful smile of friendliness and trust. ‘She’s beautiful,’ he said sincerely.

Mrs Dearborn made no reply to this. She was groping under coats on the hallstand. ‘I’m looking for a scarf,’ she said half to him, half to herself, ‘a blue silk one I’m rather fond of. Heaven knows where it’s got to. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen it for weeks. I wonder if Stephen could have given it to the cleaning woman I had before this one? When she left he insisted on giving her masses of clothes. He’s such an impulsive man.’ The baby began to whimper. ‘Oh, Alexandra, don’t
start
. She’s like a dog,’ said Mrs Dearborn rather crossly, ‘Once she knows she’s going out she won’t let you rest till you’re up and away. I may as well borrow Stephen’s coat. My fur’s at the cleaners and it’s so cold, isn’t it?’

She enveloped herself in Dearborn’s sheepskin jacket which was much too big for her and they ran to the car through a sudden downpour. Child and cot were dumped on the back seat as if they were luggage to be safely stowed and then forgotten. Wexford was rather surprised. He had judged Mrs Dearborn as a strongly maternal woman, wrapped up in her husband and her daughters. She wasn’t too old to have a baby, but perhaps she was too old to enjoy caring for one. And yet she was no older than the sergeant’s wife who even enjoyed playing with her baby when he woke her in the night. It must be her worry over Louise which all-consuming, withdrew her from the rest of her family.

‘Tell me the name of the friend Isa shared a flat with,’ he said.

‘Verity Bate. They were at school together and Verity went to train as a teacher at St Mark and St John.’

‘I take it that that’s in London?’

‘We’re not half a mile from it now,’ said Mrs Dearborn. ‘It’s quite near where you’re staying, in King’s Road. I’ll show you. She’ll be in her last year now, but I don’t know if she’s still in the flat. It’s near Holland Park and I did try ringing the number, but I didn’t get any reply.’

By now they had crossed the King’s Road and were going northwards. On the back seat Alexandra was making soft gurgling sounds. Wexford looked over his shoulder and saw that she was watching the rain slapping against the window, reaching out a fat hand as if she thought she could catch the bright glittering drops. They came into the Fulham Road by way of Sydney Street, and when they had passed the cinema and entered that part of the road which is as narrow as a country lane, Mrs Dearborn asked him if he would mind a few minutes’ delay.

‘I always buy my bread and cakes here,’ she said. ‘Could you bear it if I left you with Alexandra?’

Wexford said he could bear it very happily. She parked the car by a meter in Gilston Road, exclaiming with satisfaction because its last occupant had left ten minutes still to run, and walked off to the cake shop without a parting word to the baby. Wexford turned to talk to her. She didn’t seem at all put out at being left alone with a stranger, but put up her hands to explore his face. The rain drummed on the car roof and Alexandra laughed, kicking off the white rug.

Playing with the baby passed the time so pleasantly that Wexford almost forgot Mrs Dearborn and he was surprised when he saw that ten minutes had gone by. Alexandra had temporarily lost interest in him and was chewing her rug. He looked out of the window and saw Mrs Dearborn, deep in conversation with another woman under whose umbrella they were both sheltering. She caught his eye, mouthed, ‘Just coming,’ and then the two women approached the car.

Mrs Dearborn seemed to be pointing out the baby to her friend, if friend she was. From what he could see of her through the streaming rain as she pressed her face against the rear window, Wexford thought her an unlikely sort of acquaintance for a company chairman’s wife. Her umbrella was a man’s, of cheap uncompromising black, her shabby coat black, and underneath it she wore what looked like an overall. An old felt hat, jammed hard down on her head, partly hid her face but couldn’t conceal the disfiguring mole between cheek and left nostril. He fancied he had seen her somewhere before.

Just as he was wondering how long they could bear standing there and gossiping in a downpour which had become a tempest, the woman in black moved off and Mrs Dearborn jumped into the car, slicking back her wet hair with her wet hands.

‘I’m so sorry to have kept you. You must be wishing you’d taken that taxi. But you know how it is when you run into people and there’s a very . . .’ She stopped quite suddenly. ‘Now, let’s get you home,’ she said.

‘You were going to show me St Mark and St John.’

‘Oh, yes. Can you see that sort of round building right down there to the left? Just before you get to Stamford Bridge? That’s St Mark’s library. The college grounds go right through to the King’s Road. Are you going to talk to Verity?’

‘I expect so,’ Wexford said. ‘At any rate, she can tell me where Isa went after she left her.’

‘I can do that,’ Melanie Dearborn said quickly. ‘Don’t forget that’s where Stephen found her. It’s in Earls Court. I’ll write down the phone number. I’d phone it myself, I’d try to talk to Verity, only . . .’ She hesitated and added rather sadly, ‘None of her friends would tell
me
anything.’

Outside the house in Theresa Street they stopped and Mrs Dearborn wrote the number down for him. For half an hour her thoughts had been distracted from her daughter, but now he noticed that the hand which held the pen was shaking. She looked up at him, nervous again, her brow furrowed with anxiety.

‘Are you really going to try and trace her for me? I’m a bit – I remember what happened when Stephen . . .’

‘I’ll be discreet,’ Wexford promised, and then he said goodbye, adding that he would see her without fail on Wednesday.

The house was empty. Denise had left him a note, propped against a crystal vase of freesias, to say that they had gone out to buy a blackberry poncho. He wasn’t sure whether this was something to wear or something to eat.

He phoned the Holland Park number, but no one answered. Now for girl number two, the witness perhaps to Dearborn’s clumsy and tactless trapping.

A young man’s voice said hallo.

‘Who occupied the flat before you?’ Wexford asked when he had explained who he was.

‘Don’t know. I’ve been here four years.’

‘Four years? Louise Sampson was living there a couple of years ago.’

‘That’s right. With me. Lulu and I lived here together for – Oh, four or five months.’

‘I see.’ This little piece of information was doubtless one which Dearborn had thought it wise to keep from his wife. ‘Can I come and see you, Mr . . . ?’

‘Adams. You can come if you like. Not today, though. Say tomorrow, about seven?’

Wexford put the phone down and looked at his watch. Just gone five. The rain had dwindled to drizzle. What time did these college classes end for the day? With any luck, Verity Bate might just be leaving now or, better still, living in hall for her final year.

He found the big gates of the college its students call Marjohn’s without difficulty. There were a few boys and girls about on the forecourt, embryo teachers, who gave him the kind of glances his generation – but not he – reserved for them, the looks which ask, Why are you wearing those curious clothes, that hairstyle, that outlandish air? He was convinced that no one in the King’s Road wore his kind of clothes or was as old as he. He went rather tentatively into the porter’s lodge and asked where he could find Miss Verity Bate.

‘You’ve just missed her. She came in to see if there were any letters for her and then she went off home. Are you her dad?’

Wexford felt rather flattered. Suppose he had been asked if he were the girl’s grandfather? ‘I’ll leave a note for her,’ he said.

Before he went any further he really ought to tell Howard. His nephew had a force at his command, a force who could trace Louise Sampson in a matter of hours, match her with Loveday Morgan, or else show the two girls to be – two girls. But how much more satisfying it would be if he on his own could present Howard with a
fait accompli
, the checking and tracing all done . . .

The truth shall sooner come to light . . . whiles he helpeth and beareth out simple wits against the false and malicious circumventions of crafty children.

‘Another one of your women on the phone,’ said Denise rather nastily.

Wexford was just finishing his breakfast. He felt relieved that Howard, who had gone to the study to fetch his briefcase, and Dora, who was making beds, hadn’t heard the remark. He went to the phone and a girl’s voice, breathless with curiosity, said this was Verity Bate.

It was only eight-fifteen. ‘You didn’t waste any time, Miss Bate.’

‘I had to go back to Marjohn’s last evening to fetch something and I saw your message.’ The girl went on smugly, ‘I realized it must be very important and, as I’ve got a social conscience, I felt I should get in touch with you as soon as possible.’

Couldn’t wait to know what it’s all about, more like, thought Wexford, ‘I’m trying to trace someone you used to know.’

‘Really? Who? I mean, who can you possibly . . . ?’

‘When and where can we meet, Miss Bate?’

‘Well, I’ve got this class till eleven-thirty. I
wish
you’d tell me who it is.’ She didn’t express any doubts as to his identity, his authority. He might have been a criminal lunatic bent on decoying her away. ‘You could come to my flat . . . No, I’ve got a better idea. I’ll meet you at a quarter to twelve in Violet’s Voice, that’s a coffee place opposite Marjohn’s.’

Howard made no comment, asked no questions, when he said he wouldn’t be in until after his lunch with Sergeant and Mrs Clements. Perhaps he was glad to be relieved of his uncle’s company for the morning or perhaps he guessed that Wexford was pursuing a private line of enquiry, in current parlance, doing his own thing.

He got to Violet’s Voice ten minutes before time. It was a small dark café, almost empty. The ceiling, floor and furniture were all of the same deep purple, the walls painted in drug-vision swirls of violet and lavender and silver and black. Wexford sat down and ordered tea which was brought in a glass with lemon and mint floating about in it. From the window he could see St Mark’s gates, and before he had begun to drink his tea he saw a diminutive girl with long red hair come out of these gates and cross the road. She was early too.

She came unhesitatingly up to his table and said loudly, ‘It’s about Lou Sampson, isn’t it? I’ve thought and thought and it must be Lou.’

He got to his feet. ‘Miss Bate? Sit down and let me get you something to drink. What makes you so sure it’s Louise?’

‘She
would
disappear. I mean, if there’s anyone I know who’d be likely to get in trouble or have the police looking for her, it’s Lou.’ Verity Bate sat down and stuck her elbows on the table. ‘Thanks, I’ll have a coffee.’ She had an aggressive, rather theatrical manner, her voice pitched so that everyone in the café could hear her. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea where Lou is, and I wouldn’t tell you if I had. I suppose it’s Mrs Sampson tracking her down again. Mrs Dearborn, I should say. One thing about that woman, she never gives up.’