The Wages of Desire (23 page)

“I'm afraid not, no.”

“Did your brother know her?”

“Not that I am aware.”

“Were you aware that your brother's wife has gone to her sister's in Chesterfield for the duration of the war?”

“Is that what he told you, then?”

“That's what he's told his neighbors.”

“Well, I suppose he had to say something, didn't he?” Tigue stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray and pulled another from the case, but this time did not offer one to Lamb. He lit it and took a pull. “You see, the truth of the matter is that my brother's wife has left him for another man—a motor car salesman, of all people. I'm not even sure how Alba met the fellow. But my brother's marriage never was very robust. I think Alba married Lawrence because she believed he had prospects. Then he left London and dragged her back to Winstead. Alba is a London girl, you see. She never fancied Winstead. And as much as I hate to say it, I don't think Lawrence ever measured up much as a husband. He always was a bit watery in that way.” He shrugged. “Alba had had enough, and so she left. I can't say I blame her, really.”

Lamb was not surprised to hear—if indeed the tale was true—that Lawrence Tigue's wife had left him and that Tigue had made up a story to cover his humiliation. But Algernon Tigue's apparent disdain for his brother—his seeming utter lack of compassion for his brother's wrecked marriage—did surprise him, and he found it telling.

“You sound as if you don't like your brother much, sir.”

“Well, I suppose one's passions and opinions always are most intense when it comes to blood relations.”

“I'm afraid, too, that the body of a tramp was found dead in the wood by Saint Michael's Church yesterday,” Lamb said. “Although I haven't publicly released the man's identity, I'm certain that the man was Albert Clemmons.”

Again, Lamb wanted to see Algernon's reaction to the bald stating of a fact that might cause him to react emotionally.

But Tigue expressed nothing that Lamb would have called surprise or shock at the news. He exhaled smoke. “I hadn't heard that a tramp had died,” he said. “As for whether or not the man was Albert, I'm willing to believe anything. Given what happened to Albert he might very well have become a tramp. He drank a bit when I knew him, after all. That's something that never came out about Albert, by the way—that besides being a pedophile, he drank. My mother frequently had to rouse him out of bed in the morning to get him to do his chores around the farm. A less patient person would have gotten rid of a man like Clemmons, but my mother wasn't like that.”

“Does it surprise you that Albert Clemmons had returned to Winstead?”

“Not really.” He shrugged.

Lamb waited for Algernon to ask how Clemmons died. When he didn't, Lamb said, “He was poisoned.”

Again, Algernon managed to keep his emotions concealed. Lamb could not ascertain if Algernon cared one way or the other about Clemmons's death or the manner in which it had occurred. “Suicide, was it then?” Algernon asked.

“I haven't determined that yet.”

Lamb was not prepared yet to tell Algernon that Clemmons had confessed to killing the O'Hares. He remained partially unconvinced that Clemmons had written the note. Lamb moved a bit closer to the table to ask his next question. Again, he was fairly certain what Algernon's response would be and asked only in an effort to crack Algernon's armor.

“Do you think it's possible that someone might have poisoned him because they knew that all the digging out at the farm was bound to turn up the child's remains and that Clemmons knew something about it—perhaps knew the identity of the child and the truth behind its death—and therefore had to be silenced? Because you see, sir, I'm of the mind that the child's body was not placed there since the farm was abandoned, as you suggest. I'm of the opinion that the body was buried there while you and your mother and brother were living in the house, and during that time when Albert Clemmons worked on the farm.”

Again, Algernon merely shrugged. “I wouldn't know. As for your opinion and intuitions, I can only repeat what I told you earlier, Chief Inspector—that neither I nor my brother had anything to do with, or possess any knowledge of, the death of the unfortunate child you've uncovered in the house. My mother knew nothing of it, either.”

Lamb reached into his pocket and withdrew the figure of General Grant. As he held it up for Tigue to see, he saw genuine surprise flare in Tigue's eyes and noticed him glance quickly at his desk, which was behind Lamb, where the Napoleon figure stood guard.

“Do you recognize this, sir?” Lamb asked. “You seem to.”

Tigue shrugged yet again. Lamb could almost sense Algernon calculating how to react. “Should I recognize it?”

“I don't know,” Lamb said. “I just thought you might.”

Tigue's smile now returned—though this time his eyes held a hint of malice that he couldn't entirely camouflage. “And why would you think that, Chief Inspector?”

“I found the figure among Albert Clemmons's meager possessions,” Lamb said casually. “I noticed that you have a very similar figure of Napoleon on your desk.” Lamb turned to glance at the figure, then back at Tigue. “In fact, I'm quite sure that they come from a set manufactured years ago by Britain's—a set of famous generals.”

Lamb's producing the figure indeed seemed to have caught Algernon Tigue's attention. In fact, the appearance of the Grant figure caused Algernon to recognize, very suddenly and irrevocably, that his plodding, cautious brother, Lawrence, whom he had always believed lacked backbone and cunning, seemed to have outwitted him. He willed himself to relax and decided that his best—perhaps his only—option was to strike back at Lawrence.

“You're right about the Napoleon, of course,” Algernon said after a pause. “It might very well have come from a matched set.” He paused as if thinking on the subject, then added, “Lawrence gave me that figurine years ago. As a boy, I was rather smitten with Napoleon; he was one of my heroes, I suppose you'd say. Lawrence gave me that as a kind of token or memento. But as I said that was years ago. As a matter of fact, Lawrence owned a set of figures very much like those you mentioned—famous generals, as you said. He rather fancied toy soldiers.”

Lamb returned the Grant figure to his coat pocket and stood. “Well, thank you for the tea, Mr. Tigue,” he said and got to his feet. He was finished with Algernon Tigue, but only for the moment.

Tigue also stood but did not offer Lamb his hand. “You're welcome,” he said.

“I'm going to ask that you not leave the area in the next few days,” Lamb said.

Algernon smiled. “Is that an order, Chief Inspector?”

“It's a request.”

“Well, I think I can agree to do so, then.”

As Lamb limped back to Vera and the Wolseley, he found himself pondering his situation. He had begun to play with a notion about the significance of the toy soldiers and their possible origin, based on something Ned Horton had said—“every boy owns toy soldiers.” And yet, despite all that had occurred in the past twenty-four hours, he'd collected little real, usable evidence to aid in his inquiries. He was chugging along mostly on gut instinct and prior experience—his long knowledge of how the guilty acted and reacted, how they endeavored to maintain control over an unraveling situation, and the ways in which they sought to cover their tracks.

In and around Winstead, long-buried secrets were coming to the surface, and those who had guarded those secrets already had begun to act. He possessed pieces of a puzzle that he was becoming more and more certain were related. But he needed more—perhaps much more—before he could connect those pieces.

TWENTY-ONE

LAMB NOW WENT FROM ONE TIGUE BROTHER TO THE OTHER. VERA
stopped the car near Lawrence Tigue's cottage on the east end of Winstead. Lamb had made no appointment with Lawrence and hoped to surprise him. He knocked upon Tigue's red front door.

Tigue came to the front window, surreptitiously parted the curtain, and saw Lamb standing on the threshold. He was now close to finishing his preparations and could afford to answer the questions he was certain Lamb would ask him. Very soon the answers—whether true or not—would cease to matter, in any case. He opened the door with a smile. “Chief Inspector,” he said.

“Hello, Mr. Tigue. I wonder if you've a few minutes to talk?”

“Of course, of course.” Tigue stepped back from the door to allow Lamb in. “I was just finishing lunch.”

Lamb stepped into the foyer and removed his hat. Tigue led Lamb into the sitting room and bade him to sit on the couch. Tigue took a seat in a chair facing Lamb.

“Well, then, how can I help you, Chief Inspector?” he said. “I'm half hoping you've come to tell me that you've cleared my Webley in the killing of that unfortunate woman.”

“No,” Lamb said. “We're still waiting on Scotland Yard for that.”

Tigue smiled. “I see. Yes, of course. These things take time—they must, of course.”

“As I'm sure you're aware, Mr. Tigue, an extraordinary chain of events has occurred in and near the village in the past couple of days, and I was hoping that you could help me sort them out, particularly as you have some connection to at least one of those events,” Lamb said.

“Yes, of course. You're going to want to ask me about the discovery of the skull out at the farm, and Albert Clemmons's death.”

Lamb found himself unsurprised by the fact that Lawrence Tigue had known that the tramp who had been living in Miss Wheatley's wood had been Albert Clemmons. If Miss Wheatley had recognized Clemmons, despite the man's changed appearance, then it stood to reason that Lawrence Tigue, who had known Clemmons better, also might have recognized the old farmhand. He was surprised, though, that Lawrence readily admitted that he'd known Clemmons's identity.

“You knew, then, that the tramp who lived in Miss Wheatley's wood was Albert Clemmons?” Lamb said.

“Oh, no—well, not at first, at least. I'd seen the man around the village, of course, peeking in dustbins and the like, but didn't recognize him. And he never approached or identified himself to me, though I'm not sure why. I would have helped him if he'd needed it. Perhaps he was too proud—ashamed of how low he had fallen.”

“How did you know, then, that the man was Clemmons? I've not released that information.”

Tigue laughed—a kind of yelp. “Oh, well, that's easy enough,” he said. “I'm afraid the wrong person found his body, as far as keeping things on the QT is concerned, Chief Inspector. Flora Wheatley. She's incapable of keeping a secret or even a tidbit of gossip to herself. The woman's extraordinary, really—absolutely full to the brim with
schadenfreude
. She delights in other people's troubles and travails. I'm sorry if my knowing surprised you, but I'm afraid that was to be expected. One simply can't trust Flora Wheatley to keep her trap shut. The fact that the tramp was Albert Clemmons is pretty much general knowledge in the village by now, I'm afraid. How did Albert die, by the way, if I'm not out of line in asking?”

“We're still awaiting the results of the autopsy.”

“Yes, I see, of course.”

The fact that Miss Wheatley might have put it about the village that the tramp was Clemmons concerned Lamb, though he could do little about it for the moment.

“How do you explain a child's skull coming to earth in the basement of the farmhouse in which you lived for so many years?” he asked Tigue, pressing on. He intended to pressure Lawrence in the same way in which he had Algernon, hoping, perhaps, that Lawrence proved an easier nut to crack. Given his status as chairman of the Winstead parish council, Lawrence had more obvious reason to seem cooperative.

Lawrence leaned back a bit in his chair and crossed his legs. “Well, I can't, I'm afraid.”