[Wexford 01] From Doon & Death (20 page)

Still,
I
always
say
if
you
have
a.
really
happy
marriage
as we
have,
you
should
not
need
children
to
keep
it
together. Perhaps
this
is
just
sour
grapes.
Anyway,
we
are
happy, and
Ron
seems
much
more
relaxed
now
we
are
away
from town.
I
never
will
understand,
Nan,
why
people
like
Doon can't
be
content
with
what
they
have
and
not
keep
crying for
the
moon.

Well,
I
must
close
now.
This
is
quite
a
big
house
really and
not
exactly
filled
with
mod.
cons.!
Remember
me
to Wil
and
your
offspring.
Regards
from
Ron.

Love
from
Meg

A happy marriage? Could a marriage be happy, rocking uneasily on a sea of deceit and subterfuge? Burden put the letter down, men picked it up and read it again. Wexford told him of his conversation with the police chief and his face cleared a little.

'Well never prove it,' Burden said.

'One thing, you can go and tell Drury
,
Gates
’
ll take him home now. If he wants to sue us I daresay Dougie Q. will be nothing loth to lend a hand. Only don't tell him that and don't let me see him He's upsetting my liver.'

It was beginning to grow light. The sky was grey and misty and the streets were drying. Wexford, stiff and cramped with sitting, decided to leave his car and walk home.

He liked the dawn without usually being sufficiently strong-minded to seek it unless he must. It helped
him to think. No one was about t
he market place seemed much larger than it did by day and a shallow puddle lay in the gutter where the buses pulled in. On the bridge he met a dog, going purposefully about its mysterious business, trotting quickly, head high, as if making for some definite goal Wexford stopped for a second and looked down into the water. The big grey figure stared back at him until the wind disturbed the surface and broke up the reflection.

Past Mrs Missal's house, past the cottages
...
He was nearly home. On the Methodist church notice-board he could just make out the red-painted letters in the increasing light 'God needs you for his friend.' Wexford came closer and read the words on another notice pinned beneath it 'Mr R. Parsons invites all church members and friends to a service in memory of his wife, Margaret, who died so tragically this week, to be held here on Sunday at ten a.m.'

So today, for the first time since she had died, the house in Tabard Road would be
empty...
No, Wexford thought, Parsons was at the inquest
.
But, then
...
His thoughts returned to certain events of the afternoon, to laughter shut off in full spate, to a book, a fierce transposition of emotion, to a woman dressed for an assignation.

'We
’
ll never prove it
’
Burden had said.

But they could go to Tabard Road in the morning, and they could try.

My demands were modest, Minna. I wanted so little, but a few hours out of the scores of hours that make a week, infinitesimal eddies in the great ocean of eternity.

I wanted to talk, Minna, to spread at your feet the pains and sorrows, the anguish of a decade of despair. Time, I thought, time that planes out the rough edge of cruelty, that dulls the cutting blade of contempt, that trims the frayed fringe of criticism, time will have softened her eye and made tender her ear.

It was a quiet wood we went to, a lane where we had walked long ago, but you had forgotten the flowers we had gathered, the waxen diadem of the Traveller's Joy.

I talked softly, thinking you were pondering. All the while I thought you listening and at last I paused, hungry for your gentle praise, your love at last Yes, Minna, love. Is that so bad, so evil, if it treads in the pure garments of companionship?

I gazed, I touched your hair. Your eyes were closed for you found dull sleep more salutary than my words and I knew it was too late. Too late for love, too late for friendship, too late for anything but
death...

Chapter 14

Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune.

Robert Browning
,
Love
in
a
Life.

Parsons was dressed in a dark suit. His black tie, not new and worn perhaps on previous mourning occasions, showed the shiny marks of a too-hot, inexpertly handled iron. Sewn to his left sleeve was a diamond-shaped patch of black cotton.

'We'd like to go over the house again
’
Burden said, 'if you wouldn't mind leaving me the key.'

‘I
don't care what you do
’
Parsons said. The minister's asked me to Sunday dinner. I shan't be back till this afternoon.' He began to clear his breakfast things from the table, putting the teapot, the marmalade jar away carefully in the places the dead woman had appointed for them. Burden watched him pick up the Sunday paper, unopened and unread, and tip his toast crusts on it before depositing it in a bucket beneath the sink. I'm selling this place as soon as I can
’
he said.

‘
My wife thought of going along to the service
’
Burden said.

Parsons kept his back turned to him. He poured water from a kettle over the single cup, the saucer, the plate.

I'm glad
’
he said.
‘I
thought people might like to come, people who won't be able to get along to the funeral tomorrow
’
The sink was stained with brown now; crumbs and tea-leaves clung along a greasy tide-mark.
‘I
suppose you haven't got a lead yet? On the killer, I mean.' It was grotesque. Then Burden remembered what this man had read while his wife knitted. 'Not yet.'

He dried the crockery, then his hands, on the tea towel.

‘I
t doesn't matter
’
he said wearily. It won't bring her back.'

It was going to be a hot day, the first really hot day of the summer. In the High Street the heat was already making water mirages, lakes that sparkled and then vanished as Burden approached; in the road where actual water had lain the night before phantom water gleamed on the tar. Cars were beginning the nose-to-tail pilgrimage to the coast and at the junction Gates was directing the traffic, his arms flailing in blue shirt sleeves. Burden felt the weight of his own jacket

Wexford was waiting for him in his office. In spite of the open windows the air was still.

"The air conditioning works better when they're shut
’
Burden suggested.

Wexford walked up and down, sniffing the sunlight.

It feels better this way
’
he said. 'We
’
ll wait till eleven. Then well go
’

They found the car Wexford had expected to see, parked discreetly in a lane off the Kingsbrook Road near where it joined the top end of Tabard Road.

Thank God
’
Wexford said almost piously. 'So far so good.'

Parsons had given them the back-door key and they let themselves silently into the kitchen. Burden had thought this house would always be cold, but now, in the heat of the day, it felt stuffy and smelt of stale food and frowsty unwashed linen.

The silence was absolute. Wexford went into the hall. Burden following. They trod carefully lest the old boards should betray them. Parsons' jacket and raincoat hung on the hallstand, and on the little square table among a pile of circulars, a dirty handkerchief and a heap of slit envelopes, something gleamed. Burden came closer and stared, knowing better than to touch it He pushed the other things aside and together they looked at a key with a horseshoe charm on the end of a silver chain.

In here
’
Wexford whispered, mouthing the words and making no sound.

Mrs Parsons' drawing-room was hot and dusty, but nothing was out of place. Wexford's searchers had replaced everything as they had found it, even to the vase of plastic roses that screened the grate. The sun, streaming through closed windows, showed a myriad dance of dust particles in its shafts. Otherwise all was still.

Wexford and Burden stood behind the door, waiting. It seemed like an age before anything happened at all. Then, when it did. Burden could hardly believe his eyes.

The bay window revealed a segment of deserted street, bright grey in the strong light and sharply cut by the short shadows of trees in the gardens opposite. There was no colour apart from this grey and sunlit green. Then, from the right-hand side, as if into a film shot, a woman appeared walking quickly. She was as gaudy as a kingfisher, a technicolor queen in orange and jade. Her hair, a shade darker than her shirt, swung across her face like heavy drapery. She pushed open the gate, her nails ten garnets on the peeling wood, and scuttled out of sight towards the back door. Helen Missal had come at last to her schoolfellow's house.

Wexford laid his finger unnecessarily to his lips. He gazed upwards at the ornate ceiling. From high above them came a faint footfall. Someone else had heard the high heels of their visitor.

Through the crack between the door and its frame, a quarter-inch-wide slit. Burden could see a knife-edge section of staircase. Up till now it had been empty, a vertical line of wallpaper above wooden banister. He felt the sweat start in his armpits. A stair squeaked and at the same moment a hinge gave a soft moan as the back door swung open.

Burden kept his eyes on the bright, sword-like line. He tensed, scarcely daring to breathe, as the wallpaper and the wood were for a second obscured by a flash of black hair, dark cheek, white shirt shadowed with blue. Then, no more. He was not even certain where the two met, but it was not far from where he stood, and he felt rather than heard their meeting, so heavy and so desperate had the silence become.

Four people alone in the heat. Burden found himself praying that he could keep as still and at the same time as alert as Wexford. At last the heels tapped again. They had moved into the dining-room.

It was the man who spoke first and Burden had to strain to hear what he said. His voice was low and held under taut control.

'You should never have come here
’
Douglas Quadrant said.

‘I
had to see you.' She spoke with loud urgency. 'You said you'd meet me yesterday, but you never came. You could have come, Douglas.'

‘I
couldn't get away. I was going to, but Wexford came.' His voice died away and the rest of the sentence went unheard.

'Afterwards you could. I know, I met him.'

In the drawing-room Wexford made a small movement of satisfaction as another loose end was tied.

‘I
thought
...'
They heard her give a nervous laugh, 'I thought I'd said too much. I almost did
...'

"You shouldn't have said anything
’

‘I
didn't I stopped myself. Douglas, you're hurting me!'

His reply was something savage, something they couldn't hear.

Helen Missal was taking no pains to keep her voice down and Burden wondered why one of
them
should show so much caution, the other hardly any.

"Why have you come here? What are you looking for?'

'You knew I would come. When you telephoned me last night and told me Parsons would be out, you knew it
...'

They heard her moving about the room and Burden imagined the little straight nose curling in disgust, the fingers outstretched to the shabby cushions, drawing lines in the dust on the galleried sideboard. Her laughter, disdainful and quite humourless, was a surprise.

'Have you ever seen such a horrible house? Fancy, she lived here, she actually lived here. Little Meg Godfrey
...'