From Doon With Death

by From Doon

  Parsons got up, leaving his tea untasted.

  ‘I wish it hadn’t come,’ he said. ‘I wanted to remember Margaret as I knew her. I thought she was different. Now I know she was just like the rest, carrying on with another man for what she could get out of him.’

  Wexford said quietly: ‘I’m afraid it looks like that. Tell me, didn’t you have any idea that your wife might be going out with this man, this Doon? It looks very much as if Doon knew her when she lived in Flagford and took up with her again when she came back. She must have gone to school here, Mr Parsons. Didn’t you know that?’

  Did Parsons look furtive, or was it just a desire to hold on to some remnants of his private life, his marriage broken both by infidelity and by death, that made him flush and fidget?

  ‘She wasn’t happy in Flagford. She didn’t want to talk about it and I stopped asking her. I reckon it was because they were such a lot of snobs. I respected her reticence, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘Did she talk to you about her boy friends?’

  ‘That was a closed book,’ Parsons said, ‘a closed book for both of us. I didn’t want to know, you see.’ He walked to the window and peered out as if it was night instead of bright day. ‘We weren’t those kind of people. We weren’t the kind of people who have love affairs.’ He stopped, remembering the letter. ‘I can’t believe it. I can’t believe that of Margaret. She was a good woman, Chief Inspector, a good loving woman. I can’t help thinking that Katz woman was making up a lot of things that just weren’t true, making them up out of her own head.’

  ‘We shall know a bit more when we hear from Colorado,’ Wexford said. ‘I’m hoping to get hold of the last letter your wife wrote to Mrs Katz. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t be made available to you.’

  ‘Thank you for nothing,’ Parsons said. He hesitated, touched the green cover of Swinburne’s verses and walked quickly from the room.

  It was some sort of a break, Wexford thought, some sort of a break at last. He picked up the telephone and told the switchboard girl he wanted to make a call to the United States. This had been a strange woman, he reflected as he waited, a strange secretive woman leading a double life. To her husband and the unobservant world she had been a sensible prudent housewife in sandals and a cotton frock, an infants’ teacher who polished the front step with Brasso and went to church socials. But someone, someone generous and romantic and passionate, had been tantalized and maddened by her for twelve long years.

  9

  Sometimes a troop of damsels glad . . .

  Tennyson, The Lady of Shalott

  Miss Fowler’s was an unacademic bookless flat. Burden, who was aware of his own failing of cataloguing people in types, had tried not to expect old-maidishness. But this was what he found. The room into which Miss Fowler showed him was full of hand-made things. The cushion covers had been carefully embroidered, the amateurish water-colours obviously executed with patience, the ceramics bold. It looked as if Miss Fowler could hardly bear to reject the gift of an old scholar, but the collection was neither restful nor pleasing.

  ‘Poor, poor Margaret,’ she said. Burden sat down and Miss Fowler perched herself in a rocking chair opposite him, her feet on a petit-point footstool. ‘What a very shocking thing all this is! That poor man too. I’ve got the list you wanted.’

  Burden glanced at the neatly typed row of names.

  ‘Tell me about her,’ he said.

  Miss Fowler laughed self-consciously, then bit her lip as if she thought this was no occasion for laughter.

  ‘Honestly, Inspector,’ she said. ‘I can’t remember. You see, there are so many girls . . . of course, we don’t forget them all, but naturally it’s the ones who achieve something, get Firsts, or find really spectacular posts, those are the ones we remember. Hers wasn’t a very distinguished year. There was plenty of promise, but none of it came to very much. I saw her, you know, after she came back.’

  ‘Here? In Kingsmarkham?’

  ‘It must have been about a month ago.’ She took a packet of Weights from the mantelpiece, offered one to Burden, and puffed bravely at her own as he held a match to it.

  They never really grow up, he thought.

  ‘I was in the High Street,’ she went on. ‘It was just after school and she was coming out of a shop. She said, “Good afternoon, Miss Fowler.” Honestly, I hadn’t the faintest idea who she was. Then she said she was Margaret Godfrey. You see, they expect you to remember them, Inspector.’

  ‘Then how did you . . . ?’

  ‘How did I connect her with Mrs Parsons? When I saw the photograph. You know, I felt sorry we hadn’t talked, but I’m always seeing old girls, but I honestly couldn’t tell you who they are or their ages, come to that. They might be eighteen or thirty. You know how it is, you can’t tell the ages of people younger than yourself.’ She looked up at Burden and smiled. ‘But you are young,’ she said.

  Again he returned to the list. The names were in alphabetical order. He read aloud slowly, waiting for Miss Fowler’s reactions:

  ‘Lyn Annesley, Joan Bertram, Clare Clarke, Wendy Dticham, Margaret Dolan, Margaret Godfrey, Mary Henshaw, Jillian Ingram, Anne Kely, Helen Laird, Marjorie Miller, Hilda Pensteman, Janet Probyn, Fabia Rogers, Deirdre Sachs, Diana Stevens, Winifred Thomas, Gwen William’s, Yvonne Young.’

  Under the names Mrs Morpeth had written with an air of triumph: Miss Clare Clarke is a member of the High School teaching staff!!!

  ‘I’d like to talk to Miss Clarke,’ he said.

  ‘She lives at Nectarine Cottage, down the first lane on the left on the Stowerton Road,’ Miss Fowler said.

  Burden said slowly, ‘Fabia is a very unusual name.’

  Miss Fowler shrugged. She patted her stiffly waved grey hair. ‘Not a particularly unusual type,’ she said. ‘Just one of those very promising people I was telling you abut who never amounted to much. She lives here somewhere. She and her husband are quite well known in what I believe are called social circles. Helen Laird was another one. Very lovely, very self-confident. Always in trouble. Boys, you know. Honestly, so silly! I thought she’d go on the stage, but she didn’t, she just got married. And then Miss Clarke, of course . . .’

  Burden had the impression she had been about to include Miss Clarke among the failures, but that loyalty to her staff prevented her. He didn’t pursue it. She had given him a more disturbing lead.

  ‘What did you say happened to Helen Laird?’

  ‘I really know nothing, Inspector. Mrs Morpeth said something about her having married a car salesman. Such a waste!’ She stubbed out her cigarette into an ashtray that was daubed with poster paint and obviously home-baked. When she went on her voice sounded faintly sad. ‘They leave, you know, and we forget them, and then about fifteen years later a little tot turns up in the first form and you think, I’ve seen that face before somewhere! Of course you have – her mother’s.’

  Dymphna and Priscilla, Burden thought, nearly sure. Not long now, and Dymphna’s face, the same red hair perhaps, would revive in Miss Fowler’s memory some long-lost chord.

  ‘Still,’ she said, as if reading his thoughts, ‘there’s a limit to everything and I retire in two years’ time.’

  He thanked her for the list and left. As soon as he got to the station Wexford showed him the Katz letter.

  ‘It all points to Doon being the killer, sir,’ Burden said, ‘whoever he is. What do we do now, wait to hear from Colorado?’

  ‘No, Mike, we’ll have to press on. Clearly Mrs Katz doesn’t know who Doon is and the best we can hope for is to get some of the background from her and the last letter Mrs P. sent her before she died. Doon is probably going to turn out to be a boy friend Mrs P. had when she was at school here. Let’s hope she didn’t have too many.’

  ‘I’ve been wondering about that,’ Burden said, ‘because honestly – as Miss Fowler would say – those messages in Minna’s books don’t look like the work of a boy at all, not unless he was a very mature boy. They’re too
polished, too smooth. Doon could be an older man who got interested in her.’

  ‘I thought of that,’ Wexford said, ‘and I’ve been checking up on Prewett and his men. Prewett bought that farm in 1949 when he was twenty-eight. He’s an educated person and quite capable of writing those messages, but he was in London on Tuesday. There’s no doubt about it, unless he was involved in a conspiracy with two doctors, an eminent heart specialist, a sister, God knows how many nurses and his own wife.

  ‘Draycott’s only been in the district two years and he was in Australia from 1947 to 1953. Bysouth can scarcely write his own name, let alone dig up suitable bits of poetry to send to a lady love, and much the same goes for Traynor. Edwards was in the Army throughout 1950 and 1951 and Dorothy Sweeting can’t possibly know what was going on in Minna’s love life twelve years ago. She was only seven.’

  ‘Then it looks as if we’ll have to ferret out what we can from the list,’ Burden said. ‘I think you’ll be interested when you see some of the names, sir.’

  Wexford took the list and when he came to Helen Laird and Fabia Rogers he swore fiercely. Burden had pencilled in Missal and Quadrant, following each surname with a question mark.

  ‘Somebody’s trying to be clever,’ Wexford said, ‘and that I won’t have. Rogers. Her people are old man Rogers and his missus at Pomfret Hall. They’re loaded. All made out of paint. There’s no reason why she should have told us she knew Mrs P. When we talked to Dougie this Doon angle didn’t seem that important. But Mrs Missal . . . Not know Mrs P. indeed, and they were in the same class!’

  He had grown red with anger. Burden knew how he hated being taken for a ride.

  ‘I was going to forget all about that cinema ticket, Mike, but now I’m not so sure. I’m going to have it all out again with Mrs Missal now.’ He stabbed at the list. ‘While I’m gone you can start contacting these women.’

  ‘It would have to be a girls’ school,’ Burden grumbled. ‘Women change their names, men don’t.’

  ‘Can’t be helped,’ Wexford said snappily. ‘Mr Griswold’s been on twice already since the inquest, breathing down my neck.’

  Griswold was the Chief Constable. Burden saw what Wexford meant.

  ‘You know him, Mike. The least hint of difficulty and he’s screaming for the Yard,’ Wexford said, and went out, leaving Burden with the list and the letter.

  Before embarking on his womanhunt Burden read the letter again. It surprised him because it gave an insight into Mrs Parsons’ character, revealing a side he had not really previously suspected. She was turning out to be a lot less pure than anyone had thought.

  . . . If meeting Doon means rides in the car and a few free meals I wouldn’t be too scrupulous, Mrs Katz had written. But at the same time she didn’t know who Doon was. Mrs Parsons had been strangely secretive, enigmatic, hiding the identity of a boy friend from a cousin who had also been an intimate friend.

  A strange woman, Burden thought, and a strange boy friend. It was a funny sort of relationship she had with this Doon, he said to himself. Mrs Katz says, I can’t see why you should be scared, and later, on, there was never anything in that. What did she mean, anything in that? But Mrs P. was scared. What of, sexual advances? Mrs Katz says she had a suspicious mind. Fair enough, he reflected. Any virtuous woman would be scared and suspicious of a man who paid her a lot of attention. But at the same time there was never anything in it. Mrs. P. mustn’t be too scrupulous.

  Burden groped vainly. The letter, like its recipient, was a puzzle. As he put it down and turned to the telephone he was certain of only two facts: Doon hadn’t been making advances; he wanted something else, something that frightened Mrs Parsons but which was so innocuous in the estimation of her cousin that it would be showing excessive suspicion to be scrupulous about it. He shook his head like a man who has been flummoxed by an intricate riddle, and began to dial.

  He tried Bertram first because there was no Annesley in the book – and, incidentally, no Pensteman and no Sachs. But the Mr Bertram who answered said he was over eighty and a bachelor. Next he rang the number of the only Ditchams he could find, but although he listened to the steady ringing past all reason, there was no reply.

  Mrs Dolan’s number was engaged. He waited five minutes and tried again. This time she answered. Yes, she was Margaret Dolan’s mother, but Margaret was now Mrs Heath and had gone to live in Edinburgh. In any case, Margaret had never brought anyone called Godfrey to the house. Her particular friends had been Janet Probyn and Deirdre Sachs, and Mrs Dolan remembered them as having been a little shut-in clique on their own.

  Mary Henshaw’s mother was dead. Burden spoke to her father. His daughter was still in Kingsmarkham. Married? Burden asked. Mr Henshaw roared with laughter while Burden waited as patiently as he could. He recovered and said his daughter was indeed married. She was Mrs Hedley and she was in the county hospital.

  ‘I’d like to talk to her,’ Burden said.

  ‘You can’t do that,’ Henshaw said, hugely amused. ‘Not unless you put a white coat on. She’s having a baby, her fourth. I thought you were them, bringing me the glad news.’

  Through Mrs Ingram he was put on to Jillian Ingram, now Mrs Bloomfield. But she knew nothing of Margaret Parsons except that at school she had been pretty and prim, fond of reading, rather shy.

  ‘Pretty, did you say?’

  ‘Yes, she was pretty, attractive in a sort of way. Oh, I know, I’ve seen the papers. Looks don’t necessarily last, you know.’

  Burden knew, but still he was surprised.

  Anne Kelly had gone to Australia, Marjorie Miller . . .

  ‘My daughter was killed in a car crash,’ said a harsh voice, full of awakened pain. ‘I should have thought the police of all people would know that.’

  Burden sighed. Pensteman, Proby, Rogers, Sachs . . . all were accounted for. In the local directory alone he found twenty-six Stevenses, forty Thomases, fifty-two Williamses, twelve Youngs.

  To track them all down would take the best part of the afternoon and evening. Clare Clarke might be able to help him. He closed the directory and set off for Nectarine Cottage.

  The french windows were open when Inge Wolff let Wexford into the hall and he heard the screams of quarrelling children. He followed her across the lawn and at first saw nobody but the two little girls: the elder a sharp miniature fascimile of her mother, bright-eyed, red-headed; the younger fat and fair with a freckle-blotched face. They were fighting for possession of a swing-boat, a red and yellow fairground thing with a rabbit for a figurehead.

  Inge rushed over to them, shouting.

  ‘Are you little girls that play so, or rough boys? Here is one policeman come to lock you up!’

  But the children only clung more tightly to the ropes, and Dymphna, who was standing up, began to kick her sister in the back.

  ‘If he’s a policeman,’ she asked, ‘where’s his uniform?’

  Someone laughed and Wexford turned sharply. Helen Missal was in a hammock slung between the mulberry tree and the wall of a summerhouse and she was drinking milkless tea from a glass. At first he could see only her face and a honey-coloured arm dangling over the edge of the canvas. Then, as he came closer, he saw that she was dressed for sunbathing. She wore only a bikini, an ice-white figure of eight and a triangle against her golden skin. Wexford was embarrassed and his embarrassment fanned his anger into rage.

  ‘Not again!’ she said. ‘Now I know how the fox feels. He doesn’t enjoy it.’

  Missal was nowhere about, but from behind a dark green barrier of macrocarpa Wexford could hear the hum of a motor mower.

  ‘Can we go indoors, Mrs Missal?’

  She hesitated for a moment. Wexford thought she was listening, perhaps to the sounds from the other side of the hedge. The noise of the mower ceased, then, as she seemed to hold her breath, started again. She swung her legs over the hammock and he saw that her left ankle was encircled by a thin gold chain.

  ‘I suppose so,’ she said. ‘I don�
�t have any choice, do I?’

  She went before him through the open doors, across the cool dining-room where Quadrant had looked on the wine, and into the rhododendron room. She sat down and said:

  ‘Well, what is it now?’

  There was something outrageous and at the same time spiteful about the way she spread her nakedness against the pink and green chintz. Wexford turned away his eyes. She was in her own home and he could hardly tell her to go and put some clothes on. Instead he took the photograph from his pocket and held it out to her.

  ‘Why did you tell me you didn’t know this woman?’

  Fear left her eyes and they flared in surprise.

  ‘I didn’t know her.’

  ‘You were at school with her, Mrs Missal.’

  ‘I was not.’ Her hair fell over her shoulders, bright copper like a new penny. ‘At least, I don’t think I was. I mean, she was years older than me by the look of this. She may have been in the sixth when I was in the first form. I just wouldn’t know.’

  Wexford said severely: ‘Mrs Parsons was thirty, the same age as yourself. Her maiden name was Godfrey.’

  ‘I adore “maiden name”. It’s such a charitable way of putting it, isn’t it? All right, Chief Inspector, I do remember now. But she’s aged, she’s different . . .’ Suddenly she smiled, a smile of pure delighted triumph, and Wexford marvelled that this woman was the same age as the pathetic dead thing they had found in the wood.

  ‘It’s very unfortunate you couldn’t remember on Thursday evening, Mrs Missal. You’ve put yourself in a most unpleasant light, firstly by deliberately lying to Inspector Burden and myself and secondly by concealment of important facts. Mr Quadrant will tell you that I’m quite within my rights if I charge you with being an accessary –’

  Helen Missal interrupted sulkily. ‘Why pick on me? Fabia knew her too, and . . . Oh, there must be lots and lots of other people.’

  ‘I’m asking you,’ he said. ‘Tell me about her.’

  ‘If I do,’ she said, ‘will you promise to go away and not come back?’