Wexford 18 - Harm Done

by Ruth Rendell

  She held it in her hand and took a long time reading it. He could see in her face that she admired her achievement. When she had finished she was smiling. Defiantly, she admitted authorship. “Yes. I wrote it. I wrote a lot of letters to that man. More than a hundred. A hundred and sixteen in all, if you want to know.”

  She lifted her eyes, opened them very wide so that they looked spherical. In the dark, Wexford was sure, sparks would fly from that white-blonde hair. Her face was contorted as she spoke. “I wrote them. I enjoyed writing them. I kept them courteous, even quite formal. They all started, ‘Dear Mr. Devenish.’ They were in very good prose, though I doubt if he appreciated that.” Her tone made it clear she believed she had been clever and amusing. “It was for my own pleasure, my own revenge. It made me feel better about a whole lot of things.”

  Her husband stared at her, then put his head in his hands. Gillian Ferry looked at him contemptuously. “I didn’t do it out of love of you, so don’t think it. I should have left you when you drank yourself out of that job, when you got sozzled everyday - God knows why I didn’t.”

  To Wexford she said more calmly, “It wasn’t for him. At least, it was only a bit for him. Mainly it was because Devenish was such a bastard, punching his wife in the face and cutting her, and letting his kids see, wanting them to see. Robert told me, I teach Robert at school, or I tried to, but you can’t teach much to a child who’s living a nightmare at home. Kids like that aren’t exactly receptive.”

  “He told you about his father beating his mother.”

  “Beating is a word for it, I suppose. It’s not the one I’d choose. He told me how the torture started. The poor woman put a horn-handled knife in the dishwasher by mistake once, and when it came out, the powder or the hot water or whatever had bleached the handle. Devenish cut her for that, he cut her with the same knife.” Her eyes flashed. “I’d like to meet the guy who killed Devenish, I’d shake him by the hand.”

  Wexford cautioned her. She took no notice of his words.

  “Will I go to prison?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Pity I’d quite like to go to prison. It’d be a change from here and him, and that bloody school.”

  When he got back to Kingsmarkham, Lynn Fancourt was waiting for him with the news that Carl Meeks could be eliminated from the inquiry Two people had been found who remembered seeing him in the Kingsbrook Meadows with Buster at 8 a.m. on the day of the Devenish murder. Her report was on his desk but she’d like just to tell him that the witnesses weren’t Carl’s neighbours or among the more dubious of Kingsmarkham’s citizens. Both were dog owners dog-walking, the woman the proprietor of a boutique in York Street, whose premises Patrick Flay had robbed, the man a college lecturer who taught computer studies at Myringham University.

  But it was really Buster who was responsible for getting Carl Meeks out of trouble. Once seen, never forgotten, as Burden had said, Buster was a dog to remember. The First Gear owner (with her spaniel) had seen him for the first time that Tuesday. She recalled it because Tuesday was her birthday and she’d wished she could ask her boyfriend for a Great Dane for a birthday present, only she already had the spaniel.

  Buster got into a fight with the lecturer’s Jack Russell. While gentle enough with human beings, Danes were apparently in the habit of seizing upon smaller dogs, hurling them in the air, and shaking them to death. Or so the lecturer said. He had had to take Jake to the vet, which was a nuisance because that Tuesday was the day he was due to begin teaching a course at a summer school in Sewingbury

  Carl Meeks was off the hook, as Burden put it.

  Wexford said, “But Ferry isn’t, is he? Not really.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Just because he didn’t do it with the litter spike doesn’t mean he didn’t do it at all. And equally, because it was his wife who wrote the letters, that doesn’t exonerate him. He still has no alibi. He was within walking distance of Devenish’s home at the relevant time. He admits he hated the man. And there’s another thing - he seems to me not to find life worth living. What has he to look forward to? His retirement pension in twenty years’ time. He has no children. His wife dislikes him. His home is a tip. Maybe he did it because, like his wife, he doesn’t care what happens to him, anything for a change, even prison.”

  “Bit extreme, isn’t it? People don’t really behave like that.”

  “‘People don’t do such things,’ as Ibsen says? Maybe. Anyway, we have a far more likely suspect.”

  “We do?

  Wexford nodded. Then he said that he’d had it for today and how about a drink in the Olive and Dove? “I want to tell you a story.”

  They walked there, the length of the High Street. It was a mild evening of hazy sunshine, humid and still. A bereavement charity was holding a wine and cheese party in St. Peter’s Church Hall, but by the look of the trickle of visitors it was sparsely attended. Conversely, on its closure at six, crowds poured out of the Heaven Spent mall, laden with carrier bags, flushed from the triumph and deep inner fulfillment shopping brings. Wexford spotted Maria Michaels and Miroslav Zlatic among them. He thought about his lost raincoat and the dismal prospect of buying a new one, then about a previous visit to the Olive and Dove when a newspaper had taken a photograph of him with a beer tankard in his hand and printed it above a ribald legend. He had never forgotten it; he dreaded its happening again. But that had been outdoors, in the hotel garden, and this evening they would be in the quiet and seclusion of the landlord’s snug.

  “You’re very silent,” said Burden.

  “I’m thinking. Anyway, I don’t think one can be ‘very’ silent. You’re either silent or you’re not. It’s like saying someone is very dead.”

  “Like Devenish. I don’t think I’ve ever come across a dead man so many people were glad to be dead. Not a dissenting voice.”

  “I doubt if his children are glad, Mike. Children have a rare faculty of loving parents who are unworthy of their love. You might say children love their parents as a matter of course. It’s sad.”

  The garden of the Olive and Dove and its bar were crowded this evening, mostly with people under thirty; many probably under eighteen.

  “In the United States they make you produce identification to show your age,” Burden said.

  “That’ fine if you’ve got any. If you don’t have a passport or a driving license or a rail pass, what then? Don’t tell me they do in America, I know that. The point is they don’t here.”

  No one was in the snug. It was too small and, with its only window overlooking a yard full of beer-can crates, too dimly lit to attract Kingsmarkham’s youth. The three tables had marble tops and the chairs were upholstered in worn, dark red leather. Another feature of the place, discouraging to many, was a notice on the wall that read don’t even think of smoking here. You either went to the bar and queued up or rang a brass bell for service. No one came in here otherwise.

  They both asked for Adnams. It arrived in glasses, which pleased Wexford, though he had once preferred tankards. He hadn’t drunk out of a tankard - they called them mugs in here - since that never-to-be-forgotten day. He said an unaccustomed “Cheers” to Burden and took a long draft of his beer.

  “Cheers,” said Burden. “I’ve been thinking about that boy Edward, Edward Devenish. He could have killed his father. After he’d seen his mother come into the kitchen with her hand bleeding. He could have gone into the study, picked up the knife, and stabbed his father, taken him by surprise. He’s a big, strong boy, though not as tall as Devenish, and it’s someone shorter than Devenish we’re looking for.”

  “How about the blood, Mike? Did he cover up his clothes before he went in there? Or wash his clothes before he left for school? And what about Robert? Was he in it too? You’re forgetting what I said about children loving their parents.”

  “Maybe, but children do kill their parents, it’s not unknown, patricide. Yes, by the way, why do we call the act patricide and the perpetrato
r a parricide?”

  Wexford said rather impatiently, “I don’t know,” and uncharacteristically, “Does it matter?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “In France when they had capital punishments, parricides were sent to the guillotine barefoot and with their faces veiled. I read that somewhere. But Edward and Robert Devenish aren’t parricides.” He hesitated. “I know who did this murder. And it wasn’t any of our suspects. I think,” he added reflectively and rather sadly, “I’ve always known it.”

  Burden simply looked at him, saying nothing.

  “I said I was going to tell you a story.” Someone carried a crate of empty bottles out into the yard, dropping it with a crash. Wexford winced. “Silent,” still less “very silent,” were no longer descriptions that had much relevance. The countryside was as noisy as the town. He took another drink. Beer was still pretty good. “Fay Devenish and her son Edward and, more or less, her son Robert, have told us a man, unknown to Edward, came to the front door of Woodland Lodge that Tuesday morning at eight a.m. Give or take a little, I suppose. It may have been two or three minutes to eight, or two or three minutes past. We also know that Stephen Devenish was stabbed to death, receiving three stab wounds to the chest, at some time between seven forty-five and eight-thirty.

  “The scenario goes like this: At seven thirty-five or seven-forty, again give or take a little, Stephen Devenish, seriously displeased with his wife’s failure to provide fresh orange juice, gets up from the breakfast table, leaves the room, and goes into his study. Perhaps he shuts the door, perhaps he doesn’t. Fay, her sons, and her daughter, Sanchia, remain in the kitchen.”

  “Within five minutes Devenish calls out to his wife from the study - presumably from the study doorway. He calls out, ‘Come in here, Fay,’ or even, knowing him, ‘Come in here, darling.’ She knows what is going to happen and the boys probably know, but she goes. She hasn’t much choice, has she? If she doesn’t go, he’ll fetch her, drag her out of there, an act of violence which Sanchia will witness.”

  “She goes into the study. Devenish tells her she has to be punished, she’s a hopeless housewife and mother, she’s mad, she has to learn, and a load more of that stuff no doubt. He tells her to hold out her hand and he cuts her across the palm. Probably she cries out. She may even scream out, loudly enough for the children in the kitchen to hear. Devenish wipes the knife clean on something - maybe his own handkerchief, which she will have to wash - and tells her to go. Her hand is bleeding heavily, so she goes across the hallway into the cloakroom where she holds it under the cold tap, then wraps it in the towel that hangs there.”

  “Okay,” said Burden a little impatiently. “We know all that.”

  “Wait. The study door is left a little ajar. Fay goes back to the kitchen, her hand wrapped in the towel. Neither boy asks what has happened. They know. Fay tells them to get ready for school, it’s their last day of term, and they know they have to be at Mrs. Daley’s by five past eight.”

  “Within the next five minutes or so the boys go out into the hallway, use the lavatory, wash their hands, and prepare to leave the house. The doorbell rings. Edward opens the door and there on the doorstep is a man he has never seen before. This man is about the same age as his father - that is, middle to late thirties - is wearing jeans and a jacket, and carrying a briefcase. He says he has come to see Stephen Devenish.”

  “Edward calls out something like, ‘Dad, there’s some one to see you,’ and says to the man, ‘He’s in there,’ indicating the slightly open study door. Fay, in the kitchen, also hears the man’s voice but not Edward’s. Possibly this is because a boy of twelve’s voice is naturally higher and lighter than a mature man’s. Moreover, though Edward can’t remember the man’s precise words, Fay can. She remembers he said, ‘I’m here to see Mr. Devenish.’”

  “Now, whether Devenish had come to the door by then or was still inside, unseen, we don’t know. Edward can’t remember and Robert is too young to be a reliable witness. But the man goes into the study, shutting the door behind him. Now, this is quite remarkable. If a stranger calls on you in your house and is shown into the room where you are, he only closes the door if asked to do so by you, doesn’t he? Unless he’s not a stranger but well known to you and is in fact someone accorded the privileges of a friend, at least of a familiar acquaintance.”

  Burden nodded. “I’d put it more strongly than that. The person coming in would either be a friend of some duration or a person in authority. I mean, I close the door behind me when I come into your office, but Lynn wouldn’t. On the other hand, Southby would and the chief constable would.”

  “That’s true. However, it’s not relevant here. I think there’s a third category. And in that category comes someone who is an acquaintance, not a friend. Indeed, it’s an acquaintance who has become an enemy and, as an enemy, need no longer observe customary social usage or even politeness. He or she wants seclusion and silence, so he closes the door without asking permission of the man inside.

  “The door shuts. The boys leave the house, closing the front door behind them. In the kitchen Fay is giving Sanchia her breakfast and trying to staunch the blood still coming from her hand. She has the breakfast dishes to put into the dishwasher and the day’s washing to do, not to mention housecleaning, bed - making, shopping, and the daylong care of a three-year-old.”

  “She doesn’t hear Devenish’s visitor leave the house, and of course, she doesn’t hear Devenish leave. Devenish is dead, his body lying on the study floor, with three stab wounds in his chest, including the fatal one to the heart. Fay thinks he’s left for work. She tidies and cleans the kitchen, puts the breakfast things in the dishwasher and starts it, takes Sanchia out of her high chair, and gives her things to play with. At some point in the next hour or so she takes her into the playroom and puts on children’s television for her or a video. Then she goes upstairs, makes the beds, gathers up the dirty washing and, along with the towel in which she wrapped her hand, takes it into the utility room and puts it in the washing machine.”

  “I suppose all these household management hints are necessary?” Burden grumbled.

  “I think they are.” Wexford swallowed the last of his beer, set down the glass, wondering why a glass always leaves a damp ring on a surface even when it’s not wet. One of life’s little mysteries, only he had the big ones to solve. “At nine or thereabouts,” he went on, “Fay checks on Sanchia in the playroom, perhaps puts on a new video. Then she goes into the study to clean it, carrying no doubt a duster and pushing a vacuum cleaner. She finds Devenish dead on the floor and calls us.”

  “Yes, but look here,” Burden objected, “are you saying there were two knives? The one Devenish had used to cut his wife’s hand and the one the man at the door brought with him? Because, if you’re not, you must be saying the man at the door brought no weapon with him, either because he didn’t intend to kill Devenish or because he knew the knife would be there waiting for him, which is absurd.”

  “I might be saying that he only thought of killing Devenish when he saw his opportunity in the form of the knife. Perhaps because Devenish said something insupportable to him, he picked up the knife and stabbed him.”

  “Well, okay, perhaps. But who was he, this mysterious man no one recognized but who had the authority or the familiarity to close Devenish’s study door behind him?”

  “First of all,” said Wexford, “I’d like to talk about the knife - or, rather, the knives. But let’s have another drink, shall we? Ring the bell.”

  Feeling like someone in a Victorian mystery story, literature his wife sometimes encouraged him to read, Burden picked up the brass bell and gave it three vigorous shakes. There should have been a candle on the table in one of those metal candlesticks with a snail-shaped handle, or at least an oil lamp. The snug looked as if it hadn’t seen a coat of paint on its grimy ocher walls and dark brown woodwork since, such a story was first published. The barman came. He was a man who could only have lived at the end of the twentieth centu
ry with the ring in his pierced lip, matted dreadlocks, and endangered-species tiger-face logo on the back of his hand.

  But he had a pleasant manner and an old-fashioned politeness, and he took their order cheerfully, returning in only a few moments with the two glasses and a free packet of cashews, compliments of the management.

  “I don’t suppose taking these smells of corruption, do you?” Wexford said after the man had gone. “It won’t make us look more favourably on him at the next Brewster Sessions.” He laughed. “Now, the knives. We both know that the knife block is made to hold eight knives but it contained only seven. However, the remaining slot is too small and short to have contained a knife wide enough or long enough in the blade to have made Devenish’s wounds. There was no eighth knife, and when Fay told us there never had been an eighth knife because to insert one made the block too crowded and inhibited the removal of any of the others, she was speaking the truth.”

  “We’ve been through that before.”

  “All right. We have. Of those seven knives, all have horn handles, but five of the handles are dark brown and two a much lighter brown, almost a fawn color. Now this is the effect of putting horn handles into a dishwasher and through a very hot wash. I know. I’ve tried it and Dora wasn’t too pleased with me when she saw what I’d done.”

  “Shame,” Burden mocked, “and when it was all in the cause of justice and truth.”

  Ignoring him, Wexford went on, “Edward Devenish has told me that he knew this happened to one of the knives in the block and Gillian Ferry has told me that for this - that is, putting a horn-handled knife through a hot wash - Devenish cut Fay’s hand. In fact, it seems this was the first time he cut Fay and the damage to the knife put the idea into his head.”