by Ruth Rendell
In the next street along, apparently, or else he had come on the bus, for the man who approached the dry- cleaners and put his key in the lock on the red door had come on foot. He was a tall man in an expensive-looking belted Burberry and he had put up his umbrella. But as the door swung open he necessarily had to furl it and when he stepped inside and shook the umbrella on to the doorstep, Damon saw his face in the lamplight. It was a face he recognised. That is, he had seen it some where before without being able to recall who it was.
Silently, he cursed. He must be able to remember whose face this was. Where had he seen the man? He’d think of all the places he’d been recently, all the people he’d talked to...
The street was no longer empty. A woman was approaching from the High Street end of Glebe Road. The dark glasses she wore were hardly appropriate for this weather, especially as she had on an ankle-length black raincoat and was carrying a man’s large umbrella. Was she also making for Colin Fry’s flat?
It would seem so. The rain eased up before she got there and she put down the umbrella. Looking about her, to her right and left, she pushed her glasses up on to the scarf she had tied round her head. Damon had never seen her before. All he could say about her was that she was about forty or younger. But then it was hard to tell when they pulled their hair back like that, stretching the skin under the eyes and lifting the cheeks. Back where he came from they had a term for it, the ‘Croydon facelift’.
She went up to the door by the dry-cleaners but before she could touch the bell it was opened and she stepped quickly inside.
Chapter 25
The week of fine weather, which usually comes some time in October, arrived at the end of it. This ‘little summer’ started the day Hannah Goldsmith began a week of her annual leave so that she wished she hadn’t been so hasty as to book, only the previous week, a six- day holiday in Crete. She had left it so late because she had naturally expected that by this time she and Bal would be going away together. But Bal hadn’t spoken to her since their ill-fated trip to Somerset, except in the line of work, once more calling her ‘sarge’, and she had spoken to him only when she had to and calling him nothing at all. Now she was going away on her own and she had never looked forward to a holiday less.
Damon had searched his memory to recall who the man was he had seen go into Colin Fry’s flat but with out success. He saw the white zigzag fire escape in his dreams but he couldn’t conjure up that face again. Did it matter? Damon thought it did because Wexford always said that everything, never mind how small, mattered in a murder case.
A double-page spread story appeared in the Kingsmarkham Courier in which Darren Lovelace, who appeared to have been promoted to Chief Reporter, lamented the days when Scotland Yard was called in to investigate murders such as had occurred in the area in August and September. The days before murder squads and serious crime squads existed. ‘What was needed, he wrote, was the creation of a British version of the FBI and, simultaneously, the compulsory redundancy of ‘back numbers’ like Wexford.
Wexford read it and suffered. He knew that things never seem quite as bad the next day and, by two days later, are well on the way to fading altogether. This, of course, is no help at the time of reading. He opened the Courier again and looked at the old picture of himself quaffing beer. Time was when local newspapers were bland and inoffensive, afraid of upsetting their on-the-doorstep readership. If Darren Lovelace regretted the somewhat inaccurate past he attributed to the police force, he, Wexford, looked back with nostalgia on those days when the Courier’s big stories were meetings of the urban district council, the flower show and the high school’s A level results. He crumpled up the paper in his two hands and was thrusting it into the recycling wastepaper basket when a Mr Bartlow was announced. Would Wexford see him?
‘Send him up, will you?’
It was Hannah who had interviewed him and this was Wexford’s first sight of Megan’s father. His first words after he had introduced himself were that he had just been to his ex-mother-in-law’s funeral. ‘Grace Morgan,’ he said. ‘Maybe you’ve talked to her. She was a good old girl, the best of that bunch. Ninety-three is a good age but I’ll miss her, though no one else will. I should have come to you before. Being in Kingsmarkham for the funeral fetched me here.’
‘What did you come about, Mr Bartlow?’
‘Well, my daughter Megan. Of course, my daughter Megan.’
‘Yes. I’m sorry,’ Wexford said.
‘She didn’t let me know, you know.’ Wexford had no need to ask who ‘she’ was. ‘I had to see it on the TV’
Bartlow said. ‘Well, my wife saw it and told me. Broke it to me, I suppose you’d say. Apart from Lara, I’ve got two more kids with my wife but that doesn’t stop you grieving for the one that’s gone.’
‘I’m sure it doesn’t.’
Bartlow shifted in his chair. ‘You may think what I’m going to tell you just, well, a load of rubbish. It’s nothing, really. The young lady detective who came, I thought of telling her but, well, frankly, I was afraid she’d think it ridiculous. But, it’s been sort of haunting me. My wife said it was nothing and to forget it but yesterday when I said I thought I’d go to old Gracie’s funeral she said to come in here and get it off my chest. If you think it’s rubbish, well, you can just say so.’
‘Try me,’ said Wexford.
‘OK, then. Here goes. I told the young lady how Meg came over the day of the Pauceley Fair. Well, we all had a bit of tea at the fair and Megan said she’d like to get home before dark. I was all in favour of that. I didn’t care for her and Lara being out alone after dark. God knows, when it happened to her it was in daylight, wasn’t it?’ When Wexford nodded he went on, ‘I walked her to the bus stop in Sewingbury. It’s only about half a mile from where the fair was. There’s just one bus every two hours and I wanted her to be in good time for it. We walked down this street called Pauceley Avenue. They’re big houses and on the front drive of one of them was this chap getting out of his car. I knew him by sight but not his name.'
‘Megan stared at him. We could really only see him’ in profile. He looked thirty-five to forty and he had a lot of dark hair. As I say, Megan stared at him. He didn’t look at us but went into the house and I said to Megan, like in a joke, “You’ll know him again” and she said, “You’re not kidding. I will know him again.” And that’s all really. We went on to put her on the bus and that, well, that was the last time I saw her. Now I’ve told you it seems more like rubbish than ever.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Wexford said, then added, ‘Did you happen to get the number of the house?’
‘No, I didn’t, but I couldn’t help noticing the name. It was so. . . well, who does he think he is? It’s called The Manor.’
They were looking once more at the Surrage-Samphire website, Wexford, Burden and Damon Coleman; more specifically, at the photographs of the two brothers. Damon said, ‘No doubt about it, sir. That’s the man I saw go into Colin Fry’s place. The one called Ross, with all the dark hair. He’s the man. I saw him twice the first time. Once when he let himself in at the door and the second time when he opened the door to the woman. I went back later and saw them both come out.’
‘You’d know him again? You could identify him?’
‘Yes, I could, sir.’
‘And the woman?’
‘She might be anyone, sir. I couldn’t even estimate her age. All I could say is that she wasn’t a teenager. Quite tall - well, five seven or eight - and not over weight. It was raining pretty hard and she had a scarf round her head and her umbrella up.’
‘Damon’s been very thorough,’ Wexford said to Burden when they were alone, ‘but so what? OK, so Ross Samphire, who puts across a touching picture of the devoted family man, is in fact a sneaky adulterer, but adultery’s not a crime. More to the point is what Gary Bartlow saw, escorting Megan to the bus stop in Sewingbury. Plainly, the man getting out of the car was Ross and Megan recognised him. This, in fact, is proof of w
hat we’ve always said...’
‘You’ve always said,’ Burden cut in generously.
‘OK, I’ve always said. Megan recognised the man she’d seen in Yorstone Wood on the twenty-fourth of June. Now she knew where he lived and could find out his name she had no hesitation in trying to blackmail him.’
‘Which was a highly dangerous thing to do with a man like Ross Samphire.’
Wexford was silent for a little while. ‘While he was thinking like this, concentrating, he always remained perfectly still, his hands relaxed on the desk, his eyes gazing at the opposite wall, yet apparently unseeing. Burden had often seen him like this and when he did he always waited, unwilling to interrupt a reverie. Finally, Wexford said, ‘So Ross was the man who crossed Yorstone Wood in an attempt to kill Amber by dropping a lump of concrete on her? He can’t have been. He was in Spain with his wife and children. Besides, I’d say he was a highly efficient man as well as totally ruthless, wouldn’t you?’
‘I suppose I would.’
‘He wouldn’t have tried that concrete-block-over- the-bridge method in the first place. It’s too chancy, too hit or miss. If he had killed Megan in Victoria Terrace, why would he put her body in that cupboard in the first place, let alone leave it there for four days?’
‘But he must have done the first or Megan wouldn’t have recognised him and he killed her because she recognised him.’
‘I know,’ said Wexford, ‘but the incompetence of it is what gets me. It’s not like Ross. On the other hand, it’s a lot like Rick.’
‘Brothel keeping?’ Colin Fry curled his upper lip and looked at Hannah and Damon in disbelief. ‘I don’t know what you mean. There’s girls kept when you’re brothel keeping. You can’t tell me lending your place to a friend for an evening’s called brothel keeping.’
‘Just tell us what you are doing, Mr Fry’ said Hannah. ‘Are you taking payment?’
‘And don’t tell us this was all out of the goodness of your heart,’ said Damon. ‘You and your girlfriend were out when this couple came. You were out the week before when another couple came.’
‘Suppose we were?’
‘Mr Fry, if you’d like to tell us who these people were that came here on Thursday evening, the man at’ - Damon referred to his notebook - ‘seven twelve p.m. and the woman at seven sixteen p.m., we might take a more lenient view of what you’ve been up to.’
Pretty sure nothing illegal was going on here, Hannah cut in, ‘We’re not promising anything, mind you. But we just might.’
‘It was Ross Samphire, wasn’t it, Colin?’
At this point Emma came in, bringing cups of tea no one had been offered or asked for and which, Damon soon found, was made undrinkable by the copious addition of sugar. He tried not to widen his eyes when she bent over to hand Colin his cup and displayed, as her short skirt rode up, stocking tops and black frilly suspenders. The place wasn’t all that unlike a brothel.
‘OK,’ Colin said. ‘It was Ross. He’d kill me if he knew I’d told you.’ Late in the day, he realised what he had said and clapped his hand over his mouth.
‘You didn’t tell us. We told you. What does he pay you?’
Twenty quid an hour,’ said Colin sulkily.
‘And he was here for three hours. Money for old rope, that is. Have you any other clients? Don’t lie about it. We know you have.’
‘They’re all friends,’ Emma said, flying to Colin’s defence. ‘They want to pay. We’re doing them a favour. ‘Where’s the harm if they use our place while we’re out? We want to be out. The dosh is like a present.’
‘All right. Who was the woman with Ross?’
The self-appointed spokeswoman, Emma, was much better at this than Colin. She would never have admitted that the money they received was payment for any thing. It was a present, it was given in gratitude for the service rendered. Hannah knew Emma was lying but now, when she answered the question, she was sure this was the truth.
‘I don’t know. Colin doesn’t know. He wouldn’t tell Colin her name. Why would he?’
Indeed, why would he? Hannah, to whom the concept of a married man renting premises in which to sleep with a woman not his wife was so alien as to be almost incomprehensible, tried to imagine herself in such a man’s shoes. She pictured herself presenting the set-up to the friend lending the flat and, this more or less accomplished, found that she wouldn’t in these circumstances have mentioned the woman’s name. What would be the point?
‘All right,’ she said. ‘That’s all for now. We’d like to see you later today at the police station. Say three p.m.?’
‘I’ll be working,’ Colin almost wailed. ‘I ought to be at work now.’
‘Dear, oh, dear,’ said Damon. ‘Since you’re employed by Mr Ross Samphire, I’m sure you’ll be able to explain that satisfactorily.’
He was driving. Hannah sat beside him, wishing it were Bal. It didn’t help that during the previous week Bal had been using this car while Damon used his and had left a Mars bar and his copy of the New Statesman with ‘Bhattacharya’ written on the front on the back seat. An awful feeling of longing to touch these objects that he had touched came over Hannah, even to press his name on the magazine to her lips. Fool, she told herself. This was what happened when two people gazed into each other’s eyes, slopped over each other and parted instead of taking the healthy option of sleeping together and making love.
She marched into the police station in a bad temper.
Chapter 26
The car turning out of Mill Lane was a dark-blue Mercedes and the driver was Ross Samphire. The man must have been at Clifton, making some interior decorating arrangement with the Marshalsons, Wexford thought, when parking opposite Jewel Terrace he saw Lydia Burton standing inside her gate as if she had just been waving someone goodbye. Tallish, he recalled, remembering Damon Coleman’s limited description, certainly not overweight, not very young but not exactly middle-aged either. . . . Was this the woman Ross met at Colin Fry’s flat? It looked like it. For her part, she would have had no need to use the place. She had a home of her own and she was single. Going to Fry’s must be his choice. But why? Was it the distance of Brimhurst from Pauceley? Or did he know someone in the neighbourhood who might recognise him? Well, the Marshalsons...
The weather had turned very cold and Lydia, having waved to him and Hannah in a not at all guilty way - but why should she be guilty? she wasn’t married - went briskly into the house. Gwenda Brooks came to the door so promptly that he thought she must have been standing inside it. As an experienced nurse and mid wife, Mary would easily have been able to tell if a woman was or wasn’t pregnant, even if she was in a quite early stage of pregnancy. But what did he know? What did Hannah? Yet both of them could see that there was no possibility of Gwenda giving birth to a baby in two weeks’ time or, come to that, six months’ time. Since John Brooks’s departure, she had lost a considerable amount of weight. The brown check skirt she wore hung on her hips and flat stomach as garments hang fashionably loose on fifteen-year-old models. There was a gauntness about her face. Her throat and neck had those deep hollows in them that used to be called salt cellars.
The living room Hannah had been in before was no less grim than it had been then. Wexford was reminded of rooms in third-grade hotels where everything is the colour of porridge and wholemeal bread, and there are neither ornaments nor pictures. Gwenda sat on the edge of her chair with her knees pressed together. For the second time she said, ‘I don’t know what it’s got to do with the police. It’s my private business.’
Much as it went against the grain with her to call anyone ‘Mrs’, Hannah did so as a concession to Wexford’s sensibilities. ‘Mrs Brooks, you’re going on a package tour to Kenya, is that right?’
‘You know it is. I’ve said so.’
‘And the purpose of this trip is for you and the other women in the party to give birth while there?’
‘One of the purposes, yes. We’re going to do a week’s sightseeing. I
really don’t see why I should have to tell you all this. But if you insist, yes; we have a week’s sight seeing and two nights at a safari park, and then we’re taken to this nursing home in Nairobi where we give birth. A painless natural birth, I may add.’
‘Have you seen a doctor, Mrs Brooks?’ Hannah asked. ‘Your GP here, I mean.’
The woman was looking more and more affronted. ‘I’ve no need to see a doctor. There’s nothing wrong with me.’
Hannah sighed inwardly. Wexford could have told her that her probing was useless. All they needed now were some concrete facts. She seemed at last to under stand this and asked only for the name of the acquaintance in Myringham and the travel agent who had sold Mrs Brooks the ‘birth package’.
‘I’m not supposed to divulge that,’ she said indignantly. ‘I’ve signed a confedentiality agreement.’
I bet you have, Wexford thought. Telling the police is confidential,’ he said, not strictly truthfully.
‘Well, then. She’s called Sharon Lucas and the travel agent is in London. It’s Miracle Tours of Carlos Place, West One.’ She enunciated this address with a pride that was almost pathetic. She was no naïve country mouse but a sophisticate who patronised Mayfair travel agents.
‘You mean you just went to them,’ Hannah said, ‘out of the blue?’
‘Of course not.’ Gwenda Brooks was growing angry ‘Sharon told me and it was the adviser at SOCC who put me on to them. You do know what SOCC is?’
‘Oh, yes, we know. Who was this adviser?’
She named him. Ken Quickwood as Mary had said. Wexford, who had hoped to hear it was Ross Samphire, felt a shaft of disappointment stab him. The minute they left Hannah burst out with, ‘Can you believe people can be so crazy, guv?’
‘Quite easily,’ said Wexford. ‘Sergeant, I think I’m going to send you “up West”, as they used to say. You can have a day out doing some shopping and dropping in on Miracle Tours.’