A New Lease of Death (4 page)

On this July morning its whiteness glared and glistened. But if its façade seemed to welcome and bask in the sun its occupants did not. There was far too much glass. All right, said Wexford, for the hothouse plants or tropical fish, but a mixed blessing for an elderly Anglo-Saxon policeman with high blood pressure and a low resistance to heat. The telephone receiver slid about in his large hand and when he had finished talking to Henry Archery he pulled down the venetian blinds.

‘Heat-wave’s coming,’ he said to Burden. ‘I reckon your wife’s picked a good week.’

Burden looked up from the statement he had begun to read. Lean as a greyhound, his face thin and acute, he often had the hound’s instinct for scenting the unusual, coupled with a man’s eager imagination.

‘Things always seem to happen in a heat-wave,’ he said. ‘Our sort of things, I mean.’

‘Get away,’ said Wexford. ‘Things are always happening around here.’ He raised his spiky toothbrush brows. ‘What’s happening today,’ he said, ‘is Archery. He’s coming at two.’

‘Did he say what it’s all about?’

‘He’s leaving that for this afternoon. Very la-di-da manner he’s got with him. All part of the mystique of how to be a gentleman on nothing a year. One
thing
, he’s got a transcript of the trial so I shan’t have to go through the whole thing again.’

‘That’ll have cost him something. He must be keen.’

Wexford looked at his watch and rose. ‘Got to get over to the court,’ he said. ‘Polish off those villains who lost me my night’s sleep. Look, Mike, I reckon we deserve a bit of gracious living and I don’t fancy the Carousel’s steak pie for my lunch. What about popping into The Olive and booking a table for one sharp?’

Burden smiled. It suited him well enough. Once in a blue moon Wexford would insist on their lunching or even dining in comparative style.

‘It shall be done,’ he said.

The Olive and Dove is the best hostelry in Kingsmarkham that can properly be called an hotel. By a stretch of the imagination the Queen’s Head might be described as an inn, but the Dragon and the Crusader cannot claim to be more than pubs. The Olive, as locals invariably call it, is situated in the High Street at the Stowerton end of Kingsmarkham, facing the exquisite Georgian residence of Mr Missal, the Stowerton car dealer. It is partly Georgian itself, but it is a hybrid structure with lingering relics of Tudor and a wing that claims to be pre-Tudor. In every respect it conforms to what nice middle-class people mean when they talk about a ‘nice’ hotel. There are always three waiters, the chambermaids are staid and often elderly, the bath water is hot, the food as well as can be expected and the A.A. Guide has given it two stars.

Burden had booked his table by phone. When he walked into the dining room just before one he saw to his satisfaction that he had been placed by the High Street window. Here it was just out of the sun and the geraniums in the window box looked fresh and even dewy. Girls waiting on the other side of the street for the Pomfret bus wore cotton frocks and sandals.

Wexford marched in at five past. ‘I don’t know why he can’t get up at half twelve like they do in Sewingbury,’ he grumbled. ‘He’ Burden knew, meant the chairman of the Kingsmarkham bench. ‘God, it was hot in court. What are we going to eat?’

‘Roast duck,’ said Burden firmly.

‘All right, if you twist my arm. As long as they don’t mix a lot of rubbish up with it. You know what I mean, sweet corn and bananas.’ He took the menu, scowling. ‘Look at that, Polynesian chicken. What do they think we are, aborigines?’

‘I went and had a look at Victor’s Piece this morning,’ said Burden while they waited for the duck to come.

‘Did you now? I see it’s up for sale. There’s a card in the agent’s window with a highly misleading photograph. They’re asking six thousand. Bit steep when you think Roger Primero got less than two for it in 1951.’

‘I suppose it’s changed hands several times since then?’

‘Once or twice before the old folks moved in. Thanks,’ he said to the waiter. ‘No we don’t want
any
wine. Two halves of bitter.’ He spread his napkin over his capacious lap and to Burden’s controlled distaste sprinkled wing and orange sauce liberally with pepper.

‘Was Roger Primero the heir?’

‘One of the heirs. Mrs Primero died intestate. Remember I told you she’d only got ten thousand to leave and that was divided equally between Roger and his two younger sisters. He’s a rich man now, but however he got his money it wasn’t from his grandmother. All kinds of pies he’s got his finger in – oil, property development, shipping – he’s a real tycoon.’

‘I’ve seen him around, I think.’

‘You must have. He’s very conscious of his status as a land-owner since he bought Forby Hall. Goes out with the Pomfret hounds and all that.’

‘How old is he?’ Burden asked.

‘Well, he was twenty-two when his grandmother was killed. That makes him about thirty-eight now. The sisters were much younger. Angela was ten and Isabel nine.’

‘I seem to remember he gave evidence at the trial.’

Wexford pushed his plate away, signaled rather imperiously to the waiter and ordered two portions of apple pie. Burden knew that his chief’s notion of gracious living was somewhat limited.

‘Roger Primero had been visiting his grandmother that Sunday,’ Wexford said. ‘He was working in a solicitor’s office in Sewingbury at the time and he used to make quite a habit of having Sunday
tea
at Victor’s Piece. Maybe he had his eye on a share of the loot when Mrs Primero went – God knows he hadn’t a bean in those days – but he seemed genuinely fond of her. It’s certainly a fact that after we’d seen the body and sent for him from Sewingbury as next of kin, we had to restrain him forcibly from going over to the coach house and laying violent hands on Painter. I daresay his grandmother and Alice made a lot of him, you know, buttered him up and waited on him. I told you Mrs Primero had her affections. There’d been a family quarrel but apparently it didn’t extend to the grand-children. Once or twice Roger had taken his little sisters down to Victor’s Piece and they’d all got on very well together.’

‘Old people usually do get on well with kids,’ said Burden.

‘They had to be the right kind of children, Mike. Angela and Isabel, yes, and she had a very soft spot for young Liz Crilling.’

Burden put down his spoon and stared at the Chief Inspector.

‘I thought you said you’d read all this up at the time?’ Wexford said suspiciously. ‘Don’t say it was a long time ago. My customers are always saying that to me and it makes me see red. If you read the account of that trial you must remember that Elizabeth Crilling, aged precisely five at the time, found Mrs Primero’s body.’

‘I assure you I can’t remember, sir.’ That must have been the day he’d missed, the day he hadn’t bothered with the papers because he’d been nervous
about
an interview. ‘She didn’t appear at the trial, surely?’

‘Not at that age – there are limits. Besides, although she was actually the first to go into the drawing room and come upon the body, her mother was with her.’

‘Digressing a little,’ Burden said, ‘I don’t quite get this stuff about the right kind of children. Mrs Crilling lives over there in Glebe Road.’ He turned to the window and waved his hand in the direction of the least attractive part of Kingsmarkham where long streets of small terraced brown houses had sprung up between the wars. ‘She and the girl live in half a house, they haven’t a penny to bless themselves with …’

‘They’ve come down a lot,’ said Wexford. ‘In September 1950 Crilling himself was still alive – he died of T.B. soon after – and they lived opposite Victor’s Piece.’

‘In one of those white semi-detached places?’

‘That’s right. A Mrs White and her son lived next door. Mrs Crilling was about thirty at the time, little bit over thirty.’

‘You’re joking,’ said Burden derisively. ‘That makes her only in her late forties now.’

‘Look, Mike, people can say what they like about hard work and childbearing and all that. I tell you there’s nothing like mental illness to make a woman look old before her time. And you know as well as I do Mrs Crilling’s been in and out of mental hospitals for years.’ He paused as their coffee came and pursed his lips censoriously at the anaemic brown liquid.

‘You did say black, sir?’ the waiter asked.

Wexford gave a sort of grunt. The church clock struck the last quarter. As the reverberation died away, he said to Burden:

‘Shall I keep the parson waiting ten minutes?’

Burden said neutrally, ‘That’s up to you, sir. You were going to tell me how Mrs Primero and the Crilling woman became friends. I suppose they were friends?’

‘Not a doubt of it. Mrs Crilling was ladylike enough in those days and she had a way with her, sycophantic, sucking up,
you
know. Besides, Crilling had been an accountant or something, just enough of a professional man, anyway, in Mrs Primero’s eyes to make his wife a lady. Mrs Crilling was always popping over to Victor’s Piece and she always took the child with her. God knows, they must have been pretty close. Elizabeth called Mrs Primero “Granny Rose” just as Roger and his sisters did.’

‘So she “popped over” that Sunday night and found Granny Rose dead?’ Burden hazarded.

‘It wasn’t as simple as that. Mrs Crilling had been making the kid a party frock. She finished it by about six, dressed Elizabeth up and wanted to take her over and show her off to Mrs Primero. Mind you, she and Alice Flower were always at loggerheads. There was a good bit of jealousy there, spheres of influence and so on. So Mrs Crilling waited until Alice had gone off to church and went over alone, intending to go back and fetch the child if Mrs Primero was awake. She dozed a good bit, you see, being so old.

‘That first time – it was about twenty past six – Mrs Primero
was
asleep and Mrs Crilling didn’t go in. She just tapped on the drawing room window. When the old woman didn’t stir she went back and returned again later. By the way, she saw the empty scuttle through the window so she knew Painter hadn’t yet been in with the coal.’

‘You mean that Painter came in and did the deed between Mrs Crilling’s visits?’ Burden asked.

‘She didn’t go back again till seven. The back door had to be left unlocked for Painter, so she and the child went in, called out “Yoo-hoo” or some damn’ thing, and marched into the drawing room when they didn’t get an answer. Elizabeth went first – more’s the pity – and Bob’s your uncle!’

‘Blimey,’ said Burden, ‘that poor kid!’

‘Yes,’ Wexford murmured, ‘yes … Well, much as I should like to while away the rest of the afternoon, reminiscing over the coffee cups, I do have to see this clerical bloke.’

They both got up. Wexford paid the bill, leaving a rather obviously exact ten per cent for a tip.

‘I can’t see where the parson comes into it at all,’ Burden said when they were in the car.

‘He can’t be an abolitionist because they’ve done away with the death penalty. As I say, he’s writing a book, expects to make a big thing out of it and that’s why he’s laid out good money on a transcript.’

‘Or he’s a prospective buyer of Victor’s Piece. He’s a haunted house merchant and he thinks he’s got another Borley Rectory.’

An unfamiliar car stood on the forecourt of the
police
station. The numberplate was not local and beside it was a little metal label that bore the name Essex with the county coat of arms of three scimitars on a red field.

‘We shall soon know,’ said Wexford.

3

There are false witnesses risen up against me and such as speak wrong.

Psalm 27, appointed for the 5th Day

IN GENERAL WEXFORD
disliked the clergy. To him the dog collar was like a slipped halo, indicating a false saintliness, probable hypocrisy and massive self-regard. As he saw it vicars were not vicarious enough. Most of them expected you to worship God in them.

He did not associate them with good looks and charm. Henry Archery, therefore, caused him slight surprise. He was still slim and exceedingly good-looking, and he was wearing an ordinary rather light-coloured suit and an ordinary collar and tie. His hair was thick enough and fair enough for the grey not to show much, his skin was tanned and his features had a pure evenly cut regularity.

During the first preliminary small-talk remarks
Wexford
had noticed the beauty of his voice. You felt it would be a pleasure to hear him read aloud. As he showed him to a chair and sat down opposite him, Wexford chuckled to himself. He was picturing a group of tired ageing female parishioners working their fingers to the bone for the pitiful reward of this man’s smile. Archery was not smiling now and he looked anything but relaxed.

‘I’m familiar with the case, Chief Inspector,’ he began. ‘I’ve read the official transcript of the trial and I’ve discussed the whole thing with Colonel Griswold.’

‘What exactly do you want to know, then?’ Wexford asked in his blunt way.

Archery took a deep breath and said rather too quickly:

‘I want you to tell me that somewhere in your mind there is just the faintest doubt, the shadow of a doubt, of Painter’s guilt.’

So that was it, or part of it. Burden with his theories that the parson was a Primero relative or seeking to buy the Primero house couldn’t have been more wrong. This man, whatever axe he might be grinding, was bent on whitewashing Painter.

Wexford frowned and after a moment said, ‘Can’t be done. Painter did it all right.’ He set his jaw stubbornly, ‘If you want to quote me in your book you’re quite welcome. You can say that after sixteen years Wexford still maintains that Painter was guilty beyond the shadow of a doubt.

‘What book is that?’ Archery inclined his handsome head courteously. His eyes were brown and now they
looked
bewildered. Then he laughed. It was a nice laugh and it was the first time Wexford had heard it. ‘I don’t write books,’ he said. ‘Well, I did once contribute a chapter to a work on Abyssinian cats but that hardly …’

Abyssinian cats
. Bloody great red cats, thought Wexford. Whatever next? ‘Why are you interested in Painter, Mr Archery?’