Murder Being Once Done (23 page)

Wexford shrugged, thanked Pamela and went out. To get to Elm Green tube station he made a detour through the cemetery. In the gathering fog the winged victory was ghostlike and the black horses, half-veiled in vapour, seemed to plunge on the air itself without support, without anchorage. Beneath them the royal tombs had lost their solidity as had the still trees, spectres of trees rather, floating, rootless and grey. Water drops, condensed mist, clung to the thready brambles. Obelisks, broken columns, angels with swords, a hunter with two dead lions at his feet . . .

Wexford smiled.

The murder being once done, he is in less fear and more hope that the deed shall not be betrayed or known, seeing the party is now dead and rid out of the way, which only might have uttered and disclosed it.

A last day well spent. Wexford was a poor typist but he would have been glad of the use of a typewriter now. He had to write the whole thing out on sheet after sheet of Basildon Bond, using Dora’s old fountain pen. It was after seven when he finished and then he went downstairs to wait for Howard.

His plan was to give Howard the report after dinner, and he envisaged their discussing it quietly in the study, but his nephew phoned to say he would be delayed and had replaced the receiver before Wexford had a chance to talk to him.

‘You ought to go to bed, dear,’ Dora said at ten.

‘Why? So that I’ll be strong enough to sit in the train? I’ve a good mind to stay up all night.’

He opened the book Denise had at last, in despair over his dilatoriness, fetched him from the library. ‘To the Right Honourable and his Very Singular Good Master, Master William Cecil Esquire . . . Ralph Robinson wisheth continuance of good health with daily increase of virtue and honour.’ That dedication, with different names substituted, might as well have served as an introduction to his own report as to Sir Thomas’s masterpiece. He had scarcely read the first paragraph when the phone rang again.

‘He wants to talk to you, Uncle Reg. I said you were just off to bed.’

Wexford took the phone in a hand that trembled very slightly. ‘Howard?’

Howard’s voice was hard, a little disdainful. ‘If you’re on your way to bed it doesn’t matter.’

‘I’m not. I was waiting up for you.’ Now that the time had come, Wexford found himself strangely reluctant, his voice uncertain. ‘There are a few points . . . Well, I’ve written a sort of report . . . Would you care to . . . ? I mean, my conclusions . . .’

‘Could be the same as ours,’ Howard finished the sentence for him. ‘The scarf? Yes, I thought so. Baker and I have just been to see a friend of yours and what we really need now is a little help from you. If you’ll hold the line, I’ll put Baker on.’

‘Howard, wait. I could come over.’

‘What, now? To Kenbourne Vale?’

Wexford decided to be firm, not to argue at all. He saw clearly and coldly that he was failing for the second time, but he wouldn’t give in without some sort of fight, not let Baker steal his last faint thunder. ‘I’ll take a taxi,’ he said.

The expected wail came from Dora. ‘Oh, darling! at this hour?’

‘I said I was going to stay up all night.’

What amazed him was that some of the shops were still open at ten minutes to midnight and people were still buying groceries for strange nocturnal feasts. In the launderettes the bluish-white lights were on and the machines continued to turn. His cab took him through North Kensington where the night people walked, chatting desultorily, strolling, as if it were day. In Kingsmarkham anybody still out would be hastening home to bed. Here the sky wore its red, starless glow, above the floating lights, the sleepless city. They came into Kenbourne Lane. The cemetery was like a pitch-black cloud, only visible because its mass was darker than the sky. Wexford felt the muscles of his chest contract as he realized they were nearly there. Soon he would be facing Baker. If only there might be a chance of Howard reading his report first . . .

He had had a foolish feeling that there might be a sort of reception committee awaiting him, but there was no one in the foyer but the officers on duty. And when he tried to treat the place as if it was more familiar with him than he with it, walking casually towards the lift, a sergeant called him back to ask his name and his business.

‘Mr Wexford, is it? The superintendent is expecting you, sir.’

That was a little better. His spirits rose higher when he stepped out of the lift and saw Howard standing alone in the corridor outside his office.

‘You’ve been very quick.’

‘Howard, I just want to say . . .’

‘You want to know abut Gregson. I guessed you would and I meant to mention it on the phone. Where d’you think he was on the 25th? Doing that housebreaking job, of all things. The girl. Who phoned him at Mrs Kirby’s was Harry Slade’s girl friend to tell him the job was on and give him all the gen. Come on in now, and see Baker. Shall I send down for coffee?’

Wexford didn’t answer him. He walked into the office, met Baker’s eyes and silently drew his report out of his pocket. The handwritten sheets looked very amateurish, very rustic.

Howard said awkwardly, ‘We really only wanted some inside information, Reg. A few questions we had to put to you . . .’

‘It’s all in there. It won’t take you more than ten minutes to read the lot.’

Wexford knew he was being hypersensitive, but a man would have had to be totally without perception not to see that resigned and indulgent glance which passed between Baker and Howard. He sat down, sliding his arms out of his raincoat and letting it fall over the back of the chair. Then he stared at the uncurtained window, the thick red sky and the black bulk of the bottling plant. While Howard phoned to order coffee, Baker cast his eyes over, rather than read, the report.

It was ten pages long. He got to page five and then he said, ‘All this stuff about the girl’s background, it’s very edifying, no doubt, but hardly . . .’ he sought for a word. ‘. . . Germane to this inquiry,’ he said.

‘Let me see.’ Howard stood behind Baker, reading rapidly. ‘You’ve put in a lot of work here, Reg. Congratulations. You seem to have reached the same conclusions as we have.’

‘Taking all the evidence,’ said Wexford, ‘they are the only possible conclusions.’

Howard gave him a quick look. ‘Yes, well . . . Maybe the best thing would be for you to sum up for us, Michael.’

The sheets of blue paper were growing rather crumpled now. Baker folded them and dropped them rather contemptuously on the desk top. But when he spoke it wasn’t contemptuously. He cleared his throat and said in the uneasy tone of a man who is unaccustomed to graciousness, ‘I owe you a bit of an apology, Mr Wexford. I shouldn’t have said what I did about wild goose chases and red herrings and all that. But it did look like a red herring at first, didn’t it?’

Wexford smiled. ‘It looked like a needless complication.’

‘Not needless at all,’ Howard said. ‘Without it we should never have traced the ownership of the scarf. Here’s our coffee. Put it down there, Sergeant, thank you. Well, Michael?’

‘For a time,’ Baker began, ‘we were completely put off the scent by the confusion between Rachel Vickers and Dearborn’s own stepdaughter. We neglected to bear in mind the circumstantial evidence and we did not then, of course, know that his daughter Alexandra was not his own child.’

Wexford stirred his coffee, although it was black and sugarless. ‘How do you know now?’ he interrupted.

‘Mrs Dearborn told us herself tonight. She was very frank, very open. When she realized the importance of the inquiry, she told us quite freely that Alexandra – named, she believed, after her natural father – is a child she and her husband had adopted privately. Two adoption societies had refused to consider them on account of their age, and when the opportunity arose just before Christmas for them to take this baby they jumped at it. Dearborn acted very properly. He intended to adopt legally and through the proper channels. As soon as the child was received into his house in late December, he notified the Children’s Department and the court of his intention to adopt. Did you want to say something, Mr Wexford?’

‘Only that you make it sound very cold. He loves that child passionately.’

‘I don’t think we should allow our emotions to be involved. Naturally, the whole thing is painful. Let me resume. Mrs Dearborn has never met Rachel Vickers. All she knew about her came from the girl’s aunt, her former charwoman, Mrs Foster, and from the guardian
ad litem
.’

‘The girl with the gloves,’ said Wexford.

Baker took no notice of this. ‘The guardian and Mrs Foster knew the girl as Rachel Vickers, never as Loveday Morgan. Until February 14th, Dearborn also only knew the girl by her true name, he hadnever seen her and supposed everything would be plain sailing. On that day he came home and told his wife that while he had been showing Alexandra some property he intended to by in Lammas Grove, Rachel Vickers came out of a shop and recognized her child.’ Baker paused. ‘I must admit I don’t quite understand that, a man pointing out houses to a babe in arms, but I daresay it’s irrelevant.’ He glanced at Wexford and Wexford said nothing. ‘According to Mrs Dearborn,’ he went on, ‘Rachel asked him if she might see Alexandra again and he agreed, though reluctantly, giving her his office phone number. Mrs Dearborn says – and I believe she is speaking the truth – that she knows of no more meetings between Rachel and her husband. As far as she knows, the girl showed no more interest in the child after that.’

‘We, however,’ put in Howard, ‘have been told early in this inquiry that Rachel had an interview at Notbourne Properties sometime after February 14th, and I think we can conclude this interview had nothing to do with an application for a job. What are your views, Reg?’

‘Dearborn,’ said Wexford slowly, ‘wanted to keep the child and Rachel, just as intensely, wanted her back. At that interview in his office she told him she would oppose the granting of his order and he took the highly illegal step of offering her five thousand pounds not to oppose it.’

‘How can you possibly know that?’

Wexford shrugged. ‘Finish reading my report and you’ll know how. Without reading it, you can surely see that this is why Dearborn told his wife no more. He’s unscrupulous but Mrs Dearborn isn’t. She would never have gone along with him in any scheme to
buy
the child. When did they expect to get the order?’

‘On March 24th,’ said Baker with a certain triumph. ‘If you don’t know that, Mr Wexford, I don’t see how . . . But let me get on with my ideas of what happened next. Rachel agreed to take the money – some money, we can’t say how much – and promised to phone Dearborn to fix a date for this transaction. The date she chose was February 25th and she phoned Dearborn from Garmisch Terrace at one-fifteen on that day. They met about an hour later in the cemetery.’

‘You’ve identified the scarf as Mrs Dearborn’s?’

‘Certainly. That’s why we went to see her in the first place. She told us she often wears her husband’s sheepskin jacket and probably left the scarf in that jacket pocket. Dearborn met the girl as arranged, but when he was about to part with the money, thought how much easier it would be, how much safer he would be, to keep the money and kill the girl. He would never be sure otherwise that she wouldn’t oppose the order just the same. So he strangled her with the scarf and put her body in the Montfort tomb.’

‘You helped us again there, Reg,’ said Howard. ‘It was you who pointed out about its being Leap Year. Dearborn forgot that. He supposed that the last Tuesday of the month had gone by and that the tombs wouldn’t be visited until
after
March 24th, by which time he would have his order.’

Wexford reached for his report, fingered it hesitantly and then laid it down again. ‘He’s confessed all this?’ he asked. ‘You’ve talked to him and . . . Have you charged him?’

‘He’s away from home,’ said Baker. ‘Up in the north somewhere at some architects’ conference.’

‘We wanted your
opinion
, Reg,’ Howard said rather sharply. ‘So much of this is conjecture. As you said yourself it’s the only possible conclusion, but we thought you might have something more concrete for us.’

‘I said that?’

‘Well, surely. I understood you to . . .’

Wexford got up abruptly, pushing back his chair so that it almost fell over. He was suddenly frightened, but not of himself, not any more of failure. ‘His wife will get in touch with him!’

‘Of course she will. Let her. He’s due back tomorrow morning.’ Howard looked at his watch. ‘This morning, rather. Once he knows he’s in danger of not getting that order – his wife will tell him that the court will suspend all action until the matter is cleared up – he’ll come hotfoot to us. My God, Reg, she doesn’t know we suspect him of murder.’

‘But he’ll know by now he hasn’t a hope in hell of remaining as Alexandra’s father?’ Wexford gripped the back of the chair. He was shivering. ‘Will she have told him that?’

‘Unless she’s a far more phlegmatic woman than I take her to be, yes.’

He tried to stay calm. He knew his face had grown white, for he could feel the skin shrink and tremble. Baker’s face was scornful and sour, Howard’s entirely bewildered.

‘You wanted my advice. It must be that because you don’t want my opinion. My advice to you is to phone Dearborn’s hotel now, at once.’ Wexford sat down and turned his face to the wall.

‘He’s in his room,’ said Baker, replacing the receiver. ‘I don’t see the need for all this melodrama. The man’s in his room, asleep, but they’ve gone to check and they’ll call us back. I suppose Mr Wexford’s idea is they’ll find a bundle of clothes under the sheets and the bird flown.’

Wexford didn’t comment on that. His hands were clasped tightly together, the knuckles whitened by the strong pressure. He didn’t relax them but he relaxed his voice, making conversation for the sake of it. ‘What happened about Clements?’ he asked, attempting to sound casual.