Some Lie and Some Die (14 page)

‘Oh God, it would have been June first, I think. I didn’t stay.’ Peveril glanced towards the closed door which excluded his wife. ‘Scenes,’ he said stiffly, ‘are made if I venture to spend a night away from the matrimonial nest.’ Misanthropic, his whole manner showing how distasteful he found this probing, he nevertheless was unable to resist making frank disclosures. ‘You’d imagine that a woman who has everything soft and easy for her, never earned a penny since she found someone to keep her, wouldn’t deny the breadwinner a few hours of freedom. But there it is. If I go to London I have to phone her when I get there and leave a number for her to call me whenever she fancies, that means about three times in one evening.’

Wexford shrugged. It was not an uncommon type of marriage that Peveril had described; he was only one of many who had elected to make the dreariest and the longest journey with a jealous foe. But why talk about it? Because it would induce his interrogator to believe that such surveillance kept him from other women? Wexford almost smiled at such
naivety. He knew that good-looking, dissatisfied men of Peveril’s stamp, childless men long out of love with then-wives, could be Houdini-like in the facility with which they escaped from domestic bonds. He left the subject.

‘Your wife went to an evening class on that Monday evening,’ he said. ‘Would you mind telling me what your movements were?’

‘I
moved
into my studio to work and I didn’t
move
out of it until my wife got back at eleven.’

‘There are no buses at that time of night. She didn’t take your car?’

An edge of contempt to his voice, Peveril said, ‘She can’t drive. She walked into Kingsmarkham and some woman gave her a lift back.’

‘You didn’t think of driving her, then? It was a fine evening and it isn’t far.’

‘Damn it all!’ said Peveril, his ready temper rising. ‘Why the hell should I drive her to some daft hen party where they don’t learn a bloody thing? It’s not as if she was going to work, going to bring in some much-needed money.’ He added sullenly, ‘I usually do drive her, as a matter of fact.’

‘Why didn’t you that night?’

‘The worm turned,’ said Peveril. ‘That’s why not. Now I’d appreciate it if you’d let me get on with my work.’

It was on the red dress that Wexford concentrated that Friday. He called a semi-informal conference consisting of himself, Burden, Dr Crocker, Sergeant Martin and Detective Polly Davies. They sat in his office, their chairs in a circle, with the dress laid on his desk. Then Wexford decided that for them all to get a better view of it while they talked, the best thing would be to hang it from the ceiling. A hanger was produced by Polly, and dress and hanger suspended from the lead of Wexford’s central light.

Laboratory experts had subjected it to a thorough examination. They had found that it was made of synthetic fibre and
that it had been frequently worn probably by the same person, a brown-haired, fair-skinned Caucasian. There were no sweat stains in the armpits. In the fibre had been found traces of an unidentified perfume, talcum powder, anti-perspirant and carbon tetrachloride, a cleaning fluid. Other researches showed the dress to have been manufactured some eight or nine years previously at a North London factory for distribution by a small fashion house that dealt in medium-priced clothes. It might have been bought in London, Manchester, Birmingham or a host of other towns and cities in the British Isles. No Kingsmarkham store had ever stocked the garments from this fashion house, but they were, and had for a long time been, obtainable in Brighton.

The dress itself was a dark purplish red, darker than magenta and bluer than burgundy. It had a plain round neck, three-quarter-length sleeves, a fitted waist with self belt and a skirt designed just to show the wearer’s knees. This indicated that it had been bought for a woman about five feet seven inches tall, a woman who was also, but not exceptionally, slim, for it was a size twelve. On Dawn Stonor it had been a tight fit and an unfashionable length for this or any other epoch.

‘Comments, please,’ said Wexford. ‘You first, Polly. You look as if you’ve got something to say.’

‘Well, sir, I was just thinking that she must have looked really grotty in it.’ Polly was a lively, black-haired young woman who habitually dressed in the ‘dolly’ mode, miniskirts, natty waistcoats and velvet baker-boy caps. Her way of painting her mouth strawberry red and blotching two red dabs on her cheeks made her look less intelligent than she was. Now she saw from Wexford’s frown that her imprecise epithet had displeased him and she corrected herself hurriedly. ‘I mean, it wouldn’t have suited her and she’d have looked dowdy and awful. A real freak. I know that sounds unkind—of course she looked dreadful when she was found—but
what I’m trying to say is that she must have looked dreadful from the moment she put it on.’

‘You’d say, would you, that the dress itself is unattractive as a garment? I’m asking you particularly, Polly, because you’re a woman and more likely to see these things than we are.’

‘It’s so hard to say, sir, when something’s gone out of date. I suppose with jewellery and so forth it might have looked all right on a dark person it fitted well. It wouldn’t have looked good on Dawn because she had sort of reddish-blonde hair and she must have absolutely bulged out of it. I can’t think she’d ever have put it on from
choice
. And another thing, sir, you said I’m more likely to notice these things than you are, but—well, just for an experiment, could you all say what you think of it as, say, a dress you’d like your wives to wear?’

‘Anything you say. Doctor?’

Crocker uncrossed his elegant legs and put his head on one side. ‘It’s a bit difficult,’ he began, ‘to separate it from the unpleasant associations it has, but I’ll try. It’s rather
dull
. Let me say that if my wife wore it I’d feel she wasn’t letting me down in any way. I wouldn’t mind who saw her in it. It’s got what I believe they call an “uncluttered line” and it would show off a woman’s figure in a discreet kind of way. On the other hand, supposing I was the sort of man who took other women out, I don’t think I’d feel any too thrilled if my girl friend turned up to a date wearing it because it wouldn’t be—well, adventurous enough.’

‘Mike?’

Burden had no wife, but he had come to terms with his condition. He was able to talk of wives now without inner pain or outward embarrassment. ‘I agree with the doctor that it’s rather distasteful to imagine anyone close to you wearing it because of the circumstances and so on associated with it. When I make myself look at it as I might look at a dress in a shop window I’d say I rather like it. No doubt, I’ve no idea
of fashion, but I’d call it smart. If I were—er, a married man I’d like to see my wife in it.’

‘Sergeant?’

‘It’s a smart dress, sir,’ said Martin eagerly. ‘My wife’s got a dress rather like it and that sort of shade. I bought it for her last Christmas, chose it myself, come to that. My daughter—she’s twenty-two—she says she wouldn’t be seen dead in it, but you know these young girls—beg your pardon, Polly. That’s a nice, smart dress, sir, or was.’

‘Now for me,’ said Wexford. ‘I like it. It looks comfortable and practical for everyday wear. One would feel pleasantly uxorious and somehow secure sitting down in the evening with a woman in that dress. And I think it would be becoming on the right person. As the doctor says, it follows the natural lines of a woman’s figure. It’s not daring or dramatic or embarrassing. It’s conservative. There you are, Polly. What do you make of all that?’

Polly laughed. ‘It tells me more about all you than the dress,’ she said pertly. ‘But what it does tell me is that it’s a
man’s
dress, sir. I mean, it’s the sort of thing a man would choose because it’s figure-flattering and plain and somehow, as you said, secure. Dr Crocker said he wouldn’t want to see his girl friend in it. Doesn’t all this mean it’s a
wife’s
dress chosen by a
husband
partly because he subconsciously realises it shows she’s a good little married lady and any other man seeing her in it will know she’s not made of girl-friend stuff?’

‘Perhaps it does,’ said Wexford thoughtfully. The window was open and the dress swayed and swivelled in the breeze. Find the owner, he thought, and then I have all I need to know. ‘That’s intelligent of you, Polly, but where does it get us? You’ve convinced me it was owned at one time by a married woman who bought it to please her husband. We already know Dawn didn’t own it. Its owner might have sent it to a jumble sale, given it to her cleaner or taken it to the Oxfam shop.’

‘We could check with the Oxfam people here, sir.’

‘Yes, Sergeant, that must be done. I believe you said, Mike, that Mrs Peveril denies ownership?’

‘She may be lying. When it was shown to her I thought she was going to faint. With that stain on it it isn’t a particularly attractive object and there are, as we’ve said, the associations. But she reacted to it very strongly. On the other hand, we know she’s a nervy and hysterical woman. It could be a natural reaction.’

‘Have you talked to Mrs Clarke again?’

‘She says her friend had some sort of mental breakdown last year and lost a lot of weight, so it hardly looks as if she was ever slim enough to wear the dress. But Mrs Clarke has only known her four years.’

‘Eight years ago,’ Wexford said thoughtfully, ‘the Peverils might still have been on romantic terms. He might have been choosing clothes for her that were particularly to his taste. But I agree with you that the question of size makes that unlikely. Well, I won’t detain you any longer. It’s a massive plan I’ve got in mind, but I think it’s the only course to take. Somehow or other we’re going to have to question every woman in Kingsmarkham and Stowerton between the ages of thirty and sixty, show them the dress and get reactions. Ask each one if it’s hers or, if not, whether she’s ever seen anyone else wearing it.’

His announcement was received with groans by all but the doctor, who left quickly, declaring that his presence was needed at the infirmary.

The response to Wexford’s appeal was enormous and immediate. Women queued up outside the Baptist church hall to view the dress as they might have queued on the first day of a significant sale. Public-spirited? Wexford thought their enthusiasm sprang more from a need to seem for a little while important. People like to be caught up in the whirlwind of something sensational and they like it even more if, instead of being part of a crowd, each can for a brief moment be an individual, noticed, attended to, taken seriously. They like to leave their names and addresses, see themselves recorded. He supposed they also liked to feast their eyes on the relic of a violent act. Was it so bad if they did? Was it what the young festival visitors would have called sick? Or was it rather evidence of a strong human vitality, the curiosity that wants to see everything, know everything, be in the swim, that when refined and made scholarly, is the prerogative of the historian and the archaeologist?

He had long ago ceased to allow hope to triumph over experience. He didn’t suppose that some woman would come forward and say her husband had unexpectedly and inexplicably borrowed the dress from her that Monday evening. Nor did he anticipate any dramatic scene in the hall, a wife
screaming or falling into a faint because she recognised the dress and realised simultaneously what recognition implied. No woman harbouring a guilty secret would come there voluntarily. But he did hope for something. Someone would say she had seen the garment on a friend or an acquaintance; someone would admit to having possessed it and then to have given it away or sold it.

No one did. All Friday afternoon they filed along the wooden passage that smelt of hymn books and Boy Scouts, passed into the grim brown hall to sit on the Women’s Fellowship chairs and stare at the posters for coffee mornings and social evenings. Then, one by one, they went behind the screens where Martin and Polly had the dress laid out on a trestle table. One by one they came out with the baulked, rather irritable, look on their faces of do-gooders whom ill-luck had robbed of the chance to be more than negatively helpful.

‘I suppose,’ said Burden, ‘that she could have been picked up by a man in a car. A prearranged pick-up, of course. He might have come from anywhere.’

‘In that case, why take a bus to Sundays and walk across the fields? Mrs Peveril says she saw her go into those fields and her description is so accurate that I think we must believe her. Dawn may have been early for her date—that was the only bus as we’ve said before—gone into the fields to sit down and wait, and then doubled back. But if she did that, she didn’t go far back.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Four people saw her between the time she left her mother’s house and the time she went into those fields, five-thirty. We’ve not been able to find anyone who saw her
after
five-thirty, though God knows we’ve made enough appeals and questioned enough people. Therefore it’s almost certain she went into some house somewhere just after five-thirty.’

Burden frowned. ‘On the Sundays estate, you mean?’