Some Lie and Some Die (17 page)

Joan Miall sighed. She reached for a fresh cigarette but the packet was empty. The air in the room was blue with hanging smoke. Wexford thanked her and went away. In the Earls Court Road he went into a record shop and bought a single of ‘Let-me-believe’.

The red dress was back in Wexford’s office. Several thousand women had looked at it, handled it, backed away from the dark stain; not one had recognised it. It lay on the rosewood surface, on the wood whose colour matched it, an old shabby dress, folded, soiled, keeping its secret as implacably as ever.

Wexford touched it, glanced again at the label and at the whitish talc marks around the neckline. Dawn had worn it but she had never owned it. She had found it in Kingsmarkham and for some unfathomable reason had put it on, she who had been fashion-conscious and who was already dressed in garments which matched her shoes and her bag. She had found it in Kingsmarkham, but, unless deception had been practised, no Kingsmarkham or Stowerton woman had ever owned it. A woman never forgets any dress she has owned, not even if fifty years have elapsed between her discarding of it and her being confronted with it again, much less if only seven or eight years have passed.

Burden came into the office, glanced at Wexford, glared at the dress as if to say, Why bother with it? Why let it keep confusing us, holding us up? Aloud he said, ‘How did you get on with the Miall girl?’

‘It looks as if Dawn had another man friend. Mike, I’m wondering if it could have been Peveril. He was in London on June first, and on that day Dawn met a man for a drink. She went out to meet someone in an underhand way when she had a pretty pressing engagement at home. Now that date took place only five days before the day she died.’

‘Go on,’ said Burden, interested.

‘Dawn was in Kingsmarkham at Easter. The Peverils were already living in The Pathway at Easter. Suppose Peveril picked her up somewhere in Kingsmarkham, had a drink with her, got her to give him her phone number?’

‘Didn’t he ever phone her?’

‘According to Joan Miall, Dawn had a rather mysterious phone call from a man on Monday, May twenty-third. That could have been Peveril. His wife goes out on Monday evenings and that would have given him his opportunity.’

‘Sounds promising.’

‘Unfortunately, it isn’t. We know Zeno Vedast phoned Dawn about that time. He says he did, and Dawn told Joan Miall it was he as soon as she answered the phone. Joan didn’t believe her because afterwards she wasn’t elated or excited. But, on his own admission, Vedast put her off with vague promises. Dawn wasn’t a fool. She could tell he was bored and that rocked her so much that she couldn’t even bring herself to brag about knowing him any more or weave any of her usual fantasies. Therefore, I think we must conclude that it was Vedast who phoned her that night and that Vedast had no further communication with her. He’s out of it. But that doesn’t mean Peveril didn’t phone her. He could easily have done so on some occasion when Joan wasn’t there.

‘During the weekend following her pub date, the weekend preceding her death, she gave Joan to understand that she was embarking on an affair with a man too mean or too scared to take her to an hotel. That description would fit Edward Peveril, a man who owned a house from which his wife would be absent for several hours on a Monday evening; Edward
Peveril who came out to us while we were at the festival and tried to distract our attention from the quarry as soon as he knew who we were; Edward Peveril who no longer cares for his wife and who, on Miss Mowler’s evidence, is occasionally unfaithful to her.’

Burden pondered. ‘What do you think happened that night, then?’

‘Whatever happened, Mrs Peveril must know of it.’

‘You don’t mean connived at it, sir?’

‘Not beforehand, certainly. She may have been suspicious beforehand. Don’t forget that she told us it was a matter of chance that she was in the house at all at five-thirty. Her
husband
had tried to persuade her to go to a film in Kingsmarkham that afternoon and stay on for her evening class. Why didn’t she do that? Because she was suspicious of his motives? Confident that he could persuade her, he asked Dawn to bring with her a meal for the two of them. But Mrs Peveril didn’t go out. She saw Dawn at five-thirty, the actual time of the appointment,
and Dawn saw her
. Therefore, carrying her bag of food, she waited in those fields until she saw Margaret Peveril go out.

‘Dawn was then admitted by Peveril. She began to prepare the food, changing into an old dress Peveril gave her so as not to spoil the mauve thing. Before the meal was ready, she asked Peveril if it would be all right for her to stay the night as he, knowing this couldn’t be but using any inducements to get Dawn to come, had previously promised. When he told her that idea was off, they quarrelled, she threatening to stay and confront his wife. He killed her in a panic.’

Burden said, ‘But when Mrs Peveril came home he threw himself on her mercy. She was needed to help him clean up and dispose of the body.’

‘I don’t know, Mike. I haven’t great confidence in this theory. Why did Mrs Peveril mention having seen the girl at all if it’s true? I can’t get a warrant on this evidence but tomorrow
I’m going to ask Peveril’s permission to search. Tomorrow’s Sunday and it’s your day off.’

‘Oh, I’ll come,’ said Burden.

‘No. Have your Sunday with the kids. If we find anything I’ll let you know at once.’

Wexford allowed his glance to fall once more on the dress, caught now in a ray of evening sunshine which touched it like a stage spotlight. He tried to imagine Margaret Peveril slender, rejuvenated, but he could only see her as she was, bigger and fleshier than Dawn, a woman whose whole build showed that she could never, since her teens, have worn that dress. He shrugged.

He didn’t attempt to get a search warrant. With Martin and three constables, he went to The Pathway in the morning, a misty, cool morning such as heralds a fine day. The sunshine hung like a sheet of gold satin under a fine tulle veil.

Muttering and pleading that his work would be disturbed, Peveril agreed without much protest to his house being searched. Wexford was disappointed. He had expected the man to put up a front of aggressive opposition. They lifted the fitted carpets, scrutinised skirting boards, examined the hems of curtains. Mrs Peveril watched them, biting her nails. This ultimate desecration of her home had driven her into a kind of fugue, a total withdrawal into apathy and silence. Her husband sat in his studio, surrounded by men crawling on the floor and peering under cabinets; he doodled on his drawing board, making meaningless sketches which could not, under any circumstances, have been saleable.

Miss Mowler, returning home from church, came up to Wexford at the gate and asked if the men would like tea. Wexford refused. He noticed, not for the first time, how the churchgoing woman who might more conveniently carry a prayer book in her handbag, always holds it ostentatiously in her hands, an outward and visible sign of spiritual superiority. Dunsand was mowing his lawn, emptying the cuttings into a
spruce little green wheelbarrow. Wexford went back into the house. Presently he looked out of the window and, to his astonishment, saw Louis Mbowele approaching, his coat swinging open to allow the soft summer air to fan his brown, bead-hung chest. Louis went into Dunsand’s garden, the mowing was abandoned and the two men entered the bungalow. Not so very astonishing, after all. Wexford remembered that Louis was a philosophy student at Myringham where Dunsand taught philosophy.

‘How are you doing?’ he said to Martin.

‘She wasn’t killed here, sir. Unless it was in the bathroom. I reckon you could stick a pig in that bathroom and not leave a trace.’

‘We may as well get out then. This is supposed to be a day of rest and I’m going home.’

‘Just one thing, sir. Young Stevens asked me if you’d see him before he goes off duty. He’s at the station. He mentioned it last night but what with all this it went out of my head. He’s got something on his mind but he won’t tell me what.’

The house was restored to order. Wexford apologised sparingly to Mrs Peveril.

‘I told you she didn’t come here,’ she said with a cowed resentful look. ‘I told you she went right away from here. She went across the fields.’

Wexford got into the car beside Martin. ‘I wish she wouldn’t keep saying that, you know, gratuitously, as it were.’ He slammed the door. Martin listened pohtely as he was obliged to do, his mind on his Sunday dinner which would probably be spoilt by now, anyway. ‘Why does she say it if it isn’t true?’ said Wexford.

‘Maybe it is true, sir.’

‘Then why didn’t anyone else see her after five-thirty? Think of all those blokes coming home for their dinners at Sundays and in Stowerton around six. They’d have seen her. She was the kind of girl men notice.’

The mention of dinner made Sergeant Martin even more obtuse than usual. ‘Maybe she sat in the fields for hours, sir, sat there till it was dark.’

‘Oh God!’ Wexford roared. ‘If she was going to have to hang about for hours she’d have stayed at her mother’s or if that was unbearable, gone to the pictures in Kingsmarkham.’

‘But the last bus, sir?’

‘It’s less than a mile, man. She was a strong healthy girl. Wouldn’t she have walked it later rather than sit about in a field?’

‘Then Mrs Peveril never saw her.’

‘Oh, yes, she did. She observed her closely, every detail of her appearance.’

The car drew up and the two men got out, Martin to depart for a long and well-deserved dinner, Wexford to see Stevens who was already waiting for him in his office. The shy and inarticulate young policeman stood to attention rigidly which made Wexford even crosser and also made him want to laugh. He told the man to sit down and Stevens did so, less at ease in a chair than stiffly on his feet.

Wexford didn’t laugh. He said quite gently, ‘We do have a welfare officer, Stevens, if the men have some domestic or private problem that’s interfering with their work.’

‘But it’s work that’s interfering with my work, sir,’ Stevens stuttered.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

The man swallowed. ‘Sir.’ He stopped. He said it again. ‘Sir,’ and then, rushing, the words tumbling out, ‘Mrs Peveril, sir, I’ve wanted to tell you for days. I didn’t think it was for me to put myself forward. I didn’t know what to do.’

‘If you know something about Mrs Peveril that I ought to know, you must tell me at once. You know that, Stevens. Now come on, pull yourself together.’

‘Sir, I was transferred here from Brighton last year.’ He waited for Wexford’s nod of encouragement which came with brisk impatience. ‘There was a bank robbery, sir, last
summer. Mrs Peveril saw the raid and she—she came to the police voluntarily to give evidence. The superintendent interviewed her a lot, sir, and she had to try to identify the villains. We never caught them.’

‘You recognised her? Her name? Her face?’

‘Her face, sir, and then when I heard her name I remembered. She knew me too. She was very hysterical, sir, a bad witness, kept saying it was all making her ill. I’ve had it on my conscience all week and then I kept thinking, well, so what? She didn’t hold up the bank clerk. And then it got so I thought—well, I had to tell you, sir.’

‘Stevens,’ sighed Wexford, ‘you’ve got a lot to learn. Never mind, you’ve told me at last. Go away and have your dinner. I’ll check all this with Brighton.’

He began to have an inkling of what had happened. But he must check before going back to The Pathway. There wasn’t going to be any Sunday dinner for him.

The Peverils were just finishing theirs. It struck Wexford that this was the first time he had encountered Peveril not working or coming straight from his work or fidgeting to get back to it.

‘What is it this time?’ he said, looking up from roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

‘I’m sorry to disturb your lunch, Mr Peveril. I want to talk to your wife.’

Peveril promptly picked up his plate, tucked his napkin into the neck of his sweater and, having paused to grab the mustard pot, was making for the door to his studio.

‘Don’t leave me, Edward!’ said his wife in the thin, high-pitched voice which, if it were louder, would be a scream. ‘You never give me any support, you never have done. I shall be ill again. I can’t bear being questioned. I’m frightened.’

‘You’re always bloody frightened. Don’t hang on me.’ He pushed her away. ‘Can’t you see I’ve got a plate in my hand?’

‘Edward, can’t you see, he’s going to make me say who did it! He’s going to make me pick someone out!’

‘Mrs Peveril, sit down. Please sit down. I’d be glad if you wouldn’t go away, sir. I don’t think it’s for me to interfere between husband and wife but, if I may say so, Mrs Peveril might not be quite so frightened if you’d try to give her the support she wants. Please, sir, do as I ask.’

Wexford’s tone had been very stern and commanding. It was effective. Bullies crumple fast when sharply admonished, and Peveril, though he moved no closer to his wife and did not look at her, sat down, put his plate on the edge of the table and folded his arms sullenly. Mrs Peveril crept towards him and hesitated, biting her thumbnail. She gave Wexford the half-sly, half-desperate look of the hysteric who is trying to preserve intact the thickly packed layers of neurosis.