[Wexford 01] From Doon & Death (13 page)

I've been wondering about that,' Burden said, 'because honestly - as Miss Fowler would say - those messages in Minna's books don't look like the work of a boy at all, not unless he was a very mature boy. They're too polished, too smooth. Doon could be an older man who got interested in her.'

‘I
thought of that,' Wexford said, 'and I've been checking up on Prewett and his men. Prewett bought that farm in 1949 when he was twenty-eight. He's an educated person and quite capable of writing those messages, but he was in London on Tuesday. There's no doubt about it, unless he was involved in a conspiracy with two doctors, an eminent heart specialist, a sister, God knows how many nurses and his own wife.

'Dr
aycott’
s only been in the district two years and he was in Australia from 1947 to 1953. Bysouth can scarcely write his own name, let alone dig up suitable bits of poetry to send to a lady love, and much the same goesior Traynor. Edwards was in the
Army throughout 1950 and 1951, and Dorothy Sweeting can't possibly know what was going on in Minna's love life twelve years ago. She was only seven.'

Then it looks as if we'll have to ferret out what we can from the list,' Burden said.
‘
I
think you'll be interested when you see some of the names, sir.'

Wexford took the list and when he came to Helen Laird and Fabia Rogers he swore fiercely. Burden had pencilled in
Missal
and
Quadrant,
following each surname with a question mark.

'Somebody's trying to be clever
’
Wexford said, 'and that I won't have. Rogers. Her people are old man Rogers and his missus at Pomfret Hall. They're loaded. All made out of paint. There's no reason why she should have told us she knew Mrs P. When we talked to Dougie this Doon angle didn't seem that important But Mrs Missal
...
Not know Mrs P. indeed, and they were in the same class!'

He had grown red with anger. Burden knew how he hated being taken for a ride.

‘I
was going to forget all about
that
cinema ticket, Mike, but now I'm not so sure. I'm going to have it all out again with Mrs Missal now
’
He stabbed at the list. 'While I'm gone you can start contacting these women.'

It would have to be a girls' school
’
Burden grumbled. 'Women change their names, men don't'

'Can't be helped
’
Wexford said snappily. 'Mr Griswold's been on twice already since the inquest, breathing down my neck.'

Griswold was the Chief Constable. Burden saw what Wexford meant.

'You.
know him, Mike. The least hint of difficulty and he's screaming for the Yard
’
Wexford said, and went out, leaving Burden with the list and the letter.

Before embarking on his womanhunt Burden read the letter again. It surprised him because it gave an insight into Mrs Parsons' character, revealing a side he had not really previously suspected. She was turning out to be a lot less pure than anyone had thought.

...
If
meeting
Doon
means
rides
in
the
car
and
a
few free
meals
I
wouldn't
he
too
scrupulous,
Mrs Katz had written. But at the same time she didn't know who Doon was. Mrs Parsons had been strangely secretive, enigmatic, hiding the identity of a boy friend from a cousin who had also been an intimate friend.

A strange woman, Burden thought, and a strange boy friend. It was a funny sort of relationship she had with this Doon, he said to himself. Mrs Katz says,
I
can't
see
why
you
should
be
scared,
and later on,
there
was
never
anything
in
that.
What did she mean, anything in that? But Mrs P. was
scared.
What of, sexual advances? Mrs Katz says she had a suspicious mind. Fair enough, he reflected. Any virtuous woman would be scared and suspicious of a man who paid her a lot of attention. But at the same time there was never anything in it. Mrs P. mustn't be too scrupulous.

Burden groped vainly. The letter, like its recipient, was a puzzle. As he put it down and turned to the telephone he was certain of only two facts: Doon hadn't been making advances; he wanted something else, something that frightened Mrs Parsons but which was so innocuous in the estimation of her cousin that it would be showing excessive suspicion to be scrupulous about it. He shook his head like a man who has been flummoxed by an intricate riddle, and began to dial.

He tried Bertram first because mere was no Annesley in the book
- and, incidentally, no Penste
man and no Sachs. But the Mr Bertram who answered said he was over eighty and a bachelor.

Next he rang the number of the only Ditchams he could find, but although he listened to the steady ringing past all reason, there was no reply.

Mrs Dolan's number was engaged. He waited five minutes and tried again. This time she answered. Yes, she was Margaret Dolan's mother, but Margaret was now Mrs Heath and had gone to live in Edinburgh. In any case, Margaret had never brought anyone called Godfrey to the house. Her particular friends had been Janet Probyn and Deirdre Sachs, and Mrs Dolan remembered them as having been a little shut-in clique on their own.

Mary Henshaw's mother was dead. Burden spoke to her father. His
daughter was still in Kingsmark
ham. Married? Burden asked. Mr Henshaw roared with laughter while Burden waited as patiently as he could. He recovered and said his daughter was indeed married. She was Mrs Hedley and she was in the county hospital.

‘I’d
like to talk to her
’
Burden said.

‘You
can't do that,' Henshaw said, hugely amused. 'Not unless you put a white coat on. She's having a baby, her fourth. I thought you were them, bringing me the glad news.'

Through Mrs Ingram he was put on to Julian Ingram, now Mrs Bloomfield. But she knew nothing of Margaret Parsons except that at school she had been pretty and prim, fond of reading, rather shy.

'Pretty, did you say?'

'Yes,
she was pretty, attractive in a sort of way. Oh, I know, I've seen the papers. Looks don't necessarily last, you know.'

Burden knew, but still he was surprised.

Anne Kelly had gone to Australia, Marjorie Miller...

'My daughter was killed in a car crash,' said a harsh voice, full of awakened pain.
‘I
should have thought the police of all people would know that'

Burden sighed. Pensteman, Probyn, Rogers, Sachs
...
all were accounted for. In the local directory alone he found twenty-six Stevenses, forty Thomases, fifty-two Williamses, twelve Youngs.

To track them all down would take best part of the afternoon and evening. Clare Clarke might be able to help him. He closed the directory and set off for Nectarine Cottage.

The french windows were open when Inge Wolff let Wexford into the hall and he heard the screams of quarrelling children. He followed her across the lawn and at first saw nobody but the two li
ttle girls: the elder a sharp m
iniature fascimile of her mother, bright-eyed, red-headed; the younger fat and fair with a freckle-blotched face. Ihey were fighting for possession of a swing-boat, a red and yellow fairground thing with a rabbit for a figurehead.

Inge rushed over to them, shouting.

'Are you little girls that play so, or rough boys? Here is one policeman come to lock you up!'

But the children only clung more tightly to the ropes, and Dymphna, who was standing up, began to kick her sister in the back.

If he's a policeman,' she asked, 'where's his uniform?'

Someone laughed and Wexford turned sharply. Helen Missal was in a hammock slung between a mulberry tree and the wall of a summerhouse and she was drinking milk-less tea from a glass. At first he could see only her face and a honey-coloured arm dangling over the edge of the canvas. Then, as he came closer, he saw that she was dressed for sunbathing. She wore only a bikini, an ice-white figure of eight and a triangle against her golden skin.

Wexford was embarrassed and his embarrassment fanned his anger into rage.

"Not again!' she said. 'Now I know how the fox feels. He doesn't enjoy it.'

Missal was nowhere about, but from behind a dark green barrier of macrocarpa Wexford could hear the hum of a motor mower.

'Can we go indoors, Mrs Missal?'

She hesitated for a moment Wexford thought she was listening, perhaps to the sounds from the other side of the hedge. The noise of the mower ceased, then, as she seemed to hold her breath, started again. She swung her legs over the hammock and he saw that her left ankle was encircled by a thin gold chain.

‘I
suppose so
’
she said.
‘I
don't have any choice, do I?'

She went before him through the open doors, across the cool dining-room where Quadrant had looked on the wine, and into the rhododendron room
.
She sat down and said:

'Well, what is it now?'

There was something outrageous and at the same time spiteful about the way she spread her nakedness against the pink and green chintz. Wexford turned away his eyes. She was in her own home and he could hardly
tell her to go and put some cloth
es on. Instead he took the photograph from his pocket and held it out to her.

'Why did you tell me you didn't know this woman?'

Fear left her eyes and they flared with surprise.
‘I
didn't know her.'

'You were at school with her, Mrs Missal.'

She snatched the photograph and stared at it.

‘I
was not' Her hair fell over her shoulders, bright copper like a new penny. 'At least, I don't think I was. I mean, she was years older than me by the look of this. She may have been in the sixth when I was in the first form. I just wouldn't know.'

Wexford said severely: 'Mrs Parsons was thirty, the same age as yourself. Her maiden name was Godfrey.'

‘I
adore "maiden name". If s such a charitable way of putting it, isn't it? All right. Chief Inspector, I do remember now. But she's aged, she's different...' Suddenly she smiled, a smile of pure delighted triumph, and Wexford marvelled that this woman was the same age as the pathetic dead thing they had found in the wood.

Ifs very unfortunate you couldn't remember on Thursday evening, Mrs Missal. You've put yourself in a most unpleasant light, firstly by deliberately lying to Inspector Burden and myself and secondly by concealment of important facts. Mr Quadrant will tell you that I'm quite within my rights if I charge you with being an accessary -'

Helen Missal interrupted sulkily. 'Why pick on me? Fabia knew her too, and
...
Oh, there must be lots and lots of other people.'

‘I’m
asking you,' he said. Tell me about her.'

‘I
f I do,' she said, 'will you promise to go away and not come back?'

Just tell me the truth, madam, and I will gladly go away. I'm a very busy man.'

She crossed her legs and smoothed her knees. Helen Missal's knees were like a little girl's, a little girl who has never climbed a tree or missed a bath.

‘I
didn't like school,' she said confidingly. It was so restricting, if you know what I mean. I just begged and begged Daddy to take me away at the end of my first term m the sixth-'

'Margaret Godfrey, Mrs Missal
’

'Oh, yes, Margaret Godfrey. Well, she was a sort of cipher - isn't that a lovely word? I got it out of a book. A sort of cipher. She was one of the fringe people, not very clever or nice-looking or anything
’
She glanced once more at the picture. 'Margaret Godfrey. D'you know, I can hardly believe it I should have said she was the last girl to get herself murdered.'

'And who would be the first, Mrs Missal?'

'Well, someone like me,' she said, and giggled.

'Who were her friends, the people she went around with?'

‘L
et me think. There was Anne Kelly and a feeble spotty bitch called Bertram and Diana Something
...'

That would be Diana Stevens.'

'My God, you know it all, don't you?'

‘I
meant boy friends.'

‘I
wouldn't know. I was rather busy in that direction myself.' She looked at him, pouting provocatively, and Wexford wondered, with the first flicker of pity he had felt for her, if her coyness would increase as her beauty declined until in age she became grotesque.