A Judgement in Stone (25 page)

Jonathan Dexter, tipped for a First Class Honours degree, got a Third. But that was in the early days. He teaches French at a comprehensive school in Essex, has nearly forgotten Melinda, and is going steady with a member of the Science Department.

Barbara Baalham gave birth to a daughter whom they called Anne because Melinda, which was Geoff’s original choice, seemed a bit morbid. Eva cleans for Mrs. Jameson-Kerr and gets
seventy-five pence an hour. They still talk about the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Greeving, especially in the Blue Boar on summer evenings when the tourists come.

Eunice Parchman was tried at the Old Bailey, the Central Criminal Court, because they could not find an unbiased jury for the Assizes at Bury St. Edmund’s. She was sentenced to life imprisonment, but in practice may not serve more than fifteen years. Some said it was an absurdly inadequate punishment. But Eunice was punished. The crushing blow came before verdict or sentence. It came when her counsel told the world, the judge, the prosecution, the policemen, the public gallery, the reporters scribbling away in the press box, that she could not read or write.

“Illiterate?” said Mr. Justice Manaton. “You cannot read?”

She answered when he pressed her. She answered, crimson-faced and shaking, and saw those who were not freaks or disabled as she was, write it down.

They have tried to reform Eunice by encouraging her to remedy her basic defect. Steadfastly, she refuses to have anything to do with it. It is too late. Too late to change her or avert what she did and what she caused.

Dust, Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags, Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon and Spinach.

“Mystery writing of the highest order … durable, complex, and affectingly human.”

—
The New York Times Book Review

MURDER BEING ONCE DONE

The ailing Wexford is in London for a rest cure—one that deprives him of alcohol, rich food, and, above all, police work—when a young girl is found murdered in a gloomy nearby cemetery. The authorities, commanded by Wexford’s nephew, can’t find out who the victim was: the dead girl has no possessions, no past, and a name that seems patently false. And so Wexford defies doctors orders and the big-city condescension of the London police to take a look for himself.

Crime Fiction/0–375–70488–4

NO MORE DYING THEN

Years as a policeman in the placid village of Kingsmarkham have taught Inspector Wexford that the most unlikely people are capable of the most appalling crimes. But what kind of person would steal—and possibly murder—two children? Wexford’s search is complicated when his colleague falls in love with the mother of one of the missing youngsters.

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SOME LIE AND SOME DIE

In spite of the dire predictions, the rock festival at Sundays seems to be going off without a hitch. Then a hideously disfigured body is discovered in a nearby quarry, and Inspector Wexford must ask how an event devoted to peace and idealism could become the setting for a murder. The victim is a distinctly unglamourous local girl who lied about her friendships with celebrities. But she had a very real connection with the festival’s charismatic star, a singer who inspires an unwholesome devotion in his followers.

Crime Fiction/0–375–70490–6

VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD
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