End in Tears (3 page)

“How do you know all this?”

“My mum lives here,” said Donaldson. “People like it because it's quiet. Nothing ever happens—well, not till this.”

“No. Can you turn up the air-conditioning?”

 

Postmortems held no attractions for him, but he attended them, looking the other way as much as he could. Detective Inspector Burden was less squeamish than he and fascinated by forensics. They sat and watched or, in Wexford's case, pretended to watch, while the pathologist opened Amber Marshalson's body and examined the dreadful damage to her head where she had been struck by some heavy object. He had asked the time of death and been told between midnight and three in the morning. More precisely than that she wouldn't commit herself.

“A brick was the weapon, I should think,” said Carina Laxton, “but of course you won't take my word for that.”

“Certainly not,” said Burden, who disliked her. Apart from her name and her lack of a thyroid cartilage, he had said to Wexford, she might as well be a man, and perhaps she once had been. You never knew these days. She had no breasts, no hips, her hair was crew cut, and no scrap of makeup had ever settled on her virgin face. He had, however, to admit that she was good at her job, less sharp-tongued and plain rude than Mavrikian, and her attitude a far cry from the pomposities of Sir Hilary Tremlett.

“She died from that blow to the head, as I don't need to tell you,” she now said. “It's not of course my place”—this said with an old-fashioned primness barely concealing arrogance—“to identify the weapon. No doubt you will need the services of a plinthologist.”

“A
what
?”

“A brick expert.” Carina enunciated the words slowly and with great care in case he had difficulty understanding plain English.

“No doubt,” said Burden.

“Because a brick is not just a brick, you know.” Once she had left this to sink in, Carina said, “There was no sexual assault. It'll all be in the report. She'd had a child, as I expect you know.”

“I didn't know,” said Wexford, astonished. “She was only eighteen.”

“What's that supposed to mean, Reg?” Carina Laxton shook her head at him and pursed her lips. “If she'd been twelve, that might have been cause for comment. Just.”

Brand, he thought. I wonder. Is he Amber's child, not Diana's? And is it Brand as in Ibsen or Brand as in Brandon? He said to Burden, “Come up to my office, Mike, and later on we can go back to Mill Lane and see the Marshalsons together.”

They worked as a team whenever they could and particularly when Wexford felt that another hour or two in the company of Hannah Goldsmith might make him say things he would regret. They got on, he and Mike. If they couldn't quite say everything that came into their heads to each other, they got as near to doing this as two people ever can. He liked Mike better than anyone he knew after his own wife, children, and grandchildren—and perhaps not exactly after them. For those seven people he loved and no one knew better than he that liking and loving are two different things. Even the Catholic Church at its most stringent had never attempted adjuring the faithful to
like
each other.

Up in his office with the new gray carpet, which was the gift of the grateful council-tax payers of Kingsmarkham, and the two yellow armchairs that were not but his own property, Burden took his characteristic perch on a corner of the rosewood desk. This large piece of furniture also belonged to Wexford, who kept it there along with the armchairs to show to the local media when they came nosing around, looking for evidence of police profligacy and corruption. Burden, always a sharp dresser, had lately taken to the kind of clothes known in the trade as “smart casual.” The beautiful suits had gone to the back of the wardrobe or, in the case of the older ones, to the charity shop, and the detective inspector appeared in jeans and suede jacket over a white open-necked shirt. One of the things that came into Wexford's head which he couldn't say aloud was that his friend was just a fraction too old for jeans. Still, it was only a fraction and Burden was thin enough to wear them with elegance.

He had laid out on his desk the things that had been found in the pockets of Amber Marshalson's jacket. This white cotton garment, heavily stained with blood, had gone to the lab, as had her pink miniskirt, black camisole and bra, and pink and black thong. The contents of her pockets lay on the dark-red leather top of the desk.

“They don't have handbags anymore,” said Wexford.

Burden was looking at a front-door key on a Gollum-faced ring to match her watch, a tube made of transparent plastic holding some bright pink substance, presumably a kind of lipstick, the packet with two cigarettes in it, the half-melted chocolate, still wrapped in foil, and the condom. Still a bit of a prude, he let his eyes linger on this last object and his mouth tightened.

“Better have one than not, surely,” said Wexford.

“That depends on how you intend to spend your evening. Wasn't she carrying any money?”

Wexford opened a drawer and brought out a transparent plastic bag with notes inside. Quite a lot of notes and all of them fifties.

“It still has to be checked for prints,” he said. “There's a thousand pounds in there. It was loose in her right-hand jacket pocket along with the key and that tube of what, I believe, is lip gloss. The contraceptive, the cigarettes, and the sweet were in the other pocket.”

“Where did she get hold of a thousand pounds?”

“That we shall have to discover,” said Wexford.

CHAPTER 4

T
he car turned into Mill Lane. Along the grass verge uniformed policemen—jacketless and without caps—were searching the ditch and the field on the other side of the hedge for the weapon. Crime tape, stretched along the pavement edge, isolated the area. On the opposite side of the road an old man stood among the sunflowers, leaning on a stick, staring at the searchers.

“It's been so dry for so long,” Wexford said. “The killer could have parked a car anywhere along that verge without leaving a mark.”

The house called Clifton seemed to lie among its trees and shrubs peculiarly still and passive. It had that look of resting, of shutting down, buildings have at times of great heat. Alert expectancy would be for the bitter cold of deep winter. Windows were wide open but no one was to be seen. Though it was early evening, they got out of the car's cool interior to be met by a wall of heat.

“It feels like stepping out of the aircraft when you go away on holiday to Greece,” said Wexford. “You can't believe it, it feels so good. In the middle of the night, as likely as not. But we hardly ever have warm nights here. Why don't we?”

“Search me. Something to do with the Gulf Stream, I expect. Most weather things are.”

“The Gulf Stream makes things warm, not cold.”

This time there was no one to meet them. Wexford rang the doorbell and Diana Marshalson opened the door. Again the little boy was with her, managing to stand if he clutched at the side of her loose trousers.

“I took it for granted this morning that he was yours,” Wexford said to Diana. “But Amber was in fact his mother, wasn't she?”

“I suppose I should have told you.”

Neither Wexford nor Burden made any comment on that.

“Is Brand short for anything or is that his actual name?” Wexford asked.

She made a face, wrinkling her nose and drawing her mouth down. “I'm afraid it's his name. Still, considering the names that are available these days, it's not too bad, is it? My husband has got up. He'll speak to you—but go easy with him, won't you? He's had a terrible shock.”

She took them into the big living room where her husband was lying on the gray sofa, propped up with gray-and-white cushions. Wexford had discovered that he was not yet sixty. With his wispy white hair fringing a bald patch, his deeply lined face and sagging belly, he looked much older. Allowances must be made, of course. He had just suffered an appalling loss. When the policemen came in he turned his head, his eyes falling on the child.

“Oh, God, he's so exactly like her,” he said. “Just as she was at that age.”

He was holding a framed photograph in his hands. He thrust it at Wexford. “Isn't he the living image of his…his mother?”

Wexford looked at the pictured face of a young saint seeing visions. “Yes. Yes, he is. He's a lovely little boy.” He added, “She was beautiful.” The expression on Diana Marshalson's face almost shocked him. If he had had to describe it he would have called it exasperated. Perhaps she had heard rather too much lately of how beautiful Amber had been and how good-looking Brand was.

He introduced himself, and put in a word of sympathy. “Do you feel up to answering a few questions, Mr. Marshalson?” he asked.

“Oh, yes. I must, I know that.”

“This is Detective Inspector Burden who is a senior officer in my team. Mrs. Marshalson, if you wouldn't mind leaving us for, say, fifteen minutes and then I'll come and talk to you, if I may.”

She picked up Brand and once more slung him onto her right hip. It was a very convenient way, Wexford thought, for a woman to carry a child—difficult for a straight-up-and-down man—but, unlike a hug or a piggyback, it allowed few opportunities for demonstrative affection. Sitting there, the little boy couldn't lay his cheek against hers or she hold him close against her breast. Did he miss his mother? He must. Insofar as he could, he must have asked where she was. Then Wexford remembered from the morning his saying, “Mama, Mama.”

“Sit down, why don't you?” said Marshalson in an empty voice.

“Thank you. I am sorry I have to question you at such a time but I'm afraid it's inevitable. What time did you expect your daughter home last night, Mr. Marshalson?”

“I didn't exactly expect her at any particular time,” he said. “I knew she'd get a lift home. Well, say, I thought she'd be in by two.”

Wexford struggled hard to stop himself showing violent disapproval. Burden didn't struggle at all and showed it plainly. “Was this a frequent occurrence?”

“Amber had left school—well, sixth form college. She left after she'd done her A levels. She went back to school after Brand was born.” His voice wavered and cracked, and he cleared his throat. “Her A level results have come. They came in the post this morning, three As and a B. She could have gone to Oxford.” The tears came into his eyes and shone there. “I thought…I thought it was hard on her, stopping her going out to enjoy herself after what she'd been through.”

“Been through?”

Wexford shot his friend a warning look, which Burden took care not to see.

“Becoming pregnant, I mean, and having the baby. And then breaking up with her boyfriend. Well, seducer is what I call him. Corrupter.”

“Would that be Brand's father, Mr. Marshalson?”

“Oh, yes, there was never anyone else,” said Marshalson, defending his dead daughter. “It's my belief he raped her. Well, the…the first time—if there were other times, which I doubt.”

As if parents knew…“May we have his name?” This was Burden, struggling, Wexford could tell, to keep a puritanical distaste out of his voice. “Is he a local?”

“He's called Daniel Hilland and he's a student at Edinburgh University, but of course he won't be up there now, as it's the long vacation. His parents live locally, in Little Sewingbury. I've got their phone number somewhere.”

“Don't trouble, sir. We'll find it. Now how about the friends Amber met last night? And the one who brought her to the end of the road. If we could just have their names we'll leave you in peace.”

“Peace!” said Marshalson and the floodgates of speech opened. Tears poured down his face and his voice shook. “Peace! I can't remember what that was. A long long time ago. Maybe not since I married Diana. No fault of hers, I'm not saying that, no fault of hers at all. Amber—well, she got pregnant and that was terrible, a terrible shock. She had the baby and brought it home for us to care for. For Diana to care for. That's what it amounted to.” His lip trembled, and he took a deep breath before continuing. “Diana had to leave her work at the studio. But all that was nothing, nothing, to this. How am I going to bear the sight of him now? He looks so like her. He looks like her when she was a little girl.”

Wexford thought Marshalson was going to begin sobbing, but he made a tremendous effort to control himself, breathing deeply and laying his head against the gray-and-white cushions. His eyes closed, he said, “I'm sorry. I'll get a grip on myself. The friends—ask Diana. Diana will know.”

“You came out to look for Amber, sir,” Burden said. “Why was that?”

Marshalson shook his head, not in denial but perhaps in sorrow. “I never slept well while she was out. Never. And I was right not to sleep, wasn't I? It wasn't needless worry, as Diana said, was it? It was all justified.”

“Perhaps it was, sir,” Burden said. “but what did you hope to achieve by going out in the street at—five, was it?—at five in the morning?”

“I don't know. Things you do at that hour are irrational. I thought I might see her getting out of that boy's car. Time means nothing to them at that age. They don't get tired. I thought I might walk her home, take her arm, my princess, my poor little angel…”

Burden said what Wexford felt he wouldn't dare to say or wouldn't, at this stage, have the ruthless single-mindedness to say. “Did you go out into the lane earlier? Did you go out at two, say, or three?”

If George Marshalson understood the purport of Burden's questions, he didn't show it. “Only once,” he said. “I only went out at five. I'd walked about the house earlier, I'd seen her bed was empty, but I only went out at five…” A sob cut off his last words.

Out in the hallway, Wexford looked around for signs of life. One of the doors, pale wood, flush and with a stainless steel tube handle, was ajar. From behind it Wexford suddenly heard the child's voice saying, “Mama, mama.”

The words “they pierce my heart” came into his head and he told himself not to be a sentimental fool. He pushed the door wide open and went in, Burden following. Brand, who seemed to gain more walking skills by the hour, as children of his age do, turned around from the window where he was standing and, disappointed, repeated his sad mantra: “Mama, mama.”

Diana Marshalson was sitting on the floor amid wooden toys, a fluffy dog on wheels, a welter of colored bricks. “I hope it won't go on. I mean, I hope he'll forget her, for his own sake.”

Wexford waited to hear some show of sympathy for the little boy and sorrow for his mother, but none came. Brand dropped onto all fours and crawled toward her, his expression puzzled. It looked as if she would take him in her arms and comfort him, but she didn't. She got up.

“Do sit down. What can I do for you?”

They were in a kind of study with a desk, a filing cabinet, a computer on a work station, but soft furniture too, upholstered in pale gray and orange tweed. The single glass door through which Brand had been looking, hoping to see his mother, gave on to a large garden, mostly lawn and shrubs. The excessive heat of the past weeks had turned the grass the yellow of California hills.

Burden asked Diana Marshalson the question he hadn't cared to repeat to her grief-stricken husband.

“I only know her friends by their first names. Well, except the one who brought her to the end of the road. He's called Ben Miller and I think he lives in Myfleet. Yes, he does, that's right. Does that help?”

“Very much so,” said Wexford. “Perhaps you'll tell us the friends' names that you do know.”

“As I said, I don't know any surnames. There was a Chris and a Megan and a Veryan. She came here once or twice. Oh, and Sam—I don't know if that's Samuel or Samantha—and Lara. I think Lara and Megan are sisters. Of course I can't say if she met any of them last night. No, Brand, not now, Di's busy.” She didn't quite push the child away. Her hands on his shoulders, she bent down to him and shook her head several times. “No, Brand, do you hear me? Play with your dog. Take him for a walk around the room.” Her tone was cool, more the primary schoolteacher of Wexford's own youth than the nursery nurse of today. “I don't know how I'm going to manage,” she said to the policemen. “It's been hard enough with Amber here for part of every day. It's not even as if she was my daughter. It's not fair on me, is it?”

Wexford was seldom lost for words, but he was then. He got up. Burden got up. Brand was walking around the room, using the furniture for support and pulling the dog on wheels behind him. Instead of “Mama” this time, he said, “Di,” and then, “Di, Di, Di.”

Probably it wasn't the first time, but still Wexford expected delight to show in Diana Marshalson's face. Unsmiling, she heard the little boy repeat the diminutive of her name, looked at him briefly and turned away.

“I've had most of the care of this child since he was born,” she said. “It's not really fair, is it? Amber hated me from the start. She'd have hated anyone who married her father. Oh, I'm not saying she kept up a vendetta, she got used to me, she more or less accepted, but she always disliked me. Yet when he was born I was the one left to look after him when she was at school. After a while I left my job. I was in partnership with George, but I had to give up. She never asked me, she took it for granted. Because I'd no children of my own, I must want to look after hers. When she went out in the evening and half the night I was the one who had to get up to him when he cried. Still, it's no good going on about it, is it? Worse than useless. Is there anything more you want to know?”

After a glance at Wexford, Burden said, “Not now, thank you, Mrs. Marshalson. We shall certainly want to see you again, though.”

In silence, they went out from a warm closeness into punishing heat, an August fast becoming the hottest on record. For a few moments, before it became stifling, Wexford felt the heat like comfort. He put up his face to the sun as Burden exploded.

“God help me, but I'll have sleepless nights over that child. Poor little boy! His grandfather can't bear to look at him because he reminds him of his dead daughter. His stepgrandmother makes no bones about finding him a nuisance. His mother is dead and by the sound of it she wasn't winning any prizes for nurturing. And they're not poor, they could afford a decent nanny, someone who might love him. It makes me sick to my stomach.”

“Calm down, Mike. I'm the emotional one, remember? We've got a reversal of roles here.”

They both got into the car. Standing for so long, it had warmed up inside. Donaldson started up the engine and switched on the air-conditioning. The searchers were still scouring the meadow.

“I'd go over and see if they've found anything,” Wexford said, “only I've got a press conference at six-thirty. And by the way, I entirely agree with you about those Marshalsons and the little boy.”

“Why did the girl keep him? If she doesn't care for him she could have had him adopted. Plenty of people would—would treasure him. It's so wrong. The whole thing is. The girl's only just left school and she's out clubbing till all hours. I don't know what's happened to people, and so fast. Twenty years and their whole attitude to life has changed.”

“Perhaps we need to know them a little better before we're so judgmental.” Wexford felt sweat running down his chest and he wished he had a clean shirt to change into before the journalists came. “They've had about the worst shock they could have had. D'you know what affected me most? Brand calling for his mother.”