[Wexford 01] From Doon & Death (11 page)

'You want to buck your ideas up, Mike,' Wexford snapped. 'Minna's
Oxford
Book
of
Victorian
Verse
is just about your mark. I'm going to lend it to you for your bedtime reading.'

Burden took the book and flicked through the pages: Walter Savage Landor, Coventry Patmore, Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
...
The names seemed to come from far away, the poets long dust What possible connection could they have with dead, draggled Minna, with the strident Missals? Love, sin, pain - these were the words that sprang from almost every verse. After Quadrant's flippancies they sounded like ridiculous anachronisms.

'A connecting link, Mike
’
Wexford said. That's what we want, a connection.'

But there was none to be found that night. Wexford took three of the other books ('Just in case our Mr Doon underlined anything or put in any fancy little ticks') and they walked out into the evening air. Beyond the bridge Quadrant's car still waited.

Chapter 8

One of my cousins long ago,

A little thing the mirror said
...

James Thomson
,
In
the
Room

A
bird was singing outside Wexford's office window; a blackbird, Burden supposed. He had always rather liked listening to it until one day Wexford said it sang the opening bars of The Thunder and Lightning Polka', and after that its daily reiteration annoyed him. He wanted it to go on with the tune or else vary a note or two. Besides, this morning he had had enough of blackbirds and larks and nightingales, enough of castle-bound maidens dying young and anaemic swains serenading them with lute and tabor. He had sat up half the night reading the Oxford Book and he was by no means convinced
that
it had had anything to do with Mrs Parsons' death.

It was going to be a beautiful day, too beautiful for an inquest. When Burden walked in Wexford was already at his desk, turning the pages of the suede-covered Swinburne. The rest of the Doon books had been removed from the house in Tabard Road and dumped on Wexford's filing cabinet.

‘Di
d you get anything, sir?' Burden asked.

'Not so's you'd notice
’
Wexford said, ‘bu
t I did have an idea. I'll tell you about it when you've read the report from Balham. It's just come in
’

The report was typed on a couple of sheets of foolscap. Burden sat down and began to go through it:

Margaret Iris Parsons (he read) was born Margaret Iris Godfrey to Arthur Godfrey, male nurse, and his wife. Iris Drusilla Godfrey, at 213 Holderness Road, Balham, on March 21st, 1933. Margaret Godfrey attended Holderness Road Infants' School from 1938 until. 1940 and Holderness Road Junior School from 1940 until 1944. Both parents killed as a result of enemy action, Balham, 1942, after which Margaret resided with her maternal aunt and legal guardian, Mrs Ethel Mary Ives, wife of Leading Aircraftman Geoffrey Ives, a member of the regular Air Force, at 42 St John's Road, Balham. At this time the household included Anne Mary Ives, daughter of the above, birth registered at Balham, February 1st, 1932.

Leading Aircraftman Ives was transferred to Flag-ford, Sussex, R.A.F. Station during September 1949 (date not known). Mrs Ives, Anne Ives and Margaret Godfrey left Balham at this time, Mrs Ives having let her house in St John's Road, and took up residence in Hagford.

On
the death of Geoffrey Ives from coronary thrombosis (Sewingbury R.A.F. Hospital, July 1951) Mrs Ives, her daughter and Margaret Godfrey returned to Balham and lived together at 42 St John's Road. From September 1951 until July 1953 Margaret Godfrey was a student at Albert Lake Training College for Women, Stoke Newington, London.

On August 15th, 1952, Anne Ives married Private Wilbur Stobart Katz, U.S. Army, at Balham Methodist Chapel, and left the United Kingdom for the United States with Private Katz in October 1952 (date not known).

Margaret Godfrey joined staff of Holderness Road Infants' School, Balham, September 1953.

Ronald Parsons (clerk) aged twenty-seven, became a lodger at 42 St John's Road, in April 1954. Death of Mrs Ethel Ives from cancer (Guy's Hospital, London), registered at Balham by Margaret Godfrey, May 1957. Margaret Godfrey and Ronald Parsons married at Balham Methodist Chapel, August 1957, and took up residence at 42 St John's Road, the house having been left jointly to Mrs Parsons and Mrs Wilbur Katz under the will of Mrs Ives.

42 St John's Road was purchased compulsorily by Balham Council, November 1962, whereupon Mr and Mrs Parsons removed to Kingsmarkham, Sussex, Mrs Parsons having resigned from the staff of Holderness Road School

(Refs: Registrar of Births and Deaths, Balham; Rev. Albert Derwent, Minister, Methodist Chapel, Balham; Royal Air Force Records; United States Air Force Records; London County Council Education Dept; Guy's
Hospital; Balham Borough Council
)

‘I
wonder where Mrs Wilbur Katz is now?' Burden said.

'You got any cousins in America, Mike?' Wexford asked in a quiet, deceptively gentle voice.
‘I
believe I have.'

'So've I and so have half the people I've ever met. But nobody ever does know where they are or even if they're alive or dead.'

‘You
said you'd had an idea, sir?'

Wexford picked up the report and stabbed at the second paragraph with his thick forefinger.

'It came to me in the night,' he said, 'in the interval between Whitman and Rossetti - sound like a couple of gangsters, don't they? Sweet Christ, Mike, I ought to have thought of it before! Parsons said his wife came here when she was sixteen and even then it didn't dick. I assumed, backwoods copper that I am, that Mrs Parsons had left school by then. But, Mike, she was a teacher, she went to a training college. When she was in Hagford she must have gone to school! I reckon they came to Hagford just after she'd taken her School Cert., or whatever they call it these days, and when she got here she went right on going to school.'

There are only two girls' schools around here,' Burden said. The Kingsmarkham County High and that convent place in Sewingbury. St Catherine's.'

'Well, she wouldn't have gone there. She was a Methodist and, as far as we know, her aunt was too. Her daughter got married in a Methodist chapel at any rate. Ifs just our luck
that’s
it’s
Saturday and the school's shut.

‘I
want you to root out the head - you can dip out on the inquest, I'll be there. The head's a Miss Fowler and she lives in York Road. See what you can dig up. They must keep records. What we want is a list of the girls who were in Margaret Godfrey's class between September 1949 and July 1951
’

‘It’
ll be a job tracing them, sir
’

‘I
know that, Mike, but somehow or other we've got to have a break. This just might be it. We know all about Margaret Parsons' life in Balham, and by the look of it it was mighty dull. Only two sensational things ever happened to her as far as I can see. Love and death, Mike, love and death. The thing is they both happened here in my district. Somebody loved her here and when she came back somebody killed her. One of those girls may remember a boy friend, a possessive boy friend with a long memory
’

'I wish,' Burden said, T
J
vvish some decent public-spirited cop-loving citizen would walk in here and just tell us he knew Mrs P., just tell us he'd taken her out in 1950 or even seen her in a shop last week.' He brooded for a second over the Balham report They were an unhealthy lot, weren't they, sir? Cancer, coronary thrombosis
...'

Wexford said slowly: 'When Parsons was telling us a bit of his wife's history I did just wonder why he said, "Her uncle died, he wasn't killed." If s a small point, but I see it now. Her parents
were
killed, but not in the way we mean when we talk about killing
’

After he had gone across the courthouse behind the police station Burden telephoned Miss Fowler. A deep cultured voice answered, carefully enunciating the name of the exchange and the number. Burden began to explain but Miss Fowler interrupted him. Yes, Margaret had been at the High School, although she could scarcely remember her from that time. However, she had seen her recently in
Kingsmark
ham and had recognized her as the murdered woman from a newspaper photograph.

'Honestly, Inspector,' she said, 'what a very shocking thing!' She spoke as if the killing had offended rather than distressed her, or. Burden thought, as if the education meted out at her school should automatically have exempted any pupil from falling victim to a murderer.

He apologized for troubling her and asked if she could let him have the list Wexford wanted.

‘I’ll
just give our school secretary, Mrs Mortlock, a ring,' Miss Fowler said.
‘I’ll
get her to nip along to school and have a look through the records. If you could call on me about lunchtime. Inspector?'

Burden said he was most grateful.

'Not at all. It’
s no trouble,' Miss Fowler said. 'Honestly.'

The inquest was over in half an hour and Dr Crocker's evidence occupied ten minutes of that time. Death, he said, was caused by strangulation by means of a ligature; a scarf possibly or a piece of cloth. Mrs Parsons' body was otherwise unbruised and there had been no sexual assault She had been a healthy woman
,
slightly overweight for her height. In his evidence Wexford gave his opinion that it was impossible to say whether or not there had been a struggle as the wood had
been heavily trampled by Prewett’
s cows. The doctor was recalled and said that he had found a few superficial scratches on the dead woman's legs. These were so slight that he would not care to say whether they had been made before or after death

A verdict was re
turned of murder by person or
persons unknown.

Ronald Parsons had sat quietly throughout the inquest, twisting a handkerchief in his lap. He kept his head bowed as the coroner offered some perfunctory expressions of sympathy and indicated that he heard only by a slight movement, a tiny nod. He seemed so stunned with misery that Wexford was surprised when he caught up with him as he was crossing the flagged courtyard and touched him on the sleeve.

Without preamble he said, 'A letter came for Margaret this morning
’

'What d'you mean, a letter?' Wexford stopped. He had seen some of Mrs Parsons' letters; advertisements and coal bills.

'From her cousin in the States,' Parsons said. He took a deep breath and shivered in the warm sun.

Looking at him, Wexford realized that he was no longer stupefied. Some fresh bitterness was affecting him.