Wexford 14 - The Veiled One (16 page)

   He smiled at the image she created.

   ‘For example, Mr Robson - that poor man - he will say that what is to be will be; perhaps it is all for the best, life must go on. And Miss Anderson down the street who found a man who wanted to marry her at last when she was sixty years old . . . when he died a week before the wedding, what does she say? Maybe it was too late, maybe they’d both have regretted it. I cannot do with this.’

   ‘But these are the tenets of survival, Mrs Jago.’

   ‘Perhaps. But I cannot see that you survive any less if first you cry and rage and show your feelings. At least, it isn’t my way and I am not comfortable with it.’

   Wexford, who would have been quite happy to continue with this exploration of English emotion or lack of it, nevertheless thought it was time to move on. Weariness had come to take hold of him and his headache was back, a tight band wound around above the eyes. It was a piece of luck, sheer serendipity, that made him speak the name of the old man who had lived a few houses away in Berry Close.

   ‘Eric Swallow,’ he said. ‘Did you have the same slight acquaintance with him?’

   ‘I know who you mean,’ she said, laying the knitting in her lap. ‘That was rather amusing, but nothing to do with poor Mrs Robson being killed. I mean it couldn’t be any thing, really.’

   ‘All right. But if it’s amusing I’d like to hear it. There’s little enough in this business to make us laugh.’

   ‘The poor old man was dying. That isn’t funny, of course. If I were English I would say maybe it was a merciful release, wouldn’t I?’

   ‘Was  it?’

   ‘Well, he was very old, nearly ninety. He had a daughter but she was in Ireland and she wasn’t young, naturally. Mrs Robson used to do a lot for him; I mean, after she stopped being a home help and getting paid for it, she still went in there nearly every day. In the end when he got so that he couldn’t get out of bed, they took him away and he died in the hospital . . .”

   Wexford had had his eyes on the great landscape tapestry, but the sound of a car door slamming made him turn his head and then almost immediately the doorbell rang. Mrs Jago got up, excused herself and went out into the hall with a surprisingly light, springy tread. Voices could be heard, the clamorous treble of children. Then the front door closed again and Mrs Jago came back with two little girls: the younger of them, though too big to be carried, was in her arms; the other, who looked about five or six and who wore a school uniform of navy coat, yellow and navy scarf and felt hat with stripey band, walking by her side.

   ‘These are my granddaughters, Melanie and Hannah Quincy. They live in Down Road, but sometimes their mummy brings them to me for an hour or two and we have a nice tea, don’t we, girls?’ The children said nothing, appearing shy. Dita Jago put Hannah down. ‘Tea is all ready and we shall have it at five sharp. You can tell me when it is three minutes to five, Melanie; Mummy says you can tell the time now.’

   Hannah went immediately to the table where the painted eggs and glass animals were. And though the older child had a book to read and had opened it, she was keeping a sharp cautionary eye on her sister’s handling of the fragile things. Wexford, from personal experience, knew only too well the advantages and the pitfalls of that particular relationship, the stresses created in infancy that lasted a lifetime.

   Dita Jago was placidly knitting once more. ‘I was telling you about old Mr Swallow. Well, one afternoon - a Thursday I think it was, a year ago or a bit more - the front-door bell rang and there was Mrs Robson. She wanted me to come into Mr Swallow’s with her and be a witness to something. In fact, she wanted two people and she’d seen my daughter’s car outside, so she knew Nina was here. I found out afterwards that she had already been to a couple who live on the other side. He’s called Morrison, I don’t know her name, but anyway for some reason they wouldn’t do it.’

   ‘As I’ve said, I don’t suppose I’d ever spoken more than two words to her and she’d never met Nina. I had to introduce them. But that didn’t stop her asking us both to go down there and witness this form.’

   ‘Hannah, I’m going to be very cross if you break that little horse,’ said Melanie.

   A struggle ensued as the elder granddaughter did her best to prise from her sister’s fingers a blue glass animal. Hannah stamped her foot.

   ‘Grandma is going to be very unhappy if you break it. Grandma will cry.’

   ‘No, she won’t.’

   ‘Give it to me, please, Hannah. Now do as you’re told.’

   ‘Hannah will cry! Hannah will scream!’

   Shades of Sylvia and Sheila . . . Dita Jago intervened, drawing the younger child - who was by now carrying out her threat - on to her lap. Melanie looked mutinous, frowning darkly.

   ‘Birds in their little nests should agree,’ Mrs Jago said, not without irony, Wexford thought. She stroked the little girl’s mane of dark curly hair. ‘We thought it was something to do with the money he wanted to get from the what-do-you- call-it? DH-something - the supplementary benefit. There are always forms, aren’t there? Anyway, we went down to Mr Swallow’s with her and when we got there we found him asleep in bed. Mrs Robson was a little bit put out. My daughter said what was this form and had he already signed it? Well, you could see Mrs Robson didn’t want to say. She said she’d wake Mr Swallow up; it was important and he’d want her to wake him.’

   Hannah, her crying over, placed one thumb in her mouth and opening the other fist, showed her sister the blue glass horse, clenching her hand as soon as Melanie made a pounce for it.

   Melanie turned away loftily. ‘Five minutes to five, Grandma,’ she said.

   ‘All right. I said to tell me when it was three minutes to. Anyway, the piece of paper we had to sign was lying there on the table face-downwards. I mean we thought that’s what it was and we were right. Nina just picked it up and took one look - and what do you think it was?’

   Wexford had a pretty good idea, but he decided not to steal Mrs Jago’s thunder and merely shrugged.

   ‘It was a will, made out on a will form. Nina didn’t get to read it because Mrs Robson snatched it away, but we could guess what was on it. It would have been leaving his money to Mrs Robson. Three thousand pounds, he used to boast he had; everyone here knew that. And she was after it - she liked money, there was no doubt about that. Well, we both shied away like anything. We told each other afterwards no way, absolutely not. Suppose that daughter had brought it up in court and we’d had to go there and say we’d signed it?’

   ‘What was Mrs Robson’s reaction to that?’

   ‘Three minutes to five, Grandma,’ Melanie said.

   ‘I’m coming, darling. She didn’t like it, but what could she do? I couldn’t help having a laugh when we were outside. I heard later she went trying other people down the street, but she never struck lucky; she couldn’t get anyone but her niece. It was only a few days after that they took Mr Swallow away and when he died there wasn’t a will and his daughter got his money - being his real heir, you see, as was quite right. Now I must keep my promise to these children.’

   Mrs Jago put the child on the floor and the knitting on the table and got up. ‘You will stay for tea? We have Grandma’s version of sachertorte.’

   Wexford thanked her but shook his head. He had told Donaldson to come back for him at five and he thought of the deep pleasure of leaning back in the car and closing his eyes. Hannah had crept quietly to the table and replaced the little horse amongst the other animals with precision, with perfectly coordinated delicate fingers, her eyes all the while on her sister, her lips not quite smiling. It reminded him of Sheila playing all those years ago with a china ornament which Sylvia (though no one else) had forbidden her to touch. And Sheila had teased like this little one, peeping over a defiant shoulder with the faintest Gioconda smile.

   ‘Of course, to do her justice she didn’t want money for herself,’ Dita Jago’s voice interrupted his reverie. ‘It was for him, it would have been all for him.’ It was just as he was leaving, when they were out in the hall, that she said, ‘Don’t you want to know where I was last Thursday evening?’

   He smiled. ‘Tell me.’

   ‘My daughter always goes shopping on Thursday afternoons and usually she takes me. But last week she dropped me off at the public library in the High Street and left the girls with me. She picked us up again at five-thirty.’

   Why had she insisted on telling him that? he wondered. Perhaps merely to avoid a repetition of his visit. Or was he imagining things that the tone of her voice gave no hint of - reacting in a confused, almost fuddled, way because of the huge weariness which had overtaken him? Passing a wall mirror in the hall as he made his way out, he caught sight of his discoloured face, the bruised muzzle of a prize-fighter recovering from a bout, and turned quickly away. He was no narcissist, no lover of his own image.

   The front door closed on him. Her grandchildren’s demands had cut short any parting pleasantries Mrs Jago might have made. It was just before five, for her clock had been fast, and Wexford waited for the car with the anxiety of a disabled pensioner expecting an ambulance. He had to lower himself into a sitting position on the low wall, feeling his bruised body creak. Going back to work had not been a wise idea, yet it hadn’t seemed like work, more a matter of paying social calls. Mike ought to be left to himself to handle this case; he was quite capable of doing so. Someone like Serge Olson would say that he, Wexford, was at fault - only probably he wouldn’t use a word like ‘fault’ - in being unable to delegate, in refusing to yield authority to the younger man. It was very likely a sign of insecurity, fear of seeing Mike usurp his place, even his job. Psychology, he thought, and not for the first time, often just wasn’t true.

   Cars passed. With a strong inner shudder, an actual shrinking, he tried to contemplate what it would be like to sit at the wheel again, start the ignition, move the shift into gear. That, of course, he wouldn’t quite have to do, just manipulate from ‘park’ to ‘drive’. But the notion of putting his hand to that lever brought a darkness before his eyes and made him hear a sound he had no recollection of hearing: the roar of the bomb. He closed his eyes, opening them to see Donaldson draw up at the kerb.

A hunch he couldn’t quite believe in - it all seemed behaviour of the crassest, most unfeeling kind - led Burden to assume that Clifford Sanders was heading for the Barringdean car park. He couldn’t follow him: he hadn’t a car immediately to hand and, making his way there on foot, he told himself he was wasting his time. No one would do that. No one would return to the scene of so horrific a crime precisely seven days to the hour later, and there go through the same prescribed ritual. With, that is, one notable exception.

   He entered the shopping complex by the pedestrian entrance where, a week before, Dodo Sanders had stood rattling the gates and screaming for help. But first he went into the underground car park, descending to the second level in the lift. At least Clifford hadn’t parked the car on precisely the spot where it had been the week before, but perhaps he had not done so only because that particular space and those next to it and opposite were already occupied. This time the Sanders’ car was at the extreme opposite end to the lift and the stairs. It was empty which meant, presumably, that Clifford was somewhere in the shopping centre.

   As he had been in the previous week, thought Burden, looking at his watch by the light of the glaring greenish strip lights. Six-twenty-two, but he, of course, had walked here and taken some time to locate the car. Clifford’s appointment had been at his normal time, five o’clock, so today his date to pick up his mother would be later. Six-thirty perhaps? With the centre closing at six and usually emptied by six-fifteen, would she be prepared to wait for him? But as he was speculating along these lines, watching the last cars backed out and driven away, he heard the clang of the descending lift. Clifford and his mother came out of it and Burden watched them walk towards their car, Clifford carrying two Tesco bags and a wicker basket. Burden thought he could easily be taken for a girl from the back; it was some thing to do with his plump hips and the rather short steps he took. He caught up with them as Clifford was lifting the boot-lid of the Metro.

   Mrs Sanders turned and cast upon him a basilisk look.

   She was hatless, her hair set in a rather bouffant, cloudy way which didn’t suit her. The red lipstick glistened in the pale face. He had wondered what that particular colour of skin reminded him of and now he knew: raw fish, a translucent, faintly pinkish white. She was perfectly calm and her voice was cold.

   ‘I wish I’d never told anyone about finding that dead body. I wish I’d kept quiet.’ Burden had an inkling then of the icy authority she exercised over her son and had no doubt exercised since he was an infant. There was an awful precision in that tone and it was backed by a great storehouse of nervous energy. ‘I’m not usually a fool. I should have had the sense to stay out of it; I should have followed his example.’

   ‘What example was that, Mrs Sanders?’ Burden asked.

   Her attention was on the time by her digital watch and that indicated on the clock in the Metro which she bent down to look at. Abstractedly, she said, ‘He ran away, didn’t he?’

   ‘You tell me. I’ve got a very good idea what it was he did, and running away was only a small part of it.’ While Clifford unlocked the driver’s door, he said, ‘You won’t mind giving me a lift, will you? We can take your mother home first and then you and I will have another talk at the police station.’

   Clifford didn’t say anything. The only sign that he had heard was when he reached inside to release the lock on the passenger door. And on the way back to Ash Lane no one said a word. Half the carriageway of this end of the Forby Road was undergoing repairs, temporary traffic lights had been installed and a long queue of cars waited. Dodo Sanders, sitting in the front next to Clifford, pulled down her glove and lifted up her coat cuff to look at her digital watch. Why it should have been important to her to know the precise time they had left the car park and the precise time they began queueing at the lights, Burden couldn’t guess. Perhaps, though, that wasn’t the purpose of all this watch- gazing. It might be that she simply wanted to know the time, that all day long, every day, every five minutes, she had to know the time.