Wexford 22 - The Monster In The Box (15 page)

   Hannah sat down next to the baby. Every other seat in the place was damaged in some way. A leg missing and the chair propped up on bricks, the seat itself split or the cover ripped off to expose splintered wood and sharp nails beneath. Mrs Hanif sat in the chair on the bricks and, though it wobbled, it held her weight.

   'I'd heard,' Hannah said carefully, 'that your son Rashid was friendly with her.'

   'He's only a boy,' Fata Hanif said. 'He doesn't go out with girls. His dad and me, we wouldn't have it.'

   Hannah could hardly say she had seen the boy and girl together. 'When he is older will you arrange a marriage for Rashid?'

   For a moment she thought Fata Hanif would refuse to answer. She was silent for a long time. She got up and lifted the baby in her arms. Boy or girl, Hannah couldn't tell which it was. The child in the high chair had emptied his bowl and was looking with pride, Hannah thought, at the piles of rejected porridge on the floor.

   At last Mrs Hanif spoke. 'I expect we will,' she said.

   'Will it be with a local girl?'

   Suddenly she became talkative. 'We've no relations round here except for that Nicky and his dad that's my brother. All my husband's relations are in Pakistan. He's got girl cousins there.'

   Trying to treat it as if were a laughing matter no one would take seriously for a moment, Hannah said, 'So you wouldn't consider Tamima Rahman as a possible bride for your son?'

   'We don't know the Rahmans. Her and Rashid go to the same school, that's all, and my sons Hussein and Haled go there too and they're not any of them going to marry Tamima Rahman. You people think that because we're all Muslims we must know each other. Well, that's wrong, we don't. Is that all? Because I've got to feed the baby.'

   Still asleep, the baby showed no sign of wanting to be fed but Mrs Hanif was already unfastening the bodice of her long lilac-print dress. Hannah let herself out.

Concentrating on the murder of Nicky Dusan was hardly necessary now that Tyler Pike had been charged and committed for trial. It would be months before that trial happened. Wexford sometimes thought how strange the system must be for the public, for the inveterate reader of newspapers or viewer of television news broadcasts. The killing happened and the media went mad. Photographs of the victim and the victim's family dominated front pages and screens. The 'quality' papers carried statistics, giving prominence to whatever number in the list of like murders this latest one was, the sixteenth or the eighteenth in as many weeks in the south of England. The victim's 'loved ones' were interviewed or appeared on television, giving appeals. Wexford dared to speculate – knowing how politically incorrect this would be – if there would ever be a death by violence after which the dead man or woman's relatives for once failed to describe them as perfect, the soul of kindness, loving, 'bubbly', helpful to all and the ideal son, daughter or sibling. No doubt, most of the dead had been in fact much like everyone else, a mixture of good and bad with virtues and faults. A few might be as saintly as their grieving relations said they were but others would balance that by being as satanic as – well, as Targo.

   He hadn't set eyes on Targo since the day he had seen him carrying the laptop into 34 Glebe Road and seen too the spaniel in the passenger seat of the white van. Had he ever seen the man without a dog? Perhaps not. In the travel agency he had been accompanied by a corgi, in Myringham by his own pet dogs and those in the boarding kennels, in Jewel Road, Stowerton, by what Wexford called 'the original spaniel' and with that same spaniel when he walked past Wexford's window on his way to the Kingsbrook meadows. But yes, there had been one occasion when he was without a dog. In the hotel bar in Coventry he had been on his own and this was no doubt only because the hotel banned dogs.

   It must be over a month now since he had seen Targo sitting in his van on Glebe Road. Because Targo had seen and recognised him he had half expected the stalking to begin again. But it hadn't and now Wexford began to see that this supposition was unrealistic. The stalking had been confined to those early days in Kingsmarkham. Later there had been the incident of the snake. But he had never again been the subject of Targo's sustained surveillance and since the death of Billy Kenyon and subsequent investigation, he had encountered him only once. That had been when Targo told him how he had given the puppy to Billy's mother.

   Mullen had got life imprisonment for the murder of Shirley Palmer in Coventry, but Wexford still wondered. Everyone he talked to about that murder, every police officer, said that if ever there was a justified penalty that was it. Mullen had killed Shirley just as Christopher Roberts had killed his wife Maureen. But he wondered. Although by this time Mullen had served decades in prison he had never admitted to the crime, though such an admission might have have resulted in his release. This was usually regarded as an argument against guilt.

   Did this perhaps mean Targo had been responsible for Shirley Palmer's death? It was possible. The recent murders in the Kingsmarkham area had been knife crimes and Targo himself had only killed by strangling and claimed involvement in murders by strangling. Serial killers gave up when they got old, he thought. As he reflected on this, listing in his mind notorious killers who in age had left their life of crime behind them, he realised that there weren't so many. Most known killers had been caught before old age. Then the thought came that Targo couldn't be called a serial killer. Even Wexford, obsessed as he was, could hardly give that title to a man who was possibly responsible for only two deaths. Or perhaps three and others which Targo would have liked to be blamed for.

   Now, with old age encroaching, would he be strong enough to strangle someone? It was a method which took physical strength. If his victim were a woman he would have. Wexford conjured up an image of him, short, sturdy, brawny with the muscles of a mini-sumo wrestler. Did he still lift weights, do press-ups? The question really was, would he want to? Perhaps he was satisfied now with the life he had made for himself, with his wife, his house, his cars and, of course, his dogs.

   I will get him for what he's done, Wexford said to himself. Whatever it takes, I will get him. One day, no matter how far away and how long it takes. The murder of the innocent and harmless Billy Kenyon got to me like no other death by violence I have come across for a long time. If I let myself I could weep for Billy Kenyon, even now, after all these years, but I won't, of course I won't. I will watch him and wait and one day bring him to justice for Billy Kenyon and Elsie Carroll and perhaps too for Shirley Palmer.

Three weeks later they came to him with the same subject on succeeding days. Hannah first, sandwiching her information between her report on Nicky Dusan and the health or lack of it of Tyler Pike. Jenny avoided the police station and came to his home. But they had the same thing to tell him. Yasmin Rahman had returned from Pakistan and Tamima with her. Tamima was not married, there was no husband and no marriage ceremony had taken place. They had come home early because Tamima was homesick.

   'These children, they have their way these days, don't they?' Yasmin had told Hannah, echoing her husband.

   'I hoped to have a word with her,' Hannah had said.

   But Tamima wasn't there. In spite of what her mother had said, she was back working for her uncle at the Raja Emporium. 'She will soon be going to London to stay with her auntie in Kingsbury.'

   Hannah remembered that this was exactly what Mohammed Rahman had told her would happen. She asked when that would be but Mrs Rahman said she didn't know. She was growing indignant by this time and Hannah finally had to acknowledge that she hadn't a leg to stand on when Tamima's mother said, 'I don't know why it interests you. She is free to do what she wants. What wrong has she done? What wrong have me and her father done?'

   'Nothing, Mrs Rahman, nothing at all.' Hannah was appalled that she of all police officers might appear to be victimizing people for no more reason than that they were immigrants. 'I'm sorry. I'd no intention of upsetting you.'

   'Tamima is over sixteen. She can leave home if she wants. You see, I know your law.'

   Jenny had met with an even colder reception, in her case from Tamima's father. 'Tamima is working for her uncle. She's there because she likes to earn some money, as many young people do. Would you like to speak to her uncle? Or, better, would your husband like to speak to him? He, I think, is the policeman, not you.'

   Shaken, Jenny said, 'No, no, of course not.' And, making matters worse, 'It's just that I've grown fond of Tamima and I want to see things turn out well for her.'

   'And aren't I fond of my own daughter? My only daughter? Do you think I want her to be unhappy? Perhaps you should remember, Mrs Burden, that I am a childcare officer, specifically Myringham's teenage care manager. Don't you think maybe I know as much about adolescents' needs as you do?'

   'Of course you do, of course.' Appalled, Jenny was admitting to herself that this man was too much for her. This man was a great deal cleverer, more sophisticated and astute than she had given him credit for. 'It's just that –'

   He interrupted her. 'I'm sorry, Mrs Burden, but I am busy and cannot talk much longer. Tamima is planning to go to her auntie in London shortly. She will enjoy herself there, go out with her cousins. The length of time she stays is down to her and to my sister. Then she will come home and decide what her next move should be? OK? All right?'

   'I had to be satisfied with that,' Jenny said.

   'Aren't you?' Wexford raised his eyebrows. 'Dare I ask what all the fuss is about?'

   'If that's your attitude, I give up,' said Jenny.

   'I'm glad to hear it.' He changed the subject and spoke to Dora. 'Did Andy Norton come today?'

   'He always comes on Thursdays. Well, twice he's changed to a Tuesday but he's always phoned well in advance to let me know. Three o'clock. You could set your watch by him.'

   On the following Thursday he got home early. Andy Norton was still there, still engaged in cutting back the lushly overgrown shrubs and climbers which covered the rear garden wall. Wexford saw a tall thin man, white-haired and gaunt. He went outside, introduced himself and noted the mellifluous tones and fine enunciation conferred on its alumni by Eton College.

   'You're doing overtime,' he said with a smile.

   'I want to get things shipshape before the rain starts.'

   'Shipshape', the word Targo had used long ago. He watched Norton get into his ancient but gleaming Morris Minor and drive away, waving as he went.

   It was later in the evening that Dora told him. He had noticed when he got home from work how especially nice she looked in a new dark green dress and high-heeled dark green shoes. Her legs had always been one of her best features with their long calves and fine ankles. Round her neck she wore a necklace of gold and green garnets he had once given her. In his eyes she hadn't lost her looks at all; only in her own was she less attractive than she had been. He remembered how he used to compare her – was 'contrast' rather the word? – with other men's wives and how there was really no competition. He smiled and complimented her on her appearance.

   She smiled back, thanked him, said, 'I've been meaning to tell you. There's been a white van parked outside here for most of the afternoon. That's the second time this week. It was here on Tuesday too. I went out to check if it had a residents' parking pass in the windscreen but it hadn't. Still, the traffic warden didn't appear. They never do when you want them.'

   Far from smiling now, he felt a sharp chill, like icy water trickling down his spine, the warmth her evident pleasure had brought him all gone.

   'As a matter of fact, I took the number.'

   He looked at the slip of paper she held out to him. It was Targo's. Of course it was.

   'It comes of being married to a policeman,' she said.

   He tried to speak casually, 'Dora, don't do that again. I mean, don't check up on a vehicle's right to park. Please.'

   'But why, darling?'

   'Suppose I said, because I say so? Would that be enough?'

   'That's what you say to children. All right, then. But I would quite like to know.'

The white van didn't come back to Wexford's street the next day or the next. That meant little. Targo had at least one other car. Wexford decided not to frighten Dora by asking her if she had seen a silver Mercedes parked where the van had been. Nor was he going to ask her if there had been a dog in the van. Besides, Targo might well have a collection of motor vehicles. Or he might do his surveillance on foot, parking the van farther away and walking the Tibetan spaniel half a mile or so.

   What puzzled Wexford was the question of whom Targo was keeping under observation and why. Not himself, surely. The man must know he was out of the house all day. So he was watching Dora. Wexford didn't like that at all. Only a few days ago, he had half made up his mind that Targo had abandoned his need to kill, had become a law-abiding citizen. Now he thought of the two occasions he had seen that van in Glebe Road. On both Targo had been calling on the Rahmans because one of the sons was an IT consultant, a legitimate reason for a visit. But Ahmed Rahman might have knowledge of Targo which would be invaluable to him. His thoughts went back to his wife.

   Two years before, along with four other people, she had been abducted and held hostage by a group of countryside campaigners. He still thought of the three nights and four days as the worst period of his life. Suppose I lost her? was the question he kept asking himself. Suppose I never see her again? When she came back, he had sworn to himself that he would value her more, and for the most part he had stuck to that. He had appreciated her more and had shown it. But there was no reason to suppose that what had happened then would happen again. As far as he knew, Targo had never abducted anyone. He felt that cold trickle again when he spoke aloud what Targo did: 'He kills. It's a hobby with him'. He had killed at least one woman and one man, possibly two women. Maybe there had been others, 'unregistered in vulgar fame'. He remembered what Kathleen Targo had said to him when they met all those years ago in the Kingsbrook Precinct, 'He likes animals. He doesn't like people.'