From Doon With Death

Chapter 8

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.

‘Did you get anything, sir?’ Burden asked.

‘Not so’s you’d notice,’ Wexford said, ‘but 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’sRoad, 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 Flagford, 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 Flagford.

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 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 have 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 click. 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 Flagford she must have gone to school! I reckon they came to Flagford 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. It’s 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 some body killed her. One of those girls may remember a boyfriend, a possessive boy friend with a long memory.’

‘I wish,’ Burden said, ‘I wish some decent public-spirited cop-loving citizen would walk in here and just tell us he knew Mrs Parsons, 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.” It’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 Kingsmarkham 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 returned 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.

‘I opened it.’

He spoke with a kind of guilt. She was dead and they had plundered her possessions. Now even her letters, letters posthumously received, were to be picked over, their words dissected as meticulously as her own body had been examined and exposed.

‘I don’t know . . . I can’t think,’ he said, ‘but there’s something in it about someone called Doon.’

‘Have you got it with you?’ Wexford asked sharply.

‘In my pocket.’

‘We’ll go into my office.’

If Parsons noticed his wife’s books spread about the room he gave no sign. He sat down and handed an envelope to Wexford. On the flap, just beneath the ragged slit Parsons had made, was a handwritten address: From Mrs Wilbur S. Katz, 1183 Sunflower Park, Slate City, Colorado, U.S.A.

‘That would be Miss Anne Ives,’ Wexford said. ‘Did your wife correspond with her regularly?’

Parsons looked surprised at the name.

‘Not to say regularly,’ he said. ‘She’d write once or twice a year. I’ve never met Mrs Katz.’

‘Did your wife write to her recently, since you came here?’

‘I wouldn’t know, Chief Inspector. To tell you the truth, I didn’t care for what I knew of Mrs Katz. She used to write and tell Margaret all about the things she’d got - cars, washing machines, that sort of thing . . . I don’t know whether it upset Margaret. She’d been very fond of her cousin and she never said she minded hearing about all those things. But I made it plain what I thought and she stopped showing me the letters.’

‘Mr Parsons, I understand Mrs Ives’ house was left jointly to your wife and Mrs Katz. Surely - ?’

Parsons interrupted bitterly: ‘We bought our share off her, Chief Inspector. Every penny of seven hundred pounds we paid - through a bank in London. My wife had to work full-time so that we could do it, and when we’d paid the lot, just paid off the lot, the council bought the place off us for nine hundred. They had a sort of order.’

‘A compulsory-purchase order,’ Wexford said. ‘I see.’ He stuck his head round the door. ‘Sergeant Camb! Tea, please, and an extra cup. I’ll just read that letter, if you don’t mind, Mr Parsons.’

It was written on thin blue paper and Mrs Katz had found plenty to tell her cousin. The first two pages were entirely taken up with an account of a holiday Mr and Mrs Katz and their three children had spent in Florida; Mrs Katz’s new car; a barbecue her husband had bought her. Mr and Mrs Parsons were invited to come to Slate City for a holiday. Wexford began to see what Parsons had meant.

The last page was more interesting.

Gee, Meg (Mrs Katz had written), I sure was amazed to see you and Ron had moved to Kingsmarkham. I’ll bet that was Ron’s idea, not yours. And you have met up with Doon again, have you? I sure would like to know who Doon is. You’ve got to tell me, not keep dropping hints.

Still, I can’t see why you should be scared of Doon. What of, for the Lord’s sake? There was never anything in that. (You know what I mean, Meg.) I can’t believe Doon is still keen. You always had a suspicious mind!! But if meeting Doon means trips in the car and a few free meals I wouldn’t be too scrupulous.

When are you and Ron doing to get a car of your own? Wil says he just doesn’t know how you make out . . .

There was some more in the same vein, sprinkled with exclamation marks and heavily underlined. The letter ended:

. . . Regards to Ron and remind him there’s a big welcome waiting for you both in Sunflower Park whenever you feel like hitting Colorado, U.S.A. Love from Nan. Greg, Joanna and Kim send hugs to their Auntie Meg.

‘This could be very important, Mr Parsons,’ Wexford said. ‘I’d like to hang on to it.’

Parsons got up, leaving his tea un-tasted.

‘I wish it hadn’t come,’ he said. ‘I wanted to remember Margaret as I knew her. I thought she was different. Now. I know she was just like the rest, carrying on with another man for what she could get out of him.’

Wexford said quietly: ‘I’m afraid it looks like that. Tell me, didn’t you have any idea that your wife might be going out with this man, this Doon? It looks very much as if Doon knew her when she lived in Flagford and took up with her again when she came back. She must have gone to school here, Mr Parsons. Didn’t you know that?’

Did Parsons look furtive, or was it just a desire to hold on to some remnants of his private life, his marriage broken both by infidelity and by death, that made him flush and fidget?

‘She wasn’t happy in Flagford. She didn’t want to talk about it and I stopped asking her. I reckon it was because they were such a lot of snobs. I respected her reticence, Chief Inspector.’

‘Did she talk to you about her boyfriends?’

‘That was a closed book,’ Parsons said, ‘a closed book for both of us. I didn’t want to know, you see.’ He walked to the window and peered out as if it was night instead of bright day. ‘We weren’t those kind of people. We weren’t the kind of people who have love affairs.’ He stopped, remembering the letter. ‘I can’t believe it. I can’t believe that of Margaret. She was a good woman, Chief Inspector, a good loving woman. I can’t help thinking that Katz woman was making up a lot of things that just weren’t true, making them up out of her own head.’

‘We shall know a bit more when we hear from Colorado,’ Wexford said. ‘I’m hoping to get hold of the last letter your wife wrote to Mrs Katz. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t be made available to you.’

‘Thank you for nothing,’ Parsons said. He hesitated, touched the green cover of Swinburne’s verses and walked quickly from the room.

It was some sort of a break, Wexford thought, some sort of a break at last. He picked up the telephone and told the switchboard girl he wanted to make a call to the United States. This had been a strange woman, he reflected as he waited, a strange secretive woman leading a double life. To her husband and the unobservant world she had been a sensible prudent housewife in sandals and a cotton frock, an infants’ teacher who polished the front step with Brasso and went to church socials. But someone, someone generous and romantic and passionate, had been tantalized and maddened by her for twelve long years.