Murder Being Once Done

17

IN the morning Howard's foot was worse, but he refused to see a doctor, saying that it was imperative he arrived on time in Kenbourne Vale.

'But you won't be able to drive, darling.' Denise had stayed up until the small hours cleaning the carpet and she had an exhausted air. Transferring her gaze from a large in- eradicable stain to her husband's swollen instep, she said,

'You can hardly put that foot to the ground.'

'Never mind. I'll phone for a driver.' ~ 'Unless Uncle Reg would . . .'

They looked at Wexford, Howard doubtly, Denise as if she considered that anyone fit enough to reject yoghurt in favour of bacon and eggs was quite capable of driving a car through the London rush hours. Wexford didn't want to go. He had lost all interest in the Morgan case, and plain cowardice overcame him when he thought of meeting Baker and Clements, both of whom would know of his exploded theory. Why had he ever been so stupid as to go and poke about in the Mont- fort vault in the first place? Let Howard send for a driver.

He was going to plead a pain in his eye and for the first time in days he could feel it aching and pricking again when Dora said unexpectedly, 'Of course Reg will take you, dear. It's the least he can do after dropping that thing on your foot. He can come straight back and have a rest, can't you, darling?'

'Give me the keys,' said Wexford resignedly. 'I hope you realise I've never driven in London traffic.'

But it wasn't as bad as he had feared, and concentrating on being one of the honking, thrusting herd, charging wild beasts which made Kingsmarkham motorists seem like sheep, made him forget his eye and, briefly, that stronger trepidation.

They arrived to find Gregson safe in a cell, having been discovered taking refuge at his sister's house in Sunbury. Howard, sure of him now on the grounds of assault on a police officer and of taking and driving away a vehicle without its owner's consent offenses which even Mr de Traynor couldn't dispute limped off to talk to him. Wexford decided to make his escape and get home before the threatening rain began and he made for that semi-secret exit into the mews. It had occurred to him happily by this time that if Howard's injury was insufficient to keep him from work, Baker's wouldn't be, so he was much disconcerted when, marching confidently down one of the bottle-green caverns, he came face to face with the inspector, his head swathed in bandages.

There was nothing for it but to stop and ask him how he was feeling.'

'I'll survive,' Baker said curtly.

The only polite answer one can make to this churlish response is a muttered, 'I hope so.' Wexford made it, added that he was glad things were no worse and moved on. Baker gave a dry cough.

'Oh, Mr Wexford . . . ? Still got a few days of your holiday left, haven't you?'

This sounded like the first move towards a truce. Wexford's spirits were so low that he was grateful for any show of cordiality. 'Yes, I'm in London till Saturday.'

'You want to try and take in Billingsgate, then. Plenty of red herrings there, and you'll find the wild geese at Smithfield.'

Like a goose himself, Baker cackled at his joke. His laughter with an accompanying patronisingpat on the shoulder didn't rob the remark of insult. It simply made it impossible for Wexford to take offense.. Immensely pleased with himself, the inspector went into the lift and clanged the doors behind him. Wexford went down the stairs. No point now in avoiding the front entrance.

Suddenly it seemed even more futile to avoid Clements. There, at least, the deference due to rank would forbid any witticisms of the nature Baker had indulged in. Wexford came down the last flight and caught sight of his own reflection in a window which the brick wall behind it had transformed into a huge and gloomy mirror. He saw a big elderly man, a wrinkled man in a wrinkled raincoat, whose face in which some had discerned wisdom and wit, now showed in every line the frustrated petulance of a spoiled child and. at the same time, the bitterness of age.

He straightened his shoulders and stopped frowning. What was the matter with him to let a small reverse get him down? And how could he stoop to comfort himself with his rank? Not only must he not avoid Clements, but must seek him out to apologize for his behaviour of the previous day and this was even more imperative say good-bye. Had he really thought of quitting Kenbourne Vale for ever without taking a formal leave of the kind sergeant?

The big outer hall was deserted but for the two uniformed men who presided over a long counter and dealt with en- quiries. One of them courteously offered to see if the sergeant was in the building, and Wexford sat down in an uncomfortable black leather armchair to wait for him. It was still only ten o'clock. Rain had begun to splash lightly against the arched windows which flanked the entrance. Perhaps the meteorological office had been right in its forecast of a deep depression settling over South-East England.

If the weather had been more promising, he might have telephoned Stephen Dearborn and reminded him of the tour he had suggested. It would be doing the man a favour rather than asking for one, and Wexford felt he owed Dearborn something. Not, in this case, an apology for you cannot apologise to a man for suspecting him of murder but a friendly gesture to make up for harbouring such absurd and unfounded suspicions. Wexford was well aware of the guilt one can feel for even thinking ill of a man, although those thoughts have never found verbal expression.

He wasn't sure whether it was this reminder of his folly that made him go hot and red in the face or Clements' sudden appearance at his elbow. He rose to his feet, forgetting selfpity and self-recrimination. In a couple of hours Clements would be eating his lunch with his wife and James, his last lunch with James as a probationary father. Or his last lunch with James?

'Sergeant, I want to apologise for the way I spoke to you.'

'That's all right, sir. I'd forgotten all about it.'

Of course he had. He had other things on his mind. Wexford said gently and earnestly, 'Tomorrow's the great day, isn't it?'

As soon as he had spoken he wished he hadn't brought the subject up. Until this moment he had never quite realised the tension under which Clements lived and worked, the strain which daily grew more agonising. It showed now in the mammoth effort he made to keep his face ordinary and civilised and receptive, even stretching his mouth into a rictus smile. Wexford saw that he couldn't speak, that anxiety, invading every corner of his mind and his thoughts, had at last dried up that tide of moralising and censorious criticism. He was empty now of everything but the animal need to hold on to its young.

They stared at each other, Wexford growing embarrassed, the sergeant, all garrulity gone, dumb with panic and the dread of tomorrow. At last he spoke in a thick dry voice.

'I'm taking the morning off. Maybe the whole day.' He paused, swallowed. 'Depends on . . . My wife . . . On what they . . .'

'We shan't meet again, then.' Wexford held out his hand and Clements took it, giving it a hard painful squeeze as if it were a lifeline. 'Good-bye, Sergeant, and all the very best for tomorrow.'

'Goodbye,' Clements. He dropped Wexford's hand and went out into the rain, not even bothering to turn up his coat collar. A passing car splashed him but he didn't seem to notice. Small incidents such as this, which would once have inspired a diatribe against modern manners, no longer had the power to prick the surface of his mind.

Wexford stood on the steps and watched him go. It was time for him to go too, to leave Kenbourne Vale and Loveday Morgan and forget them if he could. Strange how absorbed he had been in trying to discover who she was, tramping around Fulham, weaving fantasies. Now as he looked back on the past week, he realised that he was no nearer knowing who she was or who had killed her or why than he had been when Howard had found him in the vault. It seemed to him that he had had a few sensible ideas, firm conclusions, which even that howler of his couldn't shake, but they had grown vague now and he had almost forgotten what they were.

Water which had gathered on the blue glass panels of the lamp above his head trickled down and dripped on him. He moved slowly down the steps and as he did so water hit him from another angle. A wave of it splashed against his trouser legs and he glanced up, affronted. The taxi, cause of the offense, had drawn up a few yards from him and directly in front of the police station. Its rear door opened and a vision in a purple silk suit with a white orchid in its buttonhole descended on to the wet pavement.

'What a day for the Honourable Diana's wedding,' said Ivan Teal when he had paid the taxi driver. 'And she such a sunnynatured girl. Where are the flunkeys rushing to meet me with umbrellas?'

'This isn't the Dorchester,' said Wexford.

'Don't I know it! I have some experience of police stations, principally West End Central. Were you on your way to see me?'

'See you?' In Wexford's present state of mind, Garmisch Terrace and the case seemed a world away. 'Was I supposed to be seeing you?'

'Of course you were. I told Philip to say ten. He knew I had this wedding at St George's. The bride's gown is one of mine so I must be in at the kill. When you didn't turn up I came to you. The wedding's at half eleven.'

'Oh, that,' said Wexford, recalling how Chell had sidetracked him with his talk of newspaper cuttings. 'It doesn't matter now. Don't you waste your time.'

Teal stared at him. His hair was carefully waved and gusts of Aphrodisia came from it and his suit. 'You mean you've found out who she was?' he said.

Wexford almost asked who. Then he remembered that to some people Loveday Morgan's death was important and he said, 'If you've got some information you'd better see Superintendent Fortune or Inspector Baker.'

'I want to see you.'

'It was never my case. I'm here on holiday and I'm going home on Saturday. You're getting rather wet, you know.'

'This tussore isn't exactly drip-dry,' said Teal, moving under the arch from which the blue lamp hung. 'I wish I'd gone straight to Hanover Square,' he grumbled. 'It's always hell getting a taxi in Kenbourne. Can you see if that one down there has got his light up?'

Wexford didn't bother to look. 'You said you wanted to see the superintendent.'

'You said that. I'm not over-fond of policemen. Remember? You're different. If I can't talk to you I'll be on my way.' Teal flung out a purple silk arm. 'Taxi!' he shouted.

The cab was going the wrong way. It waited for some lights to go green and, in defiance of regulations, began to make a U-turn. Behind it, looming scarlet through the downpour, appeared the bus that went to Chelsea.

'It was nice meeting you,' said Teal, going down the steps. 'Never thought I'd say that to a . . .'

The taxi drew up, the bus went by. 'You'd better come in a minute,' said Wexford with a sigh. 'I can spare half an hour.'

Teal was never amiable for more than a few minutes.

'I can't spare that long myself,' he said with a return to asperity. 'Really, you're very inconsistent. What a ghastly place! No wonder policemen have a grudge against humanity. What's this? Some sort of annexe to the morgue?'

'An interview room.' Wexford watched him dust the seat of a chair before sitting on it. He supposed he ought to feel flattered. However highly one values one's profession, it is always a compliment to be told that one is better, more human, more sympathetic, less conventional, than the common run. But boredom with the whole business made him almost impervious to flattery.

'Comfy?' he said sarcastically.

'Oh, don't come that!' snapped Teal. 'Not you. You're not one of these flatfeet who think that because one's gay, one's got the mentality of a finicky schoolgirl I'm going to a wed- ding and I don't want to muck up my clothes any more than you would.'

Wexford looked at him with positive dislike. 'Well, Mr Teal, what is it you want to tell me?'

'That minister we were talking about remember? His name is Morgan.'