Not in the Flesh

11

Though it was a sunny morning, the weather forecast predicted heavy showers. Barry Vine hadn't taken his raincoat off its peg since he brought it home from Wales. Unlike most of his contemporaries who preferred various types of waterproof jacket, he possessed a raincoat because he thought it lent him dignity. It made him look like a detective, the sort of detective found in films from the forties. It was the belt that did it, an adjunct he thought suited him because it hid his thickening waistline. Getting into his car, he felt in the pocket, found only a sheet of folded newspaper, and remembered his keys were in his trousers pocket.

He nearly threw the paper away. He would have done if he could have found a recycling bin. Instead he put it, unfolded, on his desk in the office he shared with Hannah Goldsmith and Damon Coleman. Why had he wanted to read it in the first place? Because that uncouth woman Dilys Hughes had been reading it? Surely not. He had just glanced at the headline: “Gone Without Trace: The Lost Father” by Selina Hexham, when he was summoned to Wexford's morning conference. It must have been those words “gone without trace” and that word “lost” that attracted his attention. Everyone at the conference lived, ate, drank, and slept with those words on the tip of their tongues but so far it hadn't got them far.

Wexford canceled the appointment he had made with Maeve Tredown and Claudia Ricardo, and instead of making a new one, decided to surprise the occupants of Athelstan House. As he said to Burden, he had no grounds on which to question Tredown, certainly none on which to arrest him and therefore take him to the police station. All he had was an inner conviction that refused to go away, that Tredown was being protected, hidden, by Claudia and Maeve, who apparently ruled him.

He and Burden had chosen midafternoon for their call. “He can't be hard at work all the time,” Wexford said. “If he writes every morning and part of the afternoon, he must have some sort of respite. About now might be a good time.”

They expected they would have to infiltrate the women's defenses. Maeve would open the door, Claudia would be a few yards inside, and together they would offer one excuse after another why Tredown couldn't be seen. He was resting, he was asleep, he was back at his writing, and it would all be delivered in that jokey way they had, a mixture of zaniness and giggles, apparent frankness and apparent stupidity. Plus a lot of what Burden called off-color remarks from Claudia. Things turned out differently.

The predicted heavy showers had never come. It was one of those early November days when the sky is blue, the sun brilliant, and visibility nearly perfect. From the Kingsmarkham to Flagford road you could see Cheriton Forest spread out, still leafy in colors varying from dark green to pale yellow, and in the pure clarity of the air, the Downs rose smooth but distinct against the mistless horizon. Donaldson drove into the village byway of the road that led past Morella's fruit farm and the church and the long row of Flagford's picturesque but grotesquely uncomfortable cottages. All right if you were no more than five feet three, Wexford remarked to Burden, but the ceilings were far too low for modern man, as he knew to his cost.

In the clear bright light, even Athelstan House seemed attractive, a multicolored Victorian curiosity. As they approached up the drive Wexford spotted a tall, rather stooped figure, walking along the side of the house toward the rear. He told Donaldson to stop where they were and park there. He and Burden would follow the man. He must surely be Owen Tredown. The sun was low in the sky, offering dazzling glimpses of itself through trees which looked black against it. A blackbird sang in one of those trees, sweet as a nightingale. There was so little wind that the leaf fall seemed suspended until a single one, fan-shaped from a chestnut tree, floated gently down past Burden's face.

Tredown it was. They could see him clearly now and Wexford recognized the writer from a photograph on a book jacket. He had crossed the wide lawn and sat down on a wooden seat at the edge of a shrubbery in which rowans and dogwoods were shimmering red among the fading greens. It was a largely uncultivated place where nothing had been pruned and nothing planted. Only the grass had been tended and closely mown. Lengthening shadows stretched out across the lawn, among them those of the two policemen who Tredown must have seen, for he turned to watch them approach. He seemed unsurprised. He smiled.

Without asking who they were-could he tell by looking at them?-he said in one of the most mellifluous voices Wexford had ever heard, “You see me, like the Lord God, walking in the garden in the cool of the day.”

He was smoking a pipe, a habit Wexford hadn't seen anyone indulge in for a long time. The smell was pungent. It wasn't tobacco, but something herbal, something culinary.

He introduced himself and Burden. Without getting up, Tredown shook hands, an action Wexford rather disliked in these circumstances. You never knew how the relationship might deteriorate and in the not too far distant future. It was awkward to find yourself arresting and cautioning someone with whom you had been on matey terms. “What can I do for you gentlemen?”

“Perhaps we could sit down?”

“Of course.” Tredown shifted along the seat. “How remiss of me. I hope you don't mind my smoking.”

“Not at all,” said Wexford. “But I'd like to know what it is. It smells like sage.”

“Sage it is. Salvia divinorum, a powerful hallucinogenic.” Tredown looked from one to the other of them, perhaps expecting a reaction and met impassivity. “This is my second pipe of the day, so I had my out-of-body experience this morning. This one expands my mind and makes me sweat, but that is all.”

“Your out-of-body experience?” Wexford's eyebrows went up.

“Oh, yes. Does that surprise you? Sage brings transcendence, not to say hallucinations of the most interesting kind.”

Owen Tredown was even taller than Wexford and a great deal thinner, almost cadaverous, and he remembered that the man had cancer. His skin was greenish-yellow. His was one of those concave faces, the brow high, the nose short, the chin prominent, and the mouth an almost lipless line. The hair, which had once been flaxen, was still abundant, a streaky brownish-gray, falling across his sallow forehead and pushed back behind his ears. He was dressed in baggy khaki trousers and an open-necked denim shirt. On the third finger of each long bony hand was a plain gold ring. One for each wife? Wexford wondered briefly about that before he spoke.

“We found, Mr. Tredown, that we had talked to everyone who lives in this immediate neighborhood except you. That seemed an omission that should be remedied.”

“I doubt if I can tell you much.” He spoke like someone coming out of a dream. The pipe held at arm's length now, he seemed to be addressing it rather than the two policemen. “The elder Mr. Grimble I can't recall ever speaking to. Of course, we were far from happy at the younger Mr. Grimble's plans to build four houses next door to us. As you see,” he said to the pipe, “we are not at all overlooked at present. But I expect my wife and Miss Ricardo have told you that.”

So that was how he dealt with the two-wives problem. Come to that, how else could he have dealt with it?

“In fact, I expect they have told you everything we know, the digging of the trench, for instance, and the burglary we had about that time and-oh, the necessary filling in of the trench when planning permission was refused. They do like to save me trouble, you know. They protect me from the wickedness of the world.”

Tredown laughed. It was an unexpected sound, a high-pitched neighing, in contrast to the soft honeyed voice. They let him have his laugh out, listened indulgently, though nothing in the least amusing had been said, only a confirmation of what Wexford had suspected. He glanced at Burden, who said, “What burglary was that, Mr. Tredown?”

Tredown took the pipe between his lips and drew on it, shivering a little. “Oh, didn't they tell you? Nothing much was taken. As a matter of fact I heard none of it. I was asleep in bed. It was quite some time before Miss Ricardo told me there had been a break-in. She and my wife are so kind. They always want to save me anxiety.”

“Exactly when was this, sir?” Wexford asked.

“Let me see. I'd say it was sometime in the weeks between the elder Mr. Grimble's death and the younger Mr. Grimble digging his trench. But my wife and Miss Ricardo would know.”

Burden asked what had been taken.

“Oh, only some cutlery, nothing valuable, not even silver, and, rather oddly, I thought, some bed linen.”

Something made Wexford glance toward the French windows. On a sunny day-the sun hadn't yet set-it is impossible to see much through glass of what lies behind it. He could just make out two figures watching them, and then one of them moved away.

“Here comes Miss Ricardo now,” said Tredown. “She can tell you better than I can.”

Claudia was crossing the lawn, her long lacy black skirt sweeping the grass. Which ring on those long fingers was for her? Or had neither any connection with those two women?

“I think you've met these gentlemen, Cee. I was telling them about our burglary.”

“Burglary? I thought you had to break a window to qualify as a burglar. Some homeless person got in-I'd left a downstairs window on the catch. He took some knives and forks and a sheet.”

“Would that have been a purple-colored sheet, Miss Ricardo?”

“How could you possibly know?” Her voice rose an octave. “How clever of you! It was mine actually. When I came to live here I brought some of my old bed linen. I'd been a hippie, you know, I'm sure you can believe it, I'm still a bit of a one now. All that lovely sexual free-for-all. I put myself about a bit, as you can imagine.” She seemed to recall that a question had been asked, and continued: “Oh, yes, we had stuff like that, black and red and purple sheets, quite mad.”

“You don't read the papers then?” said Burden.

“No, indeed. They're always full of horrors. Wars and murders and torture-oh, and rapes, of course.” Uttering this catalog of human suffering brought on a fit of the giggles. “Oh, do excuse me. It's not funny, is it?”

“I asked,” said Burden, in his best dull, humorless, and plodding way, a manner he adopted to hide his anger, “because we appealed for people to identify a purple sheet.”

Soundlessly, not apparently disturbing the still air, Maeve had arrived. Turning his head, Wexford saw her standing just behind him, uncomfortably close behind him, the dying sun shining on her yellow hair. She smelled of vanilla, a perfume strong enough to fight with and conquer the lingering aroma of sage. “Still cross with us, Chief Inspector?” she whispered almost into his ear.

He ignored her. “Did you report this break-in to the police? No? I must tell you that a purple sheet was wrapped round the body in the trench.”

Claudia gave a shriek, loud enough to cause the blackbird to take flight. “How dreadful. My old sheet used as a shroud!”

“We'll leave you now, Mr. Tredown,” Wexford said. “Tell me, are you writing anything at the moment?”

Claudia answered for him. “Not at the moment, as you can see. At the moment he's sitting here, smoking Salvia. ” She began to laugh again. “Aren't you shocked? It may be a psychoactive substance, but it's perfectly legal. A bit naughty, but legal.”

For the first time her ex-husband seemed embarrassed by her. He said, “Now, Cee, come along,” in a feeble way, then to Wexford, “As a matter of fact I'm back at my old theme for a change, using the rich seam of Bible history for my source. Have you read any of my books?”

“I've read The Queen of Babylon. ” Please don't ask me if I enjoyed it.

He didn't ask. “Ah, yes, Esther, she who was responsible for hanging Haman high. This time I am using the story of Judith and Holofernes.”

He got up, staggered a little, put one hand to his back. Was this the cancer or the sage? Wexford wondered. They accompanied him back to the house and the women followed them, giggling together. Wexford, saying good-bye to Maeve Tredown, had never before thought it possible he would see something sinister about a small fair-haired woman in a sweater and skirt. They walked to the car.

“Are they all mad?” Burden said.

“God knows. At least he's civil. He doesn't snigger at every word one utters. Do they grow the sage? Or do they buy it? Is it effective against pain? Claudia is right about it being perfectly legal.”

Burden avoided the sage question. “He looks to me like he's dying. You're the reader. You can tell me. Do people really read books-novels-about Bible stories? I mean, would they be popular?”

“I wouldn't think so. I didn't much care for that Babylon one. I didn't finish it. But the one they're making the play about, the thing Sheila's going to be in, that's not about the Bible. That's fantasy, ancient gods and goddesses, fabulous animals, heaven and hell. It was a tremendous bestseller.”

“I shall never understand that sort of thing,” said Burden.

Wexford was telling his conference about the purple sheet. “However, the burglary wasn't reported. I doubt if we'd still have a record of it if it had been. Any questions?”

Hannah's hand was up. “Are we thinking the burglar was our perpetrator, guv?”

“It's possible. Maeve Tredown would certainly like us to think that way.”

“But it's crazy, guv. Some villain steals a sheet on purpose to have a shroud all ready to wrap a body in? And he steals it from the house next door? Is he trying to incriminate the Tredowns? Does he know the Tredowns?”

“I don't know, Hannah. When you come up with some answers, I'll be interested to hear them.”

Damon Coleman had nothing to contribute. It was Friday and he and Burden were off to speak to Irene McNeil and then to revisit the house in Grimble's Field. Barry was on the point of saying something about the extract he had read in the Sunday Times but he thought better of it; it was too thin, too distant and remote. He folded up the newspaper page once more and put it in his jacket pocket.

Mrs. McNeil's cleaner showed them in. Her employer sat in an armchair with her feet up on a footstool, her swollen ankles bulging over the sides and tops of her shoes. They looked as if they must cause her pain as well as discomfort.

“We want to ask you a little more about your visits to Mr. Grimble's house, Mrs. McNeil,” Burden said, keeping his eyes away from those ankles.

Irene McNeil said rather too quickly, “I never went into the house. What gave you that idea?”

“Never? Not even, for instance, after Mr. Grimble was dead? I wondered if his son asked you to have a look round the place, you or your husband, and choose some little thing of Mr. Grimble's as a memento. You'd been neighbors for a long while, after all.”

“Grimble ask me that?” She sounded genuinely indignant. “The man's a complete boor. He'd no more offer me something like that than he'd have a courteous word for me. I told you I never entered that house and I meant it. I'm extremely tired. I hope all this arguing isn't going to go on much longer.”

Burden said, “I'm sorry you see it as arguing, Mrs. McNeil. We simply want to get to the truth of the matter and to do that I'm afraid we have to question you. We'll try not to pressurize you.”

“Then I think you ought to believe me when I say I never went into that house. I hadn't any call to go in there. It wouldn't have crossed my mind to go in there. I hadn't got a key, had I? What would I go in there for?”

She was protesting too much, Burden noted. “Mrs. McNeil, what would you say if I were to tell you that you were seen going into that house?”

“I'd say that whoever told you that was a liar.” She had reared her heavy bulk up in her chair in order to say this and the effort exhausted her. She collapsed back, said, “I don't feel at all well. Please give me some water.”

Damon poured water from a carafe on a side table and handed it to her. She didn't thank him but stared as if they had never met before. The cleaner came in, appointed herself Mrs. McNeil's carer, and bustled about, feeling her employer's forehead, announcing that she would get fresh water, and glaring horribly at the two policemen. They left.

“I wonder what she went in there for.” Burden looked back at the house as if it might answer him.

“If she went in, sir,” said Damon.

“She went in all right.”

Vincenzo Bellini, called one of the four great figures of Italian opera, was preferred by Barry Vine over all others. He often wondered what beautiful music was lost to the world by the composer's dying of gastroenteritis at the age of thirty-three. On Saturday evening, Barry's wife having gone to see her parents, he was indulging himself by listening to I puritani. But when its sweet pathos drew to a close and a pardon had been issued to Riccardo, he remembered the piece of newsprint he had put into his desk and suddenly it no longer seemed to him-what were the words he had used of it? Remote? Distant?-anything but urgent. How could he have neglected it for so long, nearly a week? Was he that irresponsible?

His parents-in-law lived only in the next street and his wife hadn't taken the car. Thank God. Without the means of getting down to the police station he'd have laid awake all night worrying about “Gone Without Trace.” It was with a sense of enormous relief that he found the piece of paper where he had left it and he settled down there and then in the empty office to read.