by Ruth Rendell
This is a murder enquiry, sir’ Wexford said.
'We were just going to have dinner’ Helen Missal spoke sulkily. She smoothed her blue skirt and fidgeted with a string of ivory beads. ‘I suppose we'd better go into your study, Pete. Ihge'll be in and out of the dining-room. God! God damn it all, why can't you leave me in peace?' She turned to Quadrant's wife and said: 'Will you excuse me a moment, Fabia, darling? That is, if you can bear to stay and eat with the criminal classes.'
'You're sure you don't want Douglas to go with you?' Fabia Quadrant sounded amused, and Burden wondered if the Missals had warned them of the impending visit, suggested perhaps that this was to enquire into some parking offence. 'As your solicitor, I mean’ she said. But Wexford had mentioned murder and when he lit that cigarette Quadrant had been frightened.
‘Don't be long,' Missal said.
They went into the study and Wexford closed the door.
‘I want my lipstick back,' Helen Missal said, 'and I want my dinner.' Unmoved, Wexford said, 'And I want to know who you went out with when you lost your lipstick, madam’
It was just a friend’ she said. She looked coyly up at Wexford, whining like a little girl asking permission to have a playmate to tea. 'Aren't I allowed to have any friends?'
'Mrs Missal, if you continue to refuse to tell me this man's name I shall have no alternative but to question your husband.'
Burden was becoming used to her sudden changes of mood, but still he was not quite prepared for this burst of violence.
'You nasty low-down bastard!' she said.
'I'm not much affected by that sort of abuse, madam. You see, I'm accustomed to moving in circles where such language is among the terms of reference. His name, please. This is a murder enquiry.'
'Well, if you must know it was Douglas Quadrant'
And that. Burden thought, accounts for the choking act in the other room
'Inspector Burden’ Wexford said, 'will you just take Mr Quadrant into the dining-room (never mind about Miss Wolff’s dinner) and ask him for his version of what happened on Wednesday night? Or was it Tuesday afternoon, Mrs Missal?'
Burden went out and Wexford said with a little sigh, 'Very well, madam, now I'd like to hear about Wednesday night all over again.'
'What’ s that fellow going to say in front of my husband?'
Inspector Burden is a very discreet officer. Provided I find everything satisfactory I've no doubt you can convince your husband that Mr Quadrant was consulted simply in his capacity as your solicitor.'
This was the line Burden took when he went back into the drawing-room.
‘Is there some difficulty about Mrs Missal, then, Inspector?' Fabia Quadrant asked. She might have been asking some minion if he had attended to the wants of a guest. ‘I expect my husband can sort it out’
Quadrant got up lazily. Burden was surprised that he offered no resistance. They went into the dining-room and Burden pulled out two chairs from the side of the table. It was laid with place mats, tall smoky purple glasses, knives and forks in Swedish steel and napkins folded into the shape of water-lilies.
'A man must live’ Quadrant said easily when Burden asked him about his drive with Helen Missal. 'Mrs Missal is perfectly happily married. So am I. We just like to do a little dangerous living together from time to time. A drive, a chink... No harm done and everyone the happier for it’ He was being disarmingly frank.
Burden wondered why. It didn't seem to tie up with his manner when they had first arrived. Everyone the happier for it? Missal didn't look happy ... and the woman with the rings? She had her money to console her. But what had all this to do with Mrs Parsons?
'We drove to the lane’ Quadrant said, 'parked the car and stood on the edge of the wood to have a cigarette. You know how smoky it gets inside a car, Inspector’ Burden was to be brought in as another man of the world. I'm afraid I know nothing about the lipstick. Mrs Missal is rather a happy-go-lucky girl. She tends to be careless about unconsidered trifles.' He smiled. ‘Perhaps that’s what I like about her.'
Had he seen him? Part of the time, yes, but he certainly hadn't had Quadrant under his eye all day.
‘I suppose all this did happen on Wednesday’ Burden said, 'not Tuesday afternoon?'
'Now, come. Inspector. I was in court all day Tuesday. You saw me yourself.'
'We'd like to have a look at your car tyres, sir.' But as he said it Burden knew it was hopeless. Quadrant admitted visiting the lane on Wednesday.
In the study Wexford was getting much the same story from Helen Missal.
'We didn't go into the wood’ she said. 'We just stood under the trees. I took my handbag with me because it had got quite a bit of money in it and I mink I must have dropped my lipstick when I opened the bag to get my hanky out'
‘You never went out of sight of the car?'
The net was spread and she fell in it
'We never went out of sight of the car,' she said. 'We just stood under the trees and talked.'
'What a nervous person you must be, Mrs Missal, nervous and extremely cautious. You had Mr Quadrant with you and you were in sight of the car, but you were afraid someone might try to steal your handbag under your very eyes.'
She was frightened now and Wexford was sure she hadn't told him everything.
'Well, that's how it happened. I can't be expected to account for everything I do.'
I'm afraid you can, madam. I suppose you've kept your cinema ticket?'
'Oh, my God! Can't you give me any peace? Of course I don't keep cinema tickets.'
'You don't show much foresight, madam. It would have been prudent to have kept it in case your husband wanted to see it. Perhaps you’ll have a look for that ticket and when you've found it I'd like you to bring it down to the station. The tickets are numbered and it will be simple to determine whether yours was issued on Tuesday or Wednesday’
Quadrant was waiting for him in the dining-room, standing by the sideboard now and reading the labels on two bottles of white wine. Burden still sat at the table.
'Ah, Chief Inspector,' Quadrant said in the tone he used for melting the hearts of lay magistrates. '"What a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive"!'
‘I wish you could convince Mrs Missal of the truth of that maxim, sir. Very unfortunate for you that you happened to choose that particular lane for your... your talk with her on Wednesday night.'
'May I assure you. Chief Inspector, that it was merely a matter of misfortune.' He continued to look at the bottles of Barsac, misted and ice-cold. 'Had I been aware of the presence of Mrs Parsons' body in the wood I should naturally have come straight to you. In my position, my peculiar position, I always take it upon myself to give every possible assistance to you good people’
It is a peculiar position, isn't it, sir? What I should call a stroke of malignant fate.'
In the drawing-room Missal and Mrs Quadrant were sitting in silence. They looked. Burden thought, as if they had little in common. Helen Missal and the solicitor filed in, smiling brightly, as if they had all been playing some party game. The charade had been acted, the word discovered. Now they could all have their dinner.
'Perhaps we can all have our dinner now,' Missal said.
Wexford looked at him.
‘I believe you were in Kingsmarkham on Tuesday afternoon, Mr Missal? Perhaps, you'll be good enough to tell me where you were exactly and if anyone saw you.'
'No, I won't’ Missal said. ‘I’m damned if I do. You send your henchman -'
'Oh, Peter’ Fabia Quadrant interrupted. 'Henchman! What a word.'
Burden stood woodenly, waiting.
'You send your underling to show me up in front of my clients and my staff. You persecute my wife. I'm damned if I tell you what I do with every minute of my time!'
'Well, I had to’ Helen Missal said. She seemed pleased with herself, delighted that the focus of attention had shifted from herself to her husband.
‘I’d like a sample from your c
ar tyres’ Wexford said, and Burden wondered despairingly if they were going to have to scrape mud from the wheels of every car in Kingsmarkham.
The Merc's in the garage’ Missal said. 'Make yourself at home. You do inside, so why not make free with the grounds? Maybe you'd like to borrow the lawn for the police sports.'
Fabia Quadrant smiled slightly and her husband pursed his lips and looked down. But Helen Missal didn't laugh. She glanced quickly at Quadrant and Burden thought she gave the ghost of a shiver. Then she lifted her glass and drained the sherry at a single gulp.
Wexford sat at his desk, doodling on a piece of paper. It was time to go home, long past time, but they still had the events of the day, the stray remarks, the evasive answers, to sift through and discuss. Burden saw that the Chief Inspector was writing, apparently aimlessly, the pair of names he had scribbled that morning when Mrs Missal had first come to him: Missal, Parsons; Parsons, Missal.
'But what's the connection, Mike? There must be a connection.' Wexford sighed and drew a thick black line through the names. 'You know, sometimes I wish this was Mexico. Then we could keep a crate of hooch in here. Tequila or some damn' thing. This everlasting tea is making me spew.'
'Quadrant and Mrs Missal...' Burden began slowly.
They're having a real humdingin' affair,' Wexford interrupted, 'knocking it off in the back of his Jag.' Burden was shocked.
'A woman like that?' he saicL 'Why wouldn't they go to an hotel?'
'The best bedroom at The Olive and Dove? Be your age. He can't go near her place because of Inge and she can't go to his because of his wife.'
'Where does he live?'
'You know where Mrs Missal keeps her car? Well, up on the other side, on the corner of what our brothers in the uniformed branch call the junction with the Upper Kingsbrook Road. That place with the turrets. She couldn't go there because of darling Fabia. My guess is they went to that lane because Dougie Q. knows it well, takes all his bits of stuff there. It’s quiet, if s dark and if s nasty. Just the job for him and Mrs M. When they've had their fun and games in the back of the car they go into the wood...'
‘Perhaps Mrs Missal saw a rabbit, sir,' Burden said innocently.
'Oh, for God's sake!' Wexford roared. ‘I don't know why they went into the wood, but Mrs Missal might well fancy having a bit more under the bushes in God's sweet air. Maybe they saw the body...'
'Quadrant would have come to us.'
'Not if Mrs Missal persuaded him not to, not if she said it would mean her Peter and his Fabia finding out about them. She got to work on him and our courteous Dougie, whom ne'er the word of No woman heard speak - I can read, Mike - our courteous Dougie agrees to say nothing about it'
Burden looked puzzled. Finally he said: 'Quadrant was scared, sir. He was scared stiff when we came in’
‘I suppose he guessed it was going to come out His wife was there. That’s quite natural.'
Then wouldn't you have expected him to have been more cagey about it all? But he wasn't. He was almost too open about it'
'Perhaps’ Wexford said, lie wasn't scared we were going to ask about it He was scared of what we were going to ask.'
'Or of what Mrs Missal might say’
'Whatever it was, we didn't ask it or she gave the right answer. The right answer from his point of view, I mean’
‘I asked him about Tuesday. He said he was in court all day. Says I saw him there. I did, too, off and on.'
Wexford groaned, likewise,' he said. ‘I saw him but I wasn't keeping a watch on him and that makes a mighty lot of difference. I was up in Court One. He was defending in that drunk driving case downstairs. Let me think. They adjourned at one, went back at two.'
'We went into the Carousel for lunch...'
'So did he. I saw him. But we went upstairs, Mike. He may have done too. I don't know. He was back in court by two and he didn't have the car. He walks when he's that near home’
'Missal could do with taking a leaf out of his book,' Burden said. 'Get his weight down. He's a nasty piece of work, sir. Henchman!' he added in disgust.
'Underling, Mike,' Wexford grinned. 'What’s stopping him telling us where he was on Tuesday?'
'God knows, but those tyres were as clean as a whistle.'
He could have left the car on the Pomfret Road.' True.'
'I suppose Mrs Missal could have got some idea into her head that Quadrant was carrying on with Mrs P.-'
Wexfordhad begun to look fretful. 'Oh, come off it,' he said. ‘Dougie Q. and Mrs P.? He's been knocking it off on the side for years. It’s common knowledge. But have you seen the sort of things his taste runs to? I tell you, on Saturday mornings the High Street is littered with his discards, consoling themselves for their broken maidenheads or their broken marriages by showing off their new Mini-Minors. Mrs P. just wasn't his style. Anyway, Mrs Missal wouldn't have done murder for him. He was just a different way of passing a dull evening, one degree up on the telly’
‘I thought it was only men who looked at it that way.' Burden was always startled by his chief's occasional outbursts of graphic frankness. Wexford, who was always intuitive, sometimes even lyrical, could also be coarse. 'She was risking a lot for a casual affair.'
'You want to buck your ideas up, Mike,' Wexford snapped. 'Minna's Oxford Book of Victorian Verse is just about your mark. I'm going to lend it to you for your bedtime reading.'
Burden took the book and flicked through the pages: Walter Savage Landor, Coventry Patmore, Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton ... The names seemed to come from far away, the poets long dust What possible connection could they have with dead, draggled Minna, with the strident Missals? Love, sin, pain - these were the words that sprang from almost every verse. After Quadrant's flippancies they sounded like ridiculous anachronisms.
'A connecting link, Mike’ Wexford said. That's what we want, a connection.'
But there was none to be found that night. Wexford took three of the other books ('Just in case our Mr Doon underlined anything or put in any fancy little ticks') and they walked out into the evening air. Beyond the bridge Quadrant's car still waited.
Chapter 8
One of my cousins long ago,
A little thing the mirror said...
James Thomson, In the Room
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's Road, Balham. At this tim
e the household included Anne Mary Ives, daughter of the above, birth registered at Balham, February 1st, 1932.
Leading Aircraftman Ives was transferred to Flag-ford, 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 Hagford.
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 42 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've 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?'
