Wexford 22 - The Monster In The Box

by Ruth Rendell

  Incredibly, she answered him in lawyer's jargon. 'His testamentary dispositions divided everything he left between my brothers and myself. There was this cottage and his savings, not a great deal.' She hesitated, then softened a little. 'My father gave away most of what he had to his children. He sold his house and got a good price which enabled him to leave quite large sums to each of us under the seven-year rule. You know what that is? The beneficiaries get a tax concession if the donor lives for seven years. He did, in fact. Just.'

  'Very well, Miss Norton. That will be all for now.'

  Even though he hadn't yet received Meridian's report, he knew Andy Norton had been strangled. What he had at first thought to be a length of rope, but which turned out to be a window-sash cord, had been used.

  'All the sash cords were in place, sir,' DS Vine said to him.

  'This one wasn't new. It had been in a window somewhere, it was a bit worn and frayed at one end, and my guess is it was lying in a kitchen drawer or cupboard.'

  'Your guess?'

  'I realize we're going to have to find precisely where it came from, sir. They're doing a house-to-house in Cambridge Road now.'

  'Yes, well, don't let me hear of any more guesswork, right?'

  He went back to Pomfret. The house-to-house, which he could see going on, reminded him of Jewel Road all those years ago. How many house-to-house inquiries had he instigated since then? Yet the procedure taking place again brought Targo to mind. Andy Norton had been strangled and Targo was the arch-strangler. It was absurd. Why should Targo kill the harmless and innocent Andy Norton? Come to that, why had he killed Elsie Carroll and Billy Kenyon? They also had been harmless and innocent.

  Damon Coleman and Lynn Fancourt were doing the house-to-house at this end of Cambridge Road. He went up to meet them when Damon came away from the doorstep of number 18 and Lynn from number 20.

  'Any luck?'

  'A woman opposite, sir, at number 5, seems to have kept the house under surveillance, especially in the early mornings and late evenings.' Lynn Fancourt smiled. 'She disapproves of Andy Norton's relationship with Mrs Lister. She watched their comings and goings.'

  'She'll have to look elsewhere for her kicks now,' said Wexford.

  'Yes, sir. She swears no one went into the house this morning. She was watching from the moment it got light and that's at about seven. She saw Mrs Lister come out and go into her own house next door at seven fifteen.'

  Wexford went back to number 6 and made his way in through the blue-and-white-striped awning. Barry Vine was inside with a PC from the uniformed branch.

  'Suppose,' he said to Vine, 'the perpetrator came into the back garden here while it was still dark. Say at five. Come with me.'

  They went out by way of the back door into Andy Norton's garden. There was something particularly dreadful about looking at this trim and lovely place, the small lawn wheedles and neatly mown, the borders rich with autumn flowers, the four sculpted stone tubs still holding their cargos of red and apricot and pink begonias. From the moment the cultivator of this garden had died – it too had begun to die, gradually withering, abandoned to its untended state. Tomorrow it would be a little drier, the grass a little longer, or a little wetter, nearer to drowning, the dying petals starting to fall.

  'He could have come through the gate from the lane. And suppose he came in before it got light. That means before seven. Let's say he waited out here, with his sash cord. He could have hidden in the shed. He would have seen a light go on in the house and taken that as a signal. Did he know about Mrs Lister? It doesn't really matter. If she had been there would he have killed her too? But she wasn't. She had gone.'

  'You sound as if you know the perpetrator, sir?'

  'Do I, Barry?' Wexford shook his head. 'What happened next? He went up to the back door and knocked. There's a knocker but no bell. When he heard someone knock at his back door Andy Norton went to answer it and admitted him. Why? We don't know. Perhaps because it's natural for older people, brought up in a safer age, to open their doors to whoever knocks. Maybe it wasn't like that and the back door had been left unlocked overnight. Maybe it always was. We shall know more than that when I get the pathologist's report.'

  It was Targo's murder of Elsie Carroll all over again. So many small properties in these towns had lanes running at the backs of houses. So many gardens were impossible of entry except over or through those walls if the doors were locked or bolted. All the houses had back doors. Many householders still left theirs unlocked. Wexford thought of 32 Jewel Road where Targo had once lived, of 8 Glebe Road where he had lived later on in his stalking days. He would know the layout, he would know which moves were feasible.

  He rang Mrs Lister's doorbell. Her daughter let him in, explaining that instead of taking her mother away, she had stayed the night.

  'Mum's lying down.'

  'I'd like you to go up to your mother and ask her two questions: whether Mr Norton's back door was left unlocked overnight and whether there was a piece of sash cord in Mr Norton's house. You know what sash cord is?'

  'A kind of rope that opens and shuts windows.'

  'That's right. Now your mother will probably guess what this cord was used for if she didn't actually see it when she found the body. I hope she didn't see it and won't guess but if she does that can't be helped. Is all this clear?'

  'Yes, of course. I suppose it was used to strangle the poor man.'

  'What I want to know is, did this sash cord belong in the house or was it – well, brought there?'

  She went upstairs. Wexford sat there, thinking about Targo. This was more than obsession, this was paranoia. It was impossible Targo was responsible for this; wild imaginings, fixation, a kind of madness. The daughter came back into the room.

  'Mum did see it when she – found him. She recognised it. It was a piece of sash cord that had been rolled up and put in the garden shed along with balls of string and a length of rope. She says she's glad to help. She wants whoever did this caught.'

  'And the back door? Was in left unlocked?'

  'She doesn't know. She says it often was and she told Andy she thought that wasn't a good idea but he said this was the country and there wasn't much crime in the country.'

  Wexford sighed.

  The box had burst open and Targo come out of it, strutting, staring, defying him. His dilemma was the same one, the old one. How to interview – interrogate – a man lacking even a tenuous connection with the murder victim whose death he was investigating.

  'This woman,' said Burden, 'the one who lives at number 5, she saw no one but Catherine Lister when she left just after seven?'

  'She wouldn't have seen Targo if he came into the garden from the lane. If he came the same way as he came when he killed Elsie Carroll all those years ago.'

  'A man who came into the garden, Reg. A man or a woman but not Eric Targo. He's old now. If he did in fact kill Elsie Carroll – and I have my doubts about that and about Billy Kenyon – would he have the strength to strangle a man a head taller than him? Would he have the strength to strangle anyone?'

  'He would,' said Wexford. 'What excuse can I have for going to talk to him?'

  'A white van parked outside Andy Norton's house on two occasions – how about that? Or a silver Mercedes?'

  'They weren't, though. Not so far as we know. And no, Mike, we're not going in for fictitious scenarios because the fact is we don't need them. We don't need an excuse. What's to stop us questioning anyone we choose about any crime committed on our patch?'

  The day after Andy Norton's death, Donaldson, who was Wexford's driver, took him and DC Lynn Fancourt to Stringfield. Passing through Stoke Stringfield village, Wexford thought briefly of Helen Rushford, his girlfriend of a few months when he lived in Brighton, she who had told him she loved him and that he was everything she wanted. She lived here somewhere, a grandmother no doubt, and he would long have ceased to be what she wanted. In that house by the green or down that lane? In one of those pretty cottag
es? If she came out of one of those houses, would he recognise her? Probably not.

  They drew up outside Wymondham Lodge. No cars were on the driveway but the big garage had space for two vehicles so they might have been hidden from view.

  'Look, sir,' Lynn said, 'those animals. Aren't they lovely? Are they llamas or alpacas?'

  'No idea,' Wexford said, smiling at the benign-looking creatures who came up to the fence in quest perhaps of treats. 'Targo's got some big felines too, I think. Only they're behind bars.'

  When he rang the doorbell a dog started to bark. It sounded, as Lynn remarked, like two dogs, and so it was, the Tibetan spaniel and a Staffordshire bull terrier puppy, the latter on a lead held by a woman in late-middle age with the brightest red hair Wexford had ever seen. He had seen geraniums that colour but, not previously, hair. It was woven into a helmet shape that fitted over a large head and a face not resembling the terrier's or the spaniel's but with its squashed features and a turned-up nose, perhaps a Pekinese's. Thickset and stocky, she was expensively dressed in a beaded brocade jacket and black trousers. She looked impassively at their warrant cards. Her eyes, prominent and very blue like Targo's, met Wexford's.

  'Oh, yes,' she said, 'I've heard him mention you.'

  This was unexpected. 'Mrs Targo?'

  'I'm Mavis Targo, yes.'

  Her manner was harmless, her voice gruff.

  'We'd like to speak to your husband.'

  She unfastened the lead on the bull terrier and it immediately jumped up at Wexford. She gave it an indulgent smile which she switched off when she spoke. 'He's not in.'

  He gave the dog a push. It was unexpectedly strong. 'When do you expect him home?'

  'I don't. He comes when he's ready. He pleases himself.'

  'May we come in, please?'

  Wexford put his foot over the threshold and she had no choice but to let him in. Lynn followed quickly to avoid the door being slammed in her face. The old house had a graciousness its furnishings did their best to diminish. They found themselves in a big hall out of which an elegant curved staircase climbed, but it was furnished with gilded tables and chairs of the imitation eighteenth-century French variety, set about on a pink-and-white Chinese carpet. A large chandelier, a glittering waterfall of prisms, was suspended from the ceiling. The puppy jumped on one of the tables and stood there, wagging its tail.

  'Get down, sweetheart,' said Mrs Targo in a half-hearted way.

  'I don't know what you want to come in for,' she said to Wexford. 'I said he's not here and I don't know when he will be. I haven't seen him since yesterday morning.'

  'Sixty per cent of the population of this country has a mobile phone,' said Wexford. 'I think that's the correct figure. I'm sure your husband is one of them. Would you like to call him and let me speak to him?'

  'What, now?'

  'Now.'

  'You'd better come through.'

  'Coming through' meant entering a large living room, furnished in much the same style as the hall but with a blue carpet. A blue, white and pink silk rug, spread across quite a big area of this carpet, had been extensively chewed and most of its fringe was missing. The puppy homed in at once on the rug and, applying its teeth to the edge where the fringe had been, began gnawing at it with gusto.

  'Leave it, sweetheart,' said Mrs Targo, unperturbed when the dog took no notice. She picked up a pink-and-silver mobile phone from one of the tables and dialed a number in a lethargic, vaguely depressed way. Her fingernails were the same colour as her hair.

  When there appeared to be no reply she dialed a second number, beginning to shake her head. Targo stared at Wexford from a silver-framed photograph standing on a piano. It had been taken not long ago and after the treatment to remove the birthmark. Targo was smiling – smiling – proud, no doubt, of his new unblemished appearance. In anyone but this monster it would have been pathetic, even touching. For the one of him, there were four of his wife, taken when she was younger and slimmer, in one of the photographs wearing a wedding dress embroidered in sequins.

  'He's not answering,' she said. 'D'you want me to leave a message?'

  'I'll do that,' said Wexford. 'Give me the phone.' He asked Targo to contact him and gave him a number to call. If it was Targo, if the numbers she had called had been his.

  'Where was he going when he left here yesterday morning?'

  'He had a call to make in Kingsmarkham. I do know that. He did say that much but not when he'd be back or nothing.'

  'What does your husband do for a living?'

  'He's mostly retired but he still does a bit of property.'

  'You mean he's a property developer?'

  'All those right-to-buy flats, that sort of thing.'

  'So where is he, Mrs Targo?'

  'I don't know, do I? I've tried to get him for you and he's not answering. What more can I do?'

  'Your dog is eating the flowers in that vase,' said Lynn.

  Wexford suppressed a smile. 'It's now ten past three. I shall phone you at six, but whether he is back or not, we shall come back at seven. If your husband phones you please tell him I shall see him here at seven.'

  At this point, as they were returning to the hall, a disconcerting thing happened. There came from somewhere in the grounds behind the house a deep-throated roar.

  Lynn said, 'That sounded like a lion.'

  'It is a lion.' Mavis Targo sighed. 'That's King. My husband's crazy about him but I don't know . . . Well, I'll have to feed him before Eric gets back or he'll go on like that for hours.'

  'Is he allowed to keep a lion like that?' Lynn asked when they were outside.

  'God knows. I'm not going to worry about that now.' Another roar and another sounded more loudly. 'Good thing he hasn't any near neighbours.' Put the lion in a box and shut it up in a drawer . . .

  At seven, when he and Lynn went back, the lion was silent and in the darkness no other animals could be seen. The sky appeared starless, the land an undulating grey expanse dotted with black trees which the imaginative might have compared to the plains of Africa. Targo was still out. He had phoned, his wife said, or someone had phoned, and left her a message on the landline.

  'You mean you were out when this person phoned?'

  'I had to feed King, didn't I? And that scares me to death. And then I had to take the dogs out.'

  'Who was it left you a message?'

  'I don't know. I thought it was someone in his office but he's told me he's got no one working for him just now.'

  'Are you saying it was Mr Targo himself disguising his voice?'

  'It could have been. I couldn't tell, I was in a state worrying about King.'

  Perhaps you need a box of your own, Wexford thought. 'What did the message say?'

  'Just that he was OK and he'd call me.'

  'What, this mysterious voice simply said it was speaking on behalf of your husband and he'd call you tomorrow?'

  'That's right.'

  'I'd like to listen to it, please.'

  'Oh, it's not there now. I erased it. I always do that with messages to avoid getting in a muddle.'

  'All right. I want the address of his office, the numbers of all the phones he has. The number of his car. DC Fancourt will take those numbers from you. Come along now, Mrs Targo.'

  When Lynn had taken the numbers down, having some difficulty in extracting that of the Mercedes from her, she asked about the white van and was told it was in the garage. Mavis Targo was at last beginning to show signs of agitation. It had taken a long time to shake her out of her apathy but she was shaken now.

  'I keep telling you I don't know where he is. I don't keep tabs on him. I wouldn't be here long,' she added with a flash of bitterness, 'if I did.'

  'His son and daughter live here or near here. I'd like their addresses and phone numbers.'

  'I haven't got them! I've hardly ever seen them. He doesn't have them here, he goes to them. I don't know where they live.'

  'Then I suggest you get busy with the phone
book. I suppose you know his daughter's married name?'

  She did. Eventually, it was Lynn who found the phone book and looked up the names while Mrs Targo smoked a cigarette and, fetching herself a gin and tonic, asked Wexford if he and 'the young lady' would like a drink. This was refused. The Tibetan spaniel began to whine, its note growing shriller until the puppy followed suit, first yapping, then emitting a full-throated bark.

  'They're asking for their dinner,' said Mavis Targo.

  Lynn patted the puppy on its head. 'Missing his master too, I expect.'

  The office address was in Sewing bury, three or four miles away, in a small two-storey building on the edge of the industrial estate. Street lamps were on but most buildings were in darkness, including Targo's office. Like the place he had had in Myringham when he was a travel agent, it appeared to consist of one room. The door was of glass and the window a sheet of plate glass, through which, as at Myringham, a desk and two chairs could be seen by the light of Lynn's torch. On the floor were two empty bowls, one for water, the other for dogwood. All that was missing were the posters of exotic locations and the proprietor. Neither Targo nor anyone else were about and the door was locked. No cars were on the parking spaces adjacent to the building. The whole place seemed infinitely desolate.

  Back in his own office, Wexford phoned all the numbers he had been given. On Targo's he was put on to message. Alan Targo answered his own phone, was polite and pleasant but had no idea where his father was. He hadn't seen him for three weeks.

  'I'm a solicitor,' he said. 'My firm's in Queen Street.'

  Wexford thought of telling him they had last met when Alan was a child of four but he thought better of it.

  'My sister's here, as a matter of fact, if you want to talk to her. But I know she hasn't seen Dad for weeks.'

  She hadn't. He recalled that other evening, long ago, when Alan had been sitting at his father's feet stroking the dog and this woman he was talking to had been still in her mother's womb. Nothing odd about that, though. Half the people he talked to had been yet unborn when he was young . . .