by Ruth Rendell
and he was sure Vine didn’t. But when they came into the Benefit Office, Zack was still there. He was one of a dozen people waiting, sitting on the grey chairs. Burden had made what he thought was an intelligent guess at which one of the seven or eight men he was and got it wrong. The first person he approached, a boy of perhaps twenty-two with a blond crewcut, three rings in each ear and one in a nostril, turned out to be a John MacAntony. The only other man who could possibly be Zack Nelson admitted it first with an exaggerated shrug, then a nod. He was tallish and of all the men in there, in the best condition. It looked as if he worked out with weights, for his body was lean and hard and he had no need to flex his bare arms to show the large round muscles that stretched the sleeves of a dirty red polo shirt. His long hair, as greasy as Kimberley’s, was plaited for an inch or two before being tied with a shoelace. Inside the open neck of his shirt, under the fuzz of dark hair, could be seen the greenish-blue, red and black inks of an elaborate tattoo. ‘A word,’ said Burden. ‘It’ll have to wait till my number comes up,’ said Zack Nelson without irony. Burden was baffled, then saw that he referred to the neon signs that hung from the ceiling. When the number on his card appeared he would go up to a desk to sign on. ‘How long is that going to be, then?’ ‘Five minutes. Maybe ten.’ Zack made the sort of face at Vine that he himself had made when he smelt the inside of the cottage. ‘What’s the hurry?’ ‘No hurry,’ said Burden. ‘We’ve got plenty of time.’ They moved away and sat on a pair of grey chairs. Burden fingered one of the leaves of the houseplant in the tub next to him. It had the faintly sticky, rubbery texture of polythene. Vine said in a low voice. ‘He looks like you, you know. I mean, if you grew your hair and didn’t wash much. He might be your young brother.’ Incensed by this, Burden said nothing. But he remembered what Percy Hammond had said, that the man he had seen in the night coming out of Ladyhall Court looked like him. If it was true, and here was Vine absurdly confirming it, it said a lot for the old man’s powers of observation. It meant that the old man could be trusted. He looked about the big room. Behind the counter were Osman Messaoud, Hayley Gordon and Wendy Stowlap, this last apparently suffering from an allergy, for she kept wiping her nose on a succession of coloured tissues pulled from a box in front of her. All were occupied with clients. Cyril Leyton stood outside the door of his office deep in conversation with the security officer. Messaoud’s client finished her business and moved away from the desk. A number came up in red neon and the boy with the rings in ears and nose went up. You couldn’t see the New Claims Officers from where Burden sat, only the sides of their booths. He got up and began walking about, apparently aimlessly, but avoiding confrontation with Leyton. The new claims officer sitting in the booth next to Peter Stanton’s must be a replacement for Annette, but was too far away for Burden to read the name tag he wore. In the light of increased knowledge, Burden made a mental note to subject Stanton to a second interview. After all, the man had admitted to taking Annette out. Was she, in his company, trying to find herself a better option than Bruce Snow? And if so, what had gone wrong? He was alerted by a woman shouting and he turned round. This was the first instance of ‘trouble’ there had been since they began calling at the Benefit Office. The woman, fat
and unkempt, was complaining to Wendy Stowlap about a lost giro and Wendy seemed to be checking on the computer screen that it had been sent to her. The answer wasn’t apparently acceptable and the torrent of complaint became a stream of abuse, culminating in a yell of, ‘You’re a whore!’ Wendy looked up, unmoved. She shrugged. ‘How did you know?’ There came a faint snigger from Peter Stanton who was passing the counter on his way to pick up a leaflet. The woman turned her invective on him and there was a moment when Burden considered intervening. But the staff seemed competent to deal with verbal abuse, and the woman soon deflated. Zack Nelson’s number appeared in red neon at last and he went up to Hayley Gordon. Vine thought her a little like Nelson’s girlfriend Kimberley to look at, only cleaner and better dressed and – you had to face it – better fed. Zack would get – what? Nothing here, of course, but when his giro arrived he would collect from the post office unemployment benefit for himself of around forty pounds and the DSS would provide the Income Support for Kimberley and Clint – or did Kimberley herself collect Clint’s Child Benefit? It was always the mother, wasn’t it? Vine had to confess he didn’t know. But no doubt they didn’t live in poverty because they liked it. These were private thoughts which would not affect his attitude to Zack who was a thief, he reflected, and a villain. They weren’t permitted to arrest him in here, not unless requested to do so by the ES staff. ‘We’ll talk in the car,’ he said when Zack returned, having assured himself of support for another fortnight. ‘About what?’ ‘Bob Mole,’ said Burden, ‘and a radio with blood on it.’ It was, as he said to Wexford later, as easy as taking peppermints from a baby who didn’t like them. ‘That was never blood,’ said Zack. He realized immediately what he had said, rolled his eyes and clapped one hand over his mouth. ‘Why not blood?’ said Vine, leaning close. ‘She was strangled. It was on telly. It was in the papers.’ ‘So you admit you were in Annette Bystock’s place, that the radio was hers?’ ‘Look, I . . .’ ‘We’ll go back to the police station, Sergeant Vine. Zack Nelson, you need not say anything in answer to the charge but anything you do say will be taken down and may be given in evidence . . .’
Chapter Ten ‘Not with murder?’ said Zack in the interview room. Wexford didn’t answer. ‘What is your name, anyway? Zachary? Zachariah?’ ‘You what? No, it’s fucking not. It’s Zack. There was some singer called his son Zack what is where my mum got it from. OK? I want to know if you’re charging me with murdering that woman.’ ‘Tell us when you went into the flat, Zack,’ said Burden. ‘It was the Wednesday night, was it?’ ‘Who says I ever went in the flat?’ ‘She didn’t bring that radio round to you and give it to you for a birthday present.’ This was a lucky shot on Wexford’s part, not even intelligent guesswork. If it had been December instead of July he would have said ‘Christmas present.’ Zack stared at him in a kind of horror, as he might have at some clairvoyant possessed of proven supernatural powers. ‘How d’you know Wednesday was my birthday?’ Wexford held back his laughter with difficulty. ‘Many happy returns. What time was it you went into the flat?’ ‘I want my lawyer,’ said Zack. ‘Yes, I expect you do. I would in your position. You can phone him later. I mean, you can find one later and phone him.’ Zack gave him a suspicious glare. Wexford said, ‘Let’s talk about the ring.’ ‘What ring?’ ‘A ruby ring worth two grand, give or take a bit.’ ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ ‘Was she dead, Zack, before you took that ring off her finger?’ ‘I never took no ring off her finger! It wasn’t on her finger, it was on the table!’ Once more he had dropped himself in it. ‘Fuck it all,’ he said. ‘You’d better start at the beginning, Zack,’ said Burden. ‘Tell us all about it.’ Silently he blessed the recording device which had all this on tape. There was no arguing with it. Zack made a few more attempts at argument before caving in. Finally he said, ‘What’s in it for me if I tell you what I found in there and what I saw?’ ‘How about you come up in court tomorrow instead of Friday, you only get one night in a cell and Sergeant Camb’ll bring you a Diet Coke for a nightcap.’ ‘Don’t give me that crap. I mean, if I tell you what I know I could help you find her killer.’ ‘You’ll do that anyway, Zack. You don’t want a charge of obstructing the police as well as burglary.’ Zack, who had an impressive record of petty offences, the computer had informed Wexford, knew all about it. ‘It wasn’t burglary. It wasn’t dark. I never did no breaking and entering.’
‘A figure of speech,’ Burden said. ‘I suppose you found the door unlocked and just walked in?’ A cunning look came into Zack’s face, making it slightly lopsided. There was something sinister about him, something called evil. His eyes narrowed. ‘Couldn’t believe me eyes,’ he said, his tone becoming conversational. ‘I tried the handle and the door came open in me
hand. I was amazed.’ ‘I’m sure. Carrying housebreaking tools, were you, just on the off-chance? What did you mean just now when you said it wasn’t dark?’ ‘It was five in the morning, wasn’t it? It’d been light an hour.’ ‘Up with the lark, were you, Zack?’ Burden couldn’t help grinning. ‘You always an early riser?’ ‘The kid woke me up and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I went out in the van to clear me head. I was just passing sort of slow – keeping in the speed limit, right? – and the front door was open, so I reckoned I’d pop in and see what was going.’ ‘D’you feel like making a statement, Zack?’ ‘I want my lawyer.’ ‘I tell you what, you make a statement and then we’ll get the Yellow Pages and find you a lawyer. How’s that?’ Zack yielded quite suddenly. He seemed to collapse without warning. One moment he was truculent, the next he had given in. ‘I don’t mind,’ he said and gave a huge yawn. ‘I’m dead tired. I don’t never get enough sleep, not with my kid.’ At approximately five am on Friday, 9 July – Zack Nelson’s statement ran – I entered Flat 4, 15 Ladyhall Avenue, Kingsmarkham. I had no housebreaking tools and did not break the door or the lock. I was wearing gloves. The front door was unlocked. It was not dark. The curtains were drawn in the living room but I could see. I saw a television set, a video recorder, a CD player and radio-cassette player, and these I removed from the flat, making two trips to do so. I came back to the flat and opened the door to the bedroom. To my surprise there was a woman in the bed. At first I thought she was asleep. Something in her attitude made me suspicious. It was the way her arm was hanging. I approached nearer but did not touch her, as I could see that she was dead. On the table by the bed was a ring and watch. I did not touch these but left the flat quickly, making sure the door was locked behind me. I put the television set, the video recorder and the radio-cassette player into the van I had loaned from my girlfriend’s father and drove home. I am a dealer in secondhand electronic equipment. I had some of the said equipment salvaged from a factory fire and, included as one lot with some of the salvaged goods, I sold the radio-cassette player to Mr Bob Mole for the sum of seven pounds. The television set and video recorder are at present in my home at 1 Lincoln Cottages, Glebe End, Kingsmarkham. ‘I like the virtuous touch about locking the door behind him, don’t you?’ Wexford said when Zack had been taken to one of the only two cells Kingsmarkham Police Station possessed. ‘At least it explains how the door came to be locked when you got there. If
anyone from the Employment Service reads an account of tomorrow’s proceedings in the magistrates’ court, Zack’s going to lose his UB. The Courier will describe him as a dealer in electronic goods.’ ‘He won’t need it where he’s going,’ Burden said. ‘No, but Kimberley and Clint will. I don’t know what happens in a case like this. Do they cut off his dependants’ Income Support? Still, he’ll not get more than six months and he’ll serve four and a bit.’ Wexford hesitated. ‘You know, Mike, there’s something odd in all this, there’s something I don’t like.’ Burden shrugged. ‘Like him finding the door unlocked and the place all open for him? Like him not taking the ring?’ ‘Well, yes, but not that so much. The front door to the house is usually unlocked and we know Ingrid Pamber left Annette’s door unlocked. He says he was afraid of taking a ring and a watch that lay beside a dead body and I believe him. What bothers me is his apparently not knowing anything about the flats or their occupants before going in there. According to him, he just slipped in without bothering to shut the door behind him. He couldn’t sleep, but he didn’t go out on foot, he went out in his van. He just happened to be wearing gloves. In a heatwave in July? According to him, he had no housebreaking tools with him, yet how many people could he count on having feckless friends and leaving their front door unlocked overnight?’ ‘There are only two flats in there,’ Burden said. ‘He’d nothing to lose. All he had to do was try Annette’s door and then go upstairs and try the Harrises’. If they were both locked he was no worse off than he had been.’ ‘I know. That’s what he says himself. Piece of amazing luck for him, wasn’t it, that the first door he tried was unlocked?’ ‘Maybe it wasn’t the first door.’ ‘He says it was. So we come to the next odd thing. If what he says is true, he had no means of knowing whether there was anyone in the flat or not. What are we to think? That because he’d seen from outside – and remembered, calculated, worked it out – that all the curtains in Flat One were closed, then discovered that the front door was unlocked, he concluded there was no one at home? That would be on the theory that no one would stay in a place overnight with the front door unlocked, but they might go away and forget to lock it. It’s all a bit tenuous.’ ‘He was taking a risk, certainly. But all burglary is risky, Reg.’ Wexford looked unconvinced. He always delved into human motive and the peculiarities of human nature while Burden concentrated on the facts, seldom disputing them however bizarre they might appear. As he made his way back to the Benefit Office, on foot this time, Burden thought of something Wexford had once said to him about Sherlock Holmes, how you couldn’t solve much by his methods. A pair of slippers with singed soles no more showed that their wearer had been suffering from a severe chill than that he had merely had cold feet. Nor could you deduce from a man’s staring at a portrait on the wall that he was dwelling on the life and career of that portrait’s subject, for he might equally be thinking how it resembled his brother-in-law or was badly painted or needed cleaning. With human nature you could only guess – and try to guess right. He caught Peter Stanton on his way out to lunch. ‘Can we have a chat?’ ‘Not if it stops me eating.’ ‘I have to eat too,’ Burden said.
‘Come out this way.’ Stanton took Burden out through the door marked ‘Private’ that led into the car park. It was a short cut to the High Street. His wife or Wexford would probably have described the man as Byronic. He had those dark piratical good looks women are said to find so attractive, the handsome features allegedly ravaged by dissipations, the dark wavy hair that by Burden’s own exacting standards was tousled, the gleam in the eye that may denote a penchant for cruelty or merely greed. Stanton wore a linen suit, stone-coloured and very crumpled, and his tie, which Leyton probably insisted he wear, was loosely tied under the collar of a not very clean shirt whose top button was undone. If it is possible to walk in a laid-back manner, Stanton did so, slouching along, his hands deep in the misshapen pockets of his baggy trousers. At the doorway of a sandwich bar with four empty tables pushed against the wall opposite the food counter, he paused and cocked a thumb. ‘I usually come here. OK?’ Burden nodded. The last time he had been in one of these places, of which Kingsmarkham now had three, he had eaten ‘prime freshwater shrimps’ and the resulting gastro-enteritis had laid him low for three days. So when Stanton picked a prawn salad sandwich he stuck austerely to cheese and tomato. He watched without comment while Stanton emptied the contents of a hip flask into his glass of Sprite. ‘I want to ask you about the kind of things you say to your clients.’ ‘Not half what I’d like to.’ Rather coldly Burden said, ‘Specifically, I want to know the kind of thing Annette might have said to Melanie Akande.’ ‘What do you mean exactly?’ ‘I mean, what happens when a new client brings back a form – is it called an ES something? – and gets given a signing-on day and so on?’ ‘You want to know what she’d have said to the girl and advised her and all that?’ Stanton sounded deeply bored. His eyes had wandered to the young woman assistant who now emerged from the back regions to join the man behind the counter. She was about twenty, blonde, tall, very pretty, wearing a white apron over a scoop-necked red tee-shirt and the kind of very short tube skirt that is as tight as a bandage. ‘Just that, Mr Stanton.’ ‘OK.’ Stanton took a swig of his Sprite cocktail. ‘Annette’d have taken a look at the ES 461, seen she’d filled it in right. There are forty-five questions to be answered in all and it’s complicated till you know how. Let’s say it’s . . . well, uncommon for a client to get it right first time on his own. On her own, I should say. They’ve got a funny taste, these prawns, sort of fishy.’ ‘Prawns are fish,’ sai
d Burden. ‘Yeah, but you know what I mean, sort of strong, like the smell of outside a fishmonger’s. Do you reckon I ought to eat them?’ Burden didn’t reply. ‘Go on about what Annette would have said to her.’ ‘There’s often something a bit off about the food here but the crumpet makes up for it. That’s why I go on coming, I suppose.’ Stanton caught Burden’s basilisk eye. ‘Yes, well, once she’d got the form straightened out she’d have given the client, Melanie What’s-her- name, a signing-on day. It’s alphabetical, that. A to K Tuesdays, L to R Wednesdays, S to Z Thursdays. No one signs on on a Monday or a Friday. What did you say she was called? Akande? She’d have had Tuesday. Once a fortnight on a Tuesday. ‘Then Annette’d have explained about how signing-on is to prove you’re still in the land of the living, haven’t buggered off somewhere or died, that you’re available and
