by Ruth Rendell
She received him without pomp, without preparation. She wore red trousers, a red spotted smock and no make-up. A big old vacuum cleaner, cast off perhaps by some more affluent relative, was plugged in just inside the front door. He had heard its whine die away when he rang the bell.
She was expecting him and she put on a kettle to make coffee. ‘I miss Dawn,’ she said. ‘Especially round about lunch-time. We were almost always together then. I keep expecting to hear her call out from her bedroom that she’s dying for a cup of coffee. Oh, “dying”—the expressions one uses! But she often said she was dying. Dying of boredom, dying for a drink.’
‘I know so little about her. If I knew more, I might know how and why. You see, Miss Miall, there are two kinds of murder victim, those who are killed by a stranger for gain or for some obscure pathological reason, and those who are killed by someone who is not a stranger, someone who might be or have been a friend. It is in those cases that it’s invaluable to know as much as may be known about the character and the tastes and the peculiarities of the victim.’
‘Yes, I do see. Of course I do.’ She paused, frowning. ‘But people are little worlds, aren’t they? There’s so much in everyone, depths and layers, strange countries if we’re talking about worlds. I might just be showing you the wrong country.’
It took her a little while to get the coffee. She was a faddist, he remembered. He heard and smelt her grinding coffee beans—nothing pre-ground out of a packet for her—and when she came in with the tray he saw that the coffee was in an earthenware jug. But as soon as she sat down she lit a cigarette and she sighed with a kind of relief as she exhaled. It recalled to him her words about the strange countries in each person’s make-up. She hadn’t mentioned the inconsistencies which those who delve into character must encounter as bafflingly as the unknown.
‘Did you both work every night at the Townsman?’ he began.
‘It’s more complicated than that. We do lunches as well. Members can lunch between twelve and three, so we either work an eleven till five shift or one from seven at night to two in the morning. If you do the night shift, you can be sure you won’t have to do the lunchtime one next day, but otherwise it’s rather haphazard. We get two full days off a week, not necessarily Saturday and Sunday, of course. Dawn and I often worked the same shift, but just as often we didn’t. There were lots and lots of times when she was alone here seeing people and getting calls I knew nothing about.’
‘You knew about the one particular call you told me of.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’ve thought a lot about that since then, trying to sort it all out, and I’ve remembered all sorts of things I didn’t tell you. But the things I’ve remembered aren’t helpful. They really only prove it wasn’t Zeno Vedast who phoned her.’
‘I’d like to hear them just the same.’
‘I forgot to tell you that his name came up long before the phone call. It must have been in March or April. Of course, we’d see him on TV or read about him in the papers and she’d say she’d known him for years, but she never actually spoke of him as a friend she saw. Then one morning—I think it was the end of March—she said he’d been in the club the night before. I hadn’t been working that night and, frankly, I didn’t believe her. I knew he wasn’t a member. I asked one of the other girls and she said Zeno Vedast had been in and had sort of chatted Dawn up a bit. I still wasn’t convinced and I’m not now—about the friendship, I mean. We get a lot of celebrities in the club and they do chat us up. That’s what we’re there for.’
‘When did the phone call come, Miss Miall?’
‘It was a Monday.’ She frowned, concentrating. ‘Dawn had had the day off, I’d been working the lunchtime shift. Let me see—it wasn’t the last Monday in May. I think it must have been May twenty-third, about half past eight in the evening. We were sitting in here by ourselves, watching television. The phone rang and Dawn answered it. She said hallo and then something like, “How super of you to phone me.” She covered up the mouthpiece and whispered to me to turn down the TV. Then she said, “It’s Zeno Vedast.” I was embarrassed. I thought she must be in a really neurotic state if she was prepared to fantasise that far.’
Wexford accepted a second cup of coffee. ‘Miss Miall, suppose I told you that Vedast did recognise her in the club, that it was he who phoned that night, what would you say to that?’
‘That I knew her and you didn’t,’ the girl said obstinately. ‘He was in the club all right. I know that. He talked to her. A maharajah talked to me for half an hour one night but that doesn’t make us lifelong friends. I’ll tell you why I’m sure it wasn’t Zeno Vedast who phoned. When some celebrity really took notice of Dawn—a film star paying her attention at the club, say—she’d be full of it for days. When it was just make-believe—or let-me-believe like in his song—when she saw someone she said she knew in a photograph or on the TV, she’d comment on it, sort of reminisce a bit, and then forget all about it. After that phone call she wasn’t a bit elated. She just said, “I told you I knew him,” and then she was quite gloomy, the way she was after she’d had a nasty letter from her mother or some man had stood her up.’
‘Who did you think had phoned her then?’
‘Some new man she’d met,’ Joan Miall said firmly. ‘Someone who was attracted to her but who wasn’t rich enough or well known enough to be worth bragging about.’ A shade of sadness crossed her pretty face. ‘Dawn was getting a bit old for our kind of work and she didn’t wear well. I know that sounds ridiculous. She was only twenty-eight. But it bothered her a lot, knowing she’d be past it in a couple of years. She’d have had to get a different job or—marry Paul. She was desperate to make everyone believe she was as attractive as ever and to her way of thinking you measure attractiveness by the number of successful men who want to take you out.’
Wexford sighed. When you are twenty-five, thirty seems old. That was all right, that was natural. But surely when you are forty, thirty ought to seem young? It sickened him that this girl and her dead friend had moved in a world where to a man of fifty a girl of twenty-eight was getting ‘past it’.
‘This new man,’ he said, ‘you’ve no foundation for believing in his existence? Nothing to make you think he existed but a phone call which I tell you Vedast himself made?’
‘Yes, I have. She went out with him the following week.’
‘Miss Miall,’ Wexford said rather severely, ‘you should have told me of this before. Is this one of the “unhelpful” things you’ve remembered?’
‘One of the things that prove it wasn’t Vedast, yes. But I don’t know his name. I don’t even know if he wasn’t another of Dawn’s dreams.’
There was a framed photograph on the mantelpiece, an enlarged snapshot of a dark young man and a girl on a beach somewhere. Wexford picked up the picture and scrutinised it.
‘That’s Paul,’ said Joan Miall.
It took him a few moments to realise that the girl was Dawn. In shorts and a shirt, her hair wind-blown, she looked quite different from the painted, overdressed creature whose portrait on posters was stuck up all over Kingsmarkham like a cabaret star’s publicity. At last, he thought, she had achieved a kind of fame. Though posthumously, she had got herself into the public eye. But she looked happier in the snapshot. No, happy wasn’t the right word—content, rather, tranquil, and perhaps just a tiny bit bored?
There had been no ecstasy, no excitement, in being on a beach with her ordinary fiancé. Mrs Stonor had seen to that. By belittling her daughter, by comparing her unfavourably to others, by denying her love, she had so warped her personality that everyday affection meant nothing to her. Dawn understood love only when it came from and was directed to money and success, the love of a man who would make her rich and get her name in the papers. Well, some man had got her name in the papers …
‘Go on, Miss Miall,’ said Wexford, laying the photograph down.
‘The day I’m going to tell you about was June first. It was a Wednesday a
nd it was Paul’s birthday.’
The date meant something to Wexford. He nodded, listening alertly.
‘On the Tuesday, the day before, Dawn and I had both had our day off. She went out in the afternoon and bought the blue dress, the one she wore to go and see her mother. I remember I asked her if she’d bought it to take away on holiday with Paul. Well, she said she couldn’t make up her mind whether she was going away with Paul or not but she wouldn’t say why not, only that it might be boring. They hadn’t quarrelled. Paul spent the evening with us and stayed the night with Dawn. They seemed very happy.’
‘Let’s come to June first.’
‘Paul went off to work before we were up. He was going to come back for a birthday lunch Dawn was giving him and then take the afternoon off. Dawn and I were both due to work the evening shift. She went out to buy food for lunch, steak and salad—I insisted on fresh stuff—and after she came back, while she was laying the table, the phone rang. I answered it and a man’s voice asked to speak to Dawn. I didn’t ask who it was and he didn’t say. I gave the phone to Dawn and I didn’t stay to hear what she said. I went on with preparing the lunch. She came back into the kitchen and she was very flushed and excited-looking but a bit—well, narked too. I’m explaining this badly but I do remember just what she was like. She was excited and yet she was upset. I could see she didn’t want to say who had rung her so I didn’t ask.’
‘Did you ever find out?’
‘No, I didn’t. But there’s more to come. Paul was expected at half past one. By about a quarter to twelve everything was ready for lunch. We just had to grill the steaks when Paul came. Dawn was already dressed and made-up, but at twelve she went away and changed and when she came out of her bedroom she was wearing her new dress and she’d done her hair on top of her head and put on a lot more eye make-up. In fact, she’d overdone the whole thing and she was wearing far too much perfume. I was sitting in here reading a magazine. She came in and said, “I’ve got to go out for an hour or so. If Paul gets here before I’m back you can tell him some tale. Say I forgot the wine or something.” Well, as I said, we didn’t ask each other questions. I wasn’t too thrilled about lying to Paul. The wine was already on the table so I couldn’t say that. I just hoped she wouldn’t be long.’
‘Was she?’ Wexford asked.
‘She went out at sometime between twelve and half past. Paul was a bit late. He got here at twenty to two and still she wasn’t back. I told him she had some last-minute shopping, but I could see he was hurt. After all, it was his birthday and they were more or less engaged.’
‘When did she come back?’
‘Ten past three. I remember the time exactly because when she came in I realised she must have been in a pub and they close at three. She’d had too much to drink, anyway. Her face was all puffy and her speech wasn’t quite clear. Paul’s a very good-tempered bloke but he was nearly doing his nut by this time.’
‘Where did she say she’d been?’
‘She said she’d met a girl who used to work in the club and was now a model—poor Dawn could never resist the fame and glamour bit—and they’d gone into a pub and forgotten the time talking.’
‘You didn’t believe her?’
‘Of course I didn’t. Later on, after Paul had gone Dawn wrote to her mother to say she’d go and see her on the following Monday.’
‘You didn’t connect the pub visit with the letter?’
‘I didn’t at the time,’ the girl said thoughtfully, ‘but I do now. You see, it was very unlike Dawn to make up her mind about anything to do with her mother on the spur of the moment. She knew she had to go to Kingsmarkham sometimes but usually she’d start sort of arguing with herself about it weeks beforehand. You know, saying she’d have to go but she didn’t want to and maybe she could let it ride for a few more weeks. Then she’d write a letter and tear it up and sort of swear about it. It’d take her weeks to get a letter actually written and posted. But it didn’t this time. She sat down and dashed it off.’
Wexford said, ‘Did she ever mention what happened on June first again?’
She nodded, looking unhappy. ‘On the Saturday, the first day of her holiday. She said, “What would you think of a bloke who said he was dying to see you and the best date he could fix up was a few drinks in a pub at lunchtime?” She went to that mirror over there and put her face right close up to it, staring at herself and pulling at the skin under her eyes. “If you were really crazy about a man,” she said, “you wouldn’t care, would you? You’d just want his company. You wouldn’t worry if he was too scared or too mean to take you to a hotel for the night.” I didn’t really know whether she was referring to me or herself. I thought she might be talking about me because my boy friend is poor. Then Paul came and took her out and I gathered she meant to go away on holiday with him.’
Joan Miall sighed. She reached for a fresh cigarette but the packet was empty. The air in the room was blue with hanging smoke. Wexford thanked her and went away. In the Earls Court Road he went into a record shop and bought a single of ‘Let-me-believe’.
15
The red dress was back in Wexford’s office. Several thousand women had looked at it, handled it, backed away from the dark stain; not one had recognised it. It lay on the rosewood surface, on the wood whose colour matched it, an old shabby dress, folded, soiled, keeping its secret as implacably as ever.
Wexford touched it, glanced again at the label and at the whitish talc marks around the neckline. Dawn had worn it but she had never owned it. She had found it in Kingsmarkham and for some unfathomable reason had put it on, she who had been fashion-conscious and who was already dressed in garments which matched her shoes and her bag. She had found it in Kingsmarkham, but, unless deception had been practised, no Kingsmarkham or Stowerton woman had ever owned it. A woman never forgets any dress she has owned, not even if fifty years have elapsed between her discarding of it and her being confronted with it again, much less if only seven or eight years have passed.
Burden came into the office, glanced at Wexford, glared at the dress as if to say, Why bother with it? Why let it keep confusing us, holding us up? Aloud he said, ‘How did you get on with the Miall girl?’
‘It looks as if Dawn had another man friend. Mike, I’m wondering if it could have been Peveril. He was in London on June first, and on that day Dawn met a man for a drink. She went out to meet someone in an underhand way when she had a pretty pressing engagement at home. Now that date took place only five days before the day she died.’
‘Go on,’ said Burden, interested.
‘Dawn was in Kingsmarkham at Easter. The Peverils were already living in The Pathway at Easter. Suppose Peveril picked her up somewhere in Kingsmarkham, had a drink with her, got her to give him her phone number?’
‘Didn’t he ever phone her?’
‘According to Joan Miall, Dawn had a rather mysterious phone call from a man on Monday, May twenty-third. That could have been Peveril. His wife goes out on Monday evenings and that would have given him his opportunity.’
‘Sounds promising.’
‘Unfortunately, it isn’t. We know Zeno Vedast phoned Dawn about that time. He says he did, and Dawn told Joan Miall it was he as soon as she answered the phone. Joan didn’t believe her because afterwards she wasn’t elated or excited. But, on his own admission, Vedast put her off with vague promises. Dawn wasn’t a fool. She could tell he was bored and that rocked her so much that she couldn’t even bring herself to brag about knowing him any more or weave any of her usual fantasies. Therefore, I think we must conclude that it was Vedast who phoned her that night and that Vedast had no further communication with her. He’s out of it. But that doesn’t mean Peveril didn’t phone her. He could easily have done so on some occasion when Joan wasn’t there.
‘During the weekend following her pub date, the weekend preceding her death, she gave Joan to understand that she was embarking on an affair with a man too mean or too scared to take her to an hotel. T
hat description would fit Edward Peveril, a man who owned a house from which his wife would be absent for several hours on a Monday evening; Edward Peveril who came out to us while we were at the festival and tried to distract our attention from the quarry as soon as he knew who we were; Edward Peveril who no longer cares for his wife and who, on Miss Mowler’s evidence, is occasionally unfaithful to her.’
Burden pondered. ‘What do you think happened that night, then?’
‘Whatever happened, Mrs Peveril must know of it.’
‘You don’t mean connived at it, sir?’
‘Not beforehand, certainly. She may have been suspicious beforehand. Don’t forget that she told us it was a matter of chance that she was in the house at all at five-thirty. Her husband had tried to persuade her to go to a film in Kingsmarkham that afternoon and stay on for her evening class. Why didn’t she do that? Because she was suspicious of his motives? Confident that he could persuade her, he asked Dawn to bring with her a meal for the two of them. But Mrs Peveril didn’t go out. She saw Dawn at five-thirty, the actual time of the appointment, and Dawn saw her. Therefore, carrying her bag of food, she waited in those fields until she saw Margaret Peveril go out.
‘Dawn was then admitted by Peveril. She began to prepare the food, changing into an old dress Peveril gave her so as not to spoil the mauve thing. Before the meal was ready, she asked Peveril if it would be all right for her to stay the night as he, knowing this couldn’t be but using any inducements to get Dawn to come, had previously promised. When he told her that idea was off, they quarrelled, she threatening to stay and confront his wife. He killed her in a panic.’
Burden said, ‘But when Mrs Peveril came home he threw himself on her mercy. She was needed to help him clean up and dispose of the body.’
‘I don’t know, Mike. I haven’t great confidence in this theory. Why did Mrs Peveril mention having seen the girl at all if it’s true? I can’t get a warrant on this evidence but tomorrow I’m going to ask Peveril’s permission to search. Tomorrow’s Sunday and it’s your day off.’
