by Ruth Rendell
Across the road and down another driveway, Moira Wingrave was alone in the cushiony, flock-wallpapered room she called the "lounge," reclining on a sofa with her feet up, a long glass of something beside her that might have been virgin tomato juice or a Bloody Mary, and the television on. Sanchia was somewhere about, she said, probably upstairs with Tracy. "Oh, yes, she’s taken a great fancy to Tracy. Those simple people are always a hit with children."
Lynn asked her if she had seen a man enter the driveway to Woodland Lodge at about eight that morning.
"What man? You don’t mean poor Stephen Devenish?"
"No, not him. Maybe a neighbor who lives at Laburnum House?"
"Oh, Gerry Paulton. No, why would I see him? He doesn’t even know the Devenishes, does he?"
"I’d like to take Sanchia back to her mother now."
"Please do. Be my guest. I’m not used to children, and frankly I never know what to say to them."
Tracy Miller knew. She was playing a game with Sanchia called "around and around the room," of which Moira Wingrave would certainly have disapproved, since it consisted in the child’s clambering around the master bedroom on the furniture without putting her feet to the ground, jumping from little gilt chair to Louis XVI reproduction commode, ending up on the ivory-silk-festooned dressing table, and leaping off it into Tracy’s arms. Articulate now, Sanchia said she didn’t want to go home, she wanted to stay with Tracy, and began to cry. Eventually Lynn persuaded her with a bribe of Smarties, which she found by a lucky chance in the bottom of her bag.
Back at home, her mother gave Sanchia a smothering hug and covered her face and head with kisses, treatment that Sanchia struggled under. She had been back home for ten minutes when Edward and Robert arrived at the back door, driven by their head teacher in his car. They looked as children of their ages always do when caught up in tragic events, awkward, embarrassed, lost, and helpless.
Edward muttered something in response to Jane Andrews’s greeting. Robert said nothing. He shuffled his feet, then asked his mother if there was anything to eat. From force of habit Fay got up and fetched cans of Coke out of the fridge, bread and butter and Marmite from a larder, Mars bars from somewhere else. But when their grandmother came in, both showed more enthusiasm than Wexford had ever seen from either of them. He felt content with his plan and said he must go.
Outside he met Vine, who had been paying a routine call at Sylvia’s old home where Gerald Paulton, just home from work, told him that he always drove himself to Brighton. It was true that he had once had a lift from Stephen Devenish when his car was having its electrics overhauled, but that had been more than a year ago.
"What a dreadful thing. I was devastated when my wife told me, just devastated. He was the nicest chap, one of the best."
"So you didn’t call at Woodland Lodge at about eight this morning?"
In fiction people questioned by the police take interrogation in their stride or are merely annoyed by it. Reality is different. Gerald Paulton was shocked and frightened by Vine’s question. What on earth did he mean? What was he insinuating?
"I’m not insinuating anything, sir. I’m making a routine inquiry."
"You’ve got me on your list of suspects!"
"We don’t have a list of suspects, Mr. Paulton. This investigation has only just begun."
"Well, I didn’t go there this morning. I left for work at half past seven. Ask my wife, ask my kids, the au pair, anyone. "
At home, Wexford read and reread the copies that had been made of the anonymous letters he had found in Devenish’s desk. The originals had gone to the lab for testing. He thought how much harder the universal use of computers had made the identification of anonymous letter writers, but probably policemen had said much the same thing when typewriters were invented. These letters were plainly the work of someone with more than a grudge against Devenish. He must find out more about this man Devenish had allegedly turned out of his office and thrown downstairs. One thing particularly struck him: Why had Devenish kept these letters, that is, those that came in June and July, but not the earlier ones?
Could it be because only these specifically mentioned his abuse of his wife? Of course Wexford didn’t even know if this was so, it was just guesswork. The others might have mentioned it too.
And what need, anyway, to look farther afield for Devenish’s killer than his own home?
21
Conciliatory tactics appealed to Wexford not at all and he hoped to get through this interview with Brian St. George without using any. On the other hand, he wanted information from the editor of the Kingsmarkham Courier, which could only be obtained from St. George. If necessary, he would have to make a concession and restore to the Courier its old press rights with Kingsmarkham Police.
But as it happened, when he met St. George in his High Street office, the editor was anxious to be helpful, even obsequious, and prepared to say and do anything in order that the status quo might be restored. "The ’fat cats’ story, Mr. Wexford? When we took that photo of Sanchia? I can’t tell you precisely when it was, nor off the cuff. But my PA will do so in the twinkling of an eye. Our computer system here is quite excellent."
St. George’s PAs were constantly changing and none seemed more than sixteen years old. The last one had been a plump blonde who wore a micro-skirt that barely covered her buttocks. Her successor was black, six feet tall, with long, gold-beaded extensions to her dyed-red hair.
"See if you can find the Devenish ’fat cats’ story, will you, Carly-Jo? Try two years back. And bring me a printout."
Wexford said, "Did you interview him?"
"Sure we did. It’s all in the story. We’ll be using extracts, I expect, in this week’s account of his murder."
Rather taken aback, Wexford said, "You will? Why is that?"
"He had quite a bit to say about enemies. He made enemies in his job, he said. For instance, the airline manager was sacked soon after he got this salary increase. It was for incompetence, and he was incompetent, according to Devenish. He’d been hopeless from the start, lost the company untold business."
Trevor Ferry. "You won’t be running a story about that, I trust," said Wexford rather severely.
"Certainly not." St. George assumed an expression of extreme rectitude. "I hope we’re more responsible than that. "
"So do I."
"We didn’t use it in the ’fat cats’ story. I’m simply telling you what he told me. Very nice chap he was, very easy to get on with, open and honest. In his position he met with a lot of envy, he said. You know, great job, megabucks, lovely wife, smashing kids, beautiful home ..."
"Yes, all right. I do know."
"I was only going to say, Reg, that people don’t like it. They resent it. I mean, why should he have it and me not have it, that sort of thing. They don’t think it’s fair. Oh, here’s our story."
Carly-Jo came back with the printout, put it in front of Wexford in a sweet, heavy wave of perfume. Afraid from the tingling in his nostrils that he was going to sneeze, he pressed his forefinger against his upper lip, a sure preventative. The story, he saw at once, offered little help. It was the usual thing, beginning with a word picture of Devenish’s lifestyle, then leading into a long quote from him, justifying a salary of nearly £400,000 per annum. Not a line about enemies, still less threats. Nothing about the sacked manager.
"Since you were aiming to bring the chap into hatred, ridicule, and contempt, I suppose you were scared of libel." Wexford laid down the printout.
"I don’t think that’s altogether fair, Reg. It’s not as if we were a national daily. Most of us have to live among the people of this town. We don’t want to make enemies either. Besides, there’s something to be said for goodwill, keeping up a happy relationship with one’s contributors."
"Why did he mention enemies at all? Don’t tell me, I can guess. You or your reporter asked him if he had them, if he got threats, if this so-called envy took positive form."
’’As I recall it," said St. Ge
orge uncomfortably, "he did mention threatening letters he’d had. And of course I said there was no question but that he should take the matter to the police at once."
"Naturally," said Wexford dryly. "You would."
"He laughed it off, said he’d thrown them away. They were garbage and the best place for garbage was the dustbin."
"How original. I’m not surprised you couldn’t make a story out of it. Apart from Trevor Ferry, I don’t suppose he named any of these enemies, did he? He hadn’t any idea who sent the letters, for instance?"
"There was some guy made a nuisance of himself that he had to put out of his office once, he said that, but he didn’t name any names."
To Burden the Devenish death was merely a nuisance that distracted him and took officers away from the hunt for Hennessy’s killer. Finding the wielder of the petrol bomb and bringing him or her to court was enormously more important in his eyes than running to earth whoever had stabbed Stephen Devenish. In his customary fashion he had long since dismissed Devenish as a villain and a brute, unfit to exist. He wouldn’t go so far as saying good luck to his killer, for justice mattered to him, but he resented having to surrender good men and women to the inquiry when there was still so much to be done to track down the petrol bomber.
"I suppose she did it, anyway, didn’t she?" he said to Wexford over a snatched lunch at the Europlate. "These wife-beaters who get their comeuppance, it’s always the wretched, abused woman who’s done it. The worm has turned, that’s all."
"The fact is that only two percent of all homicides involve abused women killing their partners."
"Oh, come on, Reg. She’s stuck it for years, he’s bashed and kicked her to kingdom come, and one day it’s the last straw. She breaks, she picks up the knife or whatever he cut her with and gives it to him. Tit for tat and then some."
Wexford, who was eating Italian pasta with German asparagus, shook his head, then, seeming to think better of it, nodded. "There’s a lot more I want her to tell me. But I want to talk to the boys first. Then there’s this business with the weapon."
"You haven’t found the weapon, have you?"
"The funny thing is that I don’t know. I say I don’t know because there were seven knives in that kitchen. Of course, one could say that there should have been eight."
"I can’t say I follow you."
"No, well, is it true what Fay Devenish says and there never were eight knives? Or were there eight and one is missing? Or was one of the seven others used? Or is it true what Fay says that none of the kitchen knives was used? If it was one of the kitchen knives, three can be discounted because they’re too small to inflict those sort of injuries and one is a saw. That leaves three."
"We’ll know more," said Burden, "when the noble lord, Lord Tremlett, gives you his postmortem results. No doubt it’ll be quite a simple matter to match the knife to the wounds."
Wexford said, and to Burden his remark sounded irrelevant, "She’s got a dishwasher."
"She’s what? So have I. So have you. What’s that got to do with it? The way I see it is, they have that absurd contretemps with the orange juice, he summons her to be punished, cuts her, and somehow she gets hold of the knife and stabs him. Blood everywhere, lashings of it. She puts her clothes in the washing machine and has them in the dryer before she phones us. Her only witness is a child of three who wasn’t even there, thank God, when the killing took place. Clear as crystal, no problem."
Burden pushed away his plate and drank some water. All this talk of stabbing and blood had started putting him off his food. It never seemed to have much effect on Wexford, and yet, if Burden absolutely had to say, he’d call himself more callous than the chief inspector.
"When he called her into the study," Wexford said slowly, "the boys were still in the house."
"So she says."
"They very likely were if he summoned her, as you put it, at seven forty-five. But they can’t have been in the house when Devenish was killed. You’re not saying he submitted to having a knife stuck in him three times without a murmur? He probably shouted and screamed the place down."
"So she didn’t kill him straight after he cut her," said Burden, taking the pudding menu from Henri. "She went back into the study after the boys had left to walk down the road for their lift and did it then. That need have been no later than five past eight, which left her ample time to get those clothes washed. She was probably wearing the pink dress we found among the clean wash. When you come to think of it, she was in an ideal situation to stab someone and get away with it, having the means of getting rid of bloodstains right there. As for the knife, she could have buried that anywhere in all those acres they’ve got. Are you going to have a pudding?" Wexford shook his head. "Nor am I," Burden said.
Catherine Daley, the mother of a son of eleven and a daughter of ten, told Karen Malahyde that three days a week she drove her children and the Devenish boys to school in Sewingbury and fetched them back two days a week. Fay Devenish drove all four children to school two days a week and fetched them on three. On the morning of Stephen Devenish’s death it had been Catherine’s turn to take all the children to school, and as was their habit, Edward and Robert Devenish had come to her house, Braemar, Ploughman’s Lane, at about five past eight. It might have been nearer ten past, but they were never late, Fay saw to that, knowing that Catherine Daley would leave in her car at eight-fifteen. The drive took twenty minutes and both mothers liked to have the children there in plenty of time for an eight forty-five start.
"How did the boys seem?" Karen asked Catherine.
"What exactly do you mean?"
"Were they normally behaved? Excited? Frightened? Subdued?"
"I really don’t know. Perhaps Edward was rather quiet. But then he is the quieter of the two. Robert can be rather boisterous."
"Was he boisterous yesterday?"
"Not really. No, he wasn’t. They were both quite normal."
Wexford spoke on the phone to the sacked manager, Trevor Ferry. At eight on the previous morning, the day of Stephen Devenish’s death, he had still been in bed, he said. Could anyone substantiate that? His wife could, Ferry said. Anyone else? There had been no one else in the house, Ferry said rather sullenly. What did Wexford think? That they had an au pair?
"Mr. Ferry, this is a far more serious matter than that which we had to deal with when I last spoke to you. If you remember the names of any of these people you seemed then to think had reason to quarrel with Mr. Devenish, will you get in touch with me, please?"
Wendy Brodrick had stayed at Woodland Lodge overnight and Lynn Fancourt was in the house now. If Fay thought this surveillance strange, she said nothing about it. She was in the playroom with Sanchia, another Disney video running but the child ignoring it and playing instead with a convoy of camouflage-painted toy army vehicles that must surely have once belonged to her brothers.
Not the original but a photocopy of the threatening letter was what he showed Fay. No, she had never seen it before but she knew about these letters. Stephen had had plenty of them. He had never shown her any but he had described them to her.
"I thought he’d accuse me of sending them," she said. "But he never did. They were done on a computer and he knew I couldn’t use a computer. He thought them well written and I expect he thought I was too ignorant to write them. He was always saying I was ignorant." She changed the subject. "My sons went to stay with my mother. Did you know that?"
"She said she was going to invite them."
Fay switched off the television by means of the remote. Although Sanchia wasn’t watching the video, hadn’t watched it since Wexford came into the room, she immediately set up a howl of protest: "Put it on, put it on, put it on!"
If she had been wordless and silent before, she had made up for lost time. She came up to her mother and began hitting her with a toy jeep.
"Oh, all right," Fay said, "but you’re to watch it. I don’t feel I could cope with the boys at the moment. She’s bad enough, b
ut I don’t want to be separated from her just the same."
"You won’t have to cope with them," Wexford said. "Where does your mother live?"
"My mother and my dad. He’s not dead. Did you think he was? They live in Myringham." She gave him an address. "Are you going to ask them to keep the boys a bit longer?"
"Possibly. If you like. I want to talk to Edward and Robert, Mrs. Devenish. Do you have any objection?"
She looked surprised at being asked. Then she looked defeated. As if she had been found out? Or was about to be found out? "No, I don’t think so," she said in a weary voice. "No, I don’t mind. Would it make any difference if I did?"
He wasn’t going to answer that, not when she had consented. "I will, of course, speak to them in the presence of your mother or your father."
As if she hadn’t heard him or didn’t care, she said almost dreamily, "I never told them anything about what was going on till ... well, last year, I suppose, then I told my mother what Stephen did to me, and do you know what she said? She said, ’You must have done something to provoke him.’ And my father said, ’There’s not much in that. They used to say it was all right to beat your wife with a stick as long as it wasn’t thicker than your thumb.’ And he laughed and said it was a lot of fuss about nothing. That’s why I’ve been ... well, a bit distant from them lately. The children love them."
He nodded. Sometimes there is absolutely nothing to say. Lynn came out from the kitchen and met him in the hall. "She’s made no phone calls, sir, and the phone’s been put onto the answering machine for incoming calls. Not that there’ve been any. I checked."
"You’ve done well," said Wexford, pleasing Lynn more than she would have thought possible.
He went into the study and sat there, trying to imagine the scene of the morning if what Fay Devenish said was true, if a man had come to the front door at eight o’clock and been admitted by Stephen Devenish, a man who brought a knife with him. In a briefcase? In a carrier bag? Or had he found a knife there, ready to hand? And did Devenish know him? Devenish had been in the study, scene of the recent latest wounding of his wife, and had seen a man he knew come to the front door. Presumably, he had believed he had no reason to fear this man.
