by Ruth Rendell
‘But he does deny any hand in Sarah Hussain’s death?’
‘Yes, but that may well change. He was in court yesterday morning, pleaded not guilty, of course, and was committed for trial.’
A woman PC brought them tea and Burden talked about the evidence he had against Duncan Crisp. As soon as a news item about his arrest had appeared in the Evening Standard, the people’s warden, a woman called Jennifer Lomax, had come to the police station asking to see Burden. Now she had read about the arrest she thought it was time she told the police about a quarrel she had overheard between Crisp and Sarah Hussain, carried out over the garden fence. Crisp called Ms Hussain a ‘coolie playing at being a memsahib’ and ‘a blackie’ and she had told him he should be more careful about the racist things he said, saying that the names he called her many people would have passed on to the police as they were against the law. Ms Lomax, who had had a prearranged meeting at the Vicarage, had felt embarrassed about what she overheard but the vicar had smiled and said she felt sorry for Mr Crisp who was an unhappy man. But she had never told the police, Burden said. Could they have prevented a murder if she had?
‘Are you saying he killed her to stop her telling us – I mean the police – what he had called her? Bit thin, isn’t it?’
‘You know I’m not interested in motive. It’s enough that he hated her. A “coolie”, as he called her, living in that big house, being an important figure in the public eye. He admits calling her that, it’s not just Ms Lomax’s word. There is other evidence. A pair of cloth gloves, gardening gloves they are, apparently, found in his home and worn it seems just once. A gardener – he calls himself a professional gardener – never wears gloves but he had these, says they were a gift from a friend, and he put them on only in the presence of the giver when the gift was made.’
‘But you think they were worn when he went into the vicarage to kill Sarah Hussain.’
‘I do.’
‘So he went into the house carrying a pair of cloth gloves with the intention of wearing them once he’d found a weapon? Or did he carry them on him all the time just in case?’
‘When he was inside he was wearing them. He left no prints, never did find a weapon, of course – his hands were his weapon,’ said Burden crossly. ‘The way I see it, he went into the house for some reason we don’t yet know and Sarah Hussain was there alone dressed in those trousers and tunic – salwar kameez, is it called? It was more than he could stand. Perhaps he shouted at her. Perhaps he told her to go upstairs and change into something an Englishwoman – or a white woman – would wear. Did she laugh? Did she tell him not to be absurd?’
‘She would never have been rude or unkind,’ Wexford said. ‘We know enough about her to understand that.’
‘Whatever it was, it maddened him. He threw himself at her and strangled her with his bare hands. No weapon, no need for gloves.’
‘He put them on to avoid leaving prints.’ Wexford said nothing about Burden having no evidence that Crisp had ever been in the house, but it was likely his doubts showed in his face.
‘All these details will be cleared up before Crisp comes to trial,’ said Burden firmly.
Wexford’s walk homeward took him past Sylvia’s house and at the gate he paused. Dropping in uninvited on a daughter was something he had nearly always avoided doing. With Sheila it had been impossible. She had always lived in London and occasionally abroad. Sylvia too, ever since she left her parents’ home to marry Neil Fairfax (that marriage long dissolved), had invariably lived too far away, at the other end of Kingsmarkham or in one of the villages, to make a casual call possible. But now . . . She would be home from work by now and unlikely to be busy. He opened the gate and went up the path to the front door.
Hers had always been a difficult temperament, warm and generous enough except when she had a grievance, sometimes imaginary. She bore grudges too. Her ‘Oh, hello, Dad’ carried an aggrieved note, discernible perhaps only to a parent. But after a small hesitation she asked him if he’d like a cup of tea.
‘Yes, please.’
She appeared to be alone in the house, even her small daughter Mary out somewhere.
‘I’ve taken her to a birthday party which I could have stayed at along with a bunch of other mums. But there are limits.’
A large mug of tea was rather heavily plonked down in front of him. He made what turned out to be an intelligent guess. ‘How are you getting on with Clarissa?’
‘I thought you’d never ask but maybe you know already.’
‘I know nothing,’ said Wexford.
‘Clarissa is out. With Robin. For the third time this week. And no doubt they’ll be off somewhere for the weekend. I heard him introduce her to someone as his girlfriend.’
‘So what’s wrong with that?’
‘Can you ask? Yes, well, maybe you can. You brought her here, after all. A mother who was murdered, very dubious antecedents, mixed race – not that that matters –’
‘I should bloody hope not,’ said her father. He had had enough racism for one day.
‘I said it doesn’t matter. She says she doesn’t know who her father is and that shows the kind of background she comes from. Do you realise she could marry him?’
Little as he felt like laughing, he suddenly did. ‘Are you serious? Their combined ages don’t add up to forty. That’s the age people get married at these days – if they get married at all.’
She was glaring at him. He didn’t drink the tea she had brought him either but got up, shook his head and, managing a small wave, walked out of the house.
Only Jason was at home when Diane Stow and Johann Heinemann called at 123 Ladysmith Road for the key. Nicky and Isabella were still at the hospital and likely to stay there overnight, Isabella for observation and Nicky to be there because her daughter was. Jason intended to join them, was indeed about to leave the house for that purpose when Diane arrived, she and Johann in a rented car.
If Jason had been inclined to be rude or even abusive to any connection of Jeremy Legg, he changed his tune when Diane, usually a fairly placid woman, expressed her opinion of her ex-husband even before Jason admitted them to the house. Suddenly hospitable, he made tea. Diane, backed up by Johann who had never met her ex-husband, began taking Jeremy’s character apart. Not only was he idle, had never had a job, was unfaithful to her with anyone who would have him, but was a secret drinker, too much of a hypocrite to have a drink in a pub or bar like any honest person but a user of a hip flask he covertly filled with spirits.
‘You know like most people don’t have a drink or maybe just one before they drive,’ she said. ‘Well, he drinks before he drives. You want to know why? Because he’s frightened. He’s scared stiff of everything, like anything new. You can bet your life if you see him at the wheel of a car he’ll have been drinking.’
At this last Johann Heinemann let out a loud peal of laughter.
‘They’ll have got him this time,’ said Diane. ‘Breathalysed him at the site, you want to bet?’
All this was known to the police but not until that moment to Jason. He thanked her, gave her the key to her own house, and once they had left, set off for the Princess Diana Memorial Hospital.
Next day Isabella was pronounced perfectly well and Jason and Nicky were told she could go home. It was Maxine who, coming round to Ladysmith Road later, remarked that of course they sent her home. It was Saturday, wasn’t it? Hospitals always got rid of patients at the weekend, as everyone knew. Nicky remembered later in the day how Isabella had screamed when Jeremy’s car crashed but been very briefly silent, for certainly no more than a few seconds, then started screaming again. She said nothing about it. What would have been the point? The hospital had said she was OK and that should have been good enough. Besides, she wasn’t going to say anything with Jason’s mum there. She’d have been bound to make a big production of it.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ALL THIS FORMED the principal part of Maxine’s narrative to Wexford on t
he Monday. Without apology, she interrupted Gibbon to tell him about 123 Ladysmith Road, Jason’s anxiety over Isabella and the dramas of Diane Stow’s arrival. He had been reading about ‘two fierce and enormous bears’, pets of the Emperor Valentinian, and named Innocence and Mica Aurea. The cages of those trusty guards were always placed near the bedchamber of Valentinian, who frequently amused his eyes with the grateful spectacle of seeing them tear and devour the bleeding limbs of the malefactors who were abandoned to their rage. Their diet and exercises were carefully inspected by the Roman emperor: and when Innocence had earned her discharge, by a long course of meritorious service, the faithful animal was again restored to the freedom of her native woods.
He laid Volume 2 down and listened to Maxine. A kind of foreboding had taken hold of him – highly unusual with him – that all might not be well with Isabella Sams, that beautiful blonde child with her one-word vocabulary. As he had thought before, this might not be a laughing matter. Perhaps Maxine’s son might not be an over-anxious parent. Perhaps there was real need to be alarmed about Isabella’s condition.
He seldom spoke seriously to Maxine on the subject of the Sams family, he seldom spoke at all, but now he did. ‘What is Jason worried about?’
‘He reckons the Princess Diana didn’t do enough tests, scans, whatever you call them. They sent her home too soon. It’s like I said, hospitals never want to keep you in over the weekend.’
‘He should take her back there if he’s worried.’
And then Maxine reacted not as he would have expected her to, aggressively, militantly, but as her own parents might have done or her farm labourer grandfather, with the one-time working-class awe of doctors and hospitals.
‘Well, you don’t like to, do you? It’s like they know better than what you do. Jason said the same.’
Wasn’t it most likely that the Princess Diana Hospital did know better than Jason Sams and his mother? Of course it was. What did Maxine and her son know about scans and tests? Less than nothing, he thought, and went back to Gibbon and wondering what it was that made a man enjoy seeing wild animals tear a prisoner to pieces, a man otherwise merciful enough to give that wild animal its freedom rather than kill it. People were very strange, then and now.
He saw nothing of Burden all week. There was nothing to say. December came in with a snowstorm and phenomenally large flakes clogged the train lines, making the London to Eastbourne train seven hours late. The lead story in Wexford’s newspaper on Friday morning was the release of Duncan Crisp with a photograph of the gardener outside his own front door in Greenwood Court.
‘Why did you let him off the hook?’ Wexford asked in Burden’s office where he, Burden and DI Vine sat having coffee.
‘It was your buddy Jason Sams who unhooked him,’ Burden said.
‘No buddy of mine. What had he to do with it?’
‘He’s the manager of Questo and in that job, wandering round the store at all hours, he gets to know his customers, at any rate by sight.’
Vine took up the story. ‘He particularly knew Duncan Crisp because Crisp had complained about one of his staff, a woman on the checkout. He said she’d called him “elderly” and he wanted to see the manager. This was at two fifty on 11 October. All complaints have to be noted and logged, apparently. Crisp was told at first that he couldn’t see the manager, Mr Sams was busy. Crisp, who was sort of in his rights, I’d say, refused to move and just stood there, refusing to pay for his shopping until he got what he called justice. Well, after about ten minutes a supervisor appeared and said she’d take him to Mr Sams. He said the checkout woman had to come too, so she did, causing a great deal of disruption in the store.’
‘More complaints ensued,’ said Burden, ‘from the people in that particular checkout’s queue. Anyway, Crisp and the checkout woman, Mrs Louise Wilson, and the supervisor, Mrs Amina Khan, all went to see Jason Sams and Louise Wilson said that what she’d said to Crisp was that they usually packed the goods into bags for elderly people and would he like the service. That was the cause of it all. By this time it was twenty past three and Crisp was pacified by having his stuff packed and a free lift home in the car belonging to the supervisor whose shift had just ended.
‘We’ve talked to all these people, sir,’ said Vine. This time Wexford didn’t bother to correct him. ‘Louise Wilson and Amina Khan all corroborate Jason Sams’s story. There’s no doubt Crisp was in the store from some twenty to three until three thirty and then in the car with Amina Khan until she dropped him off at his flat in Greenwood Court.’
‘Never mind the gloves,’ said Burden. ‘Never mind the faulty memories of those women at Dragonsdene House. You might ask why Crisp never mentioned this Questo business before.’
‘I was just going to,’ said Wexford.
‘Well, he says he didn’t forget, he just thought it would show him up in a bad light as a troublemaker.’
‘OK, I can believe it,’ said Wexford. ‘As a matter of fact Jason’s mother told me the story weeks ago but without the names.’ He met the astonished eyes of the two officers. ‘People are strange,’ he said and he thought of the Emperor Valentinian and Innocence the bear.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
AND WHEN NEXT she came to Wexford’s house, Jason’s mother began telling him the story all over again, albeit in a slightly different version. Jason was now a hero. He had mended his ways when his daughter was born but it was only now that he had made a positive move to ally himself with the law. Or ‘work with the police’, as Maxine put it.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if they made him a special constable,’ she began, ‘but you’d know more about that than me.’ This was certainly true, Wexford thought, laying aside Gibbon for politeness’ sake. ‘He went to Mr Burden of his own accord, you know, went to volunteer what he knew would be vital information. Out of the goodness of his heart it was, no one told him he ought to do it, nothing like that. What’s more, that fella Crisp had caused him a load of trouble, bringing the whole store to a standstill. Anyone else wouldn’t have stood up for Crisp the way Jason did, they’d have left him to stew in his own juice. Now he’ll have to take the stand in court and give a testimonial but Jason will do it. There’s many as would flinch but not Jason. He’s a tough nut.’
Wexford was aware that he ought to set Maxine right. There was of course no prospect of Jason going into a witness box and giving evidence either for or against Duncan Crisp. Crisp hadn’t done it, Crisp was innocent and free (like the bear) but he couldn’t face telling all that to Maxine, couldn’t face the argument that would ensue. He had never yet argued with Maxine and he didn’t want to start now. Besides, he had an appointment with Georgina Bray.
He walked to her house, noting that Christmas decorations were already going up inside houses and one of his neighbours had a Chistmas tree, as yet undecorated. Mrs Bray, too, had put up a few dispirited paper chains, the old-fasioned kind that people used to make themselves out of coloured paper strips. Wexford, taking a seat under one such chain, remembered making one for his children years ago, licking the end of the strip and linking it with the previous one.
‘I think it’s a pity to buy everything ready-made, don’t you?’ said Georgina. ‘The things you make yourself are unique, after all, and much prettier.’
Wexford couldn’t agree and again didn’t want to start an argument. Any Christmas decorations he made would be a disaster, he thought. Still, it was a relief to be able to talk to this woman without being sworn at or begged for forgiveness.
‘My husband,’ she said, ‘says it’s ridiculous putting up decorations when you’re not religious but I like to do it for old times’ sake.’
Having no idea what she meant, Wexford only smiled, then said, ‘You were a close friend of Sarah Hussain’s but you’re not a churchgoer yourself?’
‘None of us are, not me, not my husband or the children. Sarah didn’t seem to care. She and my husband had long talks about theology. They were quite close – too close, I someti
mes thought, though there was nothing in it.’ She gave a shrill laugh. ‘He said he liked talking to an intelligent woman for a change.’
Was this the verbal abuse she had mentioned? Perhaps. ‘Mrs Bray – or do you prefer Ms?’
‘Oh, call me what you like. So long as you don’t call me too late for breakfast, as my father used to say.’
He was rather taken aback, wondering why on earth Sarah Hussain had chosen this woman for a friend. Loneliness? Any port in a storm, as his father used to say? ‘Mrs Bray, would you tell me what you know of Sarah’s family? And her husband’s family. And what Clarissa knows – if in fact you know that.’
‘What a lot of “knows”,’ said Georgina with a giggle. ‘If you want a family tree I can’t do that. Anyway, when people get into third cousins once removed and all that stuff, I’m lost.’
‘So am I,’ Wexford said. ‘I don’t want that sort of thing. How about her husband? I don’t even know what he was called apart from Leo.’
Georgina was silent for a moment. As her face grew pensive so she seemed to become more intelligent. And when at last she spoke, she sounded like the close friend she had claimed to be. ‘His father was killed in the crash. His mother was still alive when Sarah came here. He had a twin brother, an identical twin in point of fact. He was called Christian, and when she told me I thought, with a name like that and being identical you’d think she might have taken up with him, but when I suggested it – maybe I shouldn’t have – she got really angry.
‘She talked about Leo a lot when I first knew her. That was four years ago. She had just come here and she seemed to need a friend. Well, I was that friend. I expect you’re thinking we didn’t have much in common, her so brainy and me, well, not so brainy.’ He might well have been thinking along those lines, but he hadn’t been. His thoughts were centred briefly on this woman having once told him that she had met Sarah not four years before but at university. ‘She had really adored him,’ Georgina went on. ‘But I expect you’ve heard that already. His name was Leo Steyner. I’ll write it down for you because it’s got a weird spelling.’ She fetched a sheet of paper from a desk in the corner of the room and wrote Sarah Hussain’s husband’s name down in large block letters.
