They returned to the police station. The weapon hadn’t been found, and the house-to-house inquiry made by Loring, Marwood and Gates had produced negative results. No one in the cottages or the bungalows had heard or seen anything untoward on the previous evening. The inhabitants of the single detached house were away on holiday, and nobody had been working on the allotments. Rhoda Comfrey had been slightly known to everyone the three men had questioned, but only one had seen her on the previous day, and that had been when she left her father’s house at six-twenty to catch the bus for Stowerton. Her London address was unknown to any of the residents of Forest Road.
‘I want you to get back there,’ Wexford said to Loring, ‘and wait for Mrs Crown. I’m going home for an hour to get a bite to eat. When she comes in, call me on my home number.’
Chapter 3
Dora had been sewing, but the work had been laid aside, and he found her reading a novel. She got up immediately and brought him a bowl of soup, chicken salad, some fruit. He seldom talked about work at home, unless things got very tough. Home was a haven – Oh, what know they of harbours that sail not on the sea? – and he had fallen in love with and married the kind of woman who would give him one. But did she mind? Did she see herself as the one who waited and served while he lived? He had never thought much about it. Thinking of it now reawakened the anxiety that had laid dormant for the past three hours, pushed out of mind by greater urgencies.
‘Hear any more from Sylvia?’ he said.
‘Neil came round for the teddy bear. Ben wouldn’t go to sleep without it.’ She touched his arm, then rested her hand on his wrist. ‘You mustn’t worry about her. She’s grownup. She has to cope with her own problems.’
‘Your son’s your son,’ said her husband, ‘till he gets him a wife, but your daughter’s your daughter the whole of your life.’
‘There goes the phone.’ She sighed, but not rebelliously. ‘I have measured out my life in telephone bills.’
‘Don’t wait up for me,’ said Wexford.
It was dark now, ten minutes to eleven, the wide sky covered all over with stars. And the moonlight was strong enough to cast bold shadows of tree and gate and pillar box along the length of Forest Road. A single street lamp shone up by the stone wall, and lights were on all over 2, Carlyle Villas, though the other houses were in darkness. He rang the bell on the reeded glass and wrought-iron front door.
‘Mrs Crown?’
He had expected a negative answer because this woman was much younger than he had thought she would be. Only a few years older than he. But she said yes, she was, and asked him what he wanted. She smelt of gin and had about her the reckless air – no apparent fear of him or cautiousness or suspicion – that drink brings, though this might have been habitual with her. He told her who he was and she let him in. There, in a cluttered bizarre living room, he broke the news to her, speaking gently and considerately but all the time sensing that gentleness and consideration weren’t needed here.
‘Well, fancy,’ she said. ‘What a thing to happen! Rhoda, of all people. That’s given me a bit of a shock, that has. A drink is called for. Want one?’ Wexford shook his head. She helped herself from a gin bottle that stood on a limed oak sideboard whose surface was covered with drips and smears and ring marks. ‘I won’t make show of grief. We weren’t close. Where did you say it happened? Down the footpath? You won’t see me down there in a hurry, I can tell you.’
She was like the room they were in, small and overdressed in bright colours and none too clean. The stretch nylon covers on her chairs were of a slightly duller yellow than the tight dress she wore, and unlike it, they were badly marked with cigarette burns. But all were disfigured with the same sort of liquor splashes and food stains. Mrs Crown’s hair was of the same colour and texture as the dried grasses that stood everywhere in green and yellow vases, pale and thin and brittle but defiantly gold. She lit a cigarette and left it hanging in her mouth which was painted, as her niece’s had been, to match her fingernails.
‘I haven’t yet been able to inform your brother,’ Wexford said. ‘It would appear he’s not up to it.’
‘Brother-inlaw, if you don’t mind,’ said Mrs Crown. ‘He’s not my brother, the old devil.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said Wexford. ‘Now, Mrs Crown, it’s getting late and I don’t want to keep you up, but I’d like to know what you can tell me of Miss Comfrey’s movements yesterday.'
She stared at him, blowing smoke through her sharp nose. ‘What’s that got to do with some maniac stabbing her? Killed her for her money, didn’t he? She was always loaded, was Rhoda.’ Horrifyingly, she added, with a Wife of Bath look, remembering the old dance, ‘Wouldn’t be for sex, not so likely.’
Wexford didn’t take her up on that one. He said repressively, ‘You saw her yesterday?’
‘She phoned me on Friday to say she’d be coming. Thought I might get bothered if I saw lights on next door, not expecting anyone to be there, if you see what I mean. God knows why she put herself out. I was amazed. Picked up the phone and she says, “Hallo, Lilian. I wonder if you know who this is?” Of course I knew. I’d know that deep voice of hers anywhere and that put-on accent. She never got that from her mum and dad. But you don’t want to know all that. She came in a taxi yesterday about one. All dressed-up she was, but miserable as sin. She was always down in the mouth when she came here, made no secret she hated the place, far cry from the way she sounded on the phone, all cocky, if you know what I mean. Sure you won’t have a drink? I think I’ll have a drop more.’
A good deal more than a drop of neat gin in her glass, Lilian Crown perched on the sofa arm and swung her legs. The calves were shapeless with varicose veins, but she still kept the high instep, the dancing foot, of one who has led a riotous youth. ‘She never came in here till a quarter past six. “Feel like coming with me, Lilian?” she said, knowing damn well I wouldn’t. I told her I’d got a date with my gentleman friend, which was the honest truth, but I could tell she didn’t like it, always was jealous. “When’ll you be back?” she said. “I’ll come in and tell you how he is.” “All right,” I said, doing my best to be pleasant, though I never had any time for him or her after my poor sister went. “I’ll be in by ten,” I said, but she never came and no lights came on. Gone straight back to London, I thought, knowing her, never dreaming a thing like that had happened.’
Wexford nodded. ‘I’ll very likely want to speak to you again, Mrs Crown. In the meantime, would you give me Miss Comfrey’s London address?’
‘I haven’t got it.’
‘You mean you don’t know it?’
‘That’s what I mean. Look, I live next door to the old devil, sure I do, but that’s convenience, that is. I came here for my sister’s sake and after she went I just stopped on. But that doesn’t mean we were close. As a matter of fact, him and me, we weren’t on speaking terms. As for Rhoda – well, I won’t speak ill of the dead. She was my sister’s girl, when all’s said and done, but we never did get on. She left home must be twenty years ago, and if I’ve set eyes on her a dozen times since, that’s it. She’d no call to give me her address or her phone number, and I’m sure I wouldn’t have asked for it. Look, if I’d got it I’d give it you, wouldn’t I? I’d have no call not to.’
‘At least, I suppose, you know what she did for a living?’
‘In business, she was,’ said Lilian Crown. ‘Got her own business.’ Bitterness pinched her face. ‘Money stuck to Rhoda, always did. And she hung on to it. None of it came my way or his. He’s a proper old devil but he’s her dad, isn’t he?’