Murder Being Once Done

The snapshot Pamela had found on Howard's desk was no longer there. Someone had taken it or put it away. Instead, Mrs Dearborn's blue scarf lay there, enclosed but not concealed by a case of clear plastic. It had the look of a pre-wrapped Christmas gift but for the neat official label stuck to the side of the case.

Wexford shrugged, thanked Pamela and went out. To get to Elm Green tube station he made a detour through the cemetery. In the gathering fog the winged victory was ghostlike and the black horses, half-veiled in vapour, seemed to plunge on the air itself without support, without anchorage. Beneath them the royal tombs had lost their solidity as had the still trees, spectres of trees rather, floating, rootless and grey. Water drops, condensed mist, clung to the thready brambles. Obelisks, broken columns, angels with swords, a hunter with two dead lions at his feet . . .

'He who asks questions is a fool.

He who answers them is a greater fool . . .'

Wexford smiled.

22

The murder being once done, he is in less fear and more hope that the deed shall not be betrayed or known, seeing the party is now dead and rid out of the way, which only might have uttered and disclosed it.

A LAST day well spent. Wexford was a poor typist but he would have been glad of the use of a typewriter now. He had to write the whole thing out on sheet after sheet of Basildon Bond, using Dora's old fountain pen. It was after seven when he finished and then he went downstairs to wait for Howard.

His plan was to give Howard the report after dinner, and he envisaged their discussing it quietly in the study, but his nephew phoned to say he would be delayed and had replaced the receiver before Wexford had a chance to talk to him.

'You ought to go to bed, dear,' Dora said at ten.

'Why? So that I'll be strong enough to sit in the train? I've a good mind to stay up all night.'

He opened the book Denise had at last, in despair over his dilatoriness, fetched him from the library. 'To the Right Honourable and his Very Singular Good Master, Master William Cecil Esquire . . . Ralph Robinson wisheth continuance of good health with daily increase of virtue and honour.' That dedication, with different names substituted, might as well have served as an introduction to his own report as to Sir Thomas's masterpiece. He had scarcely read the first paragraph when the phone rang again.

'He wants to talk to you, Uncle Reg. I said you were just off to bed.'

Wexford took the phone in a hand that trembled very slightly. 'Howard?'

Howard's voice was hard, a little disdainful. 'If you're on your way to bed it doesn't matter.' -

'I'm not. I was waiting up for you.' Now that the time had come, Wexford found himself strangely reluctant, his voice uncertain. 'There are a few points . . . Well, I've written a sort of report . . . Would you care to . . . ? I mean, my conclusions . . .'

'Could be the same as ours,' Howard finished the sentence for him. 'The scarf? Yes, I thought so. Baker and I have just been to see a friend of yours and what we really need now is a little help from you. If you'll hold the line, I'll put Baker on.'

'Howard, wait. I could come over.'

'What, now? To Kenbourne Vale?'

Wexford decided to be firm, not to argue at all. He saw clearly and coldly that he was failing for the second time, but he wouldn't give in without some sort of fight, not let Baker steal his last faint thunder. 'I'll take a taxi,' he said.

The expected wail came from Dora. 'Oh, darling! At this hour?'

'I said I was going to stay up all night.'

What amazed him was that some of the shops were still open at ten minutes to midnight and people were still buying groceries for strange nocturnal feasts. In the launderettes the bluish-white lights were on and the machines continued to turn. His cab took him through North Kensington where the night people walked, chatting desultorily, strolling, as if it were day. In Kingsmarkham anybody still out would be hastening home to bed. Here the sky wore its red, starless glow, above the floating lights, the sleepless city.

They came into Kenbourne Lane. The cemetery was like a pitch-black cloud, only visible because its mass was darker than the sky. Wexford felt the muscles of his chest contract as he realised they were nearly there. Soon he would be facing Baker. If only there might be a chance of Howard reading his report first . . .

He had had a foolish feeling that there might be a sort of reception committee awaiting him, but there was no one in the foyer but the officers on duty. And when he tried to treat the place as if it was more familiar with him than he with it, walking casually towards the lift, a sergeant called him back to ask his name and his business.

'Mr Wexford, is it? The superintendent is expecting you, sir.'

That was a little better. His spirits rose higher when he stepped out of the lift and saw Howard standing alone in the corridor outside his office.

'You've been very quick.'

'Howard, I just want to say . . .'

'You want to know about Gregson. I guessed you would and I meant to mention it on the phone. Where d'you think he was on the 25th? Doing that housebreaking job, of all things. The girl who phoned him at Mrs Kirby's was Harry Slade's girl friend to tell him the job was on and give him all the gee. Come on in now, and see Baker. Shall I send down for coffee?'

Wexford didn't answer him. He walked into the office, met Baker's eyes and silently drew his report out of his pocket. The handwritten sheets looked very amateurish, very rustic.

Howard said awkwardly, 'We really only wanted some inside information, Reg. A few questions we had to put to you . . .'

'It's all in there. It won't take you more than ten minutes to read the lot.'

Wexford knew he was being hypersensitive, but a man would have had to be totally without perception not to see that resigned and indulgent glance which passed between Baker and Howard. He sat down, sliding his arms out of his raincoat and letting it fall over the back of the chair. Then he stared at the uncurtained window, the thick red sky and the black bulk of the bottling plant. While Howard phoned to order coffee, Baker cast his eyes over, rather than read, the report.

It was ten pages long. He got to page five and then he said, 'All this stuff about the gitl's background, it's very edifying, no doubt, but hardly . . .' He sought for a word. ' . . . Germane to this inquiry,' he said.

'Let me see.' Howard stood behind Baker, reading rapidly. 'You've put in a lot of work here, Reg. Congratulations. You seem to have reached the same conclusions as we have.'

'Taking all the evidence,' said Wexford, 'they are the only possible conclusions.'

Howard gave him a quick look. 'Yes, well . . . Maybe the best thing would be for you to sum up for us, Michael.'

The sheets of blue paper were growing rather crumpled now.

-Baker folded them and dropped them rather contemptuously on the desk top. But when he spoke it wasn't contemptuously. He cleared his throat and said in the uneasy tone of a man who is unaccustomed to graciousness, 'I owe you a bit of an apology, Mr Wexford. I shouldn't have said what I did about wild goose chases and red herrings and all that. But it did look like a red herring at first, didn't it?'

Wexford smiled. 'It looked like a heedless complication.'

'Not needless at all,' Howard said. 'Without it we should never have traced the ownership of the scarf. Here's our coffee. Put it down there, Sergeant, thank you. Well, Michael?'

'For a time,' Baker began, 'we were completely put off the scent by the confusion between Rachel Vickers and Dearborn's own stepdaughter. We neglected to bear in mind the- circumstantial evidence and we did not then, of course, know that his daughter Alexandra was not his own child.'