'We can certainly use them,' said the sergeant, and he fell back to allow the others to precede him out of the cemetery.
The Grand Duke was a little old pub Howard took him to on the corner of a mews in KenbourneLane.
'I didn't know there were places like this left in London,' Wexford said, appreciating the linenfold panelling, the settles and the old mullioned glass in the windows. It was like home, the kind of inn to be found in Pomfret or Stowerton.
'There aren't around here. Kenbourne's no Utopia. Would you believe, looking out of the window, that in an unpublished poem, Hood wrote:
' "O. to ride on the crest of a laden wain
Between primrose banks in Kenbourne Lane"?'
'What will you eat, Reg?'
'I'm not supposed to eat anything much.'
'Surely a little cold duck and some salad? The food's very good here.'
Wexford felt almost dizzy, but he mustn't allow himself to break out entirely. It was a triumph of communication over misunderstanding that he was here with Howard at all and about to get his teeth into some real police work again without getting them into duck as well. The spread on the food counter looked mouth-wateringly enticing. He chose the least calorific, thin sliced red beef and ratatouille froide, and settled back with a sigh of contentment. Even the tall glass of apple juice which Howard presented to him with the assurance that it was made out of Cox's Oranges from Suffolk couldn't cloud his pleasure.
Ever since his arrival in London he had felt that partial loss of identity which is common to everybody on holiday except the most seasoned of travellers. But instead of returning to him as he grew accustomed to the city, this ego of his, this essential Wexfordness, had seemed to continue its seeping away, until at last in the cemetery he had briefly but almost entirely lost his hold on it. That had been a frightening moment.
Now, however, he felt more himself than he had done for days. This was like being with Mike at the Olive and Dove where, on so many satisfactory occasions, they had thrashed out some,case over lunch, but now Howard was the instructor and he in Mike's role. He found he didn't mind this at all. He could even look with equanimity at Howard's lunch: a huge plateful of steak-and-kidney pudding, Jersey new potatoes and courgettes au gratin.
For the first five minutes they ate and drank and talked a little more about this misunderstanding of theirs, and then Howard, opening their discussion in the clearest and most direct way, pushed a snapshot across the table.
'This is the only photograph we have of her. Other may come to light, of course. It was in her handbag. Not very usual that, to carry photographs of oneself about on one. Perhaps she had some sentimental reason for it. Where and when it was taken we don't know.'
The snapshot was too pale and murry for reproduction in a newspaper. It showed a thin fair girl in a cotton frock and heavy unsuitable shoes. Her face was a pale blob and even her own mother, as Wexford put it to himself, wouldn't have recognised her. In the background were some dusty-looking shrubs, a section of wall with coping along the top of it and something that looked like a clothes post.
He handed it back and asked, 'Is Garmisch Terrace near here?'
'The backs of the houses overlook the cemetery but on the opposite side to where we were. It's a beastly place. Monstrous houses put up around 1870 for city merchants who couldn't run to fifteen hundred a year for a palace in Queen's Gate. They're mostly let off into rooms now, or flatlets as they're euphemistically called. She had a room. She'd lived there for about two months.'
'What did she do for a living?'
'She worked as a receptionist in a television rental place. The shop is called Sytansound and it's in Lammas Grove. That's the street which runs off to the left at Kenbourne Circus and also skirts the cemetery. Apparently she went to work by taking a short-cut through the cemetery. Why do you look like that?'
'I was thinking of passing through that place every day.'
'The local people are used to it. They don't notice it any more. You'd be surprised in the summer how many young housewives you see in there taking their babies for an afternoon's airing.'
Wexford said, 'When and how did she die?'
'Probably last Friday. I haven't had a full medical report yet, but she was strangled with her own silk scarf.'
'Last Friday and no one reported her missing?'
Howard shrugged. 'In Garmisch Terrace, Reg? Loveday Morgan wasn't living at home with her parents in some select suburb. They come and they go in Garmisch Terrace, they mind their own business, they don't ask questions. Wait till you hear Sergeant Clements on that subject.'
'How about boy friends?'
'She didn't have any, as far as we know. The body was identified by a girl called Peggy Pope who's the housekeeper at 22 Garmisch Terrace and she says Loveday had no friends. She came to Kenbourne Vale in January, but where she came from nobody seems to know. When she applied for the room she gave Mrs Pope an address in Fulham. We've checked on that. The street she named and the house she named are there all right but she never lived there. The owners of the house are a young married couple who have never let rooms. So we don't yet know where she came from and in a way we don't really know who she was.'
Having built up the suspense in a way Wexford recogmsed, for it was the way he had himself used on countless occasions, Howard went away to fetch cheese and biscuits. He returned with more apple juice for his uncle, who was feeling so contented that he drank it obediently.
'She lived in Garmisch Terrace by herself, very quietly,' Howard went on, 'and last Friday, February 25th, she went to work as usual, returning, as she occasionally did, during her lunchtime break. Mrs Pope supposed that she had gone back to work in the afternoon, but in fact, she didn't. She telephoned the manager of Sytansound to say she was sick and that was the last anyone heard of her.' He paused. 'She may have gone straight into the cemetery; she may not. The cemetery gates are closed each day at six, and on Fridays they were closed at that time as usual. Clements sometimes cuts through on his way home. He did that on Friday, spoke to Tripper, and Tripper closed the gates behind him at six sharp. Needless to say, Clements saw nothing out of the way. His route took him nowhere near the Montfort vault.'
Wexford recognised this short pause as the cue for him to ask an intelligent question, and he asked one. 'How did you know who she was?'
'Her handbag was beside her in the vault, brimming with information. Her address was on a bill from a dry cleaner's and this snapshot was there too. Besides that, there was a sheet of notepaper with two telephone numbers on it.'
Wexford raised an enquiring eyebrow.
'You rang those numbers, of course?'
'Of course. That was among the first things we did. One was that of an hotel in Bayswater, a perfectly respectable, rather large, hotel. They told us they had advertised in a news- paper a vacancy for a receptionist and Loveday Morgan had replied to the advertisement. By phone. She didn't sound the sort of girl they wanted too shy and awkward, they said and she hadn't the necessary experience for the job.
'The other number was that of a West End company called Notbourne Properties who are particularly well known in Notting Hill and Kenbourne Vale. Hence their name. They also had advertised a job, this time for a telephone girl. Loveday applied and actually got as far as an interview. That interview was at the end of the week before last, but they didn't intend to take her on. Apparently, she was badly dressed and, anyway, she wasn't familiar with the particular phone system they use.'
'She wanted to change her job? Does anyone know why?'
'More money, I imagine. We may be able to get some more information about that and her general circumstances from this Mrs Pope.'