‘Dentist’s.’
‘She never said anything about toothache.’
‘You don’t go to the dentist’s because you’ve got toothache any more. You go for a check-up. She’s having that molar of hers crowned.’
‘So I suppose she won’t feel up to taking that creature out in the morning. Well, she needn’t put it on to me. I’ve got enough on my plate.’
But Sheila danced in gaily at six o’clock and smiled at her father to show off the triumph of orthodontics.
‘There, isn’t that great?’ To satisfy her Wexford peered into the perfect mouth. ‘That filling was getting a bit of a drag,’ she said. ‘Very shy-making for close-ups. An actress has to think about these things.’
‘I bet Bernhardt never bothered about her teeth,’ said Wexford to annoy her.
Sheila opened her eyes wide and fixed her father with a precisely constructed look of wistful adoration. ‘Did you often see Bernhardt when you were a young man, Pop?’ she asked.
Wexford’s reply was an ill-tempered snort. He pushed a cup of tea to his daughter who rejected it in favour of cold milk. This she sipped slowly, very conscious of the picture she made in her cream linen dress, her pale hair slightly but attractively disordered, Roman sandal thongs binding her long legs to the knee. Wexford wondered what life held for her. Would she succeed and the future be a succession of triumphs, starring parts, world tours, fame, the increasing terror of growing old? Or would she marry some young idiot like this Sebastian and forget all her aspirations in the possession of two children and a semi? Because he was a father and no longer young he confessed to himself that he would prefer the latter. He wanted her to be safe. Nothing on earth would have made him tell her so.
No such thoughts troubled her, he fancied. Living in the moment, she drank her milk and began to prattle on about her visit to the dentist.
‘If I ever settle down…’ Sheila said this in much the same tone of incredulity as she might have said, ‘If I ever die’. ‘If I ever settle down, I wouldn’t mind a house like his. Not in Kingsmarkham of course. Stratford might be nice or the Cotswolds near Stratford.’
‘Within commuting distance,’ Wexford put in slyly.
His daughter ignored him. ‘One of those black and white houses it is. Terribly ancient and full of atmosphere. Of course, the surgery part’s all modern. New copies of Nova and Elle. I thought that progressive.’
‘Thoughtful too,’ said Wexford, ‘what with everyone in Kingsmarkham being bi-lingual.’
‘Your generation just wasn’t educated, Pop, but I can tell you I hardly know anyone who doesn’t read French. Anyway, the old fuddy-duddies can look at the antiques.’ Sheila put her glass down and tossed her head. ‘Georgeous painting on the walls, and some marvellous glass sculpture.’
Sounds like the police station, Wexford thought. ‘And where is this shrine of culture?’ he said aloud.
‘Ploughman’s Lane.’
‘He wouldn’t be called Vigo would he?’
‘Mm-hm, he would.’ Sheila sat on the sofa and began painting shiny black lines on her eyelids. ‘It’s about time you and Mummy stopped going to that dreary old Richardson in the High Street and switched to Mr Vigo.’ The most difficult feat of her artistry completed, she started to stroke her lashes with a mascara wand. ‘Mr Vigo is an absolute dream. One of those fair-haired characters with a craggy face. Madly sexy.’ Wexford winced and hoped she hadn’t seen. His daughters were still little girls to him. Who the hell did this craggy fair fellow think he was, projecting his dreamy sexiness at his little girl? ‘Of course he’s not young,’ said Sheila serenely.
‘All of thirty-five, I daresay. One foot in the grave and the other on a bar of soap.’
‘About thirty-five,’ said Sheila seriously. She held her eye lashes up with two fingers to curl them. ‘He’s got a baby of six months and – something rather tragic. His older child’s a mongol. Ghastly, isn’t it? It’s eight now and Mr Vigo hasn’t seen it for years. He and his wife tried and tried to have another one and they did, but it took them all those years. Of course he worships the baby.’
‘How do you know all this?’ Wexford asked. She was a detective’s daughter all right. ‘I thought you went to get your tooth done, not do a survey.’
‘Oh, we had a long talk,’ Sheila said airily. ‘I don’t suppose you can understand, but I’m interested in human nature. If I’m going to be a real actress I’ll have to know what makes people tick. I’m getting quite good at summing people up.’
‘Bully for you,’ said her father sourly. ‘I’ve been trying for forty years and the margin of error’s still about eighty percent.’
Sheila looked at herself in her handbag mirror. ‘Mr Vigo’s got a very smooth sophisticated manner. Cool, if you know what I mean. I sometimes think dentists have a very interesting relationship with their patients. They’ve got to be nice, have the right psychological approach, otherwise, you’d never go back to them again, would you? It’s such an intimate thing. I mean, can you think of any other situation, Pop, when a man gets so close to a woman except when he’s actually making love to her?’
‘I sincerely hope nothing like that happened.’
‘Oh, Pop… I was just saying what it was like. I was making a sort of comparison.’ Sheila giggled and twisted a strand of hair around one finger. ‘Although, when I was going he did give me a sort of squeeze and said I’d got the loveliest mouth he’d ever seen.’
‘My God!’ said Wexford, getting up. ‘If you don’t mind what you say to your father, you might remember he’s also a detective chief inspector.’ He paused and then said, not realizing the effect his words would have, ‘I may go along and see this Vigo.’
‘Oh, Pop!’ Sheila wailed.
‘Not because of your lovely mouth, my dear. In pursuance of an enquiry of my own.’
‘Well, don’t you dare…’
All this time Mrs Wexford had been placidly eating ginger biscuits, but now she looked up and said calmly:
'What a silly girl you are. I often think it’s a blessing intelligence isn’t necessary in the interpretive arts. If you’ve finished with your face you’d better take that dog out.’
At the word dog, Clytemnestra uncurled herself.
‘All right,’ said Sheila meekly.
Chapter 7
They stood under the willow trees, looking at the river. Anyone who didn’t know them might have taken them for a couple of businessmen out for a Sunday afternoon stroll.
But almost everyone in Kingsmarkham knew them and knew also by now that this was the spot where Charlie Hatton had been murdered.
‘I said we’d have to talk to everyone in the darts club,’ said Burden, stopping down at the water’s edge, ‘and I reckon we have. Funny, isn’t it? Pertwee’s the only one who could put up with Hatton for a moment, but no one’s willing to come out with it. It’s always the others who were daggers drawn with him. The one you’re talking to is all tolerance and forbearance. The farthest he’ll go is to admit a sort of resentment. Does a man do murder because a mate of his riles him in a pub or because he’s got more money than he has?’
'He might if he was going to get some of the money,’ said Wexford. ‘A hundred pounds is a lot to a man like Cullam. We’re going to have to watch Cullam, see if he does some big spending in the next few days. I’m not at all happy about the way he washed the clothes he was wearing on Friday night.’
Burden was advancing gingerly across the river, trying not to get his feet wet. He trod on the projecting stones which the water lapped without covering. Then he bent down and said, ‘There’s your weapon.’
From the bank Wexford followed the direction of his pointing finger. All but one of the stones were furred at their perimeters and partly on their surfaces with green weed.