pounds was in the pocket of his jeans and that too he intended to take with him. After he had washed, he meant to help himself to whatever he fancied from Arthur Grimble's wardrobe. In fact, he had already been into the bedroom and put the contents of his anorak pockets-keys and a watch and his wallet-into the pocket of a sports jacket. It was in the bathroom that Ronald McNeil encountered him.
“Now Irene McNeil says he menaced her husband with a knife, and the knife we took off Darrel Fincher may certainly have been his. But would a man who believed himself alone in a house, a man who was in his underwear, in a bathroom, carry a knife with him? I don't think so. I think what happened was that after McNeil had shot Miller, he found a knife among the clothes in the kitchen and put it in the bathroom to give credence to his story. The thousand pounds remained where it was, in Miller's jeans pocket. Pity it never found its way to Bridget Cook.”
“She had a lucky escape,” Hannah said.
“And maybe even she will think so,” said Wexford, “when all this gets to be public knowledge.”
In A Passage to India Wexford said to Burden, “We come in here because it's more or less next door-well, you come to feast your eyes on beauty and I must come because you do. I can't think of any other reason. I'm getting sick of Indian food.”
“There's a new restaurant opened on the corner of Queen Street. It's Uzbek. We could give it a go.”
The bead curtain was pushed aside and Matea came out, followed by Rao in a tight suit and a bow tie. Matea stopped when she saw them and whispered something to her employer. He seemed to be arguing with her, but after a moment or two, he spread his hands out, shrugged, and let her go back the way she had come. Two menus in his hand, he came over to Wexford and Burden, all smiles, bowing to them.
“What was that about?” Burden said when Rao had taken their order.
“God knows. Before we say any more, I have to tell you that Tredown is dead. Barry told me as we were coming out.”
Burden was silent. “I think this is a case where you could truly talk about a merciful release.”
“Yes. Poor wretch. Stealing Hexham's work didn't bring him much pleasure, did it? It brought him money. Money for those two hellcats. But when you come to think of it, they didn't know what to do with it when they had it, did they? Flagford is a pretty village, but they lived in the ugliest house in it. As far as I could gather, they never had a holiday. They hadn't got a decent piece of furniture. Their car was fifteen years old. When Tredown wanted to change his consciousness he didn't use an expensive opiate but a herb you could grow in your garden.”
Always interested in sartorial matters, Burden said, “And one of his wives dressed like a bag lady and the other one from Asda.”
Two more couples had come into the restaurant, followed by a man on his own. Matea emerged from the kitchen area, setting the bead curtain ringing. She moved so fast, her normal grace was lost. Her face seemed deliberately turned away from their table as she went to hand menus to the newcomers.
Without commenting on her behavior, Wexford said, “It's an image I shan't soon get out of my head, that poor devil sitting up there in a room-which, by the way, we never got to see-with someone else's manuscript in front of him, retyping the whole thing, making a little change here, a different word there, altering Hexham's no doubt superior style to something more like his own writing in those Bible epics. Maybe making those changes made him feel what he was doing wasn't all that wrong. He must have told himself that the finished work-think of it, Mike, over five hundred pages when it was a hardcover book, how many manuscript sheets must it have been?-but think of it, think of him laboring away, turning someone else's work into his own, so that he could tell himself in the long watches of the night that what he was doing wasn't so bad, wasn't real plagiarism, because its author had said he could have it-hadn't he?”
No wonder he saw ghosts, he thought, but didn't say aloud. Their chicken tikka and lamb korma arrived, brought by the proprietor. He seemed nervous. It was as if, Wexford said when the man had gone, he feared being questioned about Matea's conduct. An explanation for it awaited them next door in the police station but first they had their lunch.
“Poor Charlie Cummings was never found,” said Wexford.
“A great many missing people never are found. Darracott was never found.”
“I know. But all through this case I've had a sort of absurd hope that one of us would come across Cummings somewhere, alive and well. I suppose I should be glad we didn't find him dead. Yet somewhere he's dead. In some pond or lake or cave or deep ditch his bones are lying and it seems wrong, though I'm not sure I could say why, for anyone's body to lie unburied.”
Burden always felt uncomfortable when Wexford talked in this vein.
“What do they eat in Uzbekistan?”
“Camel,” said Wexford who didn't know. “Yak. Abominable Snowmen. Noodles. I wish I knew what was wrong with that girl. It worries me.”
They walked across the police station forecourt. “D'you think they'll still make the film?”
“It'll be a blow to Sheila if they don't. But they will, Mike. When did you ever see a film where the name of the author mattered or anyone even knew it?”
Wexford was talking to the duty sergeant when Karen Malahyde came up to them. For the first time in months she called Wexford “sir.”
“Kingsmarkham Social Services have taken Shamis Imran into care, sir.”
Wexford was very still. He seemed turned to stone, the heavy cast on his arm held across his body as if defensively. “Was that necessary?” he said at last.
“I thought you'd be pleased,” Karen said.
“Did you?”
“At least she'll be safe, guv.”
“I suppose so. In one way.”
He walked toward the lift where Burden caught up with him. “So that was what was wrong with Matea. It can't be helped, Reg. While she was at home there was nothing to prevent her parents trying again. Another ‘auntie' would have been fetched from Somalia.” Wexford looked at him, surprised. “Yes, I know. I've been reading up on genital mutilation. I think I've got some idea now how strongly these people feel about it. Not having it done would be like us not having our daughters immunized. Worse than that-not sending our daughters to school.”
Once again Wexford said he supposed so. As the lift climbed slowly to the second floor he seemed to see the Imrans in their “penthouse” flat, hard rock beating out from the place next door, the two parents silent, not understanding why this had been done to them, bewildered by inexplicable laws. They had been doing the very best for their daughter, ensuring her acceptance in the community and her eligibility for a good marriage, but she had been taken from them. They were unfit to have the care of her. Where had they gone wrong? Le metier d'homme est difficile. The job of being a human being was indeed difficult. It sounded a lot better in French.
On a gloomy day in late November, the day John Grimble heard from the Kingsmarkham planners that his application to build more than one house had again been refused, Jim Belbury and Honey came cautiously back to their truffle-hunting ground. The trench had been filled in, the crime tape had gone, but the season wasn't quite over. Jim had a nice cut off the Sunday joint, hygienically wrapped in a recyclable plastic bag, to reward Honey if she struck lucky.
Their hunting ground it was but not the same location. Jim would have felt a bit squeamish about that. They went prospecting around the field and among the trees until Jim saw a swarm of flies buzzing about under an oak tree. The oak was right up against Pickfords' fence, but no one was about in the Pickford garden. It was too cold and too damp. Jim could see the television screen glowing behind the French windows and Mr. Pickford and his son watching the cricket game from Australia.
Jim said what he always said, “Get digging, girl.”
Honey waited for those words. Perhaps no others would have served as a trigger. But those three words were enough. She snapped at the flies and began a busy rooting in the fallen leaves, the leaf mold beneath, and the soft loam under that. Jim thought they weren't going to be lucky. Not this time. It was too late in the year. But Honey was enjoying herself. He tugged at her collar, pulling her away to where the banished flies had regathered and once more begun their frenzied dance.
He slightly varied his command. “Give it a go, girl.”
She took longer than usual about it. She dug deeper. He could hardly believe his eyes when he saw the
