this fellow went off. Charlie’d said he wanted to phone Lilian and when I come back over the road he was in a phone box. I wanted a light for my fag – I’d run out of matches – so I opened the door of the box and just asked Charlie for a light. Well, I don’t reckon he’d heard me coming. “Tell Mr McCloy it’s no dice”, I heard him say and it was then I said had he got a match? He jumped out of his skin like he’d been stung. “What the hell are you up to”, he shouts at me, “interfering with my private phone calls?” He was as white as a sheet.’
‘You connected this call with the man in the car?’
‘I reckon I did,’ Cullam said, ‘I did afterwards when I thought about it. My mind went back a couple of months to when Charlie’d asked me if I’d like to make a bit on the side. I wasn’t interested and that was all there was. But I never forgot the name McCloy and when Charlie got so cocky in the pub I thought I’d needle him a bit. That’s all.’
'When was the cafe incident, Cullam?’
‘Come again?’
‘When did you overhear Hatton’s phone conversation?’
‘Way back in the winter. January, I reckon. Not long after Charlie had his lorry pinched and got hit on the head.’
‘All right. That’ll do for now, but I may want to talk to you again.’
Wexford went back through the Cullams’ living room. The children had disappeared. Mrs Cullam still sat in front of the television, the baby asleep now in her lap, the dog lying across her slippered feet. She moved her head as he crossed the room and for a moment he thought she was going to speak to him. Then he saw that the movement was a mere craning of the neck because for an instant he had obstructed her view of the screen.
Dominic, Barnabas, Samantha and Georgina were sitting on the kerb poking sticks through the drain cover. Wexford wasn’t inclined to be sentimental over the Cullams but he couldn’t help being touched that they who were poor in everything had been affluent, extravagant and imaginative in one respect. If they never gave their children another thing, they had at least endowed them with names usually reserved to the upper classes.
Dominic, whose face was still coated with food, looked up truculently as he passed and Wexford said, because he couldn’t resist it:
‘What’s the baby called?’
‘Jane,’ said Dominic simply and without surprise.
When Wexford got home for his tea Clytemnestra wagged her darning-wool tail at him but she didn’t get out of his chair. Wexford scowled at her.
'Where’s Sheila?’ he asked his wife.
‘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.’
