London I said we’d give her a lift’? But in that case Mrs Fanshawe would hardly deny the girl’s presence.
There was more to it than that. There was the handbag. Camb had searched that handbag and found in it nothing but make-up and a little money. That wasn’t natural, Wexford reflected. Where were her keys? Come to that, where were all the other things women usually stuff into bags, handkerchiefs, dress shop bills, receipts, tickets, pen, letters? The things which were there were anonymous, the things which were not there were the objects by which someone might be identified.
Wexford let himself into his own house and the dog Clytemnestra galloped to meet him.
‘What would you do,’ Wexford said to his wife, ‘if I brought a young girl home and offered you a thousand pounds to let her stay?’
‘You haven’t got a thousand pounds,’ said Mrs Wexford.
‘True. There’s always a fly in the ointment.’
‘On the subject of young girls and money, Mr Vigo has sent a whacking bill for your daughter’s tooth.’
Wexford looked at it and groaned. ‘Pleached walks!’ he said. ‘Chinese Chippendale! I just hope one of my customers pinches his orrery, that’s all. Is there any beer in the house?’
Suppressing a smile, his wife stepped over the now recumbent form of the knitted dog and went into the kitchen to open a can.
A pewter tankard at his elbow, Wexford spent the next couple of hours studying Hatton’s log book and Mrs Hatton’s engagement diary.
It was the week immediately preceding May 21st which interested him. On the 22nd Hatton had paid five hundred pounds into his bank and two days prior to that had either been in possession of a large sum of money or confident of acquiring it, for on the 21st, a Tuesday, he had ordered his new set of teeth.
Mrs Hatton’s engagement diary was a calendar in the shape of a rectangular book. The left-hand pages bore a coloured photograph of some English beauty spot with an appropriate verse, both for the picture and the time of year, while the right-hand pages were each divided into seven sections. The days of the week were listed on the left side and a space of perhaps one inch by five was allowed for brief jottings.
Wexford opened it at Sunday, May 12th.
The photograph was of Kentish fruit orchards and the lines beneath it from As You Like It: ‘Men are April when they woo, December when they wed. Maids are May while they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives.’
Not true of the Hattons, he thought. Now to see how Mrs Hatton had occupied herself during that particular week.
Nothing for Sunday. Monday May 13th: C. left for Leeds. Mother to tea. Tuesday May 14th: Rang Gas Board. C. home 3 p.m. Pictures. And here in Hatton’s log book was the Leeds trip confirmed. He had stopped twice on the way up, at Norman Cross for lunch at the Merrie England cafe, and at Dave’s Diner near Retford for a cup of tea. His room in Leeds was with a Mrs Hubble at 21 Ladysmith Road, and on the return journey he had stopped only once and again at the Merrie England. There was nothing in the log book at this stage to make Wexford even pause. Hatton had done the journey in the shortest possible time, leaving no possible spare moment for undercover activities. He turned back to the diary.
Wednesday, May l5th: C. off work. Rang doctor. Mem, N.H.S., not private. Interesting. Hatton had been ill and at that time apparently not in funds. Thursday May 16th: C. summer flu. Ring Jack and Marilyn put off dinner. There was no entry for Friday May 17th.
Saturday, May 18th: C. better. Doctor called again. Jim and mother came.
That completed the week. Wexford turned the page to Sunday, May 18th: C. left for Leeds. Mem, will ring me 8 p.m. J and M came for drinks and solo game. Opposite was a photograph of a large country house and the lines: ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in pos session of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.’ Wexford smiled grimly to himself. Monday, May 20th: C. bad again. Left Leeds late. Home 10 p.m.
Quickly Wexford checked with the log book. Yes, here was Hatton’s entry that he had been too ill to start the return journey until noon. He had driven home slowly and stopped twice on the way at the Hollybush at Newark and at the Merrie England. But had he really been ill or had he been shamming, crafty sick to give himself extra time in Leeds? For however he acquired that money he must have acquired it, Wexford was certain, during the 19th or the 20th of May.
Tuesday, May 21st C. fit again. Day off. Saw Jack and Marilyn. Appointment 2 p.m. with dentist.
A precise little woman, Lilian Hatton, if not exactly verbose. Impossible to tell if she knew anything. The last place to which she would have confided her secrets was this calendar diary.
It didn’t look as if Hatton had been up to much on that Monday morning in Leeds, but you never knew. There was always the night between Sunday and Monday to be considered. For all Wexford knew or could remember there might have been a bank robbery in that city at that time. It would all have to be checked. He wondered why the Fanshawe business kept intruding and upsetting his concentration, and then suddenly he knew.
Fanshawe had crashed his car on Monday, May 20th; an unidentified girl had died on May 20th and also on May 20th something big had happened to Charlie Hatton.
But there couldn’t be a connection. Fanshawe was a wealthy stockbroker with a flat in Mayfair and, apart from a bit of moral nastiness, not a stain on his character. Charlie Hatton was a cocky little lorry driver who had probably never set foot in Mayfair all his life.
It was just a curious coincidence that Hatton had been killed on the day following that of Mrs Fanshawe’s regaining consciousness.
Wexford closed the books and emptied his tankard for the third time. He was tired and fanciful and he had drunk too much beer. Yawning ponderously, he put Clytemnestra outside the back door and while he waited for her, stood staring emptily at the cloudless, star-filled sky.
Chapter 11
‘Good morning, Miss Thompson,’ Wexford said with a heartiness he didn’t feel.
‘Mrs Pertwee, if you don’t mind.’ She picked up one of the wire baskets that were stacked outside the supermarket and gave him a selfconscious, defiant stare. ‘Jack and me got married very quietly yesterday afternoon.’
‘May I be among the first to offer my congratulations?’
‘Thanks very much, I’m sure. We didn’t tell no one about it, just went off to church quietly by ourselves. Jack’s been so cut up about poor Charlie. When are you going to catch his killer, that’s what I want to know? Not putting yourselves out, I reckon, on account of him being a working fella. Been different if he was one of your upper crust. This capitalist society we live in makes me spit, just spit it does.’
Wexford backed a little, fearing she might suit the action to the word. The bride snapped her toothbrush eyelashes at him. ‘You want to pull your socks up,’ she said relentlessly. ‘Whoever killed Charlie, hanging’d be too good for him.’
‘Dear, oh dear,’ said Wexford mildly, ‘and I thought you progressives were dead against capital punishment.’
She banged into the supermarket and Wexford went on his way, smiling wryly. Camb eyed him warily as he entered the police station.
‘Getting interested in this Fanshawe business, I gather, sir. I met Miss Fanshawe on my way in.’
‘So interested,’ Wexford said, ‘that I’m sending Detective Constable Loring down to find out who’s missing in the holiday towns and it might be worth our while to check with London too.’
Burden had left for Stamford. Stepping into the lift, Wexford decided to do the London checking himself. Young women were beginning to get on his nerves. There were so many of them about, and it seemed to him they caused as much trouble to a policeman as burglars. Now to see how many of them were missing in London. This task was for him somewhat infra dig, but until Burden and Sergeant Martin brought him some information he had little else to do, and this way he could, at any rate, be certain it was well done.
By lunchtime he had narrowed his search down to three out of the dozens of girls missing in the London area.
