same drawer and to neither of them was attached the usual leather tag. A violent pounding on the front door made him jump. He went out and opened it and saw Lilian Crown standing there.
‘Oh, it’s you’, she said. ‘Thought it might be kids got in. Or squatters. Never know these days, do you?’
She wore red trousers and a T-shirt which would have been better suited to Robin. Brash fearlessness is not a quality generally associated with old women, especially those of her social stratum. Timidity, awe of authority, a need for selfeffacement so often get the upper hand after the climacteric – as Sylvia might have pointed out to him with woeful examples – but they had not triumphed over Mrs Crown. She had the boldness of youth, and this surely not induced by gin at ten in the morning.
‘Come in, Mrs Crown,’ he said, and he shut the door firmly behind her. She trotted about, sniffing.
‘What a pong! Haven’t been in here for ten years.’ She wrote something in the dust on top of the chest of drawers and let out a girlish giggle.
His hands full of keys, he said, ‘Does the name Farriner mean anything to you?’
‘Can’t say it does.’ She tossed her dried grass hair and lit a cigarette. She had come to check that the house hadn’t been invaded by vandals, come from only next-door, but she had brought her cigarettes with her and a box of matches. To have a companionable smoke with squatters? She was amazing.
‘I suppose your niece had a car,’ he said, and he held up the two small keys.
‘Never brought it here if she did. And she would’ve. Never missed a chance of showing off.’ Her habit of omitting pronouns from her otherwise not particularly economical speech irritated him. He said rather sharply, ‘Then whom do these keys belong to?’
‘No good asking me. If she’d got a car left up in London, what’s she leave her keys about down here for? Oh, no, that car’d have been parked outside for all the world to see. Couldn’t get herself a man, so she was always showing what she could get. Wonder who’ll get her money? Won’t be me though, not so likely.’ She blew a blast of smoke into his face, and he retreated, coughing.
‘I’d like to know more about that phone call Miss Comfrey made to you on the Friday evening.’
‘Like what? said Mrs Crown, smoke issuing dragon-like from her nostrils.
‘Exactly what you said to each other. You answered the phone and she said, “Hallo, Lilian. I wonder if you know who this is.” Is that right?’ Mrs Crown nodded. ‘Then what?’ Wexford said. ‘What time was it?’
‘About seven. I said hallo and she said what you’ve said. In a real put-on voice, all deep and la-di-da. “Of course I know,” I said. “If you want to know about your dad,” I said, “you’d best get on to the hospital,” “Oh, I know all about that,” she said. “I’m going away on holiday,” she said, “but I’ll come down for a couple of days first.” '
‘You’re sure she said that about a holiday?’ Wexford interrupted.
‘Course I’m sure. There’s nothing wrong with my memory. Tell you another thing. She called me darling. I was amazed. “I’ll come down for a couple of days first, darling,” she said. Mind you, there was someone else with her while she was phoning. I know what she was up to. She’d got some woman there with her and she wanted her to think she was talking to a man.’
‘But she called you Lilian.'
‘That’s not to say the woman was in there with her when she started talking, is it? No, if you want to know what I think, she’d got some friend in the place with her, and this friend came in after she’d started talking, so she put in that “darling” to make her think she’d got a boy-friend she was going to see. I’m positive, I knew Rhoda. She said it again, or sort of “My dear”, she said. “Thought you might be worried if you saw lights on, my dear. I’ll come in and see you after I’ve been to the infirmary.” And then whoever it was must have gone out again, I heard a door slam. Her voice went very low after that and she just said in her usual way, “See you Monday then. Good-bye.” ‘
‘You didn’t wish her Many Happy Returns of the day?’
If a spider had shoulders they would have looked like Lilian Crown’s. She shrugged them up and down, up and down, like a marionette. ‘Old Mother Parker told me afterwards it was her birthday. You can’t expect me to remember a thing like that. I knew it was in August sometime. Sweet fifty and never been kissed!’
‘That’s all, Mrs Crown,’ said Wexford distastefully and escorted her back to the front door. Sometimes he thought how nice it would be to be a judge so that one could boldly and publicly rebuke people. With his sleeve he rubbed out of the dust the arrowed heart – B loves L – she had drawn there, wondering as he did so if B were the ‘gentleman friend’ she went drinking with, and wondering too about incidence of adolescent souls lingering on in mangy old carcases.
He made the phone call from home.
‘I can tell you that here and now,’ said Baker. ‘Dinehart happened to mention it. Rose Farriner runs a Citroen. Any help to you?’
‘I think so, Michael. Any news of my Chief Constable’s get-together with your Super?’
‘You’ll have to be patient a bit longer, Reg.’ Wexford promised he would be. The air was clearing.
Rhoda Comfrey Farriner had made that call to her aunt from Princevale Road on the evening of her birthday when, not unnaturally, she had had a friend with her. A woman, as Lilian Crown had supposed? No, he thought, a man. Late in life, she had at last found herself a man whom she had been attempting to inspire with jealousy. He couldn’t imagine why. But never mind. That man, whoever he was, had indeed been inspired, had heard enough to tell him where Rhoda Rose Comfrey Farriner was going on Monday. Wexford had no doubt that that listener had been her killer.
It had been a crime of passion. Adolescent souls linger on, as Mrs Crown had shown him, in ageing bodies. Not in everyone does the heyday in the blood grow tame. Had he not himself even recently, good husband though he tried to be, longed wistfully for the sensation of being again in love? Hankered for the feeling of it and murmured to himself the words of Stendhal – though it might be with the ugliest kitchen-maid in Paris, as long as he loved her and she returned his ardour.
The girl who sat in the foyer of Kingsmarkham Police Station was attracting considerable attention. Sergeant Camb had given her a cup of tea, and two young detective constables had asked her if she was quite comfortable and was she sure there was nothing they could do to help her? Loring had wondered if it would cost him his job were he to take her up to the canteen for a sandwich or the cheese on toast Chief Inspector Wexford called Fuzz Fondue. The girl looked nervous and upset. She had with her a newspaper at which she kept staring in an appalled way, but she would tell no one what she wanted, only that she must see Wexford.
Her colouring was exotic. There is an orchid, not pink or green or gold, but of a waxen and delicate beige, shaded with sepia, and this girl’s face had the hue of such an orchid. Her features looked as if drawn in charcoal on oriental silk, and her hair was black silk, massy and very finely spun. For her country-women the sari had been designed, and she walked as if she were accustomed to wearing a sari, though for this visit she was in Western dress, a blue skirt and a white cotton shirt.
‘Why is he such a long time?’ she said to Loring, and Loring who was a romantic young man thought that it was in just such a tone that the Shunamite had said to the watchman: Have ye seen him whom my soul loveth?
‘He’s a busy man,’ he said.’but I’m sure he won’t be long.’
And for the first time he wished he were ugly old Wexford who could entertain such a visitor in seclusion. And then, at half past twelve, Wexford walked in.
‘Good morning. Miss Patel.’
‘You remember me!’
Loring had the answer to that one ready. Who could forget her, once seen? Wexford said only that he did remember her, that he had a good memory for faces, and then poor Loring was sharply dismissed with the comment that if he had nothing to do the chief inspector could soon remedy that. He watched beauty and the beast disappear into the lift.
‘What can I do for you, Miss Patel?’
She sat down in the chair he offered her. ‘You’re going to be very angry with me. I’ve done something awful. No, really, I’m afraid to tell you. I’ve been so frightened ever since I saw the paper. I got on the first train. You’re all so nice to me, everyone was so nice, and I know it’s going to change and it won’t be nice at all when I tell you.’
Wexford eyed her reflectively. He remembered that he had put her down as a humorist and a tease, but now her wit had deserted her. She seemed genuinely upset. He decided to try a little humour himself and perhaps put her more at ease. ‘I haven’t eaten any young women for months now,’ he said, ‘and, believe me, I make it a rule
