for one of them. He returned to the bathroom, slid the rusty blade down into the crack, and pushed until it half-lifted the obstruction, something small and cylindrical. Easing it out, he blew the dust from it and saw that what he had found was a cartridge, probably, almost certainly, from a twelve-bore shotgun.
That, at any rate, proved Mrs. McNeil's story. How much now did it matter if the mystery of the knife was never solved? Whether McNeil had killed in self-defense or in malice hardly mattered, either. He was dead and the only offense with which his widow could be charged was that of concealing a death. If Grimble ever got his planning permission, would anyone want to live in a house (or two houses or three) built here, where two murders had happened, where two bodies had been hidden? Wexford was thinking about this, imagining himself as a potential buyer, when he heard a door close softly and a footstep in the kitchen.
He turned around, finding himself in the same position as Miller must have been when he was surprised by McNeil entering the house. This intruder, however, wasn't carrying a shotgun. Claudia Ricardo said, without polite preamble, “I saw your car outside with that driver of yours in it.” Why was “that driver of yours” so much more offensive to Wexford than “your driver”? The words meant the same thing. “It seemed an opportunity to get some facts out of you.”
He said nothing, waited.
“Is it true that was Dusty's body you found in here?”
“Yes, it's true.”
“And he'd been dead for eight years? Murdered? How funny. And it was eight years in September?”
“It would seem so,” said Wexford.
“If only we'd known,” she said, as if to herself. “That's why he never came back. I thought he'd come back, I really did.”
The thought came to him then that this woman, attractive in a bizarre way, had been sexually involved with Miller. Not perhaps in 1998 but three years before that. In jeans and clinging red sweater, she looked younger than when she wore her long skirts and “hippyish” patchwork. She pushed her hands through her hair, the movement lifting her cheeks and giving youth to her face. Silent for a while, apparently speculating, she said, “What happened to the money?”
“The thousand-” he said deliberately, “I mean, the hundred-pound wedding present?”
She wasn't the kind of woman who blushed, but her eyes narrowed.
“I can't tell you that, Miss Ricardo,” he said. “Now it's your turn to tell me something. When Miller came to you eleven years ago, worked for you as a handyman and drove your car, did he bring you the manuscript of a novel for Mr. Tredown to read?”
A strange expression had come into her face, calculating and sly. “Whatever makes you ask?”
“Perhaps you'd just answer the question.”
“Only if we can go and sit down somewhere. Have a little tete-a-tete? This place is a hole and a dump, but it's not as foul as this in the bedroom.”
The stench of old clothes and mothballs was unpleasant. Mice had been eating the old flock mattress. It was strange, Wexford had sometimes thought, how rodents could eat unpalatable, nutrition-free substances and apparently thrive on them. “Now perhaps you'd answer the question,” he said again.
She shrugged in a way that managed to be offhand and involved at the same time. He noticed how long her neck was, a desirable feature in a woman. “Yes, well, people were always sending him manuscripts,” she said, contempt in her voice. “It was him teaching in creative writing schools that did it. They'd go along and sign up or whatever they did, poor deluded creatures, and go to his classes and most of them got crushes on him. He used to be quite good-looking-we were known as a handsome couple-would you believe it?” When she saw Wexford didn't intend to answer her, she shrugged and went on, “Of course he only did it for the money. He had to, since he didn't make much from his books. I've never worked-did you know that? Never. Maeve did. She was someone's secretary. But me, I never fancied working. You have to get up so early in the morning. The people Owen taught, they'd go home and write something, usually some derivative rubbish or so boring you wouldn't believe. They'd send it to him asking for his comments. We got divorced and he married Maeve. She had an income from somewhere, not much, but better than nothing. Those manuscripts, Maeve and I used to read bits of them out loud and have a laugh, it was most amusing. Owen read them all, he was sorry for the people who wrote them, and he'd spend good money on the return postage.”
“And Miller, did he bring a manuscript?”
“You asked me that before,” she said. “He may have. How would I know? If he did Owen didn't say anything to me about it. He didn't like us laughing at them. He's got a soft heart, poor old thing, so maybe he kept it dark. He was well then, of course.”
Wexford wondered which piece of information that he had given her or question he had asked was responsible for the huge improvement in her spirits since she first walked into the house. Then she had been tense, anxious, but now as they left, her step was lighter and she looked young. It was no longer too difficult to believe that eleven years ago she had been the lover of a man of thirty-two.
“I'm off to see Owen,” she said conversationally. “With Maeve, of course. I mean, she'll have to drive me. I'm not prepared to go on the bus. You wouldn't give me a lift, I suppose?”
“I'm afraid not, Miss Ricardo,” he said.
His destination led him in the opposite direction to hers, back into Kingsmarkham. This suburban estate-many like it had sprung up around the town-lay quietly under a mother-of-pearl sky, November's sunset colors. One of the residents daringly mowed his lawn, another was cutting the last roses of the year, the bruised and misshapen flowers of late autumn. Irene McNeil's house had the indefinable look homes have in the daytime when their occupants are asleep. A shuttered silent look, a stillness.
If he hadn't known someone must be at home, Wexford would have given up after the second ring. But he pressed the bell a third time, there was a patter of soft footsteps, and Greg opened the door. Five minutes before, Wexford was sure, he had been asleep, had combed his hair on the way to let him in. His face was like the face of an infant who has been wakened too soon. But he wasn't one to lose his cool, as he might have said himself.
“Hi, Mr. Wexford, how're you?”
When this vacuous greeting started to become commonplace, Wexford resolved not to answer it in any circumstances. “I'd like to see Mrs. McNeil.”
“Oh, dear, she's fast asleep.”
“You'll do,” Wexford said. “In fact, you may do even better.”
Greg's smile grew wary as he invited Wexford in. “My pleasure,” he murmured but looked rather startled when asked for his full name.
“Gregory Brewster-Clark,” he said, and then, “May I ask why you want to know?”
“Well, yes, you may.” For a moment Wexford considered telling him he might ask but not necessarily get an answer. He relented. “You may think it outdated of me,” he said, “but I don't much care to call people I don't know by their given names.”
It was plain that Greg didn't know what a given name was. But he had got his answer and cheered up, skipping into the kitchen and asking if he could get him anything. Wexford thought he was more like a hairdresser than a carer. He could imagine him with scissors in his hand, asking a client if he wanted a teeny fraction more off the back.
“I'd like to see inside the cupboards and drawers,” he said.
Greg seemed to see nothing odd about this request. As far as he was concerned, any visitor male or female must have a burning desire to see his handiwork. Everything was clean and neat, sterile-looking and smelling of chlorine, as if an anesthetized patient might be brought in at any moment to await surgery. Happily, Greg opened one wall cupboard after another, displaying rows and stacks of matching china and glass. If there was food in this place it must all have been kept inside the fridge. A knife rack caught Wexford's attention but there was nothing of interest to be found in it.
Fortunately, it never seemed to occur to Greg to ask him what right he had to search Mrs. McNeil's kitchen. The word “warrant” would perhaps have been foreign to him. Wexford had expected an argument but, as he told Burden later, all he got was smiling acquiescence and a cup of excellent tea.
“First I had a look at the knife rack but the knives were all the same, with plain black handles. Then I asked to see inside the drawers. Greg showed not the least sign of suspicion. Maybe it's normal in the households where he
