Well, they also knew that three of the bodies had been there for twelve years and one for only about two. Lucy had said that Clary had a good many questions to answer, but so did the Underland company. Would they have records of workmen they had employed, even casual labour? That didn’t matter, he thought. Clary would know, Clary and perhaps that unknown quantity his wife Robyn Chilvers. They must make in-depth interviewing of those two their priority, he thought. Monday morning’s task. If only Tom Ede would agree …
*
‘I can’t talk to Mother,’ Sylvia said. ‘Well, I mean she won’t talk to me about what happened and if I mention Jason she clams up or changes the subject in a very obvious sort of way.’
‘Do you want to talk to her about it?’ Wexford asked.
‘I want to feel I can, not that I have to pretend I was attacked by someone I didn’t know, which is how it is now. Or pretend I wasn’t attacked at all. Mother is horrified that I had a relationship with someone seventeen years younger than myself, but she wouldn’t be if I was the man and Jason the woman. And she thinks I was – well, exposing Mary to some sort of corruption but I wasn’t, I was very careful with Mary. Every time Jason and I – well, when we met – Mary was with Mary Beaumont; she’s always spent a lot of time with her, she loves her a lot. That’s why, when we were in the car and I could tell a row was about to happen, I let Mary out of the car and watched her run into Mary Beaumont’s. I saw her jump into Mary’s arms. Mother thinks I sort of pushed her out of the car and left her in the road, which isn’t so at all.’
‘I think you have to ask yourself whether you wouldn’t rather have a mother with strict principles than an amoral one.’
‘To tell you the truth, I sometimes wonder.’
‘Where do you think Jason is now, Sylvia?’
‘If I knew I’d have told Mike. I wouldn’t shelter him.’ Sylvia reached for her glass of wine. ‘He wanted to marry me, you know.’
‘Yes, I gathered that.’
‘The thing was – and you’ll have heard this from countless men in this sort of situation – the thing was when I said no, I didn’t want to be married, he said that if he couldn’t have me no one should. He said it over and over and I took no notice, and the last time he said it he stabbed me.’ She gave a little nervous laugh and put her hand up to where the dressing on her scar pushed out the fabric of her sweater. ‘He said he wasn’t aiming for my heart because I had no heart. I’d like to have told Mother all that, but it’s impossible to say things to someone who won’t receive them.’
‘I shall take you home myself next week,’ Wexford said. ‘I want to have a talk with Mike.’
‘Not about me?’ Sylvia looked alarmed. ‘I’ve told him everything.’
‘Not about you. About this case I’m supposed to be helping with up here, though there’s no sign I’ve done any good so far. Talking to Mike may help me.’
But first must come another talk with Owen Clary and his wife. Tom Ede agreed, but rather grudgingly, Wexford thought. He could tell that Tom was already finding his methods eccentric. There was, Tom suggested, too much imagination involved in this constructed scenario of Clary and ‘Rod’ at Orcadia Cottage. What evidence did Wexford have for what he alleged Rod had done while Clary was inside the house?
‘I don’t have any evidence. If I did I wouldn’t need to talk to Clary or Rod because this business would be nearly solved. You say I’m acting on my imagination and you may be right, but I see it as acting from my knowledge of human nature. I just don’t think we should let it go without at least talking to this Rod.’
‘Well, as I say, you do that small thing. I’ll get Lucy to go along to Clary’s home and you go with her if you want.’ It was a subtly different form of words from what had been said to him before. This time he was accompanying her, not she him. But that was the way it was bound to be, Wexford told himself.
‘I said at the time that I didn’t believe a word of what Clary said,’ Lucy said when they set off for the tall block of Maida Vale flats where Clary and his wife lived. It was she, Robyn Chilvers, who had told them on the phone that she would be glad to see them. Her husband would be there too, of course. It so happened that both would be working from home that day while the heating was being serviced in their Finchley Road offices.
Handsome men don’t always marry good-looking women. Indeed, it is a phenomenon Wexford had often noticed that tall, elegant men with hawk’s profiles like Clary commonly pair up with dumpy women with fat cheeks and small eyes and ‘difficult’ hair like Robyn Chilvers. It was even stranger that while he seemed a subtle and devious person, she immediately gave the impression of frank and open straightforwardness.
Their home was a black and chrome and ivory-white minimalist penthouse, a huge picture window affording a view across north London to the distant Harrow-on-the-Hill. Wexford and Lucy sat down on a very uncomfortable armless black sofa. Clary stood looking at them while his wife bustled in with double espressos in black cups on a white tray.
‘I’ve told you everything I remember about that visit to whatever that so-called cottage is called,’ Clary was saying rather sourly. ‘You should be asking Underland for the name of their plumber, not me.’
‘Except that they have gone out of business,’ said Lucy, trying not to make a face at the first taste of the coffee. She said to Wexford afterwards that she thought it was taking the roof of her mouth off. ‘They know nothing about a plumber called Rod who worked for them three years ago.’
‘Well, I’m sorry but I can’t help you.’
‘But you can, darling,’ said Robyn Chilvers. ‘Rod, you said? He didn’t just work for Underland, he did a job for us. Don’t you remember when the dishwasher leaked? It can’t have been more than a year ago. He’d done a job for us before and I had his phone number and I called him and he came within the hour. He was very efficient.’
‘You mean that’s the same man? I suppose I do remember, Robyn. I just didn’t connect the two.’
‘Do you still have that number, Ms Chilvers?’
‘I’m sure I do. I’ll get it.’
She was rather a long time. While she was away Clary paced up and down the room. Like a panther, Wexford said to Lucy afterwards. They sat there on the rock-hard seat, staring out at London’s houses and church spires and blocks and trees and green spaces while Clary walked up and down in silence. Robyn Chilvers returned at last with a yellow Post-it on which she had written
