Burden went up in the lift.
The chief inspector was sitting at his desk, impatiently drumming his fingers on the blotter. There were pouches under his eyes and he looked, Burden thought, very much the worse for wear. And yet, about his whole demeanour, there was an air of triumph, of momentous discovery that until this moment he had kept suppressed.
‘You’re late,’ he snapped. ‘I’ve had to go over and swear out the warrant myself.’
‘What warrant? You mean you’ve found Twohey?’
‘Twohey be damned,’ said Wexford, jumping up and taking his raincoat from the stand. ‘Hasn’t it yet penetrated your dapper little skull that this is a murder hunt? We are going to Clusterwell to make an arrest.’
Obediently, Burden followed him from the room. Wexford didn’t care for the lift and, since he had been trapped in it for two hours one afternoon, had tended to avoid it. But now he jumped in and pressed the button apparently without a qualm.
‘Villiers’ place?’ Burden asked and, when Wexford nodded, ‘Well, you won’t find him there. He’s taking school Prayers this morning.’
‘How bloody unsuitable.’ Wexford gave an explosive snort. The lift sank gently and the door slid open. ‘We’ll take one of the W.P.C.s with us, Mike.’
‘Shall we indeed? When are you going to tell me who we’re arresting and why?’
‘In the car,’said Wexford.’On the way.’
‘And how you suddenly happened to see the light?’
Wexford smiled a smile full of triumph and renewed confidence. ‘I
couldn’t sleep,’ he said as they waited for the policewoman to join them.
‘I couldn’t sleep, so I read a book. I’m an ignorant old policeman, Mike. I don’t read enough. I should have read this one when its author first gave it to me.’
‘I didn’t know it was a detective story, sir,’ said Burden innocently.
‘Don’t be so bloody silly,’ Wexford snapped. ‘I don’t mean the book outlines the murder plan. Anyway, there was no plan.’
‘Of course not. It was unpremeditated.’
‘Yes, you were right there and right about a lot of things,’ Wexford said, adding in a sudden burst of confidence: ‘I don’t mind telling you, I began to think you were right in everything. I thought I was getting old, past it.’
‘Oh, come, sir,’ said Burden heartily. ‘That’s nonsense.’
‘Yes, it is,’ the chief inspector snapped. ‘I’ve still got my eyesight, I’ve still got some intuition. Well, don’t stand hanging about there all day. We’ve got to make an arrest.’
Someone else must have stood on the dais and commanded the boys to lift up their hearts and voices, for Denys Villiers was at home.
‘I took the day off,’ he said to Wexford. ‘I’m not well.’
‘You look ill, Mr Villiers,’ said Wexford gravely and, meeting the man’s eyes, ‘You always look ill.’
‘Do I? Yes, perhaps I do.’
‘You don’t seem curious about the purpose of our call.’
Villiers threw up his head. ‘I’m not. I know why you’ve come.’
‘I should like to see your wife.’
‘I know that too. Do you imagine I think you’ve brought a policewoman for the sake of a little feminine company? You underrate your opponent, Mr Wexford.’
‘You have always underrated yours.’
Villiers gave a slight painful smile. ‘Yes, we have been a mutual denigration society.’ He went to the bedroom door. ‘Georgina!’
She came out, shoulders hunched, head bent. Wexford had only once before seen anyone come through a doorway like that, and then it had been a man, a father who for two days had kept his children at gunpoint in a room with him. At last he had been persuaded to drop his gun and come out, walk across the threshold to the waiting police and crumple into his wife’s arms.
Georgina crumpled into her husband’s.
He held her in a close embrace and he stroked her hair. Wexford heard her murmuring to him, begging him not to leave her. She wore no jewellery but her wedding and engagement rings.
It was so painful to watch that he couldn’t bring himself to speak the words of the charge. He stood awkwardly, clearing his throat, giving a little cough like the sound he had made when she had locked herself in the bathroom. Suddenly she lifted her head and looked at them over her husband’s shoulder. Tears were pouring down her freckled cheeks.
“Yes, I killed Elizabeth,’ she said hoarsely. ‘The torch was on the ground. I picked it up and killed her. I’m glad I did it.’ Denys Villiers, still holding her, shivered violently. ‘If I had known before, I would have killed her sooner. I killed her as soon as I knew.’
Very quietly Wexford spoke the words of the charge. ‘I don’t care what you take down in writing,’ she said. ‘I did it because I wanted to keep my husband. He’s mine, he belongs to me. I never had anyone else to belong to me. She had everything but I only had him.’
Villiers listened with a still set face, ‘May I go with her?’ Wexford had never expected to hear him speak so humbly.
‘Of course you may,’ he said.
The policewoman took Georgina to the waiting car, an arm round her shoulders. The arm was only for support and to prevent her from stumbling, but it looked as if it had been placed there from kindness and a kind of sisterly regard. Burden followed them, walking with the slow stiff pace of a mourner at a funeral.
Villiers looked at Wexford and the chief inspector returned his gaze.
‘She can’t tell you very much,’ said Villiers. ‘I’m the only person living who knows it all.’
‘Yes, Mr Villiers, we shall need to take a statement from you.’
‘I’ve written something already. Other people talk or else shut it all up inside themselves, but writers write. I wrote this in the night. I haven’t been able to sleep. I haven’t slept at all.’
And the envelope was waiting on the hall table, propped against a vase.
Taking it, Wexford saw that it was addressed to him and that there was a stamp on it.
‘If you hadn’t come this morning I should have posted it. I couldn’t have borne the waiting any longer. Now you have it I think perhaps I shall sleep.’
‘Shall we go, then?’said Wexford.
Burden drove with Villiers beside him. No one spoke. As they entered Kingsmarkham, Wexford slit open the envelope and glanced briefly at the first typewritten sheet.
Then the car swung on to the police station forecourt.
He got out and opened the nearside front door. But Villiers didn’t move.
Touching his shoulder to tell him they had arrived, Wexford saw with a sudden shaft of compassion, the first he had ever felt for the man, that Villiers was fast asleep.
For the attention of Chief Inspector Wexford:
I cannot suppose that I am among your favourite authors, so I will keep this statement as brief as I can. I am writing it at night while my wife sleeps.
Yes, she can sleep, the sleep of the innocent, just avenger.
When you quoted Byron to me I was sure that you knew why if you did not know how. But I have asked myself since then, did you know? Did you even know what you were saying? I stared at you. I waited for you to arrest my wife, and my face must have told you what I was afraid of : that you, to frighten me and to extract a confession from me, had quoted to me the words of a man all the world knows to have been his sister’s lover.
I think I betrayed myself then. I certainly did so when I gave you my book to read. But then I thought you were too ignorant, too dull and plodding, to equate a short passage in my book with my own life. Now, as the dawn comes up and in its light I look at things coldly and dispassionately, as I remind myself of my provocative rudeness to you and your civilised forbearance, as I remember your percipience, I know that I was wrong. You will read and you will realise, ‘Thou best philosopher, thou eye among the blind!’