It was rather unwillingly that he now relinquished a share of the investigating to Baker and Clements, though he knew Baker’s efficiency. The hard-faced inspector and his sergeant went off to ring at the door of number one. With Burden beside him, Wexford approached the house next door to the empty one. Mrs Cohen at number five was a handsome Jewess in her early forties. Her house was stuffed with ornaments, the wallpaper flocked crimson on gold, gold on cream. There were photographs about of nearly grown-up children, a buxom daughter in a bridesmaid’s dress, a son at his bar mitzvah.
‘Mrs Farriner’s a very charming nice person. What I call a brave woman, self-supporting, you know. Yes, she’s divorced. Some no-good husband in the background, I believe, though she’s never told me the details and I wouldn’t ask. She’s got a lovely little boutique down at Montfort Circus. I’ve had some really exquisite things from her and she’s let me have them at cost. That’s what I call neighbourly. Oh, no, it couldn’t be’ – looking at the photograph ‘ – not murdered. Not a false name, that’s not Rose’s nature. Rose Farriner, that’s her name. I mean, it’s laughable what you’re saying. Of course I know where she is. First she went off to see her mother who’s in a very nice nursing home somewhere in the country, and then she was going on to the Lake District. No, I haven’t had a card from her, I wouldn’t expect it.’
The next house was the one which had been burgled, and Mrs Elliott, when they had explained who they were, promptly assumed that there had been another break-in. She was at least sixty, a jumpy nervous woman who had never been in Rose Farriner’s house or entertained her in her own. But she knew of the existence of the dress shop, knew that Mrs Farriner was away and had remarked that she sometimes went away for weekends, in her view a dangerous proceeding with so many thieves about. The photograph was shown to her and she became intensely frightened. No, she couldn’t say if Mrs Farriner had looked like that when young. It was evident that the idea of even hazarding an identification terrified her, and it seemed as if by so doing she feared to put her own life in jeopardy.
‘Rhoda,’ said Wexford to Burden, ‘means a rose. It’s Greek for rose. She tells people she’s going to visit her mother in nursing home. What are the chances she’s shifted the facts, and mother is father and the nursing home’s a hospital?’
Baker and Clements met them outside the gate of number three. They too had been told of mother and the nursing home, of the dress shop, and they too had met only with doubt and bewilderment over the photograph. Together the four of them approached the last, the chocolate coloured, front door.
Mrs Delano was very young, a fragile pallid blonde with a pale blond baby, at present asleep in its pram in the porch. ‘Rose Farriner’s somewhere around forty or fifty,’ she said as if one of those ages was much the same as the other and all the same to her. She looked closely at the photograph, turned even paler. ‘I saw the papers, it never crossed my mind. It could be her. I can’t imagine now why I didn’t see it before.’
In the display window on the left side of the shop door was the trendy gear for the very young: denim jeans and waistcoats, T-shirts, long striped socks. The other window interested Wexford more, for the clothes on show in it belonged in much the same category as those worn by Rhoda Comfrey when she met her death. Red, white and navy were the predominating colours. The dresses and coats were aimed at a comfortably-off middle-aged market. They were ‘smart’ – a word he knew would never be used by his daughters or by anyone under forty-five. And among them, trailing from an open sleeve to a scent bottle, suspended from a vase to the neck of a crimson sweater, were strings of glass beads.
A woman of about thirty came up to attend to them. She said her name was Mrs Moss and she was in charge while Rose Farriner was away. Her manner astonished, suspicious, cautious – all to be expected in the circumstances. Again the photograph was studied and again doubt was expressed. She had worked for Mrs Farriner for only six months and knew her only in her business capacity.
‘Do you know what part of the country Mrs Farriner originally came from?’ Burden asked her.
‘Mrs Farriner’s never discussed private things with me.’
‘Would you say she’s a secretive person?’
Mrs Moss tossed her head. ‘I really don’t know. We aren’t always gossiping to each other, if that’s what you mean. She doesn’t know any more about me than I know about her.’
Wexford said suddenly, ‘Has she ever had appendicitis?’
‘Has she what?'
‘Has she had her appendix out? It’s the kind of thing one often does know about people.’
Mrs Moss looked as if she were about to retort that she really couldn’t say, but something in Wexford’s serious and ponderous gaze seemed to inhibit her. ‘I oughtn’t to tell you things like that. It’s a breach of confidence.’
‘You’re aware as to whom we think Mrs Farriner really is or was. I think you’re being obstructive.’
‘But she can’t be that woman! She’s in the Lake District. She’ll be back in the shop on Monday.’
‘Will she? Have you had a card from her? A phone call?’
‘Of course I haven’t. Why should I? I know she’s coming home on Saturday.’
‘I’ll be as frank with you,’ Wexford said, ‘as I hope you’ll be with me. If Mrs Rose Farriner has had her appendix removed she cannot be Miss Rhoda Comfrey. There was no scar from an appendicectomy on Miss Comfrey’s body. On the other hand, if she has not, the chances of her having been Miss Comfrey are very strong. We have to know.’
‘All right,’ said Mrs Moss, ‘I’ll tell you. It must have been about six months ago, about February or March. Mrs Farriner took a few days off work. It was food poisoning, but when she came back she did say she’d thought at first it was a grumbling appendix because – well, because she’d had trouble like that before.’
Chapter 10
The heat danced in waving mirages on the white roadway.
Traffic kept up a ceaseless swirl round Montfort Circus, and there was headache-provoking noise, a blinding glare from sunlight flashing off chrome and glass. Wexford and Baker took refuge in the car which Clements had imperiously parked on a double yellow band.
‘We’ll have to get into that house, Michael.’
Baker said thoughtfully, ‘Of course we do have a key…’ His eye caught Wexford’s. He looked away. ‘No, that’s out of the question. It’ll have to be done on a warrant. Leave it to me, Reg, I’ll see what can be done.’
Burden and Clements stood out on the pavement, deep in conversation. Well aware of Burden’s prudishness and also of Clements’ deep-rooted disapproval of pretty well all persons under twenty-five – which augured ill for James and Angela in the future – Wexford had nevertheless supposed that they would have little in common. He had been wrong. They were discussing, like old duennas, the indecent appearance of the young housewife who had opened the door of number two Princevale Road dressed only in a bikini. Wexford gave the inspector a discourteous and peremptory tap on the shoulder.