‘Grandad carry,’ said Ben somewhat earlier in the expedition than usual.
But as Wexford bent down to lift him up, something apart from the river moved. A little way to the right of them, in the opposite bank, a pair of bright eyes showed themselves at the mouth of a hole.
‘Ssh,’ Wexford whispered. ‘Keep absolutely still.’
The water rat emerged slowly. It was not at all rat-like but handsome and almost rotund with spiky fur the colour of sealskin and a round alert face. It approached the water with slow stealth but entered it swiftly and began to swim, spreading and stretching its body, towards the bank on the side where they stood. And when it reached the bank it paused and looked straight at them seemingly without fear, before scurrying off into the thick green rushes.
Robin waited until it had disappeared. Then he danced up and down with delight. ‘We saw the water rat! We saw the water rat!’
‘Ben wants to see Daddy! Ben want to go home! Poor Ben’s feet are cold!’
‘Aren’t you pleased we saw the water rat, Grandad?’
‘Very pleased,’ said Wexford, wishing that his own quest might come to so simple and satisfying an end.
Chapter 17
Grenville West’s elusiveness could no longer be put down to chance. He was on the run and no doubt had been for nearly three weeks now. Everything pointed to his being the killer of Rhoda Comfrey, and by Friday morning Wexford saw that the case had grown too big for him, beyond the reach of his net. Far from hoping to dissuade the Chief Constable from carrying out his threat, he saw the inevitability of calling in Scotland Yard and also the resources of Interpol. But his call to the Chief Constable left him feeling a little flat, and the harsh voice of Michael Baker, phoning from Kenbourne Vale, made him realize only that now he must begin confessing failure…
Baker asked him how he was, referred to their ‘red faces’ over the Farriner business, then said:
‘I don’t suppose you’re still interested in that chap Grenville West, are you?’
To Wexford it had seemed as if the whole world must be hunting for him, and yet here was Baker speaking as if the man were still a red herring, incongruously trailed across some enormously more significant scent.
‘Am I still interested! Why?’
‘Ah,’ said Baker. ‘Better come up to the Smoke then. It’d take too long to go into details on the phone, but the gist is that West’s car’s been found in an hotel garage not far from here, and West left the hotel last Monday fortnight without paying his bill.’
Wexford didn’t need to ask any more now. He remembered to express effusive gratitude, and within not much more than an hour he was sitting opposite Baker at Kenbourne Vale Police Station, Stevens having recovered from his flu or perhaps only his antipathy to London traffic.
‘I’ll give you a broad outline,’ said Baker, ‘and then we’ll go over to the Trieste Hotel and see the manager. We got a call from him this morning and I sent Clements up there. West checked in on the evening of Sunday, August seventh, and parked his car, a red Citroen, in one of the hotel’s lock-up garages. When he didn’t appear to pay his bill on Wednesday morning, a chambermaid told Hetherington – that’s the manager – that his bed hadn’t been slept in for two nights.’
‘Didn’t he do anything about it?’ Wexford put in.
‘Not then. He says he knew who West was, had his address and had no reason to distrust him. Besides, he’d left a suitcase with clothes in it in his room and his car in the garage. But when it got to the end of the week he phoned West’s home, and getting no reply sent someone round to Elm Green. You can go on from there, Sergeant, you talked to the man.’
Clements, who had come in while Baker was speaking, greeted Wexford with a funny little half-bow. ‘Well, sir, this Hetherington, who’s a real smoothie but not, I reckon, up to anything he shouldn’t be, found out from the girl in that wine bar place where West was, and he wasn’t too pleased. But he calculated West would write to him from France.’
‘Which didn’t happen?’
‘No, sir. Hetherington didn’t hear a word and he got to feeling pretty sore about it. Then, he says, it struck him the girl had said a motoring holiday, which seemed fishy since West’s car was still at the Trieste. Also West had gone off with his room key and hadn’t left an ignition key with the hotel. Hetherington began to feel a bit worried, said he suspected foul play, though he didn’t get on to us. Instead he went through West’s case and found an address book. He got the phone numbers of West’s publishers and his agent and Miss Flinders and he phoned them all. None of them could help him, they all said West was in France, so this morning, at long last, he phoned us.’
They were driven up to North Kenbourne, round Montfort Circus and down a long street of lofty houses. Wexford noted that Undine Road was within easy walking distance of Parish Oak tube station, and not far therefore from Princevale Road and Dr Lomond’s surgery. Formerly the Trieste Hotel had been a gigantic family house, but its balconies and turrets and jutting gables had been masked with new brickwork or weather-boarding, and its windows enlarged and glazed with plain glass. Mr Hetherington also seemed to have been smoothed out, his sleek fair hair, pink china skin and creaseless suit. He presented as spruce an appearance compared with the four policemen as his hotel did with its neighbours. His careful grooming reminded Wexford of Burden’s fastidiousness, though the inspector never quite had the look of having been sprayed all over with satin-finish lacquer.
He took them into his office, a luxurious place that opened off a white-carpeted, redwood panelled hallway in which very large houseplants stood about on Corinthian columns.
Neither Baker nor Clements were the sort of men to go in for specious courtesies or obsequious apology. In his rough way. Baker said, ‘You’ll have to tell the whole story again, sir. We’re taking a serious view.’
‘My pleasure.’ Hetherington flashed a smile that bore witness to his daily use of dental floss, and held it steadily as if for unseen cameras. ‘I’m feeling considerable concern about Mr West myself. I feel convinced something dreadful has happened. Do please sit down.’ He eyed Wexford’s raincoat uncertainly, ushered him away from the white upholstered chair in which he had been about to sit, and into a duncoloured one. He said, ‘You’ll be more comfortable there, I think,’ as to a caller of low social status directed to the servants’ entrance. ‘Now where shall I begin?’
‘At the beginning,’ said Wexford with perfect gravity. ‘Go on to the end and then stop.’
This time he got an even more uncertain look. ‘The beginning,’ said Hetherington, ‘would be on the Saturday, Saturday the sixth. Mr West telephoned and asked if he could have a room for three nights, the Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Naturally, that would usually be an impossible request in August, but it so happened that a very charming lady from Minneapolis who stays with us regularly every year had cancelled on account of…’ He caught Wexford’s eye, stern censor of snobbish digression. ‘Yes, well, as I say, it happened to be possible and I told Mr West he could have Mrs Gruber’s room. He arrived at seven on the Sunday and signed the register. I have it here.’
Wexford and Baker looked at it. It was signed ‘Grenville West’ and the Elm Green address was given. Certain that the manager was incapable of obeying his injunction, Wexford said:
‘He had been here before, I think?’
‘Oh, yes, once before.’
‘Mr Hetherington, weren’t you surprised that a man who lived within what is almost walking distance of the hotel should want to stay here?’
‘Surprised?’ said Hetherington. ‘Certainly not. Why should I be? What business was it of mine? I shouldn’t be surprised if a gentleman who lived next door wanted to stay in the hotel.’