‘There he is, if you want to catch him,’ the pump attendant shouted.
Burden parked his own car and pushed open the swing doors. He waited beside a Mini-car revolving smoothly on a scarlet roundabout. Outside he could see Missal talking to the driver of the convertible. Apparently the deal was off for the other man left on foot and Missal came into the saleroom.
‘What now?’ he said to Burden. ‘I don’t like being hounded at my place of business.’
‘I won’t keep you,’ Burden said. ‘I’m just checking up on Tuesday afternoon. No doubt you were here all day. In and out, that is.’
‘It’s no business of yours where I was.’ Missal flicked a speck of dust from the Mini’s wing as it circled past. ‘As a matter of fact I went into Kingsmarkham to see a client. And that’s all I’m telling you. I respect personal privacy and it’s a pity you don’t do the same.’
‘In a murder case, sir, one’s private life isn’t always one’s own affair. Your wife doesn’t seem to have grasped that either.’ He went towards the doors.
‘My wife . . .’ Missal followed him and, looking to either side of him to make sure there was no one about, hissed in an angry half-whisper: ‘You can take that heap of scrap metal off my drive-in. It’s causing an obstruction.’
Chapter 6
Who was her father?
Who was her mother?
Had she a sister?
Had she a brother?
Or, was there a dearer one.
Still, and a nearer one.
Yet, than all other?
The murder books had been taken away and the top shelf of the bookcase was empty. If Parsons was innocent, a truly bereaved husband, Burden thought, how dreadfully their covers must have screamed at him when he came into the shabby dining-room this morning. Or had he removed them because they had served their purpose?
‘Chief Inspector,’ Parsons said, ‘I must know. Was she . . .? Had she . . .? Was she just strangled or was there anything else?’ He had aged in the past days or else he was a consummate actor.
‘You can set your mind at rest on that score,’ Wexford said quickly. ‘Your wife was certainly strangled, but I can assure you she wasn’t interfered with in any other way.’ He stared at the dull green curtains, the lino that was frayed at the skirting board, and said impersonally, ‘There was no sexual assault.’
‘Thank God!’ Parsons spoke as if he thought there was still a God in some nonconformist heaven and as if he was really thanking Him. ‘I couldn’t bear it if there had been. I couldn’t go on living. It would just about have killed Margaret.’ He realized what he had said and put his head in his hands.
Wexford waited until the hands came down and the tearless eyes were once more fixed on his own.
‘Mr Parsons, I can tell you that as far as we know there was no struggle. It looks as if your wife was sleeping until just before she was killed. There would have been just a momentary shock, a second’s pain - and then nothing.’
Parson’s mumbled, turning away his face so that they could catch only the last words, ‘ . . . For though they be punished in the sight of man, yet is their hope full of immortality.’
Wexford got up and went over the bookcase. He didn’t say anything about the missing library of crime, but he took a book out of one of the lower shelves.
‘I see this is a guide to the Kingsmarkham district.’ He opened it and Burden glimpsed a coloured photograph of the market place. ‘It isn’t a new book.’
‘My wife lived here - well, not here. In Flagford it was - for a couple of years after the end of the war. Her uncle was stationed with the R.A.F. at Flagford and her aunt had a cottage in the village.’
‘Tell me about your wife’s life.’
‘She was born in Balham,’ Parsons said. He winced, avoiding the Christian name. ‘Her mother and father died when she was a child and she went to live with this aunt. When she was about sixteen she came to live in Flagford, but she didn’t like it. Her uncle died - he wasn’t killed or anything - he died of heart disease, and her aunt went back to Balham. My wife went to college in London and started teaching. Then we got married. That’s all.’
‘Mr. Parsons, you told me on Wednesday your wife would have taken her front-door key with her. How many keys did you have between you?’
‘Just the two.’ Parsons took a plain Yale key from his pocket and held it up to Wexford. ‘Mine and - and Margaret’s. She kept hers on a ring. The ring has a silver chain with a horseshoe charm on the end of it.’ He added simply in a calm voice: ‘I gave it to her when we came here. The purse is a brown one, brown plastic with a gilt clip.’
‘I want to know if your wife was in the habit of going to Prewett’s farm. Did you know the Prewetts or any of the farm workers? There’s a girl there called Dorothy Sweeting. Did your wife ever mention her?’
But Parsons had never even heard of the farm until his wife’s body had been found there. She hadn’t cared much for the country or for country walks and the name Sweeting meant nothing.
‘Do you know anyone called Missal?’
‘Missal? No, I don’t think so.’
‘A tall good-looking woman with red hair. Lives in a house opposite The Olive and Dove. Her husband’s a car dealer. Big bloke with a big green car.’
‘We don’t . . . we didn’t know anyone like that.’ His face twisted and he put up a hand to hide his eyes. ‘They’re a lot of snobs round here. We didn’t belong and we should never have come.’ His voice died to a whisper. ‘If we’d stayed in London,’ he said, ‘she might still be alive.’
‘Why did you come, Mr Parsons?’
‘It’s cheaper living in the country, or you think it’s cheaper till you try it.’
‘So your coming here didn’t have anything to do with the fact that your wife once lived in Flagford?’
‘Margaret didn’t want to come here, but the job came up. Beggars can’t be choosers. She had to work when we were in London. I thought she’d find some peace here.’ He coughed and the sound tailed away into a sob. ‘And she did, didn’t she?’
‘I believe there are some books in your attic, Mr Parsons. I’d like to have a good look through them.’
‘You can have them,’ Parsons said. ‘I never want to see another book as long as I live. But there’s nothing in them. She never looked at them.’
The dark staircases were familiar now and with familiarity they had lost much of that sinister quality Burden had felt on his first visit. The sun showed up the new dust and in its gentle light the house seemed no longer like the scene of a crime but just a shabby relic. It was very muggy and Wexford opened the attic window. He blew a film of dust from the surface of the bigger trunk and opened its lid. It was crammed with books and he took the top ones out. They were novels: two by Rhoda Broughton, Evelina in the Everyman’s Library and Mrs Craik’s John Halifax, Gentleman. Their fly-leaves were bare and nothing fluttered from the pages when he shook them. Underneath were two bundles of school stories, among them what looked like the complete works of Angela Brazil. Wexford dumped them on the floor and lifted out a stack of expensive-looking volumes, some bound in suede, others in scented leather or watered silk.
The first one he opened was covered in pale green suede, its pages edged with gold. On the fly-leaf someone had printed carefully in ink: