'Only till next Saturday, I'm afraid. Then it's back to Sussex and work.'
'What sort of work?' Mrs Dearborn asked.
'I'm a policeman.'
'How interesting. Not an ordinary policeman, I'm sure.'
'A detective chief inspector.'
Her face sharpened. She looked at her husband, then away. Dearborn might have been expected to refer to the murder, but he didn't. 'That puts paid to our tour,' he said. 'You're going home and I've got an architect's convention in Yorkshire at the end of next week. Next time you come to London, maybe?'
Wexford nodded, but all further conversation was cut short by a wailing cry from upstairs. The adored, troublesome, precocious, super-intelligent infant was once more awake.
Melanie Dearborn, who had been so electrified by the telephone bell, behaved now like a woman who had reared six children. With a 'That's Alexandra off again,' she rose casually from her chair. It was Dearborn who made the fuss. Was the child ill? Should they call a doctor? He hadn't liked the rash on her face, although his wife had said it was only teething.
Wexford took advantage of this small crisis to leave them, furnishing them with Howard's telephone number and thanking them for a pleasant evening. Mrs Dearborn saw him out. Her husband was already upstairs, calling to the baby that Daddy was coming, that Daddy would make everything all right.
10
For as love is oftentimes won with beauty, so it is not kept, preserved and continued but by virtue and obedience.
WHILE Wexford was with the Dearborns and Howard at home playing bridge a burglary took place in Kenbourne Vale. It was one of a series, all break-ins involving the theft of silver or jewellery and cash and all occurring on Friday or Saturday nights.
'Your friend's answerable for some of this,' said Howard on Monday morning.'
'Dearborn?' Wexford queried.
'Kenbourne's coming up, you see, Reg. I'm all for improving the place, converting some of these old slums and so on, but there's no doubt that when you bring money in you bring crime too. Ten years ago there was scarcely a Kenbournite, excepting the shopkeepers, with anything worth pinching. Now, in the better parts, we've got company directors with heirlooms and safes a child could open. None of the break-ins have been in places owned by Notbourne Properties yet, but unless I'm much mistaken they'll go for Vale Park next.'
'Any idea who "they" are?'
'One always has. You know that,' Howard said bitterly. 'I spent most of yesterday questioning a man galled Winter who has, of course, a beautiful unbreakable alibi. And who do you think is supplying it for him? None other than our old friend Harry Slade.'
Wexford looked puzzled. 'Not an old friend of mine.'
'Sorry, Reg. Haven't we put you in the picture? Harry Slade is one of the men who says Gregson was with him in the Psyche Club on the night of Friday, February 25th. He hasn't got a record but I'm beginning to think he's a professional alibi provider.'
'But surely . . . ?'
'Surely his word counts for nothing? Not to a judge, Reg. Here's a blameless citizen, a milkman of all things, pure as the goods he purveys, who says Winter spent Saturday night with himself, his dear old mother and his typist fiancee, playing Monopoly again of all things in mother's flat.'
'At least it gives you another lever against Gregson,' Wexford said as Baker entered the room. He spoke placatingly, for he pitied any man who feared he was losing his grip, but Baker eyed him with frosty politeness. He had the face of a cheetah, Wexford thought, all nose and little sharp mouth, the forehead receding and the gingery hair growing down his cheeks in sideburns.
'If you're going to Sytansound now, Michael,' said Howard, 'you might take my uncle with you.'
'Nothing would please me more, sir,' said Baker, 'but I'm taking Sergeant Nolan as it is, and I've promised to show young Dinehart the ropes. Won't it be rather using a sledgehammer to swat a fly?'
Wexford found it hard to keep his temper, to smile and pretend for Howard's benefit that he was happy to be the onlooker who is said to see most of the game. He reminded himself of Baker's unhappy history, the cruel young wife and the child who was not his. Tout comprendre, c'est tout par- donner. But what was he going to do with himself for the rest of the day? Gossip with Howard and distract him from his work? Potter about Kenbourne? He was beginning to understand just what Howard's kind act of opting him on to his force in an honorary capacity amounted to. He did no harm, he appeared to amuse himself, he supplied ideas for experts to demolish; he was like, he thought, a workman whose usefulness is at end, who should really be made redundant, but for whom a kindly boss finds a job which could more efficiently be done by a computer if it even needed to be done at all.
He might as well go home and take Dora to the pictures. In the entrance hall he met Sergeant Clements.
'Have a good weekend, sir?'
'Very pleasant, thank you. How's that boy of yours?'
'He's grand, sir. Had the wife up in the night, the little beggar, yelling his head off, but when she went in to him all he wanted was to play. The way he laughs! He's starting to crawl. He'll walk before he's a year old.'
These fathers! 'What are you going to call him?'
'Well, sir, I think his mother must have been one of the romantic kind, fond of fancy names. She called him Barnabas, but the wife and I, we like something plainer, so we've settled for James after my old dad. As soon as we've got that adoption order out of the way we'll have a proper christening.'
'Only four days to go, isn't it?'
Clements nodded. His cheerfulness had suddenly evaporated at the reminder of the short time the agonizingly short, agonisingly long time which separated probationary fatherhood from the real thing. Or denied him fatherhood altogether? Looking at the man's red weathered face which, for all his vaunted worldly wisdom, remained immature and schoolboyish, Wexford thought of the coming Friday with a small shiver of dread. Suppose this young woman, this romantic girl who had named her child fancifully, changed her mind again and came into the court to claim him? What would life be like then for Clements and his good patient wife, alone and desolate on top of their tower? It was fine and just, this law which gave prime consideration to the natural mother and her child, but it was a cruel law for the sterile who waited and longed and prayed.
'You've shown such an interest in our boy, sir,' Clements said, smiling again, 'that the wife and I were wondering if you'd come along one day and have a bite of lunch with us and welt see young James. Say tomorrow or Wednesday? We'd take it as an honour.'
Wexford was touched. 'Tomorrow will be fine,' he said, reflecting that it would be a way of passing the time. On an impulse, he patted the sergeant's shoulder.
Denise and Dora had just finished their lunch. Neither expressed surprise at seeing him or shock that he was still alive. There was a look in his wife's eyes that he had not seen there for many years.
'What have you been up to,.Uncle Reg?' asked Denise, for the first time in their acquaintance eyeing him as a man rather than as an ancient invalid.
'Me?' said Wexford ungrammatically. 'What d'you mean?' It was odd, he thought, how guilty the innocent can be made to feel. Certainly the telegram: Fly at once, all is discovered, would send half the population packing their bags and making for the nearest airport. 'What d'you mean, "up to"?'
'Well, a woman's been phoning for you, a4Melanie something. I didn't catch the last name. She said, could you go round and see her and in the daytime, please, when her husband is out. You're to phone her back and she says you know the number.'
Wexford was puzzled, but he burst out laughing just the same.