More phone calls had come in from people who claimed to have seen John, to have seen Stella alive and well in September, to have seen them alive and well and together. A woman holidaying in the Isle of Mull wrote to say a girl answering Stella’s description had spoken to her on a beach and asked to be shown the road to Tobermory. The little boy with her had fair hair and the girl said his name was John.
“I wish they wouldn’t waste our time,” said Wexford, knowing it would have to be followed up, picking up the next envelope “What’s this, then? Another communication from our rabbit-keeper, I think.”
Wexford read, “I warned you not to wait for me. Did you think I would not know what was in your minds? I know everything. Your men are not very skilful at hiding. John was disappointed at not going home on Monday. He cried all night. I will return him only to his mother. She must be waiting alone on Friday at twelve noon at the same place. Remember what I did to Stella Rivers and do not try any more tricks. I am sending a copy of this letter to John’s mother.”
“She won’t see it, that’s one blessing. Martin’s collecting all her mail unopened. If we don’t catch this joker before Friday we’ll have to dress one of the policewomen up in a red wig.”
The idea of this travesty of Gemma waiting for a boy who wouldn’t come made Burden feel rather sick. “I don’t like that bit about Stella Rivers,” he muttered.
“Doesn’t mean a thing. He’s just read the papers, that’s all. My God, don’t say you’re going to fall for his line. He’s just a hoaxer. Here’s Martin now with Mrs. Lawrence’s mail. I’ll take those, thank you, Sergeant. Ah, here’s our joker’s effusion in duplicate.”
Burden couldn’t stop himself. “How is she?” he said quickly.
“Mrs. Lawrence, sir? She was a bit the worse for wear.”
Blood came into Burden’s cheeks. “What d’you mean, worse for wear?”
“Well, she’d been drinking, sir.” Martin hesitated, letting his face show as much exasperation as he dared. The inspector’s eyes were cold, his face set, a prudish blush on his cheeks. Why did he always have to be so darned straitlaced? Surely a bit of sorrow drowning was permitted in a woman as mad with anxiety as Mrs. Lawrence? “You can understand it. I mean to say . . .”
“I often wonder what you do mean to say, Martin,” Burden snapped. “Believe me, it’s not clear from your words.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“I suppose she’s got someone with her?” Wexford raised his eyes from the letter and its copy which he had been perusing.
“The friend didn’t turn up,” said Martin. “Apparently, she took offence because the Met had been on to her, asking if she or some boyfriend of hers had seen John lately. I gather they weren’t too tactful, sir. The boyfriend’s got a record and he’s out of work. This girl who was coming to stay with Mrs. Lawrence teaches at drama school and acts a bit. She said that if it got about, the police questioning her, it wouldn’t do her any good in her profession. I did offer to fetch a neighbour to be with Mrs. Lawrence but she wouldn’t have any. Shall I pop back and . . . ?”
“Pop anywhere as long as you get out of here!”
“Break it up,” said Wexford mildly. “Thank you, Sergeant.” He turned to Burden when Martin had gone. “You’ve been in a state, Mike, ever since we left Hall Farm. Why bite his head off? What’s he done?”
If Burden had realised how haggard his own face was, how it mirrored all his pain and his turbulent feelings, he wouldn’t have lifted it numbly to stare at the chief inspector. Thoughtfully, Wexford returned his gaze, but for a moment neither man spoke. Why don’t you get yourself a woman? Wexford was thinking. D’you want to drive yourself into a nervous collapse? He couldn’t say those things aloud, not to Mike Burden.
"I’m going out,” Burden muttered. “See if they need any help searching the forest.”
Wexford let him go. He shook his head gloomily. Burden knew as well as he did that they had completed their search of Cheriton Forest on Monday afternoon.
Chapter 10
The inquest on Stella Rivers was opened and adjourned until further evidence should come to light. Swan and his wife were there and Swan stumbled brokenly through his evidence, impressing the coroner as a shattered parent. This was the first sign Wexford had seen of any real grief in Stella’s stepfather and he wondered why it had taken the inquest to bring it out. Swan had heard the news of Burden’s discovery stoically and had identified Stella’s body with no more physical nausea. Why break down now? For he had broken down. Leaving the court, Wexford saw that Swan was weeping, a lost soul, clinging to his wife’s arm.
Now, if ever, was the time to verify Rosalind Swan’s statement that she couldn’t drive. Wexford watched eagerly as they got into the shooting brake. And it was she, he saw, who got into the driving seat. But after a while, when they had whispered together and Rosalind had briefly laid her cheek against her husband’s, they changed places. Odd that, Wexford thought.
Swan took the wheel wearily and they drove off in the direction of the Myfleet road.
She would get him home and comfort him with her drinks and her kisses and her love, Wexford thought. “Come, come, come, come, give me your hand,” he said to himself. “What’s done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed.” But Rosalind Swan was no Lady Macbeth to counsel murder or even connive at it. As far as he knew. Certainly she would cover up any crime Swan might commit, even the killing of her own child, for the sake of keeping him with her.
The fine weather had broken. It was raining now, a fine drizzle dispersing the fog which had settled on Kingsmarkham since early morning. Pulling up his raincoat collar, Wexford walked the few yards that separated the court from the police station. No one at the inquest had mentioned John Lawrence, but the knowledge that a second child was missing had underlain, he felt, everything that was said. There was not a soul in Kingsmarkham or Stowerton who didn’t connect the two cases, not a parent who doubted that a child killer stalked their countryside. Even the policemen who stood about the entrances to the court wore the grave aspect of men who believed a madman, a pathological criminal who killed children simply because they were children, went free and might attack again. He couldn’t recall any inquest at which these hardened men had looked so dour and so downcast.
He stopped in his tracks and viewed the length of the High Street. The primary school’s half-term was over and all the younger children back at work. The big ones hadn’t yet broken up. But was it imagination or fact that he could hardly see a single four-year-old out with its mother this morning, scarcely a toddler or a baby in its pram? Then he spotted a pram which its owner was parking outside the supermarket. He watched her lift out the baby and its older sister, take the one in her arms and propel the other, who could only just walk, ahead of her into the shop. That such care should have to be exercised in the town whose guardian he was brought him a deep depression.
Why not Ivor Swan? Why not? It meant nothing that the man had no record. He had no record perhaps because no one had ever found him out. Wexford decided that he would again review Swan’s life with particular reference to the districts he had lived in since he left Oxford. He would find out if any children had disappeared while Swan was in their vicinity. If Swan had done this, he swore to himself, he would get Swan.
But before making further investigations into the antecedents of her stepfather he had to see Stella’s father. Their appointment was for twelve and when Wexford reached his office Peter Rivers had already been shown in.