Only two names on the list meant anything to him. One was a ballet dancer, her name at one time a household word, the other a television character actor whose face appeared so monotonously on Wexford’s screen that he was sick of the sight of him. He was called Gregory Devaux and he had been a friend of Gemma Lawrence’s parents. Particular interest had been taken in him because once, five years ago, he had attempted to smuggle out of the country, and the care of his estranged wife, their six-year-old son. The report promised that a watch would be kept on Gregory Devaux.
According to the porter of the Kensington block where she had a flat, Leonie West, the dancer, had been in the South of France since August.
Nothing there. No hint of any of them taking more than a casual friendly interest in Mrs. Lawrence and her son; no hint of a connection between any of them and Ivor Swan.
At ten Martin came in with Policewoman Polly Davies whom Wexford scarcely recognised under the red wig she wore.
“You look terrible,” he said. “Where in God’s name did you dig that up? A jumble sale?”
"Woolworth’s, sir,” said Martin rather offended. “You’re always telling us to go easy on expenses.”
“No doubt it would look better if Polly hadn’t got black eyes and such a - well, Welsh complexion. Never mind. You’ll have to cover it, anyway. It’s pouring with rain.”
Sergeant Martin always took an old-womanish interest in the weather and its vagaries. Having first wiped off the doctor’s pancreas diagram, he opened the window and stuck out one hand. “I think it’ll stop, sir. I see a gleam of light.”
“I only wish you did,” said Wexford. “Pray cover your dismay as best you can. I’ve decided to come with you. I get sick of all this vicarious living.”
They went down the corridor in single file, to be stopped by Burden who opened the door of his own office. Wexford looked him up and down, looked him all over, hard.
“What’s got into you? Your Ernie bonds come up?”
Burden smiled.
“I am glad,” said Wexford sarcastically, “that some one sees fit to spread a little sunshine in this deluge, in this – er - town of terror. What d’you want, any way?”
“I thought you might not have seen today’s paper. There’s an interesting story on the front page.”
Wexford took the paper from him and read the story as he went down in the lift. Under the headline, Landowner Offers £2,000 reward. New Move in Stella Hunt, he read: “Group Captain Percival Swan, wealthy landowner and uncle of Mr. Ivor Swan, Stella Rivers’ stepfather, told me last night that he was offering a reward of £2,000 for information leading to the discovery of Stella’s killer. ‘This is a devilish thing,’ he said as we chatted in the drawing room of his centuries-old mansion near Tunbridge Wells. ‘I was fond of Stella, though I had seen little of her. Two thousand pounds is a large sum, but not too large to sacrifice for the sake of seeing justice done.”
There was a good deal more in the same vein. Not so very interesting, Wexford thought, as he got into his car.
True to Sergeant Martin’s prediction, the rain soon left off. Cheriton Forest was shrouded in thick white mist.
“You may as well take that thing off,” said Wexford to Polly Davies. “He won’t be able to see you if he does come.”
But nobody came. No car passed along the road and no one came down the Myfleet Ride which joined it. Only the mist moved sluggishly and the water which dripped from the boughs of the closely planted fir trees. Wexford sat on a damp log among the trees, thinking of Ivor Swan who rode in this forest and knew it well, who had ridden here on the day his step daughter died. Did he really suppose Swan would appear, walking on the wet sandy ride or mounted on the chestnut horse? With the child perched beside him or holding his hand? A hoax, a hoax, a cruel nonsense, he kept saying to himself, and at one, when the appointed time was an hour behind him and he was shivering with cold, he came out of his biding place and whistled up the other two.
If Burden remained in his early mood he would, at any rate, have a cheerful lunch companion. There was no one behind the desk in the police-station foyer, an unheard-of dereliction of duty. With mounting rage Wexford stared at the empty stool on which Sergeant Camb should have been perched and was about to press a bell that had never, in all its years of existence, needed to be pressed before, when the Sergeant appeared, scuttling from the lift, the inevitable teacup in his hand.
“Sorry, sir. We’re so short-handed what with all these crazy calls coming in that I had to fetch my own tea. I’ve only been away half a tick. You know me, sir, I perish without my tea.”
“Next time,” said Wexford, “you perish. Remember, Sergeant, that the guard dies but it never surrenders.”
He went upstairs and looked for Burden.
“Mr. Burden went to lunch ten minutes ago, sir,” said Loring.
Wexford cursed. He badly wanted to engage with Burden in one of those acrimonious but rewarding conferences which both cemented their friendship and contributed to their work. Lunch alone at the Carousel would be a dismal affair. He opened the door of his own office and stopped dead on the threshold.
Seated in the chief inspector’s swivel chair at the chief inspector’s rosewood desk, the cigarette in his fingers scattering ash all over the lemon-coloured carpet, was Monkey Matthews.
“They might have told me,” said Wexford distantly, “that I’d been deposed. This kind of thing smacks of goings-on behind the Iron Curtain. What am I to do? Manage a power station?”
Monkey grinned. He had the grace to get up out of Wexford’s chair. “I’d never have believed,” he said, “it was so easy to get into a nick. I reckon that old geezer Camb must have dropped dead at last and they’ve all gone off to bury him. Got in without a soul the wiser, I did. Bloody sight easier,” he added, “to get in this nick than get out of it.”
“You won’t find it hard today. You can get out now. And fast, before I do you for being found on enclosed premises for an unlawful purpose.”
“Ah, but my purpose is lawful.” Monkey stubbed out his cigarette in Wexford’s inkwell and surveyed the room with a pleased expression. “This is the first time I’ve ever been in a nick of what you might call my own accord.” A dreamy smile spread across his face and was abruptly quenched by a fit of coughing.
Wexford stood half in the office, half in the corridor, waiting unsympathetically.
“You may as well shut the door,” said Monkey when he had recovered. “We don’t want the whole place to hear, do we? I’ve got some info. The Lawrence case.”
Wexford closed the door but gave no other sign that Monkey’s remark had interested him. “You have?” he said.
“Friend of mine has.”
“I didn’t know you had any friends, Monkey, bar poor old Ruby.”
“You don’t want to judge everybody by yourself,” said Monkey, stung. He coughed and stubbed out his cigarette, immediately lighting another and regarding the discarded stub with resentment, as if some peculiarity of its construction or fault in its make-up were responsible for his choking attack, rather than the tobacco it contained. “I’ve got a lot of friends, picked up in me travels.”
“Picked up in cells, you mean,” said Wexford,
Monkey had long ago forgotten how to blush, but the wary look which crossed his face told Wexford the shot had gone home. “My friend,” he said, “come down here yesterday for a bit of a holiday with me and Rube. A bit of a rest, like. He’s an old feller and his health’s not what it was.”