The kitchen looked very clean, almost clinical. As soon as Harton entered it, his manner became a fraction less sure.
Purbright guessed that he was not a man accustomed to, or indeed capable of, looking after himself.
Harton stared around for a moment, then bent and tugged open first one cupboard door, then another. On seeing what lay inside the second—it was immediately beneath the sink—he said, ah, yes, this was it, and pulled out a bundle roughly wrapped in newspaper.
“I was searching round for a saucepan to warm some milk before I went to bed last night, and just happened to look in here. There was this parcel, pushed up towards the back. I wouldn’t have taken any notice in the ordinary way, but I spotted this boot heel sticking up through the paper like it is now, and thought, odd place to put boots—whose are they, anyway? So I heaved the stuff out.”
Harton stepped back, and with his hand invited Purbright to examine the parcel.
The inspector squatted beside it and folded back the newspaper layers.
Delicately, he sniffed. A feminine, cosmetic smell was noticeable first, but closer trial brought into prominence a tang of engine fume and oil.
“Not yours, I presume, sir.” He spoke over his shoulder.
“Hardly.”
Purbright transferred in turn to an empty table the tunic, breeches and long boots.
“And you’ve never seen them before?”
“Not until last night, no.”
Purbright made a careful but not prolonged examination. When he spoke again, he looked directly at Harton.
“You had better tell me what significance you think ought to be attached to these things, Mr Harton. I may be a little obtuse, but I can’t pretend to have grasped instantly their relevance to what you have been telling me up to now.”
“Of course not. I wasn’t trying to be dramatic or anything of that sort. I’m still pretty confused myself, as a matter of fact. Look, if we can sit down, I’ll try and tell you what’s been going on.”
“Shall we go back to the other room, then, sir? I’d appreciate another cup of tea.”
“That’s all right. I’ll fetch the tray.” Harton pointed to a chair and hurried out. The sudden courtesy seemed to Purbright uncharacteristic; it was a measure, perhaps, of the distress the renewed sight of that leather costume had aroused.
When Harton came in again, both men sat at the table. Harton had brought on the tray a second glass of sherry for himself. Purbright poured more tea.
“A few weeks ago,” Harton began, “my wife picked up acquaintance with a chap at the factory. She used to come through the works sometimes on the way to my office. The men knew who she was, of course, and generally spoke to her.
“This particular fellow, though, fancied himself as a bit of a lady-killer. He was the kind who would say things right out of line just to see what effect they would have. A cheeky bastard, in fact.
“I saw them together one evening just before the end of shift. Not for more than a few seconds, but I noticed how he looked at her—you know, brassy—what I call working-class obstreperous—and I also saw him put his hand on her back, here, low down. And damn me if she didn’t look pleased, as if he’d paid her some kind of compliment. I just felt disgusted. I never said anything to her.
“Of course”—Harton looked down at his finger ends and smiled weakly—“I realise now that I should have felt disgusted at myself, not at poor Julia. I suppose I must have let her get into such a frustrated state that her self-respect wasn’t operative any more.”
He looked up again at Purbright, impassively tea-sipping. “Be that as it may, from about that time our life together was utterly transformed—and in a very nasty way, believe me, inspector. Hostility, sneering, nagging, tears, tempers—and frigidity—my God, such frigidity! That I didn’t need ask her to explain. I knew.”
Purbright hoped he was not looking as unsympathetic as he felt. A large piece of precious Saturday morning was already lost. Marriage counsellors did not work weekends; why should he?
He set down his cup. “Look, sir, I don’t want to appear indifferent to your domestic difficulties, but my concern—and no one regrets this more than I do—is crime. Before you tell me anything else, I must put the question which perhaps I should have asked at the outset. Have you good reason to suppose that your wife is dead or has come to serious harm, and has not simply left you?”
A look of innocent surprise came over Harton’s face.
“My dear inspector, I may be unhappy and confused, but I am still enough of a business man to know better than to waste the time of a professional. No, I don’t think Julia is dead—pray God she wouldn’t be that desperate—but I do believe she is in very serious trouble.”
“Life and death,” said Purbright drily, “was a phrase you used, I understand, when you asked the chief constable to send someone to see you.”
“Yes, I did. I think with good reason.” Harton rose and pointed to the clothing. “These you have seen. Now I have something else to show you.”
He led the way into the hall and began ascending the stairs. Purbright, close behind, noted they they were covered with heavy cream carpet, meticulously cut to fit every contour.
Harton opened a door and went inside. Purbright stood beside him and glanced at the twin beds, as far apart as they would go; at the dressing table and chest of drawers and the cupboards built into the wall; at the great mirror in which was another bedroom, incongruously inhabited by a smartly dressed businessman and a tall police inspector with not very tidy yellow hair and the middle button missing from his ageing broadcloth jacket.
Harton moved closer to the dressing table.
“Last night I didn’t know what the hell to do. That stuff downstairs—I couldn’t make any sense of it, and that worried me. So I began going through all her things. I thought I might find something, some clue to what she was up to. Oh, yes, I knew bloody well she’d been having it off—isn’t that what they call it nowadays, having it off?—with that oaf at the plant, but hell, he’d been dead a week so whatever her reason for leaving, it couldn’t have been to shack up with him.”
“Just a moment, sir.” Purbright had held up his hand. “You haven’t mentioned so far what this man’s name was.”
Harton smiled faintly. “It ought to be familiar enough to you, inspector, if what our personnel manager tells me about his family is correct. Tring. On the Council estate.”
“Robert Tring?”
“I don’t know his first name.”
Purbright shook his head as if dismissing an irrelevancy. “You were saying, sir?”