"This Painter thing," Burden said slyly, slipping into his role of therapist, "a bit run of the mill, wasn't it? I followed it in the papers because it was the big local sensation. I don't remember it was remarkable in any other way."
Wexford slipped the letter back into its envelope and put it in a drawer. His movements were precise and under a tight control. One wrong word. Burden thought, and he'd have torn it up, chucked the pieces on the floor and left them to the mercy of the cleaner. His words had apparently been as right as possible under the circumstances for Wexford said in a sharp cool voice, "It was remarkable to me."
"Because you handled it?"
"Because it was the first murder case I ever handled on my own. It was remarkable to Painter because it hanged him and to his widow, I daresay. I suppose it shook her a bit as far as anything could shake that girl."
Rather nervously Burden watched him observe the cigarette burn one of the men they had been interviewing had made in the lemon-coloured leather of a chair seat. He waited for the explosion. Instead Wexford said indifferently: "Haven't you got a home to got to?"
"Too late now," said Burden, stifling a yawn that threatened. "Besides, my wife's away at the seaside."
A strongly uxorious man, he found his bungalow like a morgue when Jean and the children were absent. This was a side of his character that afforded Wexford many opportunities for quips and snide remarks, this coupled with his comparative youth, his stolid stick-in-the-mud nature and a certain primness of outlook. But all Wexford said was, "I forgot." He was good at his job. The big ugly man respected him for that. Although he might deride, Wexford appreciated the advantage of having a deputy whose grave good looks were attractive to women. Seated opposite that ascetic face, warmed by a compassion Wexford called 'softness', they were more inclined to open their hearts than to a majestic fifty-five-year-old heavyweight. His personality, however, was not strong and his superior effaced him. Now, in order to channel off that sharp-edged vitality, he was going to have to risk a rebuke for stupidity.
He risked it. "If you're going to have to argue the toss with this Archery, wouldn't it be a good idea if we had a recap of the facts?"
"We?"
"Well, you then, sir. You must be a bit rusty yourself on the case after so long."
The outburst came with an undercurrent of laughter. "God Almighty! D'you think I can't see your brain working? When I want a psychiatrist I'll hire a professional." He paused and the laughter became a wry grin. "O.K. it might help me..." But Burden had made the mistake of relaxing too soon. "To get the facts straight for Mr. Bloody Archery, I mean," Wexford snapped. "But there's no mystery, you know, no cunning little red herrings. Painter did it all right." He pointed eastwards out of the window. The broad Sussex sky was becoming suffused with rose and gold, bands of soft creamy pink like strokes from a watercolour brush. "That's as sure as the sun's rising now," he said. "There never was any doubt. Herbert Arthur Painter killed his ninety-year-old employer by hitting her over the head with an axe and he did it for two hundred pounds. He was a brutal savage moron. I read in the paper the other day that the Russians call anti-social people "unpersons" and that just about describes him. Funny sort of character for a parson to champion."
"If he's championing him."
"We shall see," said Wexford.
They stood in front of the map that was attached to the yellow "cracked ice" wallpaper.
"She was killed in her own home, wasn't she?" Burden asked. "One of those big houses off the Stowerton road?"
The map showed the whole of this rather sleepy country district. Kingsmarkham, a market town of some twelve thousand inhabitants, lay in the centre, its streets coloured in brown and white, its pastoral environs green with the blotches of dark veridian that denoted woodland. Roads ran from it as from the meshy heart of a spider's web, one leading to Pomfret in the South, another to Sewingbury in the Northeast. The scattered villages, Flagford, Clusterwell and Forby, were tiny flies on this web.
"The house is called Victor's Piece," said Wexford. "Funny sort of name. Some general built it for himself after the Ashanti Wars."
"And it's just about here." Burden put his finger on a vertical strand of the web that led from Kingsmarkham to Stowerton lying due north. He pondered and light dawned. "I think I know it," he said. "Hideous dump with a lot of green woodwork all over it. It was an old people's home up until last year. I suppose they'll pull it down."
"I daresay. There are a couple of acres of land to it. If you've got the picture we may as well sit down."
Burden had moved his chair to the window. There was something consoling and at the same time rejuvenating in watching the unfolding of what was going to be a lovely day. On the fields tree shadows lay long and densely blue and bright new light glinted on the slate roofs of ancient houses. Pity he hadn't been able to get away with Jean. The sunlight and the fresh heady air turned his thoughts towards holidays and prevented him from recalling details of this case that had long ago shocked Kingsmarkham. He searched his memory and found to his shame that he could not even remember the murdered woman's name.
"What was she called?" he asked Wexford. "A foreign name, wasn't it? Porto or Primo something?"
"Primero. Rose Isabel Primero. That was her married name. Far from being foreign, she'd been brought up at Forby Hall. Her people were by way of being squires of Forby."
Burden knew Forby well. What tourists there were in this agricultural country with neither seaside nor downs, castles nor cathedrals, made a point of going to Forby. The guide books listed it absurdly as the fifth prettiest village in England. Every local newsagent's contained postcards of its church. Burden himself regarded it with a certain affection because its inhabitants had shown themselves almost totally devoid of criminal tendencies.
"This Archery could be a relative," he suggested. "Maybe he wants some gen for his family achives."
"I doubt it," Wexford said, basking in the sun like a huge grey cat. The only relatives she had were her three grandchildren. Roger Primero, the grandson, lives at Forby Hall now. Didn't inherit it, had to buy it. I don't know the details."
"There used to be a family called Kynaston at Forby Hall, or so Jean's mother says. Mind you, that was years and years ago."
"That's right," Wexford said with a hint of impatience in his rumbling bass voice. "Mrs. Primero was born a Kynaston and she was going on for forty when she married Dr. Ralph Primero. I imagine her people looked on it a bit askance—this was at the turn of the century, remember."
"What was he, a G.P.?"
"Some sort of specialist, I think. It was when he retired that they came to live at Victor's Piece. They weren't all that well-off, you know. When the doctor died in the thirties Mrs. Primero was left with about ten thousand pounds to live on. There was one child of the marriage, a son, but he'd died soon after his father."
"D'you mean she was living alone in that great place? At her age?"
Wexford pursed his lips, reminiscing. Burden knew his chief's almost supernatural memory. When he was sufficiently interested he had the nearest thing to total recall. "She had one maid," Wexford said. "Her name was—is, she's still alive—her name was Alice Flower. She was a good bit younger than her employer, seventy odd, and she'd been with Mrs Primero for about fifty years. A real ancient retainer of the old school. Living like that, you might think they'd have become friends rather than mistress and servant, but Alice kept to her place and they were 'Madam' and 'Alice' to each other till the day Mrs. Primero died. I knew Alice by sight. She was quite a local character when she came into town to do their shopping, particularly when Painter started bringing her in in Mrs. Primero's Daimler. D'you remember how nursemaids used to look? No, you wouldn't. You're too young. Well, Alice always wore a long navy coat and what's called a 'decent' navy felt hat. She and Painter were both servants, but Alice put herself miles above him. She'd pull her rank on him and give him his orders just like Mrs. Primero herself. He was Bert to his wife and his cronies but Alice called him "Beast". Not to his face, mind. She wouldn't have quite dared that."