‘Yes, of course I am. I’m glad she’s not the girl in the patio-tomb, but someone was and it did look as if it was her.’
‘I’d like to think she was out of it, clear of it. But I don’t think she can be. She may know all sorts of things we don’t dream of. She can’t be the girl in the vault, but she may know who the girl in the vault was. Besides, I confess I’m curious.’
‘So am I,’ said Lucy. ‘I’d like to know what happened to her, how she got from being a homeless, poverty-stricken sort of – well, waif – to owning a leather jacket and shopping in Primark. Shopping at all, come to that.’
Wexford said nothing. He thought of what Vladlena had told Sophie Baird she would do to get money. He must really be getting old. He was certainly getting soft if the means she had spoken off could revolt him so deeply – yes, even shock him. He who had believed nothing could shock him any more.
He was curious and Lucy was curious, but did their curiosity justify trying to find Vladlena? It was too late. All that was of importance to them was that she was not the girl in the vault. She had a sister somewhere in this country, a cousin somewhere in London. David Goldberg knew nothing of her whereabouts and nor did Sophie Baird. What of those others living in the immediate neighbourhood? The Milsoms? The Rokebys themselves? Then there was Mildred Jones’s ex-husband Colin Jones. He had known Vladlena, even if she had never attracted him. Wexford thought it was possible that in the two years or so that Vladlena had worked for Mildred Jones and then for David Goldberg she had occasionally talked to the neighbours and perhaps mentioned her relatives. Put like that he could see it was a long shot. But then there was the driver, the man who suggested she sell her virginity. Who was he? Was there any point in asking those people he listed?
Sophie said Vladlena and the driver had met in a pub in Kilburn. His mind went back to Kilburn High Road and the massage parlour. Could he have told her that if she agreed to his proposition, the transaction could take place in one of the upper floors of Doll-up?
But Vladlena was alive or had been a year ago. Whatever might be the truth of all this, whatever any of these people might have to say, the young woman’s body in the tomb could not be Vladlena’s.
It could come to be a matter for the Vice Squad, Wexford thought, but first a preliminary reconnaissance was called for. Tom agreed to a search for Colin Jones being made online and WPC Debach was given this task. Wexford himself set off for what called itself a ‘beauty centre’. He had come prepared with a story to gain himself entry to the two upper floors if admission to them was refused, and he glanced up at the top windows before going in. All four were masked in opaque blinds.
A receptionist asked if she could help him. Wexford had already noted the array of treatments on offer, from chiropody to full-body exfoliation. One specially caught his eye and he asked if he could book a Brazilian massage. Certainly, but their masseur was fully booked until the following Monday.
‘Masseur?’
The look he got was unfriendly. ‘Do you have a problem with that?’
‘I expected a masseuse.’
‘Really? I wonder if Doll-up is quite the location you are looking for?’
Location! He put his head on one side, said in a lower voice, ‘What goes on upstairs?’
‘I have no idea,’ she said stiffly. ‘The premises have nothing to do with us. They are quite separate and are, I understand, to let.’
‘Do you know who the agent is?’
‘No, I do not. If that’s all, Mr Er –? I am rather busy this morning.’
He walked down a narrow side street from which he could see the backs of a row of buildings of which Doll-up was the nearest. From here it looked even smaller than from the High Road. The building was just one room wide and if there were more than three rooms, however subdivided they might be, on the ground floor that was all there were. Back in the High Street he noticed a shabby door in the wall next to the ‘beauty centre’. There was no nameplate, no bell, no knocker, only a letter box. He flapped the lid of the box without much hope of anyone answering and no one did answer, but a window above was flung open and an elderly man put his head out.
‘Go away! How many times do I have to tell you randy bastards this is not a knocking shop?’
Wexford started laughing. How he wished he could tell this irate chap that he was a policeman. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I understand your place is to let.’
‘I’ll come down.’
He was a short spare man with a lot of hair on his face and none on his head, dressed in a black sweatshirt and jeans. ‘I’ve told them again and again what’ll happen if they give the place a bloody stupid name like that. But do they take any notice? Do they hell. That’s why I’m moving out. For ten years I lived here in peace and quiet and then they came along and buggered it up.’
‘So you wouldn’t recommend me to take it?’
‘No, I wouldn’t, but I can give you the name of the agents if you like.’
Tom was amused. ‘Well-spotted, Reg,’ he said. ‘Not your fault it was a wild goose chase. Should I send Miles along to the agents so he can give that flat the once over?’
‘If you feel it’s worth it, but I’m sure it’s perfectly innocent.’
‘Rita Debach has run Colin Jones to earth.’
She had found him in Kendal Avenue, SW12, and a phone number for him. Finding someone was easy these days, Wexford thought, even when his was a name shared by hundreds. You might know where he lived, but after that he was lost to you if he failed to come to his door or answer his phone. Messages were left for him to contact the police, but for what? What help could he be, a man who was once married to Mildred Jones, who had lived in the house where Vladlena worked and who had once recommended to Martin Rokeby a contractor he had already found? When I think of him, Wexford reflected, it’s always as the man whose shirt Vladlena burned …
Two days ahead, the weekend would not be spent in Kingsmarkham. Relations between Wexford and Dora and their elder daughter were too strained for that. Sylvia had phoned, but there had been a coolness on both sides. Her reason for calling – that she had found a house, though not yet sold her own – led her to say that she would speed things up as much as she could because she knew ‘only too well’ that she and her children weren’t welcome in her parents’ house.
So those parents stayed in London, walked on the Heath, bought books in Hatchards and socks for Wexford in Marks & Spencer’s and on the Saturday night went to the theatre to see Sheila play Mrs Alving in Ibsen’s Ghosts. On the Monday morning, when he called the number of the house in Kendal Avenue, a woman answered.
She was Mrs Jones, she said. Her husband was away on business but would be back on Wednesday. She would tell him the police wanted to talk to him. Her tone was that of a woman speaking of a promise rather than a threat and she sounded quite unfazed.
The threat came from the first Mrs Jones. And if it wasn’t aimed at him, it concerned him. Tom told him as soon as he walked into the glass-walled office.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
‘SHE CONTACTED THE IPCC,’ said Tom. ‘Mildred Jones, I mean.’
For a moment Wexford had to think what the initials stood for. Of course, he knew perfectly well, but for a moment the meaning had eluded him.
‘The Independent Police Complaints Commission? What on earth is that about?’
‘Well, it’s about you.’ Tom laughed to soften the blow. ‘Lucy’s in trouble for taking you along to interview her.’
‘Old Mildreadful is what Goldberg calls her.’
‘Yes, but for goodness sake, she doesn’t know that?’
‘Of course not, Tom. What’s her specific grievance?’