An Unkindness of Ravens (4 page)

Gardner looked at it dolefully.

‘He was a lot younger then,’ he said. ‘The company had a crack team in those days.’ He made as if to take the photograph down, angered no doubt by the sight of the permanently grinning Williams, but seemed to change his mind. ‘The whole thing’s extraordinary. He was very keen on cars, you know, one of those car men. You don’t think anything’s happened to him, do you?’

The euphemism that always signified death .. .

‘If you mean some sort of accident, I don’t know but I don’t think so. It’s more what has he been up to, isn’t it?’

Gardner looked mystified.

‘It looks to me as if he may have been up to something he shouldn’t have been, he’s been on the fiddle. Either he decided he’d made enough out of it and was going to call it a day or else something happened to make him think discovery was imminent. Now, the most likely place for him to have been cooking the books is here. Do you have any thoughts on that one?’

‘He wouldn’t have had the opportunity. He never went near any books, so to speak. Do you want me to have our chief accountant up? I mean, as far as I can see, any fiddle he was up to would have to be an expenses fiddle and Ken Risby would be the man to tell you about that.’

Gardner made a call on the internal phone. While they waited for Risby Wexford said, ‘There is nothing small, portable but of considerable value he could have stolen? No cheque coming into his hands he could have falsified? No forgery he could have perpetrated?’

Gardner looked simply bewildered. ‘I don’t think so. I’m sure not. I mean, I should know by now. Good God, the man’s been gone over three weeks.’ He jumped up. ‘Here’s Ken now. He’ll tell us.’

But Risby was not able to tell them much. He was a thin, fair man in his thirties, with a nervous manner, and he seemed as shocked by Wexford’s suggestion as Gardner had been. You’d think the pair of them lived in a world where fraud had never been heard of, Wexford thought impatiently, and every businessman was a sea-green incorruptible.

‘He was a mite heavy on his expenses sometimes but that’s all, that’s positively all. He never had the handling of the firm’s money. What makes you think he’s done something like that?’

‘You think about it. Look at it for yourself. For five years the man’s been lying to his wife about his position with this firm. What salary was he getting, by the way?’

‘Twenty-five thousand,’ said Gardner rather grudgingly.

More than Wexford had expected, 5000 pounds more. ‘And lying about that too. You can bet on it she thinks he was getting less than half that. One day he tells her he’s going to Ipswich, a place he doubtless hasn’t set foot in for five years, and off he goes, dumps his company car in the street, and disappears. Apart from getting the lady he’s in cahoots with to phone here and say he’s ill and apart from writing his resignation he’s never heard from again. And you ask me why I think he’s been up to something? Tell me about the man. If he’s not a man who’d steal or forge, is there some other disgraceful thing he might have done?’

They looked at him. Having no imagination, they didn’t know and couldn’t hazard guesses. Wexford had plenty of imagination and very little knowledge of marketing.

‘For instance, he couldn’t have been selling this paint of yours at prices over the odds and pocketing the difference? Something like that?’

Gardner, who had looked as if he would never smile again, burst out laughing.

‘He never actually sold anything, Reg. It doesn’t work like that. He never handled money. He never handled money in any shape or form.’

‘You make him sound like royalty,’ said Wexford. ‘Anyway, will you, Mr Risby, have a good look at your books for me, please? Do a supplementary audit or whatever.’

‘Really not necessary, I assure you, not necessary at all. I’d go into court at this moment and swear there’s not a squeak of a discrepancy in my books.’

‘I hope you’ll never have to go into court on this matter, but don’t count on it.’ Risby’s eyes opened wide at that one. ‘And do as I ask and check the books, will you? And now,’ Wexford said to Gardner, ‘I’d like to see that letter of resignation Williams wrote to you.’

Gardner called his secretary in to find it. Wexford noticed he called her Susan, and what was less expected, she called him Miles. The letter was typed and by someone not accustomed to frequent use of a typewriter.

 Dear Mr Gardner,

This is to give you notice of my resignation from Sevensmith Harding from today. I am afraid it is rather sudden but is due to circumstances beyond my control. I shall not be returning to the office and would prefer you not to attempt to get in touch with me.

Yours sincerely, Rodney J. Williams

PS. I will contact the Accounts Dept. about my superannuation refund in due course.

 Wexford said, ‘Everyone in this office calls each other by their Christian names but Rodney Williams called you Mr Gardner? Is that right?’

‘No, of course not. He called me Miles.’

‘He doesn’t in this letter.’

‘I took that to be because he thought the occasion demanded something more formal.’

‘It’s a possibility. Don’t you find it odd when a man on three months’ notice gives you one day’s? Wouldn’t you have expected a more detailed explanation for common courtesy’s sake than “circumstances beyond my control”?’

‘Are you suggesting someone else might have written that letter?’

Wexford didn’t answer directly. Til take it with me if I may. Maybe have some experts look at that signature. Can you let me have a specimen of his signature? One we know is his?’

 Nine separate sets of fingerprints had been found on and in the car. These would presumably include the prints of whoever had vandalized it. The others would be Williams’s, Joy’s, Sara’s, Kevin’s. Early days yet to ask these people to let him check their own prints against those in the car. A lot of hairs, fair and grey, had been on the upholstery. No blood, of course, nothing dramatic. There was one odd thing, though. On the floor of the boot, along with the shovel, were some crumbs of plaster the lab had identified as either Tetrion or Sevensmith Harding’s Stopgap.

It took a few more days to get a verdict on the letter.

A manual portable machine, the Remington 315, had been used to type it. There was a chip out of the apex of the capital A on this machine, a similar flaw in the ascender of the lower-case t and a smudging of the head of the comma. As to the signature, it wasn’t Williams’s. The handwriting expert was far more categorical than such people are usually willing to be. He was almost scathing in his incredulity that anyone could for a moment have believed that the signature was made by Williams.

When Joy had told Dora of her intention to phone Sevensmith Harding she had followed this up with a request to ‘send’ Wexford round to her house once more. This time Dora had said in quite a sharp way that her husband wasn’t a private detective and Wexford, of course, hadn’t gone. But Williams’s disappearance had stopped being a private matter. At any rate, he thought, he wouldn’t be unwelcome at 31 Alverbury Road. The answer to a prayer, in fact. He walked round there in the evening, at about eight.

This time the girl Sara let him in. She spoke not a word but closed the front door after him, opened the living-room door, left him and went back upstairs.

Joy Williams was watching television. The programme was one of those contests in which teams of people go through ridiculous or humiliating ordeals. Men in dress suits and top hats were trying to walk a tightrope over what looked like a lake of mashed potato. Just before the door was opened he had heard her laughing. She didn’t turn the set off, only the sound. He thought she looked anything but pleased to see him. Her expression had very quickly become sullen.

Yes, she admitted, they had a joint bank account. Rod was away so much they had had to. Wexford asked her if he might see some recent bank statements.

She hunched herself, arms wrapping her thin body, right hand on left shoulder, left hand with the ugly showy rings on right. It was a habitual gesture with her which a psychiatrist might have said began as a way of protecting herself from assault. She had the green trousers on and a knitted jumper, its shoulders sprinkled with fallen hairs and dandruff.

‘How often does your bank send you statements?’

‘It’s been once a month lately.’ Her eyes strayed to the silent but tumultuous screen. A contestant had fallen into the mashed potato. ‘They made a mistake over something and Rod complained, so they started sending statements once a month.’

Dr Crocker had told Wexford of a recent visit to one of his patients, a woman ill with bronchitis. The television had been on in her bedroom, all her six children sitting there watching it. When he tried to examine her she had protested angrily at his request that the set be turned off.

‘I pull the plug out now without a by-your-leave,’ said the doctor. ‘If the TV’s on or their video I don’t ask any more, I pull out the plug.’

Wexford would have liked to do that. He would have done it if he had had just a fraction more evidence for disquiet over Rodney Williams. It was curious that Joy, who had come close to pestering Dora for his attention, was now making it plain she didn’t want him there.

‘Will you show me the statements?’

She turned her head reluctantly. ‘OK, if you want.’ He had put his request very politely as if she would be doing him a favour and she responded as if she was.

It didn’t take her long to find the statements. She wasn’t going to miss more of her programme than she had to. As he began to look at the statements she leaned across and summoned a little sound out of the television, so that shrieks, exclamations and commentary were just audible. He wondered what could possibly distract her, what real event or shock, and then he knew. The phone bell. Somewhere, elsewhere in the house, the phone began to ring.

She jumped up. ‘That’ll be my son. My son always phones me on Thursday nights.’

Wexford returned to the monthly bank statements. Each one showed the sum of 500 pounds paid into the account more or less at the beginning of the month. A salary cheque apparently. Several objections to that one. Williams’s salary had been 25,000 pounds a year and there was no way 500 pounds a month, even after all possible deductions, could amount to as much as that. Secondly, the sum would vary, not be a set round figure. Thirdly, it would be paid in on the same day of the month, give or take a day each way, not sometimes on the first and sometimes on the eighth.

It was evident what had been going on. Williams had another account somewhere into which his salary was paid. From that account he transferred 500 pounds a month into the account he had jointly with his wife. If this was so, and it must be, it was going to be useless asking Joy, as he had intended, if her husband had drawn on their joint account since his disappearance.

Sevensmith Harding would make no bones about telling him where this other account was. The problem would be the intransigent bank manager refusing to disclose any information about a client’s account. He looked at the April statement again. Five hundred pounds had been paid in on 2 April. No May statement had yet been sent to Mrs Williams as May was only half over.

She came back into the room, looking brighter and younger, her face more animated than he had ever seen it. She had been talking to her son, her favourite.

‘I’d like you to give your bank a ring,’ he said, ‘and ask them if the usual five hundred was paid into the account at the beginning of the month. Will you do that?’

She nodded. He asked her to tell him about the last afternoon and evening Williams had spent at home. Rod had mowed the lawn in the afternoon, she said, and then he’d taken her shopping to the Tesco discount. She couldn’t drive.

‘We came back and had a cup of tea. Rod had a sandwich. He didn’t want more than that. He said he’d get something on his way to Ipswich. Then he went upstairs and packed a bag and left. He’d be back on Sunday, he said.’ She gave one of her dull laughs. ‘And that was the last of him. After twenty-two years.’

‘What did you do for the rest of the evening?’

The?’

‘Yes, what did you do? Did you stay at home? Go out? Did anyone come here?’

‘I went over to my sister’s. She lives in Pomfret. I went on the bus. I had something to eat and then I went to my sister’s.’

‘And Sara?’

‘She was here. Up there.’ Joy Williams pointed to the ceiling. ‘Studying for her A-levels, I suppose.’ She made it sound an unworthy, even slightly disgraceful thing for her daughter to have been doing.

There was something wrong with this description of how the evening had been passed, something incongruous, only Wexford couldn’t put his finger on what.

‘I’d like to talk to Sara,’ he said.

‘Do as you like.’

She twisted round in her chair and looked fully at him, the television for the moment forgotten.

‘She’ll be in her bedroom but you can go up. She won’t object.’ The awful laugh came. ‘Rather the reverse if I know her.’

4

 So young Sara, who looked like one of Botticelli’s girls, a Quattrocento virgin, had been caught in bed with a boyfriend. Or not in bed, most probably. On the yellow plastic settee or in the back of a car. It was difficult with daughters. You knew what your enlightened principles were but things looked different when it was your daughter. Still, that hardly justified Joy’s snide insinuation. Wexford, going upstairs, decided that as well as disliking what he knew of Williams, he didn’t care for Mrs Williams either. Not that it mattered whether he liked them or not. It made no difference. Perhaps the woman did have some justification. She was going through a bad time; she, who was surely in the process of losing her man, would feel bitter towards a daughter gaining one. And the discovery of Sara and the boy might have been made very recently.

He knew which bedroom it was because music was coming from behind the door. Rock music of some kind, soft with a monotonous drumbeat. She must have heard his feet on the stairs by now. He had taken care to make a bit of noise, not difficult on the linoleum covered with thin haircord. He knocked on the door.