[Wexford 01] From Doon & Death (16 page)

The time factor was bothering Burden and he said so.

‘I
f she was killed early in the afternoon, sir, why did Doon strike a match to look at her? And if she was killed later, why didn't she pay for her papers before she went out with him and why didn't she explain to Parsons that she was going to be late?'
J

Wexford s
hrugged. 'Search me,' he said. ‘
Dougie Q. uses matches, carries them in his pocket So do most men. He's behaving in a very funny way, Mike. Sometimes he's co-operative, sometimes he's actively hostile. We haven't finished with him yet Mrs Missal knows more than she's saying -'

Then there's Missal himself
’
Burden interrupted.

Wexford looked thoughtful. He rubbed his chin and said:
‘I
don't think there's any mystery about what he was doing on Tuesday. He's as jealous as hell of that wife of his and not without reason as we know. I'm willing to take a bet that he keeps tabs on her when he can. He probably suspects Quadrant and when she told him she was going out on Tuesday afternoon he nipped back to Kingsmarkham on the off-chance, watched her go out, satisfied himself that she didn't go to Quadrant's office and went back to Stowerton. He'd know she'd dress herself up to the nines if she was meeting Dougie. When he saw her go off in the car along the Kingsbrook Road in the same clothes she was wearing that morning he'd bank on her going shopping in Pomfret - they don't close on Tuesdays - and he'd be able to set his mind at rest. I'm certain that's what happened
’

It sounds like him
’
Burden agreed. It fits. Was Quadrant here twelve years ago, sir?'

'Oh, yes, lived here all his life, apart from three years at Cambridge and, anyway, he came down in 1949. Still, Mrs P. was hardly his style. I asked him if he knew her and he just laughed, but it was the way he laughed. I'm not kidding, Mike, it made my blood run cold
’

Burden looked at his chief with respect It must have been quite a display, he thought, to chill Wexford.

‘I
suppose the others could have been just - well, playthings as it were, and Mrs P. a life-long love
’

'Christ!' Wexford roared.
‘I
should never
have let you read that book. Pla
ythings, life-long love! You make me puke. For pity's sake find out where Drury lives and we'll get over there.'

According to the directory, Drury, Dudley J. and Drury, Kathleen lived at 14 Sparta Grove, Stowerton. Burden knew it as a street of tiny pre-war semidetached houses, not far from where Peter Missal had his garage. It was not the kind of background he had visualized for Doon. He and Wexford had a couple of rounds of sandwiches from the Carousel and got to Stowerton by seven.

Drury's house had a yellow front door with a lot of neatly tied climbing roses on the trellis round the porch. In the middle of the lawn was a small pond made from a plastic bath and on its rim stood a plaster gnome with a fishing rod. Someone had evidently been polishing the Ford Popular on the garage drive. As a vehicle for clandestine touring Mrs Katz would probably have despised it, but it was certainly shiny enough to have dazzled Margaret Parsons.

The door-knocker was a cast-iron lion's head with a ring in its mouth. Wexford banged it hard, but no one came, so he pushed open the side gate and they entered the back garden. On a vegetable plot by the rear fence a man was digging potatoes.

Wexford coughed and the man turned round. He had a red glistening face, and although it was warm, the cuffs of his long-sleeved shirt were buttoned. His sandy hair and the whiteness of his wrists confirmed Wexford's opinion that he was probably sensitive to sunburn. Not the sort of man. Burden thought, to be fond of poetry and send snippets of verse to the girl he loved, surely not the sort of man to buy expensive books and write delicate whimsical messages in their fly-leaves.

'Mr Drury?' Wexford asked quietly.

Drury looked startled, almost frightened, but this could simply be alarm at the invasion of his garden by two men much larger man himself
. There was sweat on his upper li
p, again probably only the result of manual toil

'Who are you?'

It was a thin highish voice that sounded as if its development towards a greater resonance had been arrested in puberty.

'Chief Inspector Wexford, sir, and Inspector Burden. County Police.'

Drury had looked after his garden. Apart from a couple of square yards from which potatoes had been lifted, there were various freshly turned patches all over the flower-beds. He stuck the prongs of the fork into the ground and wiped his hands on his trousers.

Is this something to do with Margaret?' he asked.

‘I
think we'd better go into the house, Mr Drury.'

He took them in through a pair of french windows, considerably less elegant than Mrs Missal's, and into a tiny room crowded with post-war utility furniture.

Someone had just eaten a solitary meal. The cloth was still on the table and the dirty plates had been half-heartedly stacked.

"My wife's away
’
Drury said. 'She took the kids to the seaside this m
orning. What can I do for you?’

He sat down on a dining chair, offered another to Burden and, observant of protocol, left the only armchair to Wexford.

'Why did you ask if it was something to do with Margaret, Mr Drury?'

‘I
recognized her photograph in the paper. It gave me a bit of a turn. Then I went to a do at the chapel last night and they were all talking about it
.
It made me feel a bit queer, I can tell you, on account of me meeting Margaret through the chapel.'

That would have been Flagford Methodist Church, Burden reflected. He recalled a maroon-painted hut with a corrugated-iron roof on the north side of the village green.

Drury didn't look scared any longer, only sad. Burden was struck by his resemblance to Ronald Parsons, not only a physical likeness but a similarity of phrase and manner. As well as the undistinguished features, the thin sandy hai
r, this man had the same def
ensiveness, the same humdrum turn of speech. A muscle twitched at the corner of his mouth. Anyone less like Douglas Quadrant would have been difficult to imagine.

Tell me about your relationship with Margaret Godfrey,' Wexford said.

Drury looked startled.

It wasn't a relationship
’
he said.

What did he think he was being accused of? Burden wondered.

'She was one of my girl friends. She was just a kid at school I met her at chapel and took her out
...
what, a dozen times
’

'When did you first take her out, Mr Drury?'

'It's a long time ago. Twelve years, thirteen years
...
I can't remember
’
H
e
looked at his hands on which the crusts of earth were drying. 'Will you excuse me if I go and have a bit of a wash?'

He went out of the room. Through the open serving hatch Burden saw him run the hot tap and swill his hands under it. Wexford moved out of Drury's line of vision and towards the bookcase. Among the Penguins and the
Reader's
Digests
was a volume covered in navy-blue suede. Wexford took it out quickly, read the inscription and handed it to Burden.

It was the same printing, the same' breathless loving style. Above the title -
The
Picture
of
Dorian Gray
- Burden read:

Man
cannot
live
on
wine
alone,
Minna,
hut
this
is
the very
best
bread
and
butter.
Farewell.
Doon,
July,
1951.

Chapter 11

They out-talked thee, hissed thee, tore thee, Better men fared thus before thee.

Matthew Arnold
,

The
Last
Word

Drury came back, smiling cautiously. He had rolled up his sleeves and his hands were pink. When he saw the book Wexford was holding the smile faded and he said aggressively:

‘I
think you're taking a liberty
’

'Where did you get this book, Mr Drury?'

Drury peered at the printing, looked at Wexford and blushed. The tic returned, pumping his chin.

'Oh dear
’
he said, 'she gave it me. I'd forgotten I'd got it.'

Wexford had become stern. His thick lower lip stood out, giving him a prognathous look.

'Look here, she gave me that book when I was taking her out. It says July here and
that’s
whe
n it must have been. July, that’
s right' The blush faded and he went white. He sat down heavily. 'You don't
believe me, do you? My wife’l
l tell you. If s been there ever since we got married.'

'Why did Mrs Parsons give it to you, Mr Drury?'

I'd been taking her out for a few weeks.' He stared at Wexford with eyes like a hare's cau
ght in the beam of headlights. ‘I
t was the summer of -
’I
don't know. What does it say there?
Fifty-one. We were in her aunt’
s house. A parcel came for Margaret and she opened it. She looked sort of mad and she just chucked it down, chucked it on the floor, you see, but I picked it up. I'd heard of it and I thought
...
well, I thought it was a smutty book if you must know, and I wanted to read it She said, "Here, you can have it, if you like
’
' Something like that I can't remember the details of what she said. It was a long time ago. Minna had got fed up with this Doon and I thought she was sort of ashamed of him
..
‘
'Minna?'

'I started calling her Minna then because of the name in the book. What have I said? For God's sake, don't look at me like that!'

Wexford stuck the book in his pocket.

'When did you last see her?'

Drury picked at the cord that bound the seat of his chair. He began pulling out little shreds of red cotton. At last he said:

'She went away in the August. Her uncle had
died..’

'No, no. I mean recently
’

‘I
saw her last week. That isn't a crime, is it, seeing somebody you used to know? I was in the car and I recognized her. She was in the High Street, in Kingsmarkham. I stopped for a minute and asked her how she was, that sort of thing
..
‘

'Go on. I want all the details
’

'She said she was married and I said so was I. She said she'd come to live in Tabard Road and I said we must get together sometime with her husband and Kathleen. Kathleen's my wife. Anyway, I said I'd give her a ring, and that was all.'

'She told you her married name?'

'Of course she did. Why shouldn't she?'

'Mr Drury, you said you recognized her photograph. Didn't you recognize her name?'

Her name, her face, what's the odds? I'm not in court I can't watch every word I say.'

Just tell the truth and you won't have to watch your words. Did you telephone her?'

'Of course I didn't I was going to, but then I read she was dead.'

'Where were you on Tuesday between twelve-thirty and seven?'

‘I
was at work. I work in my uncle's hardware shop in Pomfret Ask him, he
’
ll tell you I was there all day.'

'What time does the shop close?' 'Half past five, but I always try to get away early on Tuesdays. Look, you won't believe me.' Try me, Mr Drury.'

‘I
know you won't believe me, but my wifell tell you, my uncle'll tell you. I always go to Flagford on Tuesdays to collect my wife's vegetable order. There's a nursery there, see, on the Clusterwell Road. You have to get there by half five otherwise they're closed. Well, we were busy last Tuesday and I was late. I try to get away by five, but it was all of a quarter past. When I got to Spellman's there wasn't anybody about. I went round the back of the greenhouses and I called out, but they'd gone.'

'So you went home without the vegetables?'

'No, I didn't Well, I did, but not straight away. I'd had a hard day and I was fed up about the place being closed, so I went into The Swan and had a drink. A girl served me. I've never seen her before. Look, does my wife have to know about that? I'm a Methodist, see? I'm a member of the chapel. I'm not supposed to drink.'

Burden drew in his breath. A murder enquiry and he was worrying about his clandestine pint!