Wexford 19 - The Babes In The Woods (31 page)

   ‘No paper round this evening?’ Wexford said.

   ‘I was late back from school. Dad’s got one of the boys on it or he’s doing it himself.’

   Priscilla Winter said, as if an attack had been intended on her husband, ‘It’s not a big round.’ She recited its route like a child saying its tables. ‘Chesham and this road and Caversham and Martindale and Kingston to the corner of Lyndhurst.’

   She shuffled across the floor to open a door for them. Dorcas could have done that but she left it to her mother and, pushing past her, led Wexford into a sitting room. If not the most important person in the household, she plainly ran her father a close second - even though she was a girl. That spoke of a weakness in Winter’s religious principles in the face of paternal love. There was television in this room, for the girl’s benefit, Wexford thought, but no books, no flowers, no house-plants, no cushions or ornaments. Heavy curtains of a nondescript colour shut out night and rain. The only picture was a pale landscape, innocent of trees, animals, human figures or clouds in its sky. The room reminded him of the lounge a third-rate hotel provides for its guests when they complain of nowhere to sit but their bedrooms.

   Mrs Winter said timidly, as one making a daring suggestion, ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

   He had wondered if tea was included among banned stimulants, but apparently not. ‘I shan’t be stopping more than a minute or two,’ he said, remembering the glories of the simnel cake, ‘but thank you.’

   ‘You will have heard about the missing young people,’ he said to Dorcas. ‘Giles and Sophie Dade. I’ve been wondering how well you knew them and what you can tell me about them. They’re fairly near neighbours.’

   ‘I don’t know them. Well, I know what they look like but not to speak to.’

   ‘You go to the same school and you and Giles are the same age.’

   ‘I know,’ the girl said. ‘But we’re in different forms at school. He’s in the A form.’

   ‘Where you should be,’ said her mother. ‘I’m sure you’re clever enough.’

   Dorcas cast her a glance of contempt. ‘I really don’t know them.’

   Wexford had to accept it. And I don’t suppose you’ve ever had private coaching from Miss Joanna Troy?’

   ‘She doesn’t need that,’ said Priscilla Winter. ‘I told you, she’s clever. The only private teaching she has is her violin lesson. That reminds me, Dorcas, have you done your practice for your lesson tomorrow night?’

   It seemed strange to him that Dorcas didn’t know the Dades but he couldn’t see why she should lie. He thanked her and said goodnight to Mrs Winter. The damp, dark night received him but he hadn’t far to go. On the way home he met no one no one passed him. He let himself into his own house, warm and well-lit and with a comforting smell of dinner in the air, and almost tripped over the evening paper which lay on the mat, damp and sodden at the edges as it always was these days.

Sylvia remarked apropos of nothing that she thought of going home next day. Neil had promised to fetch her and the boys and take them home to the Old Rectory The light in Dora’s eyes was unmistakeable. Wexford could tell, as if he had read her mind like a book, that she was thinking there might be a reconciliation there, Sylvia and Neil reunite, remarry, live together as they once had, but this time it would be second time lucky and happiness ever after. Had she forgotten that Neil had at last found himself a new girlfriend? After Sylvia had gone to bed he said gently, ‘It won’t happen, you know, and if it did it would be a bad thing.’

   ‘Would it, Reg?’

   ‘When they got married it was sex and when that went there was nothing. It can’t be revived, it’s too late. But one day she will find someone to be happy with, you’ll see.’

   Brave words, but he was less sure himself. In the morning he said goodbye to his daughter and kissed her, and all was well again. More or less. He was sitting in his office, thinking more about her than the Dade case when the phone rang.

   ‘Hello. Wexford.’

   ‘I have Detective Superintendent Watts, of Gloucestershire Police for you, sir.’

   ‘Right. Put him on.’ Gloucestershire? No connection with the county came immediately to mind. Maybe another mistaken sighting of the Dade children. They still came in.

   A voice with a pleasant burr said, ‘Brian Watts here. I’ve got a piece of news for you. We’ve a young girl who says she’s Sophie Dade at the station here. . .‘

   ‘You have?’ A surge of excitement, then reason returned. ‘We’ve had dozens of kids saying they’re the Dades and dozens of people who’ve seen them.’

   ‘No, this one is her all right. I’m as sure as can be. She got hold of the emergency services on a nine-nine-nine call at six this morning. Asked for an ambulance for her grandma. She reckoned the old lady had had a stroke and she was right. Pretty good for a thirteen-year-old, wouldn’t you say? Anyway, she’s here.’

   'Any sign of the boy?’

   ‘You’re greedy, you are. No, it’s just the girl and she won’t say where she’s been or how long she’d been with this Mrs Carrish. She’s not said a word about her brother. Have you got someone who could come up here and fetch her home?’

   ‘Sure. Yes, thanks. Thanks a lot.’

   ‘You sound gobsmacked.’

   ‘Yes, well, I am. That’s exactly what I am. Has Roger Dade been told about his mother?’

   ‘She’s in hospital in Oxford. The hospital will have informed next of kin.’

   ‘So he’ll know a young girl was with her when she had her attack?’

   ‘Maybe. Not necessarily.’

To say something to Roger and Katrina Dade? Better not, he thought. Not yet. The hospital wouldn’t be interested in telling him who called them beyond saying it was a young girl.

   It might not be Sophie. In spite of what his caller had said, there was more than a strong possibility it wasn’t. The difficulty was that the rules said he couldn’t question her without one of her parents or a responsible adult present. Waiting for Karen Malahyde and Lynn Fancourt to come back with the girl, he asked himself if he would recognise her. He got out her photograph and looked - really for the first time - at her face. The previous time he had seen it he had noted in passing that she was pretty and had elements of her mother in her expression, but not then having seen Matilda Carrish, hadn’t observed the resemblance. By the time she was thirty this girl would also have hawk-like features, a Roman nose, thin lips. Her eyes were curiously large, their colour dark but otherwise unidentifiable, the fierce light of intelligence gleaming in their depths.

   What was she doing in Matilda Carrish’s house? Even more to the point, how long had she been there? She must be very cool and collected for one who was after all still a child. He imagined her awakened in the night, in the deep dark of a February morning, by the sound of a crash, made by her grandmother falling to the floor. Most people of her age, surely, would have run crying to a neighbour. She had phoned the emergency services. Once she knew they were coming and her grandmother would be looked after, had she contemplated running away again but decided it would be useless, that she hadn’t a hope? Where would she go? Perhaps, too, though he hadn’t suspected it, she loved her grandmother too much to leave her.

   He ate lunch in the canteen, watched the rain falling. Karen phoned to say they were on their way back with the girl. He looked at the clock on the wall, looked at his watch, decided it would be wrong to put it off any longer and dialled the Dades’ number. Mrs Bruce answered.

   ‘Mr Dade or your daughter?’

   ‘Katrina’s asleep, dear, and Roger’s gone to Oxford to visit his mother in hospital. She’s had a stroke. He heard this morning.’

   Wexford was at a loss, but he made a decision. ‘There was a child with her when she was taken ill. It seems likely it’s Sophie.’

   The astonished silence and then the gasp told him no one in the Dade household had been alerted.

   ‘Will you ask Mrs Dade to phone me when she wakes up?’

   Doubts began as he put the phone down. Suppose it wasn’t Sophie? He would have told Katrina Dade her daughter was coming home when it wasn’t her daughter and he could just imagine Roger Dade’s reaction to that when he found out, the enormous fuss he would make to the Chief Constable. Wexford went down in the lift. He wanted to be there when the two women officers came back with the girl. As the crow flew, or any other bird come to that, it wasn’t all that far to Oxford, but in the current state of traffic it took a long time. And it was always worse when it was raining, which meant that these days it always was worse. Three o’clock, ten past. The swing doors opened and Burden came in, back from wherever he had been.

   ‘D’you think it’s her?’

   ‘Don’t know. I’ve told the mother it is. Who else would it be with Matilda Carrish at that hour of the morning?’

   ‘She may have someone living in to look after her.’

   ‘Sure,’ Wexford said drily, forgetting that he too had doubted the girl’s identity. ‘Nothing more likely than that this someone is a thirteen-year-old paranoid schizophrenic who tells people she’s her employer’s granddaughter.’

   The car came on to the forecourt, sending up a cloud of spray. Lynn was driving. He saw the girl get out, then Karen, Lynn last. It was still raining and they hurried in. He knew at once, there was no doubt. She wore the brown anorak missing from her home and shrugged herself out of it once she was inside the swing doors.

   ‘Well, Sophie,’ he said. ‘We’ll need to talk to you but not now. First you have to go home to your parents.’

   She looked straight at him. Few people had eyes like hers, almond-shaped, slightly tilted, exceptionally large, as near dark- green as human eyes ever get. She was less pretty than in her photograph but more intelligent looking, more formidable. The camera loved her; reality did not. ‘I don’t want to go home,’ she said.

   ‘I’m afraid you must,’ Wexford said. ‘You are thirteen years old and at thirteen you don’t have a choice.’

   ‘Karen says my father is at the hospital with Matilda.’

   ‘That’s right.’

   ‘I’ll go, then. At least he won’t be there.’

   She allowed herself to be helped back into her jacket and led back to the car by Lynn. ‘A bit of a little madam, sir,’ said Karen.

   ‘You could say that. Will you tell Mrs Dade I shall want to talk to Sophie later? We’ll say six o’clock. And one of them must be with her. If Mrs Dade isn’t up to it Mr or Mrs Bruce will do.’

   Now he was anxious to do everything by the book. First, he phoned Antrim again and this time spoke to a hysterical incoherent Katrina, managing at last to understand that she had phoned her husband on his mobile, or rather, her mother had, and told him. Wexford decided it would nevertheless be wise for him to do the same. Not having the mobile number and scarcely trusting Katrina to give it to him, be phoned the hospital where Matilda Carrish was and eventually was able to leave a message for Dade with someone who barely spoke English.

   The temptation now was to indulge in speculation. How long had she been with Mrs Carrish? All the time or only part of it? Why had Matilda deceived them? And where, now, was Giles? Whatever he guessed would very likely be wrong. Imaginary solutions usually were. He must wait.

The rain had ceased and it had grown very cold, perhaps colder than it had been all winter. A sharp wind dried the pavements. In February it wasn’t quite dark by five forty-five but the greyish-red sun was down and dusk had begun. The sky was dark-blue and jewel-bright, as yet starless. Karen drove him up to Lyndhurst Drive and, to his surprise, it was Dade who opened the door. He was considerably chastened and so forgot to be rude.

   ‘There was no point staying up there. She’s unconscious. It’s my belief she won’t survive this.’

   A lay person’s opinion is never of much value in these matters but Wexford said he was sorry to hear that and they went inside. ‘I can’t get a word out of my daughter,’ Dade said, ‘but that’s par for the course. I never can.’

   Wexford thought that boded better for him and Karen. They went into the living room where he had spent so much time in the past weeks. Katrina was there, looking madder than he had ever seen her. ‘Like one of the witches from Macbeth,’ whispered Karen, who wasn’t usually given to a literary turn of phrase, and Wexford, normally only exasperated by Sophie’s mother, felt a serious concern for this woman whose hair looked as if she had been tearing it out and whose mouth hung open as if she had seen and was seeing some dreadful vision. He said nothing to her because he didn’t know what to say.

   ‘You want someone with her when you question her, right?’

   ‘I’m obliged to, Mr Dade. You or -‘ no, obviously not ‘- or one of your parents-in-law.’

   ‘She won’t talk at all if I’m there,’ Dade said bitterly. He went back to the open door and called out in the sharp harsh voice all too familiar to Wexford, for it had been directed often enough at him, ‘Doreen! Come here, will you?’

   Doreen Bruce came in and went up to her daughter, giving her her arm. ‘Now dear, the best place for you is your bed. It’s all been too much.’

   Once more they waited. There was no sign of Sophie. Was Doreen Bruce putting Katrina to bed? Dade sat down in an armchair, or rather, lay down, his arms spread out over its arms, his legs apart, his head thrown back in the characteristic attitude of anguish. Wexford wondered what he had expected to see in this house. Relief and joy and sweetness and light? Something like that. He could no more tell how people would react in an extreme situation than he could predict the answers to the questions he would ask Sophie. If she ever came. At that thought, her grandmother brought her into the room. She looked at her recumbent father and immediately turned away her head, twisting her neck as far round as she could, as ostentatiously as she could.

   ‘Where shall I sit?’

   That was too much for Roger Dade and he bounced upright. ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ he yelled at her. ‘You’re not at the bloody dentist’s.’ He left the room and banged the door.

   ‘You sit here, Sophie,’ said Mrs Bruce, ‘and I’ll sit in this chair.’