Wolf to the Slaughter (22 page)

‘Much of a one for the women?’ he asked.

‘I wouldn’t say that.’ Cawthorne gave Burden a sidelong glance. Perhaps he was remembering enquiries into his own proclivities in that direction. He shook himself and added in the tone of a colonel discussing with an officer of equal or even superior rank the naughtiness of a subaltern, ‘Good-looking young devil, though.’

Mrs Cawthorne wriggled. Wexford looked at her. He had seen a similar expression in his seventeen-year-old Sheila’s eyes when she was discussing with triumph a boy’s unsuccessful advance. Here was the same half-smile, the same mock-anger. But surely he wasn’t expected to believe . . . ? He was.

‘You wouldn’t say that?’ she enquired archly of her husband. ‘Then all I can say is, you don’t listen to a word I say.’ Cawthorne’s sick glare made this seem more than probable. ‘Why, the way he looked at me sometimes!’ She turned to Wexford. ‘I’m used to it, of course. I could see what young Ray was after. Not that he actually said anything. It was more than his job was worth to go chasing the boss’s wife.’

Her husband turned his eyes towards the ceiling where he fixed them on a plaster cherub. ‘Oh God,’ he said softly.

‘When did he leave?’ Wexford put in quickly.

His wife’s insinuation had temporarily thrown Cawthorne off balance. He went to the sideboard and poured himself a whisky before replying. ‘Let’s see now,’ he said when half the drink had gone down. ‘It’d be last Saturday week.’ The day he booked Ruby’s room, Wexford thought. ‘I remember thinking what a bloody nerve he’d got.’

‘In what way? Because he left you?’

‘Not only that. It was the way he did it. Now I’m in the habit of letting any of my staff borrow a car when they’re in need and provided they give me fair warning. It’s hard on a young kid, wants to take his girl out.’ He smiled philanthropically, the friend of youth, and drained his glass. ‘Anstey was one of the kind that take advantage. Night after night he’d have one of the cars and it was all the same to him whether I knew or whether I didn’t. Well, on that Saturday morning we were a bit short-handed and I noticed Anstey wasn’t about. Next thing he came sweeping in in one of the Minors, all smiles and not a word of excuse. Said he’d been to see a friend on business.’

‘A Minor?’

‘Black Minor Thousand, one of the three I keep for hiring out. You’ve seen them out the front.’ Cawthorne raised a thick eyebrow like a strip of polar bear fur. ‘Drink?’ Wexford shook his head for both of them. ‘Don’t mind if I do, do you?’ His glass re-filled, he went on, ‘“Business?” I said. “Your business is my business, my lad,” I said, “and just you remember it.” “Oh,” he said in a very nasty way, “I wonder how much business you’d have left if I didn’t have scruples.” Well, that was a bit much. I told him he could have his cards and get out.’

The earrings swung as Mrs Cawthorne gave a small theatrical sigh. ‘Poor lamb,’ she said. Wexford did not for a moment suppose she referred to her husband. ‘I wish I’d been kinder to him.’ There was no doubt what she meant by that. It was grotesque. God help him, he thought. Surely he wasn’t going to have another regretful woman on his hands? What value they all put on themselves, all sorry, all wanting to reverse the hands of the clock.

‘Scruples,’ he said. ‘What did he mean by that?’

Again Cawthorne favoured them with that curious narrowing of the eyes.

‘Been taking away your business, had he?’ Burden put in quickly, remembering Mrs Penistan.

‘He was a good mechanic,’ Cawthorne said. ‘Too good.’ This last perhaps reminded him of the whisky, for he poured himself some more, first half-filling the glass, then, with a quick reckless tilt to the bottle, topping it to the brim. He sighed, possibly with pleasure, possibly with resignation at another temptation unresisted. ‘What I mean to say is, he was too much of a one for the personal touch.’ Mrs Cawthorne’s laugh cut off the last word with the shrill screeching whine of a circular saw. ‘Ingratiated himself with the customers,’ he said, ignoring her. ‘Madam this and madam that, and then he’d open the doors for them and compliment them on their driving. Damn it all, it’s not necessary for a thousand mile service.’

‘Harmless, I should have thought.’

‘Call it harmless, do you, when a little squirt like that takes away your business? The next thing I knew – heard by a roundabout route . . .’ He scowled, the general in Intelligence. ‘I have my spies,’ he said absurdly. ‘I could see it all. “Why not let me do it privately for you, madam. I’d only charge ten bob.” ’ He took a long pull at his drink. ‘And there’s not a damn thing I could do about it, what with my overheads. I’m out of pocket if I charge less than twelve and six. A good half-dozen of my customers he got away from me like that, and good customers too. I taxed him with it but he swore they’d taken to going to Missal’s But there was Mrs Curran, to give you an example, and Mr and Miss Margolis . . .’

‘Ah!’ said Wexford softly.

Cawthorne went pink and avoided his wife’s eye.

‘You might think she was flighty,’ he said, ‘but you didn’t know her. It wasn’t easy come, easy go with her. Oh, it came easily enough, but young Anita watched the spending of every penny. For all we’d been close friends for a year, she didn’t think twice about going to Anstey on the sly. Still came to me for her petrol, mind.’ He belched and changed it to a cough. ‘As if there was anything to be made on juice!’

‘Were they friendly?’

‘Anita and young Ray? Show me the man under fifty she wasn’t friendly with. He’d have to have a hump or a harelip.’ But Cawthorne was over fifty, well over, and his age was his own deformity.

‘He left you on the Saturday,’ Burden said slowly. ‘Where would he go?’ It was a rhetorical question. He did not expect Cawthorne to answer it. ‘D’you know where he was living?’

‘Kingsmarkham somewhere. One of my boys might know.’ His sodden face fell and he seemed to have forgotten his former attack on Anita Margolis’s character. ‘You think he killed her, don’t you? Killed little Ann . . .’

‘Let’s find that address, Mr Cawthorne.’

The earrings bounced. ‘Is he on the run?’ Mrs Cawthorne asked excitedly. Her eyes glittered. ‘Poor hunted creature!’

‘Oh, shut up,’ said Cawthorne and went out into the rain.

They stood in the porch while Cawthorne questioned the men. The rain was passing now and the clouds splitting. Over Kingsmarkham they could see that patches of sky were showing between the great banks of cumulus, a fresh bright sky that was almost green.

‘One hundred and eighty-six, High Street, Kingsmarkham,’ Cawthorne said, trotting up to them and making a little final spurt for cover. ‘That’s his headquarters, or was.’

‘One eight six,’ said Burden quickly. ‘Let’s see now. The news block’s one five eight to one seven four, then the chemist and the florist . . .’ He ticked the numbers off on his fingers. ‘But that must be . . .’

‘Well, it’s Grover’s the newsagents.’ Cawthorne looked as if it was only what he had expected. ‘They let one of their attic rooms, you know. A couple of my chaps have lodged there before and when Anstey lost his first billet down the road here, someone suggested Grover’s might fill the bill. Mind you, he was only there a month.’

‘On our own doorstep!’ Wexford said with an angry snort when they were in the car. ‘You can see that place from our windows. A fat lot of use our observatory’s been to us.’

‘It’s common knowledge they take lodgers, sir,’ Burden said apologetically, but he did not know for whom he was making excuses and he added in his own defence, ‘I daresay we’ve all seen a young dark fellow going in and out. We’d no cause to connect him with this case. How many thousands of little dark chaps are there in Kingsmarkham alone?’

Wexford said grimly, ‘He didn’t have to go far to see Ruby’s ad, did he? He was in the right place to replace his knife, too. What happens now to your theory about the cars? Anstey didn’t even own one, let alone swop black for green’

‘Anita got five hundred pounds the day before they went to Ruby’s. Mrs Penistan says she was generous. May Be she bought him a car.’

They pulled up on the police station forecourt. Burden turned his head to see a man come out of Grover’s with an evening paper. As they went up the steps under the broad white canopy, water dripped from it on to their coat collars.

‘May be she bought him a car,’ Burden said again. ‘You could buy a very decent second-hand car for five hundred.’

‘We’re told she was generous,’ Wexford said on the stairs. ‘We’re also told she was hard-headed and careful with her money. She wasn’t an old woman with a kept man. Young girls don’t buy cars for their boyfriends.’

It was warm and silent in Wexford’s office. The chairs were back against the walls and the papers on the rosewood desk neatly arranged. Nothing remained to show that earlier it had been the scene of a tragic drama. Burden took off his raincoat and spread it in front of the warm air grille.

‘Kirkpatrick saw her at twenty past seven,’ he said. ‘She was at Ruby’s by eight. That gave her forty minutes to change her coat, get down to Grover’s, leave her Alpine there for him to mend at some future time and drive to Stowerton. It could easily be done.’

‘When Kirkpatrick saw her she was wearing that ocelot thing. You’d naturally expect her to change into a raincoat in the cottage, but the ocelot was
on the passenger seat of her car
. It‘s a small point, but it may be important. Then we come to this question of time. Your theory only works if Anita and Anstey already had a green car available. May Be they did. We shall see. But if, at that juncture in the proceedings, they had to borrow or hire a car, it couldn’t be done.’

‘It could be done if they used Margolis’s car,’ said Burden.

Drayton and Martin interrupted them and moved in on the conference. The four of them sat round the desk while Wexford put the newcomers in the picture. He watched Drayton’s face grow hard and his eyes stony when Grover’s shop was mentioned.

‘Right,’ he said, looking at his watch. ‘We’ll give them a chance to close up and then we’ll all go over. Grover’s more or less bedridden at the moment, isn’t he?’ He gave Drayton a sharp look.

‘Up and about again now, sir.’

‘Good,’ Wexford nodded. ‘Now,’ he said to Burden, ‘what’s all this about Margolis’s car? Margolis was in London.’

‘He’d left his car at Kingsmarkham station and it
is
a green car. Wouldn’t Anita be just the kind of girl to go a couple of hundred yards down York Street to the station approach and borrow her brother’s car? They could have got it back by the time he wanted it.’

‘Don’t forget they thought he’d want it at nine, not eleven. No one knew he’d be dining with this gallery manager.’

‘So what?’ Burden shrugged. ‘If ever there was an easy-going slapdash pair it’s Margolis and his sister. If his car wasn’t there he’d probably think he hadn’t left it there or that it had been stolen. And he’d never do anything about that until he saw her. Anstey dumped her body, returned Margolis’s car to the station car park and when everyone was in bed and asleep, filled up the Alpine radiator, taking a can of water with him to be on the safe side, and drove it back to Quince Cottage.’

He expected to see on Wexford’s face a look of pleasure and approval comparable to that he had shown the previous night at the Olive and Dove. Everything was beginning to fit beautifully, and he, Burden, had dovetailed it. Why then had Wexford’s mouth settled into those dubious grudging creases? He waited for comment, for some sort of agreement that all this was at least possible, but the Chief Inspector said softly:

‘I have other ideas, I’m afraid.’

The shop was closed. In the alley water lay in puddles that mirrored the greenish lamplight. Two bins had been moved out in front of the garage doors for the dust collection in the morning. A cat sniffed them, leaving wet paw marks on someone’s discarded newspaper.

Drayton had not wanted to come with them. He knew who Ray Anstey was now, the man he had seen her kissing by the bridge, the man who lodged with them and who had borrowed his employer’s cars to take her out. Perhaps they had used that very car in which Drayton himself had driven her to Cheriton Forest. He had deceived her with Ann Margolis and she him with a young policeman. It was a roundabout, a changing spinning thing that sometimes came to a long pause. He felt that he had reached a halt and that they must alight from it together, perhaps for life.

But he had not wanted to come. Undesired things would be revealed to him and she who would be questioned might speak of a love he wanted to forget. He stood at the rear while Burden banged on the glass and as he waited it came to him suddenly that it would not have mattered whether Wexford had brought him or not. Where else had he to go in the evenings? He would have come here anyway, as he always came.

It was Grover himself who came to let them in. Drayton expected him to be antagonistic, but the man was ingratiating and the oiliness of his greeting was more repulsive than hostility. His black hair was flattened down and combed to cover a small bald spot and it smelt of violet oil. One hand clamped to the small of his back, he ushered them into the shop and put on a light.

‘Ray was here a month,’ he said in answer to Wexford’s question. ‘Cawthorne gave him the push on the Saturday and he left here on the Tuesday. Or so Lin and the wife said. I never saw him, being as I was laid up.’

‘I believe he had one of your attic rooms.’

Grover nodded. He was not an old man but he dressed like one. Drayton tried to keep his eyes still and his face expressionless as he noted the unbuttoned cardigan, the collarless shirt and the trousers that had never been brushed or pressed. ‘His room’s been done,’ the newsagent said quickly. ‘Lin cleaned it up. He never left nothing behind so it’s no use you looking.’

‘We’ll look,’ Burden said lightly. ‘In a minute.’ His cold eyes skimmed the magazines and then he strolled down to the dark corner where the library was. Grover followed him, hobbling.