Not In The Flesh_ A Wexford Novel Part 15

"After he was dead. I didn't look too closely, I can tell you. He wasn't a pretty sight."

"Mrs. McNeil, what exactly do you mean by that? Do you mean he was dirty or injured in some other way?"

"I don't know. He wasn't old, I can tell you that. Not much older than Greg, probably, only Greg's always so spotlessly clean and neat."

"If I told you this man's age was forty, would that be about right?"

Before she could reply, Greg came back with Wexford's tea. The biscuits provided were of a slightly lower standard than those on Mrs. McNeil's plate. Greg flashed his employer so dazzling a smile that Wexford found himself wondering in exactly what way he was on the make.

"About forty, Mrs. McNeil?"

"No, no, Greg is just forty-oh, you meant that creature who was trespa.s.sing in Mr. Grimble's house? I don't know. Possibly. I suppose he was about that."

Next he asked her about the knife her husband had said was about to be used to attack him. This prompted Irene McNeil into an angry diatribe against Helen Parker, the young solicitor. He steered her back to the knife.

"There was no knife in the house, Mrs. McNeil, that's the difficulty."

"John Grimble took things away, you know. You shouldn't believe him when he says he didn't take a thing, just left everything there."

Wexford gently reminded her that whatever John Grimble had removed from his father's house, he had taken eleven years before, not eight. "Could your husband have brought the knife back home with him?"

A flash of alarm showed in her eyes. "Why would he do that?"

It was hardly for Wexford to find explanations for the behavior of a man like Ronald McNeil. "Your husband might have told you if he disposed of the knife."

"Or I might have." She spoke carefully. "I might have given it away. He might have brought it back home. I mean, when we lived at the Hall."

"Is that what happened, Mrs. McNeil?"

"Will I get into trouble?" She spoke like a little girl who has been disobedient. "It wouldn't be very wrong, would it, to get rid of a knife? It wasn't mine, you see. Would it be stealing? It wasn't mine, it was that man's."

Wexford was almost at a loss. He seemed to have strayed into the country of the mad. He was seeing what happens to people-women, mostly-who have been sheltered and protected all their lives and suddenly find themselves alone.

"Did you get rid of it, Mrs. McNeil?"

"It was stolen," she said. "The cleaner I had stole it." She stared at him. "I'm telling you the absolute truth."

It was very nearly too much for him. He changed the subject.

"Had you ever seen this man before, Mrs. McNeil? Think carefully before you answer."

"I know I'd never seen him before."

"His name may have been Miller. He was called Dusty."

This time she did ponder on the name. "The Tredowns once had a-well, a handyman they called Dusty. He used to drive their car sometimes too. I never saw him. That Ricardo woman told me."

"When was this?"

"Oh, my goodness, how you expect me to remember things like this I really don't know."

"You're doing very well," he said eagerly.

This seemed to please her. She was susceptible to flattery and she smiled, though this may have been due to the reappearance of Greg with a tray on which was a rolled-up hot towel of the kind they give you in Chinese restaurants, a bottle of violet-scented toilet water, and a tube of hand cream.

"He's so thoughtful," she said when she had anointed her hands. "I can't imagine now how I got on without him. When was it this Dusty was with them? Oh, at least ten years ago, maybe more like twelve." She became almost chatty. "Mr. Tredown can drive, but he doesn't. Apparently he once caused an awful accident-someone was killed-and he's never driven since. The Ricardo woman can't and Mrs. Tredown can now, but she hadn't pa.s.sed her test then. She pa.s.sed it a year or two before we moved. Ronald said she'd no business being on the road when he heard she'd pa.s.sed."

All this was interesting enough, but it seemed of little use to him. The vital contribution Mrs. McNeil had made, perhaps the only contribution of any worth, was that a man called Dusty had worked for the Tredowns. Only they could tell him more now.

"I shall ask you about the knife again," he said.

She shrugged, made an unusual movement with her hand, an impatient flutter. He was on his way out and Donaldson was waiting when his phone rang. It was Selina Hexham.

Chapter Twenty.

He took the call in the car. The answer he expected was a negative one, because now he had less faith in the idea that had come to him in the small hours. Things you think of when you wake in the night often look bizarre or stupid in the morning.

Instead she said, "That would mean the piece of paper with his writing on it makes sense. But I don't know. One small thing, though. It's so small I didn't think it worth putting in my book. I remember a magazine-well, a journal, I suppose you'd call it-lying on a table in our house. It was called The Author. The Author. Where it came from I don't know but there were some ads in it from people offering to do research for authors. I don't remember any more except Mum saying that would be a nice job for someone." Where it came from I don't know but there were some ads in it from people offering to do research for authors. I don't remember any more except Mum saying that would be a nice job for someone."

He thanked her and unexpectedly she began to talk about how she'd changed her mind about finding her father's killer. Now she agreed with him. This man should be found, but still she was glad capital punishment had gone forever. Later he wondered how much credence he should put on her remembering The Author The Author and her mother's comment. Would anyone's memory be that good? It was more likely, he thought, that Selina had, perhaps unconsciously, invented it in an effort to help him find the perpetrator of a crime. and her mother's comment. Would anyone's memory be that good? It was more likely, he thought, that Selina had, perhaps unconsciously, invented it in an effort to help him find the perpetrator of a crime.

They followed her car along the short drive and under the dripping trees. Maeve Tredown wasn't a good driver, uncertain and apparently nervous at the wheel. She came close to sc.r.a.ping the side of the old Volvo against the trunk of a towering conifer and pulled up too sharply outside the front door, setting the car juddering. The curious colors of the house, the jarring yellows and reds, looked brighter when washed by teeming rain. She opened the driver's door and leaned out to see who had come to visit.

"Good morning, Mrs. Tredown," Wexford said. "Perhaps it would be best if we went straight inside." He expected some irrational argument, but she got quickly out of the car, slamming the door violently, and let them into the house. "How is your husband?" he asked when they were inside.

"They are taking him into a hospice tomorrow," she said. "There isn't any hope." She said it in the kind of cheerful tone she might have used to say there wasn't anything to fear. "I thought a hospice was a place monks lived in with Saint Bernard dogs. But apparently not anymore."

Wexford could smell the vanilla scent she wore as she led them along the dark pa.s.sage past the haphazardly hung coats and flung footwear, throwing her raincoat onto a peg as she pa.s.sed. This time they weren't to be received in the gloomy living room. Instead they went into a kind of farmhouse kitchen where, in front of an open fire, Tredown lay in an armchair with his legs up on the seat of another, pipe in mouth. Blankets covered him, though it was insufferably hot. At the other end of the room, the part where cooking was done, Claudia Ricardo stood in front of an Aga, apparently making lemon curd. The whole place smelled of a mixture of lemons and burning sage.

"I believe it's very hot in here," Tredown said, removing the pipe without lifting his head. "I'm afraid I always feel cold these days. Perhaps you should take these gentlemen into the drawing room, Em."

"Please don't worry about the heat, Mr. Tredown," Wexford said. "We'd like to talk to you as well."

"You'd better sit down, then." Maeve Tredown was as offhand as her husband was courteous.

"Would you make us some coffee or tea, Cee?" Tredown apparently thought it safer to make this request of his ex-wife than his present one, or perhaps he only did so because Claudia was already engaged in cooking. She waved a wooden spoon in a gesture of acquiescence. "What did you want to ask me, Mr. Wexford?"

"I believe you once employed a man who went by the name of Dusty."

Tredown put the pipe down on a saucer and turned his cadaverous yellow face toward Wexford while holding out his hands to the flames. "I forget so many things," he said. "Let me think. Did we, Em?"

Stony-faced, Maeve Tredown said, "He asked you. Why don't you answer? You know very well we did."

Speaking very slowly, Tredown said, "I don't believe I ever saw him." He managed a smile, a death's-head grin. There seemed to be no flesh on his face, only skin stretched over the skull. "I was always working, you see. Upstairs working."

"You mean writing, Owen. Why don't you say 'writing?' "

"Because it is working. It's what I do." Wexford couldn't tell if the sound he made was a sigh or an indrawn breath. "What I used to do."

The unidentifiable warm drink that Claudia Ricardo brought to them in thick earthenware cups was very different from that provided by Mrs. McNeil's Greg. Wexford couldn't tell if it was tea or coffee and, catching sight of Burden's face, saw that he meant to abandon his. Claudia drank hers with apparent pleasure, set down her cup with a loud rattle in its saucer, and said, "I remember Dusty perfectly. He was rather attractive. I really quite fancied him. He was frightfully common, I thought, but I've always liked a bit of rough."

"Oh, Cee, you are awful," Maeve spluttered into her cup.

Tredown had closed his eyes, whether in weariness or distaste it was impossible to tell.

"You employed him to drive your car?" Wexford persevered.

"Once or twice," Claudia replied. "Mostly it was to mend the car. Poor old car hadn't been driven for yonks-is that still a cool expression? Em couldn't drive then. It was-oh, a long time ago. When did you pa.s.s your test, Em?"

"December '97," said Maeve.

"I've never learnt. My head is always in the clouds, you know, and it wouldn't have done. Owen used to drive, I mean he can, but he killed someone in an accident. He turned right without looking and hit someone and the person died. It was while he was married to me, which may have had something to do with it."

Tredown managed to rear himself up. He managed too a voice loud enough to exhaust him. "Be quiet, Claudia. If you can't talk sense, go away." Speaking to her in this way had cost him emotional effort as well. Utterly spent, he lay back, sweat standing in beads on his face.

Burden said coldly, "Can we return to Dusty? Where did he come from?"

It seemed that Maeve had decided Claudia had gone far enough. "He'd been one of those fruit-pickers that were on Grimble's Field . . ."

"Just a moment, Mrs. Tredown," Wexford said. "Are we talking about eight years ago or eleven?"

"Eleven, of course. They weren't on the field eight years ago. This was '95. One day Dusty came through our garden when I was out there and asked if I'd any work for him. I said, was he any good as a mechanic because we'd got this car no one had driven for years and could he put it right and drive it for us. Well, he did and we paid him. There, does that satisfy you?"

"Not entirely, Mrs. Tredown. You say this was eleven years ago. Was it before Mr. Grimble and Mr. Runge turned the pickers off the field or afterward?"

"Afterward, of course, silly." Claudia answered for her. "He wanted a job because he'd lost the one he'd got strawberry-picking. What else?" She returned to her curd-making, reaching the stage of placing a spoonful of the yellow mixture on a saucer to test if it had gelled. She watched it, sniffed it, nodded, said to Wexford, "Do you like lemon curd?"

"Very much," he said, adding quickly, "but not now. When he'd fixed the car, he drove for you?"

"He took us shopping a few times and he did a bit of gardening. He put a washer on a tap." Maeve shrugged. "You can't be interested in all these domestic details. He was only with us two or three weeks."

"But he came back three years later?"

At last Wexford could see he and Burden had touched a sensitive nerve. Claudia held her spoon in midair for a second or two. Maeve, who had been feeling her husband's forehead in an unusual gesture of care, remained utterly still, her hand resting on the damp ocherish skin. It was the ex-wife who recovered first.

"Dusty came over to say hallo, that's all. He said he was getting married to a woman called Bridget."

Those were perhaps the first serious sentences Wexford had ever heard uttered by Claudia Ricardo. "Did you give him any money?"

"As a matter of fact, we did." Maeve took her hand from Tredown's brow. He had fallen asleep. "Things were very prosperous about then. The First Heaven The First Heaven had been a bestseller for a long time. Those were the days." She glanced at the sleeping man. "He's never been able to write a sequel to come up to it. G.o.d knows why not. I gave Dusty a hundred pounds for a wedding present." had been a bestseller for a long time. Those were the days." She glanced at the sleeping man. "He's never been able to write a sequel to come up to it. G.o.d knows why not. I gave Dusty a hundred pounds for a wedding present."

"That was all?"

"I beg your pardon? He was b.l.o.o.d.y lucky to get that."

"Where did the rest come from?"

Wexford watched the trickles of rain run down the big window in his office. The moving water distorted the trees outside to a melange of gold and brown. The sky was pale, colorless, all cloud. "She may be lying, Mike, and I wonder why. D'you realize, we don't even know his first name? We conclude from his nickname that he was called Miller and from the T-s.h.i.+rt that his first name was Sam. But that's guesswork. We know he's dead and Ronald McNeil killed him. Or to correct that, Irene McNeil says he killed him. We have to see Bridget Cook. Hannah can do that and pick her brains. She may know about the thousand pounds and she'll certainly know what Dusty's real name was."

"I've never thought much of the tea we get in here," Burden said, and with unusual and almost poetical exaggeration, "but compared with that muck Claudia gave us, it's the nectar of the G.o.ds." He lifted the cup to his lips and savored the contents. "Excellent. A bit brutal what Maeve said about the sequels to that book of Tredown's not being very good."

"She is brutal, but I'm afraid she's right."

Burden raised his eyebrows.

"Dora fetched me two of his books from the public library, the recent ones, I mean. They're not a patch on The First Heaven. The First Heaven. I didn't like I didn't like The First Heaven, The First Heaven, I don't like fantasy, but I could see it was good. I couldn't finish the others. I got halfway through one but couldn't finish it and I only managed one chapter of the other. I don't like fantasy, but I could see it was good. I couldn't finish the others. I got halfway through one but couldn't finish it and I only managed one chapter of the other. The First Heaven The First Heaven ends with the coming of man to earth, that is man as we know him, not half an ape. In the first sequel-it's called ends with the coming of man to earth, that is man as we know him, not half an ape. In the first sequel-it's called In His Own Image In His Own Image and that says it all-he's writing about Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden and G.o.d turning them out of the garden, while the point of and that says it all-he's writing about Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden and G.o.d turning them out of the garden, while the point of The First Heaven The First Heaven is that it's about evolution and the death of G.o.ds. The man's obsessed with the Bible. That's his trouble." is that it's about evolution and the death of G.o.ds. The man's obsessed with the Bible. That's his trouble."

The glazed look that usually came over Burden's face when literature was mentioned, masked it now. "Why's that, then? I mean, is that why the others aren't so good?"

"I suppose he couldn't bring himself to leave biblical subjects for long. And biblical subjects don't interest people very much anymore. They don't interest me, but evolution does and cla.s.sical mythology does too. His mistake was not just in reverting to his old subject but reverting to one which seems to deny his new subject. Do you see what I mean?"

"I suppose so, but it's not something I know anything about. Is it important?"

"I don't know," Wexford said. "I don't know what's important in this case and what isn't."

Finding Bridget Cook wasn't difficult, but calling on her in her home was. "She won't want you seeing her at her place," Mich.e.l.le Riley said. "Her bloke's there all the time, and if you say a word about any man she was seeing before him he'll go bananas. And when he does he'll beat her up, that's for sure."

It was a piece of luck for Hannah that Bridget Cook's partner was out-"Down the benefit"-when she phoned. "I can't see you here," Bridget said. "Not if you want to talk about Samuel."

"Who?" said Hannah.

"Samuel. That's his name. Samuel Miller. I never called him Dusty, though all the rest of them did."

They arranged to meet at a cafe in Norbury, half a mile from the flat where Hannah lived with Bal Bhattacharya. Hannah's mother had a term she used to describe women whose appearance was less than well cared for, which she generally applied to those interviewed on television on what she called sink estates or bog-standard schools. "She looks a bit rough" was the phrase Hannah had grown up with. She had rejected it as unacceptable, but it came into her head when Bridget Cook turned up-fifteen minutes late-at La Capuccella cafe.

She was a big tall woman, one who, it was easy to believe, could have performed heavier and more demanding farmwork than picking fruit. Her face had once been lovely, the features having a cla.s.sical stern beauty, but now it was bruised and marked by time and perhaps by human mistreatment. It was the face of a sculpture from ancient Greece, damaged by long exposure to winds and weather. Hannah thought she looked like a Native American, what her mother would once have called a Red Indian, and her politically correct soul had shuddered at that.

Bridget Cook was nearing sixty but, in spite of her fading beauty, looked more. Yet this man she lived with, Hannah marveled, was jealous of a previous lover she hadn't seen for eight years. Rather to Hannah's surprise, she extended her right hand and shook hers, pumping it vigorously. "Hi, how are you? I'm Bridget Cook-or Williams, as my fellow likes me to say."

Hannah thought she need not pander to this man's vanity. "I'd like to talk about Samuel Miller, Miss Cook, if you're happy about that."

"Sure. Why not? Him and me, we were going to get married, but he walked out on me. Got cold feet, I guess. I'd been married before, but he never had. Still, it's all water under the bridge now, isn't it?"