Ruth Rendell - From Doon with Death

‘I want a sample taken from those tyres, Mike,’ Wexford said. ‘We’ve got a sample from the lane by Prewett’ s farm. It’s a bit of luck for us that the soil’s practically solid cow dung.’

‘Blimey,’ Burden said, wincing as he got to his feet. He relocked the doors. This is millionaires’ row, all right.’ He put the dried mud into an envelope and pointed towards the houses on the other side of the road: a turreted mansion, a ranch-style bungalow with two double garages and a new house built like a chalet with balconies of dark carved wood.

‘Very nice if you can get it,’ Wexford said. ‘Come on. I’m going to get the car and have another word with Prewett, and, incidentally, the cinema manager. If you’ll just drop that key in to Inge, or whatever she calls herself, you can get off home. I shall have to have a word with young Inge tomorrow.’

‘When are you going to see Mrs Missal again, sir?’

‘Unless I’m very much mistaken,’ Wexford said, ‘shell come to me before I can get to her.’

Sergeant Camb was talking to someone on the telephone when Wexford got to the station in the morning. He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and said to the Chief Inspector:

‘A Mrs Missal for you, sir. This is the third time she’s been on.’

‘What does she want?’

‘She says she must see you. It's very urgent.’ Camb looked embarrassed. ‘She wants to know if you can go to her house.’

‘She does, does she? Tell her if she wants me she’ll have to come here.’ He opened the door of his office. ‘Oh, and, Sergeant Camb, you can tell her I won’t be here after nine-thirty.’

When he had opened the windows and made his desk untidy - the way he liked it - he stuck his head out of the door again and called for tea.

‘Where’s Martin?’

‘Still at The Olive and Dove, sir.’

‘God Almighty! Does he think he’s on his holidays? Get on to him and tell him he can get off home.’

It was a fine morning, June coming in like a lamb, and from his desk Wexford could see the gardens of Bury Street and the window-boxes of the Midland Bank full of blown Kaiserskroon tulips. The spring flowers were passing, the summer ones not yet in bud - except for rhododendrons. Just as the first peals of the High School bell began to toll faintly in the distance Sergeant Camb brought in the tea - and Mrs Missal.

‘We'll have another cup, please.’

She had done her hair up this morning and left off her glasses. The organdie blouse and the pleated skirt made her look surprisingly demure, and Wexford wondered if she had abandoned her hostile manner with the raffish shirt and trousers.

‘I’m afraid I’ve been rather a silly girl. Chief Inspector,’ she said in a confiding voice.

Wexford took a clean piece of paper out of his drawer and began writing on it busily. He couldn’t think of anything cogent to put down and as she couldn’t see the paper from where she was sitting he just scribbled: Missal, Parsons; Parsons, Missal.

‘You see I didn’t tell you the entire truth.’

‘No?’ Wexford said.

‘I don’t mean I actually told lies. I mean I left bits out.’ ‘Oh, yes?’

‘Well, the thing is, I didn’t actually go to the pictures by myself. I went with a friend, a man friend.’ She smiled as one sophisticate to another. ‘There wasn’t anything in it, but you know how stuffy husbands are.’

‘ I should,’ Wexford said. ‘I am one.’

‘Yes, well, when I got home I couldn’t find my new lipstick and I think I must have dropped it in my friend’s car. Oh, tea for me. How terribly sweet!’

There was a knock at the door and Burden came in.

‘Mrs Missal was just telling me about her visit to the cinema on Wednesday night,’ Wexford said. He went on writing. By now he had filled half the sheet.

‘It was a good picture, wasn’t it, Mrs Missal? Unfortunately I had to leave half-way through,’ Burden looked for a third tea-cup. ‘What happened to that secret-agent character? Did he marry the blonde or the other one?’

‘Oh, the other one,’ Helen Missal said easily. “The one who played the violin. She put the message into a sort of musical code and when they got back to London she played it over to MI5.’

It's wonderful what they think of,’ Burden said.

‘Well, I won’t keep you any longer, Mrs Missal…’

‘No, I must fly. I’ve got a hair appointment.’

If you’ll just let me have the name of your friend, the one you went to the cinema with…’

Helen Missal looked from Wexford to Burden and back from Burden to Wexford. Wexford screwed up the piece of paper and threw it into the wastepaper basket.

‘Oh, I couldn’t do that, I mean, I couldn’t get him involved.’

‘ I should think it over, madam. Think it over while you’re having your hair done.’

Burden held the door open for her and she walked out quickly without looking back.

‘I’ve been talking to a neighbour of mine,’ he said to Wexford, ‘a Mrs Jones who lives at nine, Tabard Road. You know, she told us about the cars being parked in Tabard Road on Tuesday afternoon. Well, I asked her if she could remember any of the makes or the colours and she said she could remember one car, a bright red one with a tiger in the back. She didn’t see the number. She was looking at them from sideways on, you see, and they were parked nose to tail.’

‘How long was it there?’

‘Mrs Jones didn’t know. But she says she first saw at it about three and it was there when the kids got home from school. Of course, she doesn’t know if it was there all that time.’

‘While Mrs Missal is having her hair done, Mike,’ Wexford said, ‘ I am going to have a word with Inge. ‘As Mrs Missal says, Thank God for Inge!’

There was a tin of polish and a couple of dusters on the dining-room floor and the Indian rugs were spread on the crazy paving outside the windows.

Inge Wolff, it seemed, had duties apart from minding Dymphna and Priscilla.

‘All I know I will tell you,’ she said dramatically. ‘What matter if I get the push? Next week, anyhow, I go home to Hanover.’

Maybe, Wexford thought, and, on the other hand, maybe not. The way things were going Inge Wolff might be needed in England for the next few months.

‘On Monday Mrs Missal stay at home all the day. Just for shopping in the morning she go out. Also Tuesday she go shopping in the morning, for in the afternoon is closing of all shops.’

‘What about Tuesday afternoon, Miss Wolff?’

‘Ah, Tuesday afternoon she go out. First we have our dinner. One o’clock. I and Mrs Missal and the children. Ah, next week, only think, no more children! After dinner I wash up and she go up to her bedroom and lie down. When she come down she say, “Inge, I go out with the car,” and she take the key and go down the garden to the garage.’

‘What time would that be, Miss Wolff?’

Three, half past two. I don’t know.’ She shrugged her shoulders. Then she come back, five, six.’

‘How about Wednesday?’

‘Ah, Wednesday. I have half-day off. Very good. Dymphna come home to dinner, go back to school, I go out, Mrs Missal stay home with Priscilla. And when comes the evening she go out, seven, half past seven. I don’t know. In this house always are comings and goings. It is like a game.’

Wexford showed her the snapshot of Mrs Parsons.

‘Have you ever seen this woman, Miss Wolff? Did she ever come here?’

‘Hundreds of women like this in Kingsmarkham. All are alike except rich ones. The ones that come here, they are not like this.’ She gave a derisive laugh. ‘Oh, no, is funny. I laugh to see this. None come here like this.’