Ruth Rendell - From Doon with Death

Miss Fowler’s was an unacademic bookless flat. Burden, who was aware of his own failing of cataloguing people in types, had tried not to expect old-maidishness. But this was what he found. The room into which Miss Fowler showed him was full of hand-made things. The cushion covers had been carefully embroidered, the amateurish water-colours obviously executed with patience, the ceramics bold. It looked as if Miss Fowler could hardly bear to reject the gift of an old scholar, but the collection was neither restful nor pleasing.

‘Poor, poor Margaret,’ she said. Burden sat down and Miss Fowler perched herself in a rocking chair opposite him, her feet on a petit-point footstool. ‘What a very shocking thing all this is! That poor man too. I’ve got the list you wanted.’

Burden glanced at the neatly typed row of names.

‘Tell me about her,’ he said.

Miss Fowler laughed self-consciously, then bit her lip as if she thought this was no occasion for laughter.

‘Honestly, Inspector,’ she said, ‘I can’t remember. You see, there are so many girls … Of course, we don’t forget them all, but naturally it's the ones who achieve something, get Firsts or find really spectacular posts, those are the ones we remember. Hers wasn’t a very distinguished year. There was plenty of promise, but none of it came to very much. I saw her, you know, after she came back.’

‘Here? In Kingsmarkham?’

‘It must have been about a month ago.’ She took a packet of Weights from the mantelpiece, offered one to Burden, and puffed bravely at her own as he held a match to it.

They never really grow up, he thought.

‘I was in the High Street,’ she went on. It was just after school and she was coming out of a shop. She said, “Good afternoon. Miss Fowler.”

Honestly, I hadn’t the faintest idea who she was. Then she said she was Margaret Godfrey. You see, they expect you to remember them. Inspector.’

‘Then how did you… ?’

How did I connect her with Mrs Parsons? When I saw the photograph. You know, I felt sorry we hadn’t talked, but I’m always seeing old girls, but I honestly couldn’t tell you who they are or their ages, come to that. They might be eighteen or thirty. You know how it is, you can’t tell the ages of people younger than yourself.’ She looked up at Burden and smiled. ‘But you are young,’ she said.

Again he returned to the list. The names were in alphabetical order. He read aloud slowly, waiting for Miss Fowler’s reactions:

‘Lyn Annesley, Joan Bertram, Clare Clarke, Wendy Ditcham, Margaret Dolan, Margaret Godfrey, Mary Henshaw, Jillian Ingram, Anne Kelly, Helen Laird, Marjorie Miller, Hilda Pensteman, Janet Probyn, Fabia Rogers, Deirdre Sachs, Diana Stevens, Winifred Thomas, Gwen Williams, Yvonne Young.’

Under the names Mrs Morpeth had written with an air of triumph: Miss Clare Clarke is a member of the High School teaching staff!!!

‘I’d like to talk to Miss Clarke,’ he said.

‘She lives at Nectarine Cottage down the first lane on the left on the Stowerton Road,’ Miss Fowler said.

Burden said slowly, ‘Fabia is a very unusual name.’

Miss Fowler shrugged. She patted her stiffly waved grey hair. ‘Not a particularly unusual type,’ she said. Just one of those very promising people I was telling you about who never amounted to much. She lives here somewhere. She and her husband are quite well known in what I believe are called social circles. Helen Laird was another one. Very lovely, very self-confident. Always in trouble. Boys, you know. Honestly, so silly! I thought she’d go on the stage, but she didn’t, she just got married. And then Miss Clarke, of course…’

Burden had the impression she had been about to include Miss Clarke among the failures, but that loyalty to her staff prevented her. He didn’t pursue it. She had given him a more disturbing lead.

‘What did you say happened to Helen Laird?’

‘I really know nothing, Inspector. Mrs Morpeth said something about her having married a car salesman. Such a waste!’ She stubbed out her cigarette into an ashtray that was daubed with poster paint and obviously home-baked. When she went on her voice sounded faintly sad. They leave, you know, and we forget them, and then about fifteen years later a little tot turns up in the first form and you think, I’ve seen that face before somewhere! Of course you have - her mother’s.’

Dymphna and Priscilla, Burden thought, nearly sure. Not long now, and Dymphna’s face, the same red hair perhaps, would revive in Miss Fowler’s memory some long-lost chord.

‘Still,’ she said, as if reading his thoughts, ‘there’s a limit to everything and I retire in two years’ time.’

He thanked her for the list and left. As soon as he got to the station Wexford showed him the Katz letter.

‘It all points to Doon being the killer, sir,’ Burden said, ‘whoever he is. What do we do now, wait to hear from Colorado?’

‘No, Mike, we’ll have to press on. Clearly Mrs Katz doesn’t know who Doon is and the best we can hope for is to get some of the background from her and the last letter Mrs P. sent her before she died. Doon is probably going to turn out to be a boy friend Mrs P. had when she was at school here. Let’s hope she didn’t have too many.’

‘I’ve been wondering about that,’ Burden said, ‘because honestly - as Miss Fowler would say - those messages in Minna’s books don’t look like the work of a boy at all, not unless he was a very mature boy. They’re too polished, too smooth. Doon could be an older man who got interested in her.’

‘I thought of that,’ Wexford said, ‘and I’ve been checking up on Prewett and his men. Prewett bought that farm in 1949 when he was twenty-eight. He’s an educated person and quite capable of writing those messages, but he was in London on Tuesday. There’s no doubt about it, unless he was involved in a conspiracy with two doctors, an eminent heart specialist, a sister, God knows how many nurses and his own wife.’

‘Draycott’s only been in the district two years and he was in Australia from 1947 to 1953. Bysouth can scarcely write his own name, let alone dig up suitable bits of poetry to send to a lady love, and much the same goesior Traynor. Edwards was in the Army throughout 1950 and 1951, and Dorothy Sweeting can’t possibly know what was going on in Minna’s love life twelve years ago. She was only seven.’

‘Then it looks as if we’ll have to ferret out what we can from the list,’ Burden said. ‘ I think you’ll be interested when you see some of the names, sir.’

Wexford took the list and when he came to Helen Laird and Fabia Rogers he swore fiercely. Burden had pencilled in Missal and Quadrant, following each surname with a question mark.

‘Somebody’s trying to be clever’ Wexford said, ‘and that I won’t have. Rogers. Her people are old man Rogers and his missus at Pomfret Hall. They’re loaded. All made out of paint. There’s no reason why she should have told us she knew Mrs P. When we talked to Dougie this Doon angle didn’t seem that important. But Mrs Missal … Not know Mrs P. indeed, and they were in the same class!’

He had grown red with anger. Burden knew how he hated being taken for a ride.

‘I was going to forget all about that cinema ticket, Mike, but now I’m not so sure. I’m going to have it all out again with Mrs Missal now.’ He stabbed at the list. ‘While I’m gone you can start contacting these women.’

‘It would have to be a girls’ school,’ Burden grumbled. ‘Women change their names, men don’t.’