Ruth Rendell - From Doon with Death

‘It’s a good mile this side of Pomfret Still, they might be keen on country walks.’

‘Tarsons says he knows a short cut across the fields to Pomfret…’

‘Through a practically impenetrable dark wood, thistles, long wet grass?’

‘ I know, sir. I don’t like that bit myself. But they might have seen something in the wood, a deer or a rabbit or something. Anyway, somehow or other Parsons gets her into that wood and strangles her.’

‘Oh, marvellous! Mrs Parsons is going out to dinner in a fashionable country pub, but she doesn’t object to plunging into the middle of a filmy wet wood after a rabbit. What’s she going to do with it when she’s caught it, eat it? Her old man follows her and when she’s in the thickest part of the wood he says, “Stand still a minute, dear, while I get a bit of rope out of my pocket and strangle you!” God Almighty!’

‘He might have killed her in the lane and dragged her body into the bushes. It’s a dark lane and there’s never anyone walking along the Pomfret Road. He might have carried her - he’s a big bloke and you wouldn’t see the tracks after those cows had been all over it.’

‘True.’

‘The bus leaves Pomfret again at six-forty-one, gets to Forby at seven-nine, Kingsmarkham garage seven-twenty. That gives him about fifteen minutes in which to kill his wife and get back to the bus-stop on the other side of the Pomfret Road. The bus gets there at about six-forty-six. He runs up Tabard Road and gets into his own house in five minutes, just in time to phone me at seven-thirty.’

Wexford sat down again in the little swivel chair with the purple cushion.

‘He was taking an awful risk, Mike’ he said. ‘He might easily have been seen. You’ll have to check with the bus people. They can’t pick up many passengers at the stop by Prewetfs farm. What did he do with her purse and her key?’

‘Chucked them in the bushes. There wasn’t any point in hiding them, anyway. The thing is, I can’t think of a motive.’

‘Oh, motive,’ Wexford said. ‘Any husband’s got a motive.’

‘I haven’t.’ Burden was incensed. Someone knocked at the door and Bryant came in.

‘I found this on the edge of the wood on the lane side, sir,’ Bryant said. He was holding a small gilt cylinder in the tips of his gloved fingers.

‘A lipstick,’ Wexford said. He took it from Bryant, covering his fingers with a handkerchief, and upended it to expose a circular label on its base. ‘“Arctic Sable,”’ he read, ‘and something that looks like eight-and-six written in violet ink. Anything else?’

‘Nothing, sir.’

‘All right, Bryant. You and Gates can get over to the Southern Water Board at Stowerton and find out exactly - and I mean precisely to the minute - what time Parsons left work on Tuesday evening.’

This makes your theory look bloody silly, Mike,’ he said when Bryant had gone. ‘Well get the fingerprint boys on it, but, I ask you, is it likely to be Mrs Parsons? She doesn’t take a handbag, she doesn’t use make-up and she’s as poor as a church mouse (dinner in Pomfret, my foot!), but she takes a lipstick with her in her purse or stuffed down her bosom - an eight-and-sixpenny lipstick, mark you - and when they get to the wood she sees a rabbit. She opens her purse to get out her shotgun, I presume, slings the lipstick into the ditch, runs after the rabbit, striking a match to show her the way, and, when she’s in the middle of the wood, sits down and lets her old man strangle her!’

‘You sent Bryant off to Stowerton.’

‘He’s got time on his hands.’ Wexford paused, staring at the lipstick. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘I’ve checked on the Prewetts. There’s no doubt they were in London. Mrs Prewett’s mother’s seriously ill, and according to University College Hospital they were at her bedside pretty well continuously from before lunch on Tuesday until late that night, and there on and off all day yesterday. The old girl rallied a bit last night and they left their hotel in the Tottenham Court Road after breakfast this morning. So that lets them out.’

He picked up the sheet of paper on which he had placed the Arctic Sable lipstick and held it out for Burden to see. The prints were smudged, but there was a clear one on its domed top.

It's a new lipstick,’ Wexford said. It's hardly been used. I want to find the owner of that lipstick, Mike. We’ll go over to Prewett’s again and talk to that land girl or whatever she calls herself.’

When Wexford had been told the prints on the lipstick definitely hadn’t been made by Mrs Parsons they went back to the farm and questioned each of the men and the land girl (as Wexford called her in his old-fashioned vocabulary) separately. For all but one of them Tuesday afternoon had been busy and, in a very different way from murder, exciting.

Prewett had left the manager, John Draycott, in charge, and on Tuesday morning Draycott had gone to Stowerton market accompanied by a man called Edwards. They had taken a truck and used the front entrance to the farm. This was a long way round, but it was favoured because the lane to the Pomfret Road was narrow and muddy and the week before the truck had got stuck in the ruts.

Bysouth and the man in charge of Prewett’s pigs had remained alone at the farm. Miss Sweeting, the land girl, having had the day off on Tuesday to attend a lecture at Sewingbury Agricultural College. At half past twelve they had eaten their dinner in the kitchen, a meal cooked for them, as usual, by Mrs Creavey, who came up to the farm each day from Hagford to cook and clean. After dinner at a quarter past one the pig man, Traynor, had taken Bysouth with him to see a sow that was about to farrow.

At three Draycott and Edwards returned and the manager began immediately on his accounts. Edwards, who included gardening among his duties, went to mow the front lawn. The man hadn’t been constantly under his eye, Draycott told Wexford, but for the next hour he had been aware of the sound of the electric mower. At about half past three Draycott was interrupted by Traynor, who came in to tell him he was worried about the condition of the sow. Five piglets had been delivered, but she seemed to be in difficulties and Traynor wanted the manager’s consent to call the vet.

Draycott had gone to the sties, looked at the sow and talked for a few seconds to Bysouth, who was sitting beside her on a stool, before telephoning for the vet himself. The vet arrived by four and from then until five-thirty the manager, Edwards and Traynor had remained together.

During this hour and a half, Traynor said, Bysouth had gone to fetch the cows in and put them in the milking shed. In order to do this he had had to pass the wood twice. Wexford questioned him closely, but he insisted that he had seen nothing out of the way. He had heard no untoward sound and there had been no cars either in the lane itself or parked on the Pomfret Road. According to the other three men he had been even quicker than usual, a haste they attributed to his anxiety as to the outcome of the farrowing.

It was half past six before the whole litter of pigs had been delivered. The vet had gone into the kitchen to wash his hands and they had all had a cup of tea. At seven he left by the same way as he had come, the front entrance, giving a lift to Edwards, Traynor and Bysouth, who all lived in farm workers’ cottages at a hamlet called Clusterwell, some two miles outside Flagford. During the Prewetts’ absence Mrs Creavey was staying at the farm overnight. The manager performed his final round at eight and went home to his house about fifty yards down the Clusterwell Road.