Wexford 22 - The Monster In The Box (12 page)

   It was as he had begun to think. Targo had grown older, had given up the wits-pitting and the challenge and lost all interest. It began to seem likely that Elsie Carroll, who had been his victim for some unknown reason, was also his only victim and there had been no hideous murder spree.

   For all that, he thought of telling his story to Howard. He was very close to doing so some evenings when Denise had gone to bed early and he and his nephew were alone, having a late drink in Howard's study. But the moment passed and he no more told him than he told Burden. His health improved, he went back to Kingsmarkham, to Dora and the girls, and there he encountered Targo's wife – or the woman who had once been his wife.

   It was in the then newly built Kingsbrook Precinct, later called the Kingsbrook Centre. Kathleen Targo was window-shopping, pushing a child of about three in a buggy. Two days before Christmas it had been and Wexford, as usual, was doing his last-minute Christmas shopping. He recognised Kathleen, noting how much healthier and happier she looked, though many years had passed, but was surprised when she recognised him and spoke to him in the sort of friendly way he never would have associated with her.

   'It's DC Wexford, isn't it? Remember me?'

   He didn't correct her, though he was a detective inspector by then. 'Mrs Targo,' he said.

   'I was once.' She laughed. 'Good riddance to bad rubbish.'

   'And this must be the baby you were expecting.'

   As soon as he said it he realised that was impossible.

   'No, that was Joanne. She's seventeen now. I got married again, I'm Mrs Varney now and this is Philippi. We've been living here since she was born. It's a wonder we haven't met before.'

   She was a different woman, happy, placid. He remembered her as painfully thin apart from the swinging mound of pregnancy but now she had 'filled out', as they said, had 'middle-aged spread', as they also said. He had lost touch with Targo's whereabouts recently and he could ask where her ex-husband now was. Her answer surprised him and he felt a quickening of his pulse.

   'Living in Myringham,' she said, turning up her nose, 'with some woman. I don't know what she's called and I don't want to. Alan and Joanne see him and that's how I get to know how he's doing. Not that I care. He was in Glebe Road for a bit after our marriage broke up, then it was Birmingham for years. But he's done well for himself, and he's got quite a big house. You never got anyone for poor Elsie Carroll, did you?'

   Why did she ask? Like that, then, such a non sequitur. Because she knew? He would have loved to spend the rest of the day with her, take her and Philippi into one of the smart little cafes that were then a feature of the Kingsbrook Precinct, sit them down, order coffee and cakes and talk to her about Targo. Or, rather, get her to talk to him about Targo. But that was impossible. She would very likely say no, be astonished at such a request. It was Christmas and she had a family, she'd be busy. And once again he came up against the barrier – he had no reason to suspect her first husband of anything.

   'I must get on,' she was saying. 'Nice to see you. Eric's got four dogs, Joanne says. That old spaniel lived to be seventeen but it's dead now and he's got more dogs and three cats and a couple of snakes. You wouldn't credit it, would you?' She hesitated, then said, 'He always did like animals more than people. Well, he didn't like people at all. That was the trouble.' And she laughed, the merry carefree laugh of a contented woman.

   He had said goodbye to her and gone into the perfume shop to buy scent for his wife and his elder daughter. The one he tried – that he couldn't help trying because the assistant sprayed it on his wrist – reminded him of the perfume the girl in the pink hat had used. Medora. All that way across the years, it reminded him. He laughed, shaking his head, and bought a different kind. Was there any point in finding out Targo's precise address? No harm in knowing, he thought.

Dora was saying, 'Andy Norton knows a plant from a weed. That makes a change from some of them.'

   Always interested in people, Wexford asked her what Norton had done in the Civil Service before his retirement. 'He was in some government department, apparently. Social Security, I think it was, only they called it something else then.'

   'Well, on the subject of pensions, he must have a good one. Why's he doing our gardening?'

   'He gets bored at home, I gather. And he likes to be out in the fresh air.'

   It was a surprise when Burden arrived. He looked a little abashed, which was unusual for him. 'Not in the firm's time, you see,' he said.

   'If you're saying what I think you are,' Wexford said, 'one day this is going to be the firm's business.'

   'I've been in Sam V.B.'s Gardens. We got a call that someone had been stabbed but it was a false alarm or a hoax. But it reminded me of Billy Kenyon and what you said about Targo. Not,' he added, 'that I believe it. Not any of it.'

   'But you want to hear?'

   'I want to hear.'

   Wexford smiled. He sat him down in an armchair, fetched wine and crisps. They had run out of nuts. When he had told him about the meeting with Kathleen Varney, he said, 'It was true that Targo was living in Myringham. In Hastings Avenue and in a much better house than the one in Jewel Road. It looked as if he and Kathleen were both doing well for themselves. But she wasn't quite right in one respect. He had all those pet animals but he was also running a boarding kennels for dogs.'

   'At his home?'

   'It had been a kennels before he took it on. Bought the place, rented it, I don't know. I went over there to have a look at it – and him.' The look on Burden's face prompted him to say, 'Not in the firm's time, I may add.'

   'Well, I suppose you thought it was for the firm in a way.'

   Wexford laughed. 'I didn't even have to invent a story. Do you remember that dog Dora and I had? Sheila insisted on looking after it for some boyfriend called Sebastian, brought it home, adored it passionately for two days, fed it, walked it and then abandoned it to us the way kids do. We were going away – it was when we went to that Greek island – and I was genuinely enquiring what to do with the dog.'

   'Targo recognised me at once. I had a feeling he knew all about me and was waiting for me to come. Nonsense, of course. He had – has, I suppose – an uncanny habit of absolutely meeting your eyes. When he talks to you he holds your gaze in an almost hypnotic way. That was the way he looked at me when I asked him about boarding Sebastian's dog. "I remember you," he said as if he'd never stalked me, as if he'd never stared at me in that hotel bar in Coventry. "You were on the case when that Mrs Carroll was murdered down Jewel Road," he said. "Must have been nearly twenty years ago." I tell you, Mike, he knew that I knew.'

   'What, you mean he knew you knew he'd killed her?'

   'Yes.'

   Burden's tone could hardly have been more sceptical. 'A lot to read in a meeting of eyes.'

   'He didn't care. He liked it. He knew I couldn't do anything. The house was full of his pets and it smelt of them. Have you ever smelt a marrow bone that's been lying around for a fortnight and every so often been chewed by a dog? Well, that's what the place smelt like. He had a snake and I can't say I was too keen on that. It wasn't in a cage or anything. Just lying curled up on a shelf next to a couple of books and a pot plant. One of the books was the
Bumper Book of Dogs
. Kathleen had said he was living with a woman and he was, the one called Adele he eventually married, but she wasn't around. There was a building outside in the grounds. They really were grounds, a couple of acres, I should think, and the building was a kind of glorified shed or stables. He took me out there. Everything was very neat and trim. "Shipshape" was the word he used for it. "Shipshape enough for you?" he said. There were about a dozen dogs in separate pens and of course they all came up to the wire, looking pathetic and whining and wagging their tails. The smell was there too but somewhat modified by the fresh air.

   '"I do this because I love animals," he said. "It's not my main source of income. I'm in business." I didn't ask what business because I could see he expected me to ask. Something to do with cars or slum cottages, I expect. "Some of these boarding kennels are a disgrace. I like to think I run a luxury hotel for dogs." Well, I didn't comment on that. He showed me a pen where there was a mother dog with five puppies, all mongrels but very appealing. You needn't look like that as if I'm going soft on you. I assure you this is relevant.'

   'OK. I believe you. Thousands wouldn't.'

   'We went back into the house and he handed me a brochure setting out their terms. It was very expensive. I wasn't going to commit myself, though I stood there reading it, or pretending to read it, while I sort of sized up the place.' Then he did something rather nasty. It was obviously intended to tease or possibly frighten me.'

   'What do you mean?'

   'The snake was apparently asleep but he took it down from the shelf and draped it round his neck with its head right up against his face. Right up against the scarf he was wearing. He was fondling it like you might a kitten. He came up very close to me and I was determined not to flinch but it took a hell of a lot of self-control on my part to stay standing there and trying to look – well, unfazed. "What do you think, Mr Wexford?" he said. I don't know how calm I was. I hope I didn't tremble but I'm not sure. I just said, "Thanks very much. I'll let you know," or "I'll be in touch," something like that and I got out of there. When he'd closed the door after me I could hear him laughing.'

   'Did you let him board the dog?'

   'You must be joking. As it happened, the poor little beast died, got distemper. Had its injections too early or too late or something. I didn't speak to Targo again, didn't see him again, not until Billy Kenyon was killed. That must have been two or three years later.'

   'Where was I? I mean, I remember the case but not being involved in it.'

   'You were away doing that course. The forensics thing in Dover.'

   'Of course I was. Are you going to tell me why that sentimental bit about the mother dog and the appealing puppies was relevant?'

   'When he took in a pregnant bitch no one wanted – and he did a lot of that – Targo made a point of finding good homes for the puppies. Well, the good home he found for one of those puppies I saw was on the Muriel Camden Estate with Eileen Kenyon, Billy's mother.'

Kingsmarkham's botanical gardens, seven acres of them between Queen Street and Sussex Avenue, were still well maintained but had long been reduced in size to no more than half that by one of the lawns becoming a children's playground with swings and climbing frames and the tropical house turned into a coffee bar and brasserie. The picnic area had taken over most of the rose garden and Red Rocks fallen into disuse. It had not always been so. Once the place was looked after by a superintendent and deputy and five gardeners who took pride in their work. Visitors on their way to a day out at Leeds Castle or Sissinghurst would make a detour to take a look at Kingsmarkham's rock gardens in the spring or its prize blooms in the orchid house.

   Those were the days when the botanical gardens were both a refuge and a pleasure ground for Billy Kenyon, a place to hide in and a place to enjoy, especially when the flowers were out. If he was capable of enjoyment. He was certainly capable of fear when his contemporaries shouted after him and he seemed never to get used to bullying and catcalls. What was wrong with Billy so that he never spoke, had never spoken, but still was able to look after himself? Harsh terms for someone like him were used in those days, 'mentally deficient', 'very low IQ', even 'moron'. But how could anyone be those things when he valued plants and flowers the way Billy did? When he learnt the names of plants and could write them all down if not utter them?

   Today I think we'd call him autistic, Wexford thought. He would go to a special school for people with 'learning difficulties' – at least, I hope he would. His IQ might not have been low at all but quite high, as was often true of those with the Asperser's type of autism. The neighbours' children on the Muriel Camden Estate where he lived with his mother called him 'loony' and it was said that Eileen Kenyon did nothing to defend her son. He had left school at fifteen, the then school-leaving age, though he had seldom attended, and that was something else which Eileen failed to concern herself about. Even in his schooldays Billy had spent more time in the gardens than he had in class. The superintendent, George Clark, and deputy superintendent and the staff all knew him and knew him for a harmless innocent. On wet days they would let him sit on a chair in the temperate house and the deputy superintendent, a man called Denis Gaskell, often invited him into the big brick shed where the staff assembled in their tea breaks. Gaskell gave him a notebook and asked him to write down the Latin names of all the plants in, say, the rock garden, and Billy would do so, never making an error in identification or a spelling mistake. It was a pity, Wexford thought, when he was investigating the murder, that his teachers had never witnessed this. But would they have done anything if they had? Would they have had the time?

   Billy was seventeen when he died. On the day of his death, in the hot summer of 1976, he left his mother's house in Leighton Close at nine in the morning, having made himself sandwiches of Mother's Pride and pre-sliced cheese. These with an overripe banana, which was the only item of fruit to be found, would be his lunch and mean he need not return till the gardens closed. His friend Denis Gaskell would give him a cup of tea. The dog came up to him, whining to be fed, but Billy left feeding him to his mother. The neighbours said she loved the dog much more than she loved him but if he knew this he gave no sign of it.

   He had left her in bed with her lover, Bruce Mellor. How much of their relationship Billy understood no one seemed to know. But Billy's powers of comprehension were far greater than the people close to him believed and when Bruce said, and said frequently, that he'd like to live with or even marry Eileen Kenyon but he wasn't taking on a loony, not he, Billy no doubt had a very good idea of what he meant. Bruce didn't mind the dog, he liked the dog. Eileen too was in the habit of telling the neighbours that it was 'unfair on her' that she was 'lumbered' with Billy and it stopped her leading what she called a normal life. She'd like to get married before it was 'too late'.