Wexford 19 - The Babes In The Woods (20 page)

   ‘Hold on a minute,’ said Peter.

   At the front door were two uniformed police officers. In their car, on the forecourt, sat a silver-haired man in a camel coat.

   ‘Lord Tremlett is here, sir.’

   Harassed, Peter said, ‘Who the hell is Lord Tremlett?’

   ‘The pathologist. He’s here to examine the body in situ.’

   ‘You mean the bodies, don’t you?’

   ‘That I can’t say, sir.’

   Perhaps the chap on the phone could. Peter asked him, but he didn’t answer. ‘We’d like to see you, Mr Buxton. As soon as possible.’

By the time Burden and Barry Vine got to Passingham Hall the pathologist had gone but the car was still where Peter Buxton said he had first seen it. Scene-of-crime officers had been busy measuring and taking samples, and the fingerprint people were still there. A truck with, a crane on it followed them down the drive, prepared to haul the VW Golf and its contents out of the quarry, and behind the truck a car driven by Pauline Pearson’s husband Ted, his back and the doctor’s injunction forgotten. It was half past five and dark but powerful lamps had been brought to the scene and these could be seen between the trees, lighting up the wood. Two cars and a van were parked on the grass verge that bordered the lane.

   A single exterior light showed Burden the façade of the hail, the two flights of steps leading up to the portico and front door, and the two cars on the forecourt, a staid-looking Mercedes and a dashing Porsche. Lights appeared to be on in several rooms. Vine rang the bell and the door was answered by a spectacularly beautiful woman of about twenty-seven. She looked less than pleased to see them. Yet, thought Burden, the expert on all things sartorial and cosmetic, the effect of casual carelessness - apparently no make-up, pale-blonde hair spikily untidy, blue jeans, white sweater, no jewellery - must have been achieved for their benefit or that of the scenes-of-crime men.

   ‘My husband’s in the drawing room,’ were the only words she was to utter for some time. She opened double doors and walked in ahead of them.

   Peter Buxton was thirty-nine and looked fifteen years older. The skin of his face was a dull greyish red. He was one of those men who are very thin with narrow shoulders and spindly legs but wear their belly as if it were a cushion hung on them in a bag. They have the problem too of arranging it to bulge above the trouser belt or below it. Buxton had opted for the former. He was sit ting in an armchair with a drink that looked like whisky and water on a small table beside him. The room contained a great many such small tables, piecrust-edged and with lamps on them, consoles and a couple of chaise longues, bunchy flounced curtains at the windows. It had the air of having been put together by an interior decorator recovering from a nervous breakdown.

   ‘When can I go back to London?’ said Peter Buxton.

   Burden knew a little about him, where he lived and what he did for a living. ‘Chief Inspector Wexford will want to see you tomorrow, Mr Buxton...’

   ‘Here?’

   ‘You can come to the police station in Kingsmarkham if you prefer that.’

   ‘Of course I don’t. I want to go back to London. It’s Christmas. Sharonne - my wife, that is - and I have to get ready for Christmas. She kindly came down here this afternoon to support me but now we want to go home.’

   ‘Why don’t you tell me about your discovery of this car on your property sir? You drove down here this morning, I believe. You came because your central heating wasn’t functioning, is that right?’

   Before Peter Buxton could answer, the door opened and a woman walked in, followed by a rather stout man who, as soon as he saw the company, pressed his hand into the small of his back. The woman was solid, upright, middle-aged and, from her newly set hair to her lace-up ankle boots, might have been an actress playing a farmer’s wife in some rustic soap opera. A flood of words poured out of her. ‘Sorry to come bursting in like this, Mrs Buxton, but having a key I thought I wouldn’t trouble you to answer the door. I heard about your spot of bother in the village, you know what village gossip is, and I thought you might be in need of some help. I see the heating’s on again. I feel it, rather. Nice and warm, isn’t it? And it’s turning quite cold out, I wouldn’t be surprised if we had a white Christmas. Oh, whoops, I’m sorry; I didn’t realise you’d got company.’

   ‘They are police officers,’ said Buxton in a voice as cold as the weather.

   ‘In that case, I’ll sit down a minute if you’ve no objection. I might be able to contribute. You sit on that hard chair, Ted, you have to think of your back.’

   Apparently, Buxton baulked at actually telling them to go. He tried to catch his wife’s eye but she kept her head averted, determined not to be caught.

   ‘You were saying, Mr Buxton,’ said Burden, ‘about coming down to see to your central heating.’ Something in Buxton’s face told him all was not well. The man was more uneasy than he should have been. ‘What time was that?’

   It was the right question to ask. ‘I don’t know. I don’t remember.’

   Sharonne Buxton spoke at last. ‘Yes, you do, Peter. Let me jog your memory. The first time I tried to get hold of you at the office was just after ten. That was on my mobile at the hairdresser’s and you’d already left. They said you’d gone on your own instead of having Antonio drive you. I wanted to tell you Jason’s asked us to dine at the Ivy the day after Boxing Day. Then I’d planned on going to Amerigo’s new collection but I went home first and that was when Pauline phoned to tell me about the heating.’

   Quick on the uptake, Vine said, ‘But you already knew about the heating, Mr Buxton, because that was the reason for your coming down here.’

   ‘No, he didn’t.’ Pauline Pearson seized her opportunity; ‘He couldn’t have known. I didn’t know till I came in to have a tidy up and dust round. That was at half past ten. I kept trying to phone Mrs Buxton to tell her and I thought she must be out. I thought she’d be home for lunch so I kept on trying and I finally got hold of her just after eleven.’

   ‘You’d left long before that, darling. Don’t you remember? And when I got hold of you at last you weren’t here. You were in Guildford. You said so.’

   Interesting, thought Vine. Very interesting. Peter Buxton had driven himself to Passingham Hall, had unusually dispensed with his driver and had used the central-heating failure as an excuse for his visit. So what was his true purpose? Something to do with a woman? Possible but, according to Vine’s information, the man had been married less than three years and Sharonne Buxton was very beautiful. Moreover, he spoke of her and looked at her with admiration bordering on idolatry. And what was he doing in Guildford? Leave it for now, Vine thought. Think about it. And who the devil was Amerigo and what did he collect?

   ‘You went up into the wood,’ Burden said. ‘Why was that?’ He glanced at the notes he’d made earlier. ‘A Mr Mitchell who farms nearby told the local police he encountered you at about eleven by the quarry; You told him about the car and the, er, smell was very strong. He went back to the house with you and gave you the number of the nearest police station. Is that right? But what made you go into the wood?’

   ‘You couldn’t have smelt it from down here,’ said Vine.

   Pauline Pearson intervened. ‘You certainly could not. I’ve got a very good sense of smell, haven’t I, Ted? I was here earlier and I couldn’t smell it. Thank God. Makes you feel sick to your stomach, doesn’t it?’

   ‘Nasty,’ said Ted. ‘Very nasty.’

   ‘If it wasn’t that made you go into the wood, what did?’

   ‘Look, I found the bloody car and told you people. What does it matter why or how?’

   ‘This is a suspicious death, sir,’ said Burden. ‘All the circumstances may be very important.’

   ‘Not to me. Nobody has told me anything. I don’t even know how many people were in the car. I don’t know if it was those kids and that woman who was with them. I’m told nothing.’

   ‘There’s very little to tell, sir,’ said Vine. ‘The body in the car hasn’t yet been identified.’

   ‘What else do you want to know?’ Peter Buxton reached for his glass, realised it was empty and looked longingly at his wife.

   Her reaction amused Burden. ‘No, darling,’ she said firmly, ‘no more. Not yet. I’ll make you a nice cup of tea in a minute.’ She turned her head, as exquisite as a flower on a stalk, towards the policemen. ‘I hope you won’t be long. My husband should go to bed early. He’s had a shock.’

   It was ten past six. ‘I’ll make the tea, Mrs Buxton,’ said Pauline, ‘when they’ve gone.’

   ‘When did you last come down to Passingham Hall?’ Burden addressed the wife this time.

   It was a question, he inferred from her suddenly wavering manner, that she wasn’t entirely happy to answer. ‘I can’t say offhand. Some weeks ago. When was it, darling? Maybe the last weekend in November or the first in December. Something like that. It’s not exactly a fun place in winter, you know.’

   This piqued Pauline Pearson, the native, who showed her displeasure in a tightening of the lips and a stiffening of the shoulders. Ted gave a loud sniff. The Buxtons would be lucky if they got their tea, Burden thought, reflecting how he’d have liked a cup himself

   ‘Did you go to Guildford after you found the car in the quarry, Mr Buxton?’ Vine looked at his notes. ‘I don’t quite understand the time sequence here. You found the car at about eleven, phoned the local police station at about a quarter past, they got here just before twelve, talked to you and went up into the wood with Mr Mitchell. At ten past twelve Mrs Buxton phoned you on your mobile and you were in Guildford. But I phoned you on your home number here at twelve twenty and you answered.’

   Burden’s lips twitched. He put on a serious expression. ‘How do you manage to be in two places at once, sir? It must be a useful accomplishment.’

   Peter Buxton looked at his wife and this time their eyes met. ‘My wife made a mistake. I never said I was in Guildford. I’d no reason to go there.’

   ‘But you’d a reason to come here? Did you make a mistake, Mrs Buxton?’

   She said sulkily, ‘I must have.’

   All right.’ Burden got up. ‘I think we’ll leave it there. Chief Inspector Wexford will want to interview you in the morning. Will ten a.m. be convenient?’

   ‘I want to go home,’ said Peter Buxton like a child on his first day at primary school.

   ‘No doubt you may - after the Chief Inspector has talked to you.’

   Outside in the car Burden started laughing. Vine joined in. They were still laughing when the Pearsons came down the steps and got into their car. Pauline gave them a glare and muttered something to her husband. ‘I shouldn’t laugh,’ Burden said. ‘God knows what he’s been up to. Now they’re alone the showdown will start.’

   ‘The divine Sharonne is very easy on the eye,’ said Vine.

   ‘True. I dare say he’ll forgive her for spilling the beans or whatever she did. Funny they didn’t arrange things better before we got there, wasn’t it?’

   ‘I reckon she’d only just arrived. He didn’t have the chance.’

   The lamps were gone, the truck with the crane was gone and all that showed it had ever been there were double lines of ruts in the soft soil revealed by their car headlights.

   ‘Who’ll identify the body?’ Vine asked.

   ‘God knows. It’ll be a grim task, whoever it is. His Lordship seemed to think she’d been there getting on for a month. It’s probable she’s been there since that weekend the Dades were in Paris. She won’t be a pleasant sight.’

Too unpleasant a sight for a father to see, Wexford had decided. For this must be Joanna Troy. They had marked her down as perpetrator, quite a reasonable assumption, but she was the victim and quite possibly the missing children were victims too. The grounds of Passingham Hall and the whole area of open country side surrounding it would have to be searched for their bodies. Meanwhile, this morning, Tremlett would begin on the post-mortem. Her dentist, whoever that was, to identify her? To match the broken-off piece of crown to her dentition? Then, if they could do some sort of make-over on her face, restore it to a semblance of the human, ask the stepmother to look at it? Wexford shuddered.

   A nice Christmas present, to be shown the decaying face of your husband’s only child. Perhaps they could avoid it. How had she died? It wasn’t immediately apparent, according to Tremlett. No obvious wounds. Taking Vine with him - ‘They won’t be over the moon seeing me again.’ The sergeant grinned - Wexford had himself driven to Passingham Hall for ten o’clock and arrived as Peter Buxton was carrying a suitcase out to the open boot of the Porsche.

   ‘Anticipating an early departure, Mr Buxton?’ said Vine.

   ‘You said I could go home once I’ve talked to who ever it is.’

   ‘Chief Inspector Wexford. And we’ll have to see about that.’ Being, like God, no respector of persons, Wexford looked at him reflectively. ‘Can we go inside?’

   Buxton shrugged, then nodded. They followed him in. ‘The divine Sharonne’, as Barry Vine had called her, was nowhere to be seen. Too early in the morning for a high-maintenance woman, Wexford decided. They went into a smallish room with leather chairs, a desk and a few books, the kind that, while they have handsomely tooled spines, look hollow and as if no pages are behind those morocco and gilt façades. A window afforded a view of Passingham Hall woods. Peter Buxton jumped, starting violently when a pheasant rose out of the undergrowth, flapping and squawking.

   ‘So when did you first see this car in the quarry Mr Buxton?’ Wexford was acting on intuition and what Burden and Vine had told him. He was rewarded by the dark flush that mounted into Buxton’s face.

   ‘Yesterday morning. Haven’t they told you that?’

   ‘They have told me what you said. What they haven’t told me, because they don’t know, is why you came down here yesterday. Not because there was something wrong with your heating, you didn’t know that. At your London office you told Mr Antonio Bellini you were going to a funeral in Godalming. Your wife seems to think you were in Guildford when she phoned you.’