24 made to prevent her having the flat or to make sure she never reached the age of eighteen? It failed. He must find out what happened when Amber was eighteen. Did she inherit money and, in the event of her death, would someone else inherit it? Unlikely, for if she were financially sound she would hardly have needed to avail herself of the Hillandsâ offer. Another visit to the Marshalsons shouldnât be put off for too long. Meanwhile he must scrutinize the file on the concrete block dropped from the bridge and the death of Mrs. Ambrose.
A dearth of witnesses was one of the first things he noticed. James Ambrose remembered hardly anything of what had happened. Mavis Ambrose was dead and so was Amber Marshalson by this time. Approaching the dip under Yorstone Bridge, Ambrose remembered only seeing a figure on the bridge, a vague shape, but man or woman he couldnât say. He thought the figure, of which he could only see the outline, was wearing a jacket with a hood. Wexford looked up from the file. At first it seemed too good to be true. A man in a hood had been on Yorstone Bridge before the attempt to kill Amber Marshalson and a man in a hood had been seen among the trees in Mill Lane before the successful attempt. Almost certainly the same man? He read on.
The woodland was dense on both sides of the bridge. On the southern side the track through the woods was a shortcut to avoid the wide loop in Yorstone Lane, meeting the lane again just before the bridge, ran from Kingsmarkham Road to the bridge, a distance of rather less than a mile. In the days when you could build a house more or less where you liked, a cottage for woodman or gamekeeper had been put up at about the middle point of the track. Its occupant was a woman called Grace Morgan and she was ninety-three. It was coming up to dusk but not yet dark and she was looking out of her front-room window in the hope of seeing a pair of badgers, which sometimes appeared at this time, but she saw nothing that night.
The lump of concrete looked like other blocks on a building site in Stowerton and they seemed to be getting somewhere until similar blocks were found on sites in Kingsmarkham, Sewingbury, and Pomfret, not to mention the villages. It seemed, as Burden remarked, as if the whole of mid Sussex was constantly being demolished and rebuilt and, of the ancient thoroughfares, no sooner was one street or half-street refurbished than work began on the next. Breeze blocks, concrete blocks, lumps of broken masonry abounded. Even if they were able to identify the particular site they wouldnât be able to infer that the block was taken by someone who lived nearby. Almost everyone had a car these days. It would have been a simple matter to drive after dark into Stowerton or York Street, Kingsmarkham, or the old cheese market in Pomfret or the precincts of Sewingbury Minster, pick up the concrete block and drive home.
As to the weapon used on Amber Marshalson in the second and successful attempt, a call came to Wexford announcing the arrival of a Dr. Clansfield who was asking to see him. âWho is he?â he said to the duty sergeant who made the call.
âHe says heâs a plinthologist, sir, whatever that may be.â
âSend him up, will you?â
Wexford already had the plinthologistâs report on his desk, though he hadnât yet even glanced at it, as he hastened to explain to the man who came into the room.
âNo real point in your doing so,â said Dr. Clansfield. âIâm on my way home and I popped in to do it by word of mouth. Just in case you thought I hadnât done a thorough job.â
âSit down.â
âJust for a moment. I canât stop. Iâve promised to take my daughter to the county tennis finalsâ¦â
And I have promised to take mine to task, thought Wexford. Or said to my wife I would.
âI donât know how much you know about bricksâ¦â
âYou build houses with
A dearth of witnesses was one of the first things he noticed. James Ambrose remembered hardly anything of what had happened. Mavis Ambrose was dead and so was Amber Marshalson by this time. Approaching the dip under Yorstone Bridge, Ambrose remembered only seeing a figure on the bridge, a vague shape, but man or woman he couldnât say. He thought the figure, of which he could only see the outline, was wearing a jacket with a hood. Wexford looked up from the file. At first it seemed too good to be true. A man in a hood had been on Yorstone Bridge before the attempt to kill Amber Marshalson and a man in a hood had been seen among the trees in Mill Lane before the successful attempt. Almost certainly the same man? He read on.
The woodland was dense on both sides of the bridge. On the southern side the track through the woods was a shortcut to avoid the wide loop in Yorstone Lane, meeting the lane again just before the bridge, ran from Kingsmarkham Road to the bridge, a distance of rather less than a mile. In the days when you could build a house more or less where you liked, a cottage for woodman or gamekeeper had been put up at about the middle point of the track. Its occupant was a woman called Grace Morgan and she was ninety-three. It was coming up to dusk but not yet dark and she was looking out of her front-room window in the hope of seeing a pair of badgers, which sometimes appeared at this time, but she saw nothing that night.
The lump of concrete looked like other blocks on a building site in Stowerton and they seemed to be getting somewhere until similar blocks were found on sites in Kingsmarkham, Sewingbury, and Pomfret, not to mention the villages. It seemed, as Burden remarked, as if the whole of mid Sussex was constantly being demolished and rebuilt and, of the ancient thoroughfares, no sooner was one street or half-street refurbished than work began on the next. Breeze blocks, concrete blocks, lumps of broken masonry abounded. Even if they were able to identify the particular site they wouldnât be able to infer that the block was taken by someone who lived nearby. Almost everyone had a car these days. It would have been a simple matter to drive after dark into Stowerton or York Street, Kingsmarkham, or the old cheese market in Pomfret or the precincts of Sewingbury Minster, pick up the concrete block and drive home.
As to the weapon used on Amber Marshalson in the second and successful attempt, a call came to Wexford announcing the arrival of a Dr. Clansfield who was asking to see him. âWho is he?â he said to the duty sergeant who made the call.
âHe says heâs a plinthologist, sir, whatever that may be.â
âSend him up, will you?â
Wexford already had the plinthologistâs report on his desk, though he hadnât yet even glanced at it, as he hastened to explain to the man who came into the room.
âNo real point in your doing so,â said Dr. Clansfield. âIâm on my way home and I popped in to do it by word of mouth. Just in case you thought I hadnât done a thorough job.â
âSit down.â
âJust for a moment. I canât stop. Iâve promised to take my daughter to the county tennis finalsâ¦â
And I have promised to take mine to task, thought Wexford. Or said to my wife I would.
âI donât know how much you know about bricksâ¦â
âYou build houses with
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