Read Online [Wexford 01] From Doon & Death by Ruth Rendell - Free Book Online

time. Moreover, the conductress on the Kingsmarkham bus, the one that left Stowerton at five-thirty-five, remembered seeing Parsons. He had asked for change for a ten-shilling note and they were nearly in Kingsmarkham before she got enough silver to change it.
    ‘F un and games with Mrs Bloody Missal,' Wexford said when Burden walked in. 'She's one of those women who tell lies by the light of nature, a natural crook.'
    'Where's the motive, sir?'
    'Don't ask me. Maybe she was carrying on with Parsons, picked him up at his office on Tuesday afternoon and bribed the entire Southern Water Board to say he didn't leave till after five-thirty. Maybe she'd got another boy friend she goes out with on Wednesdays, one for every day of the week. Or maybe she and Parsons and Mr X, who shall be nameless (God Almighty!), were Russian agents and Mrs Parsons had defected to the West. If s all very wonderful, Mike, and it makes me spew!'
    'We haven't even got the thing she was strangled with,' Burden said gloomily. 'Could a woman have done it?'
    'Crocker seems to think so. If she was a strong young woman, always sitting about on her backside and feeding her face.'
    ‘L ike Mrs Missal.'
    'We're going to get down there tonight, Mike, and have the whole thing out again in front of her old man. But not till tonight. I'm going to give her the rest of the day to sweat in. I've got the report from the lab and there's no cow dung on Mrs Missal's tyres. But she didn't have to use her own car. Her husband's a car dealer, got a saleroom in Stowerton. Those people are always choppin g and changing their cars. That’ s another thing we'll have to check up on. The inquest's tomorrow and I want to get somewhere before then.'
    Burden drove his own car into Stowerton and pulled into the forecourt of Missal's saleroom. A man in overalls came out from the glass-walled office between the rows of petrol-pumps.
    Two and two shots, please,' Burden said. 'Mr Missal about?'
    ‘H e's out with a client'
    That’ s a pity,' Burden said. 'I looked in on Tuesday afternoon and he wasn't here ...'
    'Always in and out he is. In and out. ‘I’ll just give your windscreen a wipe over.'
    'Maybe Mrs Missal?'
    Haven't seen her inside three months; Back in March was the last time. She come in to lend the Merc and bashed the grid in. Women drivers!'
    'Had a row, did they? That sounds like Pete.'
    'You're not joking. He said, never again. Not the Merc or any of the cars ’
    'Well, well ’ Burden said. He gave the man a shilling; more would have looked suspicious. 'Marriage is a battlefield when all's said and done.'
    ‘I’ll tell him you came in.'
    Burden switched on the ignition and put the car in gear.
    'Don't trouble ’ he said. ‘I’m seeing him tonight ’
    He drove towards the exit and braked sharply to avoid a yellow convertible that swung sharply in from Maryfield Road. An elderly man was at the wheel; beside him, Peter Missal.
    There he is, if you want to catch him ’ the pump attendant shouted.
    Burden parked his own car and pushed open the swing doors. He waited beside a Mini-car revolving smoothly on a scarlet roundabout. Outside he could see Missal talking to the driver of the convertible. Apparently the deal was off, for the other man left on foot and Missal came into the saleroom.
    'What now?' he said to Burden. ‘I don't like being hounded at my place of business ’
    ‘I won't keep you ’ Burden said. ‘I’m just checking up on Tuesday afternoon. No doubt you were here all day. In and out, that is.'
    If s no business of yours where I was ’ Missal flicked a speck of dust from the Mini's wing as it circled past. 'As a matter of fact I went into Kingsmarkham to see a client. And that’s all I'm telling you. I respect personal privacy and if s a pity you don't do the same ’
    In a murder case, sir, one's private life isn't always one's own affair. Your wife doesn't seem to have grasped that either ’ He went towards the doors.
    'My wife .. ‘