Wolf to the Slaughter by Ruth Rendell Page B

thing. I’d rather walk. If I wanted to make an exhibition of myself in a pink and white car with purple stripes I’d go on the dodgems at Brighton,” I said.’
    Martin blinked at her. He had no idea what she meant.
    ‘The other thing he had,’ she said, ‘that was bad enough. Great old-fashioned black Morris like ahearse. God knows, we must be the laughing stock of all the neighbours.’ She suddenly became aware of the staring listening children. ‘How many times have I told you not to come poking your noses into my private business?’ she said viciously. The boy wandered back to his bricks, but it took a savage push to move the little girl. ‘Now, then,’ she said to Martin. ‘What’s he done? What d’you want him for?’
    ‘Just to talk to him.’
    Mrs Kirkpatrick seemed more interested in listening to the sound of her own voice and airing grievances than eliciting reasons from Martin. ‘If he’s been speeding again,’ she said, ‘he’ll lose his licence. Then he’ll lose his job.’ Far from being concerned, her voice held a note of triumph. ‘A firm like Lipdew aren’t going to keep on a salesman who can’t drive a car, are they? Any more than they’re going to give their people great showy cars for them to smash to smithereens just when it takes their fancy. I told him so before he went to Scotland. I told him on Tuesday morning. That’s why he never came in for his dinner Tuesday night. But he can’t be told. Pig-headed and stubborn he is and now it’s got him into trouble.’
    Martin backed away from her. A barrage of gunfire would be preferable to this. As he went down the path he heard one of the children crying in the house behind him.
    Monkey Matthews was lying on his bed, smoking, when Wexford went into the cell. He raised himself on one elbow and said, ‘They told me it was your day off.’
    ‘So it is, but I thought you might be lonely.’ Wexford shook his head reprovingly and looked round the small room, sniffing the air. ‘How the rich live!’ he said. ‘Want me to send out for more of your dope? You can afford it, Monkey.’
    ‘I don’t want nothing,’ Monkey said, turning his face to the wall, ‘except to be left alone. This place is more like a goods yard than a nick. I never got a wink of sleep last night.’
    ‘That’s your conscience, Monkey, the still, small voice that keeps urging you to tell me something, like, for instance, how you knew the girl’s name was Ann.’
    Monkey groaned. ‘Can’t you give it a rest? My nerves are in a shocking state.’
    ‘I’m delighted to hear it,’ Wexford said unkindly. ‘Must be the result of my psychological warfare.’ He went out into the corridor and upstairs to Burden’s office. The inspector had just come in and was taking off his raincoat.
    ‘It’s your day off.’
    ‘My wife was threatening to cart me off to church. This seemed the lesser evil. How are we doing?’
    ‘Martin’s been talking to Mrs Kirkpatrick.’
    ‘Ah, the wife of Anita Margolis’s current boyfriend.’
    Burden sat down by the window. This morning the sun was shining, not after the fashion of fitful April sunshine but with the strength and warmth of early summer. He raised the blind and opened the window, letting in with the soft light the clear crescendo of bells from Kingsmarkham church steeple.
    ‘I think we may be on to something there, sir,’ he said. ‘Kirkpatrick’s away, travelling for his firm in Scotland. He went off on Tuesday and the wife hasn’t seen him since. Moreover, he used to have a black car, had it up until last Monday, when his firm gave him a new one, white thing apparently, plastered all over with advertising gimmicks,’ he chuckled. ‘The wife’s a harridan. Thought he’d smashed the car when she saw Martin, but she didn’t turn a hair.’ His face hardening slightly, he went on, ‘I’m not one to condone adultery, as you know, but it looks as if there may have been some justification for it