Wolf to the Slaughter by Ruth Rendell Read Free Book Online Page B

thing.’ Burden glanced at Margolis but the painter had gone off into a brooding abstraction. Mrs Cawthorne thrust a bony finger into her husband’s ribs. ‘Or that’s what he kids himself.’ The blood rushed into Cawthorne’s already pink face. His hair was like white wool or the coat of a West Highland terrier.
    Suddenly Margolis roused himself. He addressed Burden, rather as if there was no one else in the room.
    ‘Ann gave Dickie the out months ago. There’s someone else now. I’m trying to remember his name.’
    ‘Not Geoff Smith, by any chance.’ Burden watched the three faces, saw nothing but blankness. He had memorised the message in that letter. He is small and dark and young and he has a black car. Name of Geoff Smith . Of course, it wouldn’t be his real name. Smith never was.
    ‘All right. That’s all for now. Thanks for your help.’
    ‘I don’t call that help.’ Mrs Cawthorne giggled. She tried to take Margolis’s hand but failed. ‘You’ll be lost without her, Roo,’ she said. ‘Now, if there’s anything Russell and I can do . . .’
    Burden expected Margolis to maintain his silence, or possibly say something rude. He gave Mrs Cawthorne a blind hopeless stare. ‘Nobody else has ever been able to do anything,’ he said. Then he walked out of the room, his shoulders straight. For a brief moment he had attained Burden’s notion of the heights of genius. He followed, Cawthorne behind him. The garage owner’s breath smelt of whisky. His was a soldier’s face, brave, hearty, a little stupid. The military air about him extended, Burden thought, even to his name. All those years ago his mother had called him Russell because it sounded so well with Cawthorne, auguring great things. General Sir Russell Cawthorne, KCB ., DSO  . . . Burden knew something of his history. The man had never won a battle or even led a troop. He kept a garage.
    ‘I’m looking for a Geoff Smith who might be a friend of Miss Margolis’s.’
    Cawthorne gave a braying laugh. ‘I daresay he might, only I’ve never heard of him. She’s got a lot of boyfriends. Lovely girl, lovely little driver and a good head for business. I sold her that car of hers. That’s how we met. Haggled, you know, drove a hard bargain. I admire that. Only natural she’d have a lot of boyfriends.’
    ‘Would you include yourself among them?’
    It was grotesque. The man was all of sixty. And yet boyfriend could be applied these days to a lover of any age. It was in two senses a euphemism.
    For a moment it seemed that Cawthorne was not going to reply and when he did it was not to answer the question.
    ‘Are you married?’
    ‘Yes, I am.’
    ‘Horrible business, isn’t it?’ He paused and gazed lugubriously at a pump attendant giving green stamps with change. ‘Growing old together . . . Horrible!’ He braced his shoulders as if standing to attention. ‘Mind you, it’s your duty to stay young as long as you can. Live it up, keep going, go around with young people. That’s half the battle.’ The only one he was ever likely to fight.
    ‘Did you “go around” with Miss Margolis, Mr Cawthorne?’
    The garage proprietor brought his face and his whisky breath closer to Burden. ‘Once,’ he said. ‘Just the once. I took her out to dinner in Pomfret, to the Cheriton Forest Hotel. Stupid, really. The waiter knew me. He’d seen me there with my wife. I was ordering, you see, and he said, “Will your daughter have the smoked salmon too, sir?” ’
    Why do it, then? Why make such a crass fool of yourself? Burden had no temptations, few dreams. He got into the car beside Margolis, wondering why the defenceless put themselves into the firing line.
    There were pictures on the stairs and pictures on the landing. The light was fading and Sergeant Martin stumbled over a pile of washing on the floor outside Anita Margolis’s bedroom door.
    ‘No letters and no diaries, sir,’ he said to Burden. ‘I never saw so many clothes in