Free Some Lie and Some Die by Ruth Rendell

Joan winced at the last word which had been used automatically, without thought. She lifted her eyes to Wexford and he saw that they shone with unshed tears. In a choking voice she said:
    ‘She didn’t live very long, did she?’
    Michael Burden was a widower whose married life had been happy and who, as a result of this, tended to consider sexual relationships as ecstatically romantic or, when they were illicit, deeply sordid. But the solitary love affair he had had since his wife’s death had slightly broadened his mind. He was now prepared to admit that unmarried people might love each other and consummate that love without degradation. Sometimes these newly enlightened views of his gave rise to romantic theories and it was one of these which he propounded to Wexford as they drank their coffee together on Tuesday morning.
    ‘We’ve agreed,’ he began, ‘that her killer can’t have been a casual pick-up because of the food-shopping angle. And weknow the food wasn’t bought for her and the Miall girl. Therefore, she knew the man and knew him well enough to arrange with him that she’d buy their meal and meet him after he’d finished work. The time of the meeting—surely between five-thirty and six?—indicates it was to be after he’d finished work. Right?’
    ‘Imagine so, Mike.’
    ‘Well, sir, I’ve been wondering if she and this bloke had one of those long close friendships extending over years.’
    ‘What long close friendships? What are you on about?’
    ‘You know my sister-in-law Grace?’ Wexford nodded impatiently. Of course he knew Grace, the sister of Burden’s dead wife who had looked after Burden’s children when they had first lost their mother and who he had later hoped would be the second Mrs Burden. That had come to nothing. Grace had married someone else and now had a baby of her own. ‘I mention her,’ said Burden, ‘because it was her experience that gave me the idea. She and Terry knew each other off and on for years before they got married. There was always a sort of bond between them, although they didn’t meet much and each of them had other—well, friends. Terry even got engaged to someone else.’
    ‘You’re suggesting this was the case with Dawn?’
    ‘She lived here till she was eighteen. Suppose she knew this bloke when they were both very young and they had an affair and then they both left Kingsmarkham to work elsewhere. Or he stayed here and she went to London. What I’m suggesting is that they kept in touch and whenever she came home or he went to London they had one of these dates, secret dates necessarily because he was married and she was more or less engaged to Wickford. Frankly, I think this covers every aspect of the case and deals with all the difficulties.’
    Wexford stirred his coffee, looked longingly towards the sugar bowl and resisted the temptation to take another lump. ‘It doesn’t deal with that bloody red dress,’ he said viciously.
    ‘It does if they met in this chap’s house. We’d have to admit the possibility of coincidence, that she stained the mauveoutfit and then put on a dress belonging to this man’s wife.’
    ‘The wife being out presumably. She goes there, he lets her in. What happens to the mauve garment? They had no drinks for her to spill, ate nothing for her to drop, made no love to—er, crush it. (I put it like that, Mike, to save your delicate sensibilities.) Maybe the violence of his welcoming embrace creased it up and she was so dainty about her appearance that she rushed upstairs and slipped into one of her rival’s ancient cast-offs. He was so upset about her thinking more of her clothes than of him that he upped and banged her with the bottle. Is that it?’
    ‘It must have been something like that,’ said Burden rather stiffly. Wexford was always pouring cold water on his flights of fancy and he never got used to it.
    ‘Where was this house of assignation, then?’
    ‘On the outskirts of Stowerton, the Forby