Free Wexford 18 - Harm Done by Ruth Rendell Page A

through that fan light and instructed him how to open the door?”
       “Not quite, sir,” said Vine. “It was a girl, his own daughter, and while it was a fanlight the first time, my belief is that this second time she went in through the cat flap.”
       “The cat flap?”
       “Yes, sir. It’s a sort of trapdoor that hangs on hinges that the cat pushes open with its head and - ”
       “I know what it is.” Wexford shook his head, more in sorrow than in anger. “Before the things were invented they used to cut a hole in the door, and the story is that Isaac Newton cut a hole for his cat, and when she had kittens, he cut six more holes.”
       Vine stared at him. “He must have been bonkers.”
       “Well, no. They didn’t have Mensa in those days, but he was just as bright as Mr. Burden. He was a great physicist, he discovered gravity, among other things. But that’s the point, that very clever people can be daft in some ways. Anyway, I don’t believe it. I told you just to make it plain that I know what a cat flap is. Where’s this Flay? Downstairs?”
       “He’s called his solicitor and the guy’s on his way.”
       “I hope and trust you haven’t brought the little girl along as well?”
       Vine looked a little affronted. “I left her with her mum, sir. I’ve talked to her . . . ‘
       “In the presence of her mother, I hope?”
       “Of course. Mother claims to know nothing about it, but the child - she’s called Kaylee, K-A-Y-L-double-E - told me her dad got her to wear gloves. He said it was cold and she must keep them on, and they went out together and round the back of this house where her dad showed her the little door that belonged to ‘the pussy cat,’ I quote, and he said never to tell what she did, so she wasn’t going to tell me. But afterwards her dad gave her a Dracula.”
       “Gave her a what?’
       “It’s a kind of ice cream,” said Vine.
       They went downstairs together. On the way Wexford asked if the missing textiles had been discovered and Vine had to admit that they had not. Flay, a man of twenty-five who wore his reddish hair in dreadlocks, though he was white and that hair was sparse, sat at the table in the interview room, smoking while he awaited his solicitor. PC Martin Dempsey sat on a chair inside the door, his hack to the wall, his eyes fixed impassively on the table legs.
       Vine switched on the recorder. “Detective Chief Inspector Wexford and Detective Sergeant Vine have entered the room at four fifty-two. Present also are Police Constable Dempsey and Patrick John Flay.”
       “I’m not saying a word till my lawyer gets here,” said Flay.
       Wexford didn’t answer. He had been sitting down for no more than a minute when Lynn Fancourt brought the solicitor in. This was a young man Wexford had never seen before but whom he knew to be James Beamish of Proctor, Beamish, Green. Vine noted his arrival and began questioning Flay, whose sullen expression had changed to one of pleasurable anticipation once his solicitor was beside him. His smiles turned to laughter when Vine asked him about his daughter. “You’ve got that wrong for a start. She’s not my kid, she’s the wife’s. I’m like her step-dad. The wife had her before we like moved in together.”
       “You seem to have a good relationship with her,” said Wexford.
       “What, with Kaylee? Of course I do. I love kids.”
       “You love her so much that you teach her to go into someone else’s house and steal someone else’s property.”
       “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Flay, grinning widely. “If you believe what a four-year-old kid, practically a toddler, tells you, you’re barking. She’s got an imagination, has Kaylee. She tells stories, right? Well, some would call them lies. I mean, I wouldn’t, not me, I’m a tolerant sort of guy, but there’s some as’d give a kid a clip round the ear for telling the