An Unkindness of Ravens Read Online Free PDF Page B

superannuation refund in due course.
     Wexford said, ‘Everyone in this office calls each other by their Christian names but Rodney Williams called you Mr Gardner? Is that right?’
    ‘No, of course not. He called me Miles.’
    ‘He doesn’t in this letter.’
    ‘I took that to be because he thought the occasion demanded something more formal.’
    ‘It’s a possibility. Don’t you find it odd when a man on three months’ notice gives you one day’s? Wouldn’t you have expected a more detailed explanation for common courtesy’s sake than “circumstances beyond my control”?’
    ‘Are you suggesting someone else might have written that letter?’
    Wexford didn’t answer directly. Til take it with me if I may. Maybe have some experts look at that signature. Can you let me have a specimen of his signature? One we know is his?’
     Nine separate sets of fingerprints had been found on and in the car. These would presumably include the prints of whoever had vandalized it. The others would be Williams’s, Joy’s, Sara’s, Kevin’s. Early days yet to ask these people to let him check their own prints against those in the car. A lot of hairs, fair and grey, had been on the upholstery. No blood, of course, nothing dramatic. There was one odd thing, though. On the floor of the boot, along with the shovel, were some crumbs of plaster the lab had identified as either Tetrion or Sevensmith Harding’s Stopgap.
    It took a few more days to get a verdict on the letter.
    A manual portable machine, the Remington 315, had been used to type it. There was a chip out of the apex of the capital A on this machine, a similar flaw in the ascender of the lower-case t and a smudging of the head of the comma. As to the signature, it wasn’t Williams’s. The handwriting expert was far more categorical than such people are usually willing to be. He was almost scathing in his incredulity that anyone could for a moment have believed that the signature was made by Williams.
    When Joy had told Dora of her intention to phone Sevensmith Harding she had followed this up with a request to ‘send’ Wexford round to her house once more. This time Dora had said in quite a sharp way that her husband wasn’t a private detective and Wexford, of course, hadn’t gone. But Williams’s disappearance had stopped being a private matter. At any rate, he thought, he wouldn’t be unwelcome at 31 Alverbury Road. The answer to a prayer, in fact. He walked round there in the evening, at about eight.
    This time the girl Sara let him in. She spoke not a word but closed the front door after him, opened the living-room door, left him and went back upstairs.
    Joy Williams was watching television. The programme was one of those contests in which teams of people go through ridiculous or humiliating ordeals. Men in dress suits and top hats were trying to walk a tightrope over what looked like a lake of mashed potato. Just before the door was opened he had heard her laughing. She didn’t turn the set off, only the sound. He thought she looked anything but pleased to see him. Her expression had very quickly become sullen.
    Yes, she admitted, they had a joint bank account. Rod was away so much they had had to. Wexford asked her if he might see some recent bank statements.
    She hunched herself, arms wrapping her thin body, right hand on left shoulder, left hand with the ugly showy rings on right. It was a habitual gesture with her which a psychiatrist might have said began as a way of protecting herself from assault. She had the green trousers on and a knitted jumper, its shoulders sprinkled with fallen hairs and dandruff.
    ‘How often does your bank send you statements?’
    ‘It’s been once a month lately.’ Her eyes strayed to the silent but tumultuous screen. A contestant had fallen into the mashed potato. ‘They made a mistake over something and Rod complained, so they started sending statements once a month.’
    Dr Crocker had told Wexford of a recent