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his oath it wasn't Carroll?'
       'No, he never did,' Wexford said. 'All he would say was that he thought it was a short man but he was a very tall man himself and five feet seven or five feet four might have been equally short to him.'
       'Targo's got the same sort of alibi as any other man in that street. He was at home with his family, in his case at home looking after his son. How old was the boy, by the way?'
       'I wasn't very good on children's ages in those days. Four? Maybe a bit less.'
       'So you're basing this theory on a look the man gave you, by night, in the light of a street lamp? Leave for a moment why he would – well, glare at you. Why would he kill Elsie Carroll? Revenge on George Carroll for something? But, apart from his apparently not knowing George Carroll except by sight, it wouldn't exactly be revenge, would it? If you think of Carroll as presumably being glad to have his wife out of the way, wouldn't it be doing him a favour?'
       'I know all that,' Wexford said. 'I've thought of all that. It doesn't change my mind.' He got up. 'There's more to come, lots more, but I'm tired and I'm sure you are. That's enough for now. Say goodbye to Jenny for me.'
       'I'll drive you home. I've only had that lager and it was all of three hours ago.'
       'No, I'll walk, thanks. I'll see you tomorrow.'
       The mild clear evening had become a cool night. When the sky was cloudless it was still possible to see the stars from the outskirts of Kingsmarkham. Brighton was just far enough away and London further. You could see the stars, see the constellations of Charles's Wain and Orion and Cassiopeia, but less clearly than he had from this same point when he was young. That might, of course, be as much due to the deterioration of his eyesight as to the pollution which misted the sky.
       But the air revived him and his tiredness went. He recalled how those sightings of Eric Targo had affected him profoundly. He supposed it was because he wanted justice to be done and hated to see it fail to be done. If he could stop them the wicked must not be allowed to flourish like the green bay tree. Young as he had been, he had felt much like this when it became clear to him that the blimpish DI Fulford, and therefore Ventura, had made up their minds that George Carroll had killed his wife. It had been George Carroll that Harold Johnson had seen cross the dark garden towards the gate in the wall at seven that evening. George Carroll had a motive and a strong one. He wanted his wife out of the way so that he could marry Tina Malcolm. Dissolving a marriage was difficult in those days, long before no-fault divorce came in, especially when it was a husband trying to part from an innocent wife. She would have had to divorce him and if she hadn't consented to that very little could be done about it. People remained bound to uncongenial spouses for the greater part of a lifetime. Wexford himself had known an old man who had been living with the woman he loved for thirty years but was unable to marry her because his wife refused him a divorce.
       The fact that Tina denied being with George that evening, and therefore negated his alibi, was neither here nor there. Probably she had said she hadn't seen George because she was afraid of being involved – and this was very likely true. Where he might really have been, as far as Wexford could see, Fulford made no efforts to find out.
       He could see too that it wouldn't be long before George Carroll was arrested and charged with Elsie Carroll's murder. Then another bombshell was dropped by Tina Malcolm. She came forward of her own accord, revoked her previous statement and said George had spent the evening with her. That did no good as no one believed her. It probably did harm, for it looked as if Carroll had coerced her, as perhaps he had. On the following day he was charged with the murder of his wife.
       It was a day lodged firmly in Wexford's memory for other