Read Wexford 22 - The Monster In The Box for Free Online Page B

reasons as well. He saw Targo again, out with his spaniel, this time in the high street. He didn't speak and Wexford said nothing to him but their eyes met and Targo stared. It was after this that Wexford almost went to Ventura, told him about those glances and that unblinking stare, and suggested the man's movements might be investigated. He almost went. Perhaps it was never quite as close as 'almost'. His day's work done, as yet unaware that George Carroll was at that moment being charged with murder, he imagined what would happen at the interview. He envisaged Ventura's incredulity, turning to anger, that an underling as low-ranking and as new to the job as he, could have the presumption to suggest a solution to a murder case which, as far as he was concerned, had already been solved. If he condescended enough to ask for Wexford's evidence, that in itself unlikely, how would he react when told there was none, that it was all a matter of 'feeling', of glances and a stare?
       No, it couldn't be done. It would be pointless. Apart from possibly damaging his career prospects, he would be set down as 'cocky', as 'cheeky' and getting above himself, even as showing off. He must forget it, put it out of his head. Strangely enough, that particular question came up again in the evening when he met Alison for a drink in Kingsmarkham's only wine bar. It precipitated their first real row. The following day would be a Friday and they always went out somewhere on a Friday night. A repertory company in Myringham were putting on, for one night, a production of Shaw's St Joan . Wexford very much wanted to see it, he saw very little live theatre then, and he had thought it might also appeal to Alison. Her hostility surprised him. She wanted a film, an Ealing comedy – strange that he remembered so much but he couldn't remember which one.
       'But that will be on on Saturday too,' he had said, 'and in Stowerton next week.' There had been so many cinemas then, at least one in every small town.
       'Reg,' she said, looking hard at him, 'isn't it time you faced up to it? You don't really want to see this highbrow stuff any more than you want to read those books you're always mooning over, Chaucer and Shakespeare and stuff. You're not an egghead, you're a cop. You do it to make an impression, don't you? It's just showing off.'
       He had always had a short fuse but he was learning to control it, unplug it in time. 'You're wrong there,' he said. 'I read what I enjoy and when I get a chance to go to the theatre I try to choose what I shall enjoy.'
       'Of course you would say that. It's not natural for a man always to have his head in a book.'
       He asked her, his tone growing very cool, what would be natural for a man.
       'Well, going to football or playing golf. Playing some sport. I've never known why you don't. One thing's for sure, when we're married you won't have time for books. We'll have a house and there'll be plenty to do. My dad's always painting and decorating, not to mention the gardening.'
       'I've noticed. That's why we never see him when we go round there. He's always up a ladder or down a trench.'
       'Better than having his nose in a book. That's useless if you ask me.'
       'I don't ask you, Alison,' he said. 'And I shall go to St Joan tomorrow. You must do as you like.'
       'I shall.' She got up to leave. 'And I shan't go alone.'
       Finishing his drink, he thought that things had reached a grim stage when a man started hoping the girl he was engaged to would go to the cinema with another man. A football-watching, golf-playing, DIY expert – or hadn't that expression yet been coined? – a gardener who read the Greyhound Express . You are turning into an intellectual snob, he told himself, with no grounds for being so.
       Next day he had learnt that George Carroll had been charged. It hadn't changed his opinion and he had believed that if the police charged a man with murder the chances were it was