think of that. Fords made it. Dates from the late Fifties. Lovely, but it was never popular and it didn’t sell well.’
‘How do you come to know all that?’
‘My dad was mad about cars. He told me the Edsel was promoted on E-Day, September 4th, 1957. I’ve never forgotten it.’
‘Evidently,’ said Wexford in a dry voice.
Burden took no notice. ‘I wonder if it was a two-door or a four-door hard-top? Potential buyers are very stupid about this sort of thing. They didn’t like its grid, a pursed mouth instead of a wide grin, if you can believe it. And then the onset of the recession of 1957 was one of the external forces working against …’
‘All right, Mike, all right. I don’t want to buy one.’
‘It came in red, of course, and blue and rather a nice discreet sort of pale greenish yellow, and other colours too …’
Back to his old form, Wexford almost growled. ‘Pale yellow, I think. What does it matter? It was big enough to carry bodies in. And whoever he was, he parked it in the mews, sometimes overnight. It must have been a spectacularly recognisable car, which makes me wonder why whoever used it did use it. Why not hire a van if hiding bodies was his purpose?’
‘If it was. Let’s say it was. Using the Edsel as his means of transporting bodies must be because that’s all he could use. Was it his or had he borrowed it? So why not hire something else? Because he was poor, he couldn’t afford it. Can you think of a better reason?’
‘No, but I can easily think that a man in the mews in an Edsel around twelve years ago had nothing whatsoever to do with the bodies in the underground tomb – I call it the vault, by the way. And how about the fourth body?’
‘Ah. The young woman. Now you say she’s been there only two years.’
‘About that, they think. She was only about twenty or less. She had quite bad teeth but had no dental treatment. Now, though that’s not rare in old people it is quite rare in the young. But if you look at those photographs in the papers of crowds in Asia or even Eastern Europe you’ll see that quitea lot of even young women have discoloured teeth or prominent teeth or gaps between their teeth. I’m wondering if she could have come from one of those places and have been an asylum seeker or an illegal immigrant. But I mustn’t jump to conclusions.’
‘Whoever put her in the – er, vault, maybe your Edsel owner, must have known about the vault in advance. I’m thinking he came there with the three bodies twelve years before, and when he killed again thought of it as the ideal place to hide another body.’
‘He would have had to count on the door to the mews being unlocked.’
‘For all we know, Reg, it was always unlocked. Has anyone asked Rokeby?’
Wexford shook his head, but he didn’t really know. He thought of what a lot he didn’t really know and that finding out might be closed off from him. He couldn’t go to Rokeby and ask him. He couldn’t even phone him and ask him. He wasn’t Lord Peter Wimsey or Poirot, he wasn’t even a policeman any longer. What he could do, he thought, was find an Edsel dealer or some dealership (as Americans called it) where they had sold Edsels in the past. They must have been rare even twelve years ago. Remembering that Burden had said they dated from the Fifties, he began to lose heart. But no, this must have been a real vintage car in the Nineties, it wouldn’t have been forgotten …
Burden said as they parted, ‘It’s good to see you.’
W hile still in Kingsmarkham he searched the London phone books he had for car sales, but all he could find were car body repairs, car accessory manufacturers and car hire. Then he tried ‘Edsel’ but nothing was listed. Most peoplethese days, he thought, would investigate the Internet or go online, as they called it. Dora was better at this than he was. She told him she would Google Edsel and she did so with remarkable speed. He was surprised to find so many
‘How do you come to know all that?’
‘My dad was mad about cars. He told me the Edsel was promoted on E-Day, September 4th, 1957. I’ve never forgotten it.’
‘Evidently,’ said Wexford in a dry voice.
Burden took no notice. ‘I wonder if it was a two-door or a four-door hard-top? Potential buyers are very stupid about this sort of thing. They didn’t like its grid, a pursed mouth instead of a wide grin, if you can believe it. And then the onset of the recession of 1957 was one of the external forces working against …’
‘All right, Mike, all right. I don’t want to buy one.’
‘It came in red, of course, and blue and rather a nice discreet sort of pale greenish yellow, and other colours too …’
Back to his old form, Wexford almost growled. ‘Pale yellow, I think. What does it matter? It was big enough to carry bodies in. And whoever he was, he parked it in the mews, sometimes overnight. It must have been a spectacularly recognisable car, which makes me wonder why whoever used it did use it. Why not hire a van if hiding bodies was his purpose?’
‘If it was. Let’s say it was. Using the Edsel as his means of transporting bodies must be because that’s all he could use. Was it his or had he borrowed it? So why not hire something else? Because he was poor, he couldn’t afford it. Can you think of a better reason?’
‘No, but I can easily think that a man in the mews in an Edsel around twelve years ago had nothing whatsoever to do with the bodies in the underground tomb – I call it the vault, by the way. And how about the fourth body?’
‘Ah. The young woman. Now you say she’s been there only two years.’
‘About that, they think. She was only about twenty or less. She had quite bad teeth but had no dental treatment. Now, though that’s not rare in old people it is quite rare in the young. But if you look at those photographs in the papers of crowds in Asia or even Eastern Europe you’ll see that quitea lot of even young women have discoloured teeth or prominent teeth or gaps between their teeth. I’m wondering if she could have come from one of those places and have been an asylum seeker or an illegal immigrant. But I mustn’t jump to conclusions.’
‘Whoever put her in the – er, vault, maybe your Edsel owner, must have known about the vault in advance. I’m thinking he came there with the three bodies twelve years before, and when he killed again thought of it as the ideal place to hide another body.’
‘He would have had to count on the door to the mews being unlocked.’
‘For all we know, Reg, it was always unlocked. Has anyone asked Rokeby?’
Wexford shook his head, but he didn’t really know. He thought of what a lot he didn’t really know and that finding out might be closed off from him. He couldn’t go to Rokeby and ask him. He couldn’t even phone him and ask him. He wasn’t Lord Peter Wimsey or Poirot, he wasn’t even a policeman any longer. What he could do, he thought, was find an Edsel dealer or some dealership (as Americans called it) where they had sold Edsels in the past. They must have been rare even twelve years ago. Remembering that Burden had said they dated from the Fifties, he began to lose heart. But no, this must have been a real vintage car in the Nineties, it wouldn’t have been forgotten …
Burden said as they parted, ‘It’s good to see you.’
W hile still in Kingsmarkham he searched the London phone books he had for car sales, but all he could find were car body repairs, car accessory manufacturers and car hire. Then he tried ‘Edsel’ but nothing was listed. Most peoplethese days, he thought, would investigate the Internet or go online, as they called it. Dora was better at this than he was. She told him she would Google Edsel and she did so with remarkable speed. He was surprised to find so many
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