Wexford 22 - The Monster In The Box Read Online Free Page A

St Mary's church hall and he would be there now. The church hall was no more than a mile away, if that, and George Carroll had gone there, as usual, on his bicycle. Margaret Johnson said he was usually home by nine thirty, though sometimes it was after ten. Ventura sent DC Miller – Cliff Miller – to St Mary's to find George Carroll, tell him what had happened and bring him home.'
       'Things would be a bit different today, wouldn't they?' Burden said. 'The church hall would have a landline which it certainly hadn't then and all those whist players would have mobiles.'
       'Elsie Carroll wouldn't have left her back door unlocked or the gate in the wall unbolted. There would be more street lights.'
       'In other words,' said Burden, 'you could say, contrary to what one is always hearing, that life was actually safer then.'
       'In some ways.'
       'So are you going to tell me George Carroll couldn't be found?'
       'Don't be so impatient. Let's say he couldn't be found immediately. D'you want another drink?'
       'I'll get them.'
       When he came back he found Wexford scrutinising the photocopy he had made in preparation for this meeting of the chapter on the Carroll murder in W. J. Chambers' Unsolved Crimes and Some Solutions . Looking up, he said, 'You didn't think I could remember all that after so long, did you?'
       Burden laughed. 'Your memory is pretty good.'
       'I'm giving you all this preamble because it's necessary but what I really want to talk about is the man I suspect committed the crime. No, not suspect. I know he did it as I know he did at least one other. His name is Eric Targo and we'll come to him in a minute.' Wexford said, almost humbly, 'You're happy for me to carry on?'
       'Sure I am, Reg. Of course I am.'

Chapter 3

    'Miller came back to Jewel Road, having been unable to find Carroll, and we waited there for him, that is Fulford, Ventura and I. Elsie's body had been taken away. By our present-day standards, they were a bit cavalier about taking measurements and photographs, but I dare say what they did was adequate. The bedroom was sealed off as a crime scene. It was then that Harold Johnson dropped what Ventura called his bombshell. He asked if he could speak to Ventura, found him less intimidating than Fulford, I suppose. Fulford was more like an old-time army officer, a sort of Colonel Blimp, than a policeman.
       'Johnson and his wife had been at home all the evening, watching television. Of all the residents of Jewel Road, they were one of the few families who had television and it sounded as if they were enthralled by it, glued to it every night. There were all sorts of rules and restrictions about television-watching at that time. For one thing, you were supposed to sit as many feet away from the set as there were inches in its diagonal, never sit without lights on and various other stuff that turned out to be nonsense. Still, the Johnsons wanted to do it properly and they believed they should draw the curtains and switch on what Margaret Johnson called "soft lighting". But I suspect and thought so then, I remember, that although they would have denied this vehemently, they wanted to leave their curtains open as long as possible so that anyone passing could see the glow of the cathode tube and recognise it for what it was. Something I forgot to mention – the Johnsons were also among the few residents who had converted their two living rooms into one so that they had windows back and front with curtains to be drawn.
       'It was about seven, he told Ventura, when he got up off the sofa to draw the curtains, he couldn't be sure of the time but he knew it was a bit after seven because the programme they wanted to watch had started. First he drew the curtains at the front bay window, then he moved to the back. These were French windows and the curtains floor-length and rather heavy. He pulled the curtains but the right-hand one got caught up on something, the back of a