Brainwash by John Wainwright

Author:John Wainwright [Wainwright, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Crime
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Something about “a trouble shared”. There was a great truth in it. Lyle made a calculated guess; that this was the first time Edwina Barker had talked to a stranger about the incident of a few Christmases ago. And she looked better for it. More relaxed. Less brittle and, in some strange way, relieved. The tiny muscles of her face were less taut and this in turn lent her expression a more soft look.

They were into their third cigarette and Lyle said, “Divorce? At a guess I’d say the incident with Cindy would have formed a basis. But—I take it—you didn’t give it serious consideration?”

“I wish I could have.” She smiled and, this time, the smile carried something other than bitterness. A touch of impishness perhaps. She said, “That would have given his precious ‘respectability’ a nasty jolt.”

“Indeed.”

“But, you probably know, it might have meant Cindy giving evidence. He’d have fought the petition. I know him too well to have any doubts about that. And Cindy… I couldn’t possibly have allowed her to explain—try to explain—what he’d done. Best forgotten as far as she was concerned.”

“But you still lived with him?” probed Lyle, gently.

“Inspector Lyle.” Again the smile. This time a slow, wry smile of accepted fate. “Don’t believe all you hear about the ‘liberated woman’. Most women are like me. Married, which means tied. Being a housewife remains ‘unskilled labour’. Oh, I know, you see adverts for ‘housekeepers’ in the newspapers. But so often it’s the same thing, but without the security of a marriage certificate. George can’t sack me. I have that comfort. I also have a home which is my home. The physical side of marriage? I can’t talk about men but, if a woman decides to make that part of marriage unimportant, it becomes unimportant. Mind over matter I suppose. I—er—I have no right to refuse him. But I can make it repellent. A score of quite deliberate ploys, inspector. Every woman knows them. Played properly they can make a man feel unclean. In time, I’m told, they can even make him impotent.”

“You’ve—er—you’ve repaid him,” murmured Lyle.

“And will for the rest of my life.”

“Just one thing…” Lyle gave the impression of musing aloud. It was more of a hypothetical proposition than a question. “Three kids have been murdered. Raped, then murdered. It could be argued that the man responsible—whoever he is—was grabbing at forbidden fruit, because the fruit to which he had claim was being denied him.”

“Little girls?” For the first time since she’d unburdened herself, her lips curled into a leisurely sneer.

“A coward?” suggested Lyle.

“He’s certainly that,” she agreed.

“Well?”

A tiny word. A nothing. A word thrown, haphazardly, into normal conversation, like so much verbal confetti. One of the oral sweetmeats of the English language. But this time and in quiet question form like a tiny fire-cracker exploding in the confined space of the Interview Room.

“Oh, my God!” she breathed. The colour left her face and she drew on her cigarette, and the spiral of smoke from the glowing tobacco magnified the slight tremble of her hand.

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