‘She had to have seen that to facilitate our rapidly getting our hands on Fassbender. Then Mrs Murray-Burgess could do her worst – it was a burglar she had seen and not a killer. In the event, he served four months. He came out in June, with two months’ remission for good conduct.
‘I only saw him once,’ said Burden. ‘I saw him down the station here when we charged him.’
‘With nicking six silver spoons,’ said Wexford. ‘Come on, the rain’s stopped.’
They went outside. Once more a bright sun had appeared, turning the puddles into blinding mirrors.
Burden said doubtfully, ‘It was a bit of a long shot, wasn’t it? I mean, weren’t they – well, overreacting? They were supposing in the first place that Mrs Murrat-Burgess would come to us and secondly that if she did we’d connect the presence of a man in the Sterries garden on an unspecified night with an old man’s accidental death.’
‘There was more to it than that,’ said Wexford with a grin. ‘She’d seen me, you see.’
‘Seen you? What d’you mean?’
‘At the inquest. You said at the time people would think things and you were right. Someone must have told Natalie who I was, and that was enough. I only went there because our heating had broken down, I was looking for somewhere to get warm, but she didn’t know that. She thought I was there because at that early stage we suspected foul play.’
Burden started to laugh.
‘Come,’ said Wexford, ‘let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out.’
And in the uncertain sunshine they walked up the street to the police station.