End in Tears by Ruth Rendell Page B

money, though he knew very well that need is not a motive relevant to stealing or any other ways, allowed or illicit, of acquiring it.
    â€œShe was going to live in my dad’s flat,” Hilland said. “She’d need something to live
on.
It’d be different from home with her dad and what’s-her-name?—Diana. Amber hadn’t anything of her own. And before you ask, with censoriousness in every syllable, no, I don’t give her anything. I haven’t anything to give. I’m a student, okay?”
    â€œRight. That’s all,” said Wexford shortly, glad that the man was feeling the heat, sweat pouring down his face and soaking his armpits. “I’d like you to bring your passport and whatever other documentation you have back here tomorrow morning. You can go now and please don’t park your car in here again.”

CHAPTER 9
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    G lobal warming had compelled the management of the Olive and Dove Hotel to install air-conditioning, a rarity in Kingsmarkham. On the grounds that the doors kept opening and shutting, it had not been extended to the public and saloon bars, only to the lounge bar. There Wexford and Burden sat, the television on, the early-evening news telling them that the temperature had been thirty-two degrees.
    â€œIt’s actually cold in here,” Burden said, pressing the “off” button on the remote. “They can never get it right, can they?”
    â€œIt’s okay for an hour or so.” Wexford took their two drinks proffered by the barman and passed one to Burden. Paying for them, he said, “Have one yourself. These glasses are quite cold enough. The day you start putting ice in beer I stop coming in here.”
    â€œExcellent,” said the barman, “as that will never be.”
    When he had gone, Wexford said, “That Hilland is a complete little shit. I know you don’t like that word, but nothing else quite expresses him. He never once mentioned his child and he talks about Amber as if she were a one-night stand.”
    Burden shrugged. He wasn’t surprised. “The mother and the sister gave us a foretaste of how he’d be. An idea has occurred to me that I think we should do something about. That money that was in Amber’s pocket, it must have got there after she went out, right? She wasn’t so butterfly-minded that she went around with a thousand quid on her for days and days.”
    â€œI suppose not. I mean, you’re right.”
    â€œSo someone gave it to her that night. Not after she got to the Bling-Bling Club they didn’t. She was with the others all the time and one of them would have noticed. I mean, it’s not like handing someone a couple of pound coins, is it? Well, we know what time she left home to go to the club, but we don’t know what time she got there. No one said, though Samantha Collins said she got there later than usual.”
    â€œYou mean, however she’d earned the money, someone gave it to her between the time she left her home and went to the club. There can’t have been much time, Mike.”
    â€œWhy can’t there? Diana Marshalson said she left between half-eight and nine. It’s five minutes, if that, to the bus stop and the bus takes twenty minutes to Kingsmarkham. Even allowing for the bus being late and her taking ten minutes to get to the stop and not leaving till ten to nine, she’d still be in Kingsmarkham by nine-thirty. With a half hour for her transaction she could get to the club at ten.”
    â€œBit late, isn’t it?”
    â€œTo you and me, Reg,” said Burden, “it’s very late to go anywhere. It’s more like the time to leave and get home. But not to the young. These places don’t really get going till nearer midnight.”
    â€œOkay, we must find out the bus times, whether the bus ran on time, and see if we can get a more precise time of her leaving from George Marshalson. I’m