Put On By Cunning

by Ruth Rendell

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  juse-buying is at its peak. 'Funny to think that we know for sure she's business to be there and no right to sell it and |0 right to what she gets for it,' said Burden,

  id there's not a damn thing we can do about j

  �

  But Wexford merely remarked that summer id set in with its usual severity and that he was )king forward to going somewhere warm for holiday.

  ?The Wexfbrds were not seasoned travellers id this would be the farthest away from home icr had ever been. Wexford felt this need not Feet the preparations they must make, but >ra had reached a point just below the panic reshold. All day she had been packing and >acking and re-packing, confessing icfacedly that she was a fool and then ig to worry about the possibility of the ise being broken into while they were away, was useless for Wexford to point out that lether they were known to be in San Francisco Southend would make little difference to a >spective burglar. He could only assure her it the police would keep an eye on the house, fthey couldn't do that for him, whom could do it for? Sylvia had promised to go into the ise every other day in their absence and he set that evening to give her a spare key. Oxford's elder daughter and her husband in the past year moved to a newer house in

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  north Kingsmarkham, and it was only a slightly longer way round to return from their home to his own by taking Ploughman's Lane. To go and look at the house Camargue had built, and on the night before he set out to prove Natalie Arno's claim to it fraudulent, seemed a fitting act. He drove into Ploughman's Lane by way of the side road which skirted the grounds of Kingsfield House. But if Sterries had been almost invisible from the roadway in January and February, it was now entirely hidden. The screen of hornbeams, limes and planes that had been skeletons when last he was there, were in full leaf and might have concealed an empty meadow rather than a house for all that could be seen of it.

  It was still light at nearly nine. He was driving down the hill when he heard the sound of running feet behind him. In his rear mirror he saw a flying figure, a woman who was running down Ploughman's Lane as if pursued. It was Jane Zoffany.

  There were no pursuers. Apart from her, the place was deserted, sylvan, silent, as such places mostly are even on summer nights. He pulled into the kerb and got out. She was enough in command of herself to swerve to avoid him but as she did so she saw who it was and

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  icdiately recognized him. She stopped and st into tears, crying where she stood and

  ig her knuckles into her eyes. llCome and sit in the car,' said Wexfbrd. |She sat in the passenger seat and cried into hands, into the thin gauzy scarf which she Are swathed round her neck over a red and low printed dress of Indian make. Wexford re her his handkerchief. She cried some more laid her head back against the headrest, Iping, the tears running down her face. She no handbag, no coat or jacket, though the was sleeveless, and on her stockingless feet |e Indian sandals with only a thong to attach Suddenly she began to speak, pausing |y when sobs choked her voice. P thought she was wonderful. I thought she ;the most wonderful, charming, gifted, kind >n I'd ever met. And I thought she liked I thought she actually wanted my company, ^er thought she'd really noticed my husband i, I mean except as my husband, that's all I ight he was to her, I thought it was me.... .now he says ... oh God, what am I going Where shall I go? What's going to >me of me?'

  Oxford was nonplussed. He could make sense of what she said but guessed she was ig all this misery out on to him only Juse he was there. Anyone willing to listen Id have served her purpose. He thought too,

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  and not for the first time, that there was something unhinged about her. You could see disturbance in her eyes as much when they were dry as when they were swollen and wet with tears. She put her hand on his arm.

  'I did everything for her, I bent over backwards to make her feel at home, I ran errands for her, I even mended her clothes. She took all that from me and all the time she and Ivan had been�when he went out to California they had a relationship!'

  He neither winced nor smiled at the incongruous word, relic of the already outdated jargon of her youth. 'Did she tell you that, Mrs Zoffany?' he asked gently.

  'He told me. Ivan told me.' She wiped her face with the handkerchief. 'We came down here on Wednesday to stay, we meant to stay till�oh, Sunday or Monday. The shop's a dead loss anyway, no one ever comes in, it makes no difference whether we're there or not. She invited us and we came. I know why she did now. She doesn't want him but she wants him in love with her, she wants him on a string.' She shuddered and her voice broke again. 'He told me this evening, just now, half an hour ago. He said he'd been in love with her for two years, ever since he first saw her. He was longing for her to come and live here so that they could be together and then when she did come she kept fobbing him off and telling him to wait and

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  ly did he tell you all this?' Wexford Irrupted.

  ie gulped, put out a helpless hand. 'He had Hell someone, he said, and there was no one ; me. He overheard her talking to someone on phone like he was her lover, telling him to |ie down once we'd gone but to be discreet, understood then. He's brokenhearted iuse she doesn't want him. He told his own that, that he doesn't know how he can go iiving because another woman won't have I couldn't take it in at first, I couldn't we it, then I started screaming. She came our room and said what was the matter? I her what he'd said and she said, "I'm sorry, ig, but I didn't know you then". She said i to me. "I didn't know you then," she said, it wasn't anything important anyway. It" happened three or four times, it was just we were both lonely." As if that made it ^!'

  Oxford was silent. She was calmer now, tgh trembling. Soon she would begin ig that she had poured out her heart to )ne who was almost a stranger. She passed hands over her face and dropped her |olders with a long heavy sigh. ih God. What am I going to do? Where shall I? I can't stay with him, can I? When she said to me I ran out of the house, I didn't even 'i 149

  take my bag, I just ran and you were there and�oh God, I don't know what you must think of me talking to you like this. You must think I'm out of my head, crazy, mad. Ivan says I'm mad, "If you're going to carry on like that," he said, "a psychiatric ward's the best place for you."' She gave him a sideways look. 'I've been in those places, that's why he said that. If only I had a friend I could go to but I've lost all my friends, in and out of hospital the way I've been. People don't want to know you any more when they think you've got something wrong with your mind. In my case it's only depression, it's a disease like any other, but they don't realize.' She gave a little whimpering cry. 'Natalie wasn't like that, she knew about my depression, she was kind. I thought she was, but all the time.... I've lost my only friend as well as my husband!'

  Her mouth worked unsteadily from crying, her eyes were red. She looked like a hunted gypsy, the greying bushy hair hanging in shaggy bundles against her cheeks. And it was plain from her expression and her fixed imploring eyes that, because of his profession and his manner and his having caught her the way he had, she expected him to do something for her. Wreak vengeance on Natalie Arho, restore an errant husband or at least provide some dignified shelter for the night.

  She began to speak rapidly, almost feverishly.

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  't go back there, I can't face it. Ivan's jg home, he said so, he said he'd go home t, but I can't be with him, I can't be alone him, I couldn't bear it. I've got my sister in dge but she won't want me, she's like the of them.... There must be somewhere I go, you must know somewhere, if you $only....'

  There flashed into Wexford's mind the idea he could take her home with him and get to give her a bed for the night. The sheer ce this would be stopped him. They were on holiday tomorrow, their flight went at Ijp.m., which meant leaving Kingsmarkham eathrow at ten. Suppose she refused to ? Suppose Zoffany arrived? It just wasn't

  le was still talking non-stop. 'So if I could

  ibly be with you there are lots of things I'd fpo tell you. I feel if
I could only get them off f|hest I'd be that much better and they'd lyou, they're things you'd want to know.'

  jkbout Mrs Arno?' he said sharply.

  fell, not exactly about her, about me. I need >ne to listen and be sympathetic, that does Ignore good than all the therapy and pills in

  torld, I can tell you. I can't be alone, don't llonderstamd?'

  Her he was to castigate himself for not in to that first generous impulse. If he |done he might have known the true facts

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  that night and, more important, a life might have been saved. But as much as the unwillingness to be involved and to create trouble for himself, a feeling of caution prevented him. He was a policeman, the woman was a little mad....

  'The best thing will be for me to drive you back up the hill to Sterries, Mrs Zoffany. Let me....'

  'No!'

  'You'll very probably find your husband is ready to leave and waiting for you. You and he would still be in time to catch the last train to Victoria. Mrs Zoffany, you have to realize he'll get over this, it's something that will very likely lose its force now he's brought it into the open. Why not try to...?'

  'No!'

  'Come, let me take you back.'

  For answer, she gathered up her skirts and draperies and half jumped, half tumbled out of the car. In some consternation, Wexford too got out to help her, but she had got to her feet and as he put out his arm she threw something at him, a crumpled ball. It was his handkerchief.

  She stood for a little while a few yards from him, leaning against the high jasmine-hung wall of one of these sprawling gardens. She hung her head, her hands up to her chin, like a child who has been scolded. It was deep dusk now and growing cool. Suddenly she began to walk back

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  p?

  |way she had come. She walked quite briskly Sthe hill, up over the crown of the hill, to be amid the soft, hanging, darkening green iches.

  waited a while, he hardly knew what for. passed him just as he started his own, ig rather fast down the hill. It was a Stard-coloured Opel, and although it was ;h too dark to see at all clearly, the woman at I wheel looked very much like Natalie Arno. fas a measure, of course, of how much she ipied his thoughts.

  [e drove home to Dora who had packed for last time and was watching Blaise Cory's ramme on the television.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ford was driving on the wrong side of the Or that was how he put it to himself. It la't as bad as he had expected, the San Diego ;way had so many lanes and traffic moved at )wer pace than at home. What was alarming didn't seem to get any better was that he Idn't judge the space he had on the right side so that Dora exclaimed, 'Oh, Reg, were only about an inch from that car. I was you were going to scrape!' ie sky was a smooth hazy blue and it was

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  very hot. Nine hours' flying had taken its toll of both of them. Stopped at the lights�traffic lights hung somewhere up in the sky here� Wexford glanced at his wife. She looked tired, she was bound to, but excited as well. For him it wasn't going to be much of a holiday, unless you agreed with those who say that a change is as good as a rest, and he was beginning to feel guilty about the amount of time he would have to spend apart from her. He had tried to explain that if it wasn't for this quest of his they wouldn't be coming here at all, and she had taken it with cheerful resignation. But did she understand quite what he meant? It was all very well her saying she was going to look up those long-lost friends of hers, the Newtons. Wexford thought he knew just how much they would do for a visitor, an invitation to dinner was what that would amount to.

  He had just got used to the road, was even beginning to enjoy driving the little red automatic Chevette he had rented at the airport, when the palms of Santa Monica were before them and they were on Ocean Drive. He had promised Dora two days here, staying in luxury at the Miramar, before they set off for wherever his investigations might lead them.

  Where was he going to begin? He had one meagre piece of information to go on. Ames had given it to him back in February and it was Natalie Arno's address in Los Angeles. The

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  itude of his task was suddenly apparent as, they had checked in and Dora had lain n in their room to sleep, he stood under the yptus trees, looking at the Pacific, ing seemed so big, a bigger sea, a bigger h, a vaster sky than he had ever seen before, as their plane had come in to land he had iked down and been daunted by the size of the wling, glittering, metallic-looking city d out there below them. The secret of talie Arno had appeared enormous in markham; here in Los Angeles it was ly capable of hiding itself and becoming for lost in one of a hundred million crannies. ut one of these crannies he would explore in iniorning. Tuscarora Avenue, where Natalie lived for eight years after coming south San Francisco, Tuscarora Avenue in a iurb called Opuntia. The fancy names sted to Wexford that he might expect a slumminess, for at home Vale Road d be the site of residential elegance and

  a Grove of squalor.

  e shops were still open. He walked up are Boulevard and bought himself a larger more detailed street plan of Los Angeles the car hire company had provided.

  next morning when he went out Dora was

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  preparing to phone Rex and Nonie Newton. A year or two before she met Wexford Dora had been engaged to Rex Newton; a boy-and-girl affair it had been, they were both in their teens, and Rex had been supplanted by the young policeman. Married for thirty years now, Rex had retired early and emigrated with his American wife to California. Wexford hoped wistfully that they would be welcoming to Dora, that Nonie Newton would live up to the promises she had made in her last letter. But he could only hope for the best. By ten he was on his way to Opuntia.

  The names had misled him. Everything here had an exotic name, the grand and tawdry alike. Opuntia wasn't shabby but paintbox bright with houses like Swiss chalets or miniature French chateaux set in garden plots as lush as jungles. He had previously only seen such flowers in florist's shops or the hothouses of public gardens, oleanders, bougainvilleas, the orangeand-blue bird-of-paradise flower, emblem of the City of the Angels. No wind stirred the fronds of the fan palms. The sky was blue, but white with smog at the horizon.

  Tuscarora Avenue was packed so tightly with cars that two drivers could hardly pass each other. Wexford despaired of finding a niche for the Chevette up there, so he left it at the foot of the hill and walked. Though there were side streets called Mar Vista and Oceania Way, the

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  wasn't visible, being blocked from view by ;e apartment buildings which raised their ithouse tops out of a forest of palm and lyptus. 1121 Tuscarora, where Natalie 10 had lived, was a small squat house of pink icco. It and its neighbours, a chocolateloured mini-castle and a baby hacienda ited lemon, reminded Wexford of the fections on the sweets trolley at the Miramar previous night. He hesitated for a moment, pining Natalie there, the light and the iry colours suiting her better than the lor and chill of Kingsmarkham, and then he it up to the door of the nearest neighbour, chocolate-fudge-iced 1123. man in shorts and a tee-shirt answered his . Wexford, who had no official standing in forma, who had no right to be asking stions, had already decided to represent ;lf as on a quest for a lost relative. Though id never before been to America, he knew of Americans to be pretty sure that this of thing, which might at home be received suspicion, embarrassment and taciturnity, Id here be greeted with warmth. le householder, whose shirt campaigned in printed letters for the Equal Rights lendment, said he was called Leo Dobrowski seemed to justify Wexford's belief. He him in, explained that his wife and ren had gone to church, and within a few

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  minutes Wexford found himself drinking coffee with Mr Dobrowski on a patio hung with the prussian-blue trumpets of morning glory.

  But in pretending to a family connection with Tina Zoffany he had made a mistake. Leo Dobrowski knew all about Tina Zoffany and scarcely anything about Natalie Arno or any other occupants of 1121 Tuscarora. Hadn't Tina, in the two years she had lived next do
or, become Mrs Dobrowski's closest friend? It was a pleasure, though a melancholy one, for Mr Dobrowski at last to be able to talk about Tina to someone who cared. Her brother, he thought, had never cared, though he hoped he wasn't speaking out of turn in saying so. If Wexford was Tina's uncle, he would know what a sweet lovely person she had been and what a tragedy her early death was. Mrs Dobrowski herself had been made sick by the shock of it. If Wexford would care to wait until she came back from church he knew his wife had some lovely snapshots of Tina and could probably let him have some small keepsake of Tina's. Her brother had brought all her little odds and ends to them, wouldn't want the expense of sending them home, you could understand that.

  'You sure picked the right place when you came to us,' said Mr Dobrowski. 'I guess there's not another family on Tuscarora knew Tina like we did. You have ESP or something?'

  After that Wexford could scarcely refuse to

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  the church-going wife. He promised to back an hour later. Mr Dobrowski led his pleasure and the words on his tee-'Equality of rights under the law shall not lenied or abridged by the United States or |State on account of sex'�expanded with his I*exercised muscles.

  ie occupants of 1125�this time Wexford tk cousin of Natalie's and no nonsense about Iwere new to the district and so were those lived further down the hill in a redwoodstucco version of Anne Hathaway's cottage, irent to 1121 itself and picked up from the he spoke to his first piece of real lation, that the house had not been bought as rented from Mrs Arno. Who was there neighbourhood, Wexford asked him, who it have known Mrs Arno when she lived |*>