Road Rage

by Ruth Rendell

  “Where are you hiding that pudding, Patsy?” said Bob.

  Driving back through Forby, once designated (or damned) as the fifth prettiest village in England, Nicky Weaver said, “Didn’t you think they were too good to be true?”

  “No one’s too good to be true,” said Hennessy, after the manner of Wexford, whom he admired. “What are you suggesting, ma’am, that they were acting?”

  “I suppose not. The way they were going at that food, Brendan Royall won’t have too long to wait for his inheritance.”

  “Isn’t it too bad, him living in a Winnebago?” said Damon. “Just our bloody luck.”

  “What, you mean you’re envious because you want a Winnebago or sick because it means he’s always on the move?”

  “Both,” said Damon.

  Four men, one of them tattooed, one smelling of acetone, one wearing gloves. A red Golf, a basement room, a newly converted washroom, masks of spray-painted sacking, handcuffs, a light-colored car, registration L something five seven. A man with a learned cockney voice. These were what Wexford presented to those of his team who were not in Nottingham or Guildford at a meeting in the old gym at four, and they told him about a Winnebago and a paranoid man who had quarreled with his parents.

  “I’d very much like to know if Brendan Royall has a tattoo,” he said. “Presumably, his parents could tell us.”

  “Or Mrs. Panick might know,” Nicky Weaver said. Rather shyly Lynn Fancourt said she didn’t want to appear ignorant, but what was a Winnebago? Burden explained that it was a luxury mobile home, not far removed from a bungalow on wheels. Royall could range the country in it, parking in lay-bys overnight if he chose.

  Then Wexford played the tapes to them. The Chief Constable arrived unexpectedly after the first one had been running for five minutes. He sat and listened. When it was over he accompanied Wexford up to his office.

  “Your wife must have a lot more to tell us, Reg.”

  “I know she has, sir, but I’m a bit afraid …”

  “Yes, I know what you mean. And so am I. Would it help her to have counseling, do you think?”

  “Frankly, sir, talking to me is her counseling. Just talking and having me listen. We shall talk more this evening.”

  The Chief Constable looked at his watch, the way people do when they are going to talk about time. He said, “Do you remember saying to me the newspapers wouldn’t be all that interested if the embargo on this story was lifted on a Friday or a Saturday? That what they’d like best would be to have it late on Sunday?”

  Wexford nodded.

  “Then we’ll lift it tomorrow.”

  “All right. If you say so.”

  “I do. We’ll have the whole pack of them down here, we’ll have phone calls pouring in all day with sightings of the Struthers in Majorca and Singapore, we’ll have people who know the basement room is in the house next door, but nevertheless, we may also get help. And we need more help now, Reg.”

  “Yes, sir. I know we do.”

  “Sometimes I think it would be better if we adhered more to the continental system, like they have in France, for instance. Kept investigations secret, made them more in the nature of undercover operations, low-profile stuff, not all this sharing everything with the public. Keep the press, the public, and the victims’ families at arm’s length while the investigation goes on. Once you recruit the public, the pressure on us increases.”

  Shades of that conference on continental methods … “They expect instant results,” said Wexford.

  “That’s right. And then mistakes are made.”

  After that Wexford went home. As he drove down the High Street he passed a straggling line of tree people, laden with packs, heading for the best places to hitch lifts to somewhere, anywhere. They were leaving, or some of them were. While the environmental assessment went on they were off to protest elsewhere.

  The red Golf parked outside his house made his heart lurch. But, of course, it was Sylvia’s. He was so involved in all this he couldn’t recognize his own daughter’s car. He let himself into the house and found not one but both daughters there. Dora was holding Amulet in her arms. He had to remind himself that this was the first time she had seen the baby.

  “I’ll be staying the night with Syl, Pop,” Sheila said. “Just in case you’re feeling aghast.”

  “I could never feel anything but delight at seeing you,” he said untruthfully, and with a smile at Sylvia, “both of you.”

  “Don’t strain yourself.” Sylvia got up. “We’re going. We just had to see Mother. Don’t you think we’ve been good, not saying a word about this to anyone? I mean, Sheila knows masses of journalists, she could easily have let something out, but we’ve been clams.”

  “You’ve been magnificent,” said Wexford. “You can talk all you like on Monday.” He gave Sheila a severe look. “I never heard of a woman junketing about the countryside with a week-old baby the way you do. Now give me a kiss, both of you, and get out of here.”

  After they had gone he hugged Dora and felt her heart beating fast. He was aware that the hand which reached up to rest on his shoulder was shaking.

  “Do you want a drink? Something to eat? I’ll take you out to dinner if you like. It’s late but not too late for La Méditerranée.”

  She shook her head. “I started to shake when I got home. Karen drove me home and came in with me and made me a cup of tea, but once she’d gone the shaking began. Then the girls came. Sheila had a hired car all the way from London. I don’t want to start shaking again, Reg. It’s very disconcerting.”

  “Would it help to go on talking? I mean, about that place and those people?”

  “I think perhaps it would.”

  “I’ll have to record it.”

  “That’s all right,” she joked, her laugh a little ragged. “I’m spoiled now. I’ll never want to have an ordinary conversation now unless I know it’s gone on tape.”

  14

  If they didn’t speak,” he asked her, “how did they find out who you all were?”

  There were dark smudges under her eyes and lines around her mouth he didn’t think had been there before. But the shaking had stopped. Her thin hands lay calm in her lap. And her voice was steady.

  “After the Struthers were brought in, Tattoo came back and gave us each a bit of paper. They were torn-off scraps of a lined writing pad. He didn’t say anything, but as I’ve said, none of them ever did. Kitty Struther was lying on the bed crying and moaning that she wanted to go away on her holiday. It was bizarre. There we were in that awful situation and she kept whining about her holiday that had been ruined. Tattoo just put her bit of paper beside her, but her husband picked it up and filled it in for her.

  “It just said ‘name,’ which we took to mean they wanted our names. Owen Struther said they were criminals and terrorists and he wasn’t doing anything to gratify criminals but when Roxane told him how they’d hit her—she had a great bruise on the side of her face by that time—he did it all the same. He said he’d compromise for his wife’s sake. We all wrote our names down and after a while Tattoo came back and collected them.”

  “You didn’t tell him who you were?”

  She looked at him inquiringly. “I wrote down ‘Dora Wexford,’ if that’s what you mean. Oh, I see. I didn’t say I was married to you. I suppose I thought they’d know that—but no, maybe not.”

  How many people would recognize his name? Not all that many. True, in the past he had several times appeared on television in connection with previous cases, to appeal for witnesses, for help from the public, but no one remembers the names of policemen in these broadcasts. No one remembers the names of policemen who get their pictures in the papers.

  “Remember they never spoke to us, Reg,” she said. “And on the whole we didn’t speak to them much. Well, Roxane spoke to them. And the first time they brought us food Kitty said thank you and that made Roxane laugh, only Tattoo got hold of her by the shoulders and shook her till she stopped. But
the rest of us hardly said a word to them. I don’t think they ever knew the investigating officer was my husband.”

  They did by Friday afternoon, he thought, they found out, and that’s why they let her go. It was too much for them, the idea of having his wife among the hostages, a hassle they could do without. It must have come as a shock to them. Besides, releasing her was a sure way of getting their message to him. But how had they found out?

  “You’ve said how Tattoo struck Roxane Masood when she tried to attack him and Rubber Face, right? Why didn’t he or they strike Kitty Struther?”

  Dora considered. “Kitty didn’t attack him, she only screamed and yelled.”

  “She spat at him. Most people would find that pretty inflammatory. Later on Tattoo got hold of Roxane and shook her and that was only for laughing when Kitty thanked him for the food.”

  “Well, I don’t know, Reg, I can’t answer that. I know they didn’t like Roxane. You see, she was trouble from the start. Owen Struther talked a lot about not doing anything conciliatory, ‘not giving any quarter to the enemy’ was his phrase, he wasn’t old enough to have been in the Second World War, though he talked as if we were all prisoners of war, but it was Roxane who put up more resistance than any of us. Not that first time but the second evening we had food brought, it was the Driver and Rubber Face, she took one look at it and said, ‘What’s this filth?’ and threw it on the floor.

  “It was cold baked beans and bread, quite edible really if you’re hungry and we were, but she threw it on the floor. Rubber Face hit her again and she was going to fight back, it was horrible, but this time Owen Struther intervened, and they stopped. He didn’t do much, just told them to stop and put his hand on Roxane’s shoulder. Anyway, I suppose he had an authoritative manner or something and it was effective. Kitty started crying again and he sat with her, stroking her head and holding her hand. Then Tattoo came in and cleared up the mess on the floor.”

  “You all slept in the basement room that night?”

  “At about ten Rubber Face and Tattoo came in, switched off the light, and took the bulb out of the socket. Oh, and they did the same in the washroom. They always came in pairs, by the way. After all, we were five, although I don’t suppose Kitty or I could have done much. It was very dark in there after, though after a while a little light filtered in through the rabbit hutch on the window.”

  “Artificial light, you mean?”

  “Light that might have been from a street lamp or the outside light on a house or a porch light. Not the moon, though we did get moonlight on the Thursday night. There was a blanket on each bed but no pillows. It wasn’t cold. We none of us took our clothes off—how could we? Well, I took off my skirt and jacket. One thing that will make you laugh …”

  “Really?” he said. “I doubt it.”

  “It will, Reg. I’d got a toothbrush in my handbag. They took my bag away next day but I had it then. I’d bought three new tubes of toothpaste the day before and it was one of those offers you get everywhere now, buy three and you get a free toothbrush with a small tube of toothpaste, all in a plastic case for traveling. Well, I don’t know why, but I’d put this in my handbag and there it was. We all shared it. If anyone had ever told me I’d share my toothbrush with four strangers I’d never have believed them.

  “We all lay there in the dark and Owen Struther started talking about its being the first duty of a prisoner to escape. There was no way out of the washroom, so the main door remained and the window with its bars and its rabbit hutch, but he said the window was a possibility. In the morning he’d examine the window.

  “Ryan Barker had hardly said a word while the light was on, but he seemed to gain a bit of courage in the dark. Anyway, he said he’d like to try to escape and he’d help. Owen said, ‘Good man,’ or something equally daft and Ryan said his dad had been a soldier. It was as if he was talking to himself in the dark. He said his dad had been a soldier in some war, he didn’t say which war then, and had died for his country. It was quite strange hearing him say that in the dark. ‘My dad died for his country.’

  “Anyway, Kitty was crying again. She wanted Owen to ‘hold her,’ she said, which was a touch embarrassing for the rest of us, and anyway he couldn’t. Those beds were only two feet wide. She lay there moaning that he had to care for her, he had to look after her, she was so alone, she was so frightened.

  “I didn’t think I’d sleep, but I did. After a while. I was trying to work out how they’d done it, managed the Contemporary Cars driving, I mean. With four of them it could quite easily be done. Anyway, there were more than four, and I’ll come to that. Working that out must have sent me to sleep, but the bed next to me shaking woke me up. It’s funny—or perhaps it’s not—but talking to you like this has stopped me shaking. I feel quite reasonably okay.

  “I didn’t shake in there, but Roxane did. It was Roxane’s trembling making the bed shake. I put out my hand to her and she clutched it and said she was sorry but she couldn’t stop, it wasn’t fear, I mean fear like Kitty’s, it was claustrophobia.”

  “Ah,” said Wexford. “Yes.”

  “You mean you knew?”

  “Her mother told me she was claustrophobic and that it was a severe form she had.”

  “It was. It is. She whispered to me that it was all right in the light but in the dark it affected her badly. It would have been all right if the door had been open but of course it never was.

  “She was really a very sensible girl, Reg, in many ways, only she was too brave for her own good. We pushed our beds a bit closer together. Holding her hand seemed to help, so I went on doing that and after a time we both went to sleep.

  “In the morning our breakfast was brought in by Gloves and Rubber Face. That was the first time we’d seen Gloves. He had a gun.”

  “He had a gun?” Wexford said. “A handgun?”

  “If that’s the name for a pistol or a revolver, yes. But I think it was a toy or a replica, I wouldn’t know, and Owen, who surely would know, said afterwards that it wasn’t real. So probably the gun Rubber Face had in the car wasn’t real either.

  “The gun got used later. Oh, don’t look like that, no one was hurt.” Dora reached out and took hold of his hand. “They didn’t put the bulbs back, they never did. It wasn’t very light in there, though the sun was shining outside. Light never really penetrated through the bars and the rabbit hutch. Gloves unlocked the window and opened it. That wasn’t as generous a move as I’ve made it sound because the bars made it impossible to squeeze anything thicker than an arm between them. At any rate, we got some air into the room.

  “Our breakfast was slices of white bread—you know, Mother’s Pride or something, presliced—an orange each and a cake each, a sort of dry muffin thing, jam in small containers, the kind you get in hotels, five mugs of instant coffee, and three plastic pots of nonlactic soy-milk stuff. I suppose we got such a big meal because we weren’t to have anything else till the evening. Owen talked a lot of nonsense about sharpening the one spoon that came with it and turning it into a screwdriver—he was thinking of unscrewing the door hinge—but Rubber Face came back and checked on everything before taking the trays. Shall I tell you about the rest of the day now?”

  “No, my dear, I’m going to send you to bed. I’ll bring you up a hot drink in bed. More talk tomorrow.”

  He sat there alone for a while, trying to think what it was that she had said which rang such a jangling of bells in his mind. It came to him at last. The nonlactic soy milk, that’s what it was, the milk substitute the hostages had been brought for their breakfast. He had had it in the tea he had with Gary and Quilla on the previous afternoon and it had left an unpleasant taste in his mouth. It all seemed a hundred years ago now, so much had happened since.

  But those two had known he was a policeman though not his name. He had told them he was called Wexford and, now he looked back, he remembered how Quilla had seemed to start at the name. At his rank, he had thought then, but suppose it had been a
t the name?

  At around five-thirty on Friday afternoon outside the Framhurst Teashop he had told Quilla and Gary his rank and his name. Four hours later preparations were under way for releasing Dora.

  It was strange ground for him, all unfamiliar, new, untried. Some of the time he felt as if he were finding his way through a dark wood where all the trees were exotics, the obstacles unidentifiable, and the wild animals threatening in an indefinable way. The taking of hostages, the demanding of a ransom that was of a political nature, all that was something he never expected to have to handle and if asked would have suggested its handling by some different, even remote, authority.

  So on this Sunday morning he seemed to have reached an impenetrable part of the wood but one which he must penetrate. He hardly knew what his next move should be. The computers now held a mass of information, details of every lead that had been followed, background—curricula vitae, if you like—of every person named in the investigation, coincidental and cross-matched activities, possible sites and safe houses, transcribed interviews. Then there were the tapes. There was the letter to the Kingsmarkham Courier and the versions of the later messages. In it all he could see nothing concrete, nothing to make him feel the time was approaching when he could order a certain place to be pinpointed and one or more persons to be targeted.

  He had sent DS Cook and DC Lowry to find Quilla and Gary and bring them to Kingsmarkham Police Station. If they were still at the Elder Ditches camp, he thought, if they hadn’t departed the day before with so many others. Dora had still been asleep when he was preparing to leave and he was wondering what to do when Sheila phoned. Sheila, who had spent the night at Sylvia’s, would come in on her way home, now or as soon as the hire car arrived, and stay with her mother until he returned. He had left, feeling one anxiety lifted.

  Blind in the dark wood, he had nevertheless come to a decision. All the hostages’ families should be fetched in, assembled in the old gym with those of his team who were available, and told the present state of things, told too that the story would break on Monday morning. Whatever the Chief Constable might say about continental practice, they had involved the hostages’ families and must continue to do so. Now, as he looked at them all sitting there, he wondered if he had done the right thing—but how did you know the right thing when there was no precedent?