Road Rage

by Ruth Rendell

  Faces appeared among the branches.

  “Someone needs to talk to the King,” she said.

  It was then that Conrad Tarling showed himself, as if called forth by the magic word “king,” the Open Sesame word. He emerged from a tree house onto the platform on all fours. He was naked to the waist, his shaven head bluish and gleaming.

  “Police,” said Cook. “I’d like to talk to you.”

  Tarling retreated behind the flap of tarpaulin that served his crow’s nest as a front door. Cook was wondering what to do now when he reappeared, wrapped up this time in his all-enveloping sand-colored cloak. For a moment Cook thought he would swing down from this considerable height, hand over hand on this branch and that, foot over foot on protuberances on the gnarled trunk. But instead he flicked his fingers at someone unseen and within minutes Christine and a man in shorts and anorak had propped a ladder up against the tree.

  Face to face with Cook in the clearing, he was a good six inches taller. His head was rather small, his neck long. The face was an arresting one, hard, clean-cut, as if carved from wood.

  Cook asked him about Gary Wilson and Quilla Rice, but the King of the Wood wanted identification before saying a word. Having gravely studied Cook’s warrant card, he asked in a grand manner what the police wanted them for.

  “To ask them a few questions.”

  Tarling laughed. He had an audience now, half a dozen Elves squatting on the platforms of their tree houses, listening, while Christine Colville and her companion in the anorak sat close by, cross-legged on the grass. Tarling’s voice was very deep and soft, yet ringing. They could probably hear what he said in Pomfret, Cook thought bitterly.

  “That’s what you always say. The words of totalitarianism. A few questions. A spot of interrogation. A smidgen of inquisition. And then the fun and games in the police cell—is that it?”

  “Where do you people keep your vehicles?”

  Another laugh, this time directed at the gallery. “Ugly sort of word that, isn’t it? ‘Vehicle.’ It’s what I’d call a police word, like ‘proceeding’ and ‘inquiry.’ Those of us who have vehicles keep them in a field kindly, very very kindly, and I mean that, lent to us by Mr. Canning, a farmer who is an angel of light compared with others of his kind and, like us, opposed to this damnable bypass.”

  “I see. And where might this angel’s field be?”

  “Between Framhurst and Myfleet. Goland’s Farm. But Quilla and Gary didn’t use it. They haven’t a vehicle. They must have hitched, they usually do.” Picking up his basket and turning his attention to an elder tree, Tarling said less aggressively, “They’ll be back in a week or so. For your information, as you’d doubtless put it your good self, they’ve gone to the SPECIES rally in Wales and they’ll soon be back. No one believes this environmental assessment is the end, you know. Things don’t happen so easily as that.”

  “And you?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Do you have a”—Cook rejected the offending word—“a car?”

  If Cook was unacquainted with the works of Lewis Carroll, Lowry was not. Wexford too would have recognized the quotation but to Cook it was gibberish. He turned away in disgust. Tarling’s words and the tree people’s consequent laughter pursued him.

  “I have answered three questions and that is enough,” Said his father, “Don’t give yourself airs. Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? Be off or I’ll kick you downstairs.”

  Walking back to the car, he said to Lowry, “I’m getting a bit pissed off with you pulling your university rank on me.

  “What did I do?” said Lowry indignantly.

  Barry Vine was in the car with Pemberton. They had been at the Savesbury Deeps camp but appeared to have learned less than Cook had. Half of the tree people had gone, many of them on other pilgrimages to seek other violations and injustices.

  “Your words?” said Cook belligerently.

  “Theirs,” said Vine with a shrug. “I’m off to Framhurst, have a cup of tea in the village.”

  A surprised glance was the response to that. Vine explained.

  “I’d like to know where they get that muck from they call nonlactic soy milk. I mean, can you buy it in a supermarket, or is it only supplied to restaurants as against retail outlets? And when we’ve refreshed ourselves Jim and I will go and have a word with Farmer Canning.”

  Nicky Weaver knew a lot about Brendan Royall’s Winnebago by this time. She knew its registration number, that its color was white, that it was three years old, and that he was usually but not invariably alone in it.

  The best piece of information she had about it was that it had been seen that morning on the M25, heading for the M2, by a police car on speed control. That rather reduced the impact of the piece of news she had just had phoned in from the Elder Ditches camp by DS Cook, that Royall might be found at a SPECIES rally in Wales. Of course, she had checked out the rally and discovered it was to be in Neath, near Glencastle Forest, and due to start on Tuesday. Please God, they would have found those hostages by Tuesday …

  If Royall was planning to go there he had been heading in the wrong direction. It wasn’t likely he would go near his parents, but she couldn’t take that for granted. On the other hand, it was practically certain he would pay a visit to the Panicks.

  She walked among the desks in the old gym, looking at computer screens, watching for anything new that might have come in. Everyone knew about the SPECIES rally by now. It was an important event in the protesters’ calendar. Should the force be there, a presence, among all those activists?

  She glanced out of one of the long windows on the car park side. A car was coming in that she didn’t recognize, a small white Mercedes, probably come to fetch Dora Wexford. Back in Myringham, at the Regional Crime Squad, she would have known every car that came in and out and would have questioned any unfamiliar one. They were nearly all unfamiliar here … No harm in noting down the registration number though. Better safe than sorry. She did so as the car turned the corner around the back of the building and disappeared from sight.

  “Let’s just get this straight,” said Burden. “Gloves, the one in gloves, you saw less of him than of any of the others. You saw him on the Wednesday morning at breakfast but not again till you were due to leave. Is that right?”

  “Not quite. I saw him on the Wednesday but not again till the Friday, only it was at midday on the Friday.”

  “Right. Now food. What did they give you to eat? No, I’m perfectly serious. Food could be a clue as to where you were.”

  “Do you mean, what did they give us that Wednesday evening?”

  “For a start, yes.”

  “I don’t think it will be of much help. There were three large pizzas, cooked but cold, some more of the white bread, five slices of processed cheese, and five apples. The apples were badly bruised. Oh, and more instant coffee and that nonlactic stuff. If we wanted anything else to drink we just got it ourselves from the water tap. And since we didn’t have a cup or a glass or anything we had to put our mouths under the tap.”

  Dora drank some of the tea Archbold had brought in to them and took a chocolate biscuit with the appreciation of someone who has recently subsisted on a diet of cold pizza and sliced bread.

  “It was Tattoo and the Hermaphrodite that evening. Tattoo and Rubber Face were probably the strongest and the most—well, the most ruthless of them, or that’s the impression I had, but the Hermaphrodite was certainly the weakest, and I could see the moment they came in what Owen had in mind.

  “What Roxane did, it wasn’t deliberate, I mean it wasn’t part of a plot, it was just spontaneous. She jumped up and said to Tattoo that she wanted to talk to him. ‘I want to talk to you,’ she said. And then she said, ‘And I want you to talk to us.’ He just stood there, looking at her. Or I suppose he was looking at her—you can’t tell when a person’s wearing one of those hoods.

  “ ‘You’ve left us all day without food,’ she said, or someth
ing like that. ‘You’ve left us all day without anything to eat. It’s outrageous what you’re doing,’ she said. ‘What have we done? We are innocent people. We have done no one any harm. You give us hardly anything to drink,’ she said, ‘and this is the first food we’ve had for ten hours. What is it you’re doing?’ she said. ‘What do you want?’ He didn’t say a word, just stood there, very close to her.

  “The Hermaphrodite was holding the tray, a large heavy tray with all that food on it. I could see Owen keying himself up and Ryan too, poor kid, playing at adventures. The door was shut but it wasn’t locked. Roxane—oh, she’s a courageous girl—she looked into Tattoo’s face, his mask, it was about six inches from her face, and she said, ‘Answer me. Answer me, you bastard!’

  “He hit her. He hit her as hard as he could across the head. That was when his sleeve fell back, he was wearing a shirt with quite loose sleeves, and I saw the tattoo, a butterfly on his left forearm. As Roxane fell over on the bed Ryan made a rush for the Hermaphrodite. Well, the Hermaphrodite dropped that tray and food went everywhere, pizzas upside down on the nearest bed, apples rolling across the floor, and the tray making a terrific crash. Ryan had hold of him or her by the shoulders, Tattoo sprang round and pulled out a gun. Owen had got the door open but he never actually got out.

  “Everything happened at once, it’s quite hard to sort it all out, but the gun went off. I still can’t tell you if it was real or not. It made a loud bang and whatever was fired out of it went into the woodwork around the window. Would a replica gun make a noise like that?”

  “It might,” said Burden. “Any sort of gun makes a noise.”

  “I don’t actually think it was aimed at anyone. Kitty was screaming her head off. She was lying on her bed, drumming her fists into the bed and screaming. Maybe it was that or maybe it was the gun, but Owen hesitated and you know what they say about the person who hesitates. The Hermaphrodite aimed a kick at Ryan, a really high hard kick, and it caught him in the stomach and sent him flying, clutching at his body. Roxane was groaning, holding her face. I didn’t do anything, I’m afraid, I just sat there. That gun going off had rather mesmerized me.

  “Tattoo must have had handcuffs with him because he got them onto Owen. It was quite remarkable the way while this was all going on neither of those two spoke a word. Owen was shouting and cursing, threatening them with all sorts of punishment to come, ‘They’ll shut you up in high security forever,’ that kind of thing, Ryan was rolling on the floor whimpering, Roxane was groaning, and Kitty was screaming, but those two were utterly silent. I can tell you, it was sinister, it was a lot more effective than anything they could have said.

  “It dehumanized them, you see. People are people because they speak and these two had become machines. They were science fiction creatures. Anyway, you don’t want the philosophy. I’ll tell you what happened next. I suppose they always carried handcuffs because they put a pair on Ryan and another pair on Kitty, who sobbed while they did it. Tattoo manhandled Roxane into the washroom and locked the door.

  “That frightened me because I knew how she felt about enclosed spaces. But I thought that if I told them that, it would make things worse, not better. So I said nothing. Tattoo stayed with us while the Hermaphrodite went away and came back with hoods for the Struthers. The hoods were put on and the Struthers were taken away and that was the last I ever saw of them. It was at about half-past seven on the Wednesday evening.”

  Burden interrupted the narrative once more. “You never saw them again?”

  Dora shook her head, realized this movement would not be recorded, and said, “No, I never did.” She went on, “But I’ve no reason to think any harm came to them. I think they were just taken to somewhere Tattoo thought would be safer. Kitty was sobbing all the time they were being taken out of there.

  “Ryan was more or less all right, just very shaken. Later on a terrific bruise came up on his stomach. He got himself up and said something about knowing better than to have tried that on. But I was extremely worried about Roxane. There was an awful silence from behind that door and I thought perhaps she’d fainted. I thought of trying to break it down. Have you ever tried to break a door down?”

  They all had. All had succeeded, but it hadn’t been easy. It hadn’t been like on television where a shove and a kick will do it.

  Wexford said, “Did you try?”

  “Yes, because the silence didn’t go on. She started screaming and pounding on the door. It wasn’t like Kitty’s screaming, this was real phobic terror. I put my shoulder to the door and I kicked it. Maybe I’d have succeeded, but after a moment or two Rubber Face and Tattoo came in. They moved me out of the way, Rubber Face just lifted me and dumped me on my bed. Don’t look like that, Reg. I wasn’t hurt.

  “They let Roxane out but not at once. It was nasty what happened. They looked at each other, those two—well, the heads in the masks turned, and I just had this feeling they knew and they, or one of them, were enjoying it. They’d discovered her fear of enclosed spaces and they were pleased. They stood there listening to her pounding on that door and her pleading.

  “Eventually, they unlocked the door. She staggered out and fell on her bed, sobbing bitterly. It was awful, it really was dreadful. But life in there had to go on. I hugged her and tried to comfort her.

  “Then Rubber Face and Tattoo found my handbag and Kitty’s—Roxane didn’t have one, they don’t at that age—and took them with them and went away, I don’t know why, having left Ryan handcuffed. The handcuffs didn’t come off him till next morning and he was very uncomfortable and in pain.

  “We just settled down the three of us to make the best of things. I picked up the food that wasn’t filthy or otherwise ruined, the pizzas were all right, and I washed the apples. I got them to sit down with me and eat as best they could and then we talked. We played a sort of game, each of us to tell a true story about a member of our families. It was dark, you see, they never brought the light bulbs back.

  “Well, I started the ball rolling by telling a story and then Roxane told one about her aunt meeting Gershwin when she was a child. It was in New York. And Ryan told one about his father winning some county athletics championship. Still, you won’t want to know any of this. We all went to sleep. Even Roxane did, though she was in pain with her face. It was very swollen and black with bruises and a cut on her temple was bleeding. They were to take her away the next day, but I didn’t know that then.

  “I was the only one who hadn’t been hurt in some way and that made me feel guilty. Ridiculous really, but I suppose people in my situation do feel guilt …”

  DC Edward Hennessy went out to the car park just before four. His car happened to be parked alongside Chief Inspector Wexford’s. Between the two cars, on the tarmac, stood a dark brown fiber suitcase, with the initials DMW on its side, and beside it two large full plastic carriers, one green, one yellow.

  Hennessy didn’t touch any of it. He went back inside, knocked on the door of Wexford’s office, and told him. Dora Wexford was still there, taking a break from recording. She jumped up. “That has to be my case,” she said. “And it sounds like my parcels.”

  She was right. The carriers contained her presents to Sheila, baby clothes, a shawl, a kimono for a nursing mother, two new novels, a flacon of perfume and one of body lotion. She identified the case as hers and watched while it was opened to reveal her undisturbed, carefully folded clothes.

  On top of them was a sheet of paper, on which were printed the words of Sacred Globe’s next message: “No more delays, please. The media must be told at once. This is the first step in our negotiations. We are Sacred Globe, saving the world.”

  15

  The contents of the suitcase were, as far as she could tell, as Dora had packed them.

  “This is like what they ask you at airports,” she joked. “ ‘Did you pack your case yourself? Has it been left unattended at any time?’ It’s yes to the first one and heaven only knows to the second.”


  “I think I saw the car it came in,” Nicky Weaver told Wexford. “A white Mercedes. For some reason—God knows what guardian angel inspired me—I took down the number. It’s L570 LOO.”

  “That’ll be the car they brought Dora home in. The L-something-five-seven car.”

  “Cheeky bunch, aren’t they?” Burden sounded half-admiring. “Not your usual villains.”

  “Let’s hope they’re too clever for their own good.”

  “I don’t like it,” said Wexford, and when they looked at him inquiringly, “I don’t like their jokes and I don’t like it that our decision to lift the embargo coincides with their demand to lift it. It can’t be changed now, but it looks as if we’re complying with what they ask.”

  Dora had been having a cup of tea with Karen Malahyde. She had at first seemed awestruck by the reappearance of her suitcase and parcels, almost as if it evinced supernatural powers on the part of Sacred Globe, and her husband recalled what she had said about science fiction characters who were not quite human. He sat down opposite her and the recorder was started.

  “Can we come to Thursday morning, Dora?”

  “Well, I’m still on Wednesday night really. Something happened on Wednesday night. Two of them came in while we were asleep, or they thought we were asleep. Roxane and Ryan were and I pretended I was, I thought it was safer.

  “I saw and heard the door open and two of them came in. I think it was Gloves and Tattoo, but I can’t be sure. They were in their usual hoods. That was when I shut my eyes, so I don’t know what they were there for, what they did, but they were wandering about in there for some minutes. Before they left they came and stood over us, checking we were asleep, I suppose. You know how you can always tell something like that, you can sense it.

  “On Thursday morning,” Dora began. “Roxane’s face was dreadfully bruised and her left eye was quite closed up. I know it shouldn’t but it somehow made it worse, doing that to such a beautiful girl.