The Monster in the Box

by Ruth Rendell

  At first, parking her car in the only vacant space she could find in Rectangle Road, Stowerton, Hannah wondered why there were so few people about. Cars, yes, pedestrians, no. She was halfway to the Hanifs’ house when a car pulled up alongside her and a woman put her head out of the driver’s window.

  ‘You don’t want to be outside,’ she said. ‘The lion’s been seen in Oval Road. I’d get inside somewhere if I were you.’

  Hannah thanked her, resisted saying she wasn’t her and walked up to the Hanifs’ front door. It was opened by Fata Hanif, her head bare. ‘I saw you coming,’ she said. ‘I thought, maybe she’s seen the lion. Come in quick. My husband just came home. He says it’s been seen in the high street.’

  ‘I’ve come to talk to you, Mrs Hanif. It’s nothing to do with the lion.’

  Akbar Hanif was sitting in the living room, the baby on his lap, an older child on either side of him. He was a heavily bearded, rather fat man, wearing a loose white shirt over black trousers. He nodded to Hannah, looked at her warrant card with an amiable smile and asked her what the police were doing about the lion, an enquiry Hannah ignored.

  ‘I hoped your son Rashid might be at home,’ she said. ‘Or isn’t he back from college yet?’

  ‘They are on half-term.’

  This was a fact already known to Hannah. ‘But he’s not at home?’

  Fata, a small girl now in her arms, said, ‘No, he is not at home because he has gone away camping with his cousin. He works hard. He’s entitled to a break sometimes. Now his great-auntie has died and left him some money, a little bit of money, so he is spending it on a tent and other equipment for camping. Is there something you don’t like about that?’

  ‘Fata,’ said her husband, the intervention evidently intended as a reproof but uttered in a tone of gentle mildness.

  ‘Where is he camping?’

  ‘In somewhere called the Peak District if it’s any business of yours.’

  This time the reproach came in a sad shaking of Akbar’s head.

  ‘When do you expect him back?’ She addressed her question to Rashid’s father.

  ‘Wednesday or Thursday.’ Fata spoke for her husband. ‘I don’t want him back here while that lion’s about. I don’t want any of my children out on the streets.’

  Hannah was heartily sick of the lion. ‘And this camping is just with his cousin?’ What numbers of relatives these people had, Hannah found herself thinking, a reflection she caught up short, horrified at yet another example of racism in her uncontrolled thoughts. ‘Just he and the cousin on their own?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Mrs Hanif. ‘There are four or five of them, another cousin and two friends from college.’ She gave Hannah a penetrating glance. ‘But if you’re trying to make out a girl is with them you are wrong. And now I think you should go,’ thus making her the second woman to have addressed those words to Hannah in the space of four hours.

  The street was empty. It was late afternoon and already growing dark. She drove back to Kingsmarkham where she encountered Lynn Fancourt in the police station car park.

  ‘I’m really scared of this lion,’ Lynn said, ‘especially after dark. Cats are nocturnal, aren’t they? I expect it only really starts prowling around, looking for something to eat, in the night-time.’

  ‘It won’t come into urban areas. It’s probably more frightened of people than they are of it.’

  ‘I hope you’re right.’

  Hannah went up to Wexford’s office.

  He was looking at his computer screen with Damon there to guide him through the Web. The glance he gave Hannah was less than pleasant.

  ‘Well?’

  Damon was going and Wexford said nothing to encourage him to stay.

  ‘I’ve been in London, guv,’ Hannah said, ‘and since I got back I’ve had a talk with Rashid Hanif’s parents. I think Tamima Rahman’s gone off with Rashid, they’re hiding out somewhere. I don’t believe for a moment his parents’ story that Rashid’s gone camping with a bunch of friends and relations.’

  ‘So she’s somewhere, as you put it, with her boyfriend. She’s over sixteen. I’ve yet to learn that fornication’s against the law in this country.’

  ‘It’s against sharia law. Asian people have killed a daughter for less. They may have killed her or be planning to do that. May I tell you what I’ve found out?’

  ‘You’d better sit down,’ said Wexford rather sourly.

  Hannah told him about Clare Cooper, her two visits to Mrs Qasi and the reaction of the Hanifs to her questioning. ‘You can see why I’m anxious, guv. No one’s seen the girl for days, weeks maybe. Everyone’s got excuses for her not being where she’s supposed to be. But Clare Cooper did mention her being involved with a boy and as Rashid Hanif’s gone off somewhere too, surely it’s obvious they’re together. Or they’ve been together until –’

  ‘All right, I see all that. But none of it leads me to your conclusion, that she’s a victim of an honour killing. You’ve absolutely no evidence for thinking that way. It’s pure assumption.’

  ‘Would you OK it if I went to see the Rahmans tomorrow and put it to them. Asked them, I mean, if Tamima’s away because she’s with Rashid.’

  Wexford was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘Let me tell you what I should really like, Hannah. Firstly, never again to hear the name Tamima Rahman coupled with the term ‘forced marriage’ or ‘honour killing’. Then, if you go to talk to the Rahmans, I’d like you to find Tamima there, alive and well and in the bosom of her family. But preferably not to tell me about it.’

  ‘All right, guv. I get the message.’ In the doorway, Hannah turned. ‘D’you know, guv, you’re the only person I’ve talked to since I’ve been back here who hasn’t mentioned that lion?’

  Perhaps he hadn’t mentioned it because he had heard little else all day. When Hannah came in he had been looking at lion pictures on the Internet, a video that claimed – surely erroneously – to be of King ranging the open space outside its cave in the days of its captivity. He phoned Mavis Targo. No, she had heard nothing from her husband. She would have told him if she had. At present she was afraid to go outside and did so only to reach the white van in which she went shopping. This meant a walk of maybe three yards. She described to Wexford the agonies she went through each time she made that short journey, waiting for King to spring at her from out of the bushes.

  ‘And one of the muntjacs has gone.’

  Wexford had to think what a muntjac was. A sort of small deer? ‘You mean one of yours?’

  ‘Excuse me. One of Eric’s. He had three and now there’s only two. I watched them through binoculars. I was scared to go out there.’

  He would be with her next morning, he told her. It was now nearly two weeks since her husband had departed.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The lion was still at liberty. In this countryside, Wexford thought, there was very little reason why it shouldn’t retain its freedom for weeks, months even, provided it found enough small animals to feed on. The area abounded in wildlife, badgers, foxes, hares and rabbits, pheasants and partridges. On his way to Stringfield, he found himself noticing all the roadkill, squashed bloody pelts and bundles of black and brown feathers. Would a lion eat carrion? Probably, if it was hungry.

  While Donaldson stopped at a red light at the Local Traffic exit, Wexford made a phone call to the Rahmans. It was Yasmin who answered and once again her magisterial tone and economy of speech impressed him.

  ‘Hallo? Who is speaking?’

  Wexford said he wanted to talk to her and her husband, her son Ahmed too if that was possible.

  ‘My husband will be here,’ she said. ‘My son Ahmed also.’ The faintest hint of humour came into her voice. ‘And my son Osman too if you want the whole family.’

  ‘That must include Tamima, of course.’

  She was annoyed. ‘How many times do we have to tell you? Tamima is in London with her cousin.’

  ‘No, she isn’t, Mrs Rahman. But we c
an talk about that later.’

  It was a fine sunny day, the grounds of Wymondham Lodge and the downs beyond looking at their autumn best. English woods have few trees in them which turn red in November. That display is confined to North America where forests have a preponderance of maples. Here, in Sussex, the fields were green and the woods dark green and yellow and brown, the gold coming from the birches and the tawny colour from beech and oak. A little breeze ruffled the treetops, making the different shades mingle and shiver. On some distant slopes sheep grazed and there were black-and-white cattle in the meadows by the Brim. But nearer home was more exotic fauna, the llamas enjoying the sunshine, the two remaining muntjacs running for the cover of the hedge at the sound of Wexford’s car. No lion, of course, to greet him with a roar.

  The front door wasn’t opened immediately. Mavis Targo called out, ‘Who is it?’ Wexford couldn’t help smiling as he answered. Did she imagine the lion would reply with ‘It’s me, King!’

  She was very much dressed up for his visit. Or dressed up for her own satisfaction. A tight black suit and green blouse set off her heavy gold jewellery, several necklaces, earrings as large as coat buttons. Her thick fingers were stiff with gold and diamond rings. Wexford imagined her, forced by her fear to stay at home, diverting herself by trying on various outfits and hanging jewellery on to some designer creation, experimenting with colours and shapes in front of the mirror, like a little girl playing with mother’s clothes.

  ‘I haven’t heard from him,’ she began, and she didn’t mean the lion. ‘Not a word since he went off that morning. I don’t believe he’s abroad. He wouldn’t go abroad. And now Ming’s ill. He’s pining for Eric, that’s what it is. I had to take him to the vet yesterday and she says it’s a virus. It’s no virus, it’s missing Eric.’

  The Tibetan spaniel lay curled up on a pile of silk cushions in the corner. ‘Poor lamb, he won’t go in his basket. All he wants are those cushions and Sweetheart keeps annoying him. Well, he’s only a puppy, he wants to play.’

  ‘May I sit down, Mrs Targo? I want you to tell me all over again but in greater detail this time what happened on the day your husband went missing. Starting with first thing in the morning, please.’

  They went into the ornate drawing room.

  ‘Eric was up very early,’ she began. ‘But he often was. He went out somewhere – in the van, I think it was.’

  To take himself to Pomfret and what he meant to do in Cambridge Cottages, Wexford thought. ‘Did he take a dog with him?’

  ‘I don’t know. It was five in the morning. I woke up when he left and then I went to sleep again. When I got up he was back and both the dogs were there. Oh, yes, I remember he said he’d taken them out for a walk. I went shopping later on and when I got back he was out in the grounds with the animals.’ She gave Wexford an exasperated look. ‘You don’t know how many times I’ve been over this in my mind. I’ve nearly done my head in, trying to think what he said and if he said where he was going. But he never did say, I’m certain of that.’

  ‘When did he go out again?’

  ‘It would have been two or three in the afternoon. He phoned someone on his mobile first but I don’t know who that was. Then he went off in the Merc.’

  ‘Not taking a dog with him?’

  ‘I didn’t know that till he’d been gone half an hour. I hadn’t seen Ming for a bit, I’d seen Sweetheart, so I thought, he’ll have taken Ming. But he hadn’t because Ming came in from the garden soon after that.’

  ‘He said nothing to you about where he was going?’

  ‘No, but he often didn’t. If I thought about it I’d have said he went over to the Sewingbury office or maybe to see a tenant. And when he didn’t come back I thought, no, he’s gone to Birmingham and he’s stopping overnight.’

  ‘I know this is very personal, Mrs Targo,’ he said, ‘but I have to ask it. Yours wasn’t a very happy marriage, was it?’

  Very cagily, she said, ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘What, when a man goes off without a word to his wife as to where he’s going, no phone call to her from wherever that is or from his car on the way there? He stays away for days on end and doesn’t contact her?’

  ‘It’s just his way,’ she said. ‘He’s always been like that. Maybe you’ll say most women wouldn’t put up with it but I don’t care that much, I’m OK. I’ve got this place and the dogs and most of what I want. I don’t complain.’

  It was useless pursuing this line. ‘The phone call you received, the message from someone whose voice you didn’t recognise, are you sure of that? Are you sure you didn’t know the voice?’

  ‘It wasn’t Eric’s and it wasn’t Alan’s, I do know that. But I do think I’d heard it before. It sounds a funny thing to say but I think it was the voice of someone who’s been here to do some work, a builder or a gardener or maybe someone to do with the animals.’

  ‘Can you be more specific?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I just know it was a voice I’d heard before.’

  ‘Someone employed by your husband at the Sewingbury office?’

  ‘I never met them – well, there was only one and he left before Eric went missing. I never heard his voice.’

  Wexford sighed internally. ‘The forensic tests on your car – that is the Mercedes – have been completed. It will be brought back tomorrow.’

  She nodded indifferently. ‘I never drive it.’ Sweetheart came padding in, its tail wagging when it saw Wexford. Mavis picked it up and held it in her arms. ‘Poor lamb hasn’t been out walkies for three days. But what can I do? I can’t risk my life to take a dog out.’

  Targo would, Wexford thought irrelevantly. With nothing more in view than to provide her with some reassurance, nothing but to look at the quiet, empty, sunlit land, Wexford got up and approached the French windows. He put his hand to the doorknob. ‘May I?’

  ‘You can if you want but be careful.’

  ‘Mrs Targo, your lion isn’t going to be waiting outside, enjoying the sunshine.’ But it was.

  Wexford stepped back, closed the door again. King was fast asleep. It lay curled up on the terrace like the big cat it was, at the foot of its marble facsimile and its woman attendant, a yard or so from him the pathetic remains of what had once been a small deer. Only the deer’s almost fleshless long legs had been rejected. The rest had been King’s breakfast or perhaps the previous night’s supper.

  ‘I phoned the Big Cats man from the zoo,’ Wexford told Burden several hours later. ‘I’m probably being unfair but I thought the Feline Foundation chap might be a bit trigger-happy. Then I sat down with Mavis in that awful pseudo-Versailles room and she kept saying over and over, “What am I going to do?” I kept telling her to do nothing, just wait for the man with the anaesthetic to come. “You could make us a cup of tea,” I said, but she’s no Yasmin Rahman. It took her a good fifteen minutes and when the tea came it was pale grey and tepid. Made me wonder if she’d ever made tea before. While I was drinking it or pretending to, Ming the spaniel was sick.’

  ‘But the zoo man did come?’

  ‘Oh, yes, he came. By that time I was wondering how long that lion would stay asleep and what if he woke up before Big Cats arrived. However, King stayed asleep, the man came – accompanied by two other chaps, maybe what we used to call zookeepers – a shot was fired into King’s flank, he rolled over quietly and sort of collapsed into unconsciousness. Mavis started screaming that he was dead and what would Eric say when he came back. I felt like saying, “He won’t come back here, he’ll be in custody,” but of course I didn’t.’

  ‘What’s happened to the lion?’

  ‘Big Cats and his mates lifted him up on to a sort of stretcher and put him into the back of their van. A black van, incidentally, with Myringham Zoo’s logo on the side, a giraffe gobbling up the top of a tree. One of the mates came back and cleared up the remains of the unfortunate muntjac. He told me that if no one claimed him they’d keep King. Apparently, they’re loo
king for a stud male for their three lionesses.’

  ‘So a happy ending for King and his harem.’

  ‘Yes. At least there’s been something good coming out of Targo’s disappearance. Have we time for lunch before I go to the Rahmans?’

  ‘I’ve ordered Indian takeaway,’ said Burden.

  Wexford sat behind his rosewood desk which was his own private possession and Burden – his attempts to perch himself on one corner of it meeting with a frown – took the only other comfortable chair in the office.

  ‘I’m going to see the Rahmans, all of them except Tamima of course, to try and lay to rest this obsession of Hannah’s with Tamima’s forced marriage or honour killing. But if I get nothing out of them except denials we’re still left with the dilemma of where the girl is. Now what I think is that she’s simply gone off with Rashid Hanif. His mother told Hannah he’d inherited “a little bit” of money. That might be ten thousand pounds or fifty, depending on whether you yourself are rich or poor. Whatever it is I don’t think he’s camping as his mother says he is. I think he’s having a teenage honeymoon with Tamima somewhere.’

  ‘You mean her parents know this?’

  ‘I doubt it. But they must know not she’s not in any of the places she’s supposed to be, that is with her aunt Mrs Qasi, or with the two girls who share a flat in Wandsworth. In any event, I expect them to be worried and therefore glad to see me. I’m also going to ask Ahmed and his mother – she was in the house at the time while Osman was out and their father was ill – exactly what happened when Targo called at their house in Glebe Road some eight or nine hours after he’d killed Andy Norton.’

  The takeaway that arrived came from the Dal Lake, chicken korma, aloo gobi, rice and mango chutney plus a plateful of chapattis, all brought up by Lynn Fancourt, who also provided on the tray a jug of iced water and a packet of paper napkins, rather incongruously printed with a design of holly and mistletoe berries.