by Ruth Rendell
‘Did you give him any money?’
‘Not me. D’you think I’m daft? I wasn’t born yesterday.’ The irony of this last remark was entirely lost on Brenda Harrison, who went on serenely, ‘I said, publish and be damned! I’d read that in a book and I’d always remembered it, don’t know why. Publish and be damned, I said, go on, do your worst. He wanted five pounds down and five pounds a week till further notice. That’s what he said, “till further notice”.
‘The minute Ken came in I told him everything. He said, come along, my girl, we’re going next door to have it out with those Griffins. That’ll finish them with Davina, he said. I know it’s unpleasant for you, he said, but it’ll soon be over and you’ll feel better for knowing you did the right thing. So next door we went and I told them everything. In a quiet way, not getting excited, I just quietly told them what he’d done and about the Peeping Tom too. Of course Mrs Griffin went hysterical, shouting her precious Andy wouldn’t do that, him so clean and pure and not knowing what a girl was for and all that. Ken said, I’m going to Mr and Mrs Copeland – we never called them by their Christian names to those Griffins, of course, that wouldn’t have been suitable – I’m going to Mr and Mrs Copeland, he said, and he did and me with him.
‘Well, the upshot of it was Davina said Andy’d have to go. They could stay but he’d have to go. The alternative – that’s what she said, the alternative – was calling the police and she didn’t want to do that if she could help it. Mrs Griffin wouldn’t have that, she wouldn’t be separated from her Andy, so they said they’d all go, Mr Griffin’d take early retirement, though what she meant by “early” I don’t know. He looks knocking seventy to me.
‘Of course we had to put up with them next door for weeks and weeks after that, months. Mind you, Andy had a job then, some labouring job for an American friend of Harvey’s he put him on to out of the goodness of his heart, so we never saw much of him. I’d said to Ken, come what may, I’d said, I shan’t speak a work to any of them. I’ll look through them if we happen to meet outside, and that’s what I did, and in the end they went like they were bound to, and Johnny Gabbitas came.’
Wexford remained silent for a moment or two. He watched the rain. Drifts of crocuses made purple stains across the green grass. The forsythia was out, brilliant yellow like sunshine on this dull wet day.
He said to Brenda Harrison, ‘When did you last see Mrs Garland?’
She looked surprised at this apparent change of subject. Wexford suspected that now the matter had been brought out into the open she was not at all averse to talking of her husband’s jealousy and her own irresistible attractions. She answered him rather peevishly.
‘Not for months, years. I know she came up here most Tuesday nights but I never saw her. I’d always gone home.’
‘Mrs Jones told you she came?’
‘I don’t know as she ever mentioned it,’ Brenda said indifferently. ‘Why should she?’
‘Then . . .?’
‘How did I know? Oh, I see what you mean. She used Ken’s brother’s cars, didn’t she?’ Wexford’s obvious bewilderment fetched an explanation from her. ‘Between you and I, she liked a drink, did Joanne Garland. And sometimes two or three. Well, you can understand it, can’t you? After a day in that shop. Beats me how they ever sold a thing. It really beats me how those places keep going. Anyway, sometimes when she’d had one too many, I mean when she reckoned she was over the limit, she wouldn’t drive her car, she’d give Ken’s brother a ring for one of his. Well, to bring her up here for one thing and take her wherever else she might fancy going. She’s rolling in money, of course, never thought twice about ringing up for a car.’
‘Your brother-in-law runs a taxi service?’
Mrs Harrison put on a look of refinement, rarefied, slightly sour. ‘I wouldn’t put it that way. He doesn’t advertise, he has a private clientele, a few special selected clients.’ She became alarmed. ‘It’s all above board, you needn’t look like that. I’ll tell you his name, we’ve nothing to hide, I’ll give you all the details you want, I’m sure you’re welcome.’
Occasionally in the past, when he had published a book he thought might interest his friend, Amyas Ireland had made a present of a copy to Wexford. It was always a pleasure, on arriving home in the evening, to find the parcel addressed to him, the padded bag with the publisher’s name and logo on its label. But since the takeover of Carlyon-Brent he had received nothing, so it was a surprise to see a larger than usual parcel waiting for him. This time the logo was the St Giles Press’s lion with fritillary in its mouth but inside, tucked among the books, was a letter on the familiar headed paper and an explanation from Amyas.
In the particular circumstances, he had thought Wexford might be interested in three of Davina Flory’s books, which they were currently re-issuing in a new format: The Holy City, The Other Side of the Wall and The Hosts of Midian. If Reg would like a copy of the first – and now, sadly, to be the only – volume of the autobiography, he had only to ask. He was sorry he hadn’t been in touch before. Reg would be aware they had been taken over, but perhaps not of the subsequent shake-up and Amyas’s fear for the fate of his own imprint. It had been an anxious time. However, all now seemed well, Carlyon Quick, as they were now to be known, had a wonderful autumn list in view. They were most specially delighted to have secured the rights in Augustine Casey’s new novel, The Lash.
This was almost enough to spoil Wexford’s pleasure in the Davina Flory books. The phone rang as he was glancing desultorily through the first of them. It was Sheila. Thursday was her evening for phoning. He listened to Dora speaking to her, indulging himself in a favourite pastime of trying to guess what she was saying from his wife’s astonished, delighted or merely interested replies.
Dora’s words fell into none of those categories this evening. He heard her expression of disappointment, ‘Oh, dear,’ and a more intense regret, ‘Is that a good idea? Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’ He had a feeling as of his heart growing heavy, a tension in his chest. He half got up from the table, sat down again, listened.
Dora said in the cold stiff tone he hated when it was directed at himself, ‘You’ll want to talk to your father, I suppose.’
He took the receiver. Before she spoke he found himself thinking, she has the most beautiful voice I ever heard from a woman’s mouth.
The beautiful voice said, ‘Mother’s cross with me. I expect you will be. I’ve turned down that part.’
A glorious lightness, a splendid relief. Was that all it was? ‘In Miss Julie? I expect you know what you’re doing.’
‘God knows if I do or not. The thing is I’m going to Nevada with Gus. I turned it down to go to Nevada with Gus.’
Chapter Fourteen
At Kingsmarkham station, illuminated digital letters announced that an experimental queueing system was in operation. In other words, instead of waiting comfortably, two or three to each ticket window, you lined up between ropes. It was as bad as Euston. In the concourse, up near the platform from which the Manchester train would depart, was a sign instructing travellers: ‘Form queue here.’
Nothing about the train, nothing welcoming, nothing to say when it would leave, only the assumption made that there would be a queue. It was worse than wartime. Wexford could remember wartime – just – and then, while they might take queueing for granted, they at least put no official stamp on it.
Perhaps he should have let Donaldson drive him. He hadn’t done so because of a weary dread of the motorways and their congestion. Trains were fast these days, trains didn’t get into jams with other trains, and on weekdays at any rate railway tracks weren’t being constantly excavated and mended as roads were. Unless there was snow or a hurricane, trains ran. He had bought himself a paper at Kingsmarkham and read it on the journey to Victoria. He could always buy another here, anything to keep his mind off Sheila and what had happened last night. On the other hand, The Times hadn’t stopped him thinking about it, so why sh
ould the Independent?
The queue wound quite elegantly round the broad concourse. No one protested, just joined the tail of it, uncomplaining. It had formed a near-circle, as if these travellers were about to join hands and start singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’. Then the barrier opened and everyone was let in, not exactly surging, but pushing a bit, impatient to reach the train.
A nice, newish, smart, modern train. Wexford had a reserved seat. He found it, sat down, looked at the front page of his paper and thought about Sheila, heard Sheila’s voice. The ring of it, in his head, made him flinch.
‘You’d made up your mind to hate him before you’d even met him!’
How she could rail! Like Petruchio’s Shrew, a role of which she had oddly not made a success.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Sheila. I’ve never made up my mind to hate anyone before I’ve met them.’
‘There’s always a first time. Oh, I know why. You were jealous, you knew you had real cause. You knew none of the others meant a thing to me, not even Andrew. I was in love for the first time in my life and you saw the red light, you saw the danger, you were determined to hate anyone I loved. And why? Because you were afraid I’d love him better than you.’
They had often quarrelled before. They were the kind of people who rowed hotly, lost their tempers, made up and forgot the cause of it within minutes. This time it was different.
‘We’re not talking about love,’ he had said. ‘We’re talking about common sense and reasonable behaviour. You’d throw up maybe the best part you’ve ever had to tag along to the middle of nowhere just to be with that . . .’
‘Don’t say it! Don’t abuse him!’
‘I couldn’t abuse him. What would be abuse to a miscreant like him? To that drunken foul-mouthed clown? The biggest insults I could find would flatter him.’
‘My God, whatever I’ve inherited from you, I’m glad it isn’t your tongue. Listen to me, Father . . .’
He gave a whoop of laughter. ‘Father? Since when have you called me Father?’
‘Right, I’ll call you nothing. Listen to me, will you? I love him with all my heart. I’ll never leave him!’
‘You’re not on stage at the Olivier now,’ said Wexford very nastily. He heard her draw in her breath. ‘And if you go on like this I frankly doubt if you ever will be again.’
‘I wonder,’ she said distantly – oh, she had inherited much from him! – ‘I wonder if it’s ever occurred to you to think about how unusual it is for a daughter to be as close to her parents as I’ve been to you and Mother, how I phone you a couple of times a week, how I’m always coming down to see you. Have you ever wondered why?’
‘No. I know why. It’s because we’ve always been nice and sweet and loving to you, because we’ve spoiled you to hell and let you stomp all over us, and now that I’ve summoned up the nerve to confront you and tell you a few home truths about you and that ugly little pseud . . .’
He never finished the sentence. What he was going to cite as the consequence of his ‘nerve’ he never reached, and now he had forgotten what it was. Before he could get another word out she had slammed down the receiver.
He knew he shouldn’t have spoken to her like that. His mother, long ago, had used a regretful phrase which was perhaps current in her youth: ‘Come back all I said!’ If only it were possible to call back all one had said! By saying those words of his mother’s, to cancel out abuse and sarcasm, to make five minutes disappear. But it wasn’t possible, and none knew better than he that no word uttered could ever be lost, only, one day, like everything else that ever happened in human existence, it might be forgotten.
His phone was in his pocket. The train, as usual these days, was full of people using phones, mostly men making business calls. It had been a novelty not long ago, now it was commonplace. He could phone her, she might be at home. She might put the receiver down when she heard his voice. Wexford, who didn’t usually care for the opinion of others, very much disliked the idea of his fellow passengers witnessing the effect this would have on him.
A trolley came round with coffee and those ubiquitous sandwiches, the kind he liked in three-dimensional plastic boxes. In this world are two kinds of people – among the fed, that is – those who when worried eat for comfort and those whose appetite is killed by anxiety. Wexford belonged in the first category. He had had breakfast and presumably he would have lunch, but he bought a bacon and egg sandwich just the same. Eating it appreciatively, he found himself hoping that what he encountered at Royal Oak would to some extent drive Sheila from his mind.
At Crewe he got a taxi. The taxi driver knew all about the prison, where it was and what sort of institution it was. Wexford wondered who were the fares he habitually drove up there. Visitors perhaps, sweethearts and wives. There had been a move here a year or two ago to allow ‘conjugal visits in private’ but this had been smartly vetoed. Sex was evidently rated highly among amenities not to be countenanced.
The prison turned out to be well out in the country, in, according to the driver, the valley of the River Wheelock. Royal Oak, he told Wexford in a practised guide-like way, came from an ancient tree, long since disappeared, in which King Charles had hidden from his enemies. Which King Charles he didn’t say and Wexford wondered how many such trees proliferated in England, as many as there were beds slept in by Elizabeth I, no doubt. There was certainly one in Cheriton Forest, a favourite picnic spot. Charles must have spent years of his life climbing them.
Huge, sprawling, hideous. Surely what must be the highest and longest wall in the Midlands. No trees here. So barren, indeed, was the plain on which the cluster of crimson brick buildings stood, as to make the name absurd. ‘Her Majesty’s Prison: Royal Oak’. He had arrived.
Would the taxi come back for him? Wexford was presented with the hire company’s card. He could phone. The taxi disappeared rather quickly as if, unless a speedy escape was made, there might be problems about getting away at all.
One of the governors, a man called David Cairns, gave him a cup of coffee in a rather nice room with carpet on the floor and framed posters on the walls. The rest of the place looked like all such places, but smelt better. While Wexford drank his coffee Cairns said he supposed he knew all about Royal Oak and its survival in spite of official distrust and Home Office dislike. Wexford said he thought so, but Cairns proceeded to describe the system just the same. He was obviously proud of the place, an idealist with shining eyes.
Paradoxically, it was the most violent and recalcitrant prisoners who were referred to Royal Oak. Of course, they also had to want to come. So many wanted to come that there was currently a waiting list of over a hundred. Staff and inmates were on Christian-name terms. Group therapy and mutual counselling were the order of the day. Prisoners mixed, for, uniquely, there was no Rule 43 segregation here and no hierarchy of murderers and violent criminals at the top and sex offenders at the bottom.
All inmates came to Royal Oak on referral, usually the recommendation of a prison Senior Medical Officer. Which reminded him, their own Senior Medical Officer, Sam Rosenberg, would like to see him before he went to meet Jem Hocking. As he’d said, it was all first names here. None of your ‘Sir’ this and ‘Dr’ that.
A member of staff conducted Wexford to the hospital, which was just another wing. They passed men walking about freely – freely up to a point – dressed in tracksuits or pants and sweatshirts. He couldn’t resist a glance through an interior window where a group therapy session was in progress. The men sat round in a circle. They were opening their hearts and baring their souls, the member of staff said, learning how to bring to the surface all their inner confusions. Wexford thought they looked as hangdog and wretched as most incarcerated people.
A smell just like Stowerton Infirmary hung about the hospital; lime juice, lysol and sweat. All hospitals smell the same, except private ones which smell of money. Dr Rosenberg was in his room which was like the charge nurse’s room at Stowerton. Only the cigarette smoke was absent.
It commanded a view of the empty green plain and a line of electricity pylons.
Lunch had just arrived. There was enough for two, unexciting piles of brown slime on pillows of boiled rice, chicken curry probably. ‘Individual’ fruit pies to follow and a carton of non-dairy creamer. But Wexford was eating for comfort and he accepted at once Sam Rosenberg’s invitation to join him while they talked about Jem Hocking.
The medical officer was a short thickset man of forty with a round childlike face and a thatch of prematurely grey hair. His clothes were like those of the prisoners, a tracksuit and trainers.
‘What d’you think?’ he said, waving a hand towards door and ceiling. ‘This place, I mean. Bit different from the “System”, eh?’
Wexford understood the ‘System’ to refer to the rest of the prison service and agreed it was.
‘Of course it doesn’t seem to work. If by “work” we mean stopping them doing it again. On the other hand, that’s rather hard to tell because most of them hardly get the chance to do anything much again. They’re lifers.’ Sam Rosenberg wiped up the remains of his curry with a hunk of bread. He seemed to be enjoying his lunch. ‘Jem Hocking asked to come here. He was convicted in September, was sent to the Scrubs or it may have been Wandsworth, and set about tearing the place apart. He was referred here just before Christmas and he got into what we do here, roughly an on-going “talking it through”, like a – well, a duck to water.’
‘What did he do?’
‘What was his conviction for? He went to this house where the owner was supposed to keep her shop takings over the weekend, found five hundred pounds or so in a handbag and half-beat to death the woman who lived there. She was seventy-two. He used a seven-pound hammer.’
‘No gun involved?’
‘No gun, so far as I know. Have one of these pies, will you? They’re raspberry and redcurrant, not bad. We have the non-dairy creamer because I’m a bit of a cholesterol freak. I mean, I’m scared of it, I believe in battling against it. Jem’s ill at the moment. He thinks he’s dying but he’s not. Not this time.’