Simisola

by Ruth Rendell

  on the table and various objects in the room, such as flowers and books, as being beyond the means of those living on seventy-four pounds a week. This was the sum total of UB and IS granted the Fairfaxes by the Employment Service and the Department of Social Security. How quickly she had seized upon that weapon of the disadvantaged most calculated to wound the sensibilities of the better off! Her father sometimes wondered where she had picked up such a catalogue of maddening habits. A tinkly laugh preceded most of these comments. ‘That’s clotted cream, Robin, to put on your raspberries. Make the most of it. You’re not likely to get it at home.’ Robin, of course, said it was no problem. ‘Koi gull knee.’ ‘I shouldn’t have any more wine, Neil. Drinking is just a habit and it’s not a habit you can afford the way things are.’ ‘If it isn’t there I can’t drink it, can I? But it is here and I’m making the most of it like you told the boys to do with the clotted cream. Right?’ ‘Mafesh,’ said Robin in a heartfelt way. Wexford felt he was spending his life escaping from things, uncomfortable situations, people’s misery, unhappy occasions. It was raining again. He drove himself down to the mortuary, having resisted a masochistic temptation to fetch the Akandes himself. The car brought them, both of them, at ten past two. Masterful for once, Akande said to his wife, ‘I’ll go in first. I’ll do it.’ ‘All right.’ Laurette was hollow-eyed. Her features seemed to have got bigger and her face smaller. But her glossy hair was still carefully dressed, coiled and pinned to the back of her head. And she was still well dressed. In the black suit and black blouse, she looked as if she was going to a funeral. Raymond Akande’s face had been grey for a long while now and he had been losing weight steadily since his daughter first disappeared. That fortnight had made him ten pounds lighter. Wexford took him into the mortuary, the chilly abode now shared by the bodies of two dead women. He lifted the edge of the sheet in both hands and exposed the face. Akande hesitated a moment, then came forward. He bent over, looked at the face and sprang back. ‘That’s not my daughter! That’s not Melanie!’ Wexford’s mouth went dry. ‘Dr Akande, are you sure? Look again, please.’ ‘Of course I’m sure. That’s not my daughter. Do you think a man doesn’t know his own child?’

  Chapter Fourteen Shock suspends everything. There is no thought, only automatic reaction, movement, mechanical speech. Wexford followed Akande out of the mortuary, his mind a blank, his body obeying motor instructions. Laurette had her back to them. She had been talking, or doing her best to talk, to Karen Malahyde. At the sound of their footsteps she got up, but slowly. Her husband went up to her. His walk was a little unsteady and when he put out his hand to her he seemed to clutch her arm for support. ‘Letty,’ he said, ‘it isn’t Melanie.’ ‘What?’ ‘It isn’t her, Letty.’ His voice shook. ‘I don’t know who it is but it isn’t Melanie.’ ‘What are you saying?’ ‘Letty, it’s not Melanie.’ He was very close to her. He bowed his head against her shoulder. She put her arms round him and held him, she held his head against her breast and stared at Wexford over his shoulder. ‘I don’t understand.’ She was cold as stone. ‘We gave you a photograph.’ The enormity of what had happened, realization of that enormity, was beginning to take over from shock. Wexford said, ‘Yes,’ and ‘Yes, that’s right.’ Her voice began to rise. ‘This dead girl, she’s black?’ ‘Yes.’ Karen Malahyde, who had seen Wexford’s face, said, ‘Mrs Akande, if you’d just . . .’ Softly, as if it was a baby she held, so as not to disturb the baby, Laurette Akande whispered, ‘How dare you do that to us!’ ‘Mrs Akande,’ said Wexford, ‘I am extremely sorry this has happened.’ He added, with what must have been a lie, ‘No one regrets it more than I do.’ ‘How dare you do that to us?’ Laurette screamed at Wexford. She forgot the baby at her breast. Her hands had ceased to nurse him. ‘How dare you treat us like that? You’re just a damned racist like the rest of them. Coming to our house patronizing us, the great white man condescending to us, so magnanimous, so liberal . . . !’ ‘Letty, don’t,’ Akande begged her. ‘Please don’t.’ She ignored him. She took a step towards Wexford, both fists up now. ‘It was because she was black, wasn’t it? I haven’t seen her but I know, I can see it all. One black girl’s just the same as another to you, isn’t she? A negress. A nigger, a darkie . . . ’ ‘Mrs Akande, I’m sorry. I am deeply sorry.’ ‘You regret it. You damned hypocrite! You don’t have prejudice, do you? Oh, no, you’re not a racist, black and white are all equal in your eyes. But when you find a dead black girl it’s got to be our girl because we’re black!’ Akande was shaking his head. ‘Not a bit like her,’ he said. ‘Not a bit.’ ‘Black, though. Black, isn’t she?’

  ‘That’s the only way she’s like her, Letty. She’s black.’ ‘So we don’t get a wink of sleep all night. Our son sits up all night and what’s he doing? He’s crying. For hours and hours. He hasn’t cried for ten years but he cried last night. And we tell the neighbours, the nice white liberal neighbours who are big-hearted enough to feel sorry for parents whose daughter’s been murdered, even though she was only one of those coloured girls, one of those blacks.’ ‘Believe me, Mrs Akande,’ Wexford said. ‘it’s a mistake that’s been made many times before and the dead have been white.’ It was true but still she was right, he knew she was right. ‘I can only apologize again. I’m very sorry this has happened.’ ‘We’ll go home now,’ Akande said to his wife. She looked at Wexford as if she would have liked to spit at him. She didn’t do this. The tears she hadn’t shed when she thought the body in there was her daughter’s now streamed down her cheeks. Sobbing, she hung on to her husband’s arm with both hands and he led her out to the waiting car. A salutary lesson. We think we know ourselves but we don’t, and self-discovery of this particular kind of ignorance is bitter. What he had said to Laurette Akande about a similar confusion sometimes occurring between the bodies of white people was factually accurate. It was scarcely true in spirit. He had assumed a black girl’s body was that of a missing black girl and he had done so because she was black. The photograph he had of Melanie Akande had not been referred to. The known heights of the missing girl and the dead girl had not been compared. With a wince, he remembered how only that morning, only about three hours before, Mavrikiev had expressed surprise that the age of the body on the table was twenty-two and not eighteen or nineteen. Now he recalled something learned long ago from a forensic report, that certain important bones in the female anatomy have fused by the age of twenty-two. . . . The worst thing for him was that it had shown him he was wrong about himself. This error had occurred through prejudice, through racism, through making an assumption he could never have made if the missing girl were white and the body white. In such a case he would merely have thought it likely the lost girl had been found, but he would have done a lot more rigorous research into appearance and statistics before summoning the parents to make an identification. Laurette’s reproaches were valid, if violent. Well, it was a lesson and that was how it must be viewed. There was no question of ceasing his visits to the Akandes. The first one, but only the first one, would be uncomfortable for all of them. Unless, of course, they saw to it that the first was the last. He had apologized, and more humbly than he usually did to anyone. He wouldn’t say he was sorry again. It came to him, and brought him a wry amusement, that the lesson was having its results already, for from tomorrow he was going to begin treating the Akandes not as members of the disadvantaged minority worthy of special consideration, he was going to treat them as ordinary human beings. But since the dead girl wasn’t Melanie, who was she? A black girl was missing and a black girl’s body had been found but there was no apparent connection between the two. Burden, untroubled by Wexford’s scruples and sensibilities, said it ought to be easy enough to identify her now that the police had a national register for missing persons. It would be easier because she was black. Whatever might be the situation in London or Bradford few black people lived in this part of southern England and still fewer went

  missing. By this time, however, halfway through Monday, he had already disc
overed that nowhere in the area of the Mid-Sussex Constabulary had the police a missing person approximating to this girl’s description on their computer. ‘There’s a Tamil woman been missing since February. She and her husband had the Kandy Palace restaurant in Myringham. But she’s thirty and though I suppose technically she’s black, they’re very dark those Tamils . . .’ ‘Let’s not get into that one again,’ said Wexford. ‘I’ll get on to the national register,’ Burden said. ‘I suppose she could have been brought here, dead or alive, from some place like South London where I’ve no doubt girls go missing every day. And what happens now to our theory that Annette was killed because of something Melanie told her?’ ‘Nothing happens to it,’ Wexford said slowly. ‘Finding this girl has nothing to do with Melanie. It’s irrelevant, it’s something else. We still have the status quo. Melanie does something or says something her killer doesn’t want known and he kills Annette because Annette, and presumably Annette alone, has been told what that is. After all, this girl being dead doesn’t mean Melanie’s alive. Melanie is dead too and we just haven’t yet found her body.’ ‘You don’t think this girl – what shall we call her? We’d better give her a name.’ ‘Yes, OK, but for God’s sake don’t come up with something from Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’ Puzzled, Burden said, ‘I’ve never read it.’ ‘Sojourner, we’ll call her,’ Wexford said, ‘after Sojourner Truth, the “Ain’t I a woman?” poet. And maybe . . . well, I somehow see her as impermanent, homeless, alone. “I am a stranger with thee and a sojourner”, you know.’ Burden didn’t know. He wore his deeply suspicious uneasy look. ‘Sodgernah?’ ‘That’s right. What were you going to say. You said that this girl . . .?’ ‘Oh, yes. You don’t think this girl – I mean what’s-her-name, Sojourner – you don’t think she said something significant to Annette?’ Wexford looked interested. ‘At the Benefit Office, d’you mean?’ ‘If we don’t have a clue who she is she’s just as likely to be signing on or be a new claimant as not. It’s a way of identifying her, see if they’ve got someone answering her description among their claimants.’ ‘Annette was killed on Wednesday the seventh, Sojourner certainly before that, maybe on the fifth or sixth. It fits, Mike. It’s a good idea. Clever of you.’ Burden looked pleased. ‘We can also check what immigrants are registered with us. I’ll go down to the Benefit Office myself. Take Barry with me. By the way, where is Barry?’ Sergeant Vine tapped on the door and was in the room before Wexford had time to answer. He had been in Stowerton, talking to James Ranger. Ranger was retired, a widower, a solitary man, who had been on his way to spend Saturday evening babysitting his grandsons when from his car he spotted Broadley digging up a grave. ‘He says he won’t do that again,’ said Vine. ‘Apparently, his daughter and her husband missed their dinner dance. He says next time he sees some peasant, I quote, desecrating the environment he’s going to accelerate and drive right on past. D’you know what he thought Broadley was up to? You won’t believe this. He thought he was digging up orchids! Apparently there’s some rare orchid grows up there and he’s its self-appointed guardian.’

  ‘Ranger by name and ranger by nature,’ said Wexford. ‘Bit unusual, though, wasn’t it, quiet elderly chap like him, champion of endangered species, baby-sitter, owner of a ten- year-old but immaculate 2CV, bit odd him having a carphone, isn’t it? What does he have it for? To call the botanical police when he sees someone pick a primrose?’ ‘I asked him that. He said it was as well he did have it, so he could ring us.’ ‘Not an answer to your question, though.’ ‘No. When pressed, he said – wait for it – it was in case he broke down on the motorway at night.’ Vine laughed. ‘I’ve got him high on my suspect list. I was coming away from his place, had to park the car half a mile away as usual, when who do I see coming out of that block of flats in the High Street, Something Court, Clifton Court, but Kimberley Pearson.’ ‘Did you speak to her?’ ‘I asked her how she was getting on in her new home. She had Clint with her all dressed up in a brand-new baby tracksuit sitting in a very smart buggy. She’d tarted herself up a good bit too, red leggings and one of those bustier things and shoes with heels like that.’ Vine held up thumb and forefinger five inches apart. ‘A changed woman. She’d told me she was moving into the home of her late grandma. It didn’t seem that sort of place. I mean, quite a smart block of newish flats.’ Burden gave Wexford a sidelong look. ‘That’ll set your mind at rest,’ he said not very pleasantly. ‘You were getting worried about their fate.’ ‘ “Worried” is a strong word, Inspector Burden,’ Wexford snapped. ‘Most people not entirely callous would be concerned for a child living in those circumstances.’ There was a short uncomfortable silence. Then Vine said, ‘She seems to be getting on all right without Zack. Glad to see the back of him, I expect.’ Wexford said nothing. He had another date with the Snows. Did the death of Sojourner affect his approach to them? Did it perhaps entirely change his attitude? He felt suddenly as if lost in a dark wood. Why had he bitten Mike’s head off like that? He picked up the phone and asked Bruce Snow to come to the police station at five. ‘I shan’t be done here till half-past.’ ‘Five, please, Mr Snow. And I want your wife here too.’ ‘You’ll be lucky,’ Snow said. ‘She’s going away tonight, taking the kids and going to Malta or Elba or somewhere.’ ‘No, she isn’t,’ said Wexford. He dialled the number of the house in Harrow Avenue and a young girl’s voice answered. ‘Mrs Snow, please.’ ‘This is her daughter. Who wants her?’ ‘Chief Inspector Wexford, Kingsmarkham CID.’ ‘Oh, right. Hang on.’ He had to hang on a long time and felt his temper rising. When she finally came to the phone she had regained her coolness. The ice maiden was back in occupation. ‘Yes, what is it?’ ‘I’d like you to come down to the police station at five, please, Mrs Snow.’ ‘Sorry, but that won’t be convenient. My flight to Marseille is at ten to five.’ ‘It will be leaving without you. Have you forgotten I asked you not to go anywhere?’ ‘No, I haven’t, but I didn’t take it seriously. It’s so absurd – what has all this to do with me? I’m the injured party. I’m taking my poor children away from it all. Their father’s behaviour has broken their hearts.’

  ‘Their hearts can wait a few days to be mended, Mrs Snow. I don’t suppose you’d like to find yourself on a charge of obstructing police enquiries, would you?’ He knew better than to believe he could understand people. Why, for instance, did this woman need to lie? She was, as she had just told him, the injured party. Deceiving a wife with a mistress over a period of nine years was to do her a serious injury, for it humiliated as well as hurt her, it made her feel a fool. As for Snow, Wexford knew he would never understand the man’s conduct. He would hardly have believed it had someone told him that here, in England, in the nineties, a man could enjoy a woman’s sexual favours for years on end without paying her, without giving her presents or taking her out, without the use of a hotel room or even a bed, in his office, on the floor, so as to be within reach of his wife’s voice on the phone. And if he couldn’t understand that, why should he understand any other aspects of Snow’s behaviour? It seemed absurd to him that the man might have killed Sojourner because, say, Annette had told her about their affair. But all Snow’s transactions were incomprehensible to him. So might he have beaten her to death and buried her out there in Framhurst Woods? Kill Annette, kill the woman Annette had told, and all to stop it reaching his wife’s ears? Well, they all now knew what happened when it did reach his wife’s ears. . . . Sojourner could have been blackmailing him. Perhaps only in a small way. It wouldn’t hurt him to give her a bit of money from time to time to keep her from telling his wife. And then she asked for more money, perhaps for a lump sum. Wexford found he disliked thinking this way. Somewhere in his mind, not quite consciously, he had made Sojourner into a good person. Sojourner was the innocent victim of wicked men who exploited and abused her, while she was herself virtuous and gentle, a keeper not a betrayer of secrets, a fearful, simple, trusting soul. Of course he was sentimentalizing her. Where now was the lesson he should have learned and thought he had learned from that busin
ess with the Akandes? He knew nothing about the girl, not her real name, her country of origin, her family if any, not even her age. And Mavrikiev’s forensic report, when it came, would tell him very little of that. He didn’t even know if she had ever so much as set foot in the Benefit Office. Bruce Snow sat in Interview Room One with Burden. His wife was with Wexford in Interview Room Two. Putting them in the same room last time had resulted in the slanging match Wexford didn’t want to see repeated. He faced a sulky Carolyn Snow across the table, Karen Malahyde standing behind her and wearing a look of unconcealed distaste – for everything concerned with Mrs Snow, Wexford guessed, her lifestyle, her status as wife without a job or personal income and, unfortunately, her new position as a betrayed, deceived woman. ‘I’d like to put it on record,’ Carolyn was saying, ‘that I think it outrageous I’m being stopped from going on holiday. It’s an unjustified interference with my liberty. And my poor children – what have they done?’ ‘It’s not what they’ve done but what you’ve done, Mrs Snow. Or, rather, not done. You can put what you like on record. For all your boasts that you don’t tell lies, you haven’t been truthful with me.’ In the other room Burden was asking Bruce Snow if he would like to amend his statement at all or add to it in any way. Would he, for instance, care to tell Burden what he was doing during the evening of the seventh of July?