Simisola

by Ruth Rendell

  Neil took a swig of his drink. ‘I’ve got a job. And in my own line. I’m going into partnership with this old architect, terribly distinguished man, and he’s funding it, I’m . . .’ ‘I do think,’ said Sylvia, ‘that it’s outrageous you coming out with that in front of everyone instead of telling me first.’ Her father was inclined to agree but he said nothing. He had a drink too. ‘Alexander Dix,’ he said, when the whisky struck home. Neil had taken his younger son on his knee. ‘That’s right. The one offer I answered that was taken up. How did you know?’ ‘I doubt if there’s more than one rich old distinguished architect in Kingsmarkham.’ ‘We’re starting with a rather ambitious plan for the Castlegate site. A shopping mall, if that isn’t to degrade what it will ultimately be. A thing of beauty, an asset to the town centre, crystal and gold, with a Crescent supermarket as the pivot of the whole thing.’ He caught his father-in-law’s eye and misinterpreted the gleam he saw there. ‘Oh, without the moons and minarets, don’t worry. It’s part of this new government policy to restore commerce to town centres.’ He said laconically to Sylvia, ‘You can stop signing on as from Tuesday.’ ‘Thanks very much. That’s for me to decide, I think.’ ‘You might say you’re pleased.’ ‘I don’t specially want to be part of the kind of society where the woman is indoors and the man comes home and says he’s got a lucrative new job, so she says, Oh goody, can I have a pearl necklace and a fur coat now?’ ‘You shouldn’t wear fur,’ said Ben. ‘I don’t, I can’t afford it, and never will be able to.’ ‘Walang problema,’ said Wexford in Tagalog. Robin, in his headset, looked up at him pityingly from the screen in his hand. ‘I don’t do that any more, grandad,’ he said. ‘I’m into first day covers with celebrity autographs now. Do you think you could get me Anouk Khoori’s?’

  Chapter Twenty-Three The march of the unemployed was due to begin at eleven in the morning, the marchers asked to assemble in Stowerton marketplace with their banners and the column would form up from the steps of the old Corn Exchange. It was going to be even hotter, but with rain later and the chance of thunder. The local news, that Wexford watched intermittently while getting dressed, told him all this, but it was Dora, who had got it from Sylvia, who supplied the details of the route. The march would proceed through Stowerton to the roundabout, pass along the bleak streets of the industrial estate, rejoin the Kingsmarkham road and enter the town by the Kingsbrook Bridge. Its final destination was Kingsmarkham Town Hall. He had to go back to the news for results in the council election. Voting, however, had been so close between the Liberal Democrat and the Independent Conservative that a recount was taking place. Ken Burton was out, having secured a mere fifty-eight votes. Wexford wondered whether to phone Sheila and tell her the news, but decided against it. She probably had her own means of knowing, anyway. ‘Guess what,’ said Dora. ‘We’re invited to Sylvia’s for Sunday lunch.’ But Wexford only said obscurely, ‘I hope it’s all right,’ and added, ‘Neil’s job, I mean.’ The day was still and sultry, heat hanging under a sky of veiled blue. It was like the beginning of the month when he had been reading by the open french windows and Dr Akande had phoned with the first mention of Melanie. The air this morning had a scalding feel, and Burden said he’d known cooler steam come out of a kettle. Inside the car the air conditioning was as efficient as that at Mynford New Hall and Wexford told Donaldson to turn it off and open a window. ‘We’re very quick to dismiss old people’s statements of fact, aren’t we?’ Wexford said. ‘If there’s the slightest doubt we immediately assume they’re senile or their memories are useless or even that they’re no longer quite sane. Whereas with a younger person we’d at least listen and even encourage while they sort things out. ‘Percy Hammond said he went to bed on that Wednesday evening, went to sleep, but woke up, got up and “put the light on for a minute”. He turned if off “because it was so bright”. I think we all know that feeling. He looked out of the window and saw “this young chap come out with a box in his arms”. “Or was that later?” he said. ‘We didn’t ask him to think about it, we didn’t say “think carefully, try and remember the times”, Karen just confirmed that it must have been later, this was in the morning, he saw the “young chap” in the morning. I was just as much to blame, I let it go too. But, Mike, the fact was that the old man saw Zack Nelson twice.’ Burden looked at him. ‘What d’you mean?’ ‘He saw him at eleven-thirty or thereabouts on Wednesday and he saw him again at four-thirty the following morning. There was no real doubt in his mind about that. The only doubt was whether Zack was carrying the “box” at night or in the morning. And that

  first time, on the Wednesday night, Zack saw him. He saw a face looking at him from the window. D’you see what that means?’ ‘I think so,’ Burden said slowly. ‘Annette died after 10.00 pm on the Wednesday and before 1.00 am on the Thursday. If Percy Hammond saw him for the first time at . . . But that means Zack killed Annette.’ ‘Yes, of course. The doors were open. Zack went in at, say, eleven-thirty, and found Annette asleep in bed. She was weak, she was ill, she was probably running a temperature. He looked around for something with which to do the deed. Perhaps he had something with him, a scarf, a cord. But the lamp lead was better. He pulled it out of the lamp, strangled Annette – who was too feeble to put up much of a fight – took nothing and left. There’s not a light on anywhere but a street lamp, there’s no one to see him, he’s in the clear – until he looks across the road and sees, pressed against the glass, old Percy Hammond’s face staring out at him.’ ‘But then surely, the last thing he’d do would be to go back five hours later?’ ‘Are you sure of that?’ ‘The last thing he’d want was to draw attention to himself.’ ‘No, that’s exactly what he did want. He wanted to draw attention to himself or someone else wanted him to. This is what I think happened. It’s guesswork but it’s the only possible answer. Zack was scared stiff. The possessor of what is, after all, putting it brutally, quite a frightening face, had seen him, had stared long and hard at him. He panics, he needs advice. He realizes fully the enormity of what has happened. ‘Who can advise him? Obviously, only one person, the man or woman who has put him up to this, the instigator whose paid hitman he is. It’s the middle of the night but never mind that. He’s doubtless been told never to contact this person, but never mind that either. He makes his way down the road to the corner shop, outside which is a phone box. He makes his call and the advice comes back from a far cleverer perpetrator than Zack could ever be: go back, steal something, make sure you’re seen. Make sure you’re seen a second time.’ ‘But why? I don’t get it.’ ‘He, whoever he is, must have said, They will know the time she died. If you go back at four or later they will know she must have been dead before you got there. You will be in the clear as far as murder goes. Of course you’ll go to prison for the theft but not for long and it’s worth it, isn’t it? It was an elderly person saw you, you say? They’ll take it for granted an elderly person was confused about the time.’ ‘We did,’ Burden said. ‘We did take it for granted.’ ‘We all do it. We all patronize the old, and worse. We treat them as if they were small children. And we’ll be on the receiving end of that one day, Mike. Unless the world changes.’ The place was strangely like the interior of the cottage at Glebe End. Kimberley had transported all her possessions in cardboard boxes and plastic carriers and in these containers they remained. They were still to her what cupboards and drawers are to other people. But she had bought furniture: a huge pneumatic three-piece suite of purple and grey tapestry with gold braid and gold swags, a crimson table inlaid with gilt, a television set in a white and gold cabinet. There was no carpet, there were no curtains. Clint, who had learned to walk since Burden had last seen him, staggered about the room, wiping the chocolate biscuit he had sucked on any tapestry surface he came into contact with.

  Kimberley was dressed in black leggings, stiletto heeled white shoes and a strapless red bustier. She gave Burden a belligerent look and said she didn’t know what he meant. ‘Where did it all come from, Kimberley? All this? Three we
eks ago you were wondering what’d become of you if you lost that cottage.’ She maintained her sullen glare, but taking her eyes from his face, gazing down at her own feet, her toes turned in. ‘It came from Zack, didn’t it? It didn’t come from your grandmother.’ She said to her feet, ‘My nan did die.’ ‘Sure she did but she didn’t leave you anything, she’d nothing to leave. What was it, paid to Zack in cash, was it? Or did he open a bank account for you and him and have it paid in there?’ ‘I don’t know nothing about this, you know. It don’t mean nothing to me.’ ‘Kimberley,’ said Wexford. ‘He murdered Annette Bystock. He didn’t just steal her TV and her video. He murdered her.’ ‘He never!’ She looked up and sideways, her shoulder hunched, as if trying to protect her face from a coming onslaught. ‘He nicked her things, that’s all he done.’ The child, back at his favourite occupation of removing articles from one cardboard box and putting them into another, now fished out an unopened packet of teabags and trotted over to his mother with his find in his hands. She snatched him up and set him on her lap. It was as if she made him into a shield for herself. ‘He told me, he just nicked her telly and stuff. If he’s got money in the bank, why shouldn’t he have? OK, it was his family it come from, not mine. He said to say my nan, on account of she died. But it was his family it come from. His dad’s got money. Don’t tear that open, Clint, you’ll have the tea all out.’ The child took no notice. He had torn the cardboard and found the teabags. He was immensely content. Kimberley held him tightly, her arm clamped round his waist. Her voice was fierce, ‘He never done no murder. Not Zack. He never would.’ She was telling the truth, Wexford thought, insofar as she knew it. He was almost sure she didn’t know. ‘Zack told you there’d be money in the bank, did he, before he went away?’ She nodded vigorously. ‘In my account. He put it in there for me.’ Clint had a teabag gripped in both hands, his face growing red with the effort of tugging at it. ‘Why this flat, Kimberley?’ said Burden. ‘It’s nice, in’t it? I liked it, I fancied it, in’t that enough for you?’ ‘Wasn’t it because you didn’t have to make any effort? It belongs to Crescent Comestibles, doesn’t it, and that’s Mr Khoori? You didn’t have to do a thing. Mr Khoori put you in here and gave you the money to get what you wanted.’ It was plain to Wexford that she had no idea what Burden meant. She was no actress. She was simply ignorant and these names signified nothing to her. The child on her lap had succeeded in his endeavour, had split open the teabag and was scattering tea over her leggings and the floor. But she was oblivious to it. She stared in bewilderment and said at last, ‘You what?’ Wexford saw no point in explaining. ‘What did happen, Kimberley?’ She brushed the blackish grains off her legs and gave Clint a half-hearted shake. ‘I was walking down the High Street here with him in the buggy and I saw that written up about flats and mortgages and whatever and I thought why not, there’s all that money Zack says is mine now, and I went in and saw this feller and said I got the money, I could give him

  the cash or a cheque and when could I move in. And that’s what I done, moved in. And I don’t know nothing about any Mr Coo-what you said, I’ve never heard of him.’ Of course, she must know that the source of this unexpected accession of cash was suspect. Legitimately earned money, no doubt many thousand pounds, does not find its way miraculously into the bank accounts of such as Zack Nelson. Families such as the Nelsons have no private fortunes, set up no trusts, to assist their humbler scions. She knew that as well as they did. But Wexford was aware she would never come out with it, she would never say she knew this gain must be ill-gotten but her desire for better accommodation was so great that she conveniently overlooked that fact. She would only come up with wilder explanations and excuses. The main thing,’ he said to Burden when they were outside in Stowerton High Street, ‘is that she doesn’t know where it came from. Zack Nelson, in his wisdom, never told her. Or, rather, he told her a lie which he knew she would know was a lie but would accept. He meant her to be safe and she is safe. We needn’t have made detours to avoid the High Street.’ ‘He knows, though.’ Wexford shrugged. ‘And do you think he’ll say? At this stage? OK, we can go along to the remand centre and ask him and he’ll trot out all that stuff about Percy Hammond being senile and Annette being dead long before he ever went into Ladyhall Court. And that’s what we can’t prove, Mike. We’ll never prove Percy Hammond saw Zack twice. If Zack keeps his mouth shut now, and he will, the worst that can happen to him is he’ll go down for six months for burglary.’ They were walking along the street, just walking and quite aimlessly, the heat making for slow idle steps, yet they were at the Market Cross almost before they knew it. Banks are always together in whatever part of a town is given over to them and passing first the Midland, then the Natwest, made Burden say, ‘This bank account Zack opened. He must have done that before killing Annette. As soon as he agreed to do it, on the Tuesday or the Wednesday at the latest. We can find out whose cheque or banker’s draft or whatever was paid in to that a couple of days later.’ ‘Can we, Mike?’ Wexford said it almost wistfully. ‘On what grounds are we going to take a look at a bank account in Kimberley Pearson’s name? She hasn’t done anything. She hasn’t even been charged with anything. She doesn’t know where the money came from but she’s probably convinced herself by now that it came from Zack’s rich old grandad. She’s innocent in the eyes of the law and no bank is going to let us breach her right to privacy.’ ‘It beats me why Zack Nelson drew attention to himself by having Bob Mole sell that radio in full public view like that, in the market that we make a point of keeping our eye on.’ Wexford laughed. ‘Just for that, Mike. For that reason. It was the same as when he went into Annette’s flat, the same drawing attention to himself. That’s what he wanted to do, to get it over, get himself charged with theft and banged-up, out of harm’s way. He even chose the most easily identified item among the stolen goods, that radio with the red stain on it.’ They stopped in the square and were about to turn round and retrace their steps, as people do who have been walking aimlessly, when Wexford’s attention was caught by the crowd which had gathered outside the Corn Exchange. It was a Victorian building, its pillared entrance approached by a flight of steps. These steps some of the people who were waiting treated like seats in an amphitheatre, sitting or lounging on them. Up by the

  Simisola

  entrance half a dozen seemed to be working on a banner, which suddenly unfurled and stretched out read, ‘Give Us the Right to Work’. ‘It’s the start of the unemployed march,’ said Burden. ‘Who would have thought that could ever happen here? I mean, you could imagine it in Liverpool, say, or Glasgow. But here?’ ‘Who could imagine slavery would ever happen here? But Sojourner was a slave.’ ‘Not exactly that, surely.’ ‘If someone works without wages, or without accessible wages, cannot leave her employment, is not allowed out, is beaten and abused, what is she but a slave? “Slaves cannot breathe in England, if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free; They touch our country and their shackles fall.” I got that out of a book, I don’t suppose it’ll stay in my memory for long. The point is, it may have been true once, it isn’t any more.’ Wexford took a piece of paper from his pocket. ‘I copied this down. It’s a case history and it didn’t happen in the eighteenth century or the nineteenth but six years ago. ‘ “Roseline,” ’ he read, ‘ “is from Southern Nigeria. At the ago of about fifteen she was ‘bought’ for £2 from her impoverished father who was led to believe he would be paid that sum regularly every month to help feed his other five children. Roseline, he was told by the couple, was to stay as their guest and be taught domestic science. They brought her to Sheffield where the husband worked as a doctor. She was kept as a servant, not allowed out, slept on the floor, and was made to kneel on the floor for two hours if she fell asleep before being allowed to go to bed. Her working day started at 5.30 am and lasted for eighteen hours. She cleaned and washed for her employers and their five children. She was caned and kept short of food. On one occasion, in desperation, she wrote a note intended
for the next-door neighbour offering sex for a sandwich. The note was discovered and she was further punished. In September 1988, while her abusers were away for a week, she gathered enough courage and spoke to a regular passer-by who had often seen her staring out of the window, and beckoned to her. This neighbour helped her to escape, and she took her former employers to court. She was awarded £20,000 in damages. However, she had only been given leave to stay for three months, and her employers had kept her for over three years. She was an illegal overstayer and thus liable to immediate deportation.” ’ Burden was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘Sojourner tried to escape and was further punished – is that what you’re saying?’ ‘They went too far with their punishment. No doubt, they were afraid of the publicity and of having damages awarded against them. They made sure that wouldn’t happen. They made very thoroughly sure by killing Annette, who perhaps had it in her power to reveal their identity and whereabouts, and tried – twice – to kill Oni who might have been told where they lived.’ ‘You think she was allowed in like this Roseline as a visitor? She was allowed three months or six months but overstayed?’ ‘Who’s to know if she’s never allowed out and no one sees her? If visitors to the house never see her? In fact, an employer has only to say to her that if she’s discovered she’ll be deported to wherever it is, the Gulf probably, for her to collude in this breaking of the law.’ ‘If conditions are that bad for her wouldn’t she want to be deported?’ ‘That depends on what awaits her. There are a good many parts of the world where all that’s left for a homeless destitute woman is prostitution. In any case, Sojourner only colluded so far. She is supposed to have been told her rights before she left to come here,