An Unkindness of Ravens

by Ruth Rendell

“Are you going to go there and check that?”

  “Not just at the moment. Maybe later. Do you think it wrong to encourage a child to inform against its immediate family?”

  “Like what happens in totalitarian societies, d’you mean? Or what I suppose happens. Extremists always believe the means are justified by the end. It depends what you mean by immediate family too, I mean, against a parent is a bit grim. That sticks in one’s throat.”

  “Drugging a man and stabbing him and burying the knife in a wall sticks in one’s throat too.” Wexford picked up the phone and put it down again. “I’ve got two women to arrest,” he said, “and the way things are I’ll never make the charges stand up. When do the schools go back?”

  Crocker looked a little startled at this apparent non sequitur. “The state schools—that is, the older kids—sometime this week.”

  “I’d better do it today if I’m to catch her without her mother.” He lifted the phone again, this time asked for an outside line. It rang for so long he began to think she must be out. Then at last Veronica Williams’s soft, rather high voice answered, giving the number in all its ten digits. Wexford spoke her name, “Veronica?” then said, “This is Chief Inspector Wexford at Kingsmarkham CID.”

  “Oh, hello, yes.” Was she afraid, or did she always answer the phone in this cautious breathless way?

  “Just one or two things to check with you, Veronica. First, what time is your match tonight and where is it?”

  “Kingsmarkham Tennis Club,” she said. “It’s at six.” She gathered some courage. “Why?”

  Wexford was too old a hand to answer that. “After that’s over I’d like to talk to you. Not you and your mother, just you alone. All right? I think you have quite a lot of things you’d like to tell me, haven’t you?”

  The silence was so heavy he thought he’d gone too far. But no. And it was better than he had hoped. “I have got things to tell you. There are things I’ve got to tell you.” He thought he heard a sob, but she might only have been clearing her throat.

  “All right then. When you’ve finished your match come straight here. D’you know where it is?” He gave her directions. “About ten minutes’ walk from the club. I’ll have a car to send you home in.”

  She said, “I’ll have to tell my mother.”

  “By all means tell your mother. Tell anyone you like.” Did he sound too eager? “But make sure your mother knows I want to see you alone.”

  The enormity of what he was doing hit him as he put the phone down. Could anything justify it? She was a sixteen-year-old girl with vital information for him. The last teenage girl with vital information for him had been strangled before she could impart it. Was he sending her to the same death as Paulette Harmer? If Burden had been there he would have told him everything, but with the doctor he had reservations.

  “You’re not going round then, then?” Crocker said, a little mystified as much by Wexford’s expression as by the cryptic phone conversation.

  “That’s the last thing I must do.”

  Later, when the doctor had gone, Wexford thought, I hope I have the nerve to stick it out. Pity it’s so many hours off. But the advantage of an evening match was that afterwards it would soon be dark … Advantage! She would be phoning her mother now at Jickie’s to tell her, he thought, and somehow—hopefully—persuading Wendy not to come with her. He would have that girl watched every step of the way.

  The phone rang.

  He picked it up and the telephonist said she had a Miss Veronica Williams for him. What a little madam she was, giving her name as “Miss”!

  “I could come and see you now,” the childish voice said. “That might be easier. Then I wouldn’t have to upset Mummy. I mean I wouldn’t have to tell her I don’t want her with me.”

  He braced himself. He hardened his heart. “I’m too busy to see you before this evening, Veronica. And I’d like you to tell your mother, please. Tell her now.”

  If she called back, he thought, he’d relent and let her come. He wouldn’t be able to hold out. Would she recognize Martin? Archbold? Palmer? Certainly she’d know Allison. But would it matter if she did recognize them? He’d be there himself anyway. There was no way he was going to let her take that ten-minute walk in the half-dark from the club down a lane off the Pomfret Road to the police station, especially in the case of her following his directions and taking the footpath across one and a half fields.

  The phone rang again. That’s it, he thought. I can’t keep it up. I’ll go round there and she’ll tell me and that’ll be evidence enough … He picked up the receiver.

  “Inspector Burden for you, Mr. Wexford.”

  Burden’s voice sounded strange, not really like his voice at all.

  “It’s all over. Mother and baby are doing fine. Jenny had a Caesarean at nine this morning.”

  “Congratulations. That’s great, Mike. Give my love to Jenny, won’t you? You’d better tell me what Mary weighed so that I can tell Dora.”

  “Eight pounds nine ounces, but it’s not going to be Mary. We’re changing just one letter in the name.”

  Wexford didn’t feel up to guessing. Jenny’s persuaded him into something fancy against his better judgment, he thought.

  “Mark, actually,” said Burden. “I’ll see you later. Cheers for now.”

  21

  A WOMAN HAD ONCE BEEN FOUND MURDERED on that very footpath1. They would all have that in their minds, even Palmer and Archbold, who hadn’t been there at the time, who had probably still been at school. As Veronica Williams still was. Had she ever heard of the murder? Did people still talk about it?

  That woman had lived in Forest Road, the last street in the area to bear the postal address Kingsmarkham. The Pomfret boundary begins there, though it is open country all the way to Pomfret in one direction and nearly all the way to Kingsmarkham Police Station in the other. The tennis club, however, is not in Forest Road but in Cheriton Lane, which runs more or less parallel to it on the Kingsmarkham side. Smallish meadows enclosed by hedges cover the few acres between the club and the town, and the footpath runs alongside one of these hedges, at one point skirting a little copse. It emerges into the High Street fifty yards north of the police station and on the opposite side.

  Wexford had Martin and Palmer in a car in Cheriton Lane, would station himself and Archbold in the copse, Loring among the spectators at the match, Bennett to start walking from the High Street end, Allison to follow her at a discreet distance.

  “One black man’ll look very like another to her, sir,” Allison had said. “That mightn’t be so in a city but it is out here.”

  “Don’t tell me Inspector Burden and I look alike to you.”

  “No, sir, but that’s a question of age, isn’t it?”

  Which puts me firmly in my place, thought Wexford. Burden was in his office, sitting beside him, anxious to take part in the protection-of-Veronica exercise. Can’t keep away from the place for more than five minutes, Wexford had grumbled at him. At least Burden had supplied a diversion in the lull of the long afternoon.

  “I don’t understand how they could make a mistake over the sex like that. God knows I don’t know much about it, but if a man has an XY chromosome formula and a woman XX surely they must always have it from embryo to old age?”

  “It’s not that. It’s like this. In an amniocentesis they extract cells from the amniotic fluid the fetus is in. But occasionally they make a mistake and once in about ten thousand times they take cells from the mother, not the child. And even then they aren’t always going to know their error. Because if the child does happen to be a girl … In this case, though, I gather someone’s head is going to roll.”

  “It caused a lot of unnecessary misery.”

  “Misery, yes,” said Burden, “but maybe not unnecessary. Jenny says it’s taught her a lot about herself. It’s taught her she’s not what you might call a natural feminist and now she has to approach feminism not from an emotional standpoint but from what is—well
, right and just. We didn’t know, either of us, what a lot of deep-rooted, old-fashioned prejudices we had. Because I felt it too, you know, I also wanted a son though I never said. It’s taught us how much we’ve concealed from the other when we thought we were frank and open. All this has been—well, not far from—what does Jenny call it?—Guided Confrontation Therapy.”

  With difficulty Wexford kept a straight face. “So long as now you’ve got a son you don’t wish it was a girl.” He said “you” but he meant Jenny, whom he thought the kind of woman for whom the unattainable grass might always be the greener.

  “Of course not!” Burden exclaimed, looking very sour. “After all, as Jenny says, what does it really matter so long as it’s healthy and has all its fingers and toes?”

  This was a cliché Wexford didn’t feel he could compete with. Now Burden was here how would he feel about taking part in the Veronica watch?

  Not much, said Burden, he had to be back at the hospital. Then Wexford thought it might start raining. If it rained the match would be canceled, and in all probability Veronica would simply take the bus to the police station from Pomfret.

  But the sky lightened round about 5:30. He wondered what those two women were thinking. How had they reacted to being left all day to their own devices? Unless the match was over in two straight sets Veronica could hardly expect to leave the club before seven. Should he fill in the time by seeing what he could get out of Kevin Williams? But he didn’t really want to get anything out of him. He knew it all already. Why not simply go and watch the match?

  IT HADN’T OCCURRED TO HIM TO ASK HIMSELF—or anyone else for that matter—if the tournaments of the Kingsmarkham Tennis Club were or were not open to the public. And it wasn’t until he walked through the doors of the clubhouse that the question came into his mind. But a hearty elderly man with the air of a retired Air Force officer who said he was the secretary welcomed him with open arms. They loved spectators. If only they could get more spectators. It provided such encouragement for the players.

  He had already spotted Martin and Archbold sitting in the car a discreet distance from the gates. Now if Veronica saw him, as it was most likely she would do, his best course would be to leave. Then, later, she wouldn’t fail to follow.

  The great thing was not to give her a chance to speak to him. Therefore, to the bar, a refuge which was also the last place to which a sixteen-year-old competitor was likely to retreat before a match. The secretary, seeing him headed in that direction, trotted up to say that as a non-member he wasn’t allowed to purchase a drink, but if he would permit a drink to be bought for him … ? Wexford accepted.

  The bar was semicircular, with a long, curved window offering a view of three of the club’s nine hard courts. Wexford had a half-pint of lager, the club like most places of its kind being unable to provide any sort of draft beer or “real ale.” The secretary talked rather monotonously, first about the bad public behavior of certain international tennis stars, then their own disappointment at Saturday’s rain and the enforced cancellation of this singles final. There would have been more spectators on a Saturday, he said sadly. In fact, nine people had actually come along—he had counted—but had had to be turned away. Of course, they were most unlikely to come back tonight. Wexford had the impression that if any of them had turned up the secretary would have bought them drinks too.

  It got to six, to ten past. She’s not going to come, Wexford thought. Then an umpire arrived and climbed up into the high seat. Five canvas chairs and a wooden bench had been arranged for a possible audience. It looked as if they would remain empty, but after a while two elderly women with white cardigans over their tennis dresses came and sat down and at the same time, approaching by the path that led from the farther group of six courts, Loring sauntered up. In sound English fashion the women sat in the canvas chairs on the left-hand end of the row and Loring at the extreme right-hand end of the bench. Colin Budd should have been so wise.

  Veronica and a taller, older, altogether bigger girl appeared outside the court and let themselves in by the gate.

  “Well, best get out there and give them some moral support,” said the secretary, rubbing his hands together.

  It was certainly cold. A gust of wind whipped across the court, tearing at Veronica’s short, pleated skirt. In classic style they began with a knock-up.

  “I don’t think I will,” said Wexford. “D’you mind if I watch from in here?”

  The secretary was terribly disappointed. He gave him a look of injured reproach.

  “You mustn’t buy any drinks, you do know that, don’t you? And you’re not to serve him, mind, Priscilla.”

  Loring, his jacket collar turned up, was smoking a cigarette. The secretary appeared, running up to the two women, and sat beside them. The knock-up, in which Veronica had had the best of it, was over and the match began.

  Dark would come early because the day had been so dull. Wexford wondered if the light would hold long enough for the match to be played to the finish. Veronica, whose service it was, won the first game to love but had a tougher time when her opponent came to serve.

  “You can have a drink if you like,” said Priscilla. “I work it like this. I give it to you for free and next time a member buys me a drink I’ll charge yours up to him. I’m a total abstainer actually, but I don’t let on to this lot.”

  Wexford laughed. “Better not, thanks all the same.”

  “Suit yourself.” She came over and stood beside him and watched.

  Three games all. It looked as if it would go on and on and then quite quickly it was all over, Veronica having won her own two service games and broken her opponent’s.

  “She’s a little cracker, that kid,” said Priscilla. “Strong as a horse. She’s got arms like whipcord.”

  It was twenty to seven and the edge of dusk. Veronica won the first two games but the other girl was fighting back for all she was worth. Perhaps she had never played against Veronica before. At any rate, it had taken her all this time to find her weakness, but she had found it at last. Veronica couldn’t handle long, swift, diagonal drives to her forehand, though backhand presented her with no problems. It was half a dozen of those forehand drives that won her opponent the next game and the next and the next two until she was leading 4-2. The light had grown bluish, but the white lines on the court were still clearly visible, seeming to glow with twilight luminosity.

  And then it was as if Veronica mastered the craft of dealing with those hard cross-court strokes. Or, curiously, as if some inspiration came to her from an external source. Certainly it was not that she had spotted him or had recognized Loring, whom she had never previously seen. But a charge of power came to her, a gift of virtuosity she had not known before. She had never before played like this, Wexford was sure of it. For a brief quarter of an hour she played as if she were on the center court at Wimbledon and was there not by a fluke but by a hard-won right.

  Her opponent couldn’t withstand it. In that quarter-hour she gained only four points. Veronica won the set by 6 games to 4 and thus secured the match. She threw her racket into the air, caught it neatly, ran to the net, and shook hands with her opponent. Wexford said good night to Priscilla and left the way he had come, having watched the players go into the pavilion where the changing rooms were. Loring was still sitting on the bench.

  Allison he spotted as soon as the footpath entered the field. He was lying very still in the long grass by the hedge and mostly covered by it. But Wexford saw him without giving any sign that he had done so. He was pretty sure Veronica wouldn’t. The path wound on parallel to the hedge, then began to skirt the copse.

  The false dusk hung still, suspended between fight and dark. If it had been much darker no prudent young girl would have dared walk this way. Veronica Williams, of course, in spite of the impression she gave, was not a prudent young girl.

  The air was still and damp and the grass moist underfoot. Wexford made his way along the path, under the high hedge, certain as
he had been all along that Veronica’s assailant would wait for her in the copse. Archbold had been there since 5:30 to be on the safe side. It was too late now for Wexford to join him without taking the risk of being seen. As it was, by staying to watch the match, he was taking a chance of spoiling the whole plan. Ahead of him a maple tree in the hedge spread its branches in a cone shape, the lowest ones almost touching the ground. He lifted them, stood against its trunk, and waited.

  By now it was 7:30 and he had begun to wonder if she would come after all. Though members had been thin on the ground there might have been some plan to fete her in the clubhouse. Hardly with drinks though. And she would have got out of it, she needed to see him as much as he her. Then he remembered she was her mother’s daughter; it would take her longer than most girls to change her clothes, do her hair. She might even have a shower. Wendy was the sort of woman who would get a dying person out of bed to change the sheets before the doctor comes.

  He stood under his tree in the silent dusk, which was growing misty. Occasionally it was possible to hear in the distance a heavy vehicle on the Kingsmarkham to Pomfret road. Nothing else. No birds sang at this season and this hour.

  He could see the path about ten yards behind only and perhaps fifty yards ahead, and it seemed to him then the emptiest footway he had ever contemplated. Allison would get rheumatism lying there on the damp ground, the cold seeping into his bones. Archbold, wrapped in his padded jacket, had probably fallen asleep …

  She appeared quite suddenly. But how else could she have come but noiselessly and walking quite fast? She didn’t look afraid though. Wexford saw her face quite clearly for a moment. Her expression was—yes, innocent. Innocent and trusting. She had no knowledge that there was anything to fear. If Sara, her half-sister, was a Florentine madonna, she was a Medici page, her small face grave and wistful in its gold-brown frame of bobbed hair and fringe. She wore her pink cotton jeans, beautifully pressed by Mother, her pink and white running shoes, a powder blue and white striped anorak that hung open over a white fluffy pullover, and she was carrying her tennis racket in a blue case. Wexford took all this in as she passed him, walking quickly.