One Across, Two Down
Page 21
Stanley’s body ached and his eyes glazed with weariness. He was afraid he might fall asleep at the wheel, so he shook himself and forced his eyes to stare hard ahead. Then, suddenly, he saw his village. It was floating in grey mist, peaceful, beckoning. Now, at this point, the river meandered.
“The winding river,” he heard himself whisper, anagramming, “is a dream need.” He groaned aloud with pain and longing and then he pulled the wheel feebly to follow the way the path should go.
The van slid and sagged, running out of control, but gradually and slowly. Stanley’s hands slipped weakly from the wheel. It was all right now, he was home. No more running, no more driving. He was home, cruising gently downhill to where his village loomed in front of him.
And the dawn was coming, rising bright and green and many-coloured like a rainbow, pouring in through the van’s open windows with a vast crunching roar. Stanley wondered why he was screaming, fighting against the wet dawn, when he was home at last.
The police car screeched to a halt on the canal bank. Two men got out, running, slamming doors behind them, but by the time they reached the shored-up edge the water was almost calm again with nothing to show where the van had gone down but dull yellow ripples spreading outwards in wide concentric rings. The dawn showed muddy red over the warehouses and the first few drops of rain began to fall.
First Vintage Crime / Black Lizard Edition, January 2001
Copyright © 1971 by Ruth Rendell
Copyright renewed 1999 by Kingsmarkham Ltd.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage Crime / Black Lizard and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Doubleday edition as follows: Rendell, Ruth, 1930—
One across, two down. / Ruth Rendell. — 1st ed. in the U.S.A.
p. cm.
1. Title
PZ4.R4132 On3 PR6068.E63
823’.9’14 78-150914
CIP
eISBN: 978-0-307-55878-7
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