Read Online Kissing the Gunner's Daughter by Ruth Rendell - Free Book Online
Authors: Ruth Rendell
Tags: Fiction, General, Mystery & Detective, Women Sleuths, Police, England, Police Procedural, Large Type Books, Inspector (Fictitious character), Sussex (England), Sussex, Wexford
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the post, on the doormat, was a card from Sheila. It had been posted in Venice four days before, while she was there with that man. The picture was of a gloomy baroque interior, a pulpit and drapery over it, marble probably but cunningly contrived to look like cloth. Sheila had written, 'We have just been to see the Gesuiti, which is Gus's favourite joke-church in all the world and not to be confused, he says, with the Gesuati. Stone Wilton is a bit cold on the feet and it is freezing here. Much love, S.'
He would make her as pretentious as himself. Wexford wondered what on earth the card meant. What was a joke-church, and come to that what was Stone Wilton? It sounded like a village in the Cotswolds.
The Independent on Sunday review section in his pocket, he drove himself to work. The removal of furnishings and equipment had already begun for the setting up of an incident room at Tancred House. The investigation would be conducted from there. DC Hinde told him as he came in that a Kingsmarkham systems manufacturer on the industrial estate was offering them, free of charge as a gesture of good will, computers, word processors with laser printers, printer ancillaries, workstations, software and faxes.
"The managing director's chairman of the local Tories," Hinde said. "Chap called Pagett, Graham Pagett. He's been on the blower.
64
He says this is his way of implementing the Government's policy that fighting crime is up to the private individual."
Wexford grunted.
"We can do with that kind of support, sir."
"Yes, it's very good of him," Wexford said absently. He wouldn't go up there yet but waste no time, take Barry Vine with him and find the woman called Bib.
It had to be straightforward, this business. It had to be murder for robbery or murder in the course of robbery. Two villains in a stolen car after Davina Flory's jewellery. Maybe they'd been reading the Independent on Sunday, except that this newspaper hadn't mentioned jewellery other than Win Carver's comment that Davina wore a wedding ring, and they'd be more likely anyway to read the People. If they could read. Two villains certainly, but not strangers to the place. One who knew all about it, one who didn't, his mate, his pal, met perhaps in prison ...
Someone connected with those servants, the Harrisons? With this Bib? She lived at Pomfret Monachorum, which probably meant she had gone home by the by-road. Wexford fancied the by-road as an exit for the gunman and his companion. That was their most likely way out, especially as one of them must have known the 1J>lace. He could almost hear one saying to the other that this was the way to avoid the Plod
Coming in.
f?"
i?; * * *
65
The forest separated Pomfret Monachorum from Tancred and Kingsmarkham and almost from the rest of the world. Behind it the road ran to Cheriton and to Pomfret. The ruined walls of an abbey still stood, the church was pretty outside, wrecked inside by Henry VIII and later Cromwell, and the rest of the place consisted of the vicarage, a cluster of cottages and a small council estate. Out on the Pomfret road was a row of three shingle-and-slate cottages.
It was in one of these that Bib lived, though neither Wexford nor Vine knew which one. All the Harrisons and Gabbitas knew was that it was in the row called Edith Cottages.
A plaque bearing this name and the date 1882 was embedded in the shingles above the upper windows of the middle one. All the cottages needed painting, none looked prosperous. Each one had a television aerial on its roof and the one on the left a dish sticking out from the side of a bedroom window. A bicycle leant up against the wall by the front door of the cottage on the right and a Ford Transit van was parked half on the grass verge outside its gate. A wheelie-bin stood in the garden of the middle cottage, on a piece of concrete with a manhole cover in it. There were daffodils in bloom in this garden but no flowers in either of the others, and the one with the
He would make her as pretentious as himself. Wexford wondered what on earth the card meant. What was a joke-church, and come to that what was Stone Wilton? It sounded like a village in the Cotswolds.
The Independent on Sunday review section in his pocket, he drove himself to work. The removal of furnishings and equipment had already begun for the setting up of an incident room at Tancred House. The investigation would be conducted from there. DC Hinde told him as he came in that a Kingsmarkham systems manufacturer on the industrial estate was offering them, free of charge as a gesture of good will, computers, word processors with laser printers, printer ancillaries, workstations, software and faxes.
"The managing director's chairman of the local Tories," Hinde said. "Chap called Pagett, Graham Pagett. He's been on the blower.
64
He says this is his way of implementing the Government's policy that fighting crime is up to the private individual."
Wexford grunted.
"We can do with that kind of support, sir."
"Yes, it's very good of him," Wexford said absently. He wouldn't go up there yet but waste no time, take Barry Vine with him and find the woman called Bib.
It had to be straightforward, this business. It had to be murder for robbery or murder in the course of robbery. Two villains in a stolen car after Davina Flory's jewellery. Maybe they'd been reading the Independent on Sunday, except that this newspaper hadn't mentioned jewellery other than Win Carver's comment that Davina wore a wedding ring, and they'd be more likely anyway to read the People. If they could read. Two villains certainly, but not strangers to the place. One who knew all about it, one who didn't, his mate, his pal, met perhaps in prison ...
Someone connected with those servants, the Harrisons? With this Bib? She lived at Pomfret Monachorum, which probably meant she had gone home by the by-road. Wexford fancied the by-road as an exit for the gunman and his companion. That was their most likely way out, especially as one of them must have known the 1J>lace. He could almost hear one saying to the other that this was the way to avoid the Plod
Coming in.
f?"
i?; * * *
65
The forest separated Pomfret Monachorum from Tancred and Kingsmarkham and almost from the rest of the world. Behind it the road ran to Cheriton and to Pomfret. The ruined walls of an abbey still stood, the church was pretty outside, wrecked inside by Henry VIII and later Cromwell, and the rest of the place consisted of the vicarage, a cluster of cottages and a small council estate. Out on the Pomfret road was a row of three shingle-and-slate cottages.
It was in one of these that Bib lived, though neither Wexford nor Vine knew which one. All the Harrisons and Gabbitas knew was that it was in the row called Edith Cottages.
A plaque bearing this name and the date 1882 was embedded in the shingles above the upper windows of the middle one. All the cottages needed painting, none looked prosperous. Each one had a television aerial on its roof and the one on the left a dish sticking out from the side of a bedroom window. A bicycle leant up against the wall by the front door of the cottage on the right and a Ford Transit van was parked half on the grass verge outside its gate. A wheelie-bin stood in the garden of the middle cottage, on a piece of concrete with a manhole cover in it. There were daffodils in bloom in this garden but no flowers in either of the others, and the one with the
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