Read Online Murder Being Once Done by Ruth Rendell - Free Book Online
Authors: Ruth Rendell
Ads: Link
isn’t it, Peggy?’
‘I reckon.’ Peggy turned dourly to Wexford. ‘She has a party every Saturday night and a bloody awful row they make. Sets my kid off screaming half the night.’
‘Come off it, Peggy. You know you and Johnny have a great time at my parties.’
‘Did Loveday accept your invitation?’ Wexford asked.
‘Of course not. She looked quite shocked like as if I’d asked her to an orgy. Mind you, she was very nice abut it. She said not to worry about the noise. She liked to hear people enjoying themselves, but I thought, well, you’re more like an old aunt than a kid of twenty.’
‘She’d got no life in her at all,’ said Peggy with a heavy sigh.
At the top of the last flight Wexford had much the same sensation as he had received when coming from the dingy wastes of Kenbourne into the light and space which surrounded the Montfort house. The arch at the head of the stairs had been filled in with a glass door set in a frame of polished wood and from this frame, hooked to white trellis, hung a display of house plants. These were so well arranged and well tended as to have satisfied even Denise.
The air smelt cleaner, fresher. Wexford stood still for a moment, getting his breath back, and then he put his finger to the bell above a small plaque which read: ‘ Chez Teal.’
6
There be divers kinds of religion not only in sundry parts of the island, but also in divers places of every city.
‘I thought you’d turn up sooner or later,’ said Ivan Teal. The look he gave Wexford was not the insolent stare of the previous day, but slightly mocking, containing a kind of intense inner amusement. ‘Come in. You seem rather out of breath. Perhaps you’ve been afraid to breathe in case you might inhale something nasty? The stairs do smell, don’t they? There must be some very unusual germs lurking in those cracks. I’m sure they’d be a source of fascination to a bacteriologist.’ He closed the door and continued to talk in the same light indulgent tone. ‘You may wonder why I live here. In point of fact, it has its advantages. The view, for instance, and I have plenty of space for a low rent. Besides, I’m sure you’ll agree I’ve made the flat rather nice.’
It would have seemed nice in any surroundings. Here it was like a jewel in a pigsty. Apart from being spotlessly clean, the flat was decorated with an artist’s taste in intense clear colours, the carpets deep, the walls hung here and there with abstract paintings. Wexford walked ahead of Teal into a long lounge running the length of the back of the house. The small sash windows had been removed and replaced by a fifteen-foot-long sheet of plate glass through which could be seen, starkly and almost indecently, the full windswept panorama of Kenbourne Cemetery. He stepped back, disconcerted, and saw Teal’s lips twitch.
‘Our guest thinks we have an unhealthy taste for the macabre,’ he said. ‘Perhaps, child, we should get some pretty little lace curtains.’
Wexford had been so drawn to the window that he had not noticed the boy who knelt on the floor beside a wall-length, well-stocked bookcase. As Teal addressed him, he got up and stood awkwardly, fidgeting with the girdle of his towelling dressing gown. He was perhaps twenty-two, slim, fair, with huge rather dull eyes.
‘Let me introduce Philip Chell, the other consenting adult in this establishment.’ Teal’s twitching mouth broke into a grin. ‘You’ve no idea what a pleasure it is to say that openly to a policeman.’
‘Oh, Ivan!’ said the boy.
‘Oh, Ivan !’ Teal mocked. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of. We’re doing nothing wrong. At your age you can surely hardly remember when it was wrong.’ Still smiling, but rather less pleasantly, he said to Wexford, ‘Unlike me who have suffered much from policemen.’ He shrugged in the boy’s direction. ‘We must let bygones be bygones and give him somecoffee. Go and get it, child.’
Philip Chell went with
‘I reckon.’ Peggy turned dourly to Wexford. ‘She has a party every Saturday night and a bloody awful row they make. Sets my kid off screaming half the night.’
‘Come off it, Peggy. You know you and Johnny have a great time at my parties.’
‘Did Loveday accept your invitation?’ Wexford asked.
‘Of course not. She looked quite shocked like as if I’d asked her to an orgy. Mind you, she was very nice abut it. She said not to worry about the noise. She liked to hear people enjoying themselves, but I thought, well, you’re more like an old aunt than a kid of twenty.’
‘She’d got no life in her at all,’ said Peggy with a heavy sigh.
At the top of the last flight Wexford had much the same sensation as he had received when coming from the dingy wastes of Kenbourne into the light and space which surrounded the Montfort house. The arch at the head of the stairs had been filled in with a glass door set in a frame of polished wood and from this frame, hooked to white trellis, hung a display of house plants. These were so well arranged and well tended as to have satisfied even Denise.
The air smelt cleaner, fresher. Wexford stood still for a moment, getting his breath back, and then he put his finger to the bell above a small plaque which read: ‘ Chez Teal.’
6
There be divers kinds of religion not only in sundry parts of the island, but also in divers places of every city.
‘I thought you’d turn up sooner or later,’ said Ivan Teal. The look he gave Wexford was not the insolent stare of the previous day, but slightly mocking, containing a kind of intense inner amusement. ‘Come in. You seem rather out of breath. Perhaps you’ve been afraid to breathe in case you might inhale something nasty? The stairs do smell, don’t they? There must be some very unusual germs lurking in those cracks. I’m sure they’d be a source of fascination to a bacteriologist.’ He closed the door and continued to talk in the same light indulgent tone. ‘You may wonder why I live here. In point of fact, it has its advantages. The view, for instance, and I have plenty of space for a low rent. Besides, I’m sure you’ll agree I’ve made the flat rather nice.’
It would have seemed nice in any surroundings. Here it was like a jewel in a pigsty. Apart from being spotlessly clean, the flat was decorated with an artist’s taste in intense clear colours, the carpets deep, the walls hung here and there with abstract paintings. Wexford walked ahead of Teal into a long lounge running the length of the back of the house. The small sash windows had been removed and replaced by a fifteen-foot-long sheet of plate glass through which could be seen, starkly and almost indecently, the full windswept panorama of Kenbourne Cemetery. He stepped back, disconcerted, and saw Teal’s lips twitch.
‘Our guest thinks we have an unhealthy taste for the macabre,’ he said. ‘Perhaps, child, we should get some pretty little lace curtains.’
Wexford had been so drawn to the window that he had not noticed the boy who knelt on the floor beside a wall-length, well-stocked bookcase. As Teal addressed him, he got up and stood awkwardly, fidgeting with the girdle of his towelling dressing gown. He was perhaps twenty-two, slim, fair, with huge rather dull eyes.
‘Let me introduce Philip Chell, the other consenting adult in this establishment.’ Teal’s twitching mouth broke into a grin. ‘You’ve no idea what a pleasure it is to say that openly to a policeman.’
‘Oh, Ivan!’ said the boy.
‘Oh, Ivan !’ Teal mocked. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of. We’re doing nothing wrong. At your age you can surely hardly remember when it was wrong.’ Still smiling, but rather less pleasantly, he said to Wexford, ‘Unlike me who have suffered much from policemen.’ He shrugged in the boy’s direction. ‘We must let bygones be bygones and give him somecoffee. Go and get it, child.’
Philip Chell went with
Similar Books
