Read Online Not In The Flesh by Ruth Rendell - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Ruth Rendell
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on me living over here what was five miles away. Some busybody must have told them. But I was too many for them. Me and Bill Runge come over to see where we'd dig that trench and there they was, their vans and their muck and litter all over my field. I got them off there pretty damn quick, I can tell you. Me and Bill went in there and got them off. If folks tell you we had guns it's a lie. Sticks we had, and they put up no resistance. They was scared of us and no wonder.”
He must have got that bit about resistance off the TV, Wexford thought. “Can you remember exactly when that was, Mr. Grimble?”
“To the day, I can. It was May thirty-first and the next day me and Bill started digging. Them bloody planners refused me permission on June twelfth, and on the sixteenth Bill started filling up our trench. Nearly broke my heart it did. If you're thinking one of them might be them bones, you can think again. They was gone back to where they come from days before me and Bill ever stuck a spade in the sod.”
6
Sheila was just leaving when Wexford got home. He put his arms around her and kissed her, an embrace that also included the baby Anoushka in a sling on her mother's chest. “Grandad kiss,” said Amy as Wexford picked her up.
“You don't have to go the moment I get in, do you?”
“I do. I've got a car picking me up here in two minutes. You're late, anyway, Pop.”
“I always am. Unpunctuality is the impoliteness of policemen. Not a very good epigram, I'm afraid, but I'm too weary to do better. When are you coming down again?”
“Next week. I've got a project on. Ma will tell you.”
The car came, sleek and black. The white-haired driver had the face of the old Italian actor Rossano Brazzi. Wexford waved to his daughter and the children and they waved at him out of a rear window, and he went on watching until they were all out of sight. He turned away, noting that his front garden was still a mass of flowers, awaiting the frost that never came. Fuchsias in tubs, the last of the dahlias and Michaelmas daisies in the borders. Nothing to do with him, he seldom if ever pulled out a weed or planted a seed, but all Dora's work. If he sometimes neglected his wife, and he feared he did, he appreciated her when her work came into flower. There was a graceful yellow thing in a tub called a thunbergia that he'd forced himself to learn the name of, though he'd forget it again by the spring, and another yellow thing that was a shrub with flowers that smelled of oranges, but that was long over now.
Dora said, when she had received his wife-appreciating kiss, “Did you see Sheila?”
“Just in time to watch them go. What's this project she was talking about?”
“Oh, that,” said Dora dismissively. “Her news was that she's got the lead in this film that's based on your friend Tredown's great work.”
“Not my friend,” said Wexford, fetching himself a glass of red wine and her a glass of white. “I haven't even set eyes on him yet. Do you mean The First Heaven ?”
“I suppose so. It's a wonderful thing for her. She's to be the goddess of love and beauty. Oh, Reg, you should have heard her. You should have heard what she said. ‘And I was the check-in chick in that Runway serial for years and years,’ she said. ‘Haven't I come up in the world?’ ”
“I wish she had stayed a bit longer. Shall we drink to her success?” They touched glasses, and Wexford, seeing tears in her eyes, said quickly, “So what is this project? I think of our other daughter as having projects, not Sheila.”
“It's something to do with female circumcision, only she calls it female genital mutilation. It sounds awful. She says it's going on here.”
Wexford was silent for a moment. Then he said, “It's against the law. There was a law passed a couple of years ago to stop people taking their daughters back to Africa to have it done. I hope there's
He must have got that bit about resistance off the TV, Wexford thought. “Can you remember exactly when that was, Mr. Grimble?”
“To the day, I can. It was May thirty-first and the next day me and Bill started digging. Them bloody planners refused me permission on June twelfth, and on the sixteenth Bill started filling up our trench. Nearly broke my heart it did. If you're thinking one of them might be them bones, you can think again. They was gone back to where they come from days before me and Bill ever stuck a spade in the sod.”
6
Sheila was just leaving when Wexford got home. He put his arms around her and kissed her, an embrace that also included the baby Anoushka in a sling on her mother's chest. “Grandad kiss,” said Amy as Wexford picked her up.
“You don't have to go the moment I get in, do you?”
“I do. I've got a car picking me up here in two minutes. You're late, anyway, Pop.”
“I always am. Unpunctuality is the impoliteness of policemen. Not a very good epigram, I'm afraid, but I'm too weary to do better. When are you coming down again?”
“Next week. I've got a project on. Ma will tell you.”
The car came, sleek and black. The white-haired driver had the face of the old Italian actor Rossano Brazzi. Wexford waved to his daughter and the children and they waved at him out of a rear window, and he went on watching until they were all out of sight. He turned away, noting that his front garden was still a mass of flowers, awaiting the frost that never came. Fuchsias in tubs, the last of the dahlias and Michaelmas daisies in the borders. Nothing to do with him, he seldom if ever pulled out a weed or planted a seed, but all Dora's work. If he sometimes neglected his wife, and he feared he did, he appreciated her when her work came into flower. There was a graceful yellow thing in a tub called a thunbergia that he'd forced himself to learn the name of, though he'd forget it again by the spring, and another yellow thing that was a shrub with flowers that smelled of oranges, but that was long over now.
Dora said, when she had received his wife-appreciating kiss, “Did you see Sheila?”
“Just in time to watch them go. What's this project she was talking about?”
“Oh, that,” said Dora dismissively. “Her news was that she's got the lead in this film that's based on your friend Tredown's great work.”
“Not my friend,” said Wexford, fetching himself a glass of red wine and her a glass of white. “I haven't even set eyes on him yet. Do you mean The First Heaven ?”
“I suppose so. It's a wonderful thing for her. She's to be the goddess of love and beauty. Oh, Reg, you should have heard her. You should have heard what she said. ‘And I was the check-in chick in that Runway serial for years and years,’ she said. ‘Haven't I come up in the world?’ ”
“I wish she had stayed a bit longer. Shall we drink to her success?” They touched glasses, and Wexford, seeing tears in her eyes, said quickly, “So what is this project? I think of our other daughter as having projects, not Sheila.”
“It's something to do with female circumcision, only she calls it female genital mutilation. It sounds awful. She says it's going on here.”
Wexford was silent for a moment. Then he said, “It's against the law. There was a law passed a couple of years ago to stop people taking their daughters back to Africa to have it done. I hope there's
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