Read Online The Killing Doll by Ruth Rendell - Free Book Online Page B

absolutely dry underfoot; there had been no rain for a fortnight. Usually it was a bit muddy inside the tunnel but not today. Footprints and cycle tire marks were etched in the hard, pale, feather-strewn clay. Dolly walked through the tunnel, carrying her bags of wine bottles. Someone had stacked the mattress up on its side and propped it up with an oil drum and some wire. Perhaps, rather, the council or the railway people or somebody or other were collecting up the rubbish in here at last before taking it away. Dolly nearly went over to the mattress to see, at closer quarters, if it did look as if some genuine tidying work had been done, but she thought better of it. The bags were heavy, and the smelly dirty old tunnel was no place in which to linger.
    She mounted the steps. In Manningtree Grove, outside the house, she paused for a moment. Myra had lost no time in revitalizing the garden. The Michaelmas daisies and Solomon’s seal were all gone and in their place she had planted annuals—lobelias and tagetes and petunias—and these were in flower. Dolly was not one of those people who think all flowers beautiful and here she thought the juxtaposition of cobalt blue, orange, and shocking pink particularly inharmonious. Gingie, for once, was sitting on the post.
    “Get off!” said Dolly and clapped her hands. The cat fled.
    She let herself into the house but not quietly or cautiously. It was a Monday and Myra worked till lunchtime.
    “Doreen!”
    Dolly froze. The door to the front room opened and Myra came out, wearing jade green dungarees and a navy-and-white striped T-shirt.
    “Caught at last,” said Myra but not unpleasantly. “I always seem to see the tail end of you disappearing. Now I’ve got you, come in here and give me the benefit of your advice.”
    “Why aren’t you at work?”
    These were practically the first words Dolly had ever addressed to her but Myra gave no sign that she realized this. “I’ve started a fortnight’s holiday, my dear. I’m going to begin on the painting tomorrow. Now don’t look like that!” Dolly hadn’t looked like anything. Her face, as usual, was expressionless. “Yes, I mean me with my own two hands,” Myra said. “To be perfectly honest with you, I spent so much on converting your kitchen I can’t afford to have the men in again.”
    “They only put a sink in,” said Dolly, “and we didn’t want that.”
    Myra gave her tinkling laugh. “Oh, well, that’s frank if you like. We won’t argue about it. I didn’t bring you in here to argue. I want you to tell me what color scheme you think I ought to have.”
    This was something Dolly had plenty of ideas about. For a moment she forgot her hatred of Myra. “It’s a light room. You could have a strong color. You could have a white ceiling and brilliant white paintwork and deep russet walls. That would tone in with the carpet and those chairs.”
    Myra was astonished. She had spoken to Dolly because she had genuinely thought it would be better to be on speaking terms with her. But in answer to her question she had expected some such rejoinder as “I don’t know” or “Whatever you like.” “I’m not keeping that filthy old carpet or those chairs,” she said scornfully. “I’m having haircord and stripped pine. And I think a natural beige for the walls, there’s a shade they call papyrus.”
    “Suit yourself.” Dolly shrugged her shoulders. It was still early in the day but she suddenly felt she needed a glass of wine badly and she made for the door.
    Myra had hoped for an offer of help which she now saw she wasn’t going to get. She remembered, though, the original purpose of accosting Dolly. “Want a coffee? I was just going to have one.”
    Coffee was no substitute for a tumblerful of Spanish burgundy. “No, thanks.”
    “Well, if I can’t twist your arm, I can’t. Come and inspect the work, though, will you? I hope to have a good bit done by Friday. Come and have a look and tell me what you