Read Online Wexford 14 - The Veiled One by Ruth Rendell - Free Book Online
Authors: Ruth Rendell
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their private arrangements to be intimately known by others, to need no elucidation, yet who show affront when those others reveal a knowledge gained by sensitivity or intuition. ‘He’s a teacher, isn’t he?’
‘You tell me,’ Burden said.
She curled her nostrils in disgust. ‘He teaches in a school for children who can’t pass their exams without extra coaching.’
A crammer’s, Wexford thought. Probably Munster’s in Kingsmarkham High Street. It surprised him a little and yet - why not? Clifford Sanders, he thought in the light of his new knowledge, would be one of those who lived at home while they attended university, going to and fro by bus. It would be interesting to find out if he was right there.
‘Part-time,’ she said, and astonished them both by saying in the same level, indifferent tone, ‘He’s inadequate in some ways.’
‘What’s wrong with him? Is he ill?’
Her old harshly censorious manner was back. ‘They call it ill nowadays. When I was young, they called it lacking character.’ A dark flush moved into her cheeks, mottling them. She was dressed in green today, a dark dull green, though her shoes and gloves were black. When the blush faded, the dull seaweed green seemed to show up the pallor of her skin. ‘That’s where he was, wasn’t he, when he was supposed to be coming for me in the car park? He’d been to this psychiatrist. They call them psychotherapists; they don’t have any qualifications.’
‘Mrs Sanders, are you telling me that your son was in the Barringdean Centre car park when you were?’
Emotions warred behind the blush, the succeeding pallor, the muffling screen of green and black. She had not meant to let that out. Protecting her son was not as unknown to her as Wexford had at first believed: he could even see that in an intense, self-disgusted, incredulous way she loved her son, but perhaps she had not been able to resist that dig at a profession she disapproved of. She spoke with extreme care now, the pace of the voice electronically slowed to make understanding easier.
‘He should have been there but he was not. He had come in, the car was there, but he . . .’ she paused, breathing deeply, ‘. . .was not.’
An abrupt halting explanation followed. At first, when she saw the car and a body, she had thought it was Clifford lying there dead. She couldn’t see the body because it was covered up and believing it to be Clifford, she pulled back the brown velvet covering. It wasn’t Clifford, but it had been a great shock just the same. She had had to sit in her car and rest, recover herself. Clifford had been going to pick her up as he always did on Thursdays, always. It was an unvarying arrangement, though the school time might vary. She looked at her watch as she said this. Clifford brought her to the shopping centre, went to his session with the psychotherapist, returned to pick her up. She didn’t drive. This Thursday they had arranged for him to be in the car park on the second level by six-fifteen. On her arrival she had had her hair done at Suzanne’s on the upper floor of the centre - another inflexible arrangement - shopped, come back to the car park at twelve minutes past six.
After the shock of finding the body, after she had recovered somewhat - Wexford found this frailty of hers rather hard to believe in - she had gone up to look for Clifford. She had walked about looking for him, a statement that was con firmed by Archie Greaves. At last she had gone to the pedestrian gates.
‘I broke down,’ she said, giving each word equal monotonous weight.
‘Where was your son, then? No, you needn’t answer that, Mrs Sanders. You tell him we’re interested and we’ll have a talk with him later. We’ll all take a break and he can do some thinking. How’s that?’
She moved towards the door. Someone would drive her home. Her manner had in it something of the sleepwalker, or
‘You tell me,’ Burden said.
She curled her nostrils in disgust. ‘He teaches in a school for children who can’t pass their exams without extra coaching.’
A crammer’s, Wexford thought. Probably Munster’s in Kingsmarkham High Street. It surprised him a little and yet - why not? Clifford Sanders, he thought in the light of his new knowledge, would be one of those who lived at home while they attended university, going to and fro by bus. It would be interesting to find out if he was right there.
‘Part-time,’ she said, and astonished them both by saying in the same level, indifferent tone, ‘He’s inadequate in some ways.’
‘What’s wrong with him? Is he ill?’
Her old harshly censorious manner was back. ‘They call it ill nowadays. When I was young, they called it lacking character.’ A dark flush moved into her cheeks, mottling them. She was dressed in green today, a dark dull green, though her shoes and gloves were black. When the blush faded, the dull seaweed green seemed to show up the pallor of her skin. ‘That’s where he was, wasn’t he, when he was supposed to be coming for me in the car park? He’d been to this psychiatrist. They call them psychotherapists; they don’t have any qualifications.’
‘Mrs Sanders, are you telling me that your son was in the Barringdean Centre car park when you were?’
Emotions warred behind the blush, the succeeding pallor, the muffling screen of green and black. She had not meant to let that out. Protecting her son was not as unknown to her as Wexford had at first believed: he could even see that in an intense, self-disgusted, incredulous way she loved her son, but perhaps she had not been able to resist that dig at a profession she disapproved of. She spoke with extreme care now, the pace of the voice electronically slowed to make understanding easier.
‘He should have been there but he was not. He had come in, the car was there, but he . . .’ she paused, breathing deeply, ‘. . .was not.’
An abrupt halting explanation followed. At first, when she saw the car and a body, she had thought it was Clifford lying there dead. She couldn’t see the body because it was covered up and believing it to be Clifford, she pulled back the brown velvet covering. It wasn’t Clifford, but it had been a great shock just the same. She had had to sit in her car and rest, recover herself. Clifford had been going to pick her up as he always did on Thursdays, always. It was an unvarying arrangement, though the school time might vary. She looked at her watch as she said this. Clifford brought her to the shopping centre, went to his session with the psychotherapist, returned to pick her up. She didn’t drive. This Thursday they had arranged for him to be in the car park on the second level by six-fifteen. On her arrival she had had her hair done at Suzanne’s on the upper floor of the centre - another inflexible arrangement - shopped, come back to the car park at twelve minutes past six.
After the shock of finding the body, after she had recovered somewhat - Wexford found this frailty of hers rather hard to believe in - she had gone up to look for Clifford. She had walked about looking for him, a statement that was con firmed by Archie Greaves. At last she had gone to the pedestrian gates.
‘I broke down,’ she said, giving each word equal monotonous weight.
‘Where was your son, then? No, you needn’t answer that, Mrs Sanders. You tell him we’re interested and we’ll have a talk with him later. We’ll all take a break and he can do some thinking. How’s that?’
She moved towards the door. Someone would drive her home. Her manner had in it something of the sleepwalker, or
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