Read Online Wexford 19 - The Babes In The Woods by Ruth Rendell - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Ruth Rendell
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can make anything sound ridiculous,’ Burden said peevishly. ‘You’re always doing it. I’m not sure it’s a virtue.’
Wexford laughed. ‘You and Barry went to her house. ‘Where’s your report on that?’
‘On your desk. Under a mountain of stuff. You haven’t penetrated to it yet. I’ll tell you about it if you like.’
It was a very small house, a living room and kitchen on the ground floor, two bedrooms and a bathroom above, part of a row of eight called Kingsbridge Mews put up by a speculative builder in the eighties.
‘As Dade said, the car was kept outside in the front,’ said Burden. ‘Needless to say, it’s not there now.’
Inside the house it was cold. Joanna Troy had apparently switched off the central heating before she left on Friday. She was either naturally frugal or obliged to make economies. Vine found her passport too. It was inside a desk which held little else of interest. There were no letters, no vehicle registration document, no certificate of insurance, though these of course would have been with her father, nothing pertaining to a mort gage. Insurance policies for the house itself and for its contents were also in the drawer. A large envelope contained certificates acknowledging a degree in French from the University of Warwick, a Master’s Degree in European Literature from the University of Birmingham and a diploma Burden said was the Postgraduate Certificate in Education. Upstairs one of the bedrooms had been turned into an office with computer and printer, a photocopier, a sophisticated recording device and two large filing cabinets. The walls were lined with books, in this room mostly French and German fiction and dictionaries.
‘Vine says she has all those French books you found in Giles’s bedroom. Lettres de mon something and Emile Zola and whatever the other one was. Mind you, she’s got about a hundred others in French too.’
On the desk, to the left of the PC had lain a set of page proofs of a novel in French. To the right were pages in English, fresh from Joanna Troy’s printer. She had apparently been engaged in the work of translation on the day she left for Lyndhurst Drive and her weekend with the Dade children. In the bedroom Burden had looked with interest at her clothes.
‘You would,’ said Wexford nastily, eyeing Burden’s slate-blue suit, lighter blue shirt and deep-purple slub silk tie. Not for a moment would anyone have taken him for a policeman.
‘To my mind,’ Burden said in a distant tone, ‘dressing decently is one of the markers of civilisation.’
‘OK, OK, depends what you mean by “decently”. You found something funny about her clothes, I can see it in your beady eye.’
‘Well, yes, I did. I think so. Everything in her wardrobe was casual, everything. And I mean really casual. Not a single skirt or dress, for instance. Jeans, chinos, Dockers. . .'
‘I haven’t the faintest idea what these things are,’ Wexford interrupted.
‘Then leave it to me. I have. T-shirts, shirts, sweaters, jackets, pea coats, padded coats, a fleece.
'All right, I know you don’t know what that is either. Take it from me, it’s not something a woman would wear to a party The point is she’d nothing she could wear to a party nothing dress-up, except possibly one pair of black trousers. “What did she do if someone asked her out to dinner or a theatre?’
‘I’ve been to theatres, even to the National when my daughter Sheila’s been in something, and there’ve been women dressed as if about to muck out the pigpen. For all you being such a fashionista you don’t seem to realise this isn’t the nineteen thirties. But you’ll say that’s beside the point. I agree it’s odd. It just adds to what I’ve been thinking already. We need to go back to the Dades, search the place, get a team in there if necessary. Those children have been missing four days by now,
Wexford laughed. ‘You and Barry went to her house. ‘Where’s your report on that?’
‘On your desk. Under a mountain of stuff. You haven’t penetrated to it yet. I’ll tell you about it if you like.’
It was a very small house, a living room and kitchen on the ground floor, two bedrooms and a bathroom above, part of a row of eight called Kingsbridge Mews put up by a speculative builder in the eighties.
‘As Dade said, the car was kept outside in the front,’ said Burden. ‘Needless to say, it’s not there now.’
Inside the house it was cold. Joanna Troy had apparently switched off the central heating before she left on Friday. She was either naturally frugal or obliged to make economies. Vine found her passport too. It was inside a desk which held little else of interest. There were no letters, no vehicle registration document, no certificate of insurance, though these of course would have been with her father, nothing pertaining to a mort gage. Insurance policies for the house itself and for its contents were also in the drawer. A large envelope contained certificates acknowledging a degree in French from the University of Warwick, a Master’s Degree in European Literature from the University of Birmingham and a diploma Burden said was the Postgraduate Certificate in Education. Upstairs one of the bedrooms had been turned into an office with computer and printer, a photocopier, a sophisticated recording device and two large filing cabinets. The walls were lined with books, in this room mostly French and German fiction and dictionaries.
‘Vine says she has all those French books you found in Giles’s bedroom. Lettres de mon something and Emile Zola and whatever the other one was. Mind you, she’s got about a hundred others in French too.’
On the desk, to the left of the PC had lain a set of page proofs of a novel in French. To the right were pages in English, fresh from Joanna Troy’s printer. She had apparently been engaged in the work of translation on the day she left for Lyndhurst Drive and her weekend with the Dade children. In the bedroom Burden had looked with interest at her clothes.
‘You would,’ said Wexford nastily, eyeing Burden’s slate-blue suit, lighter blue shirt and deep-purple slub silk tie. Not for a moment would anyone have taken him for a policeman.
‘To my mind,’ Burden said in a distant tone, ‘dressing decently is one of the markers of civilisation.’
‘OK, OK, depends what you mean by “decently”. You found something funny about her clothes, I can see it in your beady eye.’
‘Well, yes, I did. I think so. Everything in her wardrobe was casual, everything. And I mean really casual. Not a single skirt or dress, for instance. Jeans, chinos, Dockers. . .'
‘I haven’t the faintest idea what these things are,’ Wexford interrupted.
‘Then leave it to me. I have. T-shirts, shirts, sweaters, jackets, pea coats, padded coats, a fleece.
'All right, I know you don’t know what that is either. Take it from me, it’s not something a woman would wear to a party The point is she’d nothing she could wear to a party nothing dress-up, except possibly one pair of black trousers. “What did she do if someone asked her out to dinner or a theatre?’
‘I’ve been to theatres, even to the National when my daughter Sheila’s been in something, and there’ve been women dressed as if about to muck out the pigpen. For all you being such a fashionista you don’t seem to realise this isn’t the nineteen thirties. But you’ll say that’s beside the point. I agree it’s odd. It just adds to what I’ve been thinking already. We need to go back to the Dades, search the place, get a team in there if necessary. Those children have been missing four days by now,
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