Read Online Wexford 22 - The Monster In The Box by Ruth Rendell - Free Book Online
Authors: Ruth Rendell
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marriage is against the law, arranged marriage isn't.'
'Do you think I should go and see them? The Rahmans, I mean. Talk to the parents?'
Hannah didn't care for this suggestion. It was all right for her to go as a police officer but she saw a teacher's visit as on a par with a social worker's snooping or an old-time lady bountiful's condescending to a peasant family. 'So long as you remember they're intelligent people, educated people – well, Mohammed Rahman and his sons are. I hope you don't mind me saying this but Mohammed wouldn't take kindly to being lectured.'
Mildly for her, Jenny said, 'I won't lecture him. I'll only say it's such a waste that a bright girl like Tamima isn't to go on to higher education. I mean, what's she going to do with her life? Work in some dead-end job until she can be a full-time housewife like her mother?'
The position of women in Islam was in conflict with Hannah's feminist views and this gave her a hard time. Still, she couldn't let that pass. She gave Jenny a pleasant smile. 'In the case of Tamima's mum I'm sure it's her choice to be a housewife. She's a very excellent one and absolutely the rock of that family. Can I get you another cup of coffee?'
After Kevin Styles, self-styled gang leader, aged twenty and of no fixed address, had been committed for trial on charges of breaking and entering and causing actual bodily harm, Burden went off to meet Wexford for lunch at the Kashmiri restaurant they currently favoured. On his way to the Dal Lake he had had an experience he could hardly wait to tell Wexford about. The Chief Inspector was already there, sitting at a table reading the menu.
'I can't see any difference between this food and Indian at the Indus down the road,' he said, looking up. 'Of course this may not be authentic Kashmiri. We wouldn't know one way or the other, would we?'
'I've seen him,' Burden said, sitting down.
'Seen who?'
'Your stalker.'
'How could you know?'
'Well, let's say your description was so detailed, not to mention the white van, that it was pretty obvious. The bushy white hair, piercing blue eyes, his height or lack of it, the way he walks or struts.'
'Scarf or no scarf ?'
'No scarf. But close to you can sort of see where the naevus was. When you know there was a naevus, that is. The skin's paler than the rest and smoother.'
'You must have been very close to. Where was this?'
'Outside the police station. Well, outside the court which is more or less the same thing. The van was parked on a meter, all perfectly as it should be. I saw him put a coin into the meter and then he walked up to our forecourt and stood there, looking up at the windows. I went over to him. He didn't speak and nor did I. God knows what he was doing.'
'And not only God,' said Wexford. 'He was looking for me.'
'What, still?'
'Why not? He doesn't know whether I'm still here or retired or maybe I've died. He wants to find out.'
Soon after George Carroll had been released, Wexford was transferred from Kingsmarkham to a division on the south coast. He thought it was permanent but it turned out to be only temporary, lasting just two years, part of the preliminaries to his being made sergeant. It was a time of shifting change; everyone, it seemed to him, moving away.
That George Carroll should leave Stowerton was no surprise. He might have been acquitted but not because some startling piece of eleventh-hour evidence revealed him to be beyond doubt innocent. People were saying he got off on a technicality, just because some old judge who was probably senile had fallen down on the job. Carroll returned home for a while because he had nowhere else to go. In the present climate of social conduct, Wexford thought, his neighbours would at best have catcalled him and daubed abuse on his garden wall, at the more likely worst, smashed his windows and perhaps even stoned him. Then, all those
'Do you think I should go and see them? The Rahmans, I mean. Talk to the parents?'
Hannah didn't care for this suggestion. It was all right for her to go as a police officer but she saw a teacher's visit as on a par with a social worker's snooping or an old-time lady bountiful's condescending to a peasant family. 'So long as you remember they're intelligent people, educated people – well, Mohammed Rahman and his sons are. I hope you don't mind me saying this but Mohammed wouldn't take kindly to being lectured.'
Mildly for her, Jenny said, 'I won't lecture him. I'll only say it's such a waste that a bright girl like Tamima isn't to go on to higher education. I mean, what's she going to do with her life? Work in some dead-end job until she can be a full-time housewife like her mother?'
The position of women in Islam was in conflict with Hannah's feminist views and this gave her a hard time. Still, she couldn't let that pass. She gave Jenny a pleasant smile. 'In the case of Tamima's mum I'm sure it's her choice to be a housewife. She's a very excellent one and absolutely the rock of that family. Can I get you another cup of coffee?'
After Kevin Styles, self-styled gang leader, aged twenty and of no fixed address, had been committed for trial on charges of breaking and entering and causing actual bodily harm, Burden went off to meet Wexford for lunch at the Kashmiri restaurant they currently favoured. On his way to the Dal Lake he had had an experience he could hardly wait to tell Wexford about. The Chief Inspector was already there, sitting at a table reading the menu.
'I can't see any difference between this food and Indian at the Indus down the road,' he said, looking up. 'Of course this may not be authentic Kashmiri. We wouldn't know one way or the other, would we?'
'I've seen him,' Burden said, sitting down.
'Seen who?'
'Your stalker.'
'How could you know?'
'Well, let's say your description was so detailed, not to mention the white van, that it was pretty obvious. The bushy white hair, piercing blue eyes, his height or lack of it, the way he walks or struts.'
'Scarf or no scarf ?'
'No scarf. But close to you can sort of see where the naevus was. When you know there was a naevus, that is. The skin's paler than the rest and smoother.'
'You must have been very close to. Where was this?'
'Outside the police station. Well, outside the court which is more or less the same thing. The van was parked on a meter, all perfectly as it should be. I saw him put a coin into the meter and then he walked up to our forecourt and stood there, looking up at the windows. I went over to him. He didn't speak and nor did I. God knows what he was doing.'
'And not only God,' said Wexford. 'He was looking for me.'
'What, still?'
'Why not? He doesn't know whether I'm still here or retired or maybe I've died. He wants to find out.'
Soon after George Carroll had been released, Wexford was transferred from Kingsmarkham to a division on the south coast. He thought it was permanent but it turned out to be only temporary, lasting just two years, part of the preliminaries to his being made sergeant. It was a time of shifting change; everyone, it seemed to him, moving away.
That George Carroll should leave Stowerton was no surprise. He might have been acquitted but not because some startling piece of eleventh-hour evidence revealed him to be beyond doubt innocent. People were saying he got off on a technicality, just because some old judge who was probably senile had fallen down on the job. Carroll returned home for a while because he had nowhere else to go. In the present climate of social conduct, Wexford thought, his neighbours would at best have catcalled him and daubed abuse on his garden wall, at the more likely worst, smashed his windows and perhaps even stoned him. Then, all those
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