Read Online Wexford 6 - No More Dying Then by Ruth Rendell - Free Book Online
Authors: Ruth Rendell
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hair experts, but I know very well it’s a hoax and what I’m doing is an utter waste of time.”
“But it has to be done.”
“Of course it has to be done. Let’s go to lunch.”
At the Carousel Café only ham and salad was left on the menu. Wexford picked without enthusiasm at the salad in which lettuce leaves were economically eked out with shreds of cabbage and carrot. “Can’t get away from rabbits,” he muttered. “Want me to tell you about Swan and his wife?”
“I suppose I ought to have a bit of background.”
“Usually,” Wexford began, “you feel too much sympathy with the parents of a lost child. You find your emotions getting involved.” He shifted his gaze from his plate to Burden’s face and pursed his lips. “Which doesn’t help,” he said. “I didn’t feel particularly sorry for them. You’ll see why not in a minute.” Clearing his throat, he went on, “After Stella disappeared, we did more research into the life and background of Ivor Swan than I can ever remember doing with anyone. I could write his biography.”
“He was born in India, the son of one General Sir Rodney Swan, and he was sent home to school and then to Oxford. Being in possession of what he calls small private means, he never took up any particular career but dabbled at various things. At one time he managed an estate for someone, but he soon got the sack. He wrote a novel which sold three hundred copies, so he never repeated that experiment. Instead he had a spell in P.R. and in three months lost his firm an account worth twenty thousand a year. Utter ingrained laziness is what characterises Ivor Swan. He is indolence incarnate. Oh, and he’s good-looking, staggeringly so, in fact. Wait till you see.”
Burden poured himself a glass of water but said nothing. He was watching Wexford’s expression warm and liven as he pursued his theme. Once he too had been able to involve himself as raptly in the characters of suspects.
“Swan rarely had any settled home,” Wexford said. “Sometimes he lived with his widowed mother at her house in Bedfordshire, sometimes with an uncle who had been some sort of big brass in the Air Force. And now I come to an interesting point about him. Wherever he goes he seems to leave disaster behind him. Not because of what he does but because of what he doesn’t do. There was a bad fire at his mother’s house while he was staying there. Swan had fallen asleep with a cigarette burning in his fingers. Then there was the loss of the P.R. account because of what he didn’t do; the sacking from the estate management job - he left a pretty mess behind him there - on account of his laziness.”
“About two years ago he found himself in Karachi. At that time he was calling himself a free-lance journalist and the purpose of his visit was to enquire into the alleged smuggling of gold by airline staff. Any story he concocted would probably have been libellous, but, as it happened, it was never written or, at any rate, no newspaper printed it.”
“Peter Rivers worked for an airline in Karachi, not as a pilot but among the ground staff, meeting aircraft, weighing baggage, that sort of thing, and he lived with his wife and daughter in a company house. In the course of his snooping Swan made friends with Rivers. It would be mote to the point to say he made friends with Rivers’ wife.”
“You mean he took her away from him?” Burden hazarded.
“If you can imagine Swan doing anything as active as taking anyone or anything away from anyone else. I should rather say that the fair Rosalind – ‘From the East to Western Ind no jewel is like Rosalind’ - fastened herself to Swan and held on tight. The upshot was that Swan returned to England plus Rosalind and Stella and about a year later Rivers got his decree.”
“The three of them all lived in a poky flat Swan took in Maida Vale, but after they were married Swan, or
“But it has to be done.”
“Of course it has to be done. Let’s go to lunch.”
At the Carousel Café only ham and salad was left on the menu. Wexford picked without enthusiasm at the salad in which lettuce leaves were economically eked out with shreds of cabbage and carrot. “Can’t get away from rabbits,” he muttered. “Want me to tell you about Swan and his wife?”
“I suppose I ought to have a bit of background.”
“Usually,” Wexford began, “you feel too much sympathy with the parents of a lost child. You find your emotions getting involved.” He shifted his gaze from his plate to Burden’s face and pursed his lips. “Which doesn’t help,” he said. “I didn’t feel particularly sorry for them. You’ll see why not in a minute.” Clearing his throat, he went on, “After Stella disappeared, we did more research into the life and background of Ivor Swan than I can ever remember doing with anyone. I could write his biography.”
“He was born in India, the son of one General Sir Rodney Swan, and he was sent home to school and then to Oxford. Being in possession of what he calls small private means, he never took up any particular career but dabbled at various things. At one time he managed an estate for someone, but he soon got the sack. He wrote a novel which sold three hundred copies, so he never repeated that experiment. Instead he had a spell in P.R. and in three months lost his firm an account worth twenty thousand a year. Utter ingrained laziness is what characterises Ivor Swan. He is indolence incarnate. Oh, and he’s good-looking, staggeringly so, in fact. Wait till you see.”
Burden poured himself a glass of water but said nothing. He was watching Wexford’s expression warm and liven as he pursued his theme. Once he too had been able to involve himself as raptly in the characters of suspects.
“Swan rarely had any settled home,” Wexford said. “Sometimes he lived with his widowed mother at her house in Bedfordshire, sometimes with an uncle who had been some sort of big brass in the Air Force. And now I come to an interesting point about him. Wherever he goes he seems to leave disaster behind him. Not because of what he does but because of what he doesn’t do. There was a bad fire at his mother’s house while he was staying there. Swan had fallen asleep with a cigarette burning in his fingers. Then there was the loss of the P.R. account because of what he didn’t do; the sacking from the estate management job - he left a pretty mess behind him there - on account of his laziness.”
“About two years ago he found himself in Karachi. At that time he was calling himself a free-lance journalist and the purpose of his visit was to enquire into the alleged smuggling of gold by airline staff. Any story he concocted would probably have been libellous, but, as it happened, it was never written or, at any rate, no newspaper printed it.”
“Peter Rivers worked for an airline in Karachi, not as a pilot but among the ground staff, meeting aircraft, weighing baggage, that sort of thing, and he lived with his wife and daughter in a company house. In the course of his snooping Swan made friends with Rivers. It would be mote to the point to say he made friends with Rivers’ wife.”
“You mean he took her away from him?” Burden hazarded.
“If you can imagine Swan doing anything as active as taking anyone or anything away from anyone else. I should rather say that the fair Rosalind – ‘From the East to Western Ind no jewel is like Rosalind’ - fastened herself to Swan and held on tight. The upshot was that Swan returned to England plus Rosalind and Stella and about a year later Rivers got his decree.”
“The three of them all lived in a poky flat Swan took in Maida Vale, but after they were married Swan, or
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