A New Lease of Death

A New Lease of Death by Ruth Rendell Read Free Book Online Page B

Book: A New Lease of Death by Ruth Rendell Read Free Book Online
Authors: Ruth Rendell
He could have told her he had done it , he couldn’t have told her he had
not
.
    ‘Then we came. We found blood flecks in the sink and faint blood marks on the kitchen wall where he’d stripped off that pullover. As soon as he came back he took the bandage off his hand to show us the cut and he handed the bandage to his wife. But he didn’t speak to her, didn’t even appeal to her for support. He made just one reference to her …’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘We found the handbag with the money in it under the mattress in their double bed. Why hadn’t Painter told his wife if he’d been given that money in the morning? Here it is, find it in your transcript. “I knew the wife would want to get her hooks on it. She was always nagging me to buy things for the flat.” That’s all he said and he didn’t even look at her. We charged him and he said, “O.K., but you’re making a big mistake. It was a tramp done it.” He came straight down the stairs with us. He didn’t kiss his wife and he didn’t ask to go in and see his child.’
    ‘She must have seen him in prison?’
    ‘With a prison officer present. Look, sir, you appear to be satisfied and so do all the parties concerned. Surely that’s the main thing? You must forgive me if I can’t agree with you.’
    Silently Archery took a snapshot from his wallet and laid it on the desk. Wexford picked it up. Presumably it had been taken in the vicarage garden. There was a great magnolia tree in the background, a tree as tall as the house it partly concealed. It was covered with waxen cup flowers. Under its branches stood a boy and a girl, their arms round each other. The boy was tall and fair. He was smiling and he was plainly Archery’s son. Wexford wasn’t particularly interested in him.
    The girl’s face was in sad repose. She was looking into the camera with large steady eyes. Light-coloured hair fell over her forehead in a fringe and down to the shoulders of a typical undergraduate’s shirtwaister, faded, tightly belted and with a crumpled skirt. Her waist was tiny, her bust full. Wexford saw the mother again, only this girl was holding a boy’s hand instead of a bloody rag.
    ‘Very charming,’ he said dryly. ‘I hope she’ll make your son happy.’ He handed the photograph back. ‘No reason why she shouldn’t.’
    A mixture of emotions, anger, pain, resentment, flared in the clergyman’s eyes. Interestedly, Wexford watched him.
    ‘I do not know what or whom to believe,’ Archery said unhappily, ‘and while I’m in this state of uncertainty, Chief Inspector, I’m not in favour of the marriage. No, that’s putting it too cooly.’ He shook his head vehemently. ‘I’m bitterly, bitterly against it,’ he said.
    ‘And the girl, Painter’s daughter?’
    ‘She believed – perhaps accepts is the better word – in her father’s innocence, but she realizes others may not. When it comes to it, I don’t think she would marry my son while his mother and I feel as we do.’
    ‘What are you afraid of, Mr Archery?’
    ‘Heredity.’
    ‘A very chancy thing, heredity.’
    ‘Have you children, Chief Inspector?’
    ‘I’ve got two girls.’
    ‘Are they married?’
    ‘One is.’
    ‘And who is her father-in-law?’
    For the first time Wexford felt superior to this clergyman. A kind of
schadenfreude
possessed him. ‘He’s an architect, as a matter of fact, Tory councillor for the North Ward here.’
    ‘I see.’ Archery bowed his head. ‘And do your grandchildren already build palaces with wooden bricks, Mr Wexford?’ Wexford said nothing. The only sign of his first grandchild’s existence was so far evinced in its mother’s morning sickness. ‘I shall watch mine from their cradle, waiting to see them drawn towards objects with sharp edges.’
    ‘You said if you objected she wouldn’t marry him.’
    ‘They’re in love with each other. I can’t …’
    ‘Who’s going to know? Palm Kershaw off as her father.’
    ‘I shall know,’ said Archery.

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