Guilty Thing Surprised by Ruth Rendell Read Free Book Online Page A

forehead. ‘Fitter,’ he said critically.
    With an effort Wexford drew in the muscles of his abdomen and sat up straighten ‘Ain’t that amazement?’ he said. ‘I thought it was cancer, but it must be some inner torment feeding on his damask cheek. Like guilt. How old is he?’
    ‘Now look …’ said the doctor, fidgeting in his seat.
    ‘Go on, strain yourself. A man’s age isn’t something he confides to his quack behind the aseptic green shades of the consulting room.’
    ‘He’s thirty-eight.’
    ‘
Thirty-eight!
He looks ten years older and damn’ ill with it. By God, Mike here is a stripling compared to him.’
    Two sets of ageing eyes focussed speculatively on Burden, who looked modestly away, not without a certain air of preening himself. The doctor said rather pettishly, ‘I don’t know why you keep on about him looking ill. He works himself too hard, that’s all. Anyway, he doesn’t look that ill or that old.’
    ‘He did today,’ said Wexford.
    ‘Shock,’ said the doctor. ‘What d’you expect when a man hears his sister’s been murdered?’
    ‘Just that, except that he evidently hated her guts. You should have heard the generous fraternal thing he said about her. As nasty a piece of work as I’ve come across for a long time is Mr Villiers. Come on, Mike, we’re going to call on some ladies who will melt and tell all under the effect of your sexy and—may I say?—youthful charm.’
    They all went down together in the lift and the doctor left them at the station steps. The wind had dropped entirely but the High Street was still littered by the debris the gale had left in its wake, broken twigs, a tiny empty chaffinch nest blown from thecrown of a tall tree, here and there a tile from an ancient roof.
    Bryant drove them out of town by the Pomfret Road, soon taking the left-hand fork for Myfleet. Their route led them past Kingsmarkham Boys’ Grammar School, more properly known as the King Edward the Sixth Foundation for the Sons of Yeomen, Burgesses and Those of the Better Sort. The sons were at present home for the summer holidays and the brown-brick Tudor building bore a lonelier, more orderly, aspect than in term-time. A large new wing—a monstrosity, the reactionaries called it—had been added to the rear and the left side of the school five years before, for the yeomen and burgesses, if not the better sort, had recently increased in alarming numbers.
    The school had a dignity and grace about it, common to large buildings of its vintage, and most Kingsmarkham parents sought places there for their sons, setting aside with contempt the educational and enviromental advantages of Stowerton Comprehensive. Who wanted a magnificent steel and glass science lab, a trampoline room or a swimming pool of Olympic standard, when they could instead boast to their acquaintance of historic portals and worn stone steps trodden (though on one single occasion) by the feet of Henry the Eighth’s son? Besides, if your boy was at what everyone called the ‘King’s’ school you could quite convincingly pretend to those not in the know that he attended a public school and conceal the fact that the State paid.
    Burden, whose son had been admitted there one year before on passing a complex and subtle equivalent of the Eleven-plus, now said:
    ‘That’s where Villiers teaches.’
    ‘Latin and Greek are his subjects, aren’t they?’
    Burden nodded. ‘He takes John for Latin. I reckon he teaches Greek to the older ones. John says he works there a lot after school hours, doing something in the library. That’s the library there in the new wing.’
    ‘Research for his books?’
    ‘Well, it’s a marvelous library. Not that I know much about these things, but I went round it on Open Day and it impressed me no end.’
    ‘John like him, does he?’
    ‘You know what these boys are, sir,’ said Burden. ‘Those little devils in John’s class call him Old Roman Villa. Good disciplinarian, I’d say.’