Murder Being Once Done by Ruth Rendell Read Free Book Online Page A

Pope,’ he said, ‘we want you to tell us about that in much greater detail. Tell us exactly what you were doing, where you saw her, what she said, everything.’
    ‘OK, I’ll try.’ Peggy Pope pulled her thumbnail out of her mouth and looked at it with distaste. ‘But when I’ve done you’ll have to let me get shifting those bins.’
    The room was rather cold. She kicked down the upper switch on an electric fire and a second bar began to heat. It was evidently seldom used, for as it glowed red a smell of burning dust came from it.
    ‘It was just after one, maybe ten past,’ she began. ‘Johnny was out somewhere as usual, looking for work, he said, but I reckon he was in the Grand Duke. I was in the hall giving it a bit of a sweep up and Loveday came in. She said hallo or something, and I said hallo, and she went straight upstairs. I was getting out the vacuum when she came down again and said had I got change for ten pence because she wanted two pence to make a phone call. She must have known I don’t carry money about when I’m cleaning the place, but, anyway, I said I’d see and I came down here and got my bag. I hadn’t got change, but I’d got one two-pence piece so I gave her that and she went into the phone box.’
    ‘Where’s that?’
    ‘Under the stairs. You passed it when you came down.’
    ‘Do you know whom she was phoning?’
    She warmed her bitten fingers at the fire and creased her beautiful face into a ferocious scowl. ‘How would I? There’s a door on the box. She didn’t say I’m going to give my mother a tinkle or ring my boy friend, if that’s what you mean. Loveday never said much. I’ll give her that, she wasn’t talkative. Well, she came out and went upstairs again and then I went down to see if the baby was OK, and when I came up with the pram to take the washing to the launderette she was just going out through the front door, all got up in a green trouser suit. I noticed because it was the only decent thing she had. She didn’t say anything. And now can I get on with my work?’
    Howard nodded, and he and Clements, thanking her briefly, made for the stairs. Wexford lingered. He watched the girl – she was round-shouldered and rather thin – lift one of the smelly bins and then he said, ‘I’ll give you a hand.’
    She seemed astonished. The world she lived in had unfitted her for accepting help graciously, and she shrugged, making her mouth into an ugly shape.
    ‘They should employ a man to do this.’
    ‘Maybe, but they don’t. What man would practically run this dump and do all the dirty work for eight quid a week and that room? Would you ?’
    ‘Not if I could help it. Can’t you get a better job?’
    ‘Look, chum, there’s the kid. I’ve got to have a job where I can look after her. Don’t you worry yourself about me. Some day my prince will come and then I’ll be off out of here, leaving the bins to Johnny.’ She smiled for the first time, a transcending, glorious smile, evoking for him old dark cinemas and shining screens. ‘Thanks very much. That’s the lot.’
    ‘You’re welcome,’ said Wexford.
    The unaccustomed effort had brought the blood beating to his head. It had been a silly thing to do and the pounding inside his temples unnerved him. Howard and the sergeant were nowhere to be seen, so, to clear his head while he waited for them, he walked down to the open end of Garmisch Terrace. A thin drizzle had begun to fall. He found himself in something which at home would have passed for a high street. It was a shabby shopping centre with, sandwiched between a pub and a hairdresser’s, a little cheap boutique called Loveday . So that was where she had found the name. She had possessed some other, duller perhaps but identifying, distressing even, which she had wished to conceal . . .
    ‘Been having a breath of fresh air, sir?’ said the sergeant when he rejoined them. ‘Or what passes for it round here. By gum, but those bins stank to high