No Man's Nightingale by Ruth Rendell Read Free Book Online Page A

Sarah’s apparently fervent commitment to Christianity, to the Church in fact. Yet she was only thirty-one when the child was born, not exactly the last knockings of fertility . . .
    ‘Reg, you haven’t gone to sleep, have you?’
    Wexford came out of his reverie. ‘If I had I wouldn’t be able to answer that.’
    ‘Well, Mike and Jenny are going.’
    ‘They’ll forgive me,’ said Wexford, kissing Jenny and rather to the surprise of both of them, shaking hands with Burden. ‘Anyway, I was thinking about the case. About the Reverend Sarah Hussain. I’ll give you the notes I made.’

CHAPTER FIVE
    IF WE CONSIDER the purity of the Christian religion, the sanctity of its moral precepts, and the innocent as well as austere lives of the greater number of those who during the first ages embraced the faith of the Gospel, we should naturally suppose that so benevolent a doctrine would have been received with due reverence even by the unbelieving world . . .
    Wexford briefly set Gibbon aside to marvel at this commentary and to wonder that he had never thought of it before. It struck him that Sarah Hussain had tried to make a benevolent doctrine of Christianity. In her view it was kindly, loving, modern and progressive. What a relief that today wasn’t one of Maxine’s days. He had undisturbed peace and quiet. It
was
odd that so much cruelty and violence was meted out to these ‘innocent disciples’. No doubt Gibbon would provide an explanation in the next few pages and he picked up
The Decline and Fall
once more.
    An hour or so had passed when Dora came into the room and asked him if he remembered they were due to have lunch with Sylvia whose day off from work it was. Now that his daughter lived within Kingsmarkham, the Old Rectory at Great Thatto having been sold, they could walk there, Dora said. Wexford agreed. Not that he much wanted to but it was good for him. His love of walking was mainly confined to London. He looked around for a bookmark and in doing so remembered the letter he had taken out of Sarah Hussain’s copy of Newman’s autobiography. That he certainly should not have taken out . . .
    It was possibly one of those letters Maxine called ‘anonimable’, foul and at the same time dull and illiterate – but no, Sarah wouldn’t have used such a thing as a bookmark. He put on his raincoat and felt for the letter in the right-hand pocket. It wasn’t any of those things but apparently from a friend. He read it while Dora was upstairs getting ready.
    The address at the top was 21 Miramar Close, Reading, with a postcode, the date three months ago in the middle of July.
    Dear Sarah [he read]
    It is such a long time since we worked here together and shared a home that I wonder if you have forgotten me but I don’t think you can have. I think you have moved several times since you lived here and Clarissa with you. She is my goddaughter and I would have liked to remember her on birthdays but I had lost touch and didn’t know where you were. Then I saw that paragraph in
The Times
that said you were now an ordained priest (you see I remember the correct terminology) with a living in Kingsmarkham. You know, I wasn’t altogether surprised. This, I thought, was what you always ought to have been.
    I am married now but still living in Reading not far from where we had our flat nineteen years ago. My husband preferred me not to work and to tell you the truth I was glad to give up. I have taken my husband’s name but I am still the old Thora Watson who was, I think, your best friend. You and I were so close like the sisters we neither of us ever had. Do let me hear from you.
    With love,
    Thora (Kilmartin)
    So this was the Reading woman Georgina Bray had mentioned when she corrected her claim to have been herself Sarah’s only friend. This woman was a lapsed friend but might be the one to tell them something about Sarah Hussain that others wouldn’t or couldn’t. Had Sarah replied to the letter? You don’t