Not In The Flesh by Ruth Rendell Read Free Book Online

on computers, if I do say so myself. Nothing out of the way, I'd done a course. I didn't have much use for it in here, not on the beat like I was, but I had access to a computer, of course I did, and I noticed we only kept records of missing persons going back eight years—it was like that then too—only going back to 1985.” He paused and looked into Lyn's face to avoid having to look into Hannah's. “So I thought, I know what I'll do, I'll keep records myself. I'll do it here and transfer it to my own laptop at home just to be on the safe side.”
       “And you did?”
       “Well, yes I did.”
       “From '93 till now?”
       “That's right. And it's quite a list. More women than men, though.”
       Hannah said, “You're a marvel, Peachy. The guv will be over the moon.”
       “Will you tell him?” At praise from Hannah, Peach had blushed to the color of a Mediterranean example of the fruit from which his name came, a rich rose shading to crimson.
       “Certainly not. You must do that. Don't you want the credit?”

4
    Eighty names were on Peach's list, fifty-seven of them women and girls. To Wexford's pleasure—he had warmly congratulated Peach on his achievement—he had not only included dates, ages, and addresses but descriptions and, to a certain extent, idiosyncrasies.
       “It reminds me of the days when you used to have to put ‘distinguishing marks’ in your passport,” Wexford said, a printout in his hand. “There's a chap disappeared he says has a wart on the lobe of his left ear and another one got six toes on one foot.”
       “Sounds nauseating.” Burden was in a gloomy mood this morning. “I suppose Peach did all this in what one might call the firm's time.”
       “Oh, come on, Mike. It was the firm's business.”
       “Maybe, but no one instructed him to do it. For all we know it may not be accurate. And we haven't finished local enquiries yet. Peach's stuff may not be needed.”
       Wexford made no reply. They were on their way to Flagford, their destination Athelstan House, home of the Tredowns.

    On the previous evening Wexford had reached home to find his wife reading a novel called The Son of Nun.
       “Is that one of Tredown's?”
       Dora looked up. “It's an early one, published twenty years ago. You said you were going to see him tomorrow, so I got it out when I was in the library.”
       “Sounds like unseemly goings-on in a convent. Who was the son of Nun, anyway?”
       “Joshua, apparently, though I haven't got to him yet.”
       “It's characters like that Joshua who turned me against religion when I was young,” said Wexford. “All he did was fight battles in the name of the Lord and when the Lord told him to slaughter all the inhabitants of a city, he did slaughter them along with their children and babies and their oxen and their asses. If he was around today we'd call him a war criminal.”
       “Things were different then,” said Dora vaguely. “Does Tredown always write about biblical subjects?”
       “Don't ask me. I only read one. That was about Esther and that despot she married. The only character I liked was his first wife, who he divorced because she defied him. Talking of wives and defiance, is there anything to eat?”
       “When have you ever come home, Reg, and found nothing to eat?”
       “I only asked,” said Wexford. “D'you want a drink first? I must have my requisite red wine.”
       Later on, after she had gone to bed, taking The Son of Nun with her, he looked through his bookcases and found the only book of Tredown's they possessed, The Queen of Babylon. He hoped this case wasn't going to take a turn that would necessitate his reading any more of them. Opposite the title page were listed Tredown's works. The Son of Nun, The People of the Book, The Widow and Her Daughter, The First Heaven. This last, he remembered reading somewhere, was hailed as Tredown's masterpiece for which he had won