Sins of the Fathers by Ruth Rendell Read Free Book Online

spring from which their daughter drew her intelligence. "Quite an intelligent girl," Archery had said casually. Good God, thought Wexford, remembering how he had boasted when his own daughter got eight O Level passes. Good God! What were Modern Greats, anyway? Were they the same as Mods and did that mean Modern Languages? He had a vague idea that this might be the esoteric and deliberately deceptive name given to Philosophy and Political Economy. He wouldn't show his ignorance to Archery. Philosophy! He almost whistled. Painter's daughter reading—yes, that was the term, reading—philosophy! It made you think all right. Why, it made you doubt...
    "Mr Archery," he said, "you're quite sure this is Herbert Arthur Painter's girl?"
    "Of course I'm sure, Chief Inspector. She told me." He looked almost defiantly at Wexford. Perhaps he thought the policeman would laugh at his next words. "She is as good as she is beautiful," he said. Wexford's expression remained unaltered. "She came to stay with us at Whitsun. It was the first time we'd seen her, though naturally our son had written to us and told us about her. We took to her at once.
    "Chief Inspector, times have changed since I was at college. I had to face the possibility that my son would meet some girl at Oxford, perhaps want to marry her at an age when I'd thought of myself as still a boy and when Orders were a lifetime away. I'd see my friends' children marry at twenty-one and I was prepared to try and manage something for him, give him something to start life on. All I hoped was that the girl would be someone we could like and understand.
    "Miss Kershaw—I'll use that name if you don't mind—is just what I would have chosen for him myself, beautiful, graceful, well-mannered, easy to talk to. Oh, she does her best to hide her looks in the uniform they all wear nowadays, long shaggy hair, trousers, great black duffel coat—you know the kind of thing, But they all dress like that. The point is she can't hide them.
    "My wife is a little impulsive. She was hinting about the wedding before Theresa had been with us for twenty-four hours. I found it hard to understand why the young people were so diffident about it. Charles's letters had been paeans of praise and I could see they were deeply in love. Then she told us. She came out with it quite baldly. She said—I remember the very words—'I think you ought to know something about me, Mrs. Archery. My father's name was Painter and he was hanged for killing an old woman.'
    "At first my wife didn't believe it. She thought it was some sort of a game. Charles said, 'It's true. It doesn't matter. People are what they are, not what their parents did.' Then Theresa—we call her Tess—said, 'It would matter if he had done it, only he didn't. I told you why he was hanged. I didn't mean he'd done it.' Then she began to cry."
    "Why does she call herself Kershaw?"
    "It's her stepfather's name. He must be a very remarkable man, Chief Inspector. He's an electrical engineer, but..." You needn't come that rude mechanicals stuff with me, thought Wexford crossly. "...but he must be a most intelligent, perceptive and kind person. The Kershaws have two children of their own, but as far as I can gather, Mr. Kershaw has treated Tess with no less affection than his own son and daughter. She says it was his love that helped her to bear—well, what I can only call the stigma of her father's crime when she learnt about it at the age of twelve. He followed her progress at school, encouraged her in every way and fostered her wish to get a County Major Scholarship."
    "You mentioned 'the stigma of her father's crime.' I thought you said she thinks he didn't do it?"
    "My dear Chief Inspector, she knows he didn't do it ."
    Wexford said slowly, "Mr. Archery, I'm sure I don't have to tell a man like yourself that when we talk of somebody knowing something we mean that what they know is a fact, something that's true beyond a reasonable doubt. We mean that the majority