Sins of the Fathers by Ruth Rendell Read Free Book Online Page A

of other people know it too. In other words, it's history, it's written down in books, it's common knowledge." He paused. "Now I and the Law Lords and the official records and what your son means when he talks about the Establishment, know beyond any reasonable doubt, that Painter did kill Mrs. Rose Primero."
    "Her mother told her so," said Archery. "She told her that she had absolute irrefutable personal knowledge that Tess's father did not kill Mrs Primero."
    Wexford shrugged and smiled. "People believe what they want to believe. The mother thought it was the best thing for her daughter. If I'd been in her shoes I daresay I'd have said the same."
    "I don't think it was like that," Archery said stubbornly. Tess says her mother is a very unemotional woman. She never talks about Painter, never discusses him at all. She just says quite calmly, 'Your father never killed anybody' and beyond that she won't say any more."
    "Because she can't say any more. Look, sir, I think you're taking a rather romantic view of this. You're visualising the Painters as a devoted couple, kind of merry peasants, love in a cottage and all that. It wasn't like that. Believe me, Painter was no loss to her. I'm certain in my own mind he was in the habit of striking her just when the fancy took him. As far as he was concerned, she was just his woman, someone to cook his meals, wash his clothes and—well," he added brutally, "someone to go to bed with."
    Archery said stiffly, "I don't see that any of that's material."
    "Don't you? You're picturing some sort of declaration of innocence plus incontrovertible proof made to the one person he loved and whom he knew would believe in him. Forgive me, but that's a load of rubbish. Apart from the few minutes when he came back to the coach house to wash his hands—and incidentally hide the money—he was never alone with her. And he couldn't have told her then. He wasn't supposed to know about it. D'you understand me? He could have told her he had done it, he couldn't have told her he had not .
    "Then we came. We found blood flecks in the sink and faint blood marks on the kitchen wall where he'd stripped off that pullover. As soon as he came back he took the bandage off his hand to show us the cut and he handed the bandage to his wife. But he didn't speak to her, didn't even appeal to her for support. He made just one reference to her..."
    "Yes?"
    "We found the handbag with the money in it under the mattress in their double bed. Why hadn't Painter told his wife if he'd been given that money in the morning? Here it is, find it in your transcript. 'I knew the wife would want to get her hooks on it. She was always nagging me to buy things for the flat.' That's all he said and he didn't even look at her. We charged him and he said, 'O.K., but you're making a big mistake. It was a tramp done it.' He came straight down the stairs with us. He didn't kiss his wife and he didn't ask to go in and see his child."
    "She must have seen him in prison?"
    "With a prison officer present. Look, sir, you appear to be satisfied and so do all the parties concerned. Surely that's the main thing. You must forgive me if I can't agree with you."
    Silently Archery took a snapshot from his wallet and laid it on the desk. Wexford picked it up. Presumably it had been taken in the vicarage garden. There was a great magnolia tree in the background, a tree as tall as the house it partly concealed. It was covered with waxen cup flowers. Under its branches stood a boy and a girl, their arms round each other. The boy was tall and fair. He was smiling and he was plainly Archery's son. Wexford wasn't particularly interested in him.
    The girl's face was in sad repose. She was looking into the camera with large steady eyes. Light-coloured hair fell over her forehead in a fringe and down to the shoulders of a typical undergraduate's shirtwaister, faded, tightly belted and with a crumpled skirt. Her waist was tiny, her bust full. Wexford saw the mother