The Thief by Ruth Rendell Read Free Book Online Page A

Every traffic light turned red as she came up to it. The line of cars went very slowly. A light that was red for the first car had turned red again by the time she got there. In horror she watched the hand of the clock move from twenty past to twenty-five past. Lurching and jumping over the speed bumps, she reached home at twenty-five to eight. The front door was open. Alex was waiting for her on the step.
    He said nothing, only shook his head a little. She ran upstairs, changed into a long skirt and sweater, combed her hair, and was in the car with him three minutes later.
    ‘I phoned your mother,’ he said, his voice cold. ‘I said we’d be late. I didn’t know how late.’
    ‘I can explain,’ she said. ‘The traffic was terrible. I was as quick as I could be.’
    He didn’t reply. She thought, I wonder if he phoned Louise. I can’t ask. I can never ask. The worst is over, anyway. I’ve given Lant back his money. Tomorrow I’ll wash his clothes and iron them and on Monday morning I’ll send them back. I’ll never go near Bristol Road again. I’ll never steal anything again or lie again or drink again, not when all this is over.
    As he drove Alex said, ‘Someone phoned. A man. It was about half an hour after you went out. He said he was the Komodo dragon and then he put the phone down.’
    She thought she would scream and put her hand over her mouth to stop herself. Alex had his eyes on the road. ‘I don’t much care for jokes like that,’ he said. ‘The Komodo dragon is great, a wonderful big lizard, not something to make you laugh or shudder.’
    Polly’s voice came out like a squeak. ‘I don’t know who it was,’ she lied.
    ‘Maybe it was a wrong number. We seem to get a lot of those lately, don’t we?’
    He didn’t speak another word all the way to her parents’ house. He frowned when her father handed her a big glass of wine almost as soon as they were inside. She thought of Lant calling her an alcoholic. Did it mean you were an alcoholic if you needed a drink as much as she did? I did drink a lot on that flight, she thought. Alex hardly drinks at all. If we’re always going to be together – and we are, please, we always are – I must drink less. I’ll keep to what I said and drink my last glass at my wedding.
    But she gulped down the wine. That was the second time Lant had phoned but, if Alex was right, the call had been made before she gave the money back. He would leave her alone now he had his money. He’d forget her, put all this behind him.
    Her mother had made a big meal for them. Leek and potato soup first, then roast lamb, then a lemon tart. Before she took the money back Polly wouldn’t have been able to eat. She could now, in spite of that second phone call. Lant had only called because he wanted his money. She was hungry and her father was refilling her wineglass to the brim.
    Alex was talking now about the film they’d seen, telling her parents they ought to see it. Polly could remember nothing about it. She might as well not have been there. Then her father said something which made her blush and stare.
    ‘You seem to have had a busy day, Polly. I saw you in Willesden this morning. I hooted and waved but you were lost in a dream.’
    Deny it? A man doesn’t mistake someone else for his own daughter.
    ‘I didn’t see you, Dad,’ she said, not daring to look at Alex.
    She remembered the black car which had hooted at her. She had thought it was her bad driving. Finishing the wine in her glass she thought, I would like to drink myself drunk, to sleep, not to have to drive home with Alex.
    But she had to. As they moved out on to the road, he said, ‘We have to talk, Polly.’
    ‘Do we?’
    ‘When we get home.’
    I’ve never loved him so much as I do now, she thought, already in a panic. I love him. I can’t lose him. He was going to ask me to marry him. Will he ask me now?
    At home he said to her, in a voice she had never heard before, a voice that was cold and