Wexford 18 - Harm Done by Ruth Rendell Read Free Book Online Page A

been in that house, not for three days and nights certainly, but she had been inside it, she knew it. She had seen that blanket and had at least attempted to get water from the taps. Had Rachel been there too?

    Burden had implied that it would be quite unnecessary for Wexford to go to Oval Road, Stowerton; that this was an altogether different missing-person case from that of Lizzie Cromwell, for Rachel was older, for the most part living away from home, and an intelligent young woman very much in charge of her own life. But since then all inquiries had had negative results. None of her relatives had heard from her, and it seemed that none of her friends was harbouring her.
       A second call to the University of Essex revealed only that she had not turned up to the lecture she was due to attend at ten that morning. But a different picture was emerging. Rachel, apparently, had never intended to go straight to the pub but first to her friend’s home in Framhurst. Because the Framhurst-to-Stowerton bus route had been discontinued when work on the bypass began, Caroline Strang’s mother, who would be passing that way on her way home from work, would pick Rachel up at eight on the Kingsmarkham Road, five minutes from Oval Road, take her to Framhurst to pick up Caroline, then drive the two girls to the Rat and Carrot. Vine had talked to Mrs. Strang and been told that she had reached the pickup point some minutes after eight owing to a traffic holdup and had parked and waited.
       “They’re always late for everything, these girls. I know, I’ve got two and I thought I’d got there long before Rachel, even though I was late.” She had waited for ten minutes, then driven off. “I’d have gone to her house only I don’t know where she lives. I’d got the phone number but not the address.”
       Caroline Strang thought Rachel must have been confused about the arrangement and gone straight to the Rat and Carrot. Nevertheless, she had phoned Rachel’s home before she herself left but got no reply. She naturally supposed no one had answered the phone because Rachel was on her way to the pub and her mother was out.
       Vine had talked to the remaining three young people Caroline and Rachel were to meet that night. All said she I hadn’t come. None had been worried. They supposed he had changed her mind. Vine concluded they were very casual indeed about such matters as forgetfulness, indecisiveness, phoning to explain, or apologizing when a better prospect for the evening turned up.
       There was a chance Rachel had gone to Kingsmarkham by bus, and Vine had talked to bus drivers. The buses on the Stowerton-Kingsmarkham-Pomfret run had no conductors, and the driver took the money and issued tickets. Vine showed Rachel’s photograph to the drivers of the 8:10 bus and the 8:32 bus. Neither remembered her, but one said he was sure he wouldn’t remember her and the other said that he had no memory for faces.
       That convinced Wexford that Rachel hadn’t been on the bus, for to any man she would be unforgettable, an exceptionally good-looking girl with luxuriant dark hair, large dark eyes, and voluptuous features: full mouth, rounded chin, and high, smooth forehead. These seemed an inheritance from her handsome mother. If Rosemary Holmes was forty; she was not much more. Wexford could imagine her being flattered by people taking her and her daughter for sisters. Her own dark hair was plaited and coiled at the nape of her neck, an old-fashioned style that suited her oval face. She was slim, with long, shapely legs. Dr. Akande must keep his secretary well hidden, Wexford thought, for he would have remembered her if he had ever seen her in the medical center.
       In his own mind he had compared the Crownes’ home with this one, but theirs, though clean enough, betrayed that none of them took much interest in their surroundings, while Rosemary Holmes’s house was furnished with taste if not much expense. Well-tended