Collected Short Stories

by Ruth Rendell

  ‘Matthew,’ she said. ‘Matthew.’

  The baby lay in Leilie’s lap. He had whimpered a little at first, but now he lay quiet and relaxed, gripping one of her fingers, and for the first time in their acquaintance Wexford saw him smile. It was a beautiful spontaneous smile of happiness at being home again with Mother.

  ‘You’re going to tell me all about it, aren’t you, Leilie?’ said Wexford.

  She was transformed. He had never seen her so animated, so high-spirited. She was giggly with joy so that Matthew, sensing her mood, gurgled in response, and she hugged him again, calling him her lovely lovely sweetheart, her precious boy.

  ‘Come on now, Leilie,’ said Wexford, ‘you’ve got him back without the least trouble to yourself which is more than you damn’ well deserve. Now you can give an account of yourself.’

  ‘I don’t know where to start,’ said Leilie, giggling.

  ‘At the beginning, whenever that is.’

  ‘Well, the beginning,’ said Leilie, ‘I reckon was when Patrick, my first boy, was adopted.’ She had stopped laughing and a little of the old melancholy had come back into her face. ‘That was four years ago. Paddy went off up north and after a bit he wrote and said would I join him, and I don’t know why I said yes, I reckon I always do say yes to Paddy, and there didn’t seem anything else, there didn’t seem any future. It was all right with Paddy for a bit, and then a couple of years back he got this other girl. I sort of pretended I didn’t know about it, I thought he’d get tired of her, but he didn’t and I was lonely, I was so lonely. I didn’t know a soul up there but Paddy, not like I could talk to, and he’d go away for weeks on end. I sort of took to going out with other fellas, anyone, I didn’t care, just for the company.’ She paused, shifted Matthew on her knees. ‘When I knew I was pregnant I told Paddy I wasn’t having the baby up there, I was going home to Mum. But he said to stay and he wouldn’t see the other girl, and I did stay till after Matthew was born, and then I knew he was carrying on again so I came back here and Mum got me this flat. I know what you’re going to say, Mr Wexford!’

  ‘I wasn’t going to say a word.’

  ‘You were thinking it. So what? It’s true. I couldn’t tell you who Matthew’s father is, I don’t know. It might be Paddy, it might be one of half a dozen.’ Her expression had grown fierce. She almost glared at him. ‘And I’m glad I don’t know, I’m glad. It makes him more mine. I never went out with any other fella but Paddy till he drove me to it.’

  ‘All right,’ said Wexford, ‘all right. So you lived here with Matthew and you had your job at the Andromeda and then Paddy wrote to say he was coming down, and on Saturday he did come. And you took Monday evening off work to be with him and exchanged your Tuesday turn with another girl – and so we come to Wednesday, yesterday.’

  Leilie sighed. She didn’t seem unhappy, only rueful. ‘Paddy said he’d babysit. He said he’d asked Tony over and Johnny and a fella called Pip Monkton, and they’d be in all evening. I said he wasn’t to bother, I could take Matthew next door into Julie’s, and Paddy got mad at me and said Julie was an interfering bitch and didn’t I trust him to look after his own child? Well, that was it, I didn’t, I kept remembering what he’d done to Patrick, and that was because Patrick cried. Paddy used to go crazy when he cried, I used to think he’d kill him, and when I tried to stop him he nearly killed me. And, you see, Mr Wexford, Matthew’d got into this way of crying in the evenings. They said at the clinic some babies cry at night and some in the evenings and it’s hard to know why, but they all grow out of it. I knew Matthew’d start screaming about eight and I thought, my God, what’ll Paddy do? He gets in a rage, he doesn’t know what he’s doing, and Tony wouldn’t stop him, he’s scared of him like they all are, Paddy’s so big. Well, I got in a real state. Mum’d come out of hospital that morning, she’d had a major op, so I couldn’t take him there and go back there myself and hide from Paddy, and I couldn’t take him to work. I did once and they made a hell of a fuss. I just couldn’t see any way out of it.

  ‘Paddy went out about eleven. He never said where he was going and I didn’t ask. Anyway, I went out too, carrying Matthew in the baby carrier, and I just walked about thinking. I reckon I must have walked miles, worrying about it and wondering what to do and imagining all sorts of things, you know how you do. I’d been feeding Matthew myself and I’m still giving him one feed a day, so I took him into a field and fed him under a hedge, and after that I walked a bit more.

  ‘Well, I was coming back along the Stowerton Road. I knew I’d have to go home on account of Matthew was wet and he’d soon be hungry again, and then I saw this pram. I knew who it belonged to, I’d seen it there before and I’d seen this girl lift her baby out of it. I mean, I didn’t know her name or anything but I’d talked to her once queuing for the check-out in the Tesco, and we’d got talking about our babies and she said hers never cried except sometimes for a feed in the night. She was such a good baby, they never got a peep out of her all day and all evening. She was a bit younger than Matthew but it was funny, they looked a bit alike and they’d got just the same colour hair.

  ‘That was what gave me the idea, them having the same colour hair. I know I was mad, Mr Wexford, I know that now. I was crazy, but you don’t know how scared of Paddy I was. I went over to that pram and I bent over it. I unhooked the cat net and took the other baby out and put Matthew in.’

  Until now quite silent in her corner, Polly Davies gave a suppressed exclamation. Wexford drew in his breath, shaking his head.

  ‘It’s interesting,’ he said, and his voice was frosty, ‘how I supposed at first that whoever had taken Karen Bond wanted her and wished to be rid of her own child. Now it looks as if the reverse was true. It looks as if she didn’t at all mind sacrificing Karen for her own child’s safety.’

  Leilie said passionately, ‘That’s not true!’

  ‘No, perhaps it isn’t, I believe you did have second thoughts. Go on.’

  ‘I put Matthew in the pram. I knew he’d be all right, I knew no one’d hurt him, but it went to my heart when he started to cry.’

  ‘Weren’t you afraid someone would see you?’ asked Polly.

  ‘I wouldn’t have cared if they had. Don’t you see? I was past caring for any of that. If I’d been seen I wouldn’t have had to go home, I’d have lost my job, but they wouldn’t have taken Matthew from me, would they? No one saw me. Did you say her name was Karen? Well, I took Karen home and I fed her and bathed her. No one can say I didn’t look after her like she was my own.’

  ‘Except for delivering her into the hands of that ravening wolf, Paddy Jasper,’ said Wexford unpleasantly.

  She shivered a little but otherwise she took no notice. ‘Paddy came in at six with Tony. The baby was in Matthew’s cot by then. All you could see was its red hair like Matthew’s. I remembered what that girl had said about her never crying in the evenings, and I thought, I prayed, don’t cry tonight, don’t cry because you’re in a strange place.’ Leilie lifted her head and began to speak more rapidly. ‘I cooked egg and chips for the lot of them and I went out at half seven. I got back at a quarter past twelve and she was OK, she was fast asleep and she hadn’t cried at all.’

  Wexford said softly, ‘Haven’t you forgotten something, Leilie?’

  Her eyes darted over him. He fancied she had grown a little paler. She picked up Matthew and held him closely against her. ‘Well, the next day,’ she said. ‘Today. Paddy went off out early so I thought about getting the baby back. I thought of taking her to the priest. I knew about the priest, when he went out and when the lady cleaner came, I knew about it from Mum. So I got on the bus to Kingsmarkham and just by the bus stop’s a shop where they’d put all their boxes out on the pavement for the dustmen. I took a box and put the baby in and left her on the doorstep of the priest’s house. But I didn’t know how I was going to get Matthew back, I thought I’d never get him back.

  ‘And then you came. I said Matthew was in the bedroom and just
then Julie’s baby started crying and you thought it was Matthew. I couldn’t help laughing, though I felt I was going to pieces, I was being torn apart. And that’s all, that’s everything, and now you can charge me with whatever it is I’ve done.’

  ‘But you’ve forgotten something, Leilie.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said.

  ‘Of course you do. Why d’you think I had Paddy and Tony and Johnny Farrow arrested even though Pip Monkton had given them all a cast-iron alibi? How do you think I know Pip will break down and tell me that tale of his was all moonshine and tell me as well just where the contents of that safe are now? I had a little talk with the management of the Andromeda this afternoon, Leilie.’

  She gave him a stony stare.

  ‘You’ve got the sack, haven’t you?’ he said. ‘Work out your notice till the end of next week or go now. They were bound to catch you out.’

  ‘If you know all about it, Mr Wexford, why ask?’

  ‘Because I want you to say yes.’

  She whispered something to the baby, but the baby had fallen asleep.

  ‘If you won’t tell me, I shall tell you,’ said Wexford, ‘and if I get it wrong you can stop me. I’m going to tell you about those second thoughts you had, Leilie. You went off to work like you said but you weren’t easy in your mind. You kept thinking about that baby, that other baby, that good baby that never cried in the evenings. But maybe the reason she didn’t cry was that she was usually in her own bed, safe and secure in her own home with her own mother, maybe it’d be different if she woke up to find herself in a strange place. So you started worrying. You ran around that glorified ladies’ loo where you work, wiping the basins and filling the towel machines and taking your ten pence tips, but you were going off your head with worry about that other baby. You kept thinking of her crying and what that animal Paddy Jasper might do to her if she cried, punch her with his great fists perhaps or bash her head against the wall. And then you knew you hadn’t done anything so clever after all in swapping Matthew for her, because you’re a kind loving woman at heart, Leilie, though you’re a fool, and you were as worried about her as you’d have been about him.’

  ‘And you’re a devil,’ whispered Leilie, staring at him as if he had supernatural powers. ‘How d’you know what I thought?’

  ‘I just know,’ said Wexford. ‘I know what you thought and I know what you did. When it got to half-past nine you couldn’t stand it any longer. You put on your coat and ran out to catch the nine-thirty-five bus and you were home, walking up those stairs, by five to ten. There were lights on in the flat. You let yourself in and went straight into the bedroom, and Karen was in there, safe and sound and fast asleep.’

  Leilie smiled a little. A ghost of a smile of happy recollection crossed her face and was gone. ‘I don’t know how you know,’ she said, ‘but yes, she was OK and asleep, and oh God, the relief of it. I’d been picturing her lying there with blood on her and I don’t know what.’

  ‘So all you had to do then was explain to Paddy why you’d come home.’

  ‘I told him I felt ill,’ said Leilie carefully. ‘I said I felt rotten and I’d got one of my migraines coming.’

  ‘No, you didn’t. He wasn’t there.’

  ‘What d’you mean, wasn’t there? He was there! Him and Tony and Pip and Johnny, they were in here playing cards. I said to Paddy, I feel rotten, I had to come home. I’m going to have a lay-down, I said, and I went into the bedroom and laid down.’

  ‘Leilie, when you came in the flat was empty. You know it was empty. You know Pip Monkton’s lying and you know his story won’t stand up for two seconds once you tell the truth that at five to ten this flat was empty. Listen to me, Leilie. Paddy will go away for quite a long time over this business. It’ll be a chance for you and young Ginge – er, Matthew, to make a new life. You don’t want him round you for ever, do you? Ruining your life, beating up your kids? Do you, Leilie?’

  She lifted the baby in her arms. She walked the length of the room and half back again as if he were restless and needed soothing instead of peacefully asleep. In front of Wexford she stood still, looking at him, and he got to his feet.

  ‘We’ll come and fetch you in the morning, Leilie,’ he said, ‘and take you to the police station where I’ll want you to make a statement. Maybe two statements. One about taking Karen and one about Paddy not being here when you came back last night.’

  ‘I won’t say a thing about that,’ she said.

  ‘It might be that we wouldn’t proceed with any charge against you for taking Karen.’

  ‘I don’t care about that!’

  He hated doing it. He knew he had to. ‘A woman who knew what you knew about Paddy and who still exposed a child to him, someone else’s child – how’ll that sound in court, Leilie? When they know you’re living with Paddy again? And when they hear your record?’

  Her face had gone white and she clasped Matthew against her. ‘They wouldn’t take him away from me? They wouldn’t make a what-d’you-call-it?’

  ‘A care order? They might.’

  ‘Oh God, oh God. I promised myself I’d stick by Paddy all my life . . .’

  ‘Romantic promises, Leilie, they haven’t much to do with real life.’ Wexford moved a little away from her. He went to the window. It was quite dark outside now. ‘They told me at the Andromeda that you came back at half-past ten. You’d been away an hour and there had been complaints so they sacked you.’

  She said feverishly, ‘I did go back. I told Paddy I felt better, I . . .’

  ‘All in the space of five minutes? Or ten at the most? You were quickly ill and well, Leilie. Shall I tell you why you went back, shall I tell you the only circumstances in which you’d have dared go back? You didn’t want to lose your job but you were more afraid of what Paddy might do to the baby. If Paddy had been there the one thing you wouldn’t have done is go back. Because he wasn’t there you went back with a light heart. You believed he could only get in again when you were there to let him in. You didn’t know then that he had a key, the key he had taken from Julie Lang.’

  She spoke at last the word he had been waiting for. ‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘Yes, it’s true. If I’d known he had that key,’ she said, and she shivered, ‘I’d no more have gone and left that baby there than I’d have left it in the lion house at the zoo.’

  ‘We’ll be on our way,’ he said. ‘Come along, Constable Davies. See you in the morning, Leilie.’

  Still holding Matthew, she came up to him just as he reached the door and laid a hand on his sleeve. ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said, Mr Wexford,’ she said, ‘and I don’t think I’d be able to pull anybody’s baby, any baby, out of that circle.’

  Achilles Heel

  The walls of the city afforded on one side a view of the blue Adriatic, on the other, massed roofs, tiled in weathered terracotta, and cataracts of stone streets descending to the cathedral and the Stradun Placa. It was very hot on the walls, the sun hard and the air dry and clear. Among the red-brown roofs and the complexities of ramparts and stairs, different colours shimmered, the purple of the bougainvillaea, the sky blue of the plumbago, and the flame flash of the orange trumpet flower.

  ‘Lovely,’ said Dora Wexford. ‘Breathtaking. Aren’t you glad now I made you come up here?’

  ‘It’s all right for you dark-skinned people,’ grumbled her husband. ‘My nose is beginning to feel like a fried egg.’

  ‘We’ll go down at the next lot of steps and you can administer some more sun cream over a glass of beer.’

  It was noon, the date Saturday, 18 June. The full heat of the day had kept the Yugoslavs, but not the tourists, off the walls. Germans went by with cameras or stood murmuring, ‘Wunderschön!’ Vivacious Italians chattered, unaffected by the midsummer sun. But some of the snatches of talk which reached Wexford were in languages not only incomprehensible but unidentifiable. It was a surprise to hear English spoken.

  ‘Don’t keep on about it,
Iris!’

  At first they couldn’t see the speaker. But now, as they came out of the narrow defile and emerged on to one of the broad jutting courts made by a buttress top, they came face to face with the Englishman. A tall, fair young man, he was standing in the furthest angle of the court, and with him was a dark-haired girl. Her back was to the Wexfords. She was staring out to sea. From her clothes, she looked as if she would have been more at home in the South of France than on the walls of Dubrovnik. She wore a jade-green halter top that left her deeply tanned midriff bare, and a calf-length silk skirt in green and blue with parabolas on it of flamingo pink. Her sandals were pink, the strings criss-crossed up her legs, the wedge heels high. But perhaps the most striking thing about her was her hair. Raven black and very short, it was cut at the nape in three sharp Vs.

  She must have replied to her companion, though Wexford hadn’t heard the words. But now, without turning round, she stamped her foot and the man said:

  ‘How can you go to the bloody place, Iris, when we can’t find anyone to take us? There’s nowhere to land. I wish to God you’d give it a rest.’

  Dora took her husband’s arm, hastening him along. He could read her thoughts, not to eavesdrop on someone else’s quarrel.

  ‘You’re so nosy, darling,’ she said when they had reached the steps and were out of earshot. ‘I suppose it’s what comes of being a policeman.’

  Wexford laughed. ‘I’m glad you realize that’s the reason. Any other man’s wife would accuse him of looking at that girl.’

  ‘She was beautiful, wasn’t she?’ said Dora wistfully, conscious of her age. ‘Of course we couldn’t see her face, but you could tell she had a perfect figure.’