Collected Short Stories

by Ruth Rendell

  ‘If you could manage to avoid passing those people, Mr Racic,’ said Dora, ‘that would make me very comfortable indeed.’

  Racic glanced at Wexford. ‘You have met them? They have annoyed you?’

  ‘Not that. They spoke to us last night in Mirna and the man was rather pushing.’

  ‘I will keep close to the shore and cross to Vrt from the small peninsula there.’

  For most of the morning there was no one else on the little shingly beach of Vrt, which Racic had told them meant a garden. The huddle of cottages behind were overhung with the blue trumpet flowers of the morning glory, and among the walls rose the slender spires of cypress trees. Wexford sat in the shade reading while Dora sunbathed. The dinghy came close only once, but the Wexfords went unrecognized, perhaps because they were in swimming costumes. Iris Nyman stood up briefly before jumping with an explosive splash into the deep water.

  ‘Rude she may be,’ said Dora, ‘but I’ll grant she’s got a lovely figure. And you were wrong about her legs, Reg. Her legs are perfect.’

  ‘Didn’t notice,’ said Wexford.

  Josip took them back. He was a thin smiling brown man, not unlike Racic, but he had no English beyond ‘thank you’ and ‘good-bye’. They hired him again in the afternoon to take them into Mirna, and they spent a quiet, pleasant evening drinking coffee with Werner and Trudi Muller on the Germans’ balcony.

  Wednesday came in with a storm at sunrise, and Wexford, watching the lightning and the choppy sea, wondered if Burden had been over-optimistic with his guarantee of fine weather. But by nine the sun was out and the sky clear. He saw Dora off in the Mullers’ Mercedes, then walked down to the landing stage. Racic’s boat glided in.

  ‘I have brought bread and sausage for our lunch, and Posip in a flask to keep it cool.’

  ‘Then we must eat it for our elevenses because I’m taking you out to lunch.’

  This they ate in Dubrovnik after Racic had taken him to the island of Lokrum. Wexford listened with deepening interest to the boatman-professor’s stories. How the ease and wealth of the city merchants had led to a literary renascence, how Dubrovnik-built ships had taken part in the Spanish Armada, how an earthquake had devastated the city and almost destroyed the state. They set off again for Lopud, Sipan and Kolocep, returning across the broad calm waters as the sun began to dip towards the sea.

  ‘Does that little island have a name?’ Wexford asked.

  ‘It is called Vrapci, which is to say “sparrows”. There are thousands of sparrows, so they say, and only sparrows, for no one goes there. One cannot land a boat.’

  ‘You mean you can’t get off a boat because the rocks are too sheer? What about the other side?’

  ‘I will pull in close and you shall see. There is a beach but no one would wish to use it. Wait.’

  The island was very small, perhaps no more than half a mile in circumference, and totally overgrown with stunted pines. At their roots the grey rock fell sheer to the water from a height of about ten feet. Racic brought the boat about and they came to the Adriatic side of Vrapci. No sparrows were to be seen, no life of any kind. Between ramparts of rock was a small and forbidding beach of shingle over which an overhanging pine cast deep shade. Looking up at the sky and then down at this dark and stony cove, Wexford could see that, no matter what its altitude, the sun would never penetrate to this beach. Where the shingle narrowed, at the apex, was a cleft in the rock just wide enough to allow the passage of a man’s body.

  ‘Not very attractive,’ he said. ‘Why should people want to come here?’

  ‘They don’t, as far as I know. Except perhaps – well, there is a new fashion, Gospodin Wexford, or Mister as I should call you.’

  ‘Call me Reg.’

  Racic inclined his head. ‘Reg, yes, thank you. I like the name, though I have not previously encountered it. There is a fashion, as I mentioned, for nude bathing. Here in Yugoslavia we do not allow it, for it is not proper, not decorous. No doubt you have seen painted on some of the rocks the words – in, I fear, lamentable English –

  “No Nudist”. But there are some who would defy this rule, especially on the small islands. Vrapci might take their fancy if they could find a boat and a boatman to bring them.’

  ‘A boat could land on the beach and its occupants swim off the rocks on the other side in the sun.’

  ‘If they were good swimmers. But we will not try it, Reg, not at our age being inclined to strip ourselves naked and risk our necks, eh?’

  Once more they were off across the wide sea. Wexford looked back to the city walls, those man-made defensive cliffs, and brought himself hesitantly to ask:

  ‘Would you tell me what you overheard of the conversation between that English couple, Philip and Iris Nyman, when you took them out in your boat?’

  ‘So that is their name? Nyman?’ He was stalling.

  ‘I have a good reason for asking.’

  ‘May I know it?’

  Wexford sighed. ‘I’m a policeman.’

  Racic’s face went very still and tight. ‘I don’t much like that. You were sent here to watch these people? You should have told me before.’

  ‘No, Ivo, no.’ Wexford brought out the unfamiliar name a little self-consciously. ‘No, you’ve got me wrong. I never saw or heard of them till last Saturday. But now I’ve seen them and spoken to them I believe they’re doing something illegal. If that’s so it’s my duty to do something about it. They’re my countrymen.’

  ‘Reg,’ said Racic more gently, ‘what I overheard can have nothing to do with this matter of an illegality. It was personal and private.’

  ‘You won’t tell me?’

  ‘No. We are not old housewives to spend our time in gossip over the garden walls of our kucice, eh?’

  Wexford grinned. ‘Then will you do something for me? Will you contrive to let these people know – subtly, of course – that you understand the English language?’

  ‘You are sure that what they are doing is against the law?’

  ‘I am sure. It’s drugs or some kind of confidence trick.’

  There was silence, during which Racic seemed to commune with his sea. Then he said quietly, ‘I trust you, Reg. Yes, I will do this if I can.’

  ‘Then go into Mirna. They’re very likely having a drink on the waterfront.’

  Mirko’s boat passed them as they came in and Mirko waved, calling, ‘Dobro vece!’

  On the jetty stood a queue of tourists, waiting to be ferried back to the Adriatic or to the hotel at Vrt. There were perhaps a dozen people, and Philip and Iris Nyman brought up the end of the line. It worked out better than Wexford could have hoped. The first four got into Josip’s boat, bound for Vrt, the next group into Mirko’s which, with its capacity of only eight, was inadequate to take the Nymans.

  ‘Hotel Adriatic,’ said Philip Nyman. Then he recognized Wexford. ‘Well, well, we meet again. Had a good day?’

  Wexford replied that he had been to Dubrovnik. He helped the girl into the boat. She thanked him, seeming less nervous and even gave him a diffident smile. The motor started and they were off, Racic the anonymous taxi-man, the piece of equipment without which the vehicle won’t go.

  ‘I saw you out in your dinghy yesterday,’ said Wexford.

  ‘Did you?’ Philip Nyman seemed gratified. ‘We can’t use it tonight, though. It’s not safe after dark and you’ve really got to be in swimming costumes. We’re dining at your hotel with another English couple that we met yesterday and we thought we’d have a romantic walk back along the path.’

  They were rather more dressed up than usual. Nyman wore a cream-coloured safari suit, his wife a yellow and black dress and high-heeled black sandals. Wexford was on the alert for an invitation to join them for dinner and was surprised when none came.

  Both the Nymans lit cigarettes. Wexford noticed Racic stiffen. He had learned enough about the man’s principles and shibboleths to be aware of his feelings on pollution. Those cigarette butts would certainly end u
p in the sea. Anger with his passengers might make him all the more willing to fulfil his promise. But for the moment he remained silent. They rounded the point on to a sea where the sun seemed to have laid a skin of gold.

  ‘So beautiful!’ said Iris Nyman.

  ‘A pity you have to go so soon.’

  ‘We’re staying till Saturday,’ said Nyman, though without renewing his suggestion that they and the Wexfords should meet again. The girl took a last draw on her cigarette and threw it overboard.

  ‘Oh, well,’ said Nyman, ‘there’s so much muck in there already, a bit more won’t do any harm,’ and he cast his still-lighted butt into the ripples of melted gold.

  They were approaching the hotel landing stage and Racic cut the motor. Nyman felt in his pocket for change. It was Wexford who got up first. He said to Racic as the Yugoslav made the boat fast:

  ‘I’ve had a splendid day. Thanks very much indeed.’

  He wasn’t looking at them but he fancied the amused glance Nyman would have given his wife at this display of the Englishman’s well-known assumption that all but cretins speak his language. Racic drew himself up to his not very great height. What accent he had, what stiltedness and syntactical awkwardness, seemed to be lost. He spoke as if he had been born in Kensington and educated at Oxford.

  ‘I’m glad you enjoyed it, I certainly did. Give my regards to your wife and tell her I hope to see her soon.’

  There was no sound from the Nymans. They got out of the boat, Racic saying, ‘Let me give you a hand, madame.’ Nyman’s voice sounded stifled when he produced his twenty dinars and muttered his thanks. Neither said a word to Wexford. They didn’t look back. They walked away and his eyes followed them.

  ‘Did I do all right, Reg? I was moved by the foul contamination of my sea.’

  Absently, still staring, Wexford said, ‘You did fine.’

  ‘What do you look at with such concentration?’

  ‘Legs,’ said Wexford. ‘Thanks again. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  He walked up towards the hotel, looking for them, but they were nowhere in sight. On the terrace he turned and looked back and there they were, walking hurriedly along the waterfront path back to Mirna, their new friends and their dinner engagement forgotten. Wexford went into the hotel and took the lift up to his room. Dora wasn’t back yet. Feeling rather shaken, he lay down on one of the twin beds. This latest development or discovery was, at any rate, far from what he had expected. And what now? Somehow get hold of the Dubrovnik police? He reached for the phone to call reception but dropped it again when Dora walked in.

  She came up to him in consternation. ‘Are you all right, darling?’

  His blood pressure, his heart, too much sun – he could tell what she was thinking. It was rare for him to take a rest in the daytime. ‘Of course I am. I’m fine.’ He sat up. ‘Dora, something most peculiar . . .’

  ‘You’re detecting again! I knew it.’ She kicked off her shoes and threw open the doors to the balcony. ‘You haven’t even asked me if I’ve had a nice day.’

  ‘I can see you have. Come in, my dear, don’t be difficult. I always like to think you’re the only woman I know who isn’t difficult.’ She looked at him warily. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Do something for me. Describe the woman we saw on the walls.’

  ‘Iris Nyman? What do you mean?’

  ‘Just do as I ask, there’s a good girl.’

  ‘You’re mad. You have had a touch of the sun. Well, I suppose if it humours you . . . Medium height, good figure, very tanned, about thirty, geometric haircut. She was wearing a jade green halter top and a blue and green and pink skirt.’

  ‘Now describe the woman we saw with Nyman on Monday.’

  ‘There’s no difference except for a black top and a stole.’

  Wexford nodded. He got off the bed, walked past her on to the balcony and said:

  ‘They’re not the same woman.’

  ‘What on earth are you suggesting?’

  ‘I wish I knew,’ said Wexford, ‘but I do know the Iris Nyman we saw on the walls is not the Iris Nyman I saw in Mirna on Monday morning and we saw that night and we saw yesterday and I saw this evening.’

  ‘You’re letting your imagination run away with you. You are, Reg. That hair, for instance, it was striking, and those clothes, and being with Philip Nyman.’

  ‘Don’t you see you’ve named the very things that would be used to make anyone think they’re the same woman? Neither of us saw her face that first time. Neither of us heard her voice. We only noticed the striking things about her.’

  ‘What makes you think they’re not the same?’

  ‘Her legs. The legs are different. You drew my attention to them. One might say you set me off on this.’

  Dora leaned over the balcony rail. Her shoulders sagged. ‘Then I wish I hadn’t. Reg, you never discuss cases with me at home. Why do it here?’

  ‘There’s no one else.’

  ‘Thanks very much. All this about their not being the same woman, it’s nonsense, you’ve dreamed it up. Why would anyone try and fake a thing like that? Come to that, how could anyone?’

  ‘Easily. All you need is a female accomplice of similar build and age. On Saturday or Sunday this accomplice had her hair cut and dyed and assumed Iris Nyman’s clothes. I mean to find out why.’

  Dora turned her back on the sunset and fixed him with a cold and stony look. ‘No, Reg, no. I’m not being difficult. I’m just behaving like any normal woman would when she goes on holiday and finds her husband can’t leave his job at home for just two weeks. This is the first foreign holiday I’ve had in ten years. If you’d been sent here to watch these people, if it was work, I wouldn’t say a word. But it’s just something you’ve dreamed up because you can’t relax and enjoy the sun and the sea like other people.’

  ‘OK,’ said her husband, ‘look at it that way.’ He was very fond of his wife, he valued her and quickly felt guilt over his frequent enforced neglect of her. This time any neglect would be as if by design, the result of that bone-deep need of his to unravel mysteries. ‘Don’t give me that Gorgon face. I’ve said I won’t let this spoil your holiday and I won’t.’ He touched her cheek, gently rubbing it. ‘And now I’m going to have my bath.’

  Not much more than twelve hours later he was walking the path to Mirna. The sun was already hot and there was a speedboat out in the bay. Carpet sellers had spread their wares in the market place, and the cafés were open for those who wanted coffee or – even at this hour – plum brandy.

  The Bosnia, most of it mercifully concealed by pines and ranks of cypresses, looked from close to, with its floors in plate-like layers and its concrete flying buttresses, more like an Unidentified Flying Object come to rest in the woods than a holiday hotel. Wexford crossed a forecourt as big as a football pitch and entered a foyer that wouldn’t have disgraced some capital city’s palace of justice.

  The receptionist spoke good English.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Nyman checked out last evening, sir.’

  ‘Surely they expected to stay another three days?’

  ‘I cannot tell you, sir. They left last evening before dinner. I cannot help you more.’

  So that was that.

  ‘What are you going to do now?’ said Dora over a late breakfast. ‘Have a hilarious cops and robbers car chase up the Dalmatian coast?’

  ‘I’m going to wait and see. And in the meantime I’m going to enjoy my holiday and see that you enjoy yours.’ He watched her relax and smile for the first time since the previous evening.

  The Nymans were at the back of his mind all the time, but he did manage to enjoy the rest of his holiday. Werner and Trudi took them to Mostar to see the Turkish bridge. They went on a coach to Budva, and the members of the taxi boat syndicate ferried them from Mirna to Vrt and out to Lokrum. It was in secret that Wexford daily bought a London newspaper, a day old and three times its normal price. He wasn’t sure why he did so, what he hoped or feared. On their last morning he nearly d
idn’t bother. After all, he would be home in not much more than twenty-four hours and then he would have to take some action. But as he passed the reception desk, Dora having already entered the dining room for breakfast, the clerk held out the newspaper to him as a matter of course.

  Wexford thanked him – and there it was on the front page.

  Disappearance of Tycoon’s Daughter, said the headline. Beachwear King Fears Kidnap Plot.

  The text beneath read: ‘Mrs Iris Nyman, 32, failed to return to her North London home from a shopping expedition yesterday. Her father, Mr James Woodhouse, Chairman of Sunsports Ltd, a leading manufacturer of beachwear, fears his daughter may have been kidnapped and expects a ransom demand. Police are taking a serious view.

  ‘Mrs Nyman’s husband, 33-year-old Philip Nyman, said at the couple’s home in Flask Walk, Hampstead, today, “My wife and I had just got back from a motoring holiday in Italy and Yugoslavia. On the following morning Iris went out shopping and never returned. I am frantic with worry. She seemed to be happy and relaxed.”

  ‘Mr Woodhouse’s company, of which Mrs Nyman is a director, was this year involved in a vast takeover bid as a result of which two other major clothing firms were absorbed into Sunsports Ltd. The company’s turnover last year was in the region of £100,000,000.’

  There was a photograph of Iris Nyman in black glasses. Wexford would have been hard put to it to say whether this was of the woman on the walls or the woman in Mirna.

  That night they gave Racic a farewell dinner at the Dubrovacka restaurant.

  ‘Don’t say what they all say, Reg, that you will come back next year. Dalmatia is beautiful to you and Gospoda Wexford now, but a few days and the memory will fade. Someone will say, San Marino for you next time, or Ibiza, and there you will go. Is it not so?’

  ‘I said I shall be back,’ said Wexford, ‘and I meant it.’ He raised his glass of Posip. ‘But not in a year’s time. It’ll be sooner than that.’

  Three hundred and sixty-two days sooner, as Racic pointed out.

  ‘And here I am, sitting in the vrt of your Kucica!’