Put On By Cunning

by Ruth Rendell

  'I think it's a wonderful idea.'

  'Only you didn't used to like Rex, and I can't honestly say he's changed.'

  'It's such a stupid name,' Wexford said unreasonably. 'Stupid for a man, I mean. It's all right for a dog.'

  Dora couldn't help laughing. 'Oh, come. It only just misses being the same as yours.'

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  miss is as good as a mile. What d'you think iy theory then?'

  fell--what became of the old Natalie?' think it's probable she murdered her.'

  road came back to the sea again after San Obispo. It was like Cornwall, Wexford ight, the Cornish coast gigantically ied both in size and in extent. Each time came to a bend in the road another bay led before you, vaster, grander, more stically beautiful than the last. At San )n Dora wanted to see Hearst Castle, so ford drove her up there and left her to take ^guided tour. He went down on the beach re shade was provided by eucalyptus trees, down over the water he saw a pelican in lerous yet graceful flight. The sun shone an arrogant, assured permanence, fitting le finest climate on earth. iere-wasn't much to San Simeon, a car y a restaurant, a few houses. And if Mrs was to be believed, the population would fen sparser as he drove north. The Hearst le tour lasted a long time and they made no progress that day, but as they set off next ig Wexford began to feel something like iy. It was true that if you were used to in densely peopled areas you might find 175

  the coast here sparsely populated, but it wasn't by any means wwpopulated. Little clusters of houses�you could hardly call them villages� with a motel or two, a store, a petrol station, a restaurant, occurred more often than he had been led to believe. And when they came to Big Sur and the road wandered inland through the redwood forest, there were habitations and places to stay almost in plenty.

  They reached the Redwood Hotel at about eight that night. Simply driving through Carmel had been enough to lower Wexford's spirits. It looked a lively place, a considerable seaside resort, and it was full of hotels. Another phone call to Davina Ilbert elicited only that she had no idea of Ilbert's London address. Wexford realized that there was nothing for it but to try all the hotels in Carmel, armed with his photograph of Natalie.

  All he derived from that was the discovery that Americans are more inclined to be helpful than English people, and if this is because they are a nation of salesmen just as the English are a nation of small shopkeepers, it does little to detract from the overall pleasant impression. Hotel receptionists exhorted him on his departure to have a good day, and then when he was-still at it after sundown, to have a nice evening. By that time he had been inside every hotel, motel and lobby of apartments-for-rent in Carmel, Carmel Highlands, Carmel Woods and

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  icl Point, and he had been inside them in

  lex Newton and his American wife were

  ig in the hotel bar with Dora when he got :k. Newton's skin had gone very brown and

  hair very white, but otherwise he was much same. His wife, in Wexford's opinion, 3>ked twenty years older than Dora, though

  was in fact younger. It appeared that the jwtons were to dine with them, and Newton

  ced into the dining room with one arm

  id his wife's waist and the other round jra's. Dora had given them to understand he is there on official police business--what else

  Id she have said?--and Newton spent most his time at the table holding forth on the lerican legal system, American police, the jgraphy and geology of California and the merits of various hotels. His wife was a

  sk quiet little woman. They were going to s;e Dora to Muir Woods, the redwood forest

  of San Francisco, on the following day. |If he knows so much,' Wexford grumbled

  r, 'he might have warned you there are more fels up here than in the West End of London.' |I'm sorry, darling. I didn't ask him. He does

  ler talk the hind leg off a donkey, doesn't

  Oxford didn't know why he suddenly liked Newton very much and felt even happier |t Dora was having such a good time with

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  him.

  For his own part, he spent the next day and the next making excursions down the coast the way they had come, visiting every possible place to stay. In each he got the same response�or worse, that the motel had changed hands or changed management and that there were no records for 1976 available. He was learning that in California change is a very important aspect of life and that Californians, like the Athenians of old, are attracted by any new thing.

  Nonie Newton was confined to bed in her daughter's house with a migraine. Wexford cut short his inquiries in Monterey to get back to Dora, who would have been deserted by her friends. The least he could do for her was take her on the beach for the afternoon. He asked himself if he hadn't mismanaged everything. The trip wasn't succeeding either as an investigation or as a holiday. Dora was out when he got back, there was no note for him, and he spent the rest of the day missing his wife and reproaching himself. Rex Newton brought her back at ten and, in spite of Nonie's illness, sat in the bar for half an hour, holding forth on the climate of California, seismology and the San Andreas Fault. Wexford couldn't wait for him to be gone to unburden his soul to Dora.

  'You could always phone Sheila,' she said when they were alone.

  'Sure I could,' he said. 'I could phone Sylvia

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  talk to the kids. I could phone your sister ^my nephew Howard and old Mike. It would a great deal of money and they'd all no |bt say hard cheese very kindly, but where Id it get me?' "o Ilbert,' she said simply. [e looked at her.

  lolf Ilbert. You said he does part of the |pt for Runway. He's in London. Even if he's ; working on Runway now, even if she's never t him, Sheila's in a position to find out where IS, she could easily do it.' So she could,' he said slowly. 'Why didn't I of that?'

  was eleven o'clock on the Pacific coast but in London, and he was lucky to find her IHer voice sounded as if she were in the next He knew exactly what her voice in the room would sound like because his hotel ibours had had Runway on for the past �hour.

  don't know him, Pop darling, but I'm sure find him. Nothing easier. I'll shop around |e likely agents. Where shall I ring you ;?'

  >n't call us,' said her father. 'We'll call God knows where we'll be.' [ow's Mother?'

  fing on alarmingly with her old flame.' fe would have laughed as he said that if Dora shown the least sign of laughing.

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  Because it wasn't his nature to wait about and do nothing he spent all the next day covering what remained of the Monterey Peninsula. Something in him wanted to say, forget it, make a holiday of the rest of it, but it was too late for that. Instead of relaxing, he would only have tormented himself with that constantly recurring question, where had she stayed? It was awkward phoning Sheila because of the time difference. All the lines were occupied when he tried at eight in the morning, midnight for her, and again twelve hours later, her noon. When at last he heard the ringing there was no answer. Next day, or the day after at the latest, they would have to start south and leave behind all the possible places where Natalie Arno might have changed her identity. They had only had a fortnight and eleven days of it were gone.

  As he was making another attempt to phone Sheila from the hotel lobby, Rex Newton walked in with Dora. He sat down, drank a glass of chablis, and held forth on Californian vineyards, migraine, the feverfew diet and the gluten-free diet. After half an hour he went, kissing Dora�on the cheek but very near the mouth�and reminding her of a promise to spend their last night in America staying at the Newtons' house. And also their last day.

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  suppose I'm included in that,' Wexford said ither nasty tone. Newton was still not quite

  >f earshot.

  ie was cool. 'Of course, darling.'

  is investigation was over, failed, fruitless.

  lad rather hoped to have the last two days with his wife. But what a nerve he had and

  he was punished for it!

  *m hoist with my ow
n petard, aren't I?' he

  and went off to bed.

  Newtons were flying back that morning. It id be a long weary drive for Wexford. He iDora set off at nine.

  ie first of the Danaus butterflies to float ss the windscreen made them both gasp, had seen one only once before, Wexford The Milkweed, the Great American lerfly, the Monarch, is a rare visitor to the British Isles. They watched that one icn drift out over the sea, seeming to lose in the blue meeting the blue, and then a I of its fellows were upon them, thick as ml leaves that strow the brooks in Mnbrosa. And like leaves too, scarlet leaves in black, they floated rather than flew Ss the span of California One, down from cliffs of daisies, out to the ocean. The air was dth them. All the way down from Big Sur

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  they came, wings of cinnabar velvet, butterflies in flocks like birds made of petals.

  'The Spanish for butterfly is mariposa,' said Dora. 'Rex told me. Don't you think it's a beautiful name?'

  Wexford said nothing. Even if he managed to get hold of Sheila now, even if she had an address or a phone number for him, would he have time to drive back perhaps a hundred miles along this route? Not when he had to be in Burbank or wherever those Newtons lived by nightfall. A red butterfly came to grief on his windscreen, smashed, fluttered, died.

  They stopped for a late lunch not far north of San Luis Obispo. He tried in vain to get through to Sheila again and then Dora said she would try. She came back from the phone with a little smile on her lips. She looked young and tanned and happy, but she hadn't been able to reach Sheila. Wexford wondered why she should look like that if she hadn't been talking to anyone. The Newtons would have been back in their home for hours by now. He felt that worst kind of misery, that which afflicts us as the result entirely of our own folly.

  The road that returned from inland to the coast wound down through yellow hills. Yuccas pushed their way up through the sun-bleached grass and the rounded mountains were crowned with olives. The hills folded and dipped and rose and parted to reveal more hills, all the

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  (.., all ochreish in colour, until through the Up the blue ocean appeared again. Dora was ipied with her map and guide book, icre was a little seaside town ahead. A sign fehe roadside said: Santa Xavierita, height We sea level 50.2 metres, population 482.

  said:

  Lccording to the book there's a motel here Sjd the Mariposa. Shall we try it?'

  mt for?' said Wexford crossly. 'Half an r's kip? We have to be two hundred miles

  of here by eight and it's five now.' fe don't have to. Our plane doesn't go till row night. We could stay at the Mariposa,

  we're meant to, it was a sign.' |e nearly stopped the car. He chuckled. He |known her thirty-five years but he didn't her yet. 'You phoned Newton back ;?' he said but in a very different tone fronx Ipie he would have used if he had asked that Stion ten minutes before. 'You phoned ton and said we couldn't make it?' le said demurely, 'I think Nonie was quite red really.' !
  like a bungalow at home in Ramsgate or Worthing. It stood in a garden, one of a score of green oases in this corner of Santa Xavierita, and up against its front door was a pink and white geranium as big as a tree.

  He walked back between sprinklers playing on the grass to the hotel reception desk and phoned Sheila on a collect call. In London it was nine o'clock in the morning and pouring with rain. Sheila had got Ilbert's address. She had had it for two days and couldn't understand why her father hadn't phoned. Ilbert was staying at Durrant's Hotel in George Street by Spanish Place. Wexford wrote down the number. He looked round for someone to inform that he intended to make a call to London.

  There was no sign of the little spry man called Sessamy who had checked them in. No doubt he was somewhere about, watering the geraniums and fuchsias and the heliotrope that smelt of cherries. Wexford went back to find Dora and tell her the news, such as it was. She was in the kitchen of their bungalow, arranging in a glass bowl, piling like an Arcimboldo still life, the fruit they had bought.

  'Reg,' she said, turning round, a nectarine in her hand, 'Reg, Mrs Sessamy who owns this place, she's English. And she says we're the first English people to stay here since--a Mrs Arno in 1976.'

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  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  me about it,' Wexford said. |l don't know anything about it. I don't know more than I've told you. Your Natalie Arno jyed here in 1976. After we've eaten we're to land have coffee with Mrs Sessamy and she'll jhtenyou.'

  fill she now? And how did you account for curiosity? What did you tell her about me?' "he truth. The idea of you being a real lish policeman almost made her cry. She a GI bride, I think, she's about the right I honestly think she expects you to turn up blue uniform and say 'ere, 'ere, what's all about? and she'd love it!' Ie laughed. It was rare for him to praise his i, almost unknown for him to call her by an iearment. That wasn't his way, she knew it wouldn't have wanted it. It would have Icketed her with those he loved on the next

  down. He put his hand on her arm. flf something comes of all this,' he said, 'and of us gets sent back here at the ^ernmenfs expense, can I come too?' lere was, of all things, a Lebanese mrant in the main street of Santa Xavierita. ley walked there and ate delicate scented sions of humous and kebab and honey cake.

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  The sun had long gone, sunk almost with a fizzle into that blue sea, and now the moon was rising. The moonlight painted the little town white as with frost. It was no longer very warm. In the gardens, which showed as dark little havens of lushness in aridity, the sprinklers still rotated and sprayed.

  Wexford marvelled at his wife and, with hindsight, at his own ignorant presumption. Instead of allowing herself to be a passive encumbrance, she had made him absurdly jealous and had hoodwinked him properly. By some sixth sense or some gift of serendipity, she had done in an instant what had eluded him for nearly a fortnight--found Natalie Arno's hideout. And like Trollope's Archdeacon of his wife, he wondered at and admired the greatness of that lady's mind.

  The Sessamys lived in a white-painted frame building, half their home and half the offices of the motel. Their living room was old-fashioned in an unfamiliar way, furnished with pieces from a thirties culture more overblown and Hollywood-influenced than that which Wexford himself had known. On a settee, upholstered in snow-white grainy plastic, a settee that rather resembled some monstrous dessert, a cream coated log perhaps, rolled in coconut, sat the

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  st woman Wexford had ever seen. He and had come in by way of the open French lows, as she had been instructed, and Mrs ly struggled to get to her feet. Like a great ^floundering to raise itself over the rim of the net, she went on struggling until her were seated. Only then did she allow ;lf to subside again. She gave a big noisy

  's such a pleasure to see you! You don't how I've been looking forward to it ever Mrs Wexford here said who you was. A

  bobby! I turned on the waterworks, didn't

  Run?'

  (early forty years' domicile in the United had not robbed her of a particle of her old

  it or given her a hint of new. She was a |doner who still spoke the cockney of Bow or louse.

  jthnal Green,' she said as if Wexford had . 'I've never been back. My people all d out to one of them new towns, Harlow. there, of course. Like every other year

  ly we go, don't we, Tom?'

  ^r husband made no reply. He was a little monkey of a man with a face like a nut.

  iggested they have a drink and displayed a

  *tion of bottles ranged behind a small bar. was no sign of the promised coffee. When had apologetically refused bourbon, rye,

  lis, Hawaiian cocktail, Perrier, grape juice

  187 and gin, Mrs Sessamy announced that they would have tea. Tom
would make it, the way she had taught him.

  'It's such a pleasure to see you,' she said again, sinking comfortably back into white plastic. 'The English who come here, mostly they stop up at the Ramada or the Howard Johnson. But you picked the old Mariposa.'

  'Because of the butterflies,' said Dora.

  'Come again?'

  'Mariposa�well, it means butterfly, doesn't it?'

  'It does?' said Tom Sessamy, waiting for the kettle to boil. 'You hear that, Edie? How about that then?'

  It seemed the policy of the Sessamys to question each other frequently but never to answer. Mrs Sessamy folded plump hands in her enormous lap. She was wearing green trousers and a tent-like green and pink flowered smock. In her broad moon face, in the greyish-fair hair, could still be seen traces of the pretty girl who had married an American soldier and left Bethnal Green for ever.

  'Mrs Wexford said you wanted to know about that girl who lived here�well, stopped here. Though she must have been here three months. We thought she'd go on renting the chalet for ever, didn't we, Tom? We thought we'd got a real sinecure.'

  'I'd heard it was up around Big Sur she

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  said Wexford.

  it was at first. She couldn't stick it, not igh life for her, and it was too far to drive to :o. You can get up to San Luis in twenty lutes from here by car. She had her own car he used to come up in a big Lincoln icntal.' Ibert?'

  mt's right, that was the name. I will say for jpshe never pretended, she never called herself Ilbert. Couldn't have cared less what people ight.'

  porn Sessamy came in with the tea. Wexford & while in California, had drunk from a pot le with one teabag, had seen tea made by ig up liquid out of a bottle or by pouring water on to a powder, noted that Tom had well taught by his wife, never did fancy them bags,' said Edith ry. 'You can get tea loose here if you try.' lafta go to the speciality shop over to San said Tom.

  Sessamy put cream and sugar into her 'What more d'you want to know about she said to Wexford.

  fe showed her the photograph. 'Is that her?' ie put on glasses with pink frames and stone decoration. Mrs Sessamy had ie Californian in all ways but for her tea tiier speech. 'Yes,' she said, 'yes, I reckon |s her.' Her voice was full of doubt.