Sins of the Fathers

by Ruth Rendell

  "But she's all over blood," said Charles, "It's as if—God!—as if someone had sprinkled her with it."

  *17*

  I held my tongue and spake nothing; I kept silence, yea, even from good words; but it was pain and grief to me. —Psalm 39. The Burial of the Dead

  "It isn't blood," said Wexford. "Don't you know what it is? Couldn't you smell it?" He lifted the bottle someone had found under the sideboard and held it aloft. Archery sat on the sofa in Mrs. Crilling's living room, worn, tired, utterly spent. Doors banged and footsteps sounded as Wexford's two men searched the other room. The people upstairs had come in at midnight, Saturday night happy, the man a little drunk. The woman had had hysterics during Wexford's questioning.

  They had taken the body away and Charles moved in his chair round so that he could not see the crimson splashes of cherry brandy.

  "But why? Why did it happen?" he whispered.

  "Your father knows why." Wexford stared at Archery, his grey gimlet eyes deep and opaque. He squatted opposite them on a low chair with wooden arms. "As for me, I don't know but I can guess. I can't help feeling I've seen something like this before, a long, long time ago. Sixteen years to be exact. A pink frilly dress that a little girl could never wear again because it was spoilt with blood."

  Outside the rain had begun again and water lashed against the windows making them rattle. It would be cold now inside Victor's Piece, cold and eerie like a deserted castle in a wood of wet trees. The Chief Inspector had an extra uncanny sense that almost amounted to telepathy. Archery willed his thoughts to alter course lest Wexford should divine them, but the question came before he could rid his mind of its pictures.

  "Come on, Mr Archery, where is she?"

  "Where is who?"

  "The daughter."

  "What makes you think I know?"

  "Listen to me," said Wexford. The last person we've talked to who saw her was a chemist in Kingsmarkham. Oh, yes, we went to all the chemists first naturally. This one remembers that when she was in the shop there were two men and a girl there too, a young man and an elder one, tall, fair, obviously father and son."

  "I didn't speak to her then," Archery said truthfully. The smell sickened him. He wanted nothing but sleep and peace and to get out of this room where Wexford had kept them since they had telephoned him.

  "Mrs. Crilling's been dead six or seven hours. It's ten to three now and you left the Olive at a quarter to eight. The barman saw you come in at ten. Where did you go, Mr. Archery?"

  He sat silent. Years and years ago—Oh, centuries ago!—it had been like this in school. You own up, you betray someone, or everyone suffers. Funny, once before he had thought of Wexford as a kind of headmaster.

  "You know where she is," Wexford said. His voice was loud, threatening, ominous. "D'you want to be an accessory? Is that what you want?"

  Archery closed his eyes. Quite suddenly he knew why he was prevaricating. He wanted the very thing that Charles had warned him might happen and although it was contrary to his religion, wicked even, he wanted it with all his heart.

  Charles said, "Father..." and when he got no reply shrugged, turned his dull shocked eyes to Wexford. "Oh, what the hell? She's at Victor's Piece."

  Archery realised that he had been holding his breath. He let it out in a deep sigh. "In one of the bedrooms," he said, "looking at the coach house and dreaming of a heap of sand. She asked what they would do to her and I didn't understand. What will they do to her?"

  Wexford got up. "Well, sir..." Archery noted that "sir" as one might notice the re-assuming of a velvet glove. "You know as well as I do that it's no longer lawful to punish with death for certain..." His eyes flickered over the place where Mrs. Criling had lain. "...certain heinous and grievous offences."

  "Will you let us go now?" Charles asked.

  "Until tomorrow," said Wexford.

  The rain met them at the front door like a wave or a wall of spray. For the past half hour it had been drumming on the roof of the car and seeping in through the half-open quarter light. There was water lying in a small pool at Archery's feet but he was too tired to notice or care.

  Charles came with him into his bedroom.

  "I shouldn't ask you now," he said. "It's almost morning and God knows what we'll have to go through tomorrow, but I have to know. I'd rather know. But what else did she tell you, that girl at Victor's Piece?"

  Archery had heard of people pacing a room like caged beasts. He had never imagined himself so strung with tension that in spite of utter exhaustion he would have to find release by crossing and re-crossing a floor, picking up objects, replacing them, his hands shaking. Charles waited, too wretched even for impatience. His letter to Tess lay in its envelope on the dressing table and beside it the card from the gift shop. Archery picked it up and kneaded it in his hands, crumpling the deckle edging. Then he went up to his son, put his hands gently on his shoulders and looked into the eyes that were young replicas of his own.

  "What she told me," he said, "needn't matter to you. It would be like—well, someone else's nightmare," Charles did not move. "If you will only tell me where you saw the verse that is printed on this card."

  The morning was grey and cool, such a morning as occurs perhaps three hundred times a year out of the three hundred and sixty-five, when there is neither rain nor sun, frost nor fog. It was a limbo of a morning. The policeman on the crossing had covered his shirt sleeves with his dark jacket, the striped shop blinds were rolled up and sluggish steps had grown brisk.

  Inspector Burden escorted Archery along the drying pavements to the police station. Archery was ashamed to answer Burden's kindly question as to how he had slept. He had slept heavily and soundly. Perhaps he would also have slept dreamlessly had he known what the inspector now told him, that Elizabeth Crilling was alive.

  "She came with us quite willing," Burden said and added rather indiscreetly, "To tell you the truth, sir, I've never seen her so calm and sane and—well, at peace, really."

  "You want to go home, I suppose," Wexford said when Burden had left them alone in the blue and yellow office. "You'll have to come back for the inquest and the magistrates' court hearing. You found the body."

  Archery sighed. "Elizabeth found a body sixteen years ago. If it hadn't been for her mother's self-seeking vanity, greed for something she had no claim to—that would never have happened. You might say that that greed reached out and destroyed long after its original purpose had been frustrated. Or you might say that Elizabeth bore her mother a grudge because Mrs. Crilling would never let her talk about Painter and bring her terrors to the light of day."

  "You might," said Wexford. "It could be all those things. And it could be that when Liz left the chemist's she went back to Glebe Road, Mrs. Crilling was afraid to ask for another prescription, so Liz, in the addict's frenzy, strangled her."

  "May I see her?"

  "I'm afraid not. I'm beginning to guess just what she saw sixteen years ago and what she told you last night."

  "After I'd talked to her I went to see Dr. Crocker. I want you to look at this." Archery gave Wexford Colonel Plashet's letter, silently indicating the relevant passage with his bandaged finger. "Poor Elizabeth," he murmured. "She wanted to give Tess a dress for her fifth birthday. Unless Tess has changed a lot it wouldn't have meant much to her."

  Wexford read, closed his eyes briefly and then gave a smile. "I see," he said slowly and restored the letter to its envelope.

  "I am right, aren't I? I'm not juggling things, imagining things? You see, I can't trust my own judgment any more. I have to have an opinion from an expert in deduction. I've been to Forby, I've seen a photograph, I've got a letter and I've talked to a doctor. If you had the same clues would you have come to the same conclusions?"

  "I'm sure you're very kind, Mr. Archery." Wexford gave a broad ironic grin. "I get more complaints than compliments. Now, as to clues and conclusions, I would, but I'd have been on to it a whole lot sooner.

  "You see, it all depends
on what you're looking for and the fact is, sir, you didn't know what you were looking for. All the time you were trying to disprove something in the face of—well, you said it—expert deduction. What you've found now achieves the same result as the other thing would have. For you and your son, that is. But it hasn't changed what for justice is status quo. We would have made sure we knew precisely what we were looking for at the start, the basic thing. When you come down to that, it doesn't matter a damn to you who committed the crime. But you were looking through a pair of spectacles that were too big for you."

  "A glass darkly," said Archery.

  "I can't say I envy you the coming interview."

  "Strange," said Archery thoughtfully as he got up to go, "that although we both held such opposing opinions in the end we were both right."

  Wexford had said he must come back. He would make his visits short, though, short and blind, his eyes opening only in the court he could see out of this window, his words mere evidence. He had read stories of people transported to strange places, blindfolded and in shuttered cars, so that they should not see the country through which they passed. In his case he would be prevented from seeing visions and associations with those visions, by the presence of those he was legitimately allowed to love. Mary should come with him and Charles and Tess to be his shutters and his hood. Certainly he would never see this room again.

  He turned to give it a last glance, but if he hoped to have the last word he was disappointed.

  "Both right," said Wexford, giving Archery's hand a gentle clasp. "I by reason and you by faith. Which, taken all in all," he added, "is only what one might expect."

  She opened the door to them carefully, grudgingly, as if expecting to see gypsies or a brush salesman from a disreputable firm.

  "I hope you'll forgive us, Mrs. Kershaw," Archery said with too loud heartiness."Charles wanted to see Tess and as we were coming this way..."

  It is difficult to greet callers, even unwelcome callers, without some kind of a smile. Irene Kershaw did not smile, but she made muttering noises in which he caught the occasional word: "very welcome, I'm sure," "unexpected..." and "not really prepared..." They got into the hall, but it was an awkward manoeuvre and it almost involved pushing past her. She had grown rather red and she said to Charles, now quite coherently: "Tess has popped down to the shops to get a few last-minute things for her holiday." Archery could see that she was angry and that she did not know how to vent her anger on people who were at the same time adults and from a different background from her own. "You've quarrelled haven't you?" she said. "What are you trying to do, break her heart?" Apparently she was capable of emotion, but once she had shown it, not capable of control. Tears welled into her eyes. "Oh dear ... I didn't mean to say that."

  Archery had explained everything to Charles in the car. He was to find Tess, get her alone and tell her. Now he said "You might go down the hill, Charles, and see if you can meet her coming up, she'll be glad of a hand with her basket."

  Charles hesitated, possibly because he was at a loss to answer Mrs. Kershaw's accusation and could not bring himself to echo so exaggerated an expression as "a broken heart." Then he said, "I'm going to marry Tess. That's what I've always wanted."

  The colour died out of her face and now that there was no occasion for them the tears trickled down her cheeks. Archery would, under other circumstances, have been embarrassed. Now he realised that this mood of hers, tears, a lukewarm resentment that might be her nearest approach to passion, would make her receptive to what he had to say. A tired tigress apparently lurked under that dull suburban exterior, a mother beast capable of being roused only when its young was threatened.

  Charles let himself out of the front door. Archery, left alone with her, wondered where the other children were and how soon Kershaw himself would return. Again he was finding himself, when in the sole company of this woman, at a loss for words. She made no effort to help him, but stood stiff and expressionless, dabbing at the tearmarks with the tips of her fingers.

  "Perhaps we could sit down?" He made a gesture towards the glass door. "I should like to have a talk, settle things, I..."

  She was recovering fast, tunnelling back into the sanctuary of her respectability. "You'd like some tea?"

  The mood must not be allowed to peter out into small-talk over the cups. "No," he said, "no, really..."

  She went before him into the living room. There were the books, the Reader's Digests, the dictionaries and the works on deep sea fishing. The portrait of Jill on the easel was finished and Kershaw had made the amateur's mistake of not knowing when to stop, so that the likeness had been lost in last-minute touches. In the garden which was spread before him with the unreality and the garish colours of a cushion cover in gros point, the Paul Crampel geraniums burned so brightly that they hurt his eyes.

  Mrs. Kershaw sat down genteelly and crimped her skirt over her knees. Today, now that it was cold again, she wore a cotton dress. She was that kind of woman, Archery thought, who would wear her winter clothes on and on cautiously until she was sure a heatwave was fully established. Then, just as the hot weather was ending and the storm about to break, then at last the carefully laundered thin dress would be brought out.

  The pearls had been restrung. She put her hand up to them and drew it away quickly, curbing temptation. Their eyes met and she gave a tiny nervous giggle, perhaps aware that he had noticed her tiny vice. He gave a small inner sigh, for all her emotion had gone and her face showed only the natural bewilderment of a hostess who does not know the purpose of a call and is too discreet to question the caller.

  He must—he must—awaken something from behind that pale lined brow. All his carefully prepared openings died. In a moment she would begin on the weather or the desirability of white weddings. But she did not quite do that. He had forgotten the other stock remark that is so handy a conversation starter between strangers.

  "And how did you enjoy your holiday?" said Irene Kershaw.

  Very well. That would do as well as anything.

  "Forby is your native village, I believe," he said. "I went to see a grave while I was there."

  She touched the pearls with the flat of her hand. "A grave?" For an instant her voice was as raw as when she had talked of a broken heart, then all passionless Purley again as she added, "Oh, yes, Mrs. Primero is buried there, isn't she?"

  "It wasn't her grave I saw." Softly he quoted, " 'Go, shepherd to your rest...' Tell me, why did you keep all the works he left behind him?"

  That there would be reaction and that that reaction might be anger he had expected. He was prepared for a flouncing hauteur or even that damning, dulling response so dear to the heart of the Mrs. Kershaws of this world: "We needn't discuss that." He had not thought she would be frightened and at the same time stricken with a kind of awe. She cowered a little in the armchair—if cowering is compatible with perfect stillness—and her eyes wide and glistening now, had the utter immobility of the dead.

  Her fear had the effect of frightening him. It was as communicable as a yawn. Suppose she were to have a fit of hysterics? He went on very gently: "Why did you keep them hidden away in the dark? They might have been published, they might have been acted. He could have had posthumous fame."

  She made no answer at all, but now he knew what to do, the answer came to him like a gift of God. He only had to go on talking, gently, mesmerically. The words tumbled out, platitudes and cliches, praise of work he had never seen and had no reason to suppose he would admire, assurances and unfounded promises he might never be able to honour. All the time, like a hypnotist, he kept his eyes on her, nodding when she nodded, breaking into a wide fatuous smile when for the first time a tiny vague one trembled on her lips.

  "May I see them?" he dared. "Will you show me the works of John Grace?"

  He held his breath while with torturing slowness she mounted a stool and reached for the top of the bookcase. They were in a box, a large cardboard grocer's box that had apparently once containe
d a gross of tinned peaches. She handled it with a peculiar reverence, her care all concentrated on it, so that she let the magazines which had been stacked on it cascade to the floor.

  There must have been a dozen of them but only one cover picture splashed at Archery like acid on the eyes. He blinked away from the beautiful photographed face, the pale hair under a hat of June roses. He had waited for Mrs. Kershaw to speak now and her words pulled him out of shock and misery.

  "I suppose Tess told you," she whispered. "It was supposed to be our secret." She lifted the lid of the box so that he was able to read the writing on the topmost sheet of manuscript. "The Fold. A Prayer in Dramatic Form by John Grace." "If you'd told me before I would have shown them to you. Tess said I should show them to anyone who would be interested and would understand."

  Again their eyes met and Irene Kershaw's tremulous stare was caught and steadied in his strong one. He knew his face was mobile and expressive of his thoughts. She must have read them for she said, thrusting the box towards him, "Here, have them. You can have them." He drew away his hands and his body, horrified and ashamed. At once he had realised what she was doing, that she was trying to pay him off with her most precious material possession. "Only don't ask me." She gave a little thin cry. "Don't ask me about him!"

  Impulsively, because he could not bear those eyes, he covered his own with his hands. "I've no right to be your inquisitor," he murmured.

  "Yes, yes ... It's all right." Her fingers touching his shoulder were firm with a new strength. "But don't ask me about him. Mr. Kershaw said you wanted to know about Painter—Bert Painter, my husband. I'll tell you everything I can remember, anything you want to know."

  Her inquisitor and her tormentor ... Better a swift knife thrust than this interminable twisting on the rock. He clenched his hands till the only pain he could feel came from the wound where the glass had gone in and he faced her across the yellowing sheets of verse.

  "I don't want to know about Painter any more," he said. "I'm not interested in him. I'm interested in Tess's father..." The moan she gave and the feel of those fingers scrabbling at his arm could not stop him now. "And I've known since last night," he whispered, "that Painter couldn't have been her father."