by Ruth Rendell
Rhoda Comfrey’s dress and jacket, shoes and underwear, were unremarkable, the medium-priced garments of a woman who had retained a taste for bright colours and fussy trimmings into middle age. The shoes were a little distorted by feet that had spread. No perfume clung to the fabric of dress and slip. He was examining labels which told him only that the shoes came from one of a chain of shops whose name had been a household word for a quarter of a century, that the clothes might have been bought in any Oxford Street or Knightsbridge emporium, when there came a knock at the door.
The head of Dr Crocker appeared. ‘What seems to be the trouble?’ said the doctor very breezily.
They were lifelong friends, having known each other since their schooldays when Leonard Crocker had been in the first form and Reginald Wexford in the sixth. And it had sometimes been Wexford’s job – how he had loathed it! – to shepherd home to the street next his own in Pomfret the mischievous recalcitrant infant. Now they were both getting on in years, but the mischievousness remained. Wexford was in no mood for it this morning.
‘What d’you think?’ he growled. ‘Guess.’
Crocker walked over to the desk and picked up one of the shoes. ‘The old man’s my patient, you know.’
‘No, I don’t know. And I hope to God you haven’t come here just to be mysterious about it. I’ve had some of that nonsense from you before. “The secrets of the confessional” and “a doctor’s like a priest” and all that rubbish.’
Crocker ignored this. ‘Old Comfrey used to come to my surgery regularly every Tuesday night. Nothing wrong with him bar old age till he broke his hip. These old people, they like to come in for a chat. I just thought you might be interested.’
‘I am, of course, if it’s interesting.’
‘Well, it’s the daughter that’s dead and he was always on about his daughter. How she’d left him all on his own since her mother died and neglected him and didn’t come to see him from one year’s end to the next. He was really quite articulate about it. Now, how did he describe her?’
‘A thwart disnatured torment?’
The doctor raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s good, but it doesn’t sound old Comfrey’s style. I’ve heard it somewhere before.’
‘Mm,’ said Wexford. ‘No doubt you have. But let’s not go into the comminations of Lear on his thankless child. You will, of course, know the thankless child’s address.’
‘London.’
‘Oh, really! If anyone else says that to me I’ll put them on a charge for obstruction. You mean even you don’t know where in London? For God’s sake, Len, this old boy’s eighty-five. Suppose you’d been called out to him and found him at death’s door? How would you have got in touch with his next of kin?’
‘He wasn’t at death’s door. People don’t have deathbeds like that any more, Reg. They get ill, they linger, they go into hospital. The majority of people die in hospital these days. During the whole long painful process we’d have got her address.’
‘Well, you didn’t,’ Wexford snapped. ‘The hospital haven’t got it now. How about that? I have to have that address.’
‘It’ll be at old Comfrey’s place,’ said Crocker easily.
‘I just hope so. I’m going over there now to find it if it’s findable.’
The doctor jumped down from his perch on the edge of the desk. With one of those flashbacks to his youth, to his schooldays, he said on an eager note, ‘Can I come too?’
‘I suppose so. But I don’t want you cavorting about and getting in everyone’s way.’
‘Thanks very much,’ said Crocker in mock dudgeon. ‘Who do you think the popularity polls show to be the most respected members of the community? General practitioners.’
‘I knew it wasn’t cops,’ said Wexford.
Chapter 4
The house smelt as he had thought it would, of the old person’s animal-vegetable-mineral smell, sweat, cabbage and camphor.
‘What did moths live on before man wore woollen clothes?’
‘Sheep, I suppose,’ said the doctor.
‘But do sheep have moths?’
‘God knows. This place is a real tip, isn’t it?’
They were turning out drawers in the two downstairs rooms. Broken pens and pencils, dried-out ink bottles, sticking plaster, little glass jars full of pins, dead matches, nails, nuts and bolts, screws of thread; an assortment of keys, a pair of dirty socks full of holes, pennies and threepenny bits from the old currency, pieces of string, a broken watch, some marbles and some dried peas; a five-amp electric plug, milk bottle tops, the lid of a paint tin encrusted with blue from the front door, cigarette cards, picture hangers and an ancient shaving brush.
‘Nice little breeding ground for anthrax,’ said Crocker, and he pocketed a dozen or so boxes and bottles of pills that were ranged on top of the chest. I may as well dispose of this lot while I’m here. They won’t chuck them out, no matter how often you tell them. Though why they should be so saving when they get them for free in the first place, I never will know.’
The footfalls of Burden, Loring and Gates could be heard overhead. Wexford knelt down, opened the bottom drawer. Underneath a lot of scattered mothballs, more socks redolent of cheesy mustiness, and a half-empty packet of birdseed, he found an oval picture frame lying face-downwards. He turned it over and looked at a photograph of a young woman with short dark hair, strong jaw, long upper lip, biggish nose.
‘I suppose that’s her,’ he said to the doctor.
‘Wouldn’t know. I never saw her till she was dead and she didn’t look much like that then. It’s the spitting image of the old man, though, isn’t it? It’s her all right.’
Wexford said thoughtfully and a little sadly, remembering the over-made-up, raddled face, ‘It does look like her. It’s just that it was taken a long time ago.’ And yet she hadn’t looked sad. The dead face, if it were possible to say such a thing, had looked almost pleased with itself. ‘We’ll try upstairs,’ he said.
There was no bathroom in the house, and the only lavatory was outside in the garden. The stairs were not carpeted but covered with linoleum. Burden came out of the front bedroom which was James Comfrey’s.
‘Proper old glory hole in there. D’you know, there’s not a book in the house, and not a letter or a postcard either.’
‘The spare room,’ said Crocker.
It was a bleak little place, the walls papered in a print of faded pink and mauve sweet pea, the bare floorboards stained dark brown, the thin curtains whitish now but showing faintly the remains of a pink pattern. On the white cotton counterpane that covered the single bed lay a freshly pressed skirt in a navy-checked synthetic material, a blue nylon blouse and a pair of tights still in their plastic wrapping. Apart from a wall cupboard and a very small chest of drawers, there was no other furniture. On the chest was a small suitcase. Wexford looked inside it and found a pair of cream silk pyjamas of better quality than any of Rhoda Comfrey’s daytime wear, sandals of the kind that consist only of a rubber sole and rubber thong, and a sponge bag. That was all. The cupboard was empty as were the drawers of the chest. The closets had been searched and the alcoves importuned in vain.
Wexford said hotly to Crocker and Burden, ‘This is unbelievable. She doesn’t give her address to her aunt or the hospital where her father is or to her father’s doctor or his neighbours. It’s not written down anywhere in his house, he hasn’t got it with him in the hospital. No doubt, it was in his head where it’s now either locked in or knocked out. What the hell was she playing at?’
‘Possum,’ said the doctor.
Wexford gave a snort. ‘I’m going across the road,’ he said. ‘Mind you leave the place as you found it. That means untidying anything you’ve tidied up.’ He grinned snidely at Crocker. It made a change for him to order the doctor about, for the boot was usually on the other foot. ‘And get Mrs Crown formally to identify the body, will you, Mike? I wish you joy of her.’
Nicky Parker opened the door of Bella Vista, h
is mother close behind him in the hall. Again the reassuring game was played for the child’s benefit and Wexford passed off as a doctor. Well, why not? Weren’t doctors the most respected members of the community? A baby was crying somewhere, and Stella Parker looked harassed.
‘Would it be convenient,’ he said politely, ‘for me to have a chat with your – er – grandmother-in-law?’
She said she was sure it would, and Wexford was led through to a room at the back of the house. Sitting in an armchair, on her lap a colander containing peas that she was shelling, sat one of the oldest people he had ever seen in his life.
‘Nana, this is the police inspector.’
‘How do you do, Mrs -?’
‘Nana’s called Parker too, the same as us.’
She was surrounded by preparations for the family’s lunch. On the floor, on one side of her chair, stood a saucepanful of potatoes in water, the bowl of peelings in water beside it. Four cooking apples awaited her attention. Pastry was made, kneaded, and set on a plate. This, apparently, was one of the way in which she, at her extreme age, contributed to the household management. Wexford remembered how Parker had called his grandmother a wonder, and he began to see why.
For a moment she took no notice of him, exercising perhaps the privilege of matriarchal eld. Stella Parker left them and shut the door. The old woman split open the last of her pods, an enormous one, and said as if they were old acquaintances: ‘When I was a girl they used to say, if you find nine peas in a pod put it over your door and the next man to come in will be your own true love.’ She scattered the nine peas into the full colander, wiped her greened fingers on her apron.
‘Did you ever do it?’ said Wexford.
‘What d’you say? Speak up.’
‘Did you ever do it?’
‘Not me. Didn’t need to. I’d been engaged to Mr Parker since we was both fifteen. Sit down, young man. You’re too tall to be on your legs.’
Wexford was amused and absurdly flattered. ‘Mrs Parker…’ he began on a bellow, but she interrupted him with what was very likely a favourite question. ‘How old d’you think I am?’
There are only two periods in a woman’s life when she hopes to be taken for older than she is, under sixteen and over ninety. In each case the error praises a certain achievement. But still he was wary.
She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Ninety-two,’ she said, ‘and I still do the veg and make my own bed and do my room. And I looked after Brian and Nicky when Stell was in the hospital having Katrina. I was only eighty-nine then, though. Eleven children I’ve had and reared them all. Six of them gone now.’ She levelled at him a girl’s blue eyes in nests of wrinkles. ‘It’s not good to see your children go before you, young man.’ Her face was white bone in a sheath of crumpled parchment. ‘Brian’s dad was my youngest, and he’s been gone two years come November. Only fifty, he was. Still, Brian and Stell have been wonderful to me. They’re a wonder, they are, the pair of them.’ Her mind, drifting through the past, the ramifications of her family, returned to him, this stranger who must have come for something. ‘What were you wanting? Police, Stell said.’ She sat back, put the colander on the floor, and folded her hands. ‘Rhoda Comfrey, is it?’
‘Your grandson told you?’
'Course he did. Before he ever told you.’ She was proud that she enjoyed the confidence of the young, and she smiled. But the smile was brief. Archaically, she said, ‘She was wickedly murdered.’
‘Yes, Mrs Parker. I believe you knew her well?’
‘As well as my own children. She used to come and see me every time she come down here. Rather see me than her dad, she would.’
At last, he thought. ‘Then you’ll be able to tell me her address?’
‘Speak up, will you?’
‘Her address in London?’
‘Don’t know it. What’d I want to know that for? I’ve not written a letter in ten years and I’ve only been to London twice in my life.'
He had wasted his time coming here, and he couldn’t afford to waste time.
‘I can tell you all about her, though,’ said Mrs Parker. ‘Everything you’ll want to know. And about the family. Nobody can tell you like I can. You’ve come to the right place for that.’
‘Mrs Parker, I don’t think…’ That I care? That it matters? What he wanted at this stage was an address, not a biography, especially not one told with meanderings and digressions. But how to cut short without offence a woman of ninety-two whose deafness made interruption virtually impossible? He would have to listen and hope it wouldn’t go on too long. Besides, she had already begun…
‘They come here when Rhoda was a little mite. An only child she was, and used to play with my two youngest. A poor feeble thing was Agnes Comfrey, didn’t know how to stand up for herself, and Mr Comfrey was a real terror. I don’t say he hit her or Rhoda, but he ruled them with a rod of iron just the same.’ She rapped out sharply. ‘You come across that Mrs Crown yet?’
‘Yes,’ said Wexford, ‘But…’ Oh, not the aunt, he thought, not the by-path. She hadn’t heard him.
‘You will. A crying scandal to the whole neighbourhood, she is. Used to come here visiting her sister when her first husband was alive. Before the war, that was, and she was a real fly-by-night even then, though she never took to drink till he was killed at Dunkirk. She had this baby about three months after – I daresay it was his all right, give her the benefit of the doubt – but it was one of them mongols, poor little love. John, they called him. Her and him come to live here with the Comfreys. Aggie used to come over to me in a terrible state of worry about what Lilian got up to and tried to keep dark, and Jim Comfrey threatening to throw her out.'
‘Well, the upshot of it was she met this Crown in the nick of time and they took the house next door when they was married on account of it had been empty all through the war. And d’you know what she done then?’ Wexford shook his head and stared at the pyramid of peas which were having a mesmeric effect on him.
‘I’ll tell you. She had little John put in a home. Have you ever heard the like, for a mother to do such a thing like that? Sweet affectionate little love he was too, the way them mongols are, and loved Rhoda, and she taking him out with her, not a bit ashamed.
‘She’d have been how old then, Mrs Parker?’ Wexford said for something to say. It was a mistake because he didn’t really care, and he had to bawl it twice more before she heard.
‘Twelve, she was, when he was born, and sixteen when Lilian had him put away. She was at the County High School, and Mr Comfrey wanted to take her away when she was fourteen like you could in them days. The headmistress herself, Miss Fowler that was, come to the house personally herself to beg him let Rhoda stay on, her being so bright. Well, he gave way for a bit, but he wasn’t having her go on to no college, made her leave at sixteen, wanted her money, he said, the old skinflint.’
It was very hot, and the words began to roll over Wexford only half-heard. Just the very usual unhappy tale of the mean-spirited working-class parent who values cash in hand more than the career in the future. ‘Got shop work – wanted to better herself, did Rhoda – always shut up in that back bedroom reading – taught herself French – went to typing classes – ’ How the hell was he going to get that address? Trace her through those clothes, those antique shoes? Not a hope. The sharp old voice cackled on… ‘Nothing to look at – never had a boy – that Lilian always at her – “When you going to get yourself a boy-friend, Rhoda?” – got to be a secretary – poor thing, she used to get herself up like Lilian, flashy clothes and high heels and paint all over her face.’
He’d have to get help from the Press: Do You Know This Woman? On the strength of that photograph? ‘Aggie got cancer – never went to the doctor till it was too late – had an operation, but it wasn’t no use – she passed on and poor Rhoda was left with the old man – ' Well, he wasn’t going to allow publication of photos of her dead face, never had done that and never would. If only Mrs Parker would co
me to an end, if only she hadn’t about twenty years still to go! ‘And would have stayed, I daresay – been a slave to him – stayed for ever but for getting all that money – tied to him hand and foot – ’
‘What did you say?’
‘I’m the one that’s deaf, young man,’ said Mrs Parker.
‘I know, I’m sorry. But what was that about coming into money?’
‘You want to listen when you’re spoken to, not go off in day-dreams. She didn’t come into money, she won it. On the pools, it was one of them office what-d’you-call-its.’
‘Syndicates?’
‘I daresay. Old Jim Comfrey, he thought he was in clover. "My ship’s come in," he says to my eldest son. But he was wrong there. Rhoda upped and walked out on him, and so much for the house he was going to have and the car and all.’
‘How much was it?’
‘How much was what? What she won? Thousands and thousands. She never said and I wouldn’t ask. She come round to my place one afternoon – I was living up the road then – and she’d got a big case all packed. Just thirty, she was, and twenty years ago nearly to the day. She had the same birthday as me, you see, August the fifth, and forty-two years between us. "I’m leaving. Auntie Vi," she says, "going to London to seek my fortune," and she gives me the address of some hotel and says would I have all her books packed up and sent on to her? Fat chance of that. Jim Comfrey burned the lot of them down the garden. I can see her now like it was yesterday, in them high heels she couldn’t walk in properly and a dress all frills, and beads all over her and fingernails like she’d dipped them in red paint and…’
‘You didn’t see her yesterday, did you?’ Wexford yelled rapidly. ‘I mean, the day before yesterday?’
‘No. didn’t know she was here. She’d have come, though, if it wasn’t for some wicked…’
