No More Dying Then
Page 21
“Are you all right, Mike?” said Grace. “I mean, are you feeling all right? You’ve been home every night this week on the dot of six.”
Burden smiled. “Let’s say I’ve come to my senses. I find it a bit hard to put my feelings into words, but I suppose I’ve just realised how lucky I am to have my kids and what hell it would be to lose them.”
She didn’t answer but went to the window and drew the curtains to shut out the night. With her back to him she said abruptly, “I’m not going in for that nursing-home thing.”
“Now, look here …” He got up, went over to her and took her almost roughly by the arm. “You’re not to sacrifice yourself on my account. I won’t have it.”
“My dear Mike!” Suddenly he saw that she was not troubled or conscience-stricken but happy. “I’m not sacrificing myself. I …” She hesitated, remembering perhaps how in the past he would never talk to her, never speak of anything but the most mundane household arrangements.
“Tell me,” he said with a new fierce intensity.
She looked astonished. “Well… Well, I met a man while we were in Eastbourne, a man I used to know years ago. I—I was in love with him. We quarrelled … Oh, it was so silly! And now—now he wants to begin again and come here and take me out and—and I think, Mike, I think …” She stopped and then said with the cold defiance he had taught her, “You wouldn’t be interested.”
“Oh, Grace,” he said, “if only you knew!”
She was staring at him now as if he were a stranger, but a stranger she had begun to like and would want to know better. “Knew what?” she said.
For a moment he didn’t answer. He was thinking that if only he had the sense to realise it now, he had found his listener, his one friend who would understand, because of her experience of many sides of life, the simple daily joy his marriage had been to him and understand too the blaze of glory, the little summer, he had found with Gemma.
“I want to talk too,” he said. “I’ve got to tell someone. If I listen to you, will you listen to me?”
She nodded wonderingly. He thought how pretty she was, how like Jean, and that, because she was like Jean, she would make a wonderful wife for this man who loved her. And because there could now be no misunderstanding between them he hugged her briefly and rested his cheek against hers.
He felt her happiness in the warmth with which she returned the hug and it infected him, almost making him happy too. Would it last? Was he finally finding a sense of proportion? He couldn’t tell, not yet. But his own boy and girl were safe, sleeping behind those closed doors, he could work again, and he had a friend who was waiting now, still tightly clasping his hands, to hear what he had to tell.
Grace led him back to the fire, sat down beside him and said, as if already she half understood, “It’ll be all right, Mike.” She leaned towards him, her face serious and intent “Let’s talk,” she said.
Three Inspector Wexford Mysteries
BY RUTH RENDELL
“Mystery writing of the highest order … durable, complex, and affectingly human.”
—The New York Times Book Review
MURDER BEING ONCE DONE
The ailing Wexford is in London for a rest cure—one that deprives him of alcohol, rich food, and, above all, police work—when a young girl is found murdered in a gloomy nearby cemetery. The authorities, commanded by Wexford’s nephew, can’t find out who the victim was: the dead girl has no possessions, no past, and a name that seems patently false. And so Wexford defies doctors orders and the big-city condescension of the London police to take a look for himself.
Crime Fiction/0-375-70488-4
NO MORE DYING THEN
Years as a policeman in the placid village of Kingsmarkham have taught Inspector Wexford that the most unlikely people are capable of the most appalling crimes. But what kind of person would steal—and possibly murder—two children? Wexford’s search is complicated when his colleague falls in love with the mother of one of the missing youngsters.
Crime Fiction/0-375-70489-2
SOME LIE AND SOME DIE
In spite of the dire predictions, the rock festival at Sundays seems to be going off without a hitch. Then a hideously disfigured body is discovered in a nearby quarry, and Inspector Wexford must ask how an event devoted to peace and idealism could become the setting for a murder. The victim is a distinctly unglamourous local girl who lied about her friendships with celebrities. But she had a very real connection with the festival’s charismatic star, a singer who inspires an unwholesome devotion in his followers.
Crime Fiction/0-375-70490-6
VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD
Available at your local bookstore, or call toll-free to order:
1-800-793-2665 (credit cards only).
FORTHCOMING FROM VINTAGE BY
RUTH RENDELL
A DEMON IN MY VIEW
In this dark and compelling tale, a lonely paranoid sneaks into the basement to visit the object of his affection and slips his hands around her throat, but one day he goes down there and she is gone, and he comes unhinged.
Crime Fiction/0-375-70491-4
A JUDGEMENT IN STONE
In this raw and powerful psychological thriller, it only takes housekeeper Eunice fifteen minutes to kill her employer and his family, but for the police to find out why may be a trickier matter—that the tragedy began with a secret Eunice has guarded her whole life.
Crime Fiction/0-375-70496-5
SHAKE HANDS FOREVER
An Inspector Wexford Mystery
Probably, Angela Hathall had picked up a stranger. Probably, the stranger had killed her. It was that simple. Or was it? Wexford had his doubts—especially after meeting the loved ones Mrs. Hathall left behind.
Crime Fiction/0-375-70495-7
A SLEEPING LIFE
An Inspector Wexford Mystery
Her corpse is unremarkable, her handbag devoid of clues. But as Wexford tracks down the few people who knew Rhoda Comfrey before her death, he discovers that even an obscure soul harbors extraordinary secrets.
Crime Fiction/0-375-70493-0
THE FALLEN CURTAIN
And Other Stories
A strange man lures a child into his car with the promise of sweets. An executive dines with an employee he fired with ghastly results. Eleven classic Rendell tales that conjure our darkest fears.
Crime Fiction/0-375-70492-2
THE LAKE OF DARKNESS
Martin Urban has won a fortune and wants to share the wealth. But when he helps strangers in need, his good intentions become fatally entangled with the madness of a small-time assassin.
Crime Fiction/0-375-70497-3
ONE ACROSS, TWO DOWN
Two things interest Stanley Manning: crosswords and his mother-in-law’s money. When he gives death a helping hand, he gets more than he bargained for: a victim who may outsmart him from the grave.
Crime Fiction/0-375-70494-9
VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD
Available at your local bookstore, or call toll-free to order:
1-800-793-2665 (credit cards only).
FIRST VINTAGE CRIME / BLACK LIZARD EDITION, MAY 1999
Copyright © 1971 by Ruth Rendell
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover in Great Britain by Hutchinson, London, and in the United States by Doubleday, New York, in 1971.
Vintage Books, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rendell, Ruth, 1930–
No more dying then / Ruth Rendell.
p. cm. — (Vintage crime/Black Lizard)
eISBN: 978-0-307-55864-0
1. Wexford, Inspector (Fictitious character)—Fiction.
2. Police—England—Fiction.
I. Title.
PR6068
.E63N6 1999
823′.914—dc21 98-52546
CIP
www.randomhouse.com/vintage
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