by Ruth Rendell
“Do you tell them when you're coming?”
“Not to the time, Dad. I tell them I'll be along Monday or Tuesday, say. I can't tell them to stop at home for me. I've no grounds for that. There's just one thing to tell you and it's nothing really. They've got someone staying with them, a woman of about fifty. Mrs. Imran calls her ‘auntie,’ so I assume she's a relative.”
“She came back with them from Somalia?”
“I think so.”
“Can't you ask her?”
“She doesn't speak a word of English,” said Sylvia.
“And you don't trust the Imrans to interpret?”
“What do you think?”
Karen Malahyde was also paying friendly visits to the Imrans and not always notifying them of the precise time she was coming. Possibly they thought this too was all part of the service.
Two days later than he had intended, he walked into the reception area at Pomfret Hospice and asked for Owen Tredown. As he had predicted, he was a mass of bruises and his whole body ached. Though supported by a sling, the cast on his right arm felt heavy and cumbersome. He was all right sitting down, provided he was padded with a cushion, but walking made him wince at almost every step. Returning to the hospice gave him a strange feeling, and he told Donaldson to drop him outside the front doors. The sight of the fairly narrow defile-its walls scarred with dark red paint like a bloodstain-in which Maeve Tredown's car had trapped him and tossed him onto its bonnet, showed him how easily, if she had been going a fraction more slowly, she might have run over instead of under him. Had her action been aimed at preventing him being alone with Tredown? Or was it designed to expel him from the inquiry altogether?
The advantage to the driver of a car as lethal weapon was that the intended victim doesn't believe until the very last minute that any fellow human being deliberately means to run him over. He, who ought to have known better, hadn't believed it. He'd simply set her down as the bad driver she boasted she was.
The receptionist directed him to the lift and told him he would find Tredown in Room Four on the second floor. It was only when he was past the first floor that it occurred to him Claudia Ricardo might be there. Tredown's request that he come, his urging a nurse to phone him (“He insists you come yourself,” the woman had said. “He won't take no for an answer. And could you be alone please.”) would have no effect on her. He hoped too that the other inmates of the ward might be far enough away for no conversation to be overheard or that curtains could be drawn around Tredown's bed. At least, this time, he wasn't an inmate himself but a visitor, free to come and go.
Tredown was in a private room off the corridor that led to the main ward. The door was shut. He knocked and, getting no answer, opened it. Inside it was light and airy, but excessively warm. A blue glass vase held white dahlias, another branches of red rowan berries. Room Four had only one occupant and he, as Wexford himself had been when in the infirmary, was sitting in a chair by the bedside with a blanket across his knees. There the resemblance ended. Tredown was asleep, his head turned to one side; and ill as the man had been last time he had seen him, now the advanced stage of his disease made him almost unrecognizable. All his flesh seemed to have been pared from him and the skin that was stretched over sharp but frail bones was a reptilian green. Tredown slept with his mouth closed, his face peaceful in repose and, in spite of wasting disease, protracted suffering, and discolored emaciation, remained handsome. So might be the sculpted face of some medieval ascetic carved from olivine stone.
Pulling himself out of these fanciful flights, Wexford sat down in the other chair. In the absence of a cushion, he took a spare pillow from a pile and stuffed it behind his back. That was better. He reminded himself that this time it was Tredown who had asked for him and not he for Tredown-though he would have asked the next day-but still he hesitated to wake him. Perhaps a nurse would come and do it for him, but as yet there was no sign of one. The place was silent except for the occasional soft, steady footfall along the corridor outside.
Ten minutes went by. Outside, he heard a car arrive. In the corridor someone whispered to someone else. A petal dropped off one of the dahlias and fluttered to the ground. Tredown slept, his breathing light but uneven and once or twice he made a little sound that Wexford interpreted as distress without quite knowing why he did so. Next time he heard the footsteps he opened the door and asked a man in a white boiler suit if it would be all right to wake Mr. Tredown. The man looked at his watch, said it was time he woke anyway, and entering the room, spoke gently and in a very low voice into Tredown's ear.
Stirring, Tredown muttered, “It was so wonderful I was envious-no, I was consumed with envy…”
The nurse who had awakened him looked inquiringly at Wexford, and Wexford stared at him too, slightly shaking his head.
“I'll leave you, then,” he said. “He gets very tired.”
“I'll try not to exhaust him.”
“Would you like a cup of tea? I'm bringing one for him.”
Wexford thanked him. He watched the man in the chair as he opened his eyes. Tredown had slipped down while asleep and now he struggled to pull himself up.
“I'm sorry I can't do anything to help you,” Wexford said, lifting up the arm with the cast and attempting a smile.
“I can manage.” Tredown heaved himself higher in the chair with difficulty. It was painful to watch, but when he had raised his upper body an inch or two he seemed satisfied and he sighed. “What did I say just now? I was half asleep.”
“You didn't say much,” Wexford said. “Just that something was wonderful and you were envious.”
“Yes.”
The silence endured for a full minute, Wexford saw from the clock on the wall. All of our lives were ticking by, he thought, but for this man its passing must be more poignantly prescient than for most of us. Another precious minute would pass and another and another until one more of those last days was gone. Lord, let me know mine end and the number of my days…
Suddenly Tredown said, speaking in a strong voice, “I'm going to die. I shan't last long now.” He looked hard at Wexford. “Please don't say anything cheerful such as ‘while there's life there's hope.’ ”
“I wasn't going to.”
“I want to tell you about it before I die. It's weighed with me for eleven years, yet-I don't know if I did anything wrong. If I did it was a sin of omission. ‘I left undone those things which I ought to have done.’ I failed to ask questions when I should have asked them. I accepted.”
There was a knock at the door and the nurse came in with a teapot, milk and sugar, and two cups on a tray. He poured the tea, suggested to Tredown that a biscuit would be a good idea, but Tredown shook his head.
When the man had gone he said, “ ‘Life is but a process for turning frisky young puppies into mangy old dogs and man but an instrument for converting the red wine of Shiraz into urine.’ ”
Wexford didn't recognize the quotation. “Who said that?”
“Isak Dinesen. I may not have got it quite right but that's the gist. I suppose you think it very odd my wife and I and my ex-wife all living in the same house.”
“Unconventional,” Wexford said, “but not all that odd. It's more common than you might think, though usually it's a husband and wife and her ex-husband. Men on their own find it hard to look after themselves.”
Tredown's laugh was a broken cackle. “ ‘Like unto the crackling of thorns under a pot is the laughter of fools,’ ” he quoted. “I'm good at quoting-maybe that's all I'm good at. I used that in one of my biblical books. I enjoyed writing them,” he said, “but they were never very successful. They were a century too late. My publishers were always suggesting I try something else.”
“And you did,” said Wexford.
He drank his tea and took a fat-laden, sugary biscuit, reflecting in the ensuing silence that the food that is damaging to one may be, if not healthy to another, at least life-prolonging. Tredown ate nothing. He said, “In a manner of
speaking. When the manuscript came-it came in the post, you see-I did what I always did with these things, read the first page, meaning to read the first chapter. I did. I read the first and the second and the third…”
“You couldn't put it down.”
“You've read it?”
“Oh, yes. My daughter has a part in the film.”
“She's Sheila Wexford?”
He nodded, said, “Go on.”
“Maeve read it, and then Claudia did. Maeve acted as my secretary, you know. She wrote all my letters. We never-er, quite cottoned on to e-mail. They read it and they said-well, things about its potential and how the author was a real find and that sort of thing. Claudia said, ‘What a pity you didn't write it, Owen.’ ” He took a sip of his tea, made a face, and put the cup back on the tray. “I don't want to blame them for this. It was my fault, entirely my fault-and yet… The upshot of it all, of our discussions, was that Maeve wrote to the author and asked him if he could come here and see me, have a talk with me about his manuscript. I don't exactly know what her precise words were, though I suppose I did at the time. They say we block off unacceptable memories-do you believe that?”
“I don't know,” Wexford said.
“I do. I know I do it all the time. And I've done it more since that manuscript-fell into my hands.” He gave a heavy sigh. “That is an accurate description, carrying with it a certain menace. Fell into my hands-so much stronger, don't you think, than ‘came into my hands’? Well, he wrote back. He'd be in Sussex in a week's time and could he come then? He came. He brought another copy with him-the only other copy he had, he said.” Tredown's voice was losing strength, the tone cracking. “I told him what we all thought of the manuscript and I said I thought parts of it needed rewriting and some careful editing. He said he'd do some work on it. No one knew he'd written a book. He seemed to think he'd be laughed at if anyone knew or else be told to do something that would make money. He'd sent it to me because he'd heard me speak on the radio and he thought-God help me-I was a good writer. He'd read two of my books too.”
“Mr. Tredown, take it easy. You're tiring yourself.”
“What would it matter if I were?” Tredown pulled himself up with a gargantuan effort, leaned forward earnestly. “Better if I tired myself to death. Sorry, I don't mean to be melodramatic, but all this is painful to me, very painful. Anyway, he went. He took one of the manuscripts with him and I-I never saw him again. Maeve told me he'd gone, and two days later she had a letter from him, saying he'd decided not to do any more about it. Writing it had been all he wanted. Having it published didn't interest him.”
Wexford shifted in his seat, trying to make himself more comfortable. “You believed this?”
“I wanted to believe it, Mr. Wexford. I desperately wanted to believe it. You see, I thought that if it was mine to do with as I liked I would rewrite it myself, keeping the story, the characters, the essence or spirit of it, but improving it; I thought I could improve it, make it perfect. I'd make it mine.”
“You saw the letter Mrs. Tredown had from him?”
“I saw it. It was typed. It was signed.”
Wexford would hardly have believed that any more blood could drain from Tredown's face, but this is what seemed to have happened. He turned his head to one side, subsiding, slipping down the cushions of the chair.
“It was actually signed Samuel Miller?”
There was no answer. Wexford got up and rang the bell. The nurse came in, lifted Tredown's wrist, and felt his pulse. “Better go now,” he said. “He's very tired.”
“Please come back tomorrow,” Tredown whispered.
The call to the police station was put through to Karen Malahyde. But she had gone after paying a routine visit to the Imrans and it was Hannah who took the call. Two hours before she had come back from questioning two hospice visitors who might have, but evidently had not, witnessed Maeve Tredown's murder attempt. The day had been a long one and she had her usual drive ahead of her to home and Bal. It had been a dull, heavy day and at six in the evening was pitch dark. A premonition that it would delay her made her very unwilling to take this call, but Burden had already left, Wexford was not yet back from visiting Tredown, and Barry Vine had begun his annual leave. A slightly tentative voice speaking fluent English but with a strong accent came on the line.
“My name is Iman Dirir. I have come from the home of the Imran family. I think-no, I know-something is going to happen in their flat-tonight. Yes, tonight. Please can you come?”
“Our child protection officer isn't available,” Hannah began. She hesitated, said, “Of course I'll come, I'll come now-but wait. Will I get in?”
“I'll be there,” Mrs. Dirir said. “They trust me.” Her tone was bitter. “They never will again, but-never mind.”
“Would you do something for me? Would you phone this number and tell the child care officer. She's called Sylvia Fairfax.”
Karen and Sylvia had called at that flat two or three times a week and found nothing but an apparently happy family entertaining a middle-aged relative from Somalia. Shamis had been like any normal European child, free, playful, mischievous. If she had been circumcised she would have been confined to a chair with her legs bound together from ankles to hips. Driving out of the police station car park, her lights on, Hannah reminded herself of the commentary on female life Sylvia had repeated to her as coming from an elderly Somali woman she had met. “The three sorrows of a woman come to her on the day she is cut, on her wedding night, and the day she gives birth.” It made her shudder to think of it.
The block was brightly lit but as Hannah came to the top of the stairs and out onto the external walkway where the Imrans' flat was, she saw that it was in darkness. It was as if no one was at home. Sylvia Fairfax stepped out of the shadows to meet her.
“Dr. Akande is on his way,” she said. “I daren't ring the bell, and there's no need. Iman Dirir will open the door at seven sharp.”
“And Shamis?”
“The woman they call auntie is a circumciser. Iman says she has seen the tools she uses, a razor, a knife, and some special scissors.”
Hannah bit her lip. “It doesn't bear thinking of, but we have to think of it.”
“We have to stop it,” Sylvia said.
They stood outside the front door. There was no sound from inside. Next door they had a window open and music pounded out, the kind that has a steady regular beat, thump, thump, thump. Hannah's watch told her it was ten minutes to seven.
“It's horrible to think of,” she said, “but will Iman let her begin? I mean, for God's sake, will this woman start on the child?”
“I don't know. I hope not, but if she doesn't… Here's Dr. Akande.”
He came running along the walkway. “This can't be allowed to happen,” he said breathlessly. “Even if it means failing to catch them, we can't let them cut this child when we're able to stop it.”
“She'll open the door,” Hannah said, “the moment this woman picks up her razor.”
“That's too late. You don't know how fast a practiced circumciser can do this-this atrocity. I do.”
“But surely they'll give Shamis some sort of anesthetic?”
“I doubt it, I very much doubt it,” Akande said and with that he put his finger to the bell push, holding it there so that the chimes it made rang loudly above the thumps of the music.
The door flew open. Iman Dirir shouted in a loud clear voice, “Come in, all of you, come in. In here!”
Akande went first, Sylvia behind him. The hallway was dark; the only light was in the kitchen at the end of the passage, showing around the edges of the door. They ran toward the closed door and, thinking it locked, the doctor kicked at it. But it flew open and he almost fell into the little room. The woman in a long black robe who had been bending over the child, a cutthroat razor in her ungloved hand, took a step backward, exposing to their view a small girl, entirely naked, lying on a spread towel on the kitchen table. Reeta Imran, the child's
mother, made a shocked sound and flung a sheet over her. As Hannah said afterward to Wexford, she was more affronted by a male, even though a doctor, seeing her little daughter without clothes than she was by the rite that the circumciser had been on the point of performing.
Totally covered, face and all, by the sheet, Shamis began to scream and struggle. She fought her way out and threw herself into her mother's arms. Mrs. Imran once more grabbed the sheet and swathed her in it. Hannah walked up to the table and eyed the circumciser's other tools that lay there, a knife and a pair of scissors. There was no sterilization equipment to be seen, no medication of any kind. A length from the reel of sewing thread would be used, she supposed, to stitch the raw edges of the wound together, a length from the ball of garden twine to bind Shamis's legs together once the deed had been done. The circumciser, a woman of perhaps no more than fifty, though she looked seventy, her face brown and wrinkled, most of her front teeth missing, fixed on Hannah a stare of absolute impassivity. She laid the razor on the table and said something to Mrs. Imran in Somali.
I ought to arrest her, Hannah thought. Or Reeta, or both of them. But charge them with what? They've done nothing and I can't wish they'd begun what they were going to do for the sake of charging them. But I can't leave them here with the child either. All she could think of was that this woman had been in possession of an offensive weapon-could she arrest them on suspicion of intending to perform an illegal act? Hardly knowing what she was doing or the consequences, she snatched Shamis out of her mother's arms and pulled off the sheet. There was blood on it. And a long streak of blood across Shamis's left thigh where the razor had just touched her. They had got there just in time.
“You do not have to say anything in answer to the charge,” she began, and glancing at Sylvia, saw tears running down her face.
26
Wexford went back to the hospice in the morning, feeling he had had a lucky escape. If he had gone ahead and Amara Ali and Reeta Imran had appeared in court, the case would have been dismissed and contumely heaped upon him for racism, sexism, and jumping to unjustifiable conclusions. Anger against Hannah had been strong at first. Karen wouldn't have done it, but Karen hadn't been there. Hadn't it occurred to Hannah that the women would say Shamis was sitting on the table after a shampoo and prior to having the hair on the nape of her neck shaved? The trace of blood? The shock of three people bursting into the flat had made Amara Ali's hand slip. Halfway home on the previous evening, he had answered his phone to be told that the two women were in custody and he had turned around and gone back, letting them both go with scarcely a word.
