by Ruth Rendell
‘Now Dora, my dear,’ she said. ‘I’ve the whole of this street to do tonight and all the next one – politics is hard work – but I’ve come to you first, the very first, because I feel we three have something special, we’re what everyone but the English calls sympathetic.’ The look on his wife’s face he knew well, the smile, the rapid blinking of her eyes, and then only the smile with lips closed, the lifted head. Pretentiousness evoked it and an assumption of intimacy on the part of virtual strangers. Anouk Khoori’s hand on his arm, a beige-coloured hand with purple vein branches, purple varnish on the long nails, lay there, in his fancy like some exotic crustacean. It was as if his arm, immersed in water, had come up with this thing attached to it, this pentapod or tentacled actinia. If he had indeed attracted such a creature while swimming he could have shaken it off. No such recourse was open to him here and his earlier aversion from this woman, his senseless repulsion, returned to him with a shudder. But she had to sit down and this she could hardly do while clamped to him. Dora offered her a drink, a cup of tea if she preferred. Anouk Khoori, refusing with a smile and an inordinate show of gratitude, launched into her appeal. At first it seemed an exclusively defensive campaign. The idea of fascism, which these days meant racism, coming to a place like Kingsmarkham was horrible in the extreme. She herself was a relative newcomer to the borough but she felt so at home here that it was almost as if she was a natural Kingsmarkhamian, so profound was her sympathy with the hopes and fears of its residents. Racism appalled her and any ideas which might be prevalent of aiming at a white Kingsmarkham. The British Nationalist must be kept off the council at all costs. ‘I wouldn’t call electing you an action to take “at all costs”, Mrs Khoori,’ Dora said smoothly. ‘I was going to vote for you anyway.’ ‘I knew it! I knew you’d feel that way. In fact, I said to myself as I came to your door – before going to anyone else, if you remember – I said to myself, I’m wasting my time, they don’t need this, they’re my supporters already, and then I thought, but I need their boost and they need . . . well, just to see me! Just to know that I appreciate them and I care.’ She turned the full radiance of her smile on Wexford and, unable to resist the flirtatious gesture, lifted one hand and smoothed her sleek sweep of hair. In spite of what she had said, her raised eyebrows and enquiring tilt of the head implied the expectation of a like support from him. But Wexford had no intention of committing himself. The poll was secret and his vote private. He asked her what positive moves she had in mind should she be elected and was rather amused by signs of ignorance. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘The first thing I shall work for will be the demolition of that terrible Castlegate where that poor woman was attacked. And then we shall build good new local authority housing on the site from the proceeds of private sales.’ Wexford corrected her gently. ‘Local councils’ assets from private sales are frozen and look like being so for some time to come.’ ‘Oh, I ought to know that, I do know it really.’ She was not a whit put out. ‘I can see I’ve a lot of homework to do. But the great thing is to get me there first, don’t you agree?’ This Wexford refused to do. Pressed – the hand was back on his arm as he showed her out – he said that he was sure she also really knew his vote was a private matter between himself and his conscience. She entirely agreed, but she was tenacious, she was confrontational, her husband said, it was part of her nature not to shirk the truth, however unpalatable. By this time, Wexford had no idea what she meant but he managed a fairly gracious goodbye with the usual rider of its having been delightful to see her.
Later on she must have given a similar treatment to the Akandes, for when Wexford called on them next morning, Laurette so far unbent as to complain about the candidate’s remarking that black people were her special friends and asserting her affinity with them. ‘Do you know what she said to me? “My skin is white,” she said, “but oh, my soul is black.” You’ve got a nerve, I thought.’ Wexford couldn’t help laughing but it was discreet gentle laughter. Mirth had no place in that house. But Laurette seemed to have forgotten their altercation in the matter of the IV line. She was more cordial than he had ever known her, for the first time offering him something to drink. Would he like coffee? Or she could easily make tea. ‘Mrs Khoori won’t get very far if that’s her manifesto,’ said the doctor. ‘There can’t be more than half a dozen of us in the place.’ ‘Eighteen precisely,’ said Wexford. ‘That’s not families, that’s individuals.’ * He drove himself to the Infirmary and parked his car in the only available space, next to the library van. The car on the other side was a curious purplish colour and this brought to mind the Epsons’ car. Suddenly Wexford understood what had been teasing the back of his mind since driving to the Chief Constable’s house. The pink car behind him was being driven by a white man. He hadn’t been able to see his face but he had seen that the man was white. The Epsons were a mixed-race couple – no doubt candidates for Laurette Akande’s disapproval – but it was Fiona Epson who was white and her husband black. Did that mean anything? Was it significant? He had often remarked that everything was significant in a murder case. . . . The library service was a private concern run by volunteers and last year Dora had persuaded him to donate to it a dozen of his books which she called ‘superfluous’. To his surprise he saw Cookie Dix step down from the driving seat of the library van. It was rather more astonishing that she recognized him. ‘Hallo,’ she said. ‘How are you? Wasn’t that a wonderful party at the Khooris? Darling Alexander adored it, he’s been quite bearable to live with ever since.’ She spoke as if they were old, intimate friends, and all the details of her no doubt problematic married life common knowledge between them. Wexford asked her if he could help her load the books on to her trolley. Though nearly as tall as he, she looked fragile with her stick limbs, fairy face and stream of black hair. ‘You’re terribly kind.’ She stood back to let Wexford lift the trolley out from the back of the van. ‘I hate Monday and Saturday mornings, I really do, but these are the only good works I ever do and if I give them up my life will be one of pure unbridled hedonism.’ Wexford smiled and asked her where she lived. ‘Oh, don’t you know? I thought everyone knew the house that Dix built. The glass palace with the trees inside? The top of Ashley Grove?’ One of the town’s monstrosities, one of the places all the visitors stared at and asked about. He helped her load books on to the trolley, enquired where they came from and who selected them. Oh, she did, all her friends gave her books. He should bear her in mind when next he had a clear-out. ‘Everyone thinks of romances and detective stories,’ she said as he parted from her inside the entrance, ‘but I find horror the most popular.’ She gave him a beaming smile. ‘Mutilation and cannibalism actually. That’s the stuff if you’re feeling really low.’
Vine had been with Oni Johnson all night. She was sleeping now and the curtains were drawn round her bed. Wexford said quietly, ‘I know you’re going off duty but there’s just one thing. Three times now Carolyn Snow has told me Snow’s former girlfriend was called Diana. If it rings any bells with you, think about it, will you?’ Half an hour after he had taken Vine’s place Raffy came in, gave his mother a kiss which woke her up and sat down to look at the pictures in his comic. Today must have been Laurette Akande’s day off and the ICU sister was a red-haired Irishwoman. She brought tea which Raffy looked at suspiciously and asked if he could have a coke. ‘My goodness, you go down and fetch that for yourself out of the machine, young man. Whatever next!’ ‘I like him here beside me,’ said Oni when Raffy had gone outside, having first helped himself to coins from her purse on the bedside table. ‘I like to know what he’s doing.’ But Wexford remembered her sister’s words about Oni’s possessiveness. ‘What we going to talk about today?’ ‘You’re looking a lot better,’ Wexford said. ‘I see you’ve got a smaller bandage.’ ‘Small bandage for a small brain, huh? Maybe my brain smaller now that doctor been cutting it around?’ ‘Mrs Johnson, I’ll tell you what we’re going to talk about today. I want you to think back a few weeks, say three weeks, before las
t Thursday, and tell me of anything strange that may have happened.’ She looked at him without speaking. ‘Anything odd or different at home, at work, anything about your son, any new person you met. Don’t hurry, just think about it. Go back to the beginning of July and try to remember any unusual thing.’ Raffy came back with a can of coke. Someone had switched on the television and he moved his chair closer to it. Oni couldn’t reach his hand. She let hers rest on his arm. She said to Wexford, ‘You mean, like someone talking to me at the crossing? Like coming to the front door? Like seeing a stranger?’ ‘All that,’ said Wexford. ‘Anything.’ ‘There was someone draw a thing on our door but Raffy clean it off. Like a cross with turning corners.’ ‘A swastika.’ ‘That was the day the Job Centre had a job for Raffy and he go for the interview but it was no go. Then Mhonum, my sister, she had her birthday, she forty-two, though she don’t look it, and we go to Moonflower for birthday dinner. I got another job – you know that? School cleaner, three times a week. There was one day I’m cleaning and I find a ten pound note, they get lot of pocket money these kids, and I hand it in to the teacher. Thought I might get a reward but no way. These things are sent to try us, you know? This the kind of thing you want?’ ‘Exactly the kind of thing,’ said Wexford, though he had hoped for something more illuminating. ‘This is all the start of July, right? On Sunday the lady come to the door, lady with long blonde hair, saying you vote for me in council elections, but I say maybe, I don’t know, I think about it. Though maybe that was the next Sunday. It was a Monday the day after, I know that, what was the date of the first Monday?’ ‘July the fifth?’
Raffy was laughing at something on the television. He put his empty coke can on the floor. His mother said, ‘Come here, Raffy. I like to hold your hand.’ The boy shifted his chair a fraction without taking his eyes from the screen. Oni made a grab for his hand and gripped it, though this meant stretching her arm to its fullest extent. ‘What happened on that Monday?’ said Wexford. ‘Not so much. The only one thing was in the afternoon and I am at the crossing. Maybe not that Monday but the next. All I am sure is the day after the election lady come. I thought, pity Raffy not here. He take you there, poor girl, you won’t lose your way if Raffy take you.’ Wexford was lost. ‘I don’t quite follow you, Mrs Johnson.’ ‘I’m telling you, I stand at the crossing before the children come out of school, I just stand there, and a girl come along and stop in front of me, right on the pavement, right in front of me, and she talk to me in Yoruba. I am so surprise you could knock me over with a feather. I never hear Yoruba in twenty years but from my sister and she too proud for it. But this girl is from Nigeria and she say to me in Yoruba, what way is it to where they give you jobs? Mo fé mò ibit’ó gbé wà I want to know where it is.’
Chapter Eighteen Four hours of deep sleep and Barry Vine was up, had taken a cold shower and phoned Wexford. The Chief Inspector said something incomprehensible to him in an African language. The translation was enough to send him straight off to the Benefit Office. Ingrid Pamber’s holiday was over and she had been back at work for two days, at the desk between Osman Messaoud and Hayley Gordon. She turned the blue beam of her eyes on Vine and smiled at him as if he were a departed lover returned from the wars. Deadpan, he showed her the photograph of Sojourner’s dead face and a photograph of Oni Johnson that Raffy had managed to produce from the flat in Castlegate. Sojourner meant nothing to her; Oni she recognized. Vine’s indifference to her charms and smiles made her petulant. ‘The lollipop lady, isn’t she? I’d know her face anywhere. I think she’s got it in for me. I only have to be late for work coming down Glebe Road and she’s bound to stick that lollipop sign of hers up in front of me.’ ‘Did Annette know her?’ ‘Annette? How should I know?’ Ingrid alone of the Benefit Office staff failed to ask what had happened to Oni and why he wanted to know. On the other hand, she was the only one who recognized her. No one, to the best of their recollection, had ever seen Sojourner before. It was Valerie Parker, one of the supervisors, who voiced what the others perhaps had hesitated to express in words. ‘I’m afraid all black people look much alike to me.’ Osman Messaoud, passing her on his way to one of the computers, said nastily, ‘How peculiar. All whiteys look alike to black people.’ ‘I wasn’t talking to you,’ said Valerie. ‘No, I don’t suppose you were. You keep your racist remarks for like-minded individuals.’ A momentary hesitation – should he stand up and be counted? Should he hotly deny the imputation? – and Vine had left them to an argument that was developing into a low- voiced hissing match. Niall Clark, the other supervisor, a would-be sociologist, said, ‘I don’t think white people do know black people in a society like this. I mean, in a place like Kingsmarkham, a country town. After all, up until about ten years ago there weren’t any black people here. You’d turn round and stare if you saw one in the street. When I was at school there weren’t any black pupils. I doubt if we’ve got more than three or four blacks signing on here now.’ Valerie Parker, routed by Messaoud and rather pink in the face, said, ‘What was her name?’ ‘I wish I knew.’ ‘I mean we could try checking with the computer if we knew her name. I mean, there are probably hundreds with the same name but we could . . .’
‘I don’t know her name,’ Vine said, and he had a feeling he was never going to find out. Even without a name, it should be easy to identify and locate a lost black girl in a town like Kingsmarkham where whites overwhelmingly predominated, but it wasn’t. She had been directed to this place, presumably she started on her way to this place, but somewhere along the line she had vanished. Or she had reached here but no one had noticed her. Privately, Vine thought she had never got here, he would want to know more from Oni Johnson before he pursued this line. On his way to the door he passed the booth where Peter Stanton was advising a new claimant and he saw that the claimant was Diana Graddon. Until now he hadn’t made up his mind whether to talk to her or not. It seemed unnecessary, even prurient. Of course Wexford’s remark had rung a bell and of course he had thought about it, before falling asleep and from the moment he awoke. But what was it to him, or to any of them, if this woman had once been Snow’s girlfriend, and been superseded by Annette Bystock? What was its relevance to this case of two murders and one attempted murder? But now he had seen her Vine sat down on one of the grey chairs next to a plastic pot with its plastic peperomia and waited. What sort of an impression did that Stanton make on women, eyeing them like that, his eyes rolling? Of course Diana Graddon was quite attractive but Vine had the feeling that all that would ever matter to Stanton was that she was youngish and a woman. He pulled a leaflet called ‘Income Support, See If You Are Entitled’ out of the rack and read it to pass the time. It took Burden no more than twenty minutes to arrive at the Infirmary with the photograph of Sojourner. Oni Johnson recognized her at once. ‘That’s her. That’s the girl spoke to me outside Thomas Proctor.’ It must have been July the fifth, Wexford thought. She was dead by the evening. Mavrikiev had said she died at least twelve days before she was found on the seventeenth. Oni Johnson had spoken to her a matter of hours before she died. ‘I don’t suppose she told you her name?’ Burden asked. ‘She never said her name. Why should she? Never said where she come from, no way. She say to me where she going, to the Job Centre, to get a job. That all she say. Mo fé mò ibit’ó gbé wà? ‘Can you describe her?’ ‘Someone been beating her, that I do know. I seen that before. Her lip’s been cut and her eye, you don’t get no bruises like that walking into doors, no way. So I tell her where ESJ is, down the road and right and right again, between Nationwide and Marks and Spencers, and then I say to her, who been beating you?’ ‘You said that in English or in Yoruba?’ ‘In Yoruba. And she say to me, bí ojú kò bá kán e ni, m bá là òràn náà yé e. I tell you what that mean. “If you are not in a hurry, I would like to explain to you.” ’ Wexford’s heart did a little bounce. ‘And did she?’ Oni shook her head vigorously. ‘I say, yes, I have the time, the children not coming out for five minutes, ten minutes, yet, but then, when I am s
aying this, a car pull up right by where I stand, a mother driving a car, right? She come to fetch her child and I say to her, no, you can’t park here, you go further down road, and when I am done with all this I turn round but that young girl, she gone.’ ‘What, gone out of sight?’
