Wexford 18 - Harm Done

by Ruth Rendell

  They pounded down the passage that led into Oberon Road, Lizzie running with the best of them, her condition forgotten. Nine children and four teenagers all shouting at the tops of their voices make a considerable noise. Heads appeared at windows in Oberon Road and Puck Road, doors flew open, and people came out into their front gardens to see what was going on.

  “That old pedo’s up at his window watching the kids,” Charlotte gasped, and Lizzie cried equally breathlessly, “He’s watching them and he’s going to come down and get them!”

  Brenda Bosworth, who had come out in her nightdress with a coat over it, let out a loud scream and seized hold of her Sean, her Dean, and her Kelly, clutching all three of them to her in a protective embrace, but let them go again when Colin Crowne began ushering all the children into his own house, declaring that they would be safe there until “something has been done about it.” He slammed the front door on them, and he and Debbie marched up the road to No. 16.

  By this time John and Rochelle Keenan had appeared on the lawn that surrounded the tower, where they were joined by a dozen other people, two of whom, young men, had armed themselves, one with a length of lead piping and the other with a brick. The banners with PEDOPHILE GO AWAY and PROTECT OUR CHILDREN now reappeared, carried by Joe Hebden and a pal of his who had dropped in to talk about a twenty-five-year-old Triumph Herald he was trying to sell for two hundred pounds. The Triumph Herald man was only the first of many strangers to the estate who came to join in the fray. How they knew about it, how news of it had reached and fired them, remained a mystery. But by the time the majority of Muriel Campden parents had gathered on the lawn where Brenda Bosworth was haranguing them on “this menace in our midst,” people were streaming into Titania Road from all parts of Kingsmarkham, most on foot but some in cars or on motorbikes, as well as a party in a minibus.

  The peacemaker, Tony Mitchell, whom Hayley had mistaken for Tommy Orbe, saw it all but this time did nothing. Last evening, while he was out watering his front garden, an old woman had gone by, spat at him and called him a quisling, an epithet he was far too young to understand. He hadn’t liked it, though, and he hadn’t liked his neighbour at 19 turning her back when he said good evening, so he resolved to stick his neck out no further. He told his wife not to get involved and she said she wouldn’t. She just quietly popped across the road to the tower, borrowed her sister Rochelle Keenan’s camcorder, and from an upstairs window, began recording the whole thing on videotape.

  The three streets were now packed with cars. Drivers, trying to get in through the approach road from York Street, left their hands on horns and shouted out of their windows. One of them was Brian St. George, who abandoned his car to block the roadway and went off into Oberon Road on foot. The crowd on the lawn cheered and clapped Brenda Bosworth, and two men had the idea of carrying her on their shoulders to take up a position outside No. 16.

  There they stood, flanked by the banner carriers, while something like a hundred people assembled behind them.

  Things were still quite orderly, with the crowd merely chanting once more, this time to “Abide With Me,” the tune a suggestion of a Manchester United supporter and not because it was Sunday. Who threw the first brick was never established. The stack of bricks stood in the front garden of 21 Oberon Road, whose occupants were out for the day, ready for use in the building of a wall to separate their lawn from the pavement and replace the wire fence. The bricklayer had left them there on Friday, covered up with a plastic sheet.

  John Keenan pulled off this sheet, but whether he actually picked up a brick, no one knew. But somebody did and hurled it at No. 16. This first brick, flying past Brenda Bosworth’s ear, caused her bearers to duck and the banner carriers to retreat, but it missed its mark and crashed against the front wall of the Orbes’ house instead of through the window. The noise it made slightly daunted everyone and the crowd hesitated.

  At. this point a man called Carl Meeks realized that fewer children were about than there should have been. Notably, his own son. He shouted out, “Where’s my Scott?” and John Keenan took up the cry with “What’s happened to my Gary?”

  Brenda Bosworth jumped down from her bearers’ shoulders, assured herself with a glance around that her children were missing, and screamed out, “He’s got them! The pedo’s got them in there!”

  All the little Bosworths, Keenans, Hebdens, and Scott Meeks were inside the Crowne house where, although any of them could have opened the front door and escaped, they preferred to remain and enjoy themselves eating the crisps they had found in the kitchen and watching one of Colin Crowne’s porn videos. Colin had shut them in there, but no one knew that, and somehow Colin had forgotten all about it. So he too began shouting that Orbe had got the children and he too threw a brick. This time it didn’t miss but went through the front window of No. 16. A hail of bricks followed it, and when the bricks ran out, the crowd threw stones they picked out of the tower flower beds. Someone could be heard shrieking inside the Orbe house. It was Suzanne herself, but Linda Meeks claimed to recognize the voice of her son Scott, whereupon the crowd surged forward up to the gate of No. 16, to kick that gate down, to trample down the flimsy wire fence, and form a human battering ram against the front door.

  The police arrived just as the door went down. Suzanne.had rung them when the first brick was thrown. She would have phoned before but for her fiancé saying that if anyone had told him someone belonging to him would call the police, he’d never have believed them. What Orbe thought no one knew. He sat silently in his upright chair, doing nothing except for getting up some times to make himself another cup of tea. Between nine in the morning and three in the afternoon he had drunk fifteen cups.

  The police dispersed the crowd and arrested John Keenan, Brenda Bosworth, and Miroslav Zlatic, all of whom would be charged with making an affray and causing criminal damage. They sent a carpenter around to rehang the front door of No. 16 Oberon Road and board up the broken windows. Sergeant Joel Fitch had a long talk with its occupants about the situation and their future, or rather he talked in Orbe’s presence, but whether Orbe listened or cared was another matter. Should he remain where he was or be moved? And if moved, taken where? Possibly a police station would be the best, though temporary, sanctuary for him. But not Kingsmarkham, where the only accommodation was two cells, both currently occupied by John Keenan and Miroslav Zlatic, Brenda having been released because there was no one to look after her children.

  Those children, along with the small Keenans and Hebdens, were not discovered for some hours. By the time Debbie and Colin and Lizzie got home, they had left, having consumed everything edible in the house, helped themselves to the five hundred duty-free cigarettes Colin had brought back from a day trip to France, and gone down to Kingsbrook weir for a swim.

  When things had quieted down, Shirley Mitchell came out of her house and onto the green, where she picked up all the litter dropped during the afternoon and put it into a plastic bin liner: crisp packets and chocolate wrappers and a couple of Coke cans. No one was around to hear her angry mutterings on the theme of those too ignorant to value their environment.

  Later in the evening a man came out of 16 Oberon Road, carrying a suitcase. Suzanne Orbe’s fiancé was heading for the station to catch the last train for London. He had a pal in Balham be could stay with. When it had “all blown over” he might come back, he told Suzanne, but the way things were, the stress was too much for him.

  Wexford watched it all on television, on the Sunday-night news at ten to nine. Most of the footage came from an amateur video and this was acknowledged, though no names were mentioned. He thought it unhelpful that included in the news item was a still of Thomas Orbe, one of those rogues’ gallery photographs that make the subject look like a hideous and debased thug. Of course, it was quite likely that Orbe was just that, he thought with a sigh, and he hoped he wouldn’t have to meet him but feared he soon would.

  The sight of the Orbes’ house, even after the boa
rding-up had taken place, shocked Dora deeply. Such a thing would have been unthinkable when she first came to live in Kingsmarkham and the place was a quiet, law-abiding, peaceful country town.

  “Not all that law-abiding,” said Wexford.

  “Nothing like it is now, Reg, you know that.”

  “Yes, of course I do. What are we going to do with this chap, this Orbe? Lock him up forever?”

  “Wouldn’t that be best? It makes me shudder to think of him.”

  “It makes us all shudder,” said Wexford.

  Rumor ran wild around the Muriel Campden Estate. Shirley Mitchell had received £5,000 for her video, she had received £10,000, she had received no more than £500, she had got nothing. It wasn’t even her video that had been used but another made by a professional man secreted into the Keenans’ flat. Tony Mitchell had personally smashed his sister-in-law’s movie camera, and as a result he and Shirley were splitting up.

  The children had been snatched by Orbe but Colin Crowne had rescued them. Or only the Bosworth children had been snatched and Miroslav Ziatic had done the rescuing. Orbe had committed suicide or had told he intended to commit suicide. Far from being charged with anything, Brenda Bosworth was to be recommended for a bravery medal.

  All these stories proliferated. More important and more dangerous was one that began to do the rounds on Monday morning. The man who had been seen leaving 16 Oberon Road at nine-thirty the previous night wasn’t Suzanne’s fiancé but Orbe himself. One of the Keenans’ neighbours knew that for a fact because he had seen Garry Wills at his bedroom window at ten. Another older man, one of the - original residents on the Muriel Campden Estate, recognized Orbe; he would have known his walk anywhere and the way he carried his suitcase in his left hand.

  Where had he gone? No one knew, but that didn’t stop them from guessing.

  Chapter 8

  “There’s no house within twenty minutes’ drive of Kingsmarkham that answers Rachel’s description,” Wexford said. “She made it up. For some reason, she doesn’t want us to find Vicky and Jerry.”

  “If Vicky and Jerry exist,” said Burden.

  “Vicky does. Both girls admit to Vicky. So what is true and what is false? Certainly it’s false that Lizzie is only two weeks pregnant, she’s more like three months. And certainly it’s true that Rachel wanted to keep her engagement at the Rotten Carrot but was prevented by someone or something. Both of them were taken somewhere but per haps not to the same place. Whoever took Lizzie away managed to frighten her. If she told, they would find her and punish her, something like that. But that wouldn’t succeed with Rachel, so I’m wondering if while she was with this person or these people she did something she regards as shameful and she doesn’t want it to come out.”

  “We stand a chance of finding out if they take another girl.”

  “God forbid.”

  “You’re always telling me where things come from,” said Burden. “I mean expressions, quotes, that sort of thing. I bet you don’t know where what you’ve just said comes from.”

  “Where what comes from?”

  “God forbid.”

  “What? Oh, I see. Well, where does it come from?”

  “Paul. The apostle Paul. He says it all the time in his letters."

  “How do you know?”

  “I don’t know. I just know.”

  Wexford had expected another girl to be abducted on Saturday evening. While he was in London and next day during the Muriel Campden crisis, his thoughts had reverted from time to time to Rachel and Lizzie, to Vicky and Jerry, and the mystery house, and he wouldn’t have been at all surprised this morning to hear of another missing girl. But there had been nothing And what was to be done about Orbe overrode all other considerations.

  On the Muriel Campden Estate things were quiet. Miroslav Zlatic and John Keenan with Brenda Bosworth were currently appearing in Kingsmarkham Magistrates Court, but Wexford knew they would all be put on probation or bound over to keep the peace and released by lunchtime. What would be the result of Orbe’s showing his face outside 16 Oberon Road? He couldn’t remain shut up in there forever. And there was no knowing when some other Muriel Campden firebrand would decide that his children were in danger and make a renewed assault on the house. Wexford was beginning to revise his opinion of the estate as being different from its inner-city counter parts and its occupants law-abiding. On the other hand, wouldn’t most parents of small and sub-teenage children rise in wrath and fear when an Orbe came among them?

  Superintendent Rogers of the uniformed branch had told him that Orbe, on leaving prison, had made a private appeal for protection. He wouldn’t guarantee, he said, that he was no longer a danger. He couldn’t say what would happen if he had access to children. At any rate, if nothing worse than that, he liked looking at them. It gave him great pleasure to watch them, and he couldn’t rightly see why he should relinquish that pleasure. It did no harm. Apart from the boy who died - and that, he averred, was a tragic accident - Thomas Orbe maintained that he had never done any harm. He was one of those pedophiles - “Pedos,” said Wexford scathingly. “A new word enters the English language” - who insisted that children, even very small ones, desire, enjoy, and need sexual relations. “He asked for it, pestered me for it” was his principal defense.

  And if Wexford had been inclined to pity Orbe, it was this attitude more than anything that made him harden his heart. Evil was a word freely bandied about these days and he looked on it with suspicion, but Orbe and what he did were evil, that he knew. And when he heard how Orbe justified his actions, even at this late stage, when he heard that the old man still made excuses for himself on such grounds, Wexford felt much the same kind of fury as that displayed by the Muriel Campden residents. If his own grandsons lived anywhere near Orbe’s home, wouldn’t he at any rate want to react as they reacted?

  Still, if in no more than the interests of public order and civilized behavior, the pedophile must be protected from his neighbours, just as little boys must be protected from him. Superintendent Rogers was in favour of removing him to Myringham, either to the police station or to the Mid-Sussex Constabulary Headquarters. Both had accommodations that could temporarily be adapted to house him. For, as Rogers said, obnoxious as the whole idea of the man and his activities might be, he had (in the superintendent’s own words) “paid his debt to society” and was technically an innocent person, who could not legitimately be lodged in a police cell without some adaptations being made to it.

  The assistant chief constable designate wanted him left where he was, at home, in his own house. For the present. His theory was that once the ringleaders, in this case John Keenan, Miroslav Zlatic, and Brenda Bosworth, had appeared in court, been dealt with, and severely warned, there would be no more problems. This was a community of country folk whose recent forebears had lived in cottages in villages and hamlets, who had kept their sheep and looked after the landowner’s game. Such people were naturally law-abiding, peace-loving, and tolerant.

  “Besides,” he said, “they’ll get used to it. They will accept. They’ll see no harm comes to their children and every thing will simmer down.”

  Detective Constable Lynn Fancourt had established a pleasant relationship with Lizzie Cromwell, albeit one that was sympathetic on her part and sycophantic on Lizzie’s. Lizzie called her by her first name and felt herself privileged, even daring, to do so. On Monday afternoon Lynn had managed, in a friendly talk, to extract from Lizzie an admission that she had in fact accepted a lift from the woman called Vicky and been told that Vicky drove a white car, registration number and make unknown. It was a triumph for Lynn and she decided to leave it there and revert to the subject of Lizzie’s pregnancy, of which she deeply disapproved. A termination was what he advocated and as soon as possible.

  Debbie said it was a funny thing but Lynn had just missed the social worker who had been around to see Lizzie and asked her to take part in their new project. Lizzie was proud to have been one of the girls selec
ted. No, Debbie said, she hadn’t said anything about Lizzie’s pregnancy and Lizzie hadn’t, it didn’t seem necessary; and anyway, it wasn’t the social worker’s business.

  By now Lynn had guessed that the project was Kingsmarkham Social Services’ initiative to discourage teenage pregnancies, a campaign called Project Infant Simulator, and when she went into the living room where Lizzie was, she found her with a life-size baby doll on her lap. The doll wore a Babygro over a disposable napkin and little white socks.

  “I’m to keep him for the week,” said Lizzie. “His name’s Jodi.”

  She seemed bemused. As well she might be, thought Lynn. She asked, “Is he a sort of robot?” And then she realized Lizzie wouldn’t know what that was, so she said, “Does he cry and pee and need feeding and all that?”

  “He’s done some crying. I changed him. I’m learning how to look after him.”

  Lynn saw that Lizzie, and perhaps Debbie too, had missed the point. The provision of Jodi to selected candidates or volunteers was to demonstrate to adolescent girls the hard work, lack of sleep, and overall responsibility caring for a baby entailed. Thus, they might think twice before engaging in unprotected sexual activity. Lizzie, on the other hand, saw it as training for her future.

  “Well, I’m afraid you’re in for some sleepless nights,” said Lynn. “How many weeks pregnant do you think you are?” She asked it conversationally, in a friendly instead of hectoring tone, and Lizzie, preoccupied with staring into Jodi’s fathomless blue eyes, answered her just as casually, “I reckon fourteen weeks, that’s what Mum says. I haven’t seen since January.”