Wexford 18 - Harm Done

by Ruth Rendell

  Tasneem came into the helpline room just as Sylvia was putting the phone down after her fifth call of the evening. It was half past ten, a pitch-dark night and raining hard. Sylvia hadn’t pulled down the blind and the rain hung on the window like a shifting, glittering veil of silver. By this time, and after all those disquieting or upsetting calls - one had been from a man with a fanatical manner and an Irish accent who had threatened to come and get her and do to her “what they did to the blessed martyred Saint Agatha” - she was always glad of a visitor, Tasneem or Tracy or the black woman with a name she hadn’t learned to pronounce correctly, or the newcomer, Vivienne.

  Tasneem stood at the window and gazed out through the water-drop veil at the wet, black night. Tonight, especially, there was nothing to be seen, but Tasneem often stared out there, looking, Sylvia knew, in the vague direction of York Street and the Muriel Campden Estate where Kim and Lee were.

  “You don’t happen to know anything about, Saint Agatha, I suppose?” Sylvia said.

  “Moslems don’t have saints, Sylvia.”

  “No, I suppose you don’t. It’s prophets you have.”

  The phone rang. Sylvia said, “The Hide helpline. How may I help you?”

  “It’s my boyfriend,” a voice said breathlessly; “we moved in together last week - well, I moved in with him. He’s always been so lovely, he’s a really nice guy, everyone says so, and he’s always been so gentle. Well, last night I was half an hour late home from work, the bus never came, and I didn’t phone him - are you there? Can you hear me?”

  “I’m here,” Sylvia said. “I’m listening. Go on.”

  “Like I said, I was half an hour late, and when I came in, he acted like I’d done something terrible, committed a crime or something, and he grabbed hold of me and said where had I been and who had I been with - it was only six-thirty in the evening, for God’s sake - and then he slapped me hard on both cheeks, wham, wham. I was so shocked, I could hardly believe what had happened except that I’ve got a really bad bruise on the left side. He said he was sorry; but then he said I ought to understand he did it because he’d been so worried.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “At home, at my own place. I’d kept it on, thank God I did. He’s gone out for the evening, so I found this number on a card in a call box and came in here and phoned you. Look, I can understand he was worried about me - well, up to a point I can - but you don’t hit people because you’re worried about them, do you?”

  “Some do, as I’m afraid you now know. You said it all when you told me thank God you’d kept your own place on.”

  “You mean I ought to stay here and not go back to him?”

  “You know it without my telling you.”

  “If that’s what happens after I’ve lived with him for one week, what’s it going to be like after six months, is that what you mean?”

  Sylvia said that was what she meant and repeated that the caller knew the answers already, she just very naturally wanted reassurance and support. Putting down the phone, Sylvia told Tasneem what she had just heard.

  “Terry was like that, a really nice guy and gentle and all that. From a distance, that is. It’s when you get together it starts, when you’re all shut up inside alone with them. I’d like to do your job, Sylvia, it’d be doing something I really know about. Terry used to call me stupid he said I was ignorant about everything but cooking and cleaning, but if there’s one thing I’m an expert in, it’s domestic violence.”

  Sylvia took Tasneem’s hand and squeezed it. “You could train to go on the helpline, Tas, but it’s not paid and you’ve got your degree to do. Besides, once you’ve got your flat you won’t want to come near The Hide again.”

  “And I’ll get my boys back, won’t I?”

  “I’m sure you will,” Sylvia said, though she wasn’t all that sure, but she couldn’t say any more because the phone was ringing again.

  The threatening Irishman once more. She cut him off before he had got more than three words out, but they were three offensive words and her hand on the phone was shaking. “Silly, I ought to be used to it.”

  “There are some things you never get used to,” said Tasneem with feeling.

  “No. I think I’ll tell my dad about this one, see if we can track him down.”

  Griselda Cooper put her head around the door and said the roof was leaking in the northwest corner of the house with rain coming in through the ceiling. She’d had to move Vivienne into Tasneem’s room, it was only temporary, and she hoped that was okay with Tasneem. Tasneem said she’d like the company, and Sylvia asked Griselda what it was they did to Saint Agatha.

  “Don’t ask me. Put her on a grill or tied her to a wheel, I expect, something disgusting, anyway. Why? Does one of our charming callers want to do it to you?”

  It was because she had made a bargain with her captor, Lynn thought, that she was spared the Rohypnol-doctored drink that had been given to Lizzie Cromwell and Rachel Holmes on their arrival. Lynn didn’t struggle or even protest much, she said her parents would be anxious and she became a little tearful, but if Vicky would promise to let her go in the morning, she would agree to spend one night there. Could she phone her parents?

  That made. Vicky laugh. She didn’t even bother to answer but, looking Lynn up and down, said, “Those trousers you’re wearing won’t do. We’ll have to get you into something else tomorrow.”

  But Vicky didn’t search her or even look in her bag where the mobile was. Vicky seemed to accept Lynn’s meekness and acquiescence as behaviour only to be expected from an independent girl of nineteen, for Vicky, as Lynn soon saw, was an egomaniac of gigantic proportions She didn’t observe or question or even have suspicions because she saw only herself, and saw herself as a figure of strength and power and rectitude. And, of course, she saw Jerry.

  Set down in a chair opposite him - literally set down by Vicky, a hand on each shoulder pushing her into a sit ting position - Lynn felt she owed herself congratulations on not being afraid of him. She just made it, just managed to resist and turn back the finger of fear that crept up her spine. It was his eyes as much as anything, his eyes that seemed to have more white around the irises than most people’s, and his silence, so that he made her doubt if he was able to speak. If he made a sound, what kind would it be?

  Ever since she had come into the house, she had been thinking of the missing little girl, listening for child noises and looking around the room for child signs. But there had been no sounds. Whoever had furnished this room had no interest in their surroundings beyond requiring them to be comfortable and insulated. Beige was the predominant color, and those people had no interest in toys, either for children or grown-ups. Sanchia wasn’t here, unless Vicky was cleverer than Lynn thought.

  After staring at her, those eyes apparently unblinking, for ten minutes, Jerry got up and began walking about the room; picking things up and putting them down again, a book, an ashtray, a brass ornament in the shape of a tortoise. From an arrangement of flowers in a basket he took a blue iris, brought it to his nose, sniffed it, dropped it on the floor, and trod on it. Not a simple treading underfoot but a concentrated, manic stamping and crushing. Then he passed on to the window and stood there with his back to the room, although the curtains were drawn.

  Vicky bent down and scraped the remains of the iris off the carpet, where it had left a dark blue stain. “You can clean that off in the morning,” she said to Lynn. “When you’ve had a good night’s rest.”

  All the time Jerry was staring at Lynn and later roving about the room, Vicky had been talking, giving some sort of explanation, or as much of an explanation as she thought fit for Lynn to know. This wasn’t her house, she was house-sitting for the owners, who were away on holiday. She and Jerry had only been there for three days so far. The owners liked their place to be immaculate, as Lynn could see. Keeping it that way would be her job, but first, early in the morning, she, Vicky, would show her how to get Jerry’s breakfast.

/>   “Time for bed now,” Vicky said. “My goodness, look at the time, it’s after eleven.”

  At that, as if time had a particular fascination for him, Jerry spun around. He was wearing a shirt of khaki-coloured cotton buttoned up to the neck, and at his sharp turn the top button came undone to reveal two strips of plaster covering a lint pad on his upper chest. Vicky went up to him and buttoned his shirt. She did it quickly as if she didn’t want Lynn to see the plasters. He allowed her attentions but, when she was finished, sat down cross-legged on the floor with his back against the curtains His eyes closed, his head nodding, he looked as if he was about to fall asleep in that position.

  Lynn was glad to get away from him. She went upstairs, taking careful note of the geography of the house. From outside, in the dark, that it had a third story wasn’t apparent, but now she was being urged to mount another flight. Vicky was behind her, telling her to hurry up, she hadn’t got all night, which seemed a strange thing to say in the circumstances. At the top Vicky showed her into a bathroom, doubtless mounting guard outside, for when Lynn came out, she almost bumped into her. The door to the room that was to be hers Vicky opened from behind her. Everything happened quickly after that, and when it was too late, Lynn realized how much she had underestimated the woman, for as Lynn stepped into the room she heard a click and a snip and felt her bag slide from her shoulder. Vicky had cut the strap with scissors. Lynn twisted around and made a grab for her, but what she clutched was Vicky’s hair and the gray wig came away in her hand. The door was slammed in her face and the key turned in the lock, Vicky on the outside and Lynn on the inside, without her mobile.

  The scenario she had created in her mind had been quite different. Vicky would bring her to a bedroom and stand over her while she undressed and put on the nightclothes provided. With her back turned, of course, like the puritanical wardress she resembled. Her own clothes would be taken away, the door locked on her, and she left to make her phone call. Things had not happened like that.

  Wexford would be cross. He became a different person when he was cross - cold and stem and rather contemptuous, if never unfair. He would say she was too inexperienced to mount an operation of this kind with herself as decoy. She should have told him or Barry Vine first, she should have asked.

  Police officers in TV sitcoms knew how to pick locks or, if they were the brute-force type, break them down with a running kick. Lynn knew that if she tried to break the door down, she would make so much noise that Vicky and Jerry would come and between them they could over power her. Besides, she very much disliked the idea of a hands-on struggle with Jerry. Though stoutly determined not to be afraid of him, she thought she might scream if he so much as laid the tip of one finger on her skin.

  She went to the window and pulled back the, curtains, having first switched off the light. At first she could see almost nothing beyond that the rain had stopped. She opened the window, which was a casement. The lamps were still on in the room below, quite a long way below, about twenty feet, as she appeared to be in some third-story extension built on up here perhaps only a few years back. The light down there bowed in the parting between the curtains and as a thin yellow line across the wet, black paving. A long way down, too far to jump, much too far when she’d be jumping onto concrete. Sheets, curtains, blankets, Lynn disliked the idea of any of those. She looked inside the cupboard. It was full of women’s clothes, old clothes or the clothes of an old person, smelling musty and of camphor spray. Two of the dresses had self-belts, but she could see they were too flimsy for her purpose.

  She sat down on the bed. She listened. The house was silent. Her watch told her the time was twenty-five past eleven. Up here it was doubtful if she would hear them go to bed, but she would see the light go out. Did they share a bed? She didn’t care for that idea either. It wasn’t much use to her knowing if they were in bed unless she could find a way out. Somehow she must use the room, she must use what was in the room. It hadn’t been designed as a prison, it was the owners’ guest room. Visitors slept here, used the bathroom next door, probably enjoyed their semi-isolation at the top of the house. And if the owners weren’t keen on color and adornment, they evidently were on comfort. There had been soft, fluffy towels in that bathroom, new, unused cakes of soap, and a jar of expensive bath essence.

  Vicky and Jerry hadn’t taken Sanchia that was certain. Unless they had taken her but she was no longer here now because. . . No, she wouldn’t even think of that, it wasn’t her job or her place to think of it. She went to the window once more. The light was still on down there. She hated to think of Jerry near a child or a child in his presence. Vicky’s wig still lay on the floor, inside the door where it had fallen. Well, Vicky could come and get it after she was gone.

  If you want a thing badly enough, said Lynn to herself you can do it. Pity there wasn’t a phone. People never do have phones in guest rooms, no matter how hospitable they may be, but they do have television sets, and the one in here had an aerial of zigzag metal plates standing on the top of it. There were two bed lamps, one on either side of the bed, and another standing on the dressing table. Lynn got on her hands and knees and crawled under the bed. Two double sockets each held two plugs. What appliances did the others serve? She followed the lead of one of them up into the bedding and found an electric blanket. The other belonged to a radio.

  Each lead was about two meters long, say six and a half feet. Lynn looked about her. She opened drawers in the dressing table, but all were empty neatly lined with white-spotted beige paper. Back to the window to check if the light was still on. It was. There was a drawer in each bed side cabinet. The one on the left-hand side contained the television remote, the one on the right an unopened box of tissues, a packet of throat pastilles, a container of nasal spray, and a tiny pair of nail scissors.

  Better than nothing, much better. It was no good longing for a sharp knife. The leads on the bed lamps and the aerial were thin - though, Lynn hoped, strong - and they responded well to the snip of the small, fairly sharp scissors. The heavier electric cables on the blanket, radio, and television set were a different matter. She worked on them until her right forefinger was sore and bleeding and she realized she would never get through the television cable.

  From somewhere far below her she heard a stair creak. She went back to the window and saw that the light was out. Lynn began to feel rather excited. Then she had a thought she at once condemned as silly. Kingsmarkham police were going to have to replace all these cables, mend everything she’d destroyed in here, not the owners, still less Vicky and Jerry. What did all that matter when she’d found them?

  She set about tying the cables together. Reef knots, that was the way. The knots took up a great deal of lead. At first she had thought she had an enormous length to play with, something like eighteen meters for a drop of some thing like six, but the knots took it up, and when it was done and firm and looked safe to use, it wasn’t more than maybe five meters long. And she still needed a length of it to tie on to something.

  Tie on to what? The farther away from the window the more of those five meters would be used up. Underneath the window was a radiator. Lynn examined it and saw that it was fastened to the wall by two metal brackets and to the floor by the pipes through which the water or oil or whatever passed. It felt firm enough. It would have to do. She passed the cable through the flanges on the top of the radiator and made it fast with another reef knot, a double one this time.

  Again she listened to the silence of the house. Then she switched off the light. It would be harder in the dark but safer. If only she had gloves! She put one leg over the windowsill, blessing the trousers Vicky so disliked, then the other. Sitting on the ledge, her legs dangling, she realized that this was going to take some resolution, the very letting go and depending on that thin cable. Even the thick blanket and radio leads looked weak now. She turned her self over, still holding on to the sill, and lay on the window ledge on her pelvis, her legs outstretched.

  The
darkness was deep, inside the room and outside. She took hold of the cable in her right hand, eased herself away from the window, still holding the ledge with her left hand, and brought both feet onto the wall. It had a rough surface, as if the rendering had been worked on with a pargeting tool. The pattern was formed in a kind of bas-relief in which none of the raised portions protruded more than half an inch, but it was enough to get a better foothold than on an absolutely flat surface. Lynn tried to grip with her toes, but her shoes were stiff and had leather soles.

  She climbed back into the room, took her shoes off, and hung them around her neck by their laces. Her socks came off too and she tucked them into her shoes. Back on the windowsill, she went through the same process and found it much easier this time. Perhaps going back and starting again had been a good idea. Now she could grip the protrusions in the bas-relief much more satisfactorily.

  The worst part, as she had known it would be, was letting go, taking her left hand from the sill onto the cable and depending entirely on it. She hadn’t foreseen how the cable would stretch and swing, and the radiator give a long, groaning creak. But it held. Gripping the cable as firmly as she could, she moved her right foot down a few inches, then her left, then her right. Her hands slipped on the cable then and she began to slide, desperately trying to walk down the wall, running instead, until her feet slipped off it, she swung in the air about ten feet up, and from above came a crunch, a clatter, and a grinding, wrenching sound.

  Lynn dropped then, the cable running through and burning her fingers, to land on her feet, her legs wide apart. But she was upright and she was sound. Up above her she couldn’t see much except a whitish thing on the windowsill with the cable still attached to it. She weighed only eight and a half stone, but her weight had pulled the radiator away from the wall. Would the pipes have gone too? Was there any water or oil in there when the heating was off? She wasn’t going to stay to find out, and with pictures of pipes spouting water and the house flooding passing through her mind, she put on her socks and shoes and fled.