Harm Done

by Ruth Rendell

  Of course it was more than possible, it was even likely, that Vicky had simply picked that address out of a street plan of Myringham. It was what he would do in the unlikely event of his needing a false address. But if not by this means, how else could he find her? His train of thought was interrupted by the phone ringing. It was Sylvia. She never phoned him at work, it was almost unheard of.

  He restrained himself from asking what was wrong, was her mother all right, and simply said a cheerful, "Hello, darling."

  "Dad, is there a child missing in Kingsmarkham, a little girl?"

  Something tightened in his chest. "Why do you ask?"

  "I’ll tell you. One of the women at The Hide heard it at the place where she works and she told me when I came on last night. Well, not when I came on actually. Not till I’d been on quite a while. I was in the helpline room and she put her head round the door on her way to bed. It was all of eleven, otherwise I’d have phoned you."

  It went against the grain with him to admit this carefully guarded secret, even, perhaps especially, to a member of his family. He said cautiously, "A little girl is missing, yes. There are reasons for not making it public. We hope to find her and then it need never be made public."

  "Would the reasons have something to do with Thomas Orbe?"

  "I can’t answer that, Sylvia."

  "Only his neighbors, all that mob that went mad the other day, they know about it. One of our women told a friend of hers on the Muriel Campden and it’ll be all round the place by now."

  "Oh, God. Thanks for telling me, Sylvia," and Wexford added, "You may have averted a nasty situation."

  He didn’t say what he wanted to, that she would certainly have averted it if she had called him at eleven the previous night. Their relationship had never been so good; let it stay that way. The only thing to do now was put a call through to Superintendent Rogers and suggest some of his people get over to Oberon Road immediately. The uniformed branch was responsible for crowd control, but Wexford might as well go up there himself—why not?

  Where did that woman work, the one who had found out about Sanchia Devenish and passed on her information? He should have asked Sylvia. But no doubt it was in Ploughman’s Lane or Winchester Drive, near the Devenishes’. Too late to worry about that now, he thought, as Donaldson drove him along the High Street and turned up York Street.

  He expected to hear chanting or singing or even just roaring long before the Muriel Campden Estate was reached, but there was silence, or rather, a hush, as if up here even the normal busy sounds of a country town on a weekday had been subdued. The entrance to the triangle of streets was blocked by a police car in the familiar Mid-Sussex Constabulary scarlet, blue, and canary yellow, stationary across the road and at right angles to it. The uniformed officer at the wheel Wexford didn’t recognize. He said to Donaldson, "I’ll walk the rest of the way."

  It was hot for late April, the sun blazing down by now, white on the pavements, black in the shade. He could see a crowd ahead of him, an ambulance parked halfway along Oberon Road. It pulled away and its siren sounded just as he passed the gate of No. 20. The sight of the Orbes’ house almost stopped him short. The window-panes, which the council had replaced only the day before, were once more smashed, the front door was gone, and someone, somehow, had succeeded in dislodging several tiles from the roof. Outside the gate stood Sergeant Joel Fitch and in front of the gaping hole where the front door had been a WPC called, he thought, Wendy Brodrick. The crowd, huddled together, had retreated to the green to stare.

  "Who was in the ambulance?" he asked Fitch.

  "Suzanne Orbe, sir. She got hit on the head with a brick. They threw the same bricks they threw on Sunday. Someone had piled them all up again and they just used them."

  "Everything gets recycled these days," said Wexford.

  "It’s a blessing the little girl wasn’t in there, sir. They’d very likely have murdered her."

  "Where’s Mr. Rogers?"

  "Inside with Orbe. He’s going to bring him out. Here’s the van now."

  The crowd, which had been silent, began a muttering. The sound of it rose and fell, rose again, and a woman shouted out, "Nobody’s taking me away in no Black Maria!" It was Brenda Bosworth, arm in arm with Miroslav Zlatic, who was also arm in arm with Lizzie Cromwell.

  If 16 Oberon Road had had a garage drive, things would have been much easier, but the only garages on the Muriel Campden Estate were the lockup kind, a row of them at the York Street end of Titania Road. The van driver was obliged to park against the curb, and almost before he had put the handbrake on, the crowd surged up to surround it.

  "Get back there," said Fitch in his resonant voice that still wasn’t quite a shout. "Go home, the lot of you. There’s nothing for you here."

  But the crowd wasn’t going home, though it retreated a little, so that no one was any longer actually touching the van. The driver was a slender man of medium height with short-cropped golden curls. He got down and with two more uniformed men ushered the Kingsmarkham Six and their supporters back onto the grass.

  "Poove," said Colin Crowne to the driver. "Look at his hair. Goes in for Carmen rollers, he does, the poove."

  ’’And perve," said Monty Smith. "Poove and perve," and he started laughing at his own wit.

  "That’s why they side with that pedo," said Brenda. "They’re all pooves and perves, the lot of them. Birds of a feather flock together, that’s what I say."

  Lizzie Cromwell shrieked with laughter, squeezing Miroslav’s arm. Across the green, at her window on the second floor of the tower, Rochelle Keenan, in repossession of her camcorder, reached farther out to make sure she missed nothing on her videotape.

  Wexford went past Fitch, said "Excuse me" to WPC Wendy Brodrick, and stepped inside the half-wrecked house. He pushed the door almost closed behind him. Most of the bricks had ended up in here. Broken glass was everywhere. He trod gingerly and the glass crunched underfoot. It was such a small house that to speak to those in the living room he hardly needed to raise his voice. "D’you need any help, George?"

  Rogers called to come in. Wexford pushed open the door. Tommy Orbe was inside with Rogers, a tallish PC, and a shorter one. If Wexford had been asked whether he considered Orbe emotional, he would have said the man had no feeling left, either for himself or anyone else. But he would have been wrong. Orbe was crying. For his own plight or for his injured daughter? Not, surely, for his past life and his crimes. The tears rolled down his puffy brown cheeks and he made no attempt to wipe them away.

  "You’d better pull yourself together," said Rogers briskly but not unkindly. "We have to get you out of here. Or get someone out."

  Wexford knew what Rogers meant. "You could put a coat over—I’m sorry, I don’t know your name ...?"

  "Dixon, sir."

  "You could put a coat over Dixon’s head—my raincoat, if you like. It was pretty daft wearing a raincoat on a day like this, anyway—and you and I could get him out of here between us."

  "Right," said Rogers.

  Impossible not to feel pity for a weeping man, Wexford would have said a week ago, but for Orbe he felt none. He looked at him and had to tense his muscles to stop himself from shuddering with revulsion. Impossible to be in his presence and, if you had any imagination, not picture the things he had done, the pleasure attached to those things that swamped all concern for others.

  "He’s a bit taller than you," he said to Orbe in as detached a voice as he could achieve, "but not so’s you’d notice with his head covered up. Shall we give it a go?"

  "What about me?" said Orbe, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

  "This is for your benefit." Rogers wasn’t pleased. "With luck they’ll take their departure once Dixon is out, and you can slip away quietly in one of the cars."

  "Slip away where?" Orbe looked uneasily from one to the other.

  Rogers said they would come up with something. He had managed to cut his hand on a piece of broken glass and it was bleeding. Wexfo
rd, who sometimes thought he was the only man left in the world who still used handkerchiefs, handed Rogers his clean white one. He took off his raincoat and they draped it over Dixon, covering his head and face and shoulders so that he was unrecognizable. Starting to cry again, Orbe stared hopelessly at the man disguised as himself.

  Wexford and Rogers were both big men so that Dixon, sandwiched between them, looked less than his five feet eight inches. As soon as the front door was pushed open, howls went up from the crowd, a bit like the baying of hounds on the scent, Wexford thought. He and Rogers and Dixon stepped down onto the path and WPC Brodrick stood back to let them pass.

  Policemen with linked hands, eight of them, held the crowd back but couldn’t stop the baying. The banner had reappeared while Wexford was inside, as well as the two boy and girl sandwich boards, one worn by fat Carl Meeks, whose belly held it out almost at right angles, and the other by Joe Hebden. The crowd started chanting, "Pedo out, pedo out ..."

  Wexford and Rogers with Dixon between them made their way down the path while the crowd strained and pushed against the linked hands and the broad backs, finally breaking through just as Dixon was shoved into the van. Rogers jumped in beside him, and as Wexford stepped back, the driver was already pulling away from the pavement.

  Wexford had wondered for a moment if they intended to attack him and if he would be obliged to struggle with them, but it was soon clear that no one was interested in him. He might as well have been a gatepost or a lamp standard. Brenda Bosworth, Monty Smith, and John Keenan, and others whose names he didn’t know, had all attached themselves to the van, grabbing hold of the door handles, hammering on the windows, and shrieking at the occupants. The driver had to stop while Fitch and two PCs pulled them off, Fitch getting Monty Smith’s fist in his face, for which assault on a police officer Monty was promptly arrested by PC Dempsey, shouting a triumphant, "You’re nicked!"

  The van moved again, gathered speed, and headed for York Street. Wexford sent Wendy Brodrick into the house, told her he would have a car come round and to bring Orbe out once the coast was clear. For his part, he didn’t want to see Orbe again. Being in his company was a depressing experience, for this was a man and he was a man too. Probably, being a woman in his company would be easier. On the other hand, women were mothers ...

  He walked across onto the green, glad to have found a useful way of dispensing with his raincoat on what promised to be the warmest day of the year so far. Only Brenda Bosworth, Miroslav Zlatic, and Lizzie Cromwell remained standing on the grass, and when they saw him approach, they too moved off, still arm in arm, Lizzie giggling and thrusting forward her swelling stomach. He decided to follow them and see them safely to their homes. It was unlikely there would be more arrests. Prosecuting these people would be a hopeless business since it was highly unlikely anyone would give evidence against anyone else.

  The remaining police officers were departing in cars, taking Monty Smith with them. Wendy Brodrick had disappeared into No. 16, and when Wexford next looked over his shoulder, he saw the red, yellow, and blue car that had blocked the entrance road pull up outside. Not the wisest move, he thought, not the best way to avoid attracting attention, and he stopped, exasperated. Fortunately, no one remained on the green, and the woman with the camcorder had gone in and closed her window. For a moment he had been distracted from watching the three people ahead of him. A shriek made him turn around and start to run in their direction. Brenda Bosworth and Lizzie were rolling on the ground, locked together, half on the pavement, half in the council’s newly planted flower bed, Lizzie whimpering and Brenda growling, clutching a handful of the girl’s blonde hair in her fist. Miroslav stood back, his arms folded, shaking his head.

  A lot of things became clear to Wexford in that moment; several mysteries were solved. He grabbed hold of Brenda by the arms and tried to pull her off as Lizzie hugged herself, doubled up to protect her swollen belly. Brenda kicked Wexford, but ineffectually, and he put a stop to that by holding her in a fireman’s lock. Set free and not much hurt, Lizzie got first to her knees, then up to a squatting position. Her knees were grazed and she had earth on her face. Perhaps she expected aid from Miroslav, for she held out her hand for him to help her to her feet, but he was looking the other way, pretending an interest in a new motorbike parked in the front garden of No. 42.

  "Go on home, Lizzie," said Wexford, still holding Brenda. "I’ll come and talk to you in five minutes."

  He relaxed his hold on Brenda and propelled her to her gate, Miroslav following sheepishly behind. Brenda, turning to face Wexford once she was inside her own garden, gathered spittle in her mouth.

  "Don’t do it," said Wexford.

  Instead of spitting, she spoke. "That was indecent assault, the way you were holding me. I’ll have the law on you."

  "I am the law," said Wexford, "so shut up and get inside."

  The way she slammed the door after her made the house shake. Left outside and apparently without a key of his own, Miroslav looked to Wexford for help much as Lizzie had looked to him. Wexford shrugged and walked off, leaving him hammering on the front-room window. The flower bed was wrecked, a mess of crushed pansies and snapped-off primulas. Wexford picked up a purple-and-orange pansy and stuck it in his buttonhole.

  The Crownes’ door was open and on the latch, so he rang the bell, walked straight in, and found Lizzie with her mother, who was washing the blood off her knees with a facecloth and a bowl of soapy water. "You’d better have her see the doctor," he said. "I doubt if there’s harm done, but it’s best to be on the safe side."

  "That bitch," said Debbie Crowne. "That slag. Fighting like a bloody animal. I’ll kill her, I’ll poke her bloody eyes out."

  "When you’ve finished washing Lizzie’s wounds, Mrs. Crowne, I’d like a word alone with her, if you please."

  Surprisingly, Debbie went off without another word. Wexford shut the door after her, though he couldn’t stop her listening at the keyhole. Lizzie was giving him one of her truculent, lowering looks, her underlip stuck out and her brows drawn together in a heavy frown.

  "You’re getting on for four months pregnant, aren’t you, Lizzie?" he began. She nodded, still frowning.

  "Miroslav Zlatic is the father, isn’t he? You used to meet him in that old house outside Myringham, it was the only place you could be alone together. That’s how you knew about the blanket. No doubt it was useful. Brenda found out when you were all walking back, did she?"

  "I don’t know how," Lizzie said innocently. "He sort of touched me when he didn’t think she was looking, but she must have been looking. It must have been that. She went bonkers. Will I lose my baby?"

  "I shouldn’t think so for a moment. Babies aren’t lost so easily. Is he going to leave Brenda and set up house with you when it’s born?"

  Lizzie shook her head. "He can’t talk, can he? All he ever said was ’Leezee, Leezee.’ How would I know what he’s going to do?"

  Wexford reflected that Miroslav had got it made. Who knew how many other young women he had taken to the derelict house and made love to in silence? No doubt he had no intention of ever learning English. ’’And now we know all about you and Miroslav and your baby, perhaps you’ll tell me what really happened in the pretty white bungalow you liked so much at Sayle. Did you do those peoples housework? Sew for them and cook for them?"

  She nodded, looking down again, apparently contemplating the scratches on her knees.

  "Vicky and Jerry. They said to you that if you told what had happened to you, they’d seek you out and punish you. Is that right?"

  Again that slow nodding. But he could tell that his guesswork and the conclusions he had drawn had deeply impressed her. How had Brenda intuited what had happened between her and Miroslav? How, equally, had he, Wexford, got it all so effortlessly right? As if he had been there, as if he, alone of all men, could speak Miroslav’s own language. The look she gave him now was wondering, even respectful. Innocent, naive, and slow, she was unlike most of h
er kind in that she admired, and admired reverently, intelligence in others.

  "They won’t punish you, Lizzie, they can’t. I won’t let them. The best way you can help me to stop them is by telling me everything you can remember."

  She said nothing, but the admiring look didn’t change.

  "There’s a little girl missing, Lizzie. You know that, that’s why you were out on the green with all the others, but perhaps you don’t know that she’s not yet three years old. Tommy Orbe hasn’t got her, that was all nonsense that someone made up. They made it up because they were afraid of him. He’s gone away now and the little girl is still missing. Do you think Vicky and Jerry have got her?"

  "She couldn’t do housework," said Lizzie.

  "True. But that wasn’t all you did, was it?"

  "He never did any of that to me, not like Miroslav did."

  "No, all right. I understand that. Why did they let you go?"

  "I wasn’t right. I didn’t do any of it right. I can do hoovering but I can’t cook or mend things. Vicky said, ’You’re stupid, you won’t do.’ And she brought me back in her car."

  "What did she mean, ’won’t do’? Won’t do for what?"

  "I don’t know. Nobody said."

  "Tell me what she looked like."

  He expected her to say "Just ordinary" or "Just an old woman," the normal reaction of an unobservant person. Instead he was discovering that Lizzie was in some ways more perceptive than Rachel Holmes. "She hadn’t got any hair. She was bald. She had a wig, a big gray wig, but I saw her without it. I saw it hanging on a stand in her bedroom and I saw her head without any hair."

  "What happened at the meeting?"

  "Not much," said Burden. "When does anything ever happen when Southby’s in charge? That woman Griselda Cooper made some helpful suggestions about how to distribute the mobiles, but our ACCD wasn’t having any of it. He’s set up a committee"—Burden made a disgusted face—"to, and I quote, consider and review the domestic-violence victim communication project. And guess what? I’m on it."