by Ruth Rendell
And I may have a lie-in with Gibbon or Tom Holland, thought Wexford, saying goodbye, saying see you, as he started on his walk home. He thought of all those people who had come into his orbit in the past few months: like Thora Kilmartin that he’d be glad never to see again and her husband that he’d rather liked; that other couple, the Brays, now mercifully, for her at any rate, split up; the Sams family that he was sure had not made their last appearance in his life; Nardelie Mukamba who obviously could have no place there but for whom his feelings had been tender; Clarissa Hussain who, if this were a Victorian novel would be sure to marry his grandson but because it wasn’t but was reality and today, would soon find someone else if she hadn’t done so already and like the rest would depart.
‘Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,’ he said aloud, having an Omar Khayyam moment as he inserted the key into his front door, ‘before we too into the dust descend,’ and walked in to meet and kiss Dora who stood on the other side of it, waiting for him.
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Copyright © Kingsmarkham Enterprises Ltd 2013
Ruth Rendell has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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ISBN 9780091953843
