Ruth Rendell - A Guilty Thing Surprised (Chief Inspector Wexford Mysteries)

A Guilty Thing Surprised

Wexford, Book 5

Ruth Rendell

1970

Her pink dress had white frills like a nightgown, and like a nightgown it was cut low to show milk-white halfmoons and shoulders where even the bones looked soft. She smiled at him, her sea-blue eyes full of laughter.

Quentin Nightingale had had all this, easily, without argument. So had the waiter at the Olive and Dove. So had how many others?
For the first time in his career he understood what impelled those men he questioned and brought to court, the men who forgot for a while chivalry and social taboo and sexual restraint, the rapists, the violators. But here there would perhaps be no need for violence, need only for a smile and an outstretched hand. Ca me donne tant de plaisir et vous si peu de peine. Oh, how much pleasure!
He followed her into the room, and out of the dressing table mirror their reflections marched towards them.

A young girl with her father. No, her grandfather. She was one of those people who make other people look unfinished and ill-made. In a bitter flash of illumination, Wexford saw himself as a battered bundle of old clothes. Not even middle-aged. Elderly, a grandfather.

Please sit down, Miss Doorn, he said, surprised that his voice was steady and sane. And would you turn that radio off?

She complied, still smiling.

He felt just the same about her. The longing-perhaps only a longing for rejuvenation?-was still there, but as he had turned away from the mirror he had experienced that sensation which divides the sane man from the mad. Between fantasy and reality a great gulf is fixed.

And that which seems possible, reasonable, felicitous, when conjured in the mind, dissolves like smoke in a fresh wind when its object is present in words and solid flesh. He had seen her for a brief moment as a lovely thing, but a thing only, without the power of discrimination, without rights, without intelligence. Now he saw her as a young girl who saw him as he was, an old man. Inwardly his whole body seemed to laugh harshly at itself.

I have some questions to ask you, he said. He wished the laughter would stop so that he could control himself and mould himself into the image he desired, something between God and a robot, tempered with avuncular geniality, About your relations with Mr Nightingale. Pity they had to talk about sex. But if they hadnt, perhaps the fantasy would never have grown. What terms are you on with him?

Terms?

You know very well what I mean he growled at her.

She shrugged at that, threw out her hands. I work for him and I live here in his house. She pulled at a strand of hair, considered it and then poked it into her mouth. He is very nice and kind. I like him much.

Hes your lover, isnt he?

She said cautiously, not embarrassed and not at all frightened, He has said this?

Yes.

Oh, poor Kventin! He does not want anyone to know at all, must be kept very secret thing. And now you have found it out.

Im afraid I must ask you to tell me about it.

Stubbornly she stuck out her lower lip and shook her head.

Come now. Hes told me himself. You wouldnt want him to go to prison, would you?

She opened her mouth wide. This is true? In England you can go to prison because you are making love?

Of course notV Wexford almost shouted. Now listen. Mr Nightingale will not go to prison if you tell me the truth. just tell me everything that happened between you ... No, no, not everything. An incredulous smile had widened her eyes. Simply how it began and so on.

All right. She giggled with pure pleasure. This is always nice, I think, to talk about love. I like to talk of this more than anything.

Wexford could feel his angry frown, artificially assumed, pushing all his features forward. It is four, five weeks ago. I am in my bed and there is a knock and it is Kventin. Perhaps he is going to say the radio is too loud or I put the car away wrong, but he is saying nothing because at once I know he is coming to make love. I can see this in his face. Always I can see it in faces.

God Almighty! thought Wexford, his soul cringing.

So I am thinking, Why not? I am thinking how he is kind with nice manners and thin straight body and I am forgetting he is older than my father in Holland. And also I know he is lonely man married to a frigid cold woman. So we are making love very soon and all is different, for when he is in my bed he is not old any more.

She said this triumphantly, pointing to the bed. Her favourite subject had driven away her laughter and she spoke earnestly, with concentration.

Much much better than my friend the waiter, she said. For Kventin has much experience and is knowing exactly how...

Yes, yes, I can imagine, Wexford cut in. He drew a deep breath. Miss Doorn, please spare me the lecture on sexual technique. Let us have the facts. There were other occasions...' Grinding his teeth, Wexford said, Mr Nightingale made love to you at other times?

Of course. He is liking me as much as I am liking him. The next week and the next week and then the night before last.

Go on.

But I have told you. I go out with my friend and the unkind man will not let us go into the hotel. My friend want us to go in the car, but this I will not do. This is not nice. Kventin would not do this. I am coming back home and I ani thinking perhaps Kventin come up and make love with me. And I am wishing and wishing when he knocks at the door and then I am happy. We are both very very happy.

How long did he stay with you?

All the night, said Katje airily. I tell him that just before I come in I see Mrs Nightingale go into the wood and he is saying very very sadly, She does not want me, she has never wanted me. But I say, I want you, Kventin, and so he stay all the night. But he is going away very early in the morning because he is hearing the old gardener man walk about. So I lie in my bed alone, thinking perhaps I shall not see my friend the waiter any more, but go only with Kventin, and then I too am getting up to see why the old gardener man is in the house. There, now I have told it all!

Wexford was silent for a moment. Then he said, At what time did you see Mrs Nightingale cross the road?

Two minutes after eleven, said Katje promptly.

And at what time did Mr Nightingale pay you this nocturnal visit?, She looked at him, her blue eyes naive and enquiring. I mean, come to your room?

Fifteen minutes after eleven. I come in, I go straight to bed.

How can you be so sure of the time?

I am wearing my new watch and always I am looking at it. She waved her left wrist at him. The watch had a dial two inches in diameter fastened to a wide strap of pink and purple patent leather. This my friend is giving me for my birthday and all the time I look at it. She glanced up at him under long dark gold lashes. You are angry with me?

No, no, Im not angry, Miss Doorn.

I am wishing that you will call me Katje, please.

All right, Katje, said Wexford, far from displeased.

Suddenly correct and very Continental, she held out her hand to him. Her fingers were soft and warm. Because, she said, you resemble my old uncle in Friesland who is sometimes kind and sometimes cross like you. She wagged a forefinger at him.

God, he thought, still smarting from that last thrust, how pretty that mannerism is now and how dreadful it will be when shes forty. And will she still chew her hair? In such reflections a little comfort lies.

Now, she said, her head on one side, I think I will go down and dust Kventins study.