Burden re-filled their glasses, saying that meant he would have to walk home, but never mind. The wine, its quality somehow more apparent the second time round than the first, had been brought by Burden. It brought Wexford a heady feeling of pleasure and a kind of small triumph. He was considering the last phase of his narrative when his friend said, ‘What about the driver? You never mentioned him again. Has he been arrested?’
‘Oh, yes. Tom Ede told me all about that. Goldberg – you remember him? – he had a friend called Sophie Baird. It’s one of those close “best friends” situations you often get between a woman and a gay man. She was living with her partner also in St John’s Wood in a house that happened fortunately to belong to her. She works as a PA to some company chairman and her partner runs or ran a removal business. That among other things, one of which is driving trafficked women here from Eastern Europe.
‘I had no idea. But when she and I were talking about those two girls and she told me about the towering rage he had got into when she talked about her befriending an illegal immigrant, that he had struck her and ultimately walked out on her, I started to wonder. Those seemed extreme steps and then his name came back to me. John, she called him, always referred to him as John, but his surname was Scott-McGregor. It wasn’t very far from that to come to Gregor or Gregory. I suppose I knew when I saw an unmarked white van outside that place in Churchlands Road. One of those, you might say, is very like another but this one had a distinguishing mark. A snake-shaped scratch on the bodywork above the offside rear wheel.’
Wexford and Dora had been on two long holidays, one to Charleston and Savannah in the United States, the other to Turkey to Ephesus and the site of Troy. They were still commuting between London and Kingsmarkham, but having not enough to do was beginning to make him fidgety when an envelope arrived addressed to ‘Mr Wexford’, forwarded by Tom Ede and postmarked Kiev.
The printed card inside told him that Colin and Vladlena Jones announced the birth of their son Igor on 10 April 2011. The address looked like a private house, it looked as if they were living there. Wexford thought he would write back and find out, but he was sure he need worry about Vladlena and her possible fate no longer.
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Published by Hutchinson 2011
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Copyright © Kingsmarkham Enterprises Ltd 2011
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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First published in Great Britain in 2011 by
Hutchinson
Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SW1V 2SA
www.randomhouse.co.uk
The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9780091921460
ISBN 9780091925369
Table of Contents
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Ruth Rendell
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Copyright
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