Best Man to Die by Ruth Rendell

Author:Ruth Rendell [Rendell, Ruth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Suspense, cookie429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 9781409068525
Publisher: Fawcett
Published: 1969-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

11

‘GOOD MORNING, MISS THOMPSON,’ Wexford said with a heartiness he didn’t feel.

‘Mrs Pertwee, if you don’t mind.’ She picked up one of the wire baskets that were stacked outside the supermarket and gave him a self-conscious, defiant stare. ‘Jack and me got married very quietly yesterday afternoon.’

‘May I be among the first to offer my congratulations?’

‘Thanks very much, I’m sure. We didn’t tell no one about it, just went off to church quietly by ourselves. Jack’s been so cut up about poor Charlie. When are you going to catch his killer, that’s what I want to know? Not putting yourselves out, I reckon, on account of him being a working fella. Been different if he was one of your upper crust. This capitalist society we live in makes me spit, just spit it does.’

Wexford backed a little, fearing she might suit the action to the word. The bride snapped her bootbrush eyelashes at him. ‘You want to pull your socks up,’ she said relentlessly. ‘Whoever killed Charlie, hanging’d be too good for him.’

‘Dear, oh dear,’ said Wexford mildly, ‘and I thought you progressives were dead against capital punishment.’

She banged into the supermarket and Wexford went on his way, smiling wryly. Camb eyed him warily as he entered the police station.

‘Getting interested in this Fanshawe business, I gather, sir. I met Miss Fanshawe on my way in.’

‘So interested,’ Wexford said, ‘that I’m sending Detective Constable Loring down to find out who’s missing in the holiday towns and it might be worth our while to check with London too.’

Burden had left for Stamford. Stepping into the lift, Wexford decided to do the London checking himself. Young women were beginning to get on his nerves. There were so many of them about, and it seemed to him they caused as much trouble to a policeman as burglars. Now to see how many of them were missing in London. This task was for him somewhat infra dig, but until Burden and Sergeant Martin brought him some information he had little else to do, and this way he could, at any rate, be certain it was well done.

By lunchtime he had narrowed his search down to three out of the dozens of girls missing in the London area. The first was a Carol Pearson, of Muswell Hill, interesting to him because she had worked as a hairdresser’s improver at a shop in Eastcheap. Jerome Fanshawe’s office was in Eastcheap and the hairdresser’s had a barber’s shop attached to it. Hers was also a significant name because she had black hair and her disappearance was reported on May 17th.

The second girl, Doreen Dacres, was like Carol Pearson, black-haired and aged twenty, and his interest was aroused because she had left her room in Finchley on May 15th to take a job in Eastbourne. Nothing further had been heard of her either in Finchley or at the Eastbourne club address.

Bridget Culross was the last name with which he felt he need concern himself. She was twenty-two years old and had been a nurse at the Princess Louise Clinic in New Cavendish Street.

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