Harm Done by Ruth Rendell

Author:Ruth Rendell [Rendell, Ruth]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Fiction, Suspense, cookie429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 9780375724848
Publisher: Audiobooks
Published: 1998-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

14

The death of Ted Hennessy had done nothing to inhibit the media. Their cars filled Ploughman’s Lane and Savesbury Road and Winchester Drive, and they set up camp in the front garden of Woodland Lodge. Wexford held an impromptu press conference and did his best to answer questions on the lines of "Why have you been keeping this disappearance dark?" and "Can you be certain Thomas Orbe has nothing to do with the missing child?"

In vain he repeated the simple truth: that Orbe had never, in the course of his miserable career, been known to show interest in girls. He had convictions for abusing boys and had been imprisoned for the manslaughter of a boy. In the original meaning of the word he was truly a pedophile.

"He got married, didn’t he?" one young woman from a national tabloid asked. "He’s got a daughter."

"His victims have always been male," said Barry Vine, who was on the platform with Wexford. "Orbe has nothing to do with the disappearance of Sanchia Devenish."

Those of them who weren’t laying siege to the Devenishes or on Hennessy’s widow’s doorstep, directed their onslaught to Suzanne Orbe, convalescent at 16 Oberon Road. An unfounded rumor had got about that Suzanne was one of her fathers early victims, Suzanne must have been an abused child, wretched copartner in incest. Her head still swathed in bandages, she came out from the boarded-up house through the makeshift door and screamed at them. "He never laid a finger on me, you filthy buggers! Poor old sod’d have never touched those dirty kids if my mum hadn’t gone off and left him. That was what done it, that was what turned him bonkers for dirty kids. You fuck off the lot of you and leave us alone!"

Up in Ploughman’s Lane, Fay Devenish had picked up the local paper off the doormat at seven-thirty. Even before Stephen Devenish had seen it, reporters were ringing his doorbell, pounding on his door, and his phone had started ringing and went on ringing nonstop. He knew better than to answer the door. One of the media people climbed up onto the garage roof and tried to get in through a fanlight. He should have had Kaylee Flay with him, as Wexford remarked when told about it.

Devenish called a taxi to take him to the police station. If he got his own car out, the pack would descend on him and maybe gain entrance to the house. The cab company was called All the Sixes and its vehicles regularly plied between Kingsmarkham town, Kingsmarkham Station, and the villages. The driver couldn’t get through the media people and the parked cars. He left his cab and went on foot. Reporters surrounded him and some clung to him, begging to know who his fare was to be, where was he taking him, and to give them a moment to talk to Sanchia’s father.

The cabdriver felt as if he were in a film. He thought of asking the reporters for a considerable sum to hold Mr.

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