Ruth Rendell - Not in the Flesh

“Isak Dinesen. I may not have got it quite right but that's the gist. I suppose you think it very odd my wife and I and my ex-wife all living in the same house.”

“Unconventional,” Wexford said, “but not all that odd. It's more common than you might think, though usually it's a husband and wife and her ex-husband. Men on their own find it hard to look after themselves.”

Tredown's laugh was a broken cackle. “ ‘Like unto the crackling of thorns under a pot is the laughter of fools,’ ” he quoted. “I'm good at quoting-maybe that's all I'm good at. I used that in one of my biblical books. I enjoyed writing them,” he said, “but they were never very successful. They were a century too late. My publishers were always suggesting I try something else.”

“And you did,” said Wexford.

He drank his tea and took a fat-laden, sugary biscuit, reflecting in the ensuing silence that the food that is damaging to one may be, if not healthy to another, at least life-prolonging. Tredown ate nothing. He said, “In a manner of speaking. When the manuscript came-it came in the post, you see-I did what I always did with these things, read the first page, meaning to read the first chapter. I did. I read the first and the second and the third…”

“You couldn't put it down.”

“You've read it?”

“Oh, yes. My daughter has a part in the film.”

“She's Sheila Wexford?”

He nodded, said, “Go on.”

“Maeve read it, and then Claudia did. Maeve acted as my secretary, you know. She wrote all my letters. We never-er, quite cottoned on to e-mail. They read it and they said-well, things about its potential and how the author was a real find and that sort of thing. Claudia said, ‘What a pity you didn't write it, Owen.’ ” He took a sip of his tea, made a face, and put the cup back on the tray. “I don't want to blame them for this. It was my fault, entirely my fault-and yet… The upshot of it all, of our discussions, was that Maeve wrote to the author and asked him if he could come here and see me, have a talk with me about his manuscript. I don't exactly know what her precise words were, though I suppose I did at the time. They say we block off unacceptable memories-do you believe that?”

“I don't know,” Wexford said.

“I do. I know I do it all the time. And I've done it more since that manuscript-fell into my hands.” He gave a heavy sigh. “That is an accurate description, carrying with it a certain menace. Fell into my hands-so much stronger, don't you think, than ‘came into my hands’? Well, he wrote back. He'd be in Sussex in a week's time and could he come then? He came. He brought another copy with him-the only other copy he had, he said.” Tredown's voice was losing strength, the tone cracking. “I told him what we all thought of the manuscript and I said I thought parts of it needed rewriting and some careful editing. He said he'd do some work on it. No one knew he'd written a book. He seemed to think he'd be laughed at if anyone knew or else be told to do something that would make money. He'd sent it to me because he'd heard me speak on the radio and he thought-God help me-I was a good writer. He'd read two of my books too.”

“Mr. Tredown, take it easy. You're tiring yourself.”

“What would it matter if I were?” Tredown pulled himself up with a gargantuan effort, leaned forward earnestly. “Better if I tired myself to death. Sorry, I don't mean to be melodramatic, but all this is painful to me, very painful. Anyway, he went. He took one of the manuscripts with him and I-I never saw him again. Maeve told me he'd gone, and two days later she had a letter from him, saying he'd decided not to do any more about it. Writing it had been all he wanted. Having it published didn't interest him.”

Wexford shifted in his seat, trying to make himself more comfortable. “You believed this?”

“I wanted to believe it, Mr. Wexford. I desperately wanted to believe it. You see, I thought that if it was mine to do with as I liked I would rewrite it myself, keeping the story, the characters, the essence or spirit of it, but improving it; I thought I could improve it, make it perfect. I'd make it mine.”

“You saw the letter Mrs. Tredown had from him?”

“I saw it. It was typed. It was signed.”

Wexford would hardly have believed that any more blood could drain from Tredown's face, but this is what seemed to have happened. He turned his head to one side, subsiding, slipping down the cushions of the chair.

“It was actually signed Samuel Miller?”

There was no answer. Wexford got up and rang the bell. The nurse came in, lifted Tredown's wrist, and felt his pulse. “Better go now,” he said. “He's very tired.”

“Please come back tomorrow,” Tredown whispered.

The call to the police station was put through to Karen Malahyde. But she had gone after paying a routine visit to the Imrans and it was Hannah who took the call. Two hours before she had come back from questioning two hospice visitors who might have, but evidently had not, witnessed Maeve Tredown's murder attempt. The day had been a long one and she had her usual drive ahead of her to home and Bal. It had been a dull, heavy day and at six in the evening was pitch dark. A premonition that it would delay her made her very unwilling to take this call, but Burden had already left, Wexford was not yet back from visiting Tredown, and Barry Vine had begun his annual leave. A slightly tentative voice speaking fluent English but with a strong accent came on the line.

“My name is Iman Dirir. I have come from the home of the Imran family. I think-no, I know-something is going to happen in their flat-tonight. Yes, tonight. Please can you come?”

“Our child protection officer isn't available,” Hannah began. She hesitated, said, “Of course I'll come, I'll come now-but wait. Will I get in?”

“I'll be there,” Mrs. Dirir said. “They trust me.” Her tone was bitter. “They never will again, but-never mind.”

“Would you do something for me? Would you phone this number and tell the child care officer. She's called Sylvia Fairfax.”

Karen and Sylvia had called at that flat two or three times a week and found nothing but an apparently happy family entertaining a middle-aged relative from Somalia. Shamis had been like any normal European child, free, playful, mischievous. If she had been circumcised she would have been confined to a chair with her legs bound together from ankles to hips. Driving out of the police station car park, her lights on, Hannah reminded herself of the commentary on female life Sylvia had repeated to her as coming from an elderly Somali woman she had met. “The three sorrows of a woman come to her on the day she is cut, on her wedding night, and the day she gives birth.” It made her shudder to think of it.

The block was brightly lit but as Hannah came to the top of the stairs and out onto the external walkway where the Imrans' flat was, she saw that it was in darkness. It was as if no one was at home. Sylvia Fairfax stepped out of the shadows to meet her.

“Dr. Akande is on his way,” she said. “I daren't ring the bell, and there's no need. Iman Dirir will open the door at seven sharp.”

“And Shamis?”

“The woman they call auntie is a circumciser. Iman says she has seen the tools she uses, a razor, a knife, and some special scissors.”

Hannah bit her lip. “It doesn't bear thinking of, but we have to think of it.”

“We have to stop it,” Sylvia said.

They stood outside the front door. There was no sound from inside. Next door they had a window open and music pounded out, the kind that has a steady regular beat, thump, thump, thump. Hannah's watch told her it was ten minutes to seven.

“It's horrible to think of,” she said, “but will Iman let her begin? I mean, for God's sake, will this woman start on the child?”