Ruth Rendell - A Sleeping Life

‘Well, I haven’t. What does he do?’

‘I daresay he’s not that famous. He writes books, historical novels. I can’t say I’ve ever set eyes on him, but I’ve read one of his books – bit above my head – and I can tell you a bit about him from what I’ve seen in the paper. In his late thirties, dark-haired chap, smokes a pipe – they put his photo on his book jackets. You know those old houses facing the Green? He lives in a flat in one of them over a wine bar.’

Having courteously refused Baker’s offer of assistance, sent his regards to Sergeant Clements, and promised to return later, he set off up Kenbourne High Street. The heat that was pleasant, acceptable in the country, made of this London suburb a furnace that seemed to be burning smelly refuse. A greyish haze obscured the sun. He wondered why the Green looked different, barer somehow, and bigger. Then he noticed the stumps where the trees had been. So Dutch Elm disease denuded London as well as the country. He crossed the grass where black children and one white child were playing ball, where two Indian women in saris, their hair in long braids, walked slowly and gracefully as if they carried invisible pots on their heads. The wine bar had been discreetly designed not to mar the long elegant facade, as had the other shops in this row, and the sign over its bow window announced in dull gold letters: Vivian’s Vineyard.

The occasional slender tree grew out of the pavement, and some of the houses had window boxes with geraniums and petunias in them. Across the house next door to the bar rambled the vines of an ipomaea, the Morning Glory, its trumpet flowers open and glowing a brilliant blue. This might have been some corner of Chelsea or Hampstead. If you kept your eyes steady, if you didn’t look south to the gasworks or east to St Biddulph’s Hospital, if you didn’t smell the smoky, diesely stench, it might even have been Kingsmarkham.

He rang repeatedly at the door beside the shop window, but no one came. Grenville West was out. What now? It was nearly five and, according to the notice on the shop door, the Vineyard opened at five. He sat down on one of the benches on the Green to wait until it did. Presently a pale-skinned black girl came out, peered up and down the street and went back in again, turning the sign to ‘Open’. Wexford followed her and found himself in a dim cavern, light coming only from some bulbs behind the bar itself and from heavily shaded Chianti-bottle lamps on the tables. The window was curtained in brown and silver and the curtains were fast drawn. On a high stool, under the most powerful of the lamps, the girl had seated herself to leaf through a magazine. He asked her for a glass of white wine, and then if the owner or manager or proprietor was about.

‘You want Vie?’

‘I expect I do if he’s the boss.’

‘I’ll fetch him.’

She came back with a man who looked in his early forties. ‘Victor Vivian. What can I do for you?’

Wexford showed him his warrant card and explained. Vivian seemed rather cheered by the unexpected excitement, while the girl opened enormous eyes and stared.

‘Take a pew,’ said Vivian not ineptly, for the place had the gloom of a chapel devoted to some esoteric cult. But there was nothing priestly about its proprietor. He wore jeans and a garment somewhere between a T-shirt and a windcheater with a picture on it of peasant girls treading out the grape harvest. ‘Gren’s away. Went off on holiday to France, you know – let’s see now – last Sunday week. He always goes to France for a month at this time of the year.’

‘You own the house?’

‘Not to say “own”, you know. I mean, Notbourne Properties own it. I’ve got the underlease.’

He was going to be an ‘I mean-er’ and ‘you know-er’. Wexford could feel it coming. Still, such people usually talked a lot and were seldom discreet. ‘You know him well?’

‘We’re old mates, Gren and me, you know. He’s been here fourteen years and a damn good tenant. I mean, he does all his repairs himself and it’s handy, you know, having someone always on the premises when the bar’s closed. Most evenings he’ll drop in here for a drink, you know, and then as often as not I’ll have a quick one with him, up in his place, I mean, after we’ve knocked off for the night, and then, you know…’

Wexford cut this useless flow short. ‘It’s not Mr West I’m primarily interested in. I’m trying to trace the address of someone who may have been a friend of his. You’ve read of the murder of Miss Rhoda Comfrey?’

Vivian gave a schoolboy whistle. ‘The old girl who was stabbed? You mean she was a friend of Gren’s? Oh, I doubt that, I mean, I doubt that very much. I mean, she was fifty, wasn’t she? Gren’s not forty, I mean, I doubt if he’s more than thirty-eight or thirty-nine. Younger than me, you know.’

‘I wasn’t suggesting the relationship was a sexual one, Mr Vivian. They could just have been friends.’

This possibility was apparently beyond Vivian’s comprehension, and he ignored it. ‘Gren’s got a girl-friend. Nice little thing, you know, worships the ground he treads on.’ A sly wink was levelled at Wexford. ‘He’s a wily bird, though, is old Gren. Keeps her at arm’s length a bit. Afraid she might get him to the altar, you know, or that’s my guess, I mean. Polly something-or-other, she’s called, blonde – I mean, she can’t be more than twenty-four or five. Came to do his typing, you know, and now she hangs on like the proverbial limpet. Have another drink? On the house, I mean.’

‘No, thank you, I won’t.’ Wexford produced the photograph and the wallet. ‘You’ve never seen this woman? She’d changed a lot, she didn’t look much like that any more, I’m afraid.’

Vivian shook his head and his beard waggled. He had a variety of intense facial contortions, all stereotyped and suggesting the kind a ham actor acquired to express astonishment, sagacity, knowingness and suspicion. ‘I’ve never seen her here or with Gren, you know,’ he said, switching on the one that indicated disappointed bewilderment. ‘Funny, though, I mean, there’s something familiar about the face. Something, you know, I can’t put a finger on it. Maybe it’ll come back.’ As Wexford’s hopes leapt, Vivian crushed them.

‘This picture wasn’t in the papers, was it? I mean, could that be where I’ve seen her before?’

‘It could.’

Two people came into the bar, bringing with them a momentary blaze of sunshine before the door closed again. Vivian waved in their direction, then, turning back, gave a low whistle. ‘I say! That isn’t old Gren’s wallet, is it?’

Vague memories of Latin lessons came back to Wexford, of forms in which to put questions expecting the answer no. All Vivian’s questions seemed to expect the answer no, perhaps so that he could whistle and put on his astounded face when he got a yes.

‘Well, is it?… Now wait a minute. I mean, this one’s new, isn’t it? You caught me out for a minute, you know. Gren’s got one like it, only a bit knocked around, I mean. Just like that, only a bit battered. Not new, I mean.’ And he had taken it with him to France, Wexford thought.

He was making slow progress, but he kept trying, ‘This woman was almost certainly living under an assumed name, Mr Vivian, never mind the name or the face. Did Mr West ever mention to you any woman friend he had who was older than himself?’

‘There was his agent, his – what-d’you-call-it? – literary agent. I can’t remember her name. Mrs Something, you know. Got a husband living, I’m sure of that. I mean, it wouldn’t be her, would it?’

‘I’m afraid not. Can you tell me Mr West’s address in France?’

‘He’s touring about, you know. Somewhere in the south, that’s all I can tell you. Getting back to this woman, I’m racking my brains, but I can’t come up with anyone. I mean, people chat to you about this and that, especially in my job, I mean, and a lot of it goes in one ear and out the other. Old Gren goes about a lot, great walker, likes his beer, likes to have a walk about Soho at night. For the pubs, I mean, nothing nasty, I don’t mean that. He’s got his drinking pals, you know, and he may have talked of some woman, but I wouldn’t have the faintest idea about her name or where she lives, would I? I mean, I’m sorry I can’t be of more help. But you know how it is, I mean, you don’t think anyone’s going to ask, I mean, it doesn’t cross your mind, does it?’