Guilty Thing Surprised by Ruth Rendell Page A

from her pram they had progressed through physical fights to their current daily flipping.
    He said severely: ‘You’re to stop speaking about your sister like that. I’m sick of telling you. Suppose,’ he said, a thought coming to him from the case he was engaged on, ‘suppose you and Pat were to be separated now and you knew you wouldn’t see each other again till you were grown up, how would you feel then? You’d be very sorry you were so unkind to her. You don’t know how much you’d miss her.’
    ‘I wouldn’t miss her,’ said John. ‘I wish I was only a child.’
    ‘I can’t understand this dislike,’ Burden said helplessly. ‘It’s not natural.’ He put out his hand as his daughter, white-faced and with hanging head, came in under the shelter of her mother’s arm. ‘I’ll drive you to school, sweetheart. I’ll come right inside with you.’
    ‘You never drive me to school,’ said John. ‘And I’ve got further to go, a dirty great mile to walk.’
    ‘Don’t say “dirty great”,’ said Burden mechanically, and then: ‘I’ll drive you both. But, for heaven’s sake, don’t quarrel in the car.’
    The forecourt of the King’s School was thronged with boys. Burden edged the car up the drive, sendingthe littlest ones, John’s contemporaries, scuttling out of the way, squealing and whooping at the top of their voices. Sixth-formers, draped against the wall in languid groups, their ignominious caps folded and tucked into their pockets, stared at turn with lofty insolence. John jumped out of the car while it was still moving and was immediately absorbed by the whooping mob.
    ‘You see, John isn’t a bit worried,’ Burden said encouragingly. ‘You know you were both bored stiff being at home so long and he’s glad to be back with his friends.’
    ‘I hate him,’ said Pat.
    ‘That’s no way to talk about your brother.’ Burden reversed carefully and, making a three-point turn just inside the gates, came face to face with Denys Villiers. He nodded courteously, just raising his hand. Villiers looked through him, thrust his hands into his pockets, and marched in the direction of the new wing.
    ‘Stop the car, Daddy,’ Pat said as soon as the reached the open road. ‘I’m going to be sick again.’
    His children deposited, Burden drove down to the police station through the morning rush. He had been surprised to see Villiers, whom, he thought, tact if not grief would have kept from work for at least this week. A strange man, one who seemed to care nothing for public opinion. His behaviour in ignoring Burden, a policeman who had been in his house the day before and was, in any case, the parent of the King’s pupil, had been—well, outrageous, Burden thought.
    Aware that he was twenty minutes late, he leapt into the lift and arrived breathless in Wexford’s office. The chief inspector, in an even more disgracefully shabbysuit than usual, sat at his rosewood desk, leafing through stacks of papers. Standing behind him at the window was the doctor, breathing on the glass and drawing with one finger something that looked disturbingly like a plan of the alimentary canal. Burden had had enough of alimentary canals for one morning.
    ‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said. ‘My girl Pat’s always sick on the first day of term, so I hung about and drove her to school.’ He nodded to the doctor. ‘Jean wanted you called in.’
    ‘But you wouldn’t bother a busy man?’ said Crocker with a lazy grin. ‘Pat’ll grow out of it, you know. It’s all part of the human predicament from which your kids aren’t going to be absolved, hard cheese though that may be.’
    Wexford looked up with a scowl. ‘Spare us the philosophy, will you? I’ve got some lab reports here, Mike. The ash from the Manor bonfire shows distinctly that woollen cloth was burnt on it. No weapon has come to light, although our people went on combing the forest until it got dark last night and they’re at it again