Wexford 18 - Harm Done by Ruth Rendell Page A

get the child to do it again, he’ll get her into the habit of it and soon she won’t even consider telling the truth - poor little Olivia Twist.”
       Vine, who had been frowning gloomily, brightened a little and said, “What happened to him, sir? This Oliver Twist?”
       “He got saved by an old gentleman who turned out, by an amazing coincidence, to be his own great-uncle.”
       “That won’t happen to Kaylee.”
       “Probably not, though I dare say she has no more idea who her grandfathers are than Oliver had.”
       Vine considered this, pursing his lips. “Why would a woman want to marry Flay? If they’re married. Why would any woman shack up with him? Does she want to be a victim and make her kid a victim?”
       “You’re getting into deep waters, Barry, when you start asking why anyone would marry anyone else. It’s a mystery, But I doubt if many people choose to be victims unless they’re masochists, and masochists are few. The thing is people want to be part of a couple, what they call these days ‘being in a relationship.’ And most of them would rather have a bad one than none at all. It’s nature. By the way, you didn’t really mean you hit your wife, did you?”
       “Me? Oh, right. It was just the once. She hit me and I hit her back. That’s all I mean.”

    Wexford had spent the best part of the morning in Oval Road, where Rosemary Holmes, who knew Lizzie Cromwell’s story, had perhaps also believed her daughter would return on the previous evening. But Rachel hadn’t come home and Rosemary was distraught, pacing the room and at one point throwing herself into an armchair where she collapsed in a storm of tears. Wexford asked himself why on earth he had thought this disappearance would have a happy outcome just because Lizzie’s had. Thank God he hadn’t let his ridiculous hunch impede the search or prevent any serious investigation.
       The searchers had begun again soon after first light, combing the rain-drenched fields, glad of shelter inside the quiet dimness of woodlands, but while the rain remained no more than a drizzle, pressing on. Karen Malahyde and Lynn Fancourt had widened the inquiry beyond Rachel’s immediate circle of friends, had talked to people she had been at school with. They were now in Brighton with the girl’s father, Rosemary’s divorced husband, hearing how he hadn’t seen his daughter for the past seven years. Michael Devonshire, the Flagford GP, had not only taken Rosemary out to dinner but admitted frankly that he had spent most of the night with her, leaving the house in Oval Road at five the next morning.
       Rachel had now been missing for four nights and almost four days. Uneasily, Wexford set up a press conference for five that afternoon - his reluctance stemming from the certainty that Brian St. George would be there - and at that conference, as part of it, Rosemary Holmes would make her appeal for Rachel’s return. She shrank from it, at first flatly refusing. She was too little in command of herself, she told Wexford, she would make a mess of it.
       “That doesn’t much matter,” he said to her gently. “I don’t want to sound cynical, but the more emotion you show and the more. . . well, frankly, upset, you appear to be, the more likely the appeal is to succeed.”
       “But they don’t care, those viewers. They’re just going to gloat.”
       “I wouldn’t be so sure of that, Mrs. Holmes. There are a lot of people out there who have real sympathy for you.”
       And your attractions may have some effect, he thought, not saying it aloud, your pretty, youthful face and nice voice, not to mention that figure and those legs. We live in a world where good looks get you every thing, where the preservation of youth is at a premium. Those journalists would write better stories and longer ones because this woman was beautiful and had a voice like a Shakespearean actress. The photographers would take more trouble