Free Wexford 14 - The Veiled One by Ruth Rendell

station or whatever is going to lead to a total ban on nuclear arms? I don’t like them, you know, I don’t believe anyone likes them; I’m afraid of them. When you and Sylvia were little I used to be - oppressed with fear for you. And if they’ve kept the peace for forty-five years, that doesn’t mean a thing; it certainly doesn’t mean they’ll keep it for ninety. But I know better than to suppose this kind of thing is going to affect government.’
       ‘What else can we do?’ she said simply. ‘I often think I don’t believe that either, but what else can we do? They all think that banning Cruise missiles solves everything, but they’re getting rid of less than ten percent of the world’s arsenal. The alternative is apathy, is pretending everything’s solved.’
       ‘You mean that “for evil to triumph”,’ Wexford said, ‘“it is only necessary for good men to do nothing”?’
       But Dora followed sharply with, ‘Or do you mean that between the early warning and the bomb going off you’ll have ten minutes in which to congratulate yourself on not being an ostrich?’
       Sheila sat up, was silent for a while. It was as if what her mother said had not touched her, had gone unheard. Then she said very quietly, ‘If you’re a human being, you have to be against nuclear weapons. It’s a . . . a sort of definition. Like . . . like mammals suckle their young and insects have six legs. The definition of a human being is one who hates and fears and wants to be rid of nuclear weapons. Because they’re the evil, they’re the modern equivalent of the devil, of Antichrist - they are all we’ll ever know of hell.’
       After that, as he remarked to Dora while Sheila made a mysterious secret phone call, there didn’t seem any more to be said. Or not for the present. Dora sighed. ‘She says Andrew’s right wing and only interested in capitalism and he doesn’t have an inner life.’
       ‘Presumably she knew that before she married him,’ Wexford said.
       ‘She isn’t in love any more and that always makes a difference.’
       ‘It’s not so much a depraved society that we live in as an idealistic one. People expect to remain in love with their partners all their lives or else break up and start again. Are you still in love with me?’
       ‘Oh, darling, you know I love you very much, I’m devoted to you, I’d be lost without you, I - ’
       ‘Exactly,’ said her husband, laughing, and he went outside to get himself another beer.

    Nothing had been said about Sheila staying the night. She had arrived at four and in the usual course of things would have started back for London at about nine. It was less than an hour’s drive. But the phone call she had made changed her mind, or so it seemed. She came back into the room looking pleased, looking happier than she had since Wexford arrived home, and announced that if they didn’t mind - this with the self-confidence of the always-beloved child to whom parents’ ‘minding’ was unknown - she would stay until tomorrow, she might even stay until after lunch tomorrow.
       ‘Mother’s the only person I know who still cooks roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for Sunday lunch.’
       Wexford thought that asking her where she was living now could hardly be construed as interference, but he resisted saying how much he had liked the house in Hampstead.
       ‘I had to move out, didn’t I? I couldn’t go on living in Downshire Hill, in Andrew’s house that he’d paid for, and turn him out. Someone told him it was worth two million.’ She sat down on the floor, hugging her knees. ‘I can’t cope with that kind of money. I’ve got this flat in Bloomsbury, Coram Fields, and it’s OK, it’s really quite grand.’ She flashed a smile at her father. ‘You’ll like it.’
       Dora had the Radio Times on her lap. ‘Nearly time for Lady Audley. I don’t want to miss it, so if you don’t like watching yourself I’ll