Free End in Tears by Ruth Rendell

them,” said Wexford, “and that’s about all.”
    â€œYes, well, I don’t want to go into too much technical stuff, but there are all sorts of bricks and they’ve changed over the years. Once there were Roman bricks. More like tiles, we’d say, and there are Tudor bricks, which are bigger but still quite small and flat. Mostly in the eastern counties you’ll find white bricks. They’re actually yellow but the substance they’re made from is that color because there’s sandstone—that is, no iron—in that part of the world.”
    â€œI see.”
    â€œWell, there are thousands of types of bricks these days. Extruded perforated wire-cut bricks come in smooth, sand-faced, drag-faced, rolled, rusticated. Then there’s the smooth sanded type and the repressed.”
    â€œA repressed brick?” said Wexford.
    â€œIt’s just a term,” said the plinthologist without a smile. “Like the waterstruck and the frogged, just terms.”
    â€œI fancy the repressed ones. Can’t I have one of those?”
    This time Clansfield’s mouth did stretch a little. “That’s the commonest type and as a matter of fact that’s what you’ve got. There are literally millions in this country. Millions, if not billions.”
    Â 
    No one could live in Great Thatto without a car. There was no public transport. The lane that approached it from Myland was so narrow that for quite long stretches cars were unable to pass each other. There was no shop. The church was unlocked only on the first Sunday in the month when the vicar of St. Mary, Myland, came over to take morning service. Sometimes not one inhabitant of Great Thatto—there were only sixty-one—attended that service, so the vicar locked up and went home again.
    The remoteness of the place was redeemed by the scenery. Along the road you had the South Downs always on your right, Clusterwell Ring, a cone-shaped tree-crowned hill, on your left, and everywhere huge beeches spreading their green branches almost to meet above the narrow lane. At night it was as dark as the inside of a black velvet bag, but when the stars appeared you could see them better here than anywhere else in Sussex.
    Leaving Kingsmarkham very late with a feeling that he should have stayed behind and gone on studying that brick report, Wexford drove over to Great Thatto, wearily pulling into the lay-bys whenever another car approached him. They were all big cars too, those four-by-four people carriers, high up off the ground and with grinning bonnets like primitive masks.
    â€œI’m tired,” he said to Dora. “I shan’t want anything to eat.”
    She shook her head. “I’m too cross to eat.”
    Not for the first time Wexford wondered as he turned the car into the Old Rectory’s drive what had possessed Sylvia and Neil to buy this place. It was big, true, it was in the depths of the country and paradise for children, but he had never seen an uglier house. Its mix of neo-Gothic and Arts and Crafts affronted his eyes. As for its surroundings, no one had done any gardening at Thatto Old Rectory for several years and the grounds had long returned to wilderness.
    Warning of trouble ahead came when Dora stood aside and refused with a shake of her head to kiss her daughter. He kissed her. Why not? It wasn’t his baby. He wasn’t going to have to fight for it, argue over it, threaten a Judgment of Solomon division of it. Sylvia was very nervous, he could tell. If Dora was going to be difficult she could be the one to drive them home and he would have a glass of wine.
    They went to sit by the wide-open French windows, Dora adamantly refusing to go outside on account of the mosquitoes. Swarms of them had gathered in the shady spots and begun their strange dance. They talked about Sylvia’s mother’s violent reaction to mosquito bites and her and her father’s imperviousness. They