Free Not In The Flesh by Ruth Rendell Page B

as if lowering his voice would ensure this statement wasn't heard by flies on walls. Nancy Jackson burst into laughter. “You don't have to be careful what you say to me. Everyone knows I've been around the block a few times. Before I was married, I mean. Dave knows—that's my husband—and he says, ‘Well, I wasn't pure as the driven snow myself, darling,’ so you know what they say about the goose and the gander. But Pete Darracott. Of course he was married to that Christine, and as a general rule I gave married men a wide berth, but there was something about Pete. He was a postman, you know, hadn't got two pence to rub together.
       “Me and my mum were living together, but she turned a blind eye to my goings-on. Pete and I used to pop around to our place in the afternoons. He wanted me to go away with him, you know, but I was a bit wary. We could go up to his sister in Wales, he said, Cardiff it was. And do what? I had asked. And he said—”
       “Mrs. Jackson, when was this?”
       “Oh, sure, it'd be a good idea to tell you that, wouldn't it? Have another biscuit,” she said to Lyn. “Yes, well, it'll have been May '95, end of May. He said he'd stop with his sister and find a job and a place to live and write to me. The idea was that I'd join him. Well, he went. We had a last afternoon together first. Mum had a friend stopping at our place so we couldn't go there. So what d'you think we did? We went to old Grimble's place, that bungalow. Grimble was like Pete's cousin. I never saw him, but he'd been around to Pete's house asking him to do him a favor, so we knew that bungalow was empty. It wasn't long after old Mr. Grimble had passed on, so it wasn't bad. The bed was all made up. It was okay for a quickie.” She broke off to giggle. “He just went off after that, said he'd write and tell me when he'd got a place, but he never did. I never heard a word, but to tell you the truth I didn't care that much. I'd met my Dave by then, and I sort of knew he was the one for me. You know, don't you, when that happens?”
       Burden thought how much less offensive this woman's sex talk was than Claudia Ricardo's. “And you never saw him or heard from him again, Mrs. Jackson?”
       “Never. There's just one thing. Grimble had asked Pete to help him dig a trench. I'll tell you about it. I've just got time before I pick up my twinnies.”

    A man was kneeling on the floor at number 5 Oswald Road, examining the Grimbles' television set. Beside him on the floor, occupying the same sort of area as the armchair in which John Grimble habitually sat, was a large cuboid cardboard box. As Wexford and Hannah entered the room, led by Kathleen Grimble, the engineer, with the air of one breaking seriously bad news, remarked that he couldn't carry out repairs on the spot but would have to take the set away.
       “You can't do that. What am I going to do without the telly?”
       “Shouldn't be more than a day or two.”
       “A day or two!” Grimble sat shaking his head in incredulity. “You'll have to give me a lend of one.”
       “I'll have to see,” said the man in a hopeless sort of voice. “Give me a hand to get this into the box, will you? My back's not what it used to be.”
       During the argument that ensued, Kathleen Grimble quietly offered her services and when she and the engineer had got the set into the box, she helped him drag it out to the front door. Grimble shouted after them, “I want a loan of a set, mind, and I want it today. If it's not here by five I'm coming down the shop. And I want one of them as hangs up on the wall.”
       Wexford had been enjoying all this too much to interrupt, but now he did. “You didn't tell us you asked your cousin Peter Darracott—I beg your pardon, your second cousin—to help you dig that trench across your late father's garden.”
       “I didn't,” said Grimble, “and why should I? He never done it. All he done was waste my time.”