Free Wexford 22 - The Monster In The Box by Ruth Rendell Page B

fool he was, behaving like Dante over Beatrice. This was the twentieth century and he was a policeman , for God's sake. Forget her. Don't keep imagining you see her in her pink suit and her rose pink hat. He argued the case with himself the whole time Roger and Pauline were away and when they returned tried to discover the name of Pauline's parents' friends by a circuitous route, asking Roger to ask his wife if this couple were the Derwents his mother used to know in Coulsdon. He said he thought he recognised them from years back.
       Of course this turned out to be the least pressing matter on Roger's mind. He had to be reminded twice. 'I hope you weren't expecting these people to be your long-lost aunt and uncle about to leave you a fortune,' he said, passing Wexford a slip of paper. 'As you see, they're not called Derwent, they're called Moffat and Pauline's got no idea where they live.'
       'I think someone said the girl with them wasn't their daughter.'
       'So that's it, is it?' Roger gave a crow of triumph. 'I might have known.'
       Wexford had said there was nothing to know and resolved never to speak of it to Roger again. The name Moffat was written on the paper. There must be hundreds of Moffats in the country, perhaps not all that many on the south coast and Pauline's parents, Roger had told him, had moved to Brighton from Pomfret. So should he start on the East Sussex phone book? How much easier it would have been today, he reflected, when anyone could be run to earth via the Internet. Or could be if you knew how to do it or someone working for you did. For all his resolution not to think of the girl in the pink hat as any more than his type, he was hooked on that type now and on her as its representative . . .
       'Reg.' Burden's voice broke rather harshly into his reverie. 'Are you going to sit there all night?'
       He shook himself, blinked. 'Sorry. I was thinking about the past.'
       'It's usually pleasanter than the present. I thought we might have a drink somewhere. It's gone seven and you said Dora was out. I finished that photocopy you gave me. It made me want to read more and I got Chambers' book out of the library. But your photocopy says it all and there's no more. He may call it Unsolved Crimes and Some Solutions but he doesn't offer many solutions and none in the Carroll case.'
       They went into the Dragon rather than the Olive and Dove and found a quiet corner away from the crowd who had gone into the little room which used to be called the Saloon Bar to watch a football match.
       'Claret or burgundy?'
       'Doesn't matter,' Wexford said. 'Their red wine all tastes the same.'
       His thoughts went back to those Burden's entry had interrupted. It was a big step he had taken from dreaming of the girl in the pink hat to actually hunting for her. He told himself that he had already done the preliminary work – he was already thinking in policeman mode – and now all he had to do was perform a few practical actions, starting with the electoral register for the Coulsdon district. You could go into a post office in those days, stand at the counter and look down the street numbers for the name you wanted. It was the Internet now, more difficult, he thought, more confusing. But to start on this while he was going about with Helen, taking her to the cinema, out for meals, for walks and a picnic in the countryside, kissing her goodnight – though no more than that – to do all this while she regarded him as her boyfriend, that seemed wrong to him. That seemed dishonourable. He told her he thought they should stop seeing each other. The look on her face appalled him, the tears that came into her eyes. She was five years younger than he and suddenly she looked very young, a child starting to cry. He told her he was too old for her, that she should find someone nearer her own age, and he sugared the unpalatable medicine by adding that she was so lovely she was wasting herself on