Free [Wexford 01] From Doon & Death by Ruth Rendell

there's another one here, the Verses of Walter Savage Landor. If s an old-fashioned kind of book and the leaves haven't even been cut' He read the message on the fly-leaf aloud:
    I promise to bring back with me
    What thou with transport will receive.
    The only proper gift far thee.
    Of which no mortal shall bereave.
    'Rather apt, don't you think, Minna? Love from Doon. March 21st, 1951 ’
    It wasn't very apt, was it? And Minna, whoever she is, didn't receive it with transport. She didn't even cut the pages. I'm going to have another word with Parsons, Mike, and then we're going to have all this lot carted down to the station. This attic is giving me the creeps.'
    But Parsons didn't know who Minna was and he looked surprised when Wexford mentioned the date, March 21st.
    ‘I never heard anyone call her Minna,' he said distastefully, as if the name was an insult to her memory. ‘M y wife never spoke about a friend called Doon. I've never even seen those books properly. Margaret and I lived in the house her aunt left her till we moved here and those books have always been in the trunk. We just brought them with us with the furniture. I can't make it out about the date -Margaret's birthday was March 21st'
    It could mean nothing, it could mean everything,' Wexford said w hen they were out in the car. ‘D oon talks about Foyle's, and Foyle's, in case you don't know, my provincial friend, is in London in the Charing Cross Road ’
    'But Mrs P. was sixteen in 1949 and she stayed two years in Flagford. She must have been living only about five miles from here when Doon gave her those books.'
    True. He could have lived here too and gone up to London for the day. I wonder why he printed the messages, Mike. Why didn't he write them ? And why did Mrs P. hide the books as if she was ashamed of them ?'
    They'd make a better impression on the casual caller than The Brides in the Bath or whatever it is,' Burden said. "This Doon was certainly gone on her.'
    Wexford took Mrs Parsons' photograph out of his pocket. Incredible that this woman had ever inspired a passion or fired a line of verse!
    'Happy for ever and ever,' he said softly. 'But love isn't what the rose is. I wonder if love could be a dark and tangled wood, a cord twisted and pulled tighter on a meek neck?'
    'A cord?' Burden said. 'Why not a scarf, that pink nylon thing? If s not in the house.'
    'Could be. You can bet your life that scarf is with the purse and the key. Plenty of women have been strangled with a nylon stocking, Mike. Why not a nylon scarf?'
    He had brought the Swinburne and the Christina Rossetti with him. It wasn't much to go on. Burden reflected, a bundle of old books and an elusive boy. Doon, he thought, Doon. If Minna was anything to go by Doon was bound to be a pseudonym too. Doon wouldn't be a boy any more but a man of thirty or thirty-five, a married man with children, perhaps, who had forgotten all about his old love. Burden wondered where Doon was now. Lost, a bsorbed perhaps into the great la byrinth of London, or still living a mile or two away... His heart sank when he recalled the new factory estate at Stowerton, the mazy lanes of Pomfret with a solitary cottage every two hundred yards, and to the norm, Sewing bury, where road after road of post-war detached houses pushed outwards like rays from the nucleus of the ancient town. Apart from these, there was Kingmarkham itself and the daughter villages, Flagford, Forby ...
    ‘I don't suppose that Missal bloke could be Doon ’ he said hopefully.
    If he is ’ Wexford said; lie's changed one hell of a lot ’
    The river of my years has been sluggish, Minna, flowing slowly to a sea of peace. Ah, long ago how -I yearned for the torrent of life!
    Then yesternight, yestere'en, Minna, I saw you. Not as I have so often in my dreams, but in life. I followed you, looking for lilies where you trod ... I saw the gold band on your finger, the shackle of an importunate love, and I cried aloud in my heart, I, I, too