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

have known the terrors of the night!
    But withal my feast has ever been the feast of the spirit and to that other dweller in my gates my flesh has been as an unlit candle in a fast-sealed casket. The light in my soul has guttered, shrinking in the harsh wind. But though the casket be atrophied and the flame past resuscitation, yet the wick of the spirit cries, hungering for the hand that holds the taper of companionship, the torch of sweet confidence, the spark of friends reunited.
    I shall see you tomorrow and we shall ride together along the silver streets of our youth. Fear not, for reason shall sit upon my bridle and gentle moderation within my reins. Will all not be well, Minna, will all not be pleasant as the warm sun on the faces of little children?
    Chapter 7
    When she shall unwind
    All those wiles she wound about me ...
    Francis Thompson,
    The Mistress of Vision
    A black Jaguar, not new but well tended, was parked outside the Missals' house when Wexford and Burden turned in at the gate at seven o'clock. The wheels only were soiled, their hub-caps spattered with dried mud.
    ‘I know that car,' Wexford said. ‘I know it but I can't place it Must be getting old.'
    ‘F riends for cocktails ’ Burden said sententiously.
    ‘I could do with a spot of gracious living myself ’ Wexford grumbled. He rang the ship's bell.
    Perhaps Mrs Missal had forgotten they were coming or Inge hadn't been primed. She looked s urprised yet spitefully pleased, like her employer's, her hair was done up on top of her head, but with less success. In her left hand she held a canister of paprika.
    'All are in,' she said. Two come for dinner. What a man! I tell you it is a waste to have men like him buried in the English countryside. Mrs Missal say, "Inge, you must make lasagna." All will be Italian, paprika, pasta, pimentoes ... Ach, it is just a game!' 'All right. Miss Wolff. We'd like to see Mrs Missal ’ ‘I show you.' She giggled, opened the drawingroom door and announced with some serendipity, 'Here are the policemen!'
    Four people were sitting in the flowered armchairs and there were four glasses of pale dry sherry on the coffee-table. For a moment nobody moved or said anything, but Helen Missal flushed deeply. Then she turned to the man who sat between her and her husband, parted her lips and closed them again.
    So that’s the character Inge was going on about in the hall. Burden thought Quadrant! No wonder Wexford recognized the car.
    'Good evening, Mr Quadrant,' Wexford said, indicating by a slight edge to his voice that he was surprised to see him in this company.
    'Good evening. Chief Inspector, Inspector Burden.'
    Burden had long known him as a solicitor he often saw in Kingsmarkham magistrates' court, long known and inexplicably disliked. He nodded to Quadrant and to the woman, presumably Quadrant's wife, who occupied the fourth armchair. They were somewhat alike, these two, both thin and dark with straight noses and curved red lips. Quadrant had the features of a grandee in an El Greco portrait, a grandee or a monk, but as far as Burden knew he was an Englishman. The Latin lips might have first drawn breath in a Cornish town and Quadrant be the descendant of an Armada mariner. His wife was beautifully dressed with the careless elegance of the very rich. Burden thought she made Helen Missal's blue shift look like something from a chain-store sa le. Her fingers were heavily be ringed, vulgarly so, if the stones were false, but Burden didn't think they were false.
    'I'm afraid we're intruding again, sir,' Wexford said to Missal, his eyes lingering on Quadrant 'I'd just like to have a talk with your wife, if you don't mind.'
    Missal stood up, his face working with impotent rage. In his light-weight silver-grey suit he looked fatter than ever. Then Quadrant did a strange thing. He took a cigarette out of the box on the table, put it in his mouth and lit the cork tip. Fascinated, Burden watched him choke and drop the cigarette into