Free Kissing the Gunner's Daughter by Ruth Rendell Page A

Burden's and two vans. Inside the stable block a technician was setting up the computers and Karen Malahyde was arranging a dais, lectern, microphone and half-circle of chairs for his press conference. They had scheduled it for eleven.
    Wexford sat down behind the desk provided for him. He was rather touched by the care Karen had taken -- he was sure it must be Karen's work. There were three new ballpoint pens, a brass paperknife he couldn't imagine he would ever use, two phones, as if he hadn't got Was Vodaphone, a computer and printer he had ao idea how to work, and in a blue and brown Siazed pot a cactus. The cactus, large, spherical, ferey, covered in fur, was more like an animal *&an a plant, a cuddly animal, except that when he poked it a sharp thorn went into his finger.
    Wexford shook his finger, cursing mildly. He could see he was honoured. These things fWemingly went by rank and though there was
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    another cactus m the desk evidently designated Burden's, it had nowhere near the dimension of his, nor was it so hirsute. All Barry Vine got was an African violet, not even in bloom.
    WPG Lennox had phoned in soon after she took over hospital duty. There was nothing to report. All was well. What did that mean? What was it to him if the girl lived or died? Young girls were dying all over the world, from starvation, in wars and insurrections, from cruel practices and clinical neglect. Why should this one matter?
    He punched out Anne Lennox's number on his phone.
    "She seems fine, sir."
    He must have misheard. "She wftat?"
    "She seems fine -- well, heaps better. Would you like to talk to Dr Leigh, sir?"
    There was silence at the other end. That is, there was no voice. He could hear hospital noise, footsteps and metallic sounds and swishing sounds. A woman came on.
    "I believe that's Kingsmarkham Police?"
    "Chief Inspector Wexford."
    "Dr Leigh. How can I help you?"
    The voice sounded lugubrious to him. He detected in it the gravity which these people were perhaps taught to assume for some while after a tragedy had taken place. Such a death would affect the whole hospital. He simply gave the name, knowing that would be enough without enquiry.
    "Miss Flory. Daisy Flory."
    Suddenly all the gloom was gone. Perhaps he
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    had imagined it. "Daisy? Yes, she's fine, she's doing very well."
    "What? What did you say?"
    "I said she's doing well, she's fine."
    "She's fine? We are talking about the same person? The young woman who was brought in last night with gunshot wounds?"
    "Her condition is quite satisfactory, Chief Inspector. She will be coming out of intensive care sometime today. I expect you'll want to see her, won't you? There's no reason why you shouldn't talk to her this afternoon. For a short while only, of course. We'll say ten minutes."
    "Would four o'clock be a good time!
    "Four p.m., yes. Ask to see me first, will you? It's Dr Leigh."
    The press came early. Wexford supposed he should really call them the 'media' as, approaching the dais, he saw from the window a television van arriving with a camera crew.
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    6
    * 1 1 STATE' sounded like a hundred semi
    pH detached houses crowded into a few
    1 J acres. 'Grounds' expressed land only, not
    the buildings on it. Burden, unusually fanciful
    for him, thought 'demesne' might be the only
    word. This was the demesne of Tancred, a little
    world, or more realistically a hamlet: the great
    house, its stables, coachhouses, outbuildings,
    dwellings for servants past and present. Its
    gardens, lawns, hedges, pinetum, plantations
    and woods.
    All of it -- perhaps not the woods themselves
    -- would have to be searched. They needed to know what they were dealing with, what this place was. The stables where the centre had been set up was only a small part of it. From where he stood, on the terrace which ran the length of the back of the house, scarcely anything of these outbuildings could be seen. Cunning hedge-planting, the careful provision of trees to hide the humble or the