Free A New Lease of Death by Ruth Rendell Page B

don’t know what you’re attempting.’ It’s pathetic, he thought, it’s laughable. Aloud he said, ‘Alice Flower’s in the geriatric ward at Stowerton Infirmary. She’s paralysed. I don’t even know if she could make herself understood.’
    It occurred to him that Archery must be totally ignorant of the geography of the place. He got up and lumbered over to the wall map.
    ‘Stowerton’s there,’ he said, pointing with the sheathed tip of a ballpoint pen, ‘And Victor’s Piece is about here, between Stowerton and Kingsmarkham.’
    ‘Where can I find Mrs Crilling?’
    Wexford made a wry face. ‘In Glebe Road. I can’t recall the number off hand, but I’ll get it looked up or you could find it on the electoral register.’ He turned round ponderously and fixed Archery with a grey glare. ‘You’re wasting your time, of course. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you to be very careful when it comes to throwing out a lot of unfounded accusations.’
    Under those cold eyes it was difficult for Archery not to drop his own. ‘Chief Inspector, I don’t want to find someone else guilty, just prove that Painter was innocent.’
    Wexford said briskly, ‘I’m afraid you may find the former consequent upon the latter. It would be a wrong conclusion, of course – I don’t want trouble.’ At a knock on the door he spun round testily. ‘Yes, what is it?’
    Sergeant Martin’s bland face appeared. ‘That fatal on the zebra in the High Street, sir?’
    ‘What of it? It’s hardly my province.’
    ‘Gates has just been on, sir. A white Mini, LMB 12M, that we’ve had our eye on – it was in collision with a pedestrian. It appears they want a clergyman and Gates recalled that Mr Archery was …’
    Wexford’s lips twitched. Archery was in for a surprise. In the courtly manner he sometimes assumed, he said to the vicar of Thringford, ‘It looks as if the secular arm needs some spiritual assistance, sir. Would you be so good …?’
    ‘Of course I will.’ Archery looked at the sergeant. ‘Someone has been knocked down and is – is
dying?
’
    ‘Unfortunately, yes, sir,’ said Martin grimly.
    ‘I think I’ll come with you,’ said Wexford.
    As a priest of the Anglican Church Archery was obliged to hear confession if a confessor was needed. Until now, however, his only experience of this mystery concerned a Miss Baylis, an elderly female parishioner of his who, having been (according to Mrs Archery) for many years in love with him, demanded that he should listen to a small spate of domestic sins mumbled out each Friday morning. Hers was a masochistic, self-abusing need, very different from the yearning of the boy who lay in the road.
    Wexford shepherded him across the black and white lines to the island. Diversion notices had been placed in the road, directing the traffic around Queen Street, and the crowd had been induced to go home. There were several policemen buzzing and pacing. For the first time in his life Archery realized the aptness of the term ‘bluebottles’. He glanced at the Mini and averted his eyes hastily from the bright bumper with its ribbon of blood.
    The boy looked at him doubtfully. He had perhaps five minutes to live. Archery dropped to his knees and put his ear to the white lips. At first he felt only fluttering breath, then out of the soft sighing vibration came something that sounded like ‘Holy orders …’, with the second word rising on a high note of enquiry. He bent closer as the confession began to flow out, jerky, toneless, spasmodic, like the gulping of a sluggish stream. It was something about a girl, but it was utterly incoherent. He could make nothing of it. We fly unto Thee for succour, he thought, in behalf of this Thy servant, here lying under Thy hand in great weakness of body …
    The Anglican Church provides no order quite comparable to that of Extreme Unction. Archery found himself saying urgently over and over again, ‘It will be all right, it will be all