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Authors: Ruth Rendell

Put on by Cunning

BOOK: Put on by Cunning
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This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Epub ISBN: 9781409068358

Version 1.0

www.randomhouse.co.uk

Reissued by Arrow Books 2010
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 53 1
Copyright © Kingsmarkham Enterprises 1981
Kingsmarkham Enterprises has asserted its right under the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between these fictional
characters and actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not,
by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out,
or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior
consent in any form of binding or cover other than that
in which it is published and without a similar condition,
including this condition, being imposed
on the subsequent purchaser.
First published in Great Britain in 1981 by
Hutchinson
This edition was first published in paperback in 1982 by Arrow Books
Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SW1V 2SA
Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be
The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
ISBN 9780099534938
The Random House Group Limited supports The Forest Stewardship
Council (FSC), the leading international forest certification organisation.
All our titles that are printed on Greenpeace approved FSC certified
paper carry the FSC logo. Our paper procurement policy can be found at
Typeset by Replika Press Pvt Ltd, India
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Cox & Wyman, Reading, RG1 8EX
About the Author
Ruth Rendell has won many awards, including the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger for 1976’s best crime novel with
A Demon in My View
; a second Edgar in 1984 from the Mystery Writers of America for the best short story, ‘The New Girlfriend’; and a Gold Dagger award for
Live Flesh
in 1986. She was also the winner of the 1990
Sunday Times
Literary Award, as well as the Crime Writers’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger. In 1996 she was awarded the CBE, and in 1997 became a Life Peer.
The new Chief Inspector Wexford novel,
Monster in the Box
, is out now in hardback.
Praise for Ruth Rendell:
‘One of the foremost of our writers of crime fiction’
PD James
‘The most brilliant mystery novelist of our time’
Patricia Cornwell
‘Through the quality of her writing she’s raised the game of the crime novel in this country’ Peter James
‘Probably the greatest living crime writer in the world’ Ian Rankin
‘She can make a scene between two women sitting in a cafe as violent as anything you’ve seen between a couple of guys with baseball bats’ Mark Billingham
‘Ruth Rendell, like all the great creators of crime fiction,
keeps her pact with the reader. There’s a murder mystery, there are clues, there is a solution. It’s a very satisfying read’ Gyles Brandreth
‘As a page-turner there are few who can match Ruth’ Colin Dexter
‘She deals quite seamlessly with social issues. She’s got a real grip on what makes people do things’ Val McDermid
‘She gets into the mind not only of the hero; she gets into the mind of the villain’ Jeffery Deaver
‘Very good at recording social and political change . . . she’s bang up to the minute’ Andrew Thomas
‘Rendell is a great storyteller who knows how to make sure that the reader has to turn the pages out of a desperate
need to find out what is going to happen next’
John Mortimer,
Sunday Times
‘Plenty of style and many a wry reflection on the human condition . . .’ Frances Fyfield,
Daily Express
‘The inspiration never seems to flag and the quality of the
craftsmanship remains as high as ever’
Sunday Telegraph
‘Ruth Rendell’s mesmerising capacity to shock, chill and disturb is unmatched’
The Times
‘Ms Rendell exercises a grip as relentless as an anaconda’s’
Guardian
‘Ruth Rendell has quite simply transformed the genre of crime writing. She displays her peerless skill in blending the mundane, commonplace aspects of life with the potent murky impulses of desire and greed, obsession and fear’
Sunday Times
‘A brilliant piece of exhumation’
Observer
‘Cleverly plotted and conspicuously well written’
Daily Telegraph
‘Wonderful at exploring the dark corners of the human mind, and the way private fantasies can clash and explode into terrifying violence’
Daily Mail
‘Superb plotting and psychological insight make this another Rendell gripper’
Woman & Home
‘An unusual detective story . . . intelligent, well written, with a surprising twist at the end’
Times Literary Supplement
‘England’s premier detective-thriller writer’
Spectator
‘Intricate and ingenious’
Yorkshire Post
‘Unguessable and brilliant’
Listener
‘The best mystery writer anywhere in the English-speaking world’
Boston Globe
OMNIBUSES:
COLLECTED SHORT STORIES | COLLECTED STORIES 2 | WEXFORD: AN OMNIBUS | THE SECOND WEXFORD OMNIBUS | THE THIRD WEXFORD OMNIBUS | THE FOURTH WEXFORD OMNIBUS | THE FIFTH WEXFORD OMNIBUS | THREE CASES FOR CHIEF INSPECTOR WEXFORD | THE RUTH RENDELL OMNIBUS | THE SECOND RUTH RENDELL OMNIBUS | THE THIRD RUTH RENDELL OMNIBUS |
CHIEF INSPECTOR WEXFORD NOVELS:
FROM DOON WITH DEATH | A NEW LEASE OF DEATH | WOLF TO THE SLAUGHTER | THE BEST MAN TO DIE | A GUILTY THING SURPRISED | NO MORE DYING THEN | MURDER BEING ONCE DONE
ALSO BY RUTH RENDELL
|
SOME LIE AND SOME DIE | SHAKE HANDS FOR EVER | A SLEEPING LIFE | PUT ON BY CUNNING | THE SPEAKER OF MANDARIN | AN UNKINDNESS OF RAVENS | THE VEILED ONE | KISSING THE GUNNER’S DAUGHTER | SIMISOLA | ROAD RAGE | HARM DONE | THE BABES IN THE WOOD | END IN TEARS | NOT IN THE FLESH | THE MONSTER IN THE BOX |
SHORT STORIES:
THE FALLEN CURTAIN | MEANS OF EVIL | THE FEVER TREE | THE NEW GIRLFRIEND | THE COPPER PEACOCK | BLOOD LINES | PIRANHA TO SCURFY |
NOVELLAS:
HEARTSTONES | THE THIEF |
NON-FICTION:
RUTH RENDELL’S SUFFOLK | RUTH RENDELL’S ANTHOLOGY OF THE MURDEROUS MIND |
NOVELS:
TO FEAR A PAINTED DEVIL | VANITY DIES HARD | THE SECRET HOUSE OF DEATH | ONE ACROSS, TWO DOWN | THE FACE OF TRESPASS | A DEMON IN MY VIEW | A JUDGEMENT IN STONE | MAKE DEATH LOVE ME | THE LAKE OF DARKNESS | MASTER OF THE MOOR | THE KILLING DOLL | THE TREE OF HANDS | LIVE FLESH | TALKING TO STRANGE MEN | THE BRIDESMAID | GOING WRONG | THE CROCODILE BIRD | THE KEYS TO THE STREET | A SIGHT FOR SORE EYES | ADAM AND EVE AND PINCH ME | THE ROTTWEILER | THIRTEEN STEPS DOWN | THE WATER’S LOVELY | PORTOBELLO
For Simon
So shall you hear . . .
Of deaths put on by cunning and forc’d
cause;
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook Fall’n
on th’inventors’ heads – all this can I Truly
deliver.
Hamlet
PUT ON BY CUNNING
Ruth Rendell
Part One
1
Against the angels and apostles in the windows the snow fluttered like plucked down. A big soft flake struck one of the Pre-Raphaelite haloes and clung there, cotton wool on gold tinsel. It was something for an apathetic congregation to watch from the not much warmer interior as the rector of St Peter’s, Kingsmarkham, came to the end of the second lesson. St Matthew, chapter fifteen, for 27 January.
‘For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man . . .’
Two of his listeners turned their eyes from the pattern the snow was making on a red and blue and yellow and purple ‘Annunciation’ and waited expectantly. The rector closed the heavy Bible with its dangling marker and opened an altogether more mundane-looking, small black book of the exercise variety. He cleared his throat.
‘I publish the banns of marriage between Sheila Katherine Wexford, spinster, of this parish, and Andrew Paul Thorverton, bachelor, of the parish of St John, Hampstead. This is the first time of asking. And between Manuel Camargue, widower, of this parish, and Dinah Baxter Sternhold, widow, of the parish of St Mary, Forby. This is the third time of asking. If any of you know cause or just impediment why these persons should not be joined together in holy matrimony, ye are to declare it.’
He closed the book. Manuel Camargue resigned himself, for the third week in succession, to the sermon. As the congregation settled itself, he looked about him. The same crowd of old faithfuls came each week. He saw only one newcomer, a beautiful fair-haired girl whom he instantly recognized without being able to put a name to her. He worried about this a good deal for the next half-hour, trying to place her, annoyed with himself because his memory had become so hopeless and glasses no longer did much for his eyes.
The name came to him just as everyone was getting up to leave. Sheila Wexford. Sheila Wexford, the actress. That was who it was. He and Dinah had seen her last autumn in that Somerset Maugham revival, though what the name of the play had been escaped him. She had been at school with Dinah, they still knew each other slightly. Her banns had been called before his but her name hadn’t registered because of that insertion of Katherine. It was odd that two people as famous as they should have had their banns called simultaneously in this country parish church.
He looked at her again. She was dressed in a coat of sleek pale fur over a black wool dress. Her eye caught his and he saw that she also recognized him. She gave him a quick faint smile, a smile that was conspiratorial, rueful, gay, ever so slightly embarrassed, all those things expressed as only an actress of her calibre could express them. Camargue countered with a smile of his own, the best he could do.
BOOK: Put on by Cunning
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